Decorating With Seasonal Flowers

Photo by Megan Markham on Unsplash

Photo by Megan Markham on Unsplash

A bouquet of fresh flowers can add a pop of color and energy to a room. To really make a statement, however, look to incorporate hues and floral varieties that are in season. When you embrace nature’s floral decorating style as your own, you are able to take a simple bouquet and turn it up a notch.

Spring

Think first about color: spring hues include bright blues, yellows and pinks. If you’re going to reach for standard floral arrangements, stick to that color palette. If you’re ready to really commit to the season, however, think bulbs. Tulips and daffodils are spring’s floral staples. If you select potted versions of either you can try to plant them outdoors after the blooms fade so you’ll have them in your garden the following year. 

Summer

Reach for something bold, bright and vibrant when selecting summer colors for your arrangements. Brightly colored gerbera daisies, zinnias, snapdragons and dahlias are big personality flowers. Mix them together or display a single variety in a fun container. Summer’s old-fashioned garden roses are a classic choice. If your green thumb extends outdoors, look to your beds. Cuttings of lavender, wildflowers and other garden favorites can make a beautiful, casual summer bouquet in the right container.

Autumn

It’s time for deep hues of red, gold, and amber. We typically associate this season with falling leaves and gardens browning up before they die back for winter. However, autumn can be bold and bright, offering seasonal flowers like the warm, dark-eyed sunflower. Don’t overlook the last vestiges of your flower beds for clippings, either. Those deep hued blue and purple hydrangeas may be tinged with pale green tones and hint at fading. As cut flowers go, those hydrangeas can make a statement!

Winter

It’s not often that we associate winter with flowers other than the traditional poinsettia. If you’re looking for something different, go for roses in rich shades of red and white. A bouquet of those two hues, especially if mixed with some boughs of holly or feathery branches of evergreen, add an elegant twist to winter décor.

Not only does incorporating seasonal flowers give your home a fresh taste of nature and a breath of positive energy, arranging your selected bouquets can be a meditation practice all on its own. Check out my experience with KADO here

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: What Is Feng Shui?

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash

What is feng shui?

Since we’re spending so much time at home lately, there’s been a lot of interest in feng shui. Because of this, I wanted to take the time to share a bit more about what exactly feng shui is. 

Feng shui is an Asian modality, and like other practices that come from Asia, it’s really a lifelong practice. In the western medical world, people say: “See one, do one, teach one.” This isn’t really how it works in feng shui or in other Asian modalities. You can certainly do that, but it won’t get you very far, and approaching feng shui like that is really appropriating it. It’s important to recognize that feng shui is a really deep practice from Asia, and to respect the way that it was meant to be cultivated. 

That said, there are so many cultures, and most have some way of looking at how to organize their living spaces in order to invite more harmony in the home. You can look back at your own personal cultural heritage and ask your parents or cultural elders to learn more about what your ancestors and elders did to make their homes more harmonious. I’m inspired by some of my students who are incorporating their own cultural practices into their feng shui studies

The words “feng shui” translate to “wind” and “water.” The way I look at it is that we as humans are a part of nature, and we rely on the elements of wind and water to survive. We need our breath as well as hydration to live and to thrive. Without wind and water, there is no life. At its core, feng shui is about bringing life to a space. It’s more than just knowing where to put the TV or what color to paint the door. That’s really a superficial way of looking at feng shui. I challenge you to dive in a little bit deeper, and if feng shui is something you’re interested in, work with a practitioner who can really help and support you. 

It’s also really helpful just to acknowledge that your home is something that supports you, and recognize that you can transform it to be a place of harmony and support rather than a place that drains you. Feng shui is really about how to be in harmony with your home, your environment, and all the things outside of you, because they’re really not outside of you. 

My personal definition of feng shui is mindfulness for spaces. It’s about paying attention to all the details of your environment and recognizing that you are interconnected and interdependent with the world around you. That opens you up to feel true compassion, since you know you’re not separate from everything around you, from helpful people and beautiful spaces to challenging people and draining spaces. Feng shui gives us the tools to slow down and create a home that supports and nurtures us. The world around us is beautiful, and a little bit of mindfulness can really help us appreciate all the beauty in our homes and in our lives. 

by Anjie Cho


Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday". If you have personal questions, we encourage you to check out Practical Feng Shui or hire one of Anjie's Grads.


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

How to Feng Shui Your Beauty Cabinet

originally written for mindbodygreen

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In feng shui, areas and objects in your spaces represent something deeper. Your beauty cabinet, for example, is where you keep skin care products, hair styling tools, makeup and other toiletries, all tools that assist you in showing your best face and your inner radiance to the world. Giving your beauty cabinet the attention it deserves will maximize its potential and can reflect positively in how you view yourself and how you show up in your life. 

Whether you have a beauty cabinet chock full of the latest products, or you just have a few precious bottles that you use daily, here are 3 tricks to give you and your beauty cabinet some radiant energy! 

Toss the expired items

I think it goes without saying, but just in case... be sure to go through and toss any expired items. It may be hard to let go of some of your favorite or most expensive products, but it's important to know that using them past their expiration date can actually negate their effects! Using expired skincare products can essentially mean putting bacteria on your face, which can lead to irritation, inflammation, redness, bumps, rashes, swelling, and even infections.

Keeping them around isn't great feng shui either. The symbolism of a cabinet crammed with expired items is that your body is also cluttered with this similar energy, which is the opposite of radiant. We want to attract freshness and spaciousness instead of outdated, forgotten and spoiled qi.  

Add Citrine to the Center of your cabinet    

When I think of radiance, I immediately think of citrine, a quartz crystal with orange tones. Love is In The Earth, my crystal bible, states that citrine “promotes a radiance from within the self, culminating in a constant happy disposition. It brightens even the darkest corner of one’s perceived reality, and helps one to ‘laugh without restraint’.” I think we could all use some of that!

The reason why it goes in the center is that when we lay the feng shui bagua map on your cabinet, the center area relates to health and overall well-being. It also touches all the other 8 areas of life in the feng shui map, including but not limited to career, abundance, and relationships. The center touches all the aspects of your life! Among the many benefits of this stone include the ability to cleanse negative energy as well as clear itself. It will keep your beauty cabinet filled with bright and positive qi. 

Change out your vanity light

The lighting around your beauty cabinet helps to bring clarity and light to whatever you're doing, whether it’s putting on makeup, washing your face, or brushing your teeth. The light also represents fire energy in feng shui. Fire energy is all about radiance, like the sun at high noon. It's a good idea to clean and dust off the bulb and fixtures periodically.  

Something to consider as you’re choosing a lightbulb for this area is the temperature. If you happen to have a CFL or LED bulb (as opposed to an incandescent), opt for a bulb with temperatures of 2700K or 3000K (kelvin) or higher. The higher the number, the cooler the color of the light. You don't want to go much cooler than 3500K, or it will feel blueish.

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com