With a bright white or neutral backdrop, adding colorful artwork, throw pillows, plant life, or pieces of furniture will add spark to the space. Vivid colors are bold and can be used to emphasize, contrast or create rhythm. Each color represents and invokes its own mood, creating a vivid feel.
With color, you can cultivate a balanced atmosphere in your home. Light and color exert influence automatically, and determine how people perceive the area around them. Every color, each with its own frequency, is a form of energy.
Take a peek at how some of these selections utilize accents of color to create mood and meaning in the space!
Your coffee table is often the centerpiece of your living room, and everything that adorns the surface will be the focal point.
The books that you choose to display atop your coffee table will serve as greetings for your guests, and can also serve as a kind of vision board for your current dreams and inspirations. Choose wisely which wisdom and inspiration you wish to convey. Perhaps you are one to simultaneously skim through several novels, or perhaps you more enjoy flipping through volumes of photography or poetry. Keep a collection of every variety; cookbooks, style, travel, poetry, photography, or history. Whatever your fancy, be sure to take a little time every day to read!
Keeping your home free of stagnant energy will help you live with lightness of being.
August is the fall of the summer, and autumn right around the corner. With luck, this summer you have spent countless hours bathing in sunlight, or adventuring in new territories. Now is the time to spend some time inside your home, take a look around, and begin to cleanse all the corners and surfaces to ready yourself for the last third of the year. Having a clean and pure living environment is clinically proven to increase brain activity, calm your nerves, and improve overall productivity.
The first step to minimizing clutter, and maximizing peaceful, clean energy in your environment, is to discard any of the following items from your surfaces and drawers.
Old Magazines + Newspapers – If you have stacks of old magazines and newspapers lying around your coffee tables or bookshelves, toss them into the recycling, and clear space for new projects and books!
Receipts + Bills + Documents – Have you already logged or filed necessary information from any receipts, bills, or documents you’ve been saving on your desk or in your kitchen drawers? Throw them all into the recycling bin! Anything that you truly need to save for your personal files or taxes should be neatly organized and placed in a file folder or cabinet.
Clothing – Take a long, hard look inside your closet, boudoir, or dresser, and remove anything you haven’t been wearing regularly (seasonal clothes aside).
Books – Do you have stacks of books that you have already read? Pick your top three, and donate the rest. Trade collections with your best friend, create a neighborhood “Take One, Leave One” bin, or find a coffeeshop with a bookshelf and leave them for someone else!
Medicine + Vitamins – Check the expiration date on all of your bottled medicines an supplements, and discard anything old, or anything that you are no longer in need of.
Makeup + Perfume – Cosmetics and toiletries expire also, and usually aren’t of the same quality after spending too much time laying around in a drawer. Go through everything an toss out those mostly empty compacts of powder or dried up mascaras!
Jewelry – If you aren’t going to invest in basic jewelry pliers or a small repair kit, it’s time to discard all the broken jewelry that you have cluttering up your drawers.
Old or Unused Electronics – Do you have a drawer for old cables, phone chargers, cell phones, or any other obsolete electronics? Get rid of all of that! Donate to your local Goodwill.
It is of utmost important to the balance of your mind and your home to dedicate an area of your space to setting intentions. Find a coffee table, bookshelf, or atop your mantle to place powerful items of significance, peace, abundance, and prosperity. Here are some things you can get started with:
An Altar Cloth sets the foundation for the space you are creating, reflecting all that is within you.
Salt is an important ingredient to place in a bowl on your altar, as it is protective, purifying, and represents the Earth’s energy.
A Chalice represents the Mother Goddess, or divine feminine energy, and is used to hold ceremonial drink, or salt water.
A Wand can be made from any organic material, and is used to direct and channel energies in and around you.
Candles are used to invoke and hold the power of each cardinal point, and are used to balance the masculine and feminine energies.
Bells or Singing Bowls call upon healing energies on your altar, clearing any stagnant energy, and can signify the beginning and ending of your personal practices or rituals
Powerful Stones like crystals and minerals each vibrate at their own frequency, and hold unique significance than can represent different feelings, intentions, and affirmations you would like to focus on.
One of the Five Arts of Chinese Metaphysics, fen shui, or wind-water, is a ancient traditional belief system that guides and governs the energy forces within architectural structures.
Closely linked to Taoism, feng shui practice discusses the arrangement within architecture in terms of the “invisible forces“ that bind the universe, earth, and humanity together, known as qi. In traditional Chinese culture, qi is believed to be the vital force, life force, energy flow, or material energy forming part of every living entity. Qi, in relation to feng shui, includes the orientation of a structure, its age, and its interaction with the surrounding environment, including the local microclimates, the slope of the land, vegetation, and soil quality.
The use of feng shui is dated back as far as 5000 BC to the Yangshao people that lived along the Yangtze River in China. Between 4700 BC and 2900 BC, the Hongshan people in Northeast China, who interacted with the Yangshao, adopted feng shui into their culture. Before the magnetic compass, feng shui relied on cosmography to set the orientation of structures. Early Chinese astronomers utilized a gnomon, or the part of a sundial that casts the shadow, as the first instrument to use circumpolar stars to determine the north-south axis of settlements. Rituals for using a feng shui instrument required a diviner to examine current sky phenomena to set the device and adjust their position in relation to the device. The magnetic compass was in fact originally invented by the Han Dynasty for the purpose of divination and feng shui.
In Western civilization, feng shui has become widespread, and is commonly utilized in interior design and architecture.
Bagua
In Yaodian, the cardinal directions are determined by the marker-stars of the mega-constellations known as the Four Celestial Animals:
East: The Azure Dragon (Spring equinox)—Niao (Bird 鳥), α Scorpionis
South: The Vermilion Bird (Summer solstice)—Huo (Fire 火), α Hydrae
West: The White Tiger (Autumn equinox)—Mǎo (Hair 毛), η Tauri (the Pleiades)
North: The Black Tortoise (Winter solstice)—Xū (Emptiness, Void 虛), α Aquarii, β Aquarii
You can use the bagua diagram in your own home, by using a compass, or the compass app on your phone, to check how you have intuitively placed things around your home, and re-arrange accordingly. Using the bagua diagram can, if anything, be an excellent way to decorate and arrange parts your home with intention!
This summer we are so excited to present a new line of woven pillows handmade from vintage Turkish rugs. Each design is one hundred percent unique, finished with a cotton backing and zipper. These pillows pair perfectly with our signature bunglo pillows for an eclectic, boho look.
Check out the lovely array of vintage Turkish pillows below, and let us know what you think!
At Bouldin Creek Cafe in Austin, Texas, Tarzan’s Big Salad is becoming a local legend. With the perfect fusion of raw and sautéed ingredients, this dish will leave you begging for more. In an exceptional display, you will find an array of ingredients including seasoned roasted portobello, stir-fried broccoli tossed in nutritional yeast, local tomatoes, carrots, avocado, sunflower sprouts and seeds, layered with chipotle-pecan pesto, ginger miso dressing, and organic mixed greens.
Nutritional yeast is high in protein, and is a significant source of B-complex vitamins, iron, fiber, and thiamine. Often used as a cheese substitute, the flavor is described as nutty, savory, cheesy, and creamy. It makes for an excellent superfood with super flavor to add to nearly any meal.
What You’ll Need
portobello mushrooms
broccoli
local tomatoes
carrots
avocado
organic mixed greens
garlic
sunflower sprouts & seeds
pecans
nutritional yeast
chipotle salsa
pesto
ginger
miso
coconut oil
Instructions
Mince ginger and garlic, and heat in a pan with coconut oil, stirring in salt, pepper, portobello mushrooms and broccoli. Sauté on medium heat for five minutes, or until the mushrooms and broccoli are a bit soft.
Stir together more minced ginger and garlic with chopped pecans, sunflower seeds, pesto, miso, and chipotle salsa, and begin preparing your vegetable medley.
Shred carrots, and chop avocado, tomatoes, and sunflower sprouts, and stir into mixed greens. Add your dressing, and let the ingredients begin to marinate together.
Once mushrooms and broccoli are heated, layer with nutritional yeast, and mix into the greens and veggies that you have marinating.
It’s time to relish in the heat, using this time to detox, and soak up the nutrients of the sun. Transform your outdoor space into a garden oasis, with sleek modern style. Cook healthy food over an open flame, and create unique craft cocktails to sip by the poolside!
Check out some inspiring looks for beautiful outdoor spaces, and our top picks to begin grilling season in style!
The start of the week is an opportunity to renew and revitalize your energy.
In ways, the beginning of the week is a kind of rebirth of your sense of self, resolutions, dreams, and responsibilities. Cultivating a drive to revive your inspiration and stimulate your creative forces can be done simply through formulating a ritual.
Whether you commute to your place of employment, or work from home, begin your week by taking 30 minutes to an hour to fully dedicate to setting an intention, and engaging in a form of mindfulness practice.
Meditation is not an easy practice for a busy mind, but it can do wonders for the health of your mind and body. You can begin meditation with a simple breathing exercise using your hands, creating a space for concentration and grounding.
Begin by taking a seat somewhere peaceful. Light a candle, or burn some palo santo, create an environment that makes you feel warm and comfortable. Cross one leg over the other, and begin to align your spine. Imagine each vertebrae perfectly stacked on top of one another, keeping a long neck, slightly dropping the chin, and lifting tall through the crown of your head.
Hand Counting Pranayama is an ancient Indian ritual used to engage the mind in meditation. Closing your eyes, stack your hands together on your lap, with the dominant hand on top. With an open palm, and use your thumb to draw a spiral, counting each joint of your fingers until you have completed 12 deep, rhythmic breaths. If you break concentration and lose count, begin again. Bring your mind’s awareness entirely to the 12 cycle spiral of breath.
Inhale deeply through your nose, opening the back of the throat to a point of making a course, audible breath. Envision the air flowing into your body and circulating like blood does within your veins. Exhale through your nose, until all the air has been expended fully. Repeat these deep cycles of breath while completing the 12 count spiral on your hand, as many times as it takes to feel completely relaxed and centered. Become completely still and aware of the present moment.
Once you feel really connected to your breath, and have quietness of the mind, you can begin visualizing all that you wish to transcend or achieve in the following week. Maintaining your lightness of being, keep your mind away from negative thoughts and energy. Only allow your focus to be on tangible, positive notions.
Formulate positive affirmations to support the success of all that you do. After reflection, begin writing your affirmations and revelations in a journal. Carry confidence with you to your next task, and next meal. Make each household chore a time for quiet contemplation, each movement becoming a motion of zen. The next time you eat, concentrate fully on each bite of food you take, chewing slowing, savoring every flavor, and feeling gratitude for the nutrients you are taking into your body.
Release all resistance to the natural flow of the day. This means being gentle and patient with yourself, listening to your body and its needs, and releasing control over matters that are not directly within your grasp to navigate. Take care of tasks that are your responsibility to complete, and allow anything else to flow towards you. Remember that what you seek, is seeking you. The positive things that are of real necessity in your life will inevitable cross your path. Walk with openness and lightness of being!
Summertime is here, and it feels so good. It’s the season to spend time alongside water, beneath the sun, and in the shade of trees.
Setup that hammock you bought last season, and cover it in throw pillows. Host a cookout in the backyard, or the neighborhood park. When the weather is warm, it is the time to bring people together to share a meal, cool cocktails, or simply relax beside the water.
Step away from your computer or television, and learn a new sport or outdoor activity.Change your lifestyle to be one centered around wellness and fitness, so that you will feel healthy and renewed. Finally take those tennis lessons, or get a membership at the new rock climbing gym in town. Get yourself out of the house and undertake a new project or adventure, even if it is in your backyard!
Just in time for summer, we have some gorgeous new designs for you to be surrounded by soothing shades, to make you feel cool and light.
Austin has an international reputation for its rich and vibrant culture. With hundreds of live music venues, thousands of restaurants, and endless adventure destinations in the outdoors, you will never have a day in Austin without excitement and activity!
Ranked as one of the fittest cities in the United States, and with 300+ days of sunshine and an average temperature of 68 degrees, being active in Austin comes naturally. Austin offers an abundance of outdoor activities from cycling, stand-up paddle boarding, hiking, yoga, kayaking, rock climbing, and more!
Austin is known for its creativity and freedom of expression. Home some world-class museums like the Blanton, with the nation’s largest University-owned collection on exhibit, Austin attracts an international appetite for the arts. Austin is a place to explore the work of designers, painters, sculptors, writers, photographers, filmmakers, dancers and musicians, year round, in a variety of venues.
Modern design and decor are now a part of the aesthetic culture in Austin, and there are an array of cafes, restaurants, hotels, and bars so beautiful, that they are a place to see, and be seen. If you have an eye for unique architecture and interior design, you will enjoy these eclectically modern hotels!
