Seasonal Self-Care
Happy Fall! Season changes are a perfect time to refresh your mind, routine and perspective. Make time to add some self-care to this season’s calendar. Your mental and physical health are more important that most of the “important” things that are a priority in the calendar. Self-care doesn’t have to cost anything at all and can take one hour or less to experience. Think about it like this, you naturally blink your eyes, breathe and go to the bathroom automatically so start to see an act of self-care as an automatic response. Start by looking into the mirror and saying “I love you.” For more self-love affirmations, look to the queen of self-care, Louis Hay.
Create A Fall Experience
Photo by: Steven Aguilar @eysteve
The weather is pretty perfect on the east coast so creating and planning a seasonal adventure or activity should be high on the priority list.
Make a list of the farms, farmer’s markets, craft fairs, wineries, breweries, flower farms, petting zoos, horseback riding, hiking or biking trails and beaches nearby to create a fun day outdoors. Try to create an adventure that you’ve never experienced before. You’ll be surprised at how many new activities are available near you and wonder why you haven’t made the time to create a new experience. Create a plan and enjoy the personal growth through a new adventure. Bringing family and or friends along can make it more memorable.
Weekend Design & Wellness Project
Photo by: Sarah Dorweiler @sarahdorweiler
This weekend, choose a favorite home decor piece and create a table setting inspired by that item. Consider the colors that you’d like to bring out or support the main piece. Look for fabric around the house that could coordinate as a table runner with the centerpiece. Now, add some dinnerware and cloth napkins if they are accessible. If paper napkins are more convenient, then have some fun folding and making sculptural shapes that will compliment the centerpiece. This exercise is for your eyes only so listen to your instincts and create like a child, then take some pictures, change it around and take more pictures. The more playing and experimenting you do with centerpiece arrangements, the more comfortable and confident you’ll become.
For guidance, refer to Monday’s post “Choosing Tasteful Holiday Decor.”
Scented Candles
Candles have the power to transport the mind to another place and time, to a garden once visited as a child or a vacation to a tropical island or most favorably, holidays spent gathered with loved ones. Some candles are comforting and bring a sense of tranquility to a challenging day. Some candles are made of soy and essential oils and others with chemicals and fragrances. Some candles entice the desire to eat them…no…just me? Anyway, scented candles make for wonderful gifts at many price points. Have you seen how pricey candles can get? Yowsers!
Photo by: Tron Le @tronle-sg
For all the greatness that candles bring to a home there are a few downsides with usage, combinations and scent strengths.
Let’s explore these three starting with usage. Candles have an estimated number of hours indicated on the label that it will take to fully burn. To get the most out of your candle, allow for the top layer to fully liquify before distinguishing with a proper snuffer. Blowing out a candle takes away from the fragrance that will linger after it’s no longer lit and replace it with the “birthday” scent.
Flavor combinations and scent strength kind of overlap a bit. For the love of all things good and evil, if you prefer strongly scented candles with florals or fruit flavors, please use one scent at a time. As a migraine recipient, I beg of everyone to refrain from over scenting their homes especially when entertaining guests. Always keep scented candles away from he kitchen when cooking and eating. This interferes with the natural cooking flavors and muddies the olfactory senses of everyone with a nose and tastebuds. Candle scents, as delicious as they may be, they are artificial compared to the actual aromas created while cooking with spices and herbs. Your in-the-moment cooking flavors can never be perfectly replicated in a candle so allow them to take centerstage. In the event that you’re cooking for your family or for a large gathering, keep the scented candles in a room far from the kitchen and in the bathroom(s). It’s okay to burn scented candles in the kitchen during the day when you’re not cooking. For ambiance, use unscented candles in the kitchen and dining area. Plain vanilla scented candles create a soft combination to strong holiday flavors like apple, pumpkin, pine and cinnamon. Choosing just one of the strong flavors with a soft vanilla candle will balance rather than overwhelm the senses. IKEA has a great neutral vanilla candle that is a great backdrop to a stronger scented candle.
P.S. I’ve never eaten a candle, some just smell so darn good I could taste them, Sand & Fog Limoncello soy candle I’m talking to you.
Choosing Tasteful Holiday Decor
Photo by: Debby Hudson @hudsoncrafted
Choosing seasonal and holiday decor can be fun or overwhelming depending on your personality type. Those who get overwhelmed with the daunting task of planning for holidays, decorating and then storing those decorations tend to keep it simple by doing as minimal as possible. For those seasonal holiday loving junkies who embrace the newest items and their premature arrival in stores, you, you are who this is for. Love you and your passion for making your home festive and welcoming to friends and family, however, we need to have a talk. It may hurt a bit, but I promise you’ll enjoy the outcome. First of all, there are so many beautiful home decor options out there and it’s natural to love many different styles at the same time. This is part reality check and part getting to know your personal style and going for it. We shall call this your “come to tina moment.”
Let’s begin with assessing all of the decorations and accessories you have keeping the broken or severely damaged pieces in a separate pile. Discard any damaged items with the exception items that are family heirlooms. (It does not have to be expensive or made of the finest material to be considered a family heirloom.)
Next, place the items you absolutely love together. Look them over and choose your 3 favorite of the favorite pieces. What are their similarities, color, size, function?
What do you naturally gravitate toward when shopping for holiday decor or what do you seem to have multiples of in your collection? Choose from the following to highlight your preferences:
organic materials such as; branches, berries or seasonal dried or fresh flowers
festive prints and patterns
characters or cartoons
sports themed
all of the above
If you’ve chosen more than three, I can’t help you at this point. You’re eclectic and everyone knows it so rock on with your funky badass self. Haa
If you’ve chosen three or less then we can work to simplify and hone in on your personal style. This will be your baseline formula for all seasonal decorating which will then become your overall aesthetic. Every holiday will have unique items, however, the overall aesthetic will have a familiar feeling similar to a brand creating a visual story for consistency.
Now that you’ve chosen your favorite items and can see similarities in those items, it’s time to select the secondary or complimentary pieces. For example, if your three favorite items were branches and dried flowers, you’d then select a table runner or napkins that support the main items. The secondary pieces is a backdrop to the main “feature” pieces. Take a look at the picture below. The flowers are an elevated centerpiece with the contrasting amber/burnt orange glasses as the secondary or supportive item. When the candles beneath the flowers are lit, the color from glasses and the flowers will vibrate and invoke a feeling of warmth. Notice the plates, silverware and napkins are muted allowing the flowers and glasses to do the work in creating ambiance. In other words, if everything is important and vibrant, then nothing is important and vibrant. Too much of a bunch of individually great things creates visual clutter and can trigger emotions of anxiousness. Pare it down and keep it simple. Don’t worry about jamming a bunch of things into a space to create the sense of a season. A few very beautiful items strategically placed with contrasting textiles communicates a season or holiday perfectly.
Photo by: Marc Babin @marcbabin
Photo by: Brett Jordan @brett_jordan
If you’re still struggling to find your personal style, email your decor quandary with photos and you will receive the guidance you need.
Who knows, you could be featured in another blog post with your before and after seasonal holiday decor.