Blue Host
by Kyle Richey

If you’re thinking about remodeling your home, you might be interested in knowing about the way that decorating and feng shui can be combined. If you want, you can even introduce some of the principles of feng shui into your home and reap the benefits.

You might be surprised to learn that decorating and feng shui blend not only art, but also a little bit of science. There aren’t any strict rules about how apply feng shui to your life. While you may get a lot of advice from feng shui experts, you’ll have to experiment to find out what works and what doesn’t for you particular situation.

This aspect of feng shui and decorating is the part which can be called art. The rest is down to subjectivity. There are no rights or wrongs because what is appealing to one person might be unappealing to another. We all have different personal tastes.

You’ll get a lot of advice about decluttering your home, as well as about how to use color to create the correct moods, energies, and tensions, but there aren’t any hard and fast rules in this area, either. While someone might come into your home and declare that your collected knick knacks are clutter, they may be prized possessions to you. You’ll have to decide how each possession affects you to find out whether it’s a form of clutter or not.

When applying the principles of decorating and feng shui, you need to exercise caution and show balance. What someone else sees as a lack of clutter, you might see as being cold and sterile, and vice versa. Again, no hard and fast rules, no right and wrong answers, just some principles that you need to interpret for yourself.

Decorating and feng shui are also to do with science as well as art. There are facts behind de-cluttering, color and so on. Scientists know how tense people feel when their environment is cluttered. Color does actually affect our moods. Warm colors can promote feelings of relaxation and tranquility. Bold, bright colors can be a great pick-me-up and promote vitality. Soft colors can be calming whereas vibrant shades can make you feel in control and full of energy.

Also, the entryway to your home and every room sets the tone or mood. This can be compared to the first impression you get when meeting somebody. The first impression can affect your whole relationship with that person.

When you are apply decorating and feng shui principles, you need to consider that first impression because it is very important. You can stand in the entryway to each room and see how you feel. Does the room in question feel inviting or does it feel off-putting.

If you apply these simple principles of decorating and feng shui, you can start experiencing the art and he science of this ancient practice, with highly beneficial results.

About the Author:
Create harmony in your home with feng shui decorating. Check out our website “Feng Shui Secrets Revealed” to find out how today!
Picture credit: aokettun

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by Kyle Richey

Have you heard about the wonderful benefits of using feng shui in your life but are at a loss where to begin? Are you worried about paying so-called feng shui experts a lot of money to give you a reading about what you should do in your home? Are you wondering whether it is real or just baloney?

Here are a few tips for those who have no idea of how to start. Do not give up on the idea of adding feng shui to your life so easily. Check out these tips on how to apply this ancient art to your life.

Feng Shui is About Calm and Order

This is one of the most important principles in feng shui and one which the beginner needs to be aware of first. Feng shui is not about painting your front door red to attract wealth, nor is it about having to place your sofa exactly here or your bed exactly there. It is about attracting calm, order, peace, balance and harmony into your life. One of the first things that beginners to feng shui are advised to do is to de-clutter their home as much as they can.

The basis for this is simple. It is a scientific fact that clutter causes stress. When your home is full of junk and there is barely room to walk, your stress levels are going to be high. You feel as if you are totally responsible and you should be doing a better job of keeping it cleaned. It is irritating when you cannot find something because of the mess.

Some feng shui beginners might immediately dismiss this element but think about it. If your home is messy and cluttered, how does that make you feel? Do you feel positive about your home and good about yourself? Probably not.

Feng Shui is About Creating Mood

One of the most important factors of feng shui is the use of color. This is not because certain colors bring you more luck than others do, but because color affects moods. Bright vibrant colors are used to make a room have more energy. These are considered strong colors. Examples are reds, purples, and bright pinks and greens and yellows. These should not overwhelm a room; rather they should be used in conjunction with other colors.

There is of course scientific data to back this up. Biologists understand that humans react to colors around them, and apply this to many situations. Taxi cabs are yellow so that theyll be easily noticed, car brake lights are red for the same reason.

If you are a feng shui beginner, don’t dismiss the concept but don’t let it overwhelm you either. You don’t need to believe in the hocus pocus superstitions that some people have mistakenly thought applied to feng shui. You can however appreciate the aspects of this art as being effective and sensible.

If you are still having a hard time believing that any of this is true, test it out. Clean your bedroom, closets included and paint it a different color. See if this seems to affect you in a positive way.

About the Author:
Secrets of feng shui for all feng shui beginners, available at Feng Shui Secrets Revealed!
Picture credit: ldcross

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One of the best books on the market about feng shui and space clearing, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston, is being revised and will be released in November 2008. I am really looking forward to getting the new book, but even better, this time it will be available as an audio book, a real bonus as I will be able to listen to it on the journey to and from work.

If you can’t wait until November, then I recommend getting hold of a copy of Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui, and Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui from a friend or a local library.

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Starry Starry Night Part II by margaritanitz.

Picture credit: Margarita Nitz
If you’re interested in Feng Shui, chances are you’ve come across the Flying Star school of Feng Shui. This is much more involved than the simple compass feng shui that has become popular over recent years, but I came across a good introductory article by Alvin Yap.

In the Flying Stars system of Feng Shui, there are nine types of stars which are given numeral of 1 - 9. These stars are actually bodies of energy (known as qi or chi) that moves within a property. In Feng Shui, a property is divided into nine equal sectors based on compass direction of North, South, East, West, Northeast, Southeast, Northwest and Southwest. The sector without any compass direction is the centre.

Each year, the Flying Stars change position, following astrological cycles. In Flying Stars feng shui, there are nine periods, each of which lasts 20 years based on the Chinese Solar Calendar. We are currently in period 8 which started in February 2004 and will remain there until February 2023. In each period, the nine flying stars are categorizes into good and bad stars, currently the few good stars are 8, 9 and 1. Star 8 is the current prosperity star whereas star 9 and 1 are future and distant prosperity stars respectively.

Here is the rest of the article: A few good stars

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by Kristy Chung

Many people are fascinated with Feng Shui and with many good reasons. While others generally believe that it is just some oriental superstitious set of paradigms on interior design (but that is just part of the extensive definition for Feng Shui), the Feng Shui that we know now is actually comprised of various schools of learning and incorporates the different cultures under which it is housed.

The advantage to the different options available in Feng Shui is that even everday people can easily understand and apply it immediately in their homes without having to break the bank. And aside from that, there are advantages that only Feng Shui can incorporate if you can just open your mind and try it out.

Balance is the key to Feng Shui. Ever found yourself totally overcome with cluttered junk and completely stressed out? You’re possibly suffering from an unbalanced visual environment. A great way to create a sense of balance is by pulling together elements that give you a sense of control in your immediate outer surroundings. If you can employ some semblance of harmony in trivial things like your furniture, surely you’ll find that creating balance in other facets of your life equally doable.

It helps you to focus on the details. Mindfulness in the small things can be a very good thing. Many people tend to focus on the large things in life so much that even the minor details like how you arrange your home or office seem to be lost. When these “minor” aspects of life continually get put on the back burner they tend to build up and produce a stressful environment which will accumulate into other problems complicating your life.

It also increases the possibilities for meeting new people. Meeting new people and making friends is another benefit of employing Feng Shui. When you apply Feng Shui you’ll more likely to find other people within your social circle who share similar likes and may even help you to increase your knowledge of Feng Shui.

It gives a fresh perspective on things. At any given time, a fresh perspective is always welcome. This positive perspective can invite changes for the better. A new way of looking at home arrangement, for example, may actually serve to benefit you in the long run. The fresh perspective brought about by Feng Shui can actually bring about an enrichment of one?s mind.

Inviting success and abundance. The primary goal of Feng Shui is to invite all good possibilities into your life. Success and abundance will feel within your reach and a prosperous outlook can be expected if Feng Shui is practiced correctly.

Increased aesthetic appeal. Beyond all the listed benefits of Feng Shui, the top would surely be its natural beauty. The aesthetic appeal of a properly decorated and organized home, incorporated with good Feng Shui technique, can be a legacy that may transcend generations and promote beauty in all other aspects of your life.

Article kindly provided by homeandgardenweekly.com

Explore how Feng Shui can change your life. Get tips on how to enhance and harmonize any home or office. We’re revealing the secrets of Feng Shui that are revolutionizing the way people create balance in their surroundings. It’s easier than you think.

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If you’ve always thought that the Big Brother house had bad feng shui, it looks as if you could be right. Feng Shui master Paul Darby comments on how the chi energy in the house is confused from the outset. Although the entrance of the house has a great aspect, opening up to the South/Southwest, which in according to feng shui rules combines richness of life and success of connections, once inside the house the energy begins to stagnate.

The two staircases offer confusion, but what’s more, there’s a twist! In feng shui, left and right are determined from inside the house, so as the housemates enter the house, anyone choosing left has really chosen right, and vice versa. This mix up of energy makes for some very interesting television, no wonder there is so much conflict in the house!

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When I initially became interested in Feng Shui about ten years ago, it was considered a bit weird and kooky in the West. How times change! Now international companies such as Canon are flocking to use the wisdom of feng shui to redesign their offices. Even the Wall Street Journal is reporting on such events.

International, cutting-edge, technology-based, multi-billion dollar company, Canon Europe took a socially responsible stand last fall and went back to the ancient natural science of Feng Shui.

Canon’s initial interest for Feng Shui came after reviewing a new, groundbreaking research study into the causes of office stress conducted by ICM Research. In the study they interviewed 1,857 office workers in 18 European countries including UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. The findings were that an overwhelming 60 percent of respondents felt that their office layout increased their stress levels with 19 percent feeling it “significantly” increased stress.

Fascinating how the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui can be applied to modern western corporate life!

Read more here: Canon’s report on how to use Feng Shui - Wall Street Journal

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