10 Feng Shui Tips - How to Use the Power of Color in Your Home

Franca Giuliani - Within feng shui as within design, color is very important and powerful. Before trying to pick out the "right color” for home decorating, let's try to understand color.

Color is energy. (And, remember, everything is energy.) Colors are specific wavelengths of energy that can be used to balance our chi, our life force. Here's what colors can do for you and yours:

• Colors have an impact on our emotions and our vibration. They possess the power to arouse or to tranquilize, to bring joy or create depression. 
• Colors engage our eyes and influence how we interpret our emotional experiences. By understanding the emotional context of colors, we can manipulate the experience of space to benefit our energetic body.

Color Has Three Dimensions

HUE: This is the first recognizable characteristic of a color. It's the quality by which we distinguish one color from another, as red, yellow, etc.

VALUE: The quality by which we distinguish a light color from a dark color (or how clean the color is). Value is raised by adding white and is lowered by adding black. Colors change in value with light - the brighter the sun, the more light you have coming into a room, the brighter the room colors will be.

INTENSITY: The quality by which we distinguish a strong color from a weak one. Color is lowered in intensity by adding gray or by adding its complementary color. 

Color Has Harmony

This is an agreeable combination of colors, and there are two kinds of harmony.

CONTRASTED HARMONIES use colors on the opposite side of the color wheel. Most common are complementary colors - exactly opposite.

RELATED HARMONY uses colors close to each other on the color wheel or only one color. Analogous colors are

Click to read more ...

Go Holiday GREEN

Franca Giuliani - Another holiday season is upon us, a time when we use the colors Red and Green in our home decorations. But do we really know how powerful these colors are? Let's look at Green, for example (I’ll save Red for January). It's between blue and yellow and evokes a consciousness of life. Green is also a healing color and the color of nature.

The Chinese associates it with tranquility, hope, and freshness. In ancient Greece, Green symbolized victory. Ancient Egyptians colored temple floors Green. In the highlands of Scotland, people wore Green as a mark of honor. Green is the national color of Ireland.

Green can also stand for cash. Green means go. When all systems are Green, it means everything is in order. The Green room of a film studio or theater is where performers relax before going onstage. If you're “Green,” you're youthful and naive. A person with a Green thumb is good at making plants grow. Green vegetables provide exquisite nutrition for the human body.

So this holiday season, be creative in using Green and its many shades to

Click to read more ...