Month: November 2022

Eiffel Tower vases help you create tall, theatrical arrangements as centerpieces for a main table or personal event poles. The stone or flowers from the vases loom high above the heads of seated guests therefore the centerpiece does not interfere with conversation. Add long-life, tiny decorative lights to the glass vase for additional gleam at a daytime tent or a night reception hall.

Insert a short string of click-on fairy lights or one to three click-on LED Floralytes from the vase. Examine the opening at the Eiffel Tower vase prior to purchasing your lights to ensure they will fit within the vase. Click-on battery lights allow you to set your centerpiece and turn it on before the event.

Insert stitch into the vase if you’ll use it; clear colored glass seams magnify and distort the light like water. Pebbles also pounds the vase so that it won’t tip over. You may jump the seams and only secure the vase to the table to a small wad of florists’ clay, put under the vase.

Soak the floral foam at the curtain holder for a flower centerpiece. Skip this step if you’re using feathers.

Cover the floral foam with green moss for a foundation for your floral centerpiece. Then, push blossom stems firmly to the floral foam, starting with shorter stems around the perimeter and reserving the tallest, showiest blooms to your top center of the curtain holder.

Choose feathers rather than flowers and insert botanical drabs to the dry floral foam — all around the entire curtain ball until it is concealed by the feathers. Drabs would be the shorter, thinner body feathers of the ostrich and make an appealing rubbed pomander by themselves. In this instance, you’re employing them as a foundation for a stunning plumed centerpiece.

Finish the botanical arrangement with three or more tall plumes — the sweeping, drooping, complete, wing feathers of the ostrich. Place the bouquet holder at the neck of the Eiffel Tower vase and then place the vase at the center of the table. Turn the centerpiece lights on only prior to the event.

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Stripes can be so much more stunning than switching between 2 colors throughout the surface. Create a stunning, unexpected effect by pairing flat and semi-gloss paints for a visual play in light and shadow, reflection and absorption. If painting walls, choose a place which receives ample lighting to flaunt the subtle changes in paint sheen.

Preparing the Space

Planning is vital to a gorgeous paint finish. Clean and prime the surface you wish to paint prior to starting with the base coat. On walls, dust the surfaces gently, then mask off areas that you do not wish to paint and protect the ground with a tarp. For other surfaces, sand gently to scuff up the surface slightly, wipe the dust off with a soft rag; subsequently shield areas that you do not wish to paint with painter’s tape. Employ a latex primer on wood or walls; for plastic, metal or laminates, use a primer intended for the stuff. Apply a second coat of primer if you’re able to still see the first surface through the first layer. Permit the primer to dry fully.

Setting Up for Stripes

Paint the project surface with the flat paint as the base coat, letting it dry fully. If necessary, paint a second coat atop the first to create a solid paint finish; the color should look constant over the painted surface, having no hint showing through. While waiting for the paint to dry fully, plot your stripe layout by measuring the project surface. Assess the width in case creating vertical stripes, then the height for horizontal stripes. Decide how many stripes you’d like — or the depth of every one — to determine where the stripes belong. Use a laser level and straightedge to assist mark the lines onto a wall in tape or merely a straightedge and tape measure onto a mobile surface. Draw a pencil line to help guide the tape positioning, or request a friend to hold the straightedge as you smooth the tape in place. The tape belongs on the exterior edge of every semi-gloss stripe to ensure the appropriate stripe depth. Place tape scraps along the regions that you do not wish to paint to help distinguish between the semi-gloss and flat paint areas at this stage.

Paint Them on

Use the semi-gloss paint in all the areas designated to the shiny stripes with either a brush or roller. Work at thin layers, as opposed to overloading the area with paint, to help prevent blobs along the tape which may produce the tape hard to eliminate; blobby paint may peel off with the tape, marring the look of your otherwise beautiful stripes. Add a second coat of paint if necessary; once all the paint is dry to the touch, then peel off the tape carefully to reveal the striped design.

Beyond the Basics

Rather than using two different paint colors, choose an elegant play in subtlety using the same paint shade in different sheens. The effect is most noticeable in bright illumination; at dim light, the stripes seem to meld together. Stripes should not be the same width, either — create broad bands of the flat paint, narrow stripes for your semi-gloss, for example, or change the width of each other stripe for an entirely different look. Diagonal stripes add a feeling of excitement or motion when utilized on a wall since they draw the eyes away from the average down or up visual scan of an area. Diagonals are best kept to one wall in a viewing area at one time or the effect may overwhelm.

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In feng shui, the front door is the gate by which chi — or even good energy — enters your house, and specific feng shui techniques can help invite this energy and make great vibrations for everyone living there. Harmonizing the doorway using the direction it faces is vital, because that invites energy in harmony with the surroundings. The energy from the north, which is watery and fluid, is enhanced by the colours blue and black.

Door Color and Texture

Feng shui recognizes eight directions and associates each with a colour, part and part of social and family life. At the feng shui compass, north reflects your livelihood, while south — the opposite path — represents fame and recognition. At the simplest terms, therefore, blue and black are the best colours for a north-facing doorway, and since the element for north is water, the contour or texture of the doorway ought to be fluid. Other variables usually enter into the equation, however, including placement of the door related to the house in addition to the surrounding landscape and neighborhood.

Accentuate the Water Element

A blue or dark door might not match the rest of your house’s exterior colour motif, and if not, you can other ways to invite the water energy from the north. 1 method is to construct a waterfall or fish pond by the front door; another is to hang blue or blue-and-white banners in your own front porch. Whatever combines the colours of the north using the fluidity of water invites the cool northern energies. Water features are considered especially auspicious in feng shui, and fluid water symbolizes revenue, particularly when the water piles up, since it does in the foundation of a fountain or waterfall.

The Space Inside the Door

In welcoming chi, the distance inside the front door is equally as crucial as the distance outside it. The door must open to the inside — that is a guideline that applies to all front doors — and the distance on both sides of the doorway ought to be clear to allow energy to enter freely. When there’s an alcove with a second door, then keep that door open and hang a light above it to widen the space. You can also use mirrors to make more visual space, but not one of them must reflect the doorway itself, or you will end up chasing Ray out the same way it came in.

Size the Door Correctly

When designing your own front door, then it’s also important to consider its size. If the doorway is too little, chi can’t enter freely, and when the door faces north, then it could result in hindrances in your career choices or revenue. If you can’t install a larger door, then use mirrors to increase the visual space. A door that’s too big may also be undesirable, because it generates a overemphasis on the water energy from the north. This may extinguish sparks of creativity or provide too much nourishment for the wood element, leading to maintenance issues associated with uncontrolled development, like mold or decay issues.

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