Tag Archives: art

How to Decorate With Wooden Venetian Blinds

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Wooden Venetian Blinds look best in the windows of houses that are also made of wood. They are also well suited to brick and stone homes. Stone homes look particularly quaint and European with stone shutters. They can also spruce up the look of a home that has aluminum siding, adding some class to its look as well as some value. The darker the color of wood on a venetian blind the richer and more expensive the effect usually is.

Wooden blinds add charm where the plastic or metal slatted kind can’t. There is simply an old fashioned charm to them that cannot be rivaled by the green or cream colored institutional type blinds. However those fifties type blinds do suit some office decors that are based on retro furniture and fabric designs from the middle of the last century.

Wooden venetian blinds are also the ideal compliment to decors that have a rustic, antique or prairie theme to them. They also suit some areas of a home that is Victorian, such as a closed porch, especially if they are painted a dark color.

Cottages are also very well suited for wooden venetian blinds. They help keep out the heat in the middle of the summer and they also smell nice if they do heat up in the sun. Another benefit is that they can be completely closed at night to prevent your family from being spied on by curious bears. Wooden venetian blinds are a nice choice for a vacation home because they go with everything and are easy to care for.

There are also some Asian style decors that also suit wooden venetian blinds especially if the blinds are very spare and square in shape. Vertical wooden blinds also suit Asian styles of décor. Dark red woods, and woods that are painted black or bright cherry red are good choices for a home that has a spare Chinese or Japanese flair.

Country wood blinds also make the ideal décor for a farmhouse or a country house especially if it is decorated in the traditional old-fashioned country or rustic design schemes, which can include elements such as floral or checkered fabrics, stuffed couches and tables and wooden coffee tables. It is a good idea to match the color of the wood in the venetian blinds to another design element in your home such as the floor or the furniture. Therefore if your floor is pine, try to buy wooden venetian blinds that are made of blinds as well.

How to Decorate With Japanese Bonsai

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Bonsai is a Japanese word that means “container planted.” It is the art of aesthetic miniaturization. Like Feng Shui, the art of Bonsai originated in China where it was called penjing. In Western culture, the word “bonsai” is used as an umbrella term to describe most forms of bonsai.

In Japan, bonsai began thousands of years ago when growing miniature azalea and maple trees was a pastime of the wealthy. The Japanese bonsai aesthetic is centered on the principle of “heaven and earth in one container.” A bonsai is also not a true work of art unless it has been trained to grown in a way that symbolizes the virtues of truth, essence and beauty. Furthermore Japanese bonsai must look natural and as if human hands have not touched it.

Plants that are traditionally used for bonsai include pine, maple, elm, flowering apricot, Japanese wisteria, juniper, flowering cherry, azalea and larch. The plants are grown outdoors and put on display during special occasions to evoke the spiritual blessings from the forces of nature that govern the current season.

There are many different styles of bonsai cultivation –

A miniaturized tree with a straight, upright tapering trunk and the body of the foliage is always located directly over the roots, characterizes the formal style.

Slanted bonsai features a trunk that emerges from the soil at an angle.
Cascade style bonsai are modeled after trees that grow over water or on the sides of mountains and cascade over the side of the pot.
Raft style bonsai imitates a natural phenomenon that occurs when a tree that has been toppled (typically due to erosion or another natural force) forms new trunks. The roots are exposed. These all give the illusion of a group of trees, but are actually the branches of a tree planted on its side.

The literati bonsai style is characterized by an emphasis on the bare trunk line, with branches reduced to a minimum, typically placed higher up on a long, contorted trunk.

The forest bonsai style comprises a number of trees (typically an odd number if you want to be truly Japanese) planted together in a pot. The trees are usually the same species, but a variety of heights are employed to add visual interest and to reflect the age differences encountered in mature forests.

Remember that to be truly Japanese, bonsai trees should be planted in odd numbers and you should also not be afraid of the beauty of bare branches.