Our intrinsic desire to connect with nature and living entities is encapsulated in the term “biophilia.” Coined initially by Erich Fromm and later popularized by Edward O. Wilson, this concept has found a renewed emphasis in contemporary interior design.

 

Throughout history, our bond with nature has been pivotal, not only for sustenance and survival but also for spiritual rejuvenation and inspiration. Nature, in all its splendor, offers a plethora of colors, shapes, patterns, and textures that have always intrigued our aesthetic senses. Beyond the visual delight, nature nourishes our well-being. Plants, for instance, not only beautify our spaces but purify our air and offer sensory pleasures. Similarly, our reverence for animals can be traced back through art, religion, and their cherished presence in our lives as companions.

 

My personal journey as a wildlife biologist for 33 years, trekking the terrains of Arizona and Alaska, deepened my appreciation for nature’s designs. Be it the intricate patterns of plant parts under a microscope or the harmonious color schemes, I’ve often been inspired by nature’s unparalleled creativity.

 

In an ever-evolving technological world, the essence of biophilia reminds us of the solace nature provides. So, the question is, how can we bring this comforting connection to nature into our homes through interior design?

 

Natural Materials

Opt for eco-friendly and sustainable materials in both your construction and interior design choices. Discover more in my article on Eco-Friendly Interior Design. Embrace nature by integrating unique finds from your outdoor excursions – think branches, rocks, or shells – into your home decor. Elevate your space with indoor plants that not only beautify but also purify. Enhance your home’s synergy with the outdoors by strategically landscaping visible from your interiors. Design outdoor sanctuaries that beckon you outside. Seamlessly blend indoor and outdoor spaces with design choices and window placements that frame nature as living art.

Plants

Incorporate native plants in your garden to not only attract local wildlife but also ensure sustainability. These indigenous species are tailored to thrive in local conditions, ensuring they’re resilient and eco-friendly by preventing the spread of invasive species that could harm native ecosystems. On my Alaskan adventures, I’ve handpicked native perennials like wild roses, blueberries, and geraniums, which beautify my garden, attract wildlife, and even offer delicious treats. Indoors, adorn your space with houseplants that enhance aesthetics and purify the air. Choose flowering varieties for a burst of vibrant color!

Animals

For many, including me, a home feels incomplete without the affection of a pet. Their presence greatly enhances our overall well-being. When designing interiors, consider pet-friendly choices that not only facilitate but celebrate life with animals. Opt for durable upholstery and washable rugs to minimize pet-related wear and tear, reducing any stress that may come with adding a furry friend. Moreover, cultivate an outdoor space that’s both visually pleasing and teeming with life. Plant flora that captivates the senses and invites wildlife. Thoughtfully positioned plants near windows can provide natural ‘entertainment’, as you watch birds, butterflies, and pollinators drawn to your garden.

Color

• Incorporate nature’s hues into your home’s interior and exterior. As a certified color strategist, I’ve often drawn inspiration from the landscaping colors of clients’ gardens, converting them into paint shades for walls, front doors, or interior palettes. Think of the calming blues of the sky, lush greens, earthy browns, muted grays, and soft off-whites. Highlight with vibrant shades inspired by garden blossoms in pinks, purples, yellows, and reds or the autumnal tones of foliage like golds and oranges. While stark black and pure white are rare in nature, they can accentuate and uplift these natural shades. And remember, if a color dominates your view—even from a neighboring property—it’s worth integrating into your decor palette.

Art

• Get great photos of your outdoor adventures that evoke the feeling you had while you were there for art.
• Consider art that shows landscapes, plants, animals or other natural elements that bring you joy and work with your design and color palette.
• Incorporate energy art that connects energetically and spiritually to nature.

Scents

Scents can have a huge impact on the way you feel.

• Try a diffuser with natural oils of lavender, orange or other scents related to herbs or fruits to make the connection through smell.
• Flowering plants add a beautiful scent to your indoor space.
• Avoid products that emit harmful odors.

Lighting

• Use full spectrum bulbs to get the quality of natural daylight, especially in northern climates where light can be very limited in the winter. Living in Alaska, I can personally attest that they work and affect your mood.
• Lots of strategically placed windows provides an abundance of natural light.

Get the Look and Feel Good

Even amidst urban sprawl, it’s entirely possible to forge a natural sanctuary in your living space. Let’s explore how I transformed rooms with views of nothing but an adjacent brick building into rejuvenating havens. By leveraging earthy tones like greens, blues, and browns, incorporating artwork showcasing flora and fauna, and introducing real plants, I managed to evoke a “feel-good” ambiance that resonates with the calming embrace of nature.

We spend more time in our homes in general than we do anywhere else. Why not make it feel great with some of these tips! If you need help with your design, check out my local and online Design and Color Services.

Get Connected to Nature in Your Design

Aligned Design©– All Rights Reserved.

Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer |  Brochure

Prices are subject to change without notice.

Call 907-362-0065 today

Love blue? It’s no surprise.

Blue is a universally favored color, and its appeal is deeply rooted in psychology, biology, and cultural associations. Here’s a look at why people are drawn to blue and its energetic essence:

1. Calm & Serenity: Blue is often linked to calmness and serenity. It evokes feelings of tranquility, much like a clear blue sky or a serene lake. This calming effect can be particularly pronounced in lighter shades of blue.

2. Trust & Reliability: Blue is commonly associated with trustworthiness and reliability. This is one reason why many businesses and institutions use blue in their logos and branding.

3. Depth & Stability: The color symbolizes depth and stability, reflecting foundational elements like the deep sea and the expansive sky.

4. Intelligence & Wisdom: Blue is also linked to intellect, wisdom, and clarity.

5. Nature & Universality: Blue reminds us of nature, specifically the vast sky and the oceans. These universal elements resonate with many people regardless of where they come from.

6. Coolness & Refreshment: Being a cool color, blue can evoke feelings of refreshment and cleanliness.

7. Spirituality & Order: In many cultures and religions, blue has spiritual significance and is seen as a color that denotes order and divinity.

8. Communication: Light blue especially is linked with communication, expression, and empathy.

 

Energetically, blue is connected with the throat chakra in some spiritual traditions, which governs communication, truth, and expression. Its energy is one of soothing, healing, flowing communication, and deeper inner journeys. See my Throat Chakra collection of energy art here.

 

The appeal of blue is multifaceted, grounded in both its natural ubiquity and its vast range of cultural, psychological, and spiritual connotations.

Blue’s universal appeal and versatility make it a favored choice in commercial products, from fashion to paints. Its range, from deep navy to soft sky blue, fits various styles and moods. Industries gravitate towards blue due to its consistent popularity, its ability to evoke trust and calmness, and its adaptability across seasons and trends. As a result, products in blue hues cater to both aesthetic trends and deep-rooted emotional connections consumers have with the color.

What’s in it for you? With the prevailing popularity of blue, you’ll find an abundance of home decor options in this hue, ensuring effortless harmonization in your interiors. For example, see a variety of my energy art and Edesigns I created using various shades of blue as the primary color in this Saturday Night Live Art Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SirPhg7qe70&t=3s

The Blues

My “The Blues” fractal art collection draws inspiration from Alaska’s breathtaking palette of blues, manifesting in the sky, water, and icy expanses. The state showcases a mesmerizing spectrum, from deep ocean blues to the ethereal glacial blue – a shade that remains elusive to photographs. Our lakes often shimmer in a unique turquoise, tinted by glacial silt. The accompanying photo offers a glimpse into Alaska’s rich tapestry of blues.

Here is an Edesign of a dining room spotlighting the art, encapsulating the “bring the outside in” concept. By mirroring the ocean’s blue on the walls, it blurs the boundaries between the external environment and the interior space, offering a seamless transition.

This design is available in a wide variety of home decor products in my store on Society6. 

The “Sea”

Another fractal art series of mine is called “the Sea” because it reminds me of the ocean with white caps on a cloudy, windy day. I see the ocean from my house here in Seward Alaska, and we have plenty of wild windy days! Looking at the white caps is an indication of whether the boats will go out each day and how sea sick you might get! The colors of the ocean change with the light. 

This Edesign highlights the art by using neutral tones for the wall color and furnishings to keep the focus on the art and exterior view of the sea.

Here is an example of a global style Greek living room in blue, using “The Sea” energy art on the walls.

Ready to Create Your Blue Masterpiece?

Book an Aligned Design or Color Consultation today and let’s get started.

Aligned Design- All Rights Reserved.

Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer |  Brochure

Prices are subject to change without notice.

Call 907-362-0065 today

As the season changes and we move from summer into fall, we are often inspired to change our decor. But why? Are there any good reasons to do it?

Why yes! There are several. And they are all good for us!

https://northernlightsstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Copy-of-blog_titles-4.mp4

1. Stay Connected to the Outdoors

One way to stay connected to the outdoors is by bringing the changing colors of the outside in.

Humans want to be connected with nature and other living things.  This longing for “connection”  is called “biophilia”.  

We have always been connected to nature, for survival, sustenance, spiritual renewal, and inspiration. Mother nature provides an endless abundance of beautiful color palettes, shapes, patterns, and textures to inspire us, our health and wellbeing, and our interior environments,

Feeling “connected” makes us feel good. One way to get that connection and those good feelings are to change the colors in our interior environment to reflect what is happening outside so there is an energy flow between the outdoors and indoors.

If you have considered the colors of your exterior view and outdoor landscaping in your Interior Design, you likely have a change of colors happening in the fall.

So the colors of fall may be different for everyone based on your location. Play with the colors you see outside your windows:)

While fall colors are typically shown as reds, yellows, oranges, browns and deep greens, the colors in your area may be different. 

For example, I grew up in the northeast and always thought of fall as having the beautiful reds of the maple leaves as they changed. Now that I live in Alaska, we have very few trees that turn red. It is mainly low ground plants that turn a deeper, darker red than the maples. Yet, we have a glorious gold color that many of the birches and cottonwoods turn that I did not see on the east coast.

• Bring the colors in by changing your accent pillows, rug,  art, or accessories. Work with things that are easy to change because you may want to change things in other seasons as well.
• Get outside, collect cool objects from your outdoor adventures to decorate your home including branches, rocks, shells, gourds, grasses, and more.
• Use of colors that harmonize with the outdoor environment. Use your outdoor windows as indoor “art”.
• Get indoor plants to provide a variety of colors, textures and improve your indoor air quality. Flowering plants are a special treat to add pops of color!

• Use the colors of nature in your home, inside and out. As a certified color strategist, I often measure some of the colors from clients’ landscaping (shrubs, flowers, trees) and translate that to paint colors for exterior walls, front doors, or interior paint palettes.
• Blues, greens, browns, off whites and grays, are great natural colors to try to bring the outdoors in since they are prominent in trees, shrubs, the sky, and water.
• Find pops of color from some of your colorful outdoor landscaping such as the fall colors of your trees, shrubs, or ground covers (golds, reds, oranges).  Black and pure white are not often found in nature but can be great colors to add to make the others stand out in all their glory. If it is a prominent color you can see from your windows, even if it is from an adjacent property, consider tying it into your color scheme.

Even if you live in the middle of a city, you can follow some of these guidelines to create a space that feels good and gives a sense of being more connected to nature. 

2. Change your Interior to go with the feeling of the season for you.

Fall feels different than spring, summer or winter. Biologically, it is the time we reap the harvest of our labors, prepare for the winter ahead and get ready to conserve our energy.

In the fall I want to relax after working hard in the summer. I feel like snuggling up and reading, enjoying a fire, taking a nap, stocking up for winter, making soup, putting the garden to bed, and slowing down. I bring out the fluffy blankets, enjoy the first fires in the fireplace, and more. I’m like my cat who moves from enjoying naps on the cool, hard floor to laying on the fluffy blanket on my bed in the fall.

I want to surround myself with warmer colors, fabrics, and softer textures than I did in the summer. My decor becomes more cozy and intimate. These things would not feel right in the summer.

 

So, I adapt my decor to match how I am feeling energetically at this time of the year, and in doing so, I feel more comfortable and enjoy my space more.

Create Connection During the Holidays.

Fall is filled with holidays to celebrate and decorate for including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Autumn Equinox, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Octoberfest, Columbus Day, and more. 

There are lots of ideas for decorating for different holidays online or you can create your own traditions. The main point is to create a special atmosphere to celebrate and connect with friends and family that is beautiful and comfortable.

Create Your Perfect Space for Fall

Here is an example of a beautiful living room Edesign I created to highlight fall decor. For me, fall is a time of darker and brighter reds of the shrubs and ground plants, mixed with browns and greens of the forest, charcoal of the rocks on the mountain tops with a light dusting of snow, with snow, golds, yellow and oranges of the hardwood trees. I love a nice fire, a soft rug under my feet and an intimate get together with friends, wine and cheese.

For this design, I used pieces because I was drawn to the colors and textures that evoke a feeling of fall to me. The design primarily used pieced from Arhaus. I also appreciate the natural, eco-friendly materials, the handmade artistry of some of the pieces, and the cultural elements I am drawn to when creating global-style designs.

 

Try Energy Art that Evokes a Feeling of Fall

Here are a some fractal energy art pieces I created that I think evoke a feeling of fall that are available in wall art, pillows and other home decor. The energy message for each piece and how it an help you is listed in the caption.

Are You Ready to Create Your Perfect Space?

Are you ready to create your perfect space? Let’s tell your unique story and find the alignment of art, science, and energy that makes you happy.   Try my Aligned Design consultation and let’s get started.

Aligned Design©– All Rights Reserved.

Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer |  Brochure

Prices are subject to change without notice.

Call 907-362-0065 today

Struggling to concentrate while working from home? Overwhelmed by distractions or hesitant to show your workspace on Zoom calls with clients? Whether you’re making do with the kitchen table, repurposing a spare room, or seeking a fresh revamp for your usual home office, it’s time for a change.

Tips for Creating a Stress Free Office

There’s loads of advice available on creating the ideal office space, from optimizing natural light to managing cords. While you’re likely aware of the functional aspects like proper chair height or task lighting, aesthetics and ambiance are equally crucial.

It’s not just about how the office looks, but how it feels. A workspace should inspire and invigorate you. Moreover, if you’re hosting clients, the atmosphere should exude comfort and professionalism. Remember, a well-designed office is both efficient and evocative!

Design Ideas to Make your Office Serene and Calm

In designing this office, my aim was to create the energy of tranquility amidst the chaos. With today’s challenges, a serene home workspace is essential. Here’s how I infused serenity into this design:

Nature’s Embrace: Merge your space with the great outdoors. Whether it’s an inspiring outdoor view, nature-themed decor, or lush plants, let nature be a prominent guest. In this layout, my “Spring” fractal energy art from my collection infuses the essence of springtime greenery. Accentuating the theme, I’ve included plant motifs, florals, and bird-inspired art.

Palette of Peace: Opt for soothing hues like blues, greens, and gentle yellows. For this room, I drew inspiration from the woodland view outside, ensuring a harmonious and calming color flow.

The wallpaper, reminiscent of water, embodies the essence of fluidity and “going with the flow.”

Illuminate Naturally: Optimize natural light by choosing rooms with ample windows, complemented by window treatments that welcome sunlight. Here, textured semi-sheer draperies maintain a light, breezy feeling.

Streamline and Store: Minimize clutter by integrating concealed storage solutions. In this setup, bookshelf cabinets effortlessly stow away files, paperwork, and other essentials, ensuring a fresh, clean and organized energy for visiting clients. Clutter can block the flow of prosperity.

Embrace Comfort: Transition from the rigid aesthetics of conventional office furniture. Choose soft, inviting materials for seating; like the plush velvet-covered chairs in this design, which offer both comfort and color. A productive and comfortable workspace can help attract financial success.

A Haven of Calm: Seek a secluded, noise-free zone or one where doors can seal off distractions. Should ambient noise or a sense of serenity be desired, incorporate a sound system for gentle melodies or calming nature sounds. The colors of nature such as blues and greens are also calming.

Harness Energy Art to Magnetize Wealth and Prosperity.

Energy art seamlessly intertwines the abstract with the tangible, channeling spiritual energies through vibrant colors, patterns, symbols, and the artist’s fervent intentions. It serves not only as a visual feast but as a beacon, attracting harmonious energies. The “Spring” piece in this design, painted in prosperous shades of green, symbolizes renewal, invigoration, and flourishing growth. Evoking the Wood Element from Chinese traditions and Feng Shui, it embodies strength, warmth, and idealism. Let such art be your muse, amplifying the energies you channel in your endeavors.

Are you trying to work at home and finding it hard to stay focused? Feeling stressed with everything going on around you? Are you uncomfortable connecting with clients online through Zoom because you don’t want them to see the background of your office or workspace?

Right now, you may not have the perfect home office. You may be working from whatever space is available such as your kitchen table. Or maybe you have converted a spare room to make an office space. Maybe you normally work at home but you are ready for a change.

Shop the Look

Would you like to create this look your home? Why not try some of my beautiful fractal energy art.

Need Help Designing Your Home Office?

Try my Aligned Design consultation to create the perfect office for you. Includes custom energy art to help you attract wealth and abundance.

Aligned Design©– All Rights Reserved.

Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer |  Brochure

Prices are subject to change without notice.

Call 907-362-0065 today

Pin These