living room art 1

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese art of arranging a space to maximize happiness and harmony.  A all encompassing resource of feng shui can be found here.

One feng shui principle in particular has always stuck with me – that is to fill your home with personal and meaningful objects.  While IKEA is great for a lot of furniture basics, when it comes to art go for building up a collection of pieces that are unique and have special value to you, rather than mass produced stock items.  In our home I have on display many pieces from friends, travels, or things I have made myself.

Here are some examples from our home:

(image above) in our living room: 2 paintings I have made, a lampshade I have made out of cootie catchers and a basic IKEA lantern, and homemade pillowcases I made with DMA a few years ago.

living room art 2

more from the living room: a poster from a favorite cafe in Copenhagen (also where me and Palmar had our first date :D), orange table runner that was a souvenir from a summer trip to Sweden, a handmade piece of art from my friend and old visual arts classmate (and Mac Lab coworker!) Bina.

bed room 1

my corner of our bedroom: see a handmade memory collage from the beautiful O-girl in the window

bear

a collage piece I made with a hand drawn bear graphic (my husband is a bear’s son after all) on top of pages from a viking history book

bed room 2

salvaged and repainted dresser from the trash room at our apartment, and a ‘Universal Love’ portrait purchased from the artist himself in Camden, London, with Mo in 2009.  *and yes the bedding and rug are from IKEA 😉

Do you have a growing collection of meaningful art and home decor ? When traveling do you hunt for things to take home as functional souvenirs ?