Tips
Feng Shui
This tip comes courtesy of my mother, who always advocated never placing anyone else’s business card in your wallet. You don’t know how ethical they are with their money.
Having a cluttered home will cloud your judgement.
If your garage is attached to your home, it becomes a part of your home, keep it tidy!
Keep your bedroom a pristine place to relax, rejuvenate and reconnect with your significant other. No work related items should be present in your bedroom.
Keep your spending in check, with writing down all of your expenses, after a month you’ll be able to see exactly where your money is going.
By clearing the debris, fallen leaves away from your front door, you are inviting Chi into your home. This will enhance your energy level.
Placing flowers by your front door is an automatic Chi enhancer. Make your front entrance welcoming.
Burn a yellow candle in a room where you or your children study, this will enhance your ability to absorb knowledge.
Carry a $100 bill in your wallet, but don’t spend it, keep it for emergencies. This will make you feel prosperous.
Create a vision board with a happy picture of you in the middle. Add all the things you wish to attract into your life around the picture of you.
Having an organized and clutter fee kitchen will help with your finances!
Carry a pink quartz with you if you want to invite new romance into your life!
To clear stagnant energy in your home, walk through the entire home, ringing a small brass bell. This action will rejuvenate you and your home!
Place items made from wood in the *Family* Gua of your home for better relations with family members.
If you find yourself getting angry often, wear pink clothing to melt the anger away!
Make sure your stove is in good working order. It is a wealth generator!
Moving your furniture even a few inches will shift the energy in your home. This way stagnant energy loses it’s hold and you can look forward to feeling rejuvenated!
Don’t store stuff under your bed, that robs you of precious energy and you’ll sleep better too!
No work related items belong in your bedroom. Your bedroom is a place for rest, relaxation and romance!
Place roses on your desk to uplift the energy in your office!
To allow Chi to enter your home trim away overgrown foliage away from your front door!
Wearing the color blue will actually help curb your appetite– try it!
Burn a red candle in the Fame and Reputation area of your home to get your name out into the business community. To find your Fame and Reputation area of your home check out the Ba-Gua map, just click on the FAQ icon to the left!
Use a bubbling water fountain by the front door of your business to improve the flow of traffic!
I know at times I sound like a broken record, or a stuck CD… but, here is a new way to look at the role of clutter in our lives–clutter is the glue that binds us to our past and keeps us stuck in old energy. Releasing old energy frees us for new adventures!
In order to have a well balanced romantic relationship you need to have two equal size nightstands on each side of your bed!
A good mattress is a must for you. Your overall health is affected by the type of mattress you have. One important note: Do not buy a used mattress, you never know the type of energy the previous owners had!
By keeping a birdbath filled with water in your front flower bed, you will aid the feathered inhabitants of this planet; and help bring a sense of tranquility into your life. To find the most optimum location for the birdbath, face your front door; place it to the left side of your front door, in a flower bed.
Having fresh cut flowers in your kitchen will invite healthy energy into your home. Having well taken care of green plants in your home will also encourage vitality in your life. Make sure dead leaves are removed from your plants. If, you don’t possess a green thumb, silk plants can be a substitute. Keep the silk plants dusted regularly!
The kitchen is the most important room in your home. It feeds us and nurtures us. To promote weight loss paint your kitchen in soft blue tones. To encourage conversation paint it yellow. To have long lavish dinners, paint your kitchen in green hues. Avoid the color red in the kitchen since it brings too much of the fire element, which may promote hot tempers!
Place a brass bell on the middle right area of your desk; this will enhance your creative ability as well as your communication skills!
As we are approaching Valentine’s Day, to invite romance into your life, choose images for your bedroom wisely, as images carry powerful Feng Shui energy. Best advice for bedroom art is to choose images that you want to see happening in your life. Unless you enjoy being sad and lonely, do not use sad and lonely images in your bedroom!
Moving furniture around redistributes the energy in your home. It’s always a good idea to give your living room a fresh new look every so often. This action will clear your mind and bring in new opportunities into your life!
If a light bulb is burned out, change it, since it keeps you in the dark about your future.
Place a bookcase in the “Knowledge Gua” of your home to increase your knowledge! To find the Ba-Gua map click on FAQ!
Get rid of any dried flowers in your space. They are dead and you do not want your wealth to be dead. Replace them with real, fake or, silk.
Clutter cleaning is vital to your emotional and physical well-being. Some common effects of clutter include low energy levels, money problems, blocked creativity, ill health misfortune, and mental confusion!
Recycling
I wrap presents in fabric, this way, I can use the fabric bags again and again. I usually pick up fabric from the remnant box which is always on sale!
Bundling all of your errands on one day will help in time management as well as fuel savings.
Here’s a clever idea, the mesh bags your oranges, lemons or onions come in, repurpose those bags! Reuse mesh bags as pan scrubbers! Just stuff a few into one bag and then tie a knot at the end of the bag!
Pick one day to run all your errands, and map out your routes so that you can accomplish all your tasks efficiently. This way you’ll save on gas.
Lowering your thermostat while you sleep will reduce your heating bill and provide for a better night’s sleep.
Bring a reusable water bottle, preferably aluminum rather than plastic, with you when traveling or at work.
Did you know that 20 million tons of electronic waste is thrown away each year. One ton of scrap from discarded computers contains more gold than can be produced from 17 tons of gold ore!
Buy a metal or plastic reusable water bottle so that you are not buying water bottles at the store. You will save money, resources and reduce garbage.
It is estimated that about 90 percent of the material going to landfills has a market value. Given today’s economy, we won’t keep burying that value for long. Let’s hope not!
Did you know that companies like Ebay have developed programs to help your electronics find new homes? Other companies will gladly recycle your cell phone or give it to a senior citizen, as even without a contract it can still make emergency calls.
Recycle your pizza box lid, if it has no food stains on it. At least half of the box will not end up in a landfill!
If you don’t have curbside recycling in your neck of the woods, call your lawmakers and make your wishes known. Recycling helps you and the planet!
A plastic straw in your drink is used for less than twenty minutes, yet it spends decades floating around in the ocean, lying on the beach or in the landfill without decomposing. Next time you get a drink, refuse the straw. Or, better still take your own reusable straw with you!
Cardboard is the easiest material to recycle, it’s the gift that keeps on giving! Though, keep in mind food stained cardboard can not be recycled.
Compost your vegetables. Less stuff will go into the landfill and you’ll save money by not having to buy rich organic soil.
Recycling one can of aluminum saves enough energy to watch television for three hours! Save water from rinsing your dishes and use it again to water your garden.
Empty 2-liter soda or juice bottles. These can be used for container gardening. Children can use them as ant farms for science projects too!
Sign up for e-delivery for all your bills, you will save trees and time since you’ll no longer have to file paperwork!
Earth day was first celebrated on April 22nd 1970. It was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. Mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. On April 22nd, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies!
Recycling, reusing and reducing help the environment you live in. By recycling you are reducing landfill waste! Recycling gives you cash that otherwise would end up in the landfill. Would you throw away a $10.00 bill into your trash? No, I didn’t think so!
Reuse shredded paper as packing material during this Holiday Season!
As an artist myself, I LOVE being able to use throw away materials into my artwork. In the past I have incorporated fabric, glass, buttons, paper, wood, nails and dirt into my artwork. Try using things you’d throw away and give them a new life in a new form!
At home or at the office, print drafts of documents on the backside of used paper. This way you’ll save money, paper, trees and less will go into the landfill!
When dining out:
Bring your own containers to the restaurant to take home your leftovers.
Rinse plastic sandwich bags and reuse them. You will save money and less plastic will go to the landfill!
Instead of bagging up all the leaves you have in your yard and sending them off to the landfill; consider using the leaves as mulch for all your flower beds. This will save money, you won’t have to buy mulch and you won’t be buying plastic bags either, and the best benefit, the landfills will be spared billions of bags of leaves!
Are your kids too old for that swing set in the backyard? Is it too rusty to sell or give away? Any kind of steel or iron you have around the house, from an old swing set to a worn out bike frame, is recyclable. Check around your community for scrap iron dealers before you haul valuable metals off to be buried in a dump. Your old swing set could be somebody else’s new car next year!
Did you know that a graduate student at the University of Southern California created the recycling symbol in 1970? His name is Gary Anderson. He won a contest and his prize was a $2500.00 scholarship. The company who sponsored the contest chose not to trademark the symbol and left it in the public domain so that it could help spread the recycling message. Today that symbol helps us to know what can be recycled. Please buy products with the recycling symbol and fill your blue bin every single week!
You can use your really old clothing as quilting squares or as craft projects for your children or grandchildren. Old T-shirts are great as household cleaning cloths. This way you have reused something you would have thrown away into the landfill.
Gift bags we’ve received over the Holiday season can be used again later for next year’s gift giving. They are also good storage containers. I store sewing notions, ribbons, bows and bead making supplies in them.
Did you know, it is much easier to recycle aluminum than, it is to produce it from virgin material? Here’s a fabulous fun fact! Recycling just one can will save enough energy to run your television for three hours, wow! Recycle your soda cans!
Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours!
Last year 54 billion cans were recycled saving enough energy equivalent to 15 million barrels of crude oil – America’s entire gas consumption for one day!
I have used this tip my entire life and love it because it adds elegance to your daily life! Use cloth napkins instead of disposable ones made from trees.
Save water and time when recycling cans and bottles. You no longer need to rinse them out or remove their labels.