August | 2018 | Valentina Expressions

Challenges | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

30 Aug 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #5DaysFacebookLiveChallenge, #FacebookMarketingLive, #GeorgiaLeeLondon, #LifeChallenges

This week, I am participating to a 5 days Facebook Live Challenge organized by Georgia Lee London.

Today #4 Challenge is about how to overcome the fear of being live on videos, TV, Facebook live, and any media where our face is visible to the world. So far, challenges have been relatively easy to do, but today the topic is a bit strange for me. Today, my video will be about my fear of running out of material during the live event and start rambling. Even someone as talkative as I am can fear not having enough questions for the guests, running out of time, or having a shallow topic nobody wants to watch, or maybe not being able to respond effectively to some tricky moments while the live event is going on.

Day #2 Challenge was: Share something to save time. In this Facebook Live video I am sharing a simple tip that will save time for everybody’s involved in a home remodeling, a restyling of one or more rooms, or decorating a new home. Hope you like video.

Sorry, it looks as if I am not looking into the camera and in fact I am not, my camera is incorporated in my huge Mac monitor and I am still trying to find the correct place for the camera or the correct position for myself. It’s all about the challenge, things we need to face and fix.

Some people participating to this week’s challenge have shared some heavy fears and disclosed with courage episodes of their lives they had buried in the maze of their mind. Brave people!

What is your challenge and is it difficult to talk about it? If you like to share, I am here. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

As a designer in business since 1990, I am interested in helping people designing their interior and exterior spaces with an overall feeling of peace, relaxation and harmony that will draw them home eagerly. I am always looking to add that special touch with original findings to the spaces I design. Color is the focus of my business today, changing people’s energy and life force just by introducing them to colors they would have never imagined. Vogue Italia magazine, Gentry and many prominent magazines in California featured my work, I appeared on RAI, National Italian T.V. and nonetheless my story continues.
Find copies of my book on colors ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors and the rest of my books
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Today, In Brown And Black | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

25 Aug 2018 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #AutumnColors, #BlackBrownOutfit, #BrownBlackFashion, #HowToCombineColors, #ImageConsulting

The combination of black and brown has been one of my all-time favorite combinations. It is classy and smart, elegant and casual for all hours of the day. It gives out feelings of solidity and dependability, thus black and brown is perfect for business, daytime events, lunches and early afternoon cocktails, but brown alone it is not gratifying after five o’clock in the afternoon. Brown is not proper to look radiant at an evening affair. Under the nightlight brown becomes muddy, unless a lot of glitters incrust a brown outfit and black accessories, shoes, clutch, gloves and even some black-gold jewelry detail the outfit.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Brown it is also the color of the Earth and wood, thus we feel enveloped and secure in brown, adding black to it, becomes powerful and mature.
Certainly it is not a color combination for teenagers.

Pretend the color brown is chocolate and all of a sudden you feel sexy.

All the primary colors make brown: red, yellow and blue. Pairing brown with jewel tone colors is exquisite and playful. Today, as Autumn is approaching, I want to prepare the wardrobe with some brown and black, but that’s not all. I know brown will show all its beauty when is paired with sapphire, topaz, ruby, emerald, gold and silver, I just want to make sure I have plenty of these colors.

Today, we can wear brown shoes with a black outfit and vice versa, or even try the jewel tone accessories I just mentioned. Can you imagine a black and brown outfit, with blue sapphire suede shoes? I can.

In my photos, the brown and black outfit is the same, but it changes the feel just by changing the scarf and the shoes.
As you see it is that easy. Please feel encouraged to use colors the way no other will do, it is energizing. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. She is passionate about colors and encourages her clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear.
To better help people all over the world she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Your Relationship With A Dining Room | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

17 Aug 2018 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #DiningArea, #DiningRoom, #ModernDiningConcept, #SpacePlanning, #TraditionalDiningRoom

I can’t remember when was last time I decorated or designed a dining room. In my parents’ home, Sunday family gathering was a big deal, therefore the dining room was used every lunch and dinner on Sunday, the rest of the week that room was kept in order. After I moved away, nothing was the same. I went to live in European countries where the life style was different from my Italian life style and Sunday dinners were not deemed that important. By the time I arrived in America, I had seen a revolution of customs to make my Sunday dinners affair a memory of an ancient past.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

©Valentina Cirasola – Photo taken in ZGallery

My youthful friends and clients in America, ate at restaurant often (still do), when they ate at home, sat with a tray of food in front of the TV in the media room, man cave (such an ugly definition) or in living/family room. Most of my clients had a traditional dining room at one point (still do), with a table and seating for eight people, a credenza, a china cabinet storing in plain view an array of tableware never used. Such room was mainly dedicated to Thanksgiving or Christmas and even then, often got invited to someone else’s home, leaving their dining room completely ignored for the entire year.

One might think this society has no social skills anymore and it is not so, at least not in most cases.

Parties or various home social gatherings still happen, not formal sitting down dinners anymore. The new point of mingling is the kitchen, the great room and the outdoor room. I have refreshed some of the existing formal dining rooms my clients had with new colors, accessories and artwork, and still remain unused, the formality of dinners is gone.

All the parties I have been invited to in the last twenty years have been always buffet style. My younger clients don’t even own a dining table.

At this point, I started to think maybe creating rooms without dedicated functions is a better solution.
A dining table can change function into a working table and it doesn’t need to be in a room called dining room. In the photo below, I placed this everyday function rustic dining table in the family room, nearby the kitchen, facing the open living room on the other side of the fireplace and near the game room on the left. The lower level of this house is one large space with multiple functions, one can even take an occasional nap in the large window nook of the living room with the fireplace on.

Today, people work anywhere. A rustic wood table with benches is a modern solution for dining and other functions, it can even turn into a table for business meeting if the office is in the home.

AliExpress.com

Except for kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms, all the other rooms can have multiple functions. Single people without kids can get away with sleeping anywhere in the house/apartment. The attitude toward our private spaces has changed, no longer we need to give names to rooms by their functions. No longer we need to place rugs down to defining an area, or relegate artwork only to the best part of the house, we can now have artwork in kitchens and bathrooms. Colors flow not to divide the house in the red room, the blue room , the yellow room, but to unite the spaces and expand the views.

I have beautiful boudoir lamps, floor lamps and artwork, both in my kitchen and bathrooms. I don’t have a dining room, my gatherings with friends happen between the living area and the kitchen. We sit on the floor cushions when seats are not enough.

Large kitchens sell the house. The best way to get a return on investment is to eliminate the dining room completely and take that space to create a larger kitchen.
Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

In my 28th years of design business I am having more fun than ever, experience eliminates stress and dictates the pace of work. I am evolving in different directions while still helping people realizing their dream spaces in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. Colors are the main focus of my business today, changing people’s energy and life force just by introducing them to colors they would have never imagined. I am on TV once a month, that is my own TV show produced under my label Valentina Design Universe, bringing fun topics to my audience.
Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Your Face Immortalized | Valentina Cirasola | Designer and Author

16 Aug 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #iPhonePortraits, #ModernPortraits, #PortraitPhotography, #Selfies, #SittingPrettyTVShow, #ValentinaDesignUniverse

Shooting a portrait these days is so easy, especially doing selfies with iPhones. Knowing a few photography rules, everyone can turn a good photography product.
In most photographs the background is not so crucial as it is in a portrait. Doing a portrait photo session in a studio, might intimidate the subject looking at all the cameras, the lights and the equipments, but doing the portrait session in an open space where a field of greenery accentuate the skin and color of the subject, and the view leads the eyes in the background is a better solution. Depending on the goal the photographer wants to achieve, a portrait done against a beautiful colored building, or against something that creates a shadow behind the subject will add much more interest than a portrait taken in an empty field.

This is a bad portrait of me in Barcelona. I look as if I was leaning on one side and I was not. The background is too busy, the taxi car, the busyness of the Sagrada Familia construction, my hair, scarf and top matching the color of some parts of the building, all work against me, plus I was wearing dark sunglasses, no one can see my eyes.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

This is a better portrait of an Italian woman. She is smiling and we can see her dark eyes, however as soon as we look at her face, we are drawn immediately to her two balls necklace. The background tells us what she does in life, she is a shop keeper.

Clothes play a big role in a portrait. Wearing something cutting edge, might tells the viewers the subject is in the arts. Wearing something conservative, a suit or dark colors might be indicative the subject is a professional. If a portrait will be seen quite often, such as on dating sites or social sites, one might want to consider doing a new portrait every six month to keep the clothes look up to date with fashion and the face always new with a new hair style or color.

The man making mozzarella shows happiness for the piece he just created for me before my eyes. His face to me is very expressive and sincere. His eyes invite to smile.

The idea of a portrait is to let your character or quirkiness come out through the image that will immortalize your face, not to stand in the photo frame like you were doing a chore. The man above is doing just that. He likes to imitate statues and puppets in their poses, a quirkiness which lets him out of his serious profession for a few minutes. I immortalized him when he least expected.

To extract the best details of your personality, a good photographer should keep the subject distracted from the photo shoot with talks and laughs.

If you want to watch the episode Sitting Pretty in my TV series Valentina Design Universe, my guest, a renowned photographer will reveal some of his secrets on how to shoot a portrait.

Have fun immortalizing yourself and make some remarkable memories changing your face, your colors, your style. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

In my 28th years of design business I am having more fun than ever, experience eliminates stress and dictates the pace of work. I am evolving in different directions while still helping people realizing their dream spaces in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. Colors are the main focus of my business today, changing people’s energy and life force just by introducing them to colors they would have never imagined. I am on TV once a month, that is my TV show produced under my label Valentina Design Universe, bringing fun topics to my audience.
Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Colors Around Food | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

07 Aug 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ColorsandFood, #ReastaurantColors, #RestaurantDesigns, #ValentinaBookOnColors, #WallArt

Doing colors for a restaurant is not the same as doing colors for the home. A restaurant is a place people spend money to eat, want to be jovial, want to be treated right and feel good in the environment they are paying for.
Colors must be inviting, pleasant, easy on the eye and meet everybody’s taste. In the home we can get away with blue and grey, not in a restaurant, unless the décor of the restaurant is done purposely in high-tech, contemporary, with exposed steel beams, glass, then it calls for cool industrial colors. If that is the case, lighting will be extraordinary to counter balance the office-type colors.

If food is good but people leave reviews about the lack of ambience, most likely it has to do with colors and décor. It was the case of this restaurant. The owner painted walls/ceiling grey and black, added black tables and grey chairs thinking the modern, clean look, linear design would be suiting to people, but the space originally was not planned to be an industrial style. Apparently, their customers did not like it a bit, thus the owner called me, the Queen of colors, to find solutions for this place that looks more an office for geeks, than a restaurant.

The first thing I want to git rid of is the black fascia at the ceiling line, it makes the place really heavy like a hood. I substituted it with a view of a street lined up with restaurants scene. At least it is a colorful and happy scene, people sitting across from that wall, will have something interesting to look at, instead of a black wall.

Colors of the entire establishment will change to sunny colors. I think eating in a public place is an experience that engages all the senses, not just the papillæ buds. One wants to look at beautiful décor, soak in the ambience to feel relaxed, enjoy the fire if there is one, taste wines that will encourage conversation, be under a beautiful lighting that enhances the food and gives a glow to people’s faces. A successful restaurant must think of all these elements as one more thing to offer with good food. Why people would spend money to go out to eat, if the restaurant is less attractive than the ambience at home?

Below is the previous black wall, now decorated with a scene on panel printed digitally.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

This is the previous black wall and grey ceiling as it was.

These are the colors I have chosen, with other décor to beautify the place. The look I am trying to achieve is a shimmering effect of seeing and not seeing through mirrors and transparencies. I want mirrors on the walls with colorful mosaic frames. Illuminated glass turtle for a funky décor, will appear as if the turtles are walking the walls. Travertino stacked stones and glass blocks will decorate an area to hide workers in the kitchen. Wood panels (in my drawing) with mirror insets will divide a few areas in the dining room. The holes with the mirrors are large, medium, small for a playful game and will reflect various areas and not just faces.

The work will be done in stages, due to the foot traffic the restaurant has every day. I hope to see the work finished in no time. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle and personality. She offers on-line design consultations through Skype and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of three books, all-available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

It Is Coming | Valentina Cirasola | Designer and Author

06 Aug 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #BookRoadToTopOfTheWorld, #PugliaExperience, #PugliaFood, #PugliaHistory, #PugliaItaly, #TravelToPuglia, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

I have stayed away from some of my activities, especially blogging, as you might have noticed my absence. For more than six months I have dealt with an ergonomic problem on my right hand caused by too much computer usage, but this downtime did not discourage me from continuing the most important things. Stubborn, disciplined, high tolerance for pain and goal-oriented, that’s what makes me.
Despite all pains and sometimes the impossibility to move my hand as I wanted, I went on anyway to write the fourth book I had planned for this year 2018.
The Road To Top Of The World is coming in September!

(Click on the photo to view it larger).

Book Reveal

I cannot call it a novel really, it is a book of short stories, a mixture of my memories of the region growing up there, my impressions of the new region of today, some history, use, customs, traditions, stories and experiences made with a group of Americans I took there with me.
So many things are locked up in my drawers of thoughts, it’s about time they all come out in some form of communication or another.

The region of Puglia exists at least since the 11th century, but now tourists of many nationalities are flocking to Puglia as if fresh water was discovered. Everyone wants to taste, feel and see the region. A couple of years ago, an Indian Maharajah got married in Puglia and brought 800+ people along from India.
For more than 10 years, Hollywood has found characteristic spots and special corners to film there many blockbuster movies.

Tourists used to land in Puglia only to take the ferry-boat to Greece and showed no interest to even spend a few days visiting, but now they land in Puglia, stay for a while and cry when they leave.

Even though I am an interior/fashion designer by trade, TV producer and author of three other books, I wanted to write outside my trade this time, for pure enjoyment and fun. Living in California didn’t make me forget who I am, what my roots are and what Puglia taught me in terms of values, traditions, and morals.

It all transpires from this book: The Road To Top Of The World.

The above picture is the draft of the book cover. It is a colorful book of 40 chapters corroborated by many colorful pictures in each chapter.
Stay tuned for the launch at the end of September 2018.

By the way, after many natural solutions and so much money later, I bent to my young doctor’s wish to shoot a bit of steroid into my right-hand tendons.
He revived my hand and made a new person out of me, reborn with more gumption. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com Copyright © 2018 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

As a writer and cultural promoter of Puglia, her native land, Valentina’s intention is to let readers feel and experience a new ”wheel of emotions”. She wants to encourage them to visit areas of Italy not beaten by massive tourism. Through stories of local customs, art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping, she wants them to create their special adventures and live it up in Puglia!
Check out her books on
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0