March | 2023 | Valentina Expressions

Hang It Pretty

22 Mar 2023 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #HangingPlants, #MacrameArt, #MacrameFibers, #MacrameRevival, #MacrameWallArt

A long time ago, was fashionable to hang plants, big and small, in an intricate macrame work. Macrame is a technique of crafting a textile that will become wall hangings, plant holders, hammocks, hats, area rugs and many other decorative items. Several knots, each with its own name, forms the shape of each piece, some knots are very complicated and some are basic. Jute, twine, yarn, hemp, or leather are the fibers used for knotting. In the past, I have even cut up the fabric of some of my discarded dresses, made it into long strips and used it for knotting.

The art of knotting macrame was not born in the ’60s and ’70s, it is a very old art originated in the Arabic countries that used to trade products and food with the western world.

Women worked with the macrame art to pass time and sailors, being masters of nautical knots, enjoyed making items they could sell once had touched shores.

I am happy this art is coming back again, homes will not look so sterile any more. Greenery and plants in homes purify the air providing a good exchange of oxygen. They also make a good sound barrier against city noice and excellent room dividers. Ciao,

Valentina

My books on Amazon

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Invoking The Sun

17 Mar 2023 6 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #GoldandYellow, #GoldAttitude, #GoldColor, #GoldEnergy, #GoldenFashion

California is known for the wonderful weather, sunny days, gentile winds accompany our working and relaxing days, everything I plant grows well, it feels like Spring most of the year. The mild climate provides different pleasures to different people. In an hour or two we can go from sunny beaches to skiing in the mountains, we can wear short sleeves in January, or a light weight jacket in December and never feel inadequate. I keep buying winter gloves I never wear.

Long time ago, I planted an orange tree right in front of my home office. It is such a pleasure to work with the window open and smell the sweet orange blossoms coming through the window, however, lately, this good weather doesn’t feel like paradise anymore. It has been raining heavy for four months straight, night and day, gusty winds have eradicated heavy trees from their habitats and often I thought the roof of my home was going to come off.

My only protection against the dark, grey and wet days are colors. I hate to think I am probably the only one wearing a lot of bright colors in the rain, but it just feels like the only colors I sees in the streets are grey and black, not even a colorful umbrella every once in a while.

Purple is not a color I wear often, however I adore wearing it with chartreuse and yellow. I think the combination is strong and vibrant. The flower is a semblance of an umbrella for a playful moment.

Why not adding a pair of funky shoes for an amusing look and brighten the day? Maybe dressing in a combination of gold and yellow will call the sun upon me again.

There are areas in this world where rain is part of the everyday life, I would not know how people deal with the rain six or more months out of the year. I was born on the water, under a sun, in a sunny country, without the sun my life would be very sad. I invoke and worship the sun everyday, when it’s not around, I surround myself with a colorful home and clothes. I might be the brightest person on the block, but I care for my wellbeing and believe me, I cheer up a lot of people anywhere I go. That’s my golden attitude, I do what I like and not what is dictated.

Looking forward to sunnier dry days and I strongly hope all these months of rain have not been a weather manipulation by the hands of some psychopath with extravagant ideas on how the world should be….. these days everything is possible. Ciao.

Valentina

My books on Amazon

Bees, Birds and Bunnies On Plates

10 Mar 2023 4 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ChampagneCoupeGlass, #CreativeDinnerTable, #DiningInStyle, #MissMatchedDinnerPlates, #NatureDesignedDinnerPlates, #OldFashionDinnerPlates

Are you tired of these traditional patterns? Maybe you have inherited these plates from your grandmother and have lived in your China cabinet forever? Do you want to get rid of them for something more modern? I would say stop! These old fashion plates are coming back in vogue and are quite expensive.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

One of my friends gave them away to charity shops, then one day while browsing in stores, she saw these plates that resembled much what she had from her mother and kind of regretted to have given them away. She saw the different way the store visual display people composed a table setting and liked how they mixed patterns and colors without matching them to the teeth.

I told my friend that I don’t like to match my table setting, actually I like it quite miss matched and somehow all the items come together nicely and attractive. I could never convince her, she is the matchy-matchy type and gets surprised when she comes for dinner at my home on how things look orderly without any order. It takes a bit of fantasy, that’s all.

I would have used a golden tone flatware to add more luminosity to the table setting, it is the only thing I would have done different. The etched glasses look perfect with these antique and country patterns. The coupe champagne glass reminds me of films in costumes of different eras when champagne was served only in coup glasses. Marie Antoinette dreamt of a type of round glass large enough to contain one of her breasts with the intention of reminding men of it every time they drank champagne, thus she found a master glass blower and had them made in Venice. From that moment on, the coupe glass was mass produced as the champagne glass par excellence until the flute glass replace it.

Bees, birds and bunnies on plates are the new bucolic style for a dinner in the nature. Everything old is always new, think about it before giving items away and how you can revamp them. Ciao.

Valentina

Valentina
My books on Amazon

Copyright © 2022 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Illusions On The Walls

03 Mar 2023 9 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #FantasyMurals, #FrenchCountyVillage, #JohnPughMurals, #StanfordShoppingCtr, #StreetMurals

I love walking and unexpectedly finding murals on the walls. They are imaginative, colorful and put a smile on the viewers. This mural is located in Stanford. a fancy shopping center European style, where many stores display expensive merchandise. This long wall has been covered with a view of a French country town, very quaint and peaceful. Have you noticed the cat?
Famous muralist John Pugh painted this scene.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

In the photo below, the balcony rail and the open door are real, everything is a make believe.

The plant on the ground and the hanging pots are real, nothing else is.

In this photo only the tree branch is real.

Murals are nothing new, human beings have had the need to describe their environment since the beginning of time, sometimes adding fantasy to their paintings and sometimes seeing the reality as it is. In any case, murals transport me out of reality into a different world for a few minutes.
This is my entry for Dan Antion’s Thursday Door Challenge. Ciao,

My books on Amazon

Looking For Fashion Vibes

03 Mar 2023 6 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #CasualFashion, #Fashion, #PastelColors, #SpringFashion, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #ValentinaCirasolaFashionDesigner

Roaming around one of the most fashionable zone in my area left me disappointed. After all the heavy rain, I was looking forward to seeing new Spring fashion and vibrant colors to give me fresh vibes, but I returned home empty hands. Shop windows showed no creativity in visual display and didn’t encourage me to go in and browse. The colors of the clothes hanging lifeless on mannequins were so drab, the shapes resembled pajamas or house robes and the style….what can I say….I would bury it at the bottom of the sea.

While I was walking in this fashionable area, I envisioned Via Condotti in Rome, or Via Montenapoleone in Milan. There, the streets of fashion are stylish, colorful and people dress as they are ready for a photo shoot in a fashion magazine. They stroll with poise and coquetry with the intent to be seen and be admired. A long trail of perfume follows them, they wear original jewelry and the well thought out outfits are the elements that makes each one of them unique. Italy is always Italy and will always be the top for fashion, perhaps I expect too much from other countries.

The fact remains that I have to make triple summer salt to find what I like. Boutiques, family-owned stores and various other stores, not just fashion stores are closing steadily since the economic recession in 2008, forcing everyone to buy online items poorly made in China that often don’t fit or are defected and have to be returned. In fact, the streets of every satellite town around the main cities in America are lined with nail salon, hair dressers, restaurants and bistros, nothing else. Perhaps, this is the government design…..

My day of window shopping or window licking as the French say it, was unfruitful. Looking for fashion vibes didn’t happen, I better continue making things the way I like. I returned home without any fashion items, but with a few pictures of the environment, flowers, food, architecture and curiosity. Give me your thoughts, please. Is it important to you get dressed everyday as it is for me or a simple sweatsuit will do? Ciao,

Valentina
My books on Amazon