All women want or have ever wanted one. I”m referring to a vanity where to put and take of our make up. Some are lucky enough to reserve an entire room for it, called the dressing or make up room. Regardless of the space you have, either one of these options of vanities would look absolutely fabulous. And I am sure that we all look gorgeous in one of these fantastic spaces. Below are a few examples of how to emulate these rooms.
I like to customize everything I buy. Even if it is an Ikea kitchen cabinet. My husband is always asking me why I like to complicate things. Well, it’s not that I like to complicate, it’s just that I think that customized items and furniture are more exciting and special than those we purchase off the shelf. Customization doesn’t always have to be expensive or done by professionals. We can do it ourselves by upgrading little details that can make a huge difference. For example, I like this cozy kitchen corner display (top image) that usually only custom-made cabinets have. But we all can get this look easier than we think. I put together a sample board showing how this can be done. First, you need two or three open cabinets, you can do this by removing the doors. Then, cover the interior of the cabinet with a wood grain wallpaper, install the china plate display that you can get here. This display can be cut to fit any length of open space and it comes in different colors. Add a few hooks from the lower shelf ceiling and hang a few of these very cool cups. Add accessories to decorate and you are all set. Try to incorporate different textures and colors like colorful plates, small porcelain bowls, cast aluminum salt and peper, etc.
The term Suzani means “needlework”–specifically, the exquisite silk thread embroidery textile made by Uzbek women from Central Asian countries. Traditionally this embroidery work begins at the birth of a daughter and continued, with the help of family and friends, until the bride’s dowry was complete and then presented to the groom. Among the popular design, motifs are flowers, fruits, leaves, nines, moon disks and sometimes animals as birds and fish.
Suzani is one of the many design elements often found in the popular design style called Global Chic due to its decorative tribal details. Below a few of my favorite Suzani pieces.
Searching for environmentally conscious fabric, I came across Les Indiennes one of the companies with the most beautiful environmentally friendly fabrics I’ve seen, check out their website. These cotton fabrics are hand blocked with natural dyes made from roots, rocks, earth, and plants in India. The technique is called kalamkari- a complex printing method used to produce Les Indiennes fabrics. This eco-conscious method of creating fabric does not cause pollution nor does it disrupt the traditional lifestyle of the village where it is made. The process of making the eco-consciously fabric has various steps. First, the fabric is prepared by softening and bleaching the organic cotton. Then comes the pretty process of block printing, craftsmen dip hand-carved teak blocks in dyes the derived from the natural sources mentioned above.
The final two steps are color fixing and final touches where the cotton is steamed over a fire of rice chaff to fix the color. Workers next haul the cloth to a stream and rinse the fabric to remove excess dye. Colors emerge from different streams in different tones. Finally, after the color is fully saturated, the fabric undergoes another round of softening and color-brightening. The fabrics are boiled, laid in the sun once more, and dipped in
a natural, color-intensifying solution. Les Indiennes is located in Hudson, NY.