Feng Shui Homework: Grudges, Begone!

Someone may have done something to you, and then your immediate internal response was, “Oh yeah! I can’t believe he/she did this to me. I’ll show them. I won’t ever talk to them again. I will ignore them!” And that mental chatter would continue as we walk around all day long. It gets even better if there is an item in your space that is connected to that person. So, every time you look at that item, there goes that mental chatter again. I'm sure we all have experienced this at least once in our life, and probably much more often, but we probably won’t admit it.

We may not realize how much holding onto this negative energy, and letting it fester, affects our physical being. To mention just a few end results, continuing to harbor negative thoughts can cause you sleepless, will get you irrigated quite quickly, and will give you cause to lose your patience. Then it can lead to headaches and other pains within the body, and even the occasional twitching. Our days become more tiring, less energetic, and less productive.  And I can continue, but I think you get the idea. In essence, the “I’ll show them” syndrome becomes the “Look what I'm doing to myself” illness.  Yes, grudges can be very expensive as they take their toll on our lives.

Now, I'm not saying that if someone does something unjust or unfair to you that you should just accept it. But you need to decide how much and for how long after the fact will you allow this person’s actions to continue doing the unjust or unfair thing to you. How many times will you let that awful argument replay itself? How many times will you repeatedly play out getting fired? And on and on.

Feng Shui Homework

For March you may want to think about if there are any grudges for which you're footing the bill. These tips may help:

• Take a walk around your space and look at the items around you. Do you resonate with any of them negatively, and does it remind you of someone?
• Based on feng shui prinicples, our hallways represent communication. Check them out to see if they are cluttered or blocked. Cleaning up and making way can help you communicate better with others and with yourself, hence helping clean up any miscommunications you may be dealing with in your life.
• On the flip-side, are your hallways too bare and seem unloved? Is there a place to hang a beautiful picture or affirmation statement? Not tending to our hallways could be a metaphor for us not addressing communication in our lives.

Remember, holding a grudge will only hurt you more, and most of the time the person you have the grudge with doesn't even know it.

Franca is one of the Feng Shui Instructors at Sheffield School, where she is also a Student Advisor; visit her website for more information. If you're interested in learning more about feng shui and interior design, then we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

• Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.
• Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

How To Take Charge Of Your OWN Time...

As wedding and event planners (or any entrepreneur for that matter), we are always on the go.  We have very little time for ourselves away from our business.  And now with the beloved (or not) iPhone, we get away even less...always checking email, texting clients, answering every call that comes in, checking email again and again.  Clients have gotten used to instant access to us also, which makes it even more difficult to carve out time for ourselves.  They expect that we see their emails, texts and voicemails immediately and should then respond instantly.  Here are a few things to get you you thinking about taking charge of your OWN time.

1. Do you get inspiration from outside of the wedding industry?  For me, I play tennis, read, snow ski, build forts with my kids and have a standing Barbie dress up date with my oldest and block building (well building and demolishing) with my middle love.

2. Do you converse with friends and family and NOT mention work?

3. Did you know that you can temporarily turn off email on your iPhone?  Do it, even for an hour.  I try and turn mine off in the evenings and for some time over each weekend.  If I don't see the emails, then I don't feel the need to immediately return them.  

4. Do you set limits on client request that can take up precious time?  I have a lovely client whose wedding is coming up very soon and she literally wants to chat at least once a week.  We also email at last 10 times per week in addition to our chat.  So, when she wanted to schedule yet another phone conversation for this week, when I was taking the whole day away from work to just be with family, I had to politely say no.  It felt liberating to say no.  It wasn't rude or mean or nasty, but just a firm no.  Ahhh...

 What do you do to take charge of your own time?

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

New Sheffield Videos

(Staged Family room in CT)

Yes, we finally have it – the new Sheffield School videos for the interior design course!  I know many of you have been anticipating its release so we’re going to give you a little preview here. The videos are jam-packed with design experts and tours of exclusive furniture and accessories showrooms, antique centers, fabric and lighting stores, and so much more. 

The DVDs feature top interior designers, including Architectural Digest icon Penny Drue Baird, Connecticut designer Catherine Cleare, South African designer Irwin Weiner and British designer Nicola Chernicoff.

Judy Sheridan, author of How to Work with an Interior Designer, reveals how designers work in the real world. Susan Slotkis, author of Foundations of Interior Design, shares design tips on color, fabric, and accessories.

Throughout the videos, our hosts Jay Johnson and Nicola Chernicoff will take you behind the scenes at major design centers – such as the famous New York Decoration & Design (the D&D) Building, antique showrooms such as 1^st Dibs and Center 44, as well as the antique capital, Lambertville, NJ.  Learn staging tips from realtor Julia Brody, kitchen & bath design from kitchen consultant Dave Burcher of In-House KBH,and children's room design from interior designer Zoya Bograd.

Click above for a video peek into one of the new Sheffield interior design videos. For Sheffield students who are interested in the new videos, please contact your student advisor at the school for more information.

Make It Online: Do-It-Yourself Wedding Bouquets

If you're thinking of great wedding inspiration for the coming spring season, look no further than 100 Layer Cake - one of our favorite wedding blogs. They cover a variety of weddings and feature top wedding vendors, from the best photographers to the best florists. We thought it would cool to show you how they used an online resource to design their own DIY wedding bouquets!

Spend just a few minutes on Flower Muse and you’ll get sucked into a wonderland of pretty flowers. They make it so easy to discover new flowers you may have never even heard of. Search by name, color, or just browse their featured, in season, discounted flowers and bulk up. That’s what we did!

Jillian worked with Danielle of Brown Paper Design to create a few bouquet recipes based on some of Flower Muse’s most popular flowers. To help you out, we chose to make bouquets at different price points, from  $75-$200. So, no excuses. If you want to DIY your bridal bouquet, do it! Just pop over to Flower Muse to pick out some of your favorite flowers.

How much do you love these flowers? Ok, so here’s what we made with them:

Click to read more ...

Understanding Wire Gauges in Jewelry Making

 Bracelet by Maizhka.Many students here at the Sheffield Jewelry Design course ask about when to use what wire for their projects. Hopefully these tips will keep you from buying several spools of wire that are not right for your project. Although learning by trial and error is the best way to learn, even if you burn a few bucks in the process. Eventually you will find a use for that spool of wire that turned out to be unusable. The beautiful bracelet above is by Marizhka.

When purchasing wire you not only have to choose the right gauge, which is the thickness of the wire, but you also have to be aware of the temper / hardness of the wire. The hardness refers to the malleability or stiffness of the wire, referred to as dead soft (easy to bend), half hard (malleable), or full hard (extremely stiff wire). The most common gauges used in jewelry making range between 12 gauge ( very thick ) and 30 gauge (very thin). The lower the gauge number the thicker the wire.

Pendant by Urban EclecticDead-soft, is the most malleable, often used when a design calls for making several bends and loops in a heavy gauge like this pendant by Urban Eclectic. Wire becomes harder as it is manipulated, so using dead-soft wire will enable you to manipulate it longer before it becomes too brittle to work with. Overworked wire will break. Keep in mind, while dead soft wire is easiest to manipulate, it does not hold its shape well.

Rings by Neroli Handmade

Half-hard wire has been hardened but is still malleable. Normally used when working with sterling silver or gold filled wire. It will retain its shape better than dead soft but is not as easy to manipulate. For heavy 12, 14 or 16 gauge wires you will need tools to shape your design; they will be too difficult to shape and bend with just your hands. These gauges are good for stiff bracelet frames and rings. These wire wrapped rings by Neroli Handmade are a heavy a gauge wire embellished with a thinner gauge wrapping wire .

Size 18, 19, and 20 gauge wires are used for creating ear wires, clasps, connecting large beads or to frame the shape of your earring. 19 gauge wire is ideal for making ear wires but also the most difficult size to find. Many people use 20 gauge to create ear wires. You can flatten the ear wire where it sits in the ear if 20 gauge feels too thick for comfort.

Earrings by Calico JunEarrings by Sara HickeyFor wire wrapping most beads a 22 gauge wire is widely used. Crystals and beads fit on it too. The 24 and 26 gauge wires are good for semi precious stones that have smaller holes in them, such as pearls. These wire wrapped earrings by Calico Juno and Sarah Hickey are a great combination of heavy gauge frames wrapped with semi precious stones on a smaller gauge wire. A 28 or 30 gauge wire is extremely fine and used for fine knitting or crocheting with wire; it is not easy to work with. 

Rings by Haley M.It's ideal to practice shaping your design with craft wire before creating it with precious metal wire. Craft wires are sold by the spool made of a base such as copper, available in many colors. Precious metal wires are sold by the inch or the foot. These wire wrapped rings by Haley M. are made with 20 gauge solid nickel wire, so it will stay a silver color and not wear down to show the copper underneath if overworked or over worn. 

 Mobile by My Wire ArtIf this has not been too much information to take in all at once, you may like to know that wire also comes in a variety of shapes such as round, half round, square and twisted. You can make many types of crafts with it such as this amazing mobile created by My Wire Art.

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.