Blogs of Interest

I spend way too much time on the Internet. But I find the most interesting blogs.

The Steampunk House. A while ago, I wrote about the Steampunk Aesthetic in this blog. Well, here's a whole blog dedicated to it.

DarkStyle. Most of my favorite Goth style sites--well, they've been inactive for some time now. But I found a new one! Great source for inspiration and DIY

Inspiration Boards

Inspiration Boards are simply collection of graphics that have a related theme. They are great when planning a project. You can grab images of things that inspire that project or objects you might like to use in such project. Inspiration Boards are great for planning, whether its for a party, a wedding, a room, or even a house.

There are lots of ways to do an inspiration board. They easiest is probably to copy and paste pictures from the web (or scan or your own photos) into a program like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. If you have graphics program, like Adobe Photoshop, you could use it as well.

Or, you could try Polyvore. This site has a little applet you can install that lets you clip images to it. You can then use those to create an inspiration board or you can draw from the thousands of pictures that have been clipped by others. It's easy and fun. The interface is pretty simple and lets you search pictures by keyword, category, or even color. My only complaint about it is that it doesn't seem to handle photographs very well. Still its lots of fun. Here are some boards I did:

Ideas for a forest themed living room.

Ideas for renaissance Midsummer's Night Dream Wedding

If you are interested in trying out Polyvore, I've even started a group there for those of us into the Enchanted Life.

Enchanted Styles

A big part of the Enchanted Life is how you decorate your house. Hopefully, by the end of summer I can take some photos of the cottage to show you my own enchanted styles. But in the mean time, I thought I'd discuss what styles work with the Enchanted Life and which ones don't.

In general, styles that work well in the Enchanted paradigm are those styles which take you to another time or place. They are styles that contain a richness and depth to them. They are less about clean simple lines and more about presenting a feast for the senses.

Over the course of this blog, I hope to go into each of these styles in detail.

Styles That Fit with the Enchanted Life

• Victorian


• Renaissance


• Medieval


• Gothic


• Rustic Country


• Shabby Chic


• Asian


• India Inspired


• Middle Eastern


• Art Nouveau


• Garden/Natural


• Georgian


• French


• Fairytale
  

Inspirations: Movies

Let's face it, even the most imaginative people are inspired by other things. For me, books, tv, and movies are the biggies (as I'm sure they are for most people). So here's a list of movies that helped inspire the whole Enchanted Life. Some are aesthetic, some simply more emotional/mood-setting. They are all about letting a little magic into your life, in some way or another. (Note: If you want to look any of these up, try IMDB)

Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Harry Potter
Practical Magic
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
Dangerous Liaisons
Emma
Immortal Beloved
Sleepy Hollow
A Little Princess
The Last Unicorn
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Hero
The Craft
Dangerous Beauty
The Phantom of the Opera
Moulin Rogue
Romeo + Juliet
Fairy Tale: A True Story
Last Samurai
Fearless
Legend
Pride and Prejudice
Ever After
Shakespeare In Love
Chocolat
Like Water for Chocolate
Spiderwick Chronicles
Interview with a Vampire
Bram Stoker's Dracula
300
Kingdom of Heaven
Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh version)
Much Ado About Nothing
A Midsummer's Night Dream
The Neverending Story
Pirates of the Caribbean
Shrek
Stardust
Pete's Dragon
Mary Poppins
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Willow
Titanic
The Princess Bride
The Chronicles of Narnia
Enchanted
The Illusionist
The Prestige
The Wizard of Oz

Just about any animated Disney movie, but in particular:
Beauty and Beast
The Dark Cauldron
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White
The Sword in the Stone
Peter Pan
Nightmare Before Christmas
Fantasia

Also add to that the works of Hayao Myazaki:
Princess Mononoke
Howl's Moving Castle
Spirited Away
Kiki's Delivery Service
Porco Rosso
Castle in the Sky
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

A Cool Design Web Site

I love interior design. I watch all those home improvement shows on HGTV and TLC constantly. I've decorated my house in the enchanted style (and yes, there will be posts about it).

So, when I came across the DesignMyRoom site, I was in 7th heaven. It lets you design rooms using existing products. I may post some of my designs here when I get the chance.

About My Yahoo Group

A while ago, I created a Yahoo! Group called Serena's Ideas. I'm an obsessive right-clicker and have folders full of pictures of things I like. I created the group as a way of sharing them with other people. There are decorating ideas, wedding and party ideas, and some graphics that are great for Pagan/Wiccan scrapbooking. I also have a small section on costume ideas too.

The group itself is pretty inactive. I think people mostly joined to get access to the pictures and the links (there is a great link list there too). Anyways, I thought it might be of interest to people who come and read this blog as well. It used to have an open membership (ie you didn't need approval to join), but the spam got to be too much. So, it requires approval from to me to join, but I don't really care who are as long as you promise not to spam it.