Best of Hawaii!!!

Best of Hawaii 2014! - Best New Home Accessories Designer!

"Three words: ʻOpihi throw pillows. Any designer savvy enough to elevate Hawaiʻiʻs favorite and most elusive limpet to the realm of cool home accessories gets our props. Kailua, Oʻahu-based designer Kamaile Puaoiʻs colorful line of Hawaiʻi-inspired decor features clean, modern graphics and a whimsical sun-kissed expressionism so locally beachy youʻll check to make sure you Noho Designs tea towel isnʻt tracking Kailua Beach sand into the house." - Hawaii Magazine

Mahalo for all the love and support that we receive at Noho Designs! I love making mana for you & your home! My favorite part of designing, is seeing my clients smile when they see my work, I can feel the aloha beaming back at me! xoxo Kamaile & Noho Designs Ohana

Click image to start shopping for your Holiday gifts!... or just gifts for yourself like I always end up doing. LOL!

Whoopie Got the Etsy Account Updated!

Aloha mai kakou, Mahalo for all of your support and all of the wonderful feedback I have been receiving at some of the craft fairs and boutiques I have been selling at! I have my tea towels on line as well as some wooden beach signs, and pillows for your home! Furniture soon to come, just wrapping up some of the sewing! Here are some preview of my products, but please check out my Etsy account if you want further details on my product line and the stories behind all of my designs. :) pay the aloha forward!!! aloha no, kamaile

Create Visual Peace

Aloha all,
E kala mai, my apologies for not keeping up with my blogging. It's been a road of constant learning! Learning how to reupholster from an Aunty who had been doing it for 35 years! (Mahalo Aunty Charlotte) Learning how to make my own silk screens so I can turn my designs into reality and start printing, sewing and reupholstering! Learning how to navigate through Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to make my visions come to life. It's been overwhelming at times..trying on my patience...and has taken a lot of energy all around to keep pushing through the learning curve, but I'm seeing the light! :) and on top of it all, I LOVE it all!
I'm heading off into the realm where I get to listen to my Kupuna tell me stories while my spirit runs free like a child, (sleep) but I'm leaving you with a picture of my business mantra.... "Create Visual Peace."
My manaʻo is; When we realize that healing starts from within, and come to the understanding that making ourselves pono leads to pono energy emitting through and from us which is carried forth into our homes, and then when we make our homes a place of pono, that collective energy empowers us to move into our communities with clarity of mana, and soon you see all of life around you start to reflect the pono in which you stand upon, your own pono foundation. It is from this space that we can make a difference in the worlds around us. So continue to strive for and create visual peace within your homes and environments because:
Visual peace=peaceful mind=happy life. ;)
Xo kamaile

Aha Wahine 2012 Inspiration! How are YOU represented in your home?

Wow... what an amazing weekend I just had with approximately 300 wahine at the first annual Aha Wahine held at Winward Community College. From new mother's to many great grandmothers, we all joined in to celebrate our Hawaiian culture and to inspire, as well as be inspired. Teach as well as learn. Renew heart felt connections as well as refresh our spirits within each other's mana. This aha was one to really help to expand our horizons of possibilities as not only wahine but as stewards of this land and it's people! I really took a lot home with me this past saturday, and mahalo all of those who made it possible for all those in attendance to really benefit from the ike (knowledge) and mana'o (stories) being preserved and passed down. 


In sitting within the circles of such amazing and talented wahine who are Doctors, Counselors, Teachers, Kumu Hula, Nutritionist, Kumu Oli, CPA's, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Grandmothers ... etc...etc...
I couldn't help but think...How are these women bringing that mana wahine (female power) back into their homes? 

Is your home a mirror of the culturally rich, beautiful, talented and powerful being that you are?

It's just a question... but one that made me excited to touch upon the possibilities of exploring our own inner health by examining our outer world. Considering that I am a lomi practitioner and have been practicing for the last 10 plus years I have had many blessings to be able to share and see many healthy transformations, including myself. So it peeks my interest to see how the health of our island homes and it's people can start by making small changes of health within in our sacred space... our hale. 

Like many others when I think of organizing a room, or cleaning up my personal space, clearing out the bills, and straightening out my book shelf that has become disorganized because of constant use... Well, I get overwhelmed! Sometimes I freeze! I don't know where to start. BUT... I do... I start...and little by little and with love and compassion and ho'omanawanui (practicing patience), I slowly see transformation and AHHHHHHhhhhhhhh.... I feel better. 

Well guess what? When I FEEL better, I do better! Taken from a quote from Oprah's life class, she says "When we KNOW better, we DO better". Well as Hawaiian women, we really tend to move from our Na'au and that means we instinctively move from a place of how we FEEL. So by doing the simplest thing as taking 10 minutes to reorganize our book shelf as a "jumping off point" it can make a world of difference in our mental well being, change the energy in our physical space, and uplift our spirits by simply smiling from a job that creates visual peace. 

So here are a few tips in helping you clean. 

• Do cleaning tasks in small increments - Don't get overwhelmed! Even if it's just picking up all the laundry off the floor and putting it into a basket one morning. You can change the energy and flow of your room.
• Clean with Lavender - Lavender oil is relatively inexpensive and can be purchased at a health food store, and possibly even Longs Drugs. Lavender is an anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral oil! I put in a couple of drops of oil in a large bucket of water and clean away... I even put it in my mop water! While cleaning, the scent is known to help to calm the nervous system as well as provide a fresh scent. (You can google other medicinal oils if you do not prefer lavender.) Best of all, cleaning with essential oils is way healthier for our keiki and everyone else in the home. As well as it's mana impacts our space energetically in a positive and soothing way, vs. a harsh chemical based solvent. 
• Ask for Kokua!- If you find that it seems that the health and cleanliness of your home seems to only fall upon your shoulders... then ask for help! Empowering yourself to ask for help, not only helps your mental and emotional health, but is teaching others in your household to enjoy the benefits of a healthy hale! 
• Make it a game or a reward. Plan to do something special on a Saturday or Sunday AFTER everyone pitches in and helps to to their part in cleaning up an area. You don't have to make it into a spring cleaning event if you schedule it in every month!
• Get your family to take a moment to FEEL the energy before and after you have cleaned an area. Ask them if now that they have cleaned up their desk, do they feel more creative? Do they feel more playful? They might think your crazy, but they can't deny their na'au. 
• "Pule, then Jump" - This is one of the wonderful sayings I walked away with this weekend. Aunty Ku Kahakalau was sharing on how she has made Oli and Pule a part of their every day practice within her Hawaiian home. And one story she shared was this little boy when he was about 5 years old new how to ride motorcycle and was fearless when it came to jumps and riding the course and was asked by a Makua how he did it. He said I just "Pule...then Jump!" This really impacted me, it is so simple to integrate our Hawaiian-ness into our everyday lives, yet we tend to over think everything.. and yet a child of 5 made Pule his number one priority and strength behind his motivation to "just jump" or "JUST DO IT". And just as Pule comes natural to all of us in one ritual or another and as the Dalai Lama puts it, "is a DAILY practice", so can bringing our awesomeness into our homes and creating and maintaing our ahu... our sacred space to create visual peace.

Love, 

Kamaile

What is Mana?

Mana - 

1. nvs. Supernatural or divine power, mana, miraculous power; a powerful nation, authority; to give mana to, to make powerful; to have mana, power, authority; authorization, privilege; miraculous, divinely powerful, spiritual; possessed of mana, power. Cf. -āmana. Mana makua, parental authority. Leo mana, voice of authority that is obeyed. Mana kiaʻi, guardian power. Mana loa, great power; almighty. Noho mana, to wield power.  www.wehewehe.org 

So speaking from my perspective as a Hawaiian, I consider my Mana, my personal power, my essence, my energy that connects to source and yet defines me through a unique pattern of vibrational frequencies as my unique self, in which I resonate and most importantly how I, non-verbally communicate to my "outside" environment....ALL that surrounds me. 

Why is Mana important?

Well...with recognition and understanding of your own personal mana, it will allow you to live in full relation to all living things and therefore live inPono or full harmony with all of life simply by the CHOICES that you make. My Kumu Lomi! Maka'ala Yates interprets our Hawaii state motto of "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono" as "The very life, breath and spirit of the land endures in right relationships between people and all living things." I have personally adopted this motto for most of my adult life, giving recognition that we are a part of a whole at all times, and therefore how we emulate our Mana, is what shows up in our world immediately surrounding us. This is the physical reality of our larger environment in which we,once again, are interwoven into. The best visual I can come up with is the sceene in Avatar, when all the indigenous people are sitting in circle all connected and chanting to the great tree, which is connected by a larger energetic root system to the whole forest. Oh I love that movie! 

How is mana important to your home? 

As I have stated in most of my writings thus far, "Your home is an extension of your Mana." So an easy way to grasp this, is to:

• First think from your gut...your na'au. 

• Then picture your home in your mind.
• How does that picture make you FEEL?
• Is your home your sanctuary? 
• Or does it steal your Mana-your energy from you just thinking about the disarray, or clutter, or disfunction? 
•  Now I invite you to examine your na'au (gut) and listen to your inner voice of wisdom when I ask, "how does your home reflect the state of mind, or state of be-ing you are currently in?" 

Remembering that you are a unique expression of source and all that surrounds you, will allow you to recognize that this unique stamp that you have on the world is also reflected within your home. From your unique choices of style to the way you enjoy the flow of your home. We can all use our homes as our personal mirrors to where we are in life and how our Mana is showing up in the physical within our surroundings. 

I want to say Mahalo, thank you, for taking the time to "Listen" to your Mana, whatever it was that may have been revealed to you. It is "through understanding comes knowledge, through knowledge comes life and well being." In some upcoming blogs I will discuss some ways in which you can start to shift your mana within your home to best serve your highest and healthiest self! I will also be soon posting about my current trip to Portland and what trends are sweeping the home decor world, and how you can re-create those "feelings" within your own Hawaiian Homes! So stay tuned! 

Much love, Kamaile

La'au Lapa'au Tea Towels

Whoopie! The Tea Towels are done and in Kai Boutique for Christmas! 
So here's one of the missions i've been on for the last month or so. I really have worked hard at bringing the healing concepts back into our homes, and this is one of my first approaches. To start off the series of my La'au Lapa'au tea towel designs, I have featured two that are not only my favorite, but also widely used in traditional medicine. 




"Olena" - is widely known for it's anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. Also traditionally used in dying Kapa.


"Noni" - is a very important plant to the Hawaiian people. Traditional uses of the noni plant are varied and virtually every part of the plant is used as some form of medicine.

"E Ala E" - is the name of a Hawaiian Oli which is chanted early in the morning "to aid the sun in it's efforts to start a new day."




I hope you enjoy the new inspiration for your home as much as my family and friends do. My aloha is printed in each and every one of these hand screened tea towels. My Kumu 'Olelo once told me, that the beauty of our cultural lineage is that it is 'consistently inconsistent'. Which is based on a cultural belief that, "History, as anything else, is seen and understood by where a person stands on the mountain." - Tales from the Night Rainbow. So within my design, as well as the towels that have been taken from once used flour sacks, they all have their own unique character and charm, not free from humanly "imperfections".    Aloha, k

Personalized Stamped Gold or Silver Necklaces

Personalized, stamped gold or silver necklaces!
My sister Keana loves to craft as well, but her expertise is in the finer details therefore she works well with smaller "canvases"! Great gift for yourself or your loved ones. Depending on the material, the size and your personal design, these one of a kind pieces can range from $95- $155. Email me for details on how you can custom order yours necklace now!
nohodesigns@me.com


Happy Holidays,
k