Happy Diwali!
Diwali Celebrations in low costs by decorating homes
So, it's that time of the year again. The leaves are turning into beautiful shades of yellow and red, there's a slight nip in the air and the festive and wedding season has been flagged off with the departure of monsoon. It's my favourite few months of the year when everything is new and exciting again. You can wear nice clothes in luxurious fabrics without the fear of getting sweat stains on them, you give your house a complete make-over by painting the walls, changing the upholstery, buying new gadgets for the kitchen, new dinner sets to entertain the constant inflow of guests at home and so on. But do you see the underlying theme in all these ideas? They all cost a lot on money! Now if you have a lot many extra bucks lying in the bank, it's great. But the case more likely than not with most is that we don't.
But that's not any reason why your home should suffer. We're going to share with you some low cost ideas that you can execute using the things lying in your house to give your house a fresh, new look. You will need the following:
- A set of oil colors from your kids' art class and paintbrush
- A string of Diwali lights from last year
- Old candles of all shapes and sizes, used or unused
- A big chart paper and scissors
- Some old georgette fabric wrap pieces from your wardrobe
- Stitch on and hanging beads and baubles
- A long rope
- Wide and shallow glass or brass vessel
- Semi spherical big and small items from around the house like bottle caps, balls cut into half
- Assorted old bangles
- Glue
So let's get hands-on with these DIY projects at home this Diwali. You'll find that it's much more satisfying to make something beautiful from scratch and putting it up for display proudly in your home than buying something of cheap quality for high festive prices in your over crowded market. The decorations will be unique and special, nothing like the generic ones available at every dime store. Plus, it is very therapeutic and rejuvenating to tap into your creativity once in a while.
Put your crafts hat on and get started.
1. Arty wall for your kids' room
Kids love to draw and paint on the walls and parents keep running after them to make sure the house doesn't turn into a budding artist's canvas. But how about forming parent-child collaboration in the art department? I can sense the worried expression cropping up on every parent's face right now but let me explain-
Bring out the oil colors from the desk drawer, invite a few of your children's closest friends and cousins and let them have a day of super fun painting ONE wall of their bedroom with their hands, literally. Put the oil colors in different saucers, dip the kiddies' both hands in different colors and make them print the impression of their tiny hands on the wall. Now do the same for all the kids you invited over for the fun activity. If your kids and their friends are old enough to write, make them sign their name on top of their hands impression in cute handwritings.
What you will end up with is a brand new colorful wall for your kids' bedroom, a fun day of art and bonding for your kids and they will feel a big sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. All the close friends will get to contribute and it will become a nice memory of your kids' tiny hands when they grow up.
2. Arty wall for your room
If your kids get a brand new arty wall, why shouldn't you? We have a great idea for you to do something new to one special wall in your bedroom too. In fact, if you want you can give this idea a twist and use it for any room or wall you like.
Take the sheet of chart paper and stencil in to it some art that's reflective of your personality. Are you a nature-loving person? Stencil in a beautiful tree. Are you in to astronomy? Stencil in some stars and galaxies. You don't even have to draw free hand, just do an image search online, take a print out and get started. Once you have cut the stencils out, secure them on the wall and paint into the cut outs using your kids' oil colors. You can use the same color scheme as in the images you downloaded or experiment with your own taste and preference.
Add some texture onto it by shading in various colors. If you're not too good with your drawing hand, you can use geometrical patterns that are easy to cut and color in. Paint some thick borders to give it depth and character.
3. Home-made candles
There are tons of ideas to make home-made candles but we're going to utilize the random small semi spherical items lying around the house to make ours. Things like bottle caps, your kids' broken ping-pong balls, shot glasses left-over from old sets and things like that.
Take the old and new candles buried away from last seasons and put them in a double-boiler to melt. Don't worry about all the colors mixing up, the point is to avoid wastage and make lots of small usable candles that you can light around the house on Diwali eve.
Now place a small wick leftover from those old melted candles in the tiny vessels and pour in the melted wax over them and leave them to cool and set.
Another innovative way is to take your assorted old bangles, stack and glue them on top of each other. Put this glued on stack of bangles on top of an old coaster using it as the bottom surface and pour the melted wax into it with a wick and you have yourself a colourful glass candle!
4. Door hangings
Take some hanging beads and baubles like fake flowers, tiny glitter balls etc and tie them on a thick string or rope and use them as door hangings. Hang them vertically along the curtains or tie them around the curtains as a scrunch.
5. Old Diwali string lights
This is one my favourite. Plug the string of lights from last year into a socket inside your house and twist them around the rod that holds your curtains over your windows and doorways. Keep in mind that the electric socket needs to be close to the place of hanging.
Now switch them on and enjoy the lovely brightness of the tiny bulbs inside your house than outside!
6. Floating candles potpourri
Fill your wide and shallow brass or glass vessel halfway through with water. Put some fresh rose petals or even any assorted flower petals in the water. This is will permeate a lovely flowery fragrance in your house. Now float and light some 5-6 floating candles in the vessel.
It's a beautiful arrangement to have at your door entrance to welcome your guests and the goddess of wealth into your house.
7. Sparkly sheer drapes
Are there some georgette drapes in your wardrobe that you no longer wear, like old sarees? Bring them out and get a fistful of sparkly sew on buttons and beads. Just using a thread and needle, sew on these assorted sparkles all over the old fabric at uniform distance. If you want, you can even dye your fabric in a bright festive color with some home-use fabric dyes before sewing on the beads.
Now drape these re-vamped sarees through your curtain rods and let them hang as beautiful, sheer sparkly drapes on your windows and doorways.
8. Satiny festive bed-spreads
Using the same idea as above but a different fabric like satin or silk instead of sheer georgettes, make some beautiful bed-spreads for your bedroom. Except, instead of sewing on beads and sparkles (they will surely poke you while sleeping), make interesting patterns on them and do hand painting in lovely colors.
So these are some easy and simple ideas to brighten up your home this Diwali. Use your imagination and old knick-knacks around the house to come up with some more exciting ideas and share them with us. I'm sure you will keep doing them every year once you get the hang of it!
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