Decorating Ideas to Brighten your Home
By-Kavita Shyam
Brighten up your home this festive season like the bright lights and glorious colours of the festivals. Get into the spirit and give your home a new soul
Dressing up your home in the festive spirit is easier than you think. As we near that time of the year when Ganesh Chaturthi, Onam, Navratri, Dusshera, Diwali and the card parties come closely on the heels on one another, it’s time to get your home ready for the celebrations. Each of us wants our house to be exquisite without breaking the bank; here are a few lovely ideas to decorate your home for the upcoming celebrations.
Monochromatic and Fusion Touches
Add the festive touch to your house by working with monochromatic or vibrant palettes, a sprinkling of fresh greens around the apartment. Check out your budget, work with the elements or artifacts what you have on-hand besides a few items from decor stores. Grab the candles, lights, diyas, lanterns, rangoli, fresh hues, and fusion décor accents, get every inch of your home into the festive spirit.
Opt for traditional hues of reds, yellows, gold and metallic in your house. Arrange floating candles at the entrance of your house and place fairy lights across the window panes or main doorway. You can DIY at home – beautiful diyas with clay and flour (atta), baked in heat and painted in your favourite hues or sparklers. With your DIY creativity, make sea shell candles by putting wax and wick in the shell.
Flaunt your silverware; serve your chocolates and dry fruits in your silver finery! Decorate your puja thali by painting varied motifs and swastik on it with water paints or paste ethnic stickers. No festival is complete without a trademark rangoli on the floor, grab your glue and sprinkle sparkles/sequins, coloured rice or real flower petals on.
Collage, Mural, Ornate Strokes for Luxurious Touches
Neelanjan Gupto, of Neelanjan Gupto Design Co, gives us a few festive pointers!
He says, “One apt lighting can make a whole change in décor. To feel festive at home, we can make many changes in regular lights. Options are table lights, lamps, traditional lamp, pedestrian lamp, newly exposed filament lamp gives new blink and adds aura.”
“Wall painting, wall collage and ornate things are latest trends in festive decor. Instead of wall painting, you can choose tattoo art, to transform bland and boring bare walls into a dazzling festive display. If it is an original work of good art, it hangs like a jewel on your wall. Uplift the mood and look instantly, try vibrant neon colours, curtains with lining or sheer mix on the side are in vogue.”
Reuse, Recycle, and Voila, it’s a New Look
Charu Gupta, Interior Consultant, and owner of Interior Medini says, “With the festive season, our home gets a new makeover. The walls get a new paint; old bed sheets, curtains cushion and furnishings are replaced by new ones, which give an exciting look and festive spirit. Festival signify light and brightness, so use colours like red, orange, pink and yellow in furnishing for a brighter look. Surround your home with diyas, floated candles, aroma candles, candles and lights.”
“If you have plants or garden you can decorate them with these artificial electric lights. Today people like to explore recycle and reuse; you can use your old clothes, Sarees or old dress creatively to make trendy curtains for decoration. Beads and old multicolored dupattas can be used to make a flowing decoration and light it up strategically. Cushions or sofa covers can be made from sarees or dupattas. Use good luck charms, strips of embroidered cloth and chimes to make your doors ring in the festive frivolity. Hang little bells on your doors which are decorative.”
“You can also buy bandhanwars which are available in huge variety and styles. Take clear vases or bottles, fill them with water, add holiday-colored food coloring and float candles in them or just line several up in a row to add a simple, cool holiday accent. Make rangoli with a mixed platter of items. Try chalk powder, flower, floating candles, dry coloured wood powder. Apart from adding color, it gets an ethnic feel. Flowers adorn your home and make it look like a paradise. You can buy flowers like roses, lilies, and jasmines in dozens. String some of these into garlands and fix them skillfully in your stair handles, on the wall or the entrance door as ‘toran’s. Attach a string of electric light with each floral strand. It will look magnificent.”
Be creative. Let your imagination fly! Happy decorating!
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