DIY Home Decor: Do-It-Yourself Crafts

Our homes are a reflection of our inner selves. What we are within, how we are feeling, all gets mirrored out into space we live in. Hence, most of us make it a point to dress our homes and hearths well and keep them all spick and span. However, even within these inner terrains, we have two options. One is to pick up stuff from markets, maybe even glocal, and turn our house into a curio maze. The other is to personalize things and make them yourselves.

Naturally, the second path is the tougher one. In this fast-paced world, who has the time to sit down and make DIY or do-it-yourself crafts? The best roadmap, therefore, is to mix up the two. To have some accents and things which are ready-made or even made to order, and some which we design and actually handcraft ourselves.

The current fad these days is to refurbish things from in and around the house and use them as home décor artefacts. For one, old trunks can be painted with enamels and turned into pretty sideboards. One can utilize kitsch art for this purpose, that is, colour them with vivid hues and make a really eye-catching piece for the living room. Old sarees and even dupattas get revamped into bright curtain material or even after stitching up some lining material under them, as table runners. Used bottles, which come in interesting shapes and patterns can be dabbed with differing shades and then turned into lamps and even into vases.

One very versatile lady actually collected a hundred or so pistachio shells and glued them on in rows lengthwise in a big tin to fashion out a flower holder for her dining table. Even children’s collections like a handful of stamps from a plethora of countries can be stuck onto some velvet paper in circles and this then framed with good quality wood to make a conversation starter wall décor item. The same can even be done with a selection of coins from a set of countries and not just for its décor but even information value.

Top of the shack in the DIY décor list is to do something simple and straightforward. Translated further, this could be stain glass paintings, metal embossing some wall hangings, fashioning out some flowers with leftover cloth material like organza, or even embroidering out some dinner or cocktail napkin sets. Stain glass painting, for one, does not really rocket science. Even those who are not trained artists but are somewhat firm with their hands can make a go at it.

As for metal embossing, one needs to know the basic technique for it, but again, it is not as though one should be very artistic for it. Sincere efforts pretty much pay off in these crafts and one can come up with some very aesthetic pieces for decorative purposes. For making flowers, one can pick up a good manual and follow instructions carefully. After all, who is it who does not want to have some handmade items which we ourselves have patterned out? Doing some embroidery work, surprisingly enough even in these rushed times, is a very big stress buster for a lot of us. Making some table runners or even dressing table sets with easy to do cross stitch or chain stitch is some leisure evening time spent well.

Art, like touched upon before, we know, is not everyone’s cup of tea. It does require some amount of talent and a bit of method training to get the hang of doing oil paintings and their ilk. However, happily enough, some more easy to do art forms like nib painting do exist for those of us who would wish to try out luck with it. In this, one has to trace out a figure or a scenery onto some cloth or even good grade paper, and then fill in colours with a special type of nib painting needle. What comes out at the end of this odyssey is a very lovely art piece. Such work is highly creative and very satisfying to do because at the end point we emerge a winner with something to do up our space with, made by our very own selves.

What can be more pleasing than this? To have own two hands design in a treasure trove item we can see each day and which even gives us our moment in the sun because of it.