In the summer of 2009, I created a category called “Home Decor” to segregate the growing list of design blogs. Within weeks, this section outnumbered the blogs under business, career, momma bloggers, and writing sections.

According to me, Apartment Therapy should come with a disclaimer: If you don’t have a job, then by all means take the risk of stopping by our site.  Because once you do, it’s not so easy to get away. I’ve heard of addiction to the Prison Break series when you’ve watched one episode and the urge to stay up all night to finish the entire season, but this one surpasses that. There have been days when I’ve lost track of hours spent indulging myself in AT land.

Who wouldn’t know Holly Becker of decor8 in the world of interiors blogging? I admire the lady’s resolve to      dig ceramicists, photographers, potters, Scandinavian stores and stylists we would otherwise remain oblivious to.  When you follow  bunch of home decor blogs, it’s easy to see, how many bloggers copy Holly’s finds  and feature them on theirs a few weeks later. Her casual writing style exudes warmth and friendliness that’s hard to come by.

How about orange: Authored by Jessica Jones, How about orange is a treasure house of DIY projects . I love the color orange, and that drew me to this blog. I have tried many of Jess’ easy DIY projects  including the newspaper basket and a holder for magazines from a cornflakes box. Jess also frequently posts links of other great DIY sites. But, I have a confession to make. If there is something called “reader fatigue”, I experienced that with this one; maybe because of the number of sewing projects lately.  If you’ve never stopped by How about orange, I insist you do You’ll love it and get glued to it.

It’s Pretty Good: The name says it all. Written by Mary, a self-taught photographer, “it’s pretty good” had me hooked the first time I landed on the site. Quite different from a regular blog, Mary has adopted a distinctive style of captioning images with thoughtful words. The visual inspiration  site consists primarily of closely shot images of flowers, table settings, delicious savories, freshly picked fruits, and home accessories. Mary’s eye for beautiful details of life will ensure this site finds a permanent fixture in your reading list.

Die Frau I’m Haus: You may think I’m crazy, but wait till you see the stunning images. I recently discovered Die Frau I’m Haus and I despise the fact that I can’t understand a word of what’s written on the blog. It’s probably not a bad idea to learn German so I can follow  “the woman in the house” and not depend on Google’s translation abilities. The Hydrangeas and the snowball tree flowers often pictured here are lovely.

What’s on your reader? What’s that one blog that you never get tired of reading?

Edited to add: I think it’s only fair to list the other blogs on my list after Sharon pointed out The Inspired Room.  Elements of Style by Erin Gates, PadStyle for funky designer products, My Notting Hill, Melissa’s The Inspired Room, and few by Indian authors including The Key Bunch, An Indian Summer, Art n Light, and Art By Aarohi complete the  list.

I just realized that it’s been  while since I posted a DIY project here.  The store tours had kind of shifted my focus away from everything else. So, here’s a easy project you can try over the weekend.

One of the easiest ways to spruce up your kid’s room is to decorate it around their favorite cartoon characters. My three-year-old is very fond of the Disney character, Winne the Pooh and his buddies Tigger, Christopher Robin, Rabbit, Eeyore, Lumpy, Kanga, Roo and Piglet. But he is at such a age where his liking for the fantasy characters is short-lived. A while ago, he doted on Noddy, and around the second birthday, he was quite crazy about Barbie (if only, for a brief while like two hours during which he felt she wasn’t quite her kind of fun),  and now, it’s Winnie and Spiderman.  Winnie has being going steady for nearly a year going by the Pooh accessories we have at home now - wall stickers, piles of books, soft toy, a deck of fun cards, and a towel. Anyways, while I wanted to do up a wall of his room around Winnie, I didn’t want to put up a permanent theme on the walls by painting which would make it difficult to change.

So, I got started on a acrylic on canvas portrait of Winnie The Pooh.  It took me about three hours t finish the project from start to finish, including shopping for materials.

Winnie The Pooh

What you’ll need:

1. Canvas

2. Acrylic paints

3. Tracing paper

4. 4-5 sheets Carbon paper

5. Paint brushes and palette

6. Self-sticking tape

7. Hooks

8. Varnish

Total Cost of the Project:

Under Rs.300

How to paint:

1. If you’re good at freehand, then draw the character directly on canvas. But if you’re like me who needs help with drawing, you’ll first have to find a picture large enough of the cartoon character. Look around for posters or stickers in stationery shops. Or if there’s a real nice picture of a smaller dimension, enlarge it on your computer and print it out.

Read the rest of this entry…

Are you constantly looking for ideas to spruce up your walls? Adding accessories to a wall, re-painting walls with themes, or hanging murals/artwork are some of the easiest ways to change the look of a room. My parents sent me two boxes of DIY wall art stickers in white and green colors. These are wood-based, primed decal like stickers that can glued on to a wall using any adhesive. I was contemplating where to put them up as the floral leaves would have been a perfect fit for the balcony, the space I love the most, but the hard exterior finish of the walls made it difficult to stick them on. So, I chose a bedroom wall instead.

3-D Wall Sticker

Pattern - 1

Read the rest of this entry…

Hope you all had a good weekend. It was a busy, crafty weekend for us as my three-year-old son and I got into action. I had a set of six wooden coasters that badly needed some revamping. In the past, I’ve tried painting them with acrylic colors but the results were not satisfactory. I was wondering how to give them a face lift when an idea struck me. I noticed the tiny bottle of Modge-Podge lying ignored on the craft supplies rack; I’d picked it up from staples a month ago for another project.

Wooden coaster

Modge-Podge, and dozens of Femina and other home décor magazines collected over the years was enough to get us rolling and get our hands dirty for the decoupage project. Over the next two hours Sunday afternoon, I flipped through Femina/Elle cutting out interesting words and colorful pictures. Once I had enough, we started sticking them onto the coasters. And, this is what we made -

Decoupaged Coaster

It reads - “Life’s a journey. Some say you must never look back. Why not?”

Read the rest of this entry…

Hope you all had a great weekend. Friday evening, my toddler son and I weren’t quite in the mood to go to the park. I discovered a candle making kit earlier that evening while cleaning the loft in one of the boxes, and kept it down. The candle making starter kit from Fevicryl lay untouched for over three years; I had purchased it at Ozone in Pune for Rs.49. When my son asked me what it was, I said” We can make candles with this and light diyas for Deepavali.”

Running out of things to keep us entertained that evening, we both made a unanimous decision of making candles. And what fun it was. My little helper unpacked the small ingredients box, helped me take pictures, and got the kadai out. Most importantly, he kept the energy levels high with his enthusiasm for anything new; it was fun.

Scented Candle

Here I share with you how to make your own scented candles at home in 4 easy steps:

Read the rest of this entry…

All’s not been well here.  Over the past 10 days, the stubborn cold virus has been doing the rounds with each of us taking ill in turns; the family is slowly limping back to normalcy. However, I did find sometime on those long afternoons (when not under the influence of cough syrup) to add some cheer and color to the home. Blame it on the festive season

A while ago, I wrote about two terracotta pots I picked on the roadside, one of which I painted with zebra stripes. The other one has got a fresh lease of life too. The tree is inspired by a similar design on a Worli bedsheet.

Worli painting on a terracotta planter

Orange Pomander : During my recent trip to Trichy, I frequented a old books exhibition that had a HUGE collection of design and interior design books. One UK magazine that I grew fond of (can’t recollect the name) was about gardening and growing house plants; every issue was merely a few pages thick and I doubt if the magazine is still in circulation. An interesting and detailed article on how to make your own orange pomanders at home inspired me to try one at home. The one you see in the picture hasn’t yet dried.

Orange Pomander

And, finally another ivy in yet another recycled planter. The handi is from KC Das that originally contained mishti dahi. I didn’t want to throw it, so I cut a Bisleri bottle, filled with potting sand, and planted it with a small money plant.

Ivy in a handi

Got a rack full of old magazines some as old as 5 years? A Feb ‘05 Femina issue with useful kitchen tips or a Woman’s Era magazine from 2006 that carried some mouth-watering recipes for the festive season or some cool tips on how to get dressed for a party after work in a jiffy? Yes?  Then you’ve got company…I have saved tons of magazines just because one feature was good, or it had an odd tip on Page 53 on how to keep your coffee decoction fresh (I have this annoying habit of folding pages that I’d like to read again). These magazines lie untouched for years but I don’t feel like giving them away.

After all, there might be a way to put these to good use without letting them occupy useful rack space.

Use it as a stand to keep a vase on the top. Doesn’t it make for a colorful base.

Old magazines stacked to make a colorful stand

Read the rest of this entry…

I had a set of 6 wooden coasters that were nearly 5 years old. Dull, faded, and ready to be discarded. But the coasters/place mats are the sturdy kind that I didn’t have the heart to just junk it. So over the weekend I transformed a pair (to begin with) into these bright, colorful coasters.

Colorful Coasters

How to paint:

The steps are similar to how we painted the cane furniture: sanding, priming, painting followed by a coat of varnish. The only difference is I used acrylic paint for this project.

Coaster Painting Steps

Terra Cotta planters are common along the road side in most cities across India. They come in various shapes, sizes, and forms including animals and gods.

I bought a pair of planters for Rs. 80 a few months ago, filled them with potting soil, and planted ivy (money) plants. A few weeks ago, itching to do something, I turned one of the planters into a decorative vase.

Terra Cotta Planter

What you’ll need:

1. Brush

2. Acrylic Paint - black and white

3. Palette or a cup.

4.  Fevicol

5. Water

6. Varnish

Read the rest of this entry…

Do you have a set of cane chairs that has lost its sheen and natural color? Wondering if you should give it a new lease of life or just give it away to somebody?

I had a cane furniture set comprising 4 chairs + 1 table + 2 side tables that were over 5 years old. One look at them and you’ll know they had seen better days. During a recent moving exercise from a BIG house to a smaller apartment, I gave away 2 chairs, the center table and the side tables. However, I retained 2 chairs for use as balcony furniture in the new place. One day while scouting the net, I was inspired to give these chairs a new look.

Before Painting : Cane Chair

You have two choices while restoring old cane furniture: giving it a polished look while retaining the natural color or painting it in a different color to complement the surroundings.

Read the rest of this entry…