10 ways to decorate your home during Diwali
When Diwali is close by, you can feel it in the air in India. Everywhere you look you’ll see houses decorated with lights and lanterns, intricate and colourful rangoli, kids buying crackers, women buying candles and diyas and a general sense of happiness in the air. With Covid-19 taking over life as we know it, this year is quite different. Although people are still engaging in Diwali Practices, it isn’t as vibrant because of the reduced help, lower income levels and many other pandemic-induced factors. We’ve come up with a list of ways for you to jazz up your house without exhausting yourself too much!
Lights
One of the easiest ways to bring in the festive vibe is with lights. Use reels of fairy lights to cover your house exteriors and interiors too (if you like). The impact would leave your house looking magnificent and wouldn’t require too much creativity and thinking on your part. If you’re not too keen on fairy lights, you could opt for strings of coloured bulbs too!
Rangoli
Even if you feel like you can’t make one of those delicate rangolis, give it a shot. Use some easy templates and vibrant colours at your entrance. A rangoli doesn’t need to be detailed to be pretty, just needs to be made by you!
PS: You can enhance the rangoli by placing in Diyas, Candles and Flowers at the right places!
Diyas
While everyone gets and sets up the plain mud diyas, we recommend getting yours and painting them. You could paint, decorate with glitter or stones or do just about anything you like. Having well-decorated diyas just adds the extra sparkle to your house décor!
Use Candles
Setting up an array of candles can drastically beautify any area. We recommend using mini-candles and arranging them in such a fashion so as to create a design or symmetry!
Flowers
Has any Indian Festival ever been complete without flowers?! No right!? Then why should this Diwali be any different?! Decorate your house with strings of flowers (real or artificial based on your preference). Having flowers adds colours and vibrancy to your house!
Diwali Mood-Lighting
Something I personally love and always indulge in is Diwali mood-lighting. Buy some pretty lanterns or lights with metallic decorates or shiny exteriors and watch the light reflect off those surfaces as you sit around the table with your family!
Puja Room Decorations
The most important area of the house – the puja room must be decorated as well! You could place some vibrant cloth chunnis behind or above the idols, change the idol clothing and jewellery, add in lights, place flowers and more in anticipation of the festival!
Decorative Dinner Sets
Festive seasons in India are also marked by the feasts prepared. While we know the food’s going to be delicious, you could bring in more of a Diwali vibe by setting up the table especially for Diwali. You could consider any of the following – Bring out your fancy china to dine in, use rustic table placemats, lit up the dining area with candles/lamps/fake candles instead of using normal lighting or anything that reminds you of the festival.
Thread Lanterns
Thread lanterns add a rustic yet bright vibe to the ambience – just the perfect feel for Diwali! If you’re not too keen on going out and shopping for Diwali this year, you could as simply make this at home. There are plenty of resources that will teach you how to make Thread lanterns from the comfort of your own house, that too without too much hassle and equipment!
Mason Jar Lights/Fairy Jars
Another unique way of lighting up a room would be using mason jars. You could opt to alternate white mason jars filled with fairy lights with transparent ones (containing flowers as if they were a vase). The perfect way to bring in a calming, peaceful yet content vibe!
