Diwali Cleaning and Decorating- Simple Fundas

Are you wondering from where to start cleaning your home, as Diwali is just around the corner??  Don't fret.  Here are a few steps and tips for the hassled and working people to organize and decorate their sweet homes in a jiffy and on a low budget.

SIMPLIFYING CLEANING  WITH THESE STEPS:

DE CLUTTER -  Identify old, chipped or cracked show pieces, vases etc from your living room and just dump them.  Check your kitchen for those empty soft drink bottles, jam jars, plastic take-away boxes. Clear your bathroom of those almost finished shampoo and conditioner bottles and other unusable things.

Take a quick look at your wardrobe.  Take out a few pair of old dresses, faded T-shirts, trousers which don't fit anymore, old and worn out shoes or slippers and put everything in a plastic bag.  Give it away to the first person you meet who needs it, may be your maid servant or guard or some other helping hand.

Now when you have managed to get rid of unwanted things lying around in the house, it's time to reorganize the existing one's.

ORGANIZE AND REARRANGE THE FURNITURE - The key to a clean home is that there should be fixed places to keep everything.  So much so, that you can tell without seeing what article would be found where.  If you haven't done that, try to make place for things in a logical way.

A room can be made to look appealing to the occupants by re-arranging the pieces of furniture, rugs, even wall hangings and paintings.  For example, if you were keeping the sofas or chairs far away from the centre table, try to make a close sitting arrangement, placing side tables symmetrically. (I think, while buying sofa sets, tables etc, this idea of flexibility should be kept in mind, as fixed heavy and large pieces become very boring later).  So, get creative and change the setting of the room.

CLEAN, DUST OFF, WIPE :  Now, when things have take their place, clean up things. If you have time, cover the furniture with an old bed sheet and dust off the roof, walls and behind the curtains.  If you don't have time, use a dry duster to do quick dusting, followed by wiping glass surfaces some product like Colin. Brass and Silver articles will need extra effort to clean.  Of course, lastly, do or get done a thorough sweeping and swabbing on the floor.



Give your home a traditional touch with these things:

•  Tie a Bandhanwar or Toran (a door garland) at the entrance door of the house, it immediately gives that festival feel to the house. You will get these made of artificial flowers with mirror work etc, in different price range.

Bandhanwar

• Rangoli - Now a days, we get small bottles of different coloured rangolies (dried powder) and with that you get a stencil too, so you don't really have to be creative to make one. I got a pack of four rangoli colours for about Rs 60/-, which is quite cheap.  Will be trying my hand on it this time.  The way to sprinkle it is, that u take a pinch at a time pour slightly on a design made by chalk first. Do try!

Here is a design for rangoli making

•  Diyas and Candles -  There are a variety of diyas and candles available in the market.  But if possible do buy them from a charitable organisation, where the returns go to the needy or the articles are prepared by the underprivileged.  You can go to Blind school, next to Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi, where a huge Diwali Mela takes places every year.  You get beautiful candles, hand made paper items and Ganesha Laxmi idols made by the visually challenged students there.

My Diwali decorations of last year!

Tip: You can avoid the expense of wax diyas, simply buy plain clay diyas, a small bottle of mustard oil and a packet of wicks (batti).  There is nothing more beautiful on a Diwali night than the sight of  twinkling flames of diyas, it does not matter are they simple ones or designer ones.

Place the diyas on the exterior of the house, on stair case and corner of the rooms. Floating diyas in a glass bowl with some rose petals sprinkled does wonder to lift up the ambiance of the room.

• Flowers - You can bring life to the room by putting just two or four bright coloured flowers in a vase.  Try it, you really don't need to buy a big bunch or a bouquet. While buying flower buds, you can always ask the florist for some rose petals to use like this picture below:

Just a glass plate, a diya, and yellow and red rose petals
(again my pic!)

• Fragrance - Light up one or two incense sticks for that traditional feel.  Keep them in a corner, close to a window or door.

The expense for these six decoration tips won't be more than Rs 500/-.  So make sure you dress up your sweet home with colours, lights, flowers and fragrance this Diwali.

I think instead of spending money on fire crackers, we should try to create a clean and safe home.  I am going to write a post on "crackers" and why do men love it?! Does it sound sexist? May be it is! So do read the next post too!

Have a beautiful Diwali!

RESTLESS  :)

First two pics at diwali-celebrations.blogspot.com