Decoration

Spring cleaning is the perfect time to redecorate or remodel. While you’re about the task of moving furniture and cleaning, make your work multitask by freshening your decor at the same time. Here are green, recycled options for wall coverings: maps, book jackets and magazine covers.

Amongst other passions, I am a map-ophile. I should have been a cartographer, surveyor or navigator in another life. I could stare at maps all day and now I can when I rehang maps as wall art or wall covering. Save old maps and pull out maps from National Geographic, Conde Nast, Smithsonian and other travel/culture magazines. I was given several years worth of National Geographic. Besides making fabulous lesson plan material for homeschool and my classroom, I collected about two dozen maps. Hang maps from different regions and time periods. Maps are large enough to use for entire wall coverings. Paper the den, office or bathroom with maps for a bold, literate decor.

Book jackets, dust jackets, make another edgy wall decor theme. I realized this when I bought several vintage books. Being a reader of history mystery, I loved the book jacket image juxtaposition: Gothic, lurid pulp fiction, Victorian, Ancient Rome, Gangland Chicago, Art Deco New York. It doesn’t matter if the book jackets are in mint condition or slightly worn. Tattered book jackets lend character to wall art. Book jackets should be laminated before hanging. Border a room in book jackets. Strategically place a few book jackets. Or cover one wall with a collage of book jackets.

Buy an inexpensive laminator or have your maps, book jackets and magazine covers professionally laminated. You can also purchase DIY self-stick lamination paper from Staples or any office supply center. Hang the maps, book jackets and magazine covers with putty. Putty doesn’t damage wall or paint work. Putty leaves no holes either in the poster or the wall. Putty comes off clean. Putty is a teacher’s best friend for classroom decor and it works great around the house as well. With your urban, high brow wall art, you are going to have difficulty getting your guests to leave. Especially if they are readers of fine print like me.

Remember, teachers, maps make excellent, educational classroom wall decor. Try to connect the maps to content areas to give student atmosphere a global feel. For more decorating tips, visit me at www.decorthemes.blogspot.com. and www.diynhow24u.blogspot.com.

Are you bored with your plain old white roller shades? Well, why not spruce them up using just a little creativity along with some paint, sponges and stencils? Instead of investing in expensive new window treatments, I recently gave my rollers shades new life and you can too. Here’s how:

First of all, gently remove your shade from the window. Be sure to mark the exact spot where the shade hits the sill so your artwork is completely visible when your shade is in the closed position. Now, wipe down the shade with a little soap and water so that you have a clean canvas to work on. Let dry.

Next, choose a theme for your new window shades and then head over to your local craft store to browse the aisles for sponge paints and decorative stencils. I prefer the all-in-one sponge paint kits; however, you can also purchase paints, sponges and stencils separately.

Kitchen
For a lovely kitchen shade, use sponge paints in the shapes of apples, cherries or grape clusters. Dab your sponge with paint and practice on a piece of paper. When you find the right consistency of paint, press the sponge onto your shade. You can simply line the bottom of your shade with your images or create an all over pattern. And if you make a mistake, quickly wipe the area with a soapy cloth, dry it and start all over again.

Den/Office
For a small den or home office, consider a soothing shade design like falling leaves, for example. Using a sponge kit, once again, paint falling leaves down the center of your roller shade. Next, create a pile of leaves along the bottom in array of rich colors like gold, burgundy, yellow and tan.

Bathroom
For a whimsical bathroom shade, you can use rubber ducky sponges or a tropical fish theme. Sponge paint or stencil the images onto your shade in vibrant colors and then randomly add light blue bubbles to your artwork.

Children’s Bedroom
Create a delightful roller shade for your little girl’s bedroom using pink butterflies, fairies, flowers and more. And for a fun boy’s room, consider painting sports shapes like basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs and footballs directly onto your white roller shades.

You have survived the long winter and managed to keep your home festive. Don’t stop now, with spring and summer coming, decorating can be fun, even when Santa is not coming to town. Use this guide to mark your spring and summer calendar to continue keeping your home looking fresh and festive all year long.

March 20: By the first day of spring, you will want to have your home cleared of all signed of the winter blahs. This is the month to give your home a good overall cleaning. Rid your home of dust and put away the heavier throw blankets and draperies. Set out fresh flower arrangements in your home. Read: Spring Cleaning One Day at a Time

March 20-Early April: Easter is coming. If you celebrate Easter, you way want to put out a festive wreath on your front door, and perhaps have some fun with a colorful egg tree somewhere in your home.

April 30: Remove all signs of Easter decor and continue prepare for summer by continuing to remove winter clutter from your home. This is a good time for freshening up furniture, and purchasing a few trendy decor pieces.

May 20: Memorial day is approaching: Pick up some Americana items to decorate accordingly.

June 20: On the first day of summer, you may want to start preparing for Independence Day. Get a bunch of flags, and make some fun starts and striped decorations to display in your home.

July 10: Don’t keep fourth of July decorations up too long. There are too many other options for summer decorating using beach themed motifs or flowers from your garden.

Sept1: Summer is over. As labor day approaches, start putting away your summer items, and preparing your home for Labor day festivities.

To keep the trend going, don’t forget to check out my article, check out my article, Winter Decorating Calendar: When to Decorate for the Holidays.

White decor, though serene and angelic, has the very earthly disadvantage of being hard to keep clean. But with a few easy tricks you can make your white decor more easy to clean and less likely to get dirty. With so many beautiful decorating styles relying heavily on white decor, it would be a shame to have to give it up simply because white decor is hard to keep clean.

Keep White Decor Clean with Custom Covers

You can enhance the beauty of your white decor while helping it stay clean, by sewing square or rectangular covers to drape over your white decor furniture. The idea is to create white decor covers that can easily be tossed in your washing machine and dryer, then draped back over your furniture within the hour, without any ironing. Crinkled rayon is ideal for the task. For one thing, white decor covers made of crinkled rayon will add shabby chic to your white decor. You can bleach the covers if the stain is difficult to remove, and not only will crinkled rayon require no ironing, you should actually twist it when it is wet, to retain its crinkled texture. Finally a white decor cover made of crinkled rayon will dry extremely fast. For added beauty, use clip on curtain rings to attach white decor tassels to the corners of your covers.

Keep White Decor Clean with Selective Decorations

The best way to keep white decor clean is to keep it out of reach. Where as a white decor area rug will collect footsteps, spilt drinks and food stains, white decor that focuses the eye on the ceiling is likely to stay clean for months. Therefore, minimize white decor that is likely to get dirty and supplement your white decor from above. Shrink your floor covers to minimal rugs before seats and sofas, then increase the beauty of your ceiling with imaginative white decor, such as a white sail or a parachute stretched on the ceiling. Mosquito nets cascading in festoons from the ceiling are especially exotic and elegant.

Keep White Decor Clean with Double-sided Decorations

For white decor items like pillows, rugs and tablecloths, employ a simple illusion to keep them clean. For your pillows, sew white decor cases that are tied with fabric strings. Double the fabric in the cases, and place a tough plastic bag between the two layers. Thus when your pillows get stained on one side, simply turn the case over and display the clean side for the time being. For white decor rugs, select ones that can be flipped over in case of staining. And for tablecloths, simply keep a second set on hand.