Ideas to decorate home for Diwali

Rakhii · Sep 6, 2013

Dear ladies, as the festival season is on its way, I want to start thinking about getting things together to decorate home for Diwali. Now that my DD is close to 2 years old, I would like her to look forward to decorating for Diwali as much as we enjoy decorating for Halloween and Christmas.

Its so easy to decorate for Christmas and Halloween as that stuff is easily available but I am stuck with indoor decorating ideas for Diwali.

Can someone please advise me any ideas? Specially for staircase as that's what we see when we enter home? I am not looking for lighting decorations (we already have that outside).

Please ladies! I want to make this festival season special!

Srama · Sep 6, 2013

Rakhi,

the first thought that came to my mind is to keep traditional diyas on each stair and light them up using battery operated tealights.

You can decorate the railings of your stair way with artificial flower garlands - Indian ones.

If your stairs are not carpeted, perhpas some rangoli designs either with chalk colors or kundan work is a good idea.

I usually do some colorful rangolis on the kitchen counter tops, island and decorate with candles there too. Here especially on the island, I use floating candles.

Let me continue to think on this and I do hope other ILs will contribute too. Would you be able to post the picture of your stair way?

anmolhai · Sep 6, 2013

Some years ago I made a rangoli on clear plastic which Iuse to take out on Diwali. It was big & I glued colored rice in an intricate rangoli pattern. You can also make some rectangles with cardboard paper and make diyas with glitter on them. You can hang these on your stair case along with gold or silver garland that you get at Christmas time. You can also wrap your saree or dupattas in garland fashion on stairs. I have also made rangoli outside the house with colored chalk.

good thinking girl, I haven't even thought about Diwali yet !!!

naliniraut · Sep 6, 2013

Hi Rakhi,
When my kids were young, I used to make divays at home using clay. My son used to love that and then we used to colour and decorate those diyas with sparkles and bits. It used to be very messy but fun for him and he used to look forward for diwali. Good memories.
With my daughter I used to make some paper flowers and decorate their room. I used to involve them to make toran for the doors. It is more exciting when their input is taken into consideration. Both of them are teenagers now but they fondly recall those days.

Rakhii · Sep 6, 2013

Srama, thanks so much! OK, I am going to try and find the artificial flower garlands in some Indian stores. That’s a good idea, thanks for that. My stairs are carpeted and so, I cannot put anything on them.
Kitchen counter tops are off limits. I mean, my counter top is not big enough to dram pictures and place other kitchen items. But I like the idea. I perhaps can do that on the floor leading to the stairs!
I don’t have the island L Fairly small kitchen actually L
I am thinking of getting the pot lights done underneath the kitchen cabinets. Have to see if I can do that before Diwali!

I have pretty boring stairs Srama. Here is the picture…well, this is not my stairs but its 95% close only with the exception of color being brown instead of white. BTW, no room for table beside the

Around The House - traditional - staircase - toronto - by Laura Collins Design

Anmolhai, thanks a lot! Rangoli on plastic might not work for me but I love the idea of cardboard cutting for diya’s! How about I cut the cardboard into diya shape and attach it to the garland which Srama was talking about?
I cannot use dupattas though. They are all of different colors and it might look weird if I mix/match them.

Nalini, Thanks a lot for your input. Yes, I also want to get my kid into enjoying Diwali. Being here for a long time would mean that she is going to love Halloween etc and I also want her to know and enjoy our Indian festivals. Making diyas…good idea. Maybe next year after my DD is over 2 years old J

nuss · Sep 6, 2013

Hi Rakhii,
These are few things we incorporated in our wedding that can easily be used for Diwali decoration. Since my wedding was fusion (Indian+ American0, we tried to mix several elements from India, such as:
1. We used tulle to wrap the staircase rails and then wrapped bird strings (you can get from Indian stores or world market or any fair trade store). Tulle was basically just to give a white background for 'ladies' to stand out.
2. We painted fragrant candles (Home essence) jars in bright colors and then made Indian designs on them.
3. Used table runners from different fabric from different States of India (silk, cotton, Rajasthani print, Guajarati emb etc), different for every table. You can use something that reminds you of home for your dining table for
special meal.
4. We also made our own napkin holder but that's a lot of work.
5. For guest favors (you can use it to send sweets to neighbors or friends) we bought Kashmiri papier mache boxes filled with Rewari (speciallity of my town) and Harshey kisses (my husband's favorite)

For our first Diwali together, my husband bought two boxes of battery lights (diya) that he put all around the house and electric light strings on windows.

Rakhii · Sep 6, 2013

Nuss, thanks a LOT for the wonderful ideas! I love the idea of table runners! I think I will sure incorporate this!
I am thinking, how would it be if I buy new cushion covers? the ones with small mirrors on them?

Thanks so much again! After all this, I am sure gonna come back and post the pictures here

Srama · Sep 7, 2013

Rakhi,

if you have room just like that under your stairs, perhaps you can think of a similar idea of putting up a table and displaying diyas and rangoli and using a saree or a duppatta as table cover!

PS: oops just read nuss has given you the same idea for table runners