Crafts At Home

When you turn your basement or attic into finished space, you often end up with awkward soffits to cover the ductwork and venting that occupy that space.  Decorating around these untraditional features can be quite challenging.

However, with a pretty wallpaper border, you can turn these decorating challenges into a chance to showcase your tastes.  By applying a border to accent these features you choose to embrace the things that make your room unique and work with them rather than against them.  Decorated in this manner, your friends and family will never know that having that soffit wasn’t always in your plans. 

Remember the fun you had watching “Happy Days” as a kid?  If you couldn’t get enough of “Leave it to Beaver,” you may find fun in incorporating a fifties-themed bathroom into your home’s décor.

In fifties decorating the most important thing for you to consider is color.  Many décor items in the original bathrooms from the fifties were adorned in bright colors like salmon and aqua blue.  Go for a bold, fifties print when choosing your wallpaper or wallpaper border.  Then select accessories with a bright chrome finish.  In no time at all, your bathroom will become the embodiment of the fifties. 

When you think of bathroom storage accessories, you probably think of the decorative canisters that coordinated with the rest of your bathroom accessories.  However, that doesn’t have to be the only way you store the necessary items in your bathroom.

Decorative baskets are inexpensive alternatives to your bathroom storage accessory needs.  You can store all kinds of things in these baskets from toilet paper to washcloths.  And, since the baskets will take these ordinary items and make them decorative, you can display your necessary items out in plain sight.  They’ll be easily accessible and pretty, too. 

As long as you’re decorating your room, don’t forget to make sure that the lamps in your room fit into your room’s new décor.  Don’t despair, however, about the expense of new lamps.  You can easily update a plain lampshade to match your new decorating scheme.

If you have a larger-sized lamp shade, you can simply apply a row of wallpaper border around the bottom of the lamp shade.  For a smaller lamp shade, try picking one motif out of the border.  You can cut out multiple pieces of that motif and apply it in a row around the shade.  Either way, your lamps will now perfectly coordinate with your room. 

Are you looking for the perfect accessory for your nightstand?  The perfect item for you may be the ultimate combination of a useful item and a fashionable one:  an alarm clock.  Forget those little black boxes that seem to zap any personality from your night stand.  Instead, make a statement with a customized clock that is as charming as the rest of your room.

Start by choosing an alarm clock with a clear plastic cover over the clock face.  Remove the cover and clock hands to get to the clock’s face.  Now remove the face and cover it with a scrap from your wallpaper border.  Put each of the clock’s components back in its original place and you’re stylish new clock is ready for action. 

After going to all of the effort to redecorate your kitchen, you may be reluctant to display your children’s placemats in your carefully coordinated room.  After all, who wants to see a smiling Elmo in their Tuscan-themed kitchen?  Or a Strawberry Shortcake figure in their sleek, modern kitchen. 

With a little creativity, and some wallpaper border, you can create placemats for your kids that won’t make you cringe.  Simply glue the strips of border back to back and laminate.  These placemats will allow you to enjoy the beauty of designer placemats without sacrificing the easy care that accompanies your children’s place mats. 

It’s official; even the craft gurus have noticed how wonderful wallpaper borders are.  An episode of famed craft person Carol Duvall’s television program showed viewers how to use a textured wallpaper border to create an exquisite handcrafted card.  A quick demonstration showed that by folding a piece of non-pasted border around some vellum paper and binding the two together you can create a card that is suitable for even your most special friends and relatives.

So, after you finish applying your wallpaper border in your home, make sure you save the scraps.  You never when you might be inspired to be even more creative with your

Don’t you hate spending a ton of money of fancy gift bags or wrapping paper?  Sure, they’re pretty, but if you spend too much on the wrapping, you run the risk of cutting into the money you were going to use on the actual gift.

Instead of buying elaborate gift bags consider using the plain ones.  You can often find these on sale at craft stores.  Try to pick a color that will coordinate with wallpaper border scraps you have lying around the house.  Then apply motifs from the border to dress up your gift bag.  When you’ve finished packaging your gift, all of your friends will wonder where you found such special wrapping materials. 

Even the beginning crafter will find it easy to create a special hiding place for the toiletries that tend to gather on your bathroom vanity.  Instead of spending your mornings pulling your grooming items out of a drawer and replacing them when you’ve finished your morning preparations, try finding a way to hold them that’s attractive enough to be displayed.

Begin by purchasing a plain, unfinished wooden box from your local craft store.  Choose a box whose shape and size fit your needs (and your countertop).  Then paint or stain the box to match your bathroom’s décor.  Finally install a drawer pull that coordinates with the rest of your bathroom.  Now, you can leave your toiletries in their rightful place on the vanity’s top.  Simply replace the lid when you finish preparing for the day, and you’re ready to face the world. 

People who are into crafts often love to take a purchased item and make it their own with extra embellishment.  Well, bathroom accessories shouldn’t be any different.

Take for example the fingertip towel that accompanies the Antoinette bathroom suite.  No one could argue that this towel is lovely in its own right.  However, imagine how much more dramatic it could with the addition of a black ribbon trim along the bottom. 

After you’ve purchased accessories for your bathroom, don’t assume that your work is done.  Get creative with the items in your bathroom to create a look that no one else will have.