A colorful evening : Kitsch Mandi 2014, bangalore

Colorful hanging lights

And these were upcycled bottled that turned into mesmerizing lamps with the effect of paint and little engineering :)

charms that every lady would like to add to her collection...

Can you guess what these are,,,try....these are MDF sheets in which shapes have been cut and with a very innovative thought lights have been added behind them 

Yes, they are all hand made

dazzlers........

First lesson of being organized

The first lesson of being organized is to learn to discard or donate. The lesser you have , the more organized you can be as it is easy to organize smaller number of items, and it makes no sense to keep cluttering your sweet home with all those unnecessary things that you never use or even look at.
But its easy said than done when it comes to discarding things, you won't know where to start, how to go about it and at times it will be difficult to get rid of those small things that you really love, even if they don't have any value addition in your house. So, here's some golden rule that help you starting to discard or donate:

• First of all learn that discarding and donating is not a one time job. Initially when you do it for the first time, it might be most time taking. With time the frequency at which you need to do it would decrease and the amount of things that you would collect for donating or discarding, would also reduce every time you do this over. But you still need to keep doing it at regular intervals.
• I always say - donate or discard - discard or donate - because , if there is something that might not be of use to you anymore but can be used by someone else - its better to donate. there might be other things that are broken, ruined, rusted or torn so that they won't be of any use to anyone, only then should you discard them. When you start your organization spree, have two bags - mark them as "donate" and "discard" and then start with them
• Carry the above bags all through your house - slowly - maybe over a period of days (one room at a time or one closet at a time). Keep looking into every nook and corner, all the drawers, wardrobes, tables, wall hangers, bookcases and cabinets , inside files and folders and keep picking things that you no longer use or need or you can't use because they are ruined. keep putting them in the discard or donate bag as you pick them.
• If you do the above, dedicating some 15-20 mins per day then that should be sufficient enough for you to get your whole house free of unwanted things in a week's time.
• At the end, grab the bag that says "discard" and just throw it in the dustbin or hand over to the garbage collector that comes to your home to collect the garbage. 
• If you would be happy to do a little bit more and contribute towards a "go green" initiative, then categorize the contents of this bag before discarding material wise - like papers, glasses, metals, tins etc. which will help save sometime for the people who can collect them from you and then recycle them, or, you can give specific things at specific places - like papers to those who collect and recycle paper, tins and cans for those who recycle them.
• One more step further, if you are also interested in DIYs and crafts & creativity, there are dozens of sites out there which would give you idea about how to recycle and use. Go ahead, explore some of them, and you might be able to build some decorative or useful pieces out of the garbage that you were about to throw.
• Now, grab the bag that says "donate" and categorize its contents. There might be different kind of things that you would have collected. They might be donatable to different kind of organizations like your children's cloths, shoes, books and copies and toys that can go to orphanages. Your own cloths, blankets, utensils, etc. can be donated to disaster relief organizations, old age homes or other such places.  
• If you want to make money out of your garbage, you can as well do that. Organize a garage sale and sell off whatever you feel is no longer of use to you but others might be interested in, you can send your books & magazines to second hand book selling stores or lend them to libraries on some nominal fee. You can also sell them on ebay and facebook.

So, have a nice time cleaning, discarding and donating. Once you are done with this, we will learn further lessons on organizing corners and areas of the home one at a time. More references here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=declutter

Conquering your wardrobe

Are you one of those whose cloths fall out of the wardrobe when you open it, or, who is able to find only one socks out of the pair at the last moment and has to dig through the whole wardrobe in a hurry, or, the one who does organize the wardrobe every few days/weeks/months and then again slowly the rows become entangled, and everything seems out of place as days pass? You want the wardrobe to be organized and good looking, you want to find things right in place and not waste time searching for them here and there, you don't want to loose that favorite blue top somewhere in the pile of your cloths, you want a suitable place for everything, but don't know where to start. Even if you are organized and you had place for everything in your wardrobe, with time you seem to be running out of space, you so very much like that new dress in the shop but you are not buying it simply because you don't seem to have space to put it in. Think again... there is solution to all of the above. It is possible that you do your wardrobe once and then you don't have to arrange it for years to come. It is possible  to fit in a lot more in a small space than you thought. I am an organization freak and over a period of time, by searching through websites, watching videos and putting in some extra of my own creativity, I have learnt that it is absolutely possible to be organized and remain organized and to fit in a lot in a little space. I thought there is enough wisdom available on net regarding this and I don't need to spread the knowledge, but, when I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks back and she told her wardrobe was in a mess and she was really exhausted of rearranging it almost every week, I suggested her a few ideas. She was so happy, she did a makeover of her wardrobe that very day and sent me a nice pic at the end!!! That is when I decided to share some of the things that I knew to you.....

The most shining of all "golden rules" is to first take out everything, from your wardrobe, and collect the cloths and other things that you no longer use - anything that you haven't used for more than past 6 months, or, anything that you no longer fit into.Separate them out, and keep them for discarding or donating. (Preferably, donate them :) ).

Now, you should categorize the rest of your cloths. The categorization might vary for different people. Some might like to categorize based on colors so that they can color coordinate their dresses, others might prefer type wise categorization like all the tops together, round necks together and jeans together etc. , still others might categorize based on some other criteria as per their preference. So, it is completely up to you to categorize your cloths.

Once categorized, you should select the right kind of wardrobe organizers for your dresses, shoes and other stuff that you keep inside your wardrobe. Below are some of the organizers that I find very useful, I am myself using most of them and as a result, I have been able to accommodate large number of things in my small wardrobe and I still have room for more.

1. Hanging divider organizer: I personally categorize dresses and stuff based on type and thus find these divider organizers highly useful in organizing them in different shelves. Earlier, when I didn't have such an organizer then I had no other option than to keep different such cloths in a single pile and as you can imagine, the pile would grow on and on and eventually cloths would start falling off the pile. Now, after I had once arranged the cloths in these shelves, I have never needed to rearrange them, and I could accommodate so much more in these shelves. I have even dedicated one shelf to the cloths which require laundry (the shelf getting full is a good benchmark for me to indicate that it is time to do my laundry :) )  

   

   hanging organizers from bed bath and beyond

    
2. Hanging shoe organizer: These can be used for organizing various pairs of your shoes - as the name indicates, but don't let your imagination stop there. These can be used for various other purposes as well, I use one of these for lighter and smaller cloths like tops, folded scarves etc and I actually keep my press / iron in one of the shelves here (of course after it cools down post pressing the cloths). When my baby was born, I bought one of these for organizing the baby stuff and it did wonders. They have so many types of tiny dresses that these sleeker organizers proved to be the perfect one for them where I could easily categorize them easily (like wraps, shorts, pajamas, rompers, sleep wear, full sleeve shirts, half sleeve shirts, dresses, diapers, nappies etc.) and put each one in a different shelves.

   

   hanging shoe organizer

3. Over the door shoe organizer: Again, these are meant to store shoes, but they can be used for storing lots of other small small things like your hankers, scarves, folded belts etc. and anything else that you find convenient to store in these. There are transparent varieties wherein you can easily see what you have put - no longer loosing your socks here and there - one pair per pocket solves the problem :)

   

   over the door shoe organizer

4. Over the door jewelry organizer: These are very similar to the over the door shoe organizers and these also can be used for lots of small small nick knacks like handkerchiefs, socks, stockings etc. being over the door saves you precious wardrobe space for more stuff.
5. Scarf hanger: These are great for storing your daily use scarves

   

   scarf hanger from bed bath and beyond

6. Belt hooks: You can put simple hooks or even no drill adhesive based hooks on the back side or on one side of your wardrobe and easily hang your belts over there 

   

   adhesive hooks

7. Drawer dividers: These are great for arranging small items inside drawers. You once use these and allocate space for every small piece of cloth and you no longer need to reorganize. Plus the drawer looks so neat that you wont believe your eyes. 
8. Shoe boxes: These can be used for storing shoes or small items again.

   

   shoe boxes for organization

9. Purse organizer: Of course for purses - a must have for all ladies out there. 

   

   a pretty purse organizer

10. Living boxes from lock n lock and similar other organizers: These are great for storing the cloths , woolen etc, which you want to put out of the sight during off seasons or which you occasionally wear. Put them in these lock and lock boxes and they will stay tidied and well protected. 

    

    living boxes from lock and lock

  Apart from these accessories, there are some simple rules that help keep our wardrobes organized   better. Like :

• Keep the less used, occasional wear out of reach on top shelves.
• Keep more frequently used items within easy reach
• Donate and discard on regular basis. I prefer to donate. 
• Buy only what you are really going to use & what you really like.

So, go ahead, use the above and ...... happy organizing :)

A beautiful evening sky

Sometime back I took some snaps of a wonderful evening sky changing colors with time..sharing them across.

Starter....

Here goes my first post on this blog...I had been giving it a thought to start blogging about home design, decor,organization etc. for a long time, and finally today I got started on this first post !!! WOW..I am excited.
When it comes to interior decoration, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here I intend to introduce all you interior decor enthusiast to some of the best inspirations that I came across in the online world. What would be a better way to start the blog with a post that salutes the sources of my inspiration :) . So, here it goes:-

BHG (Better Homes and Gardens)

While on my way of trying to find some decor inspirations for different rooms, I stumbled upom BHG and I am so happy I subscribed to their newsletters. I got to learn so much from you, be it decor, organization or DIYs. You guys rock. Here are some images from BHG that I love for their fab and simplicity

Look at this beautiful , elegant yet colorful bedroom. Its at such a balance of being calm and vibrant with colors at the same time

A simple, yet elegant bedroom (image source : www.bhg.com)

Did you ever imagine, it was so easy and simple to store your makeup essentials and small small knick nacks. I loved this idea, and I am actually following it, only I couldn't get hold of so pretty jars so I am doing with little less pretty ones :)

What an innovative way of storing and organizing the makeup essentials (image source : www.bhg.com)

I simply love these kitchen cabinets, the finishing, the arrangement of appliances and the frosted glass long cabinets:

wow kitchen cabinet !! (image source : www.bhg.com)

Interior decoration is a passion that I have been born with. Since my childhood, I have always felt attracted to beautiful interior designs and decor - be it through decor magazines, or while visiting some new homes or television serials, movies etc - yes, you read it right! When I watch moves and television, sometimes the characters become transparent for me and what I concentrate on is that beautiful flower vase visible from the coffee table behind them, or the pretty curtains adding a charm in the backdrop :). Now, that would give you an idea of how much passion I hold towards interior decor. And, I am not wrong in saying there is a whole lot of people out there who share my passion and enthusiasm when it comes to interior decoration. Through this blog, I intend to reach out to all of you out there who feel a similar way, I would like you to share your ideas, knowledge and experience. Because this is one of those rare fields where you can learn a lot without going through any formal trainings.

Here goes yet another source of inspiration: An Indian Summer. simply fell in love with this blog.

Click here to link to the original image from an indian summer blog

Another website that I can browse for hours without fail is prismma. And ofcourse the post can't complete without reference to houzz and pinterest ! There are some other blogs, particularly on indian interiors, that I started following recently. Particularly love the work of Rajee Sood..she is such a source of inspiration for all those carving to make a mark of their own in this field. And last but not the least: http://www.kwikdeko.com/blog.