DIY Decorative Diwali Candle/Tealight/Diya Floor Stand with supplies at home!

Diwali is just around the corner, and I wanted to make some new fun stuff for decorations around the home. It is our first Diwali, in our first home! This one has to be special, but I wanted to make something versatile, rather than one that would be tucked away for the rest of the year. That's when I came up with the idea of this Floor Diya Stand. It is quick and gorgeous, and will also liven any decor! Once Diwali is gone, it can be used as a cupcake stand for parties!!

Also, this project took me a total of 1 hour 15 minutes, and the end result is SO worth it!

Supplies needed:

• Recycled Cardboard sheets - I used empty carton boxes which I had lying around from when we were painting. 

• Thick Cardboard rolls - You could use toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, or even wrapping paper rolls
• Decorative paper - You could use scrapbook paper, origami paper, recycled cardboard sheets, whatever you have at hand
• Laces 
• Glue
• Glue Gun
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Tea lights for decoration
• Rhinestones, or any other items for decoration

Directions:

You can go with any other shape - triangle, circle or a flower for the "levels", but I thought squares would be quickest to make, and I was right. If you have time, you could tweak this tutorial to make any other shape. 

Also, I wanted height, so I made four "levels", you can add or remove to suit your space and liking.

1. I started with cutting out pieces of cardboard. These would make the base and the "levels".
I used the following measurements:

- 10 cm x 10 cm
- 15 cm x 15 cm
- 20 cm x 20 cm
- 25 cm x 25 cm  

Here are the final cardboard pieces. (You can see the paint splatters on most of them!)

2. Then, I started wrapping the cardboard in paper on both the sides. 

 

Then covering it with glitter paper and some fun scrapbook paper. Now, you could go crazy with colors because Diwali is all about colors, but since I wanted to reuse this as a cupcake stand in the near future, I kept it subtle.

 

Here are the final cardboard pieces:

 

3. Now, I should have measure the height and all, but I just ended up using one toilet paper roll as it is, and splitting the paper towel roll exactly in half for the three pillars creating the height.

4. I had Glitter cloth lying around, so I used it to wrap the rolls. You could use some decorative paper fabric, lace, or glitter tape to cover it up.

 

5. Now the glitter shebang starts! Use the glue gun to add whatever decorative laces or tape you want to the sides of the cardboard pieces.

6.  Assemble with the help of glue gun! 

 

 7. Stick on flowers, rhinestones or pearls

And we are done.. TA-DA!

8. Decorate with tealights/diyas/candles or cupcakes! :)

Let me know if you try this. And I would love to see pics of your handmade Diwali decorations, so please do share!

Xoxo

Divya

DIY Color Swatch Art

The wall in front of my table in the craft room had been blank and drab forever. My initial plan was to add a pegboard but husband had a fit at the number of holes we would be making in the wall in the process. Check out the rest of my Craft Room/Study here.

While watching the Fixer Upper series, I noticed some Color Swatch Art in one of the styled houses and literally fell in love with the idea. I knew that this would be the perfect pop of inspiration I needed on my wall, also adding color to the space.


The same day, we were off to Spotlight to get some canvases for the purpose. I grabbed 8 of the 11"x14" ones for 2$ each. (SCORE!) Just look at the transformation!

Supplies needed: 

• 11"x14" canvas - 8
  (Technically, the number and the size of the canvas would depend on the size of the wall you would like to cover with this project)
• Acrylic Paint
  (In the colors you would like to paint, or you could mix up colors to make new ones, totally up to you!)
• Alphabet Stencils 
• Mod Podge
• Pencil
• Ruler 
• Eraser

Directions:

1. I started with creating an outline for the color swatch with a pencil and a ruler. I wanted a 1 cm border around three sides, just because I think that looked better. My measurements of the square hence, turned out to be 25.5cm x 25.5cm. I created these on all the canvases as a guide for the paint.
    
   
2. Then I decided on the color palette I wanted to paint, and started to fill in the squares with the decided colors. I decided on the following shades: Crimson Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, and made some pastel and neutral shades: Jade Green, Lilac Purple, Light Pink, Steel Grey and a Bright Orange. The painting need not be perfect, so I slapped the paint on!
   
   
   
   
   
3. Once this was complete, I stenciled out the color names on the bottom of each swatch canvas with pencil. I could have spelled out the exact color, but I only wanted to replicate the look and feel of a swatch, so kept it super simple!
   
   
   
4. With black paint I filled in these words. This was the most time consuming and tiring part of the entire project since this needed to be precise. You could use other mediums to do this, but I wanted to paint.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once everything was dried up, I mod podged all the canvases to seal and finish them up. This gave them a professional look and removed any major inconsistencies in paint color.
   
   
   

   

Two more to finish, and that's it, all done and ready to hang... love them to pieces! We used 3M Picture strips to hang these canvases. Trying to figure out the arrangement here:

And this is what the final arrangement looks like! They add such a fun vibe to the room and lots of pops of colors - perfect accompaniment to my doodle wall!

Hope these have inspired you to make something fun and colorful for your home! 

Xoxo

Divya