DIY accessory for potted plants

Hi everyone! Like most people living in the metros I too have space constraint and therefore my so called garden is on my window grill. And yes I do struggle to keep my plants alive. The regular stuff like watering, plant food, trimming, rotation basis sunlight etc... does happen. But the difficult one to tackle are attacks from the pigeon and crows!

Somewhere I read that the birds do not like bright colours. So I decided to do a DIY accessory for the plants that will also protect them. 

This one is a very quick DIY. The materials required are pop sticks or regular kulfi sticks, readymade flowers or butterflies made of net and glue. I choose butterfly because I love butterflies.

Procedure: [refer to pic above]

1. Stick the ready made butterfly to the stick
2. Allow it to dry and then place it in the pots

I choose bright pink and purple butterflies. Look above don't they look beautiful. Now I just hope the birds don't like them as much as I do.

I used to stick flags of different colours to stick and put it in the pots, also used some of my son's craft stuck it on the sticks and put it in the pots. But I liked this the best.

This one is such a quick and easy DIY that you have absolutely no excuse not to try it. Do try it and share your experience with me. Do let me know if you liked my idea, drop a line below I am waiting :)

Check my other work here. Or simply search for craft and art on the blog.

Kids book storage DIY

In my last post I mentioned there was an eye soar and that i'd fix it and write a post around it. So here I am with my DIY post. If you remember my post Glimpses of my house, I had created a reading nook for my son. In the rack I had reused old cartons to keep his books. Yup that was the eye soar and I have fixed it :)

Glimpses of my house

Ever since I was in college one of my favourite pass times was to read décor magazine namely Inside outside, Ikea, Interior Design, Home design, House garden etc.. I would be in awe of all that I saw, the beautiful interiors, plus décor, huge entryways, luxurious furniture etc..

Seeing all the design always brought many basic questions to my mind which never really got answered. e.g.

• Who cleans such large spaces, especially dusting

• How do they maintain the décor on a day to day basis

• Does the interior not get ruined during the rains

•  Do the furniture or drapes etc not get spoilt? If they do get spoilt will the set not break!

• Who designs such pretty homes, but what if the owner doesn't like the design!

•  Do they not get bored of seeing the same thing

While none of the above got answered I did get a sense of my individual style. Yes there is a learning process even in mere observation. So what is my individual style? Well it is:

• Simple, functional and clean straight lines

• Bright warm lights

• Light weight furniture

• Easy to clean and uncluttered spaces

Easy of maintenance tops the chart. No matter what I Choose for the house be it a piece of furniture, accessory or drapes I pick it on the basis of complexity of its maintenance and its endurance levels of the Mumbai monsoon.

Having said that, nothing is final, after all these years I am still at experimentation stage :) Maximum experiments happen in my house. Below are few glimpses of my house.

Above is a picture of my living room. We experimented with one colour on each wall and it looks nice. There is a bright yellow wall which I absolutely adore. A simple big watch tells the time. I prefer ethnic over contemporary style. I like to pick up things from our various travels. The jharoka is from Udaipur, the terracotta Krishna idol inside it is from Kolkata, the brass lamp from Cochin etc. I also prefer durries over carpets for easy maintenance. I prefer accessories made by myself. The mural, painted food containers, Newspaper weaved basket, Warli painting etc.. are made by yours truly. Don't miss the light weight seaters and sofa. I also like plants in the house. They give so much character and charm to any room.

Above is my pink wall. This is a cozy corner full of soft toys, ideal for ideation, reading or just day dreaming. The terracotta dhol below the plant is from Jaipur and the wooden Jagannath statue from Puri in Orissa. Yes I love natural materials and fibre hence you will see a lot of wood, bamboo, terracotta and brass around my house. Hmn and my favourite flowers, easiest way to lift moods, muah!!

Lovely na I know :) But guess what boredom hits me very easily. I cant see the same things around me all the time. So I like moving things around and it brings about instant visible change. And that's precisely why I have light weight furniture, minimal wall decor and minimal fixed furniture.

Look at the above picture, its from the living room. I filled this space with two individual chairs and have placed a multipurpose table in the centre. The plant always a part of the interior, and have thrown in a terracotta tortoise and a soft toy. What say do you like the effect?

The above picture is a reading corner I created using the bamboo corner table. I collected all my sons favourite books and stacked them here. In the summer vacation I wanted these books easily accessible to him. It has a stool for him to be seated and an easel for him to scribble on. My son helped me assemble it and was super excited with the effect. What do you think? This area though has an eye soar. I will fix it and bring a DIY post soon.

That's all for now. 

Would you like to drop a line or story of your house? Do write in, waiting to hear from you.