Weekend DIY Series: Circus Themed Bedroom for Your Child Complete with Tented Ceiling
Lions and tigers and bears – oh my! Everyone loves the circus, complete with clowns and performing animals and it makes a great theme for a child’s bedroom or baby nursery. If you are an avid do it yourselfer, it only takes a weekend, paint, fabric and a little creativity to create a circus bedroom that will delight your child and ignite their imagination.
Creating a circus themed bedroom can be as simple as hanging stuffed animals from the ceiling (monkeys looks especially nice) and sewing a simple set of rod pocket curtains and a duvet cover from a few yards of fun fabric. For a baby, check out Amy Coe’s circus themed fabric at your local fabric store. For a toddler or older child, Covington makes the most fabulous circus toile fabric that you will fall in love with!
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Lighting can change a home’s atmosphere in many ways. I never realized the effect that lighting had on a home until I lived in a small apartment without overhead lights. Trying to keep enough light in my home so that it really felt comfortable was extremely difficult. Although I found ways to work with the lack of light, I never felt completely at ease in my home without effective lighting. The dimness of the rooms could be depressing, and during the winter, the darkness was at times unbearable. Choosing light fixtures and lighting for your home can be difficult, but your family will thank you for your choices.
If you have the opportunity to use overhead lights, then you should take advantage of that. Overhead lights offer a lot of light that spreads throughout a room. How much light is given off depends on the wattage of the bulbs as well as the type of light fixture you purchase. The light fixtures on ceiling fans and Chandeliers give off a lot of light because they have four bulbs, one shining in each direction. However, yellow tinted bowl light fixtures tend to give off a yellowish glow and leave most of the rim in semi-darkness; the color can make everyone look jaundiced and does little to lighten a room. Also be careful about using light fixtures with many details that will be hard to dust.
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Many people don’t seem to realize that there are several colors which are quite sexy. Meaning these colors create feelings and moods of senuality and intimacy, and these can be quite sexy to use in your bedroom decorating themes and designs. Before getting started of course though, it’s helpful to know which colors are considered the sexiest…
Romance & Passion With Red
The color red is an obvious, and universally accepted sexy color. Red symbolizes passion, romance, and increased sexuality. Red is very bold though, so be careful not to dominate the room with red completely. Painting the walls completely red for instance, can actually create the opposite effect than you’re going for. Using certain shades of red on the walls may create depression and overly agressive behavior. Using red as your primary room color is fine, but do it through the use of accents and accessories such as brilliant red silk sheets, instead of painting the entire wall that color.
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Decorating your child’s nursery is an exciting experience. Your little bundle of joy will finally be in your arms soon, and you want to make sure his or her new home is absolutely perfect. The biggest shock for a child is coming from the warmth and comfort of your stomach into the vastness of the world. Creating a home that is both safe and comfortable is your top priority when decorating your nursery.
Colors are especially important in designing a nursery. Although babies are said to see in black and white at first, bright colors will soon attract their attention and become quite important to their overall development. Having cozy, relaxing colors like peach, green, and blue in the room may help your baby to rest easier, and sleep better.
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The first time you rent your very own apartment or house, friends and relatives often either give you hand me down essentials or they go out and buy you some of the basic necessities to get started with. And while this is very nice, welcome, and useful, most of us end up with a variety of home decor items that don’t match. As the years pass and we collect decorating accents and accessories from various sales, flea markets, and other friends or family members though, sometimes it can seem as if nothing we have matches at all.
And the dining room seems to be the worst place this occurs most often at. Since dishes, silverware, and pots and pans are one of the first things we need to live in our own home, these are the items that are given to us most often. So we can find ourselves with a large variety of beautiful kitchen or dining room accessories that don’t quite seem to go together in any way.
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Okay, you’ve got this gorgeous fireplace mantel that’s everything you ever wanted a mantel to be. Now how do you plan to decorate it?
Style preferences aside, there is a formula professional decorators use for arranging items on a fireplace mantel that gets great results every time. Known to the trade as “three plus one” the formula calls for placing three related objects of similar size at one end of the mantelpiece.
These objects don’t have to be the exact same height, but shouldn’t be strikingly disparate in size, either. For example, using three silver candlesticks 10, 14 and 16 inches tall will look fine; using one 16-inch candlestick with two four-inch ones will not. Your three objects can vary more from each other in style, however a very ornate, Art Nouveau candlestick and a pair of more Spartan colonial-style ones may not play well together. Don’t line up your three objects in military-fashion, either. Placing them several inches away from the outer edge of the mantel and at angles to each other and to the room will give a much better appearance.
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Easy Fabric Wall Panels: A Great Way to Add Color and Personality to ‘No Paint’ Apartments
If you’re renting an apartment the owner won’t allow you to paint, but the color of the walls just isn’t what you want, don’t give up. You can change the look of “no-paint” walls in a couple of hours using fabric wall panels that are inexpensive, easy-to-make and a snap to install.
Begin by measuring the length of the wall or walls you want to change, and dividing that measurement so that the resulting number of panels are each no wider than about two and a half feet. This size allows you to use material that is 45 or 60 inches wide with the least amount of wastage.
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Space Saving Decorating Ideas for Small Homes and Apartments
You don’t have to live in a 6000-square foot suburban manor to enjoy a spacious feeling in your home. Even the most committed studio apartment dweller can make design changes that enhance the feeling of spaciousness. If you live in a small apartment or house, use the following tips to make it feel bigger.
Don’t be a packrat: Clutter can make any size space seem claustrophobic. Stripping your possessions down to a minimum not only creates more room, it makes you feel freer and lighter as well! Make sure that every possession you have can justify the space it occupies. Get rid of those that don’t. Collect all the stuff you don’t love, use or wear and hold a yard sale or donate it to your local thrift shop.
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Mixing Floral and Plaid Patterns: Obtaining Balance for a Professional Interior Design Look
The mix of floral and plaid is charming and inviting; it is a healthy balance of feminine and masculine; it is a harmonious blend of country and modern all at the same time. Putting these two elements together and achieving balance can be exciting and result in a well put together room and interior decor that looks professionally designed. A successful mix of floral and plaid patterns makes you feel comfortable and cozy, like a warm country home or a tucked-away bed and breakfast.
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Quick Kitchen Facelift: How to Restore the Heart of Your Home All On Your Own
Want to redo your dark and dreary kitchen without spending a bundle on new cabinets and appliances? Consider giving it a DIY facelift next weekend.
Changing the ambience from outdated to trendy in the heart of your home, the kitchen, doesn’t have to be any more extensive than thoroughly cleaning the cabinet fronts and applying a coat of fresh white paint. White is the most popular color for kitchens today, with good reason. People are tired of dark wood kitchens that look somber and serious! White makes a wonderful backdrop for bowls of fresh fruit, stainless steel appliances and shiny kitchen utensils, too.
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