DIY diya garland for Diwali

I love decorating the house for Diwali. Each year I go shopping looking for new candles, rangolis, hand painted diyas and anything new that I can lay my hands on. This year apart from decorating the home I also wanted to create something thoughtful and special in D's play area. And so I ended up making a diya garland. Not only does it look adorable hanging on the window but also adds the right amount of festive touch to our favorite area of the house.

Last week, a fellow blogger posted about how she made a diya garland at home. It was simple, easy to put together and such a unique idea for festive decor. Taking inspiration, I decided to create one of my own. 

Following is the step by step process on how I made it. Don't panic guys, it's really easy and hardly took me an hour to put together.

Things you'll need

1: Craft paper ( I used the ones I already had)
2:  A pair of scissors
3: Glue
4: Sparkle colors
5: A thread (to hold the garland together)

Since its a Diwali garland you can choose the craft paper in combination of red ( for the diya) and yellow (for the flame) The reason I chose different colors for mine is because it was for D's play area.

Using a pencil I traced out a diya on the blank side of the craft paper. It was fairly simple ( no artistic skills needed!) Then with a pair of scissors cutting it along the borders, my first diya cut out was ready. I used the cut out to trace diyas on the rest of the sheets

Once my diya cut outs were ready I used sparkle colors to brighten them up. The only thing to remember while using sparkles is that they take about 5-6 hours to dry but its totally worth the wait.

After they dried out completely I used a punching machine to make holes on both ends of every Dia. Then tied them all together with a jute thread thick enough to hold the weight of the diyas.

I had 16 diya cut outs and didn't want a very long garland so made a double layered one. You can choose how long you want yours to be and accordingly decide on the number of diyas.

It's really that easy and I had so much fun doing a diy activity this Diwali. Coincidently, it's a diya garland which also happens to by my daughters name! And so I feel like I'm going to let the garland stay hanging on the wall post Diwali too! 

My Polka Dot wall

Lately, one thing that's keeping me occupied other than D (of course) is Pinterest. I've been spending all the free time at my discretion to browse through the creative world of DIY stuff and believe me it can get addictive.

We have a play area for D and I wanted to do a little something to decorate it since a while now. And so I turned to Pinterest for some nursery decor ideas. After scanning through bunch of gorgeous images, I decided to glam up the walls using some gold polka dot wall decals.

They were super easy, quick and non messy to install and I love how it has changed the look of her entire play area. Another advantage of this DIY weekend activity was how much fun RJ and me had doing this together for our little girl.

We did this during D's afternoon nap time and when she woke up to the gold confetti sprinkles on the wall she couldn't stop gazing. Watching her excitement trying to catch them with her tiny hands was so adorable. 

Having done this, I'm so excited to try a few more DIY projects for the home, and as and when I do, I'll make sure to keep you'll posted!