This is a helpful innovation. Say you have a steel door with a window in it, like many folks do. You want a tamper-proof door that will protect you from burglary. You also want to be able to see who’s on the other side of it, without allowing them to spy on you inside. How will you attach blinds to the window frame? It’s not as if you can just whack a nail through steel. Your screw driver won’t get you too far either. Do you break down and beg the neighbor with all the power tools for help? That won’t be necessary, because you have a better option.

These blinds attach the the frame using powerful magnets. Forget about buying a special bit for your drill. This just snaps together instantly. No costly instilation fees, or the need to owe anyone a favor, you did it yourself in 3 seconds.

The blinds are durable aluminum, and come in a half or full size, to suit your window. The half blind measures 25 inches by 40 inches. The Full blind measures 25 inches by 68 inches.

Now you can peek out when you want to, and block prying eyes when you want privacy.

Click here for price and more details

Here’s a cool decor idea, go black. The drama and elegance of a mat black curtain can be stunning in the right place. Imagine a Gothic style bedroom where you can truly darken the room and sleep in the daytime. Hung on a rod like the one in the photo, this makes a very beautiful yet clean line, and the aged silver colored metal is the perfect accent.

Now picture an ultra modern dining room with Japanese Raku pottery or sushi plates, and a black porcelain Neko cat for good luck. The table is set with a row of transparent slender vases featuring single stemmed red flowers. Your guests are amazed and impressed by your sense of style and sophistication…..like this fantasy? Make it come true with this daring black curtain.

What if you need two layers of curtains, one as a blind, and the other as a decoration? Layer this tab top black curtain behind your decorative curtain, and viola! You can gut the glare in the living room so your movie images are sharper, and yet keep the decor coordinated. This curtain is very practical and versatile.

The curtain measures 95/96 inches, and is made of cotton fabric that is machine washable.

Click here for price and more details

The white shade is shaped like a paper fan and will create an elegant understated look that will not dominate the room. It will add atmosphere and an Asian flavor without demanding attention. The pleats are a perfect way to add texture in a white on white decor theme, and therefore avoid the flat look you get when a monochrome room lacks texture.

This 36 by 72 inches window shade is so easy to install, you can stick it on instantly when you need privacy or to block the light. The shade can be trimmed down to fit even a window that is 36 inches wide, or left as is for a window that is 72 inches wide. It comes with a self adhesive holder for windowsill mounting, and can be installed in seconds. The shade is made of durable paper, and can be easily removed. This is an economical way to shade a half circle shaped window.

Here’s a suggestion: Use this fan shaped shade on the window, and then add a few Asian accent pieces around the room. Try a Japanese theme, with an iron tea pot and Raku glazed ceramic cups. Add a floral arrangement of cherry blossoms on long thin branches, and throw in a white porcelain Neko cat for luck.

Click here for price and more detail

If romance inspires you to create gorgeous meals, then hang photos of your loved one on the kitchen wall, and train garlands of edible flowers to creep from your windowsill planter box, in through the window, and around it. Place candles around the kitchen, and use romantic lighting when you cook. Your cooking then becomes an offering of devotion, seduction, and admiration.

If your cooking is your connection to your heritage or your ancestors, decorate your kitchen with your ethnic art. Frame one of your favorite ancestral photos, and hang it on the wall.
You can also place old hand written recipes in layers to cover the kitchen table, and then cover that with a sheet of clear glass. This makes a rustically charming decor focal point, or a classically elegant one if you write the recipes in calligraphy. Your guests will ooh and ahh over this creative design.

If you want to cook healthful meals, hang a picture of yourself doing a realistic activity that can only be done with a strong healthy body (relative to your own circumstances), and a focused mind. If you have a family, hang photos of them showing off their health and strength too. For instance, a photo of your child proudly displaying a school assignment that earned a high grade, or flexing her/his biceps and smiling with white teeth, shows the rewards for eating healthful foods. Hang colorful charts depicting the ratio of proteins to carbohydrates that you need, and hang pretty pictures of beautiful organic fruits and vegetables. These will give you an appetite for what is good for you, instead of tempting you to eat junk food. Natural produce comes in all colors (even blue – for blueberries), so you can make a gorgeous rainbow on your wall.

Your inspired decor theme will be visually lost if the room is drowning in clutter and the floors choked with objects. No one wants to bend over a zillion times to move things, so most people just avoid cleaning their floors when there is too much on them. Shelves, storage cabinets, and hanging baskets help you to keep things off the floor.

Pillows come in all shapes and sizes. When combined, they are an art instillation in and of themselves. The benefit of this kind of art is that it is so comfortable for everyday use.  A heap of pillows is fun to jump into, sprawl out on, build forts with, offer to guests to make them more comfortable, support aching backs with, rest your head on, elevate your feet with, and of course, have a pillow fight with.

Many modern day artists work in fabric to create unique signature pillows. These don’t have to be extremely expensive, as they are often designed by the artist and then mass produced to lower costs. Some artists work with a certain style or theme that runs through their cushioned creations, so you can combine pillows that have different designs while retaining the same look and feel.

Pillows can have tassels, fringes, fur, laces, or buttons. The possibilities are virtually endless. That means you can use different elements to create a unified look without giving up on variety. Try a collection of pillows that share the same shape and fabric but come in a multitude of colors; or why not a mix of different pillows in pure white, showing off different textures and trimmings?

Don’t think just beds and couches either. Pillows come in all sizes. Some are large enough to be used as chairs or beds, while some are tiny and have pockets for teeth that the tooth faerie will come for. Play around and adds elements of luxury and comfort in various rooms.

A wall mural is a way to bring the outdoors inside, using artistic inspiration. It does not have to be perfectly realistic, either. Letting the imagination run wild can be the key to some very interesting artistic creations which can inspire you and those who share the room with you.

A room mural is perfect for children, adults and elders. Teenagers and convalescents will find room murals to be especially helpful when they lack the mobility they crave. The mural gives them the feeling of being outside, roaming freely.  Adventure landscapes spark children’s imaginations.  Office workers can become more inventive and industrious when they are treated to inspiring views.

When choosing furniture for a room with picture painted walls, be sure to pick items that will enhance rather than cover or clash with the painted scenes. For instance: If your room is painted to look like a desert, then large embroidered pillows and low laying ottomans would give the d?cor the feel of a Bedouin tent. If your room is painted to look like rolling hills covered in vineyards, then using furniture you’d find in a winery garden would fit the scene.

In a Taupe colored room, you need layers of texture for contrast. An embroidered bedspread is set off by satiny pillows. Rough flag stone and sheer drapes allow two taupe colored design elements to contrast, while complimenting each other.

Decor choices that blend harmoniously with Taupe include: Paint that is pure white; wood that is stained dark; natural linens with purple undertones; glass that is clear, used in vases, lamp bases, and knobs; stones that contain blue or grey; mother of pearl; metals with a silver hue; brown and grey d?cor items, especially when combined; and accents of red, green, or purple for a splash of drama.
D?cor choices that do not go well with taupe include anything that contains yellow, such as: paint or porcelain that is buttery or creamy colored; woods that are golden colored, like oak and unfinished pine; linens that are yellow hued; leathers that are tan or buckskin colored; stones or carpets that contain beige; accessories that have yellow undertones, like brass and copper, or anything sand toned.

Here’s a great idea for a kid’s room. Not only is it a fun decor theme, it is educational too. These illustrated alphabet stickers show both the capital and lowercase letters, and a picture of something that will remind your child of the sound the letter makes. Your child will learn to read faster and more fluently, if these stickers are the first thing s/he sees upon waking and the last thing s/he sees before falling asleep. Perfect for making them feel grown up and offering them stimulating challenges, they are also colorful art pieces.

The stickers come in a variety of sizes from 2 inches by 1 inch and 1/4 up to 9 inches by 12 inches and 1/4. The best feature, is that these stickers can be peeled off and moved as many times as you like, without damaging them or the wall. How’s that for a no-risk experiment in kid’s room decor?

A few ideas for creative decor themes:

Get more than one set, and spell each child’s name over his/her bed.

Spell out sentences or phrases that inspire your child to read. Change the text before s/he comes home from school or kindergarten, or preschool, and make a game of sounding out each new arrangement.

Place them in alphabetical order, and make a game of looking up words in the dictionary. Every time s/he forgets the order of the alphabet, s/he need only look up and see it on the wall.

These sticker sets make great gifts, and are so affordable that you can get more than one set.

Click here for price and more details

Such an atmosphere may help instill good table manners in children, and an awareness of their place in a family legacy. They may also develop an appreciation for a bygone era and knowledge about the history of their people. In this way, formal meals become a time machine and educational tool.

For authentic antiques, one must consult an appraiser who can verify the authenticity of  the item. However, a person on a budget can create the look of an antique with a few handy trick using stain and crackle varnish, and various other artificial aging techniques.

Antiques are often discovered as discarded items, or at thrift stores and garage sales, so keep your eyes open. You can even find antiques in your family’s attic or basement, requiring restoration, but potentially fabulous show pieces.

Antique dining room decor can be fun to create, as the process will take you on a treasure hunt, and cause you to read about the history of decor. Enjoy your journey through time, and enchant your friends with the old world charm of entertaining dinner parties in a room that rediscovers the art of fine dining and classical elegance.

To achieve a balance of energies from the five elements, water, wood, fire, earth, and metal, one must have them each proportionally represented in a room.

To be sure that Chi flows at the right pace and in best pathways, without stagnating or overwhelming any particular place in a room or home, refer to the above mentioned article.

With a little bit of knowledge, you can improve the well being of occupants in any space using the Feng Shui principles. Not only does it work to improve your health, it also improves your relationships and makes your decor more beautiful.

Stamps can be made from many materials, including natural latex, wood, and potatoes.
The easiest do-it-yourself stamp is made from a potato, cut open to expose a flat surface. After drawing the design on the flat surface of the potato, use a craft knife to cut away any area you don’t want to show up in your image. The remaining material should form the shape of your flat image of choice. Dab that surface in ink or paint, and you have a stamp that is reusable and biodegradable.

Now you are ready to personalize your home decor. Stamps make good border designs on floors, along the perimeter of ceilings, the backs of chairs, the perimeter of tables, the tops of walls, and fabric for curtains, bedspreads, pillow covers, furniture slip covers, and anyplace you’d like to create beautiful designs. If you use the same stamps on the furniture, curtains, bedspread, the tops of the walls, and the perimeter of the floor, you create harmonious room decor.

Four different chairs can feel like a set if painted the same color, and stenciled with the same designs. Use the same stencil to ring the edge of the table with a border design, and viola! You have a matching set of chairs and table (even if you got each piece at a separate garage sale). This can also be done with rubber stamp art. Painting the furniture all the same color and then using ink or paint in a contrasting color to stamp the same design on each piece of furniture will unify the decor theme.

Using the same fabric to cover or upholster the chairs, and then using that fabric as a border on the table cloth and runners for the china cabinet will create a consistent theme as well. The eye will be drawn to the commonality of the color and texture, rather than the difference in the shape of each chair.

Remember that your dining room is where you eat and converse with friends and family, so dining room decor should not impede easy access, cleaning, or comfort. It is more important to have each chair be user friendly, than to have them match perfectly.

To change one’s perception of a room’s size, alter the scale of the objects within it.
One of the oldest tricks used to make a small room feel bigger, is to introduce a few overscaled objects. This tricks the eye into seeing the whole space as bigger than it really is. An example would be to add huge pots, vases or bowls, or a tall floor-to-ceiling door to a small room.

It is important to mix objects of different sizes, one large and one small, rather than sticking to medium sized d?cor items. When using objects of different sizes, there needs to be a visual link between them. This continuity is achieved using the same color and/or texture.

Oversized decor items help to make a large room feel less cavernous; they help the space to feel more intimate. If your room feels too large, buy the biggest items you can.
Small scale objects will make large rooms feel enormous, but paradoxically, these undersized d?cor items make moderate sized rooms feel smaller.

Large windows and large mirrors make rooms feel bigger. Sliding glass doors and French doors are very much like windows in this regard and can make the room feel much larger than it actually is. Just be sure that the view from these windows and glass doors is beautiful and has depth of field. If you are in a city, you can use planter boxes, window boxes, and hanging pots to create rows of plants at different heights. This helps the eye to interpret your balcony, patio, or the space between your building and the next one, as having more room to move around in than it really does. Looking through glass doors and windows at this natural beauty will give the room an open feeling, and you’ll experience the room as more spacious than it is.

Cover the bed in matching red satin sheets, pillow cases, comforter cover, and bead spread to look like the continuation of the lava flow coming from the volcano’s vent, and add a few black throw pillows to look like chunks of cooled hardened lava that broke off. The bed skirt could be either red or black, depending on how old you want the lower lava flow to look. A red satin skirt over a black frame would give the impression of layered stratigraphy and help to create the lava falls spilling onto the floor.

A red curvy area rug at the side or foot of the bed would continue that lava theme, making it appear to pool. Surround the rug with black bean bag chairs to look like cooled hardened lava rock formations.

For added effect, paint the wall over the top of the head board to look like a rising plume of smoke and ash.

If your volcano is underwater, add lots of bubbles to the painting of rising ash plumes. If you are really ambitious, you can attach a shelf to the back of the headboard and sit a bubble machine on it, hidden below the top surface, just behind the place you’ve made to look like the vent point. The bubble machine should always be operated with an adult present.

The lava bed is one of the easier theme beds to design and create.

If the architectural elements of a room are pleasing to you, and you want to accentuate them, you should choose blinds or panels that reinforce the lines in the space.

When you chose curtains or blinds, don’t forget to consider how they will look when drawn at night. The block of color or pattern, will become a large decor feature, and must fit the decor theme.
If your windows are double glazed, they will insulate the room without needing heavy fabric. In such a case, you chose drapes based solely on aesthetic and safety considerations. Sheer light weight fabrics that float on the breeze, or are translucent are viable options when you have double glazed windows.  Organic fibers like bamboo silk and organic cotton are non toxic and non allergenic. Mixing cotton and voile will provide privacy while still allowing natural light through. The combination of matte with sheer is a winner!

In a room where you want a linear orderly feeling, Japanese Shoji panels that alternate between one matte colored panel and three sheer panels will help you create those long straight lines. They are also very versatile. Since they attach with Velcro, you can change them seasonally, or as the mood strikes you.

Drapery finials and rods must be consistent with the room’s decor, and help to tie it all together.

Here are two tips that will help you to get started:

1)  The room’s lighting is very important. Raspberry colored light makes everyone look good, and can be achieved with the use of organza drapes and paper or cloth lampshades.

2) The use of natural materials like bamboo and organic cotton, create soft textures that enrich the room’s sensuality.

A romantic room makes you feel more optimistic about life and improves the way you feel about yourself. When you feel better, you look better, and you communicate in a more attractive way. Romantic designs for your home are a good investment in your relationships.

They are so versatile, you can stencil almost anything. You can stencil wool floors, hardboard, walls, ceilings, furniture, and even fabric.

To create a stencil, lay a photocopy of the pattern you wish to cut out, over the sheet of acetate, and tape it down so that it won’t shift. Using a craft knife, cut through the photocopy of the design, and through the acetate backing, along the outlines of the shapes you wish to create with the stencil. Then when you lay your stencil over the surface you wish to decorate, dab the paint in the cut out area with the end of the paint brush. When you lift the stencil, you’ll have a perfect design, every time!

Use this technique to make attractive borders around room ceilings, the perimeter of the floor, the backs of chairs, curtain ends, window and door frames, and anywhere you’d like a bit of excitement. Your room decor will be uniquely your own when you add this personal touch. Stenciling is fun for all ages, and there are stencil designs to fit every room in the house. Why not try one today?