Beautify and Add Fragrance to Your Home Decor with Candles

Candles create a warm beauty in your home like no other home decor accessory. They light up the room and set the mood with colors or scents of flowers, foods, or spices. They illuminate the seasons or holidays with delightful smells. Let's explore some creative ways to spruce up your home decor with candles.

Create Multi-Dimensional Focal Points in a Room

Candles come in a variety of sizes and heights. There are wide, short, tall, thin, and medium sized candles of all different colors. You can arrange candles of different heights and sizes to create dimensional focal points on a table, fireplace mantle, mirror shelf, or wherever candles will fit. Place the candles from the smallest to the largest in groups of three to five candles to create an appealing display.

Use Candles to Enhance Other Decor Items

Floral arrangements, photos, paintings, and figurines seem to come to life when a candle is nearby. Light the candles in the evening to illuminate special centerpieces. Taper candles, pillar candles, or globe candles work great for highlighting other eye-catching items of your decor.

Set the Mood with Candles

In a romantic setting, add votives around a hot tub, bath, or bedroom to set the mood. For best results and longer burning times, always use votive holders. Use multiple votives of the same or various colors to create a more elaborate candle setting. For holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, set the mood for your gatherings with scented candles. Some great scents for the holidays are cinnamon, vanilla, apple, cranberry, cookies, and other holiday delights.

For parties, buy scented or unscented candles that are colorful and fit for the occasion. Brighten an anniversary party with white, green, or beige candles, which are decorative without drawing too much attention. Use pink or blue candles for kids' parties. Red, orange, green, white, or beige candles work well for the holidays. For a poolside party, use floating tealight candles to light up the pool and dazzle your guests.

Crafty Candles

If you enjoy decorating your home with homemade crafts, candles can also be used to create your own crafts. You can decorate plain candles any way you want. You can also tie ribbons around several candles to bind them in a decorative pose. Use saucers, flowerpots, old lanterns, and so forth to create your own unique candleholders. Create the type of decor you want in every room with a little creativity.

Candle Safety Tips

Before lighting a candle, be sure the candle is in a proper holder for burning. Also, never set the candle on a wood or plastic surface. Candleholders can become extremely hot after burning a while. Place burning candles on a metal surface if possible. For a safer way to enjoy scented or unscented candles, use a candle warmer. Candle warmers melt the candle while giving off its maximum scent. Warmers also enable you to use the candle longer without burning it up. Just make sure the warmer is placed on a non-flammable surface such as metal. Keep an eye on candles and never leave them unattended for long periods of time. Also, never place a burning candle too close to flammable objects such as silk flowers, cloth or clothes, or a hanging coat.

Blend colorful, sweet smelling candles throughout your decor to add beauty to every room of your home. You can find a variety of scented candles, unscented candles, votives, tealights, globe candles, taper candles, and pillar candles online to suit your needs.

Add Shower Curtains to Your Bath Decor for Lasting Beauty

Shower curtains are probably the most visible part of your bathroom decor. They can be seen from every corner of the room and are also usually the largest hanging item. They line your tub, protect your floor from splashed water, and give you a sense of privacy while bathing. So it makes sense to choose your shower curtains wisely. Use the guide below to find just the right shower curtains for your bathroom.

Choose by Style, Colors, and Patterns

Shower curtains can match your decor in several ways. Your bathroom may follow a certain theme such as dolphins, fish, birds, flowers, and even more dramatic effects such as giraffes or tigers! The shower curtains can match your bathroom's theme. For added beauty, choose a shower curtain liner that's a solid color. This will bring out the themed curtain even more.

If your bathroom is decorated in colors rather than a certain theme, choose shower curtains that match or complement those colors. Some color combinations to consider are light (or mint green) and white, burgundy and beige variations or cinnamon colors, red and white or red and black, blue with light mauve, yellow with pastels, or dark green with a mix of floral patterns including burgundy, green, blue, and yellow flowers.

If you have a window curtain in your bathroom, you can also match your shower curtain to your window curtain. This causes all other colors and patterns to fall into place.

Consider Practicality

If decorating a children's bathroom, consider a simple vinyl or plastic curtain that offers a fun and playful theme. For a formal bathroom, choose cotton, silk, or linen with a PVC vinyl or fabric liner. Choose a shower curtain that's durable and can easily be cleaned. Check for good stitching and grommets (reinforcements for the ring holes) that are rustproof.

To simplify things, you can now choose shower curtain liners that are very easy to remove for cleaning. There are zip-off shower curtain liners that zip on and off just below the rings for cleaning and can be washed in the washing machine. These easy-to-remove shower curtain liners save you time if you're always in a hurry when cleaning.

Shower Curtain Rods and Rings

Be sure to choose shower curtain rods and rings that enhance your decor, especially in a formal bathroom. Detailed shower curtain rings will stand out to your guests and add beauty to your curtains and tub. The rod should be made of materials that will not rust or peel. Both the rod and rings should be strong enough to hold your shower curtains.

To increase the "space" in your bathtub, use curved rods that come out and around from the tub. These are lovely and give you plenty of elbowroom!

Once you decide on colors and styles for your bathroom, you're ready to shop for shower curtains. You can compare styles and even buy shower curtains online from your own personal computer. There are many colors and styles as well as easy-to-remove shower curtain liners that make decorating and cleaning a breeze. Give your bath decor the look and feel you want today!

Asian Decor Infuses Your Home with Peace and Harmony

To counteract the frenetic pace of today's hectic lifestyle, you probably want your home to be your sanctuary. And, when it comes to decorating your home, Asian decor is unique in its ability to convey that sense of peacefulness and harmony that is all too often missing from other elements of life.

One of the wonderful things about Oriental decor is that it's extremely flexible. You can add soothing Asian touches throughout your home, or go all out and transform your living space into a serene Asian paradise. Either way, here are some ideas to inspire you:

Asian Lamps

Asian lamps can add a decorative touch and infuse warm light in your living room or bedroom. Saa paper lamps are typically square, and are constructed from natural materials like bamboo, teak, or rattan, with handmade and hand-painted saa paper covering the frame. While some Asian lamps are painted with a decidedly Asian theme, others complement any style of home decor. Available in a variety of colors and designs, these lamps bring both artistry and harmony to a room.

For the Table

Asian-inspired table settings stand out for their elegance and simplicity. Bamboo placemats can be used every day or paired with silk table runners to bring more formality to mealtime. Bamboo skin candleholders and tea lights add to the ambiance created by good food and great friends.

Accents for the Home

Whether you'd like to recover throw pillows on your couch or want to accent infuse your bedroom with an Asian influence, you can't go wrong with cushion covers. Handmade using natural fibers like Thai silk, wool, and cotton, you can easily slip them over your existing pillows or slip a pillow form into them.

Another way to bring contemporary Asian decor into your home is through the use of silk photo frames. Thai silk gives your treasured photographs an elegant touch, while the fabric patterns easily coordinate with modern home decor. Similarly, silk jewelry boxes are like art, in that they add a touch of elegance to your decor while allowing your precious jewelry to shine.

Silk shawls and silk scarves can also bring color and texture to your home decor. Hand-woven in both rough and smooth textures, silk shawls and scarves come in virtually every color and finish imaginable. Use them to drape over nightstands, as runners across dressers, and over lamps (not too close to the bulbs, though!) to add elegance and a touch of romance.

Beyond the Home

While you're shopping for silk scarves, you may want to select silk handbags for your wardrobe. Elegant silk evening bags are the perfect accessory for formalwear, while totes and backpacks are beautiful and functional for everyday use.

Shopping for Asian Decor

In times past, shopping for Asian decor meant traveling to exotic locales or paying high-end designers to discover exquisite pieces. Thanks to the Internet, though, you can shop for and buy Asian decor directly from Asia-based wholesalers who work on behalf of an artisan who crafts the pieces by hand. In other words, creating a home filled with tranquility and harmony can be achieved with a few clicks of your mouse.