Better late than never! Long pending DIY home Decor project #1

All that clutter used to be money. – Joshua Becker.

With 2023 coming to an end and reflecting on how to end this year meaningfully, I realised I had small pockets of money lying around wasted. I had purchased art and craft materials for various DIY projects that inspired me and for the ones that were my innovation. Without a second thought, I decided it was time to start those pending projects. While at it, I realised why not put it on my blog as a series of DIY projects under the same title. The intention is to use and repurpose things into space décor. I will use this art and craftwork created in various small corner space makeover projects. So, there will be a lot of content and exciting stuff coming your way; keep checking the blog.

The first thing I did was to go through everything I had lying around so I had a clear picture of all the material I had in hand. Initially, I wanted to go out and buy more art material for the ideas I had. But then I decided to first work with all that I had. Because buying more stuff would mean spending money even before I had used what I spent already, the posts in this series will be evolving.

Zero waste art project – Home décor using craft paper sheets.

To begin with, I decided to work on two sheets of craft paper I had bought long back. Since I can’t recollect the original purpose of the purchase, you can imagine the period I had these sheets. When brainstorming for ideas of what to do with them, I came across these beautiful paper feathers used as a décor for gift wrap. While I love feathers, I am not a great fan of using animal products for décor purposes. You never know what the animal has to go through. Paper feathers are a great alternative to natural feathers, in my opinion. 

The Initial plan was to make as many feathers as possible, give them in gift stores and request them to use them instead of the usual ribbons and labels. The above would also give me an idea if there is the possibility of sale in future. But I soon realised I could use the feathers and waste paper cuttings produced in this process in various ways that were far more valuable to the initial plan. I took the inspiration from Pinterest – these feathers were beautiful gold painted at the top. Unfortunately, I don’t have gold paint, so you need to wait to see the final décor artwork. 

Here is how I used the sheets. I drew the feather templates on the whole sheet and cut them. The larger waste paper piece I used them to make smaller-sized feathers. When I looked at the wasted cutting from the sheet, I thought it would be great to use them too, thus the idea of Zero-waste artwork.

Here is what I intend to create:

• Dream Catcher
• Feather wind Chime
• Feathers in frames
• Feathers for gift wrap
• Modern art on canvas with leftover paper cutting.
• DIY party poppers for kids’ birthday parties from tiny bits of paper produced in this process.

As and when I complete each of the above DIY projects, I will add to this post as a hyperlink. Till then, I’ll leave you with the thought-provoking question – Isn’t prevention better than cure? In my opinion, putting efforts into minimizing waste is far more valuable than reuse, recycling and repurposing.