Decorating the Guest Room/Office for Easter

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If you have guests coming for Easter, start planning now for decorating the room so that it is both functional and festive.  The ideas below will get you started on creating a space that works for both your office and your guests.

Crisp Colors
The easiest and most effective way to spruce up the room for guests and the Easter holiday is to infuse some fun, spring colors into the mix.  There are the usual pastels that will help to get you in the spirit of things, but there are also brighter colors that you may want to use instead.  A cheerful yellow combined with a brilliant white is a beautiful way to bring out the colors of spring while also maintaining a sense of style and class.  Teal blue paired with a chocolate brown is also another color combination that will work well in both an office and guest room setting.  Remember that the key to decorating for Easter is also to make the space look as natural as possible.  While a pastel can transition into late spring and early summer, a bold, bunny print fabric will go quickly out of season.

Plants
Forget vases of fresh cut flowers when it comes to decorating your home office/guest room.  The flowers will quickly fade, your busy lifestyle will take over, and the vase will never get refilled.  Instead, decorate by adding a potted plant or arrangement to your desk, the bedside table or wherever there is a flat, smooth, wide surface.  You can make the basket or container festive by adding a seasonal bow or floral pick.  A quick trip to the craft store will yield a great many results for such floral decorations.

Curtains
While the majority of the fabric should be a solid or lightly patterned neutral, the curtains are one easy area that you can spruce up with a decorative curtain.  You may opt to keep your heavy, light-blocking curtains, but replace the sheer curtain beneath with a handmade Easter one.  A cute Easter fabric can be cut to length and width, hemmed, and folded down to create a simple pocket curtain.  Slide the curtain rod through the pocket and you will be ready to go.  Change the curtains as the seasons or holidays change, but be sure to store them away so that they can be used the following year.

Finding ways to decorate the multi-use space can be especially challenging when you are in the middle of working or preparing for guests.  If you start thinking ahead about easy ways that you can make a big difference in your room’s decor, you will find that decorating becomes a breeze.  Your room will look festive and you will not have to spend days trying to get it ready for guests.

This article was written by Theresa Hill of Metal-Wall-Art.com who specializes in creating stylish interiors with sea turtle wall decor and metal beach wall art.

What Makes A Buyer Buy Your House?

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What really makes a buyer actually buy your house?

The answer to this question is complicated and differs from individual to individual. Most of us like to think we’re capable of being deeper thinkers than we actually are. We like to think we’re capable of seeing beyond basic décor, furnishings and the feel of a place based on such flimsy premises – to the more fundamental shape and structure etc. But we aren’t.

This is proven by the fact that an unlived in, unfurnished house sells more cheaply, on average, than one which s occupied. This makes absolutely no fundamental sense, but is, nevertheless, a truism.

Ergo … it also makes sense for you to go the extra mile in cleaning, decorating and furnishing your home in a smart, comfortable and, above all, welcoming way, if you really want to sell it; because it will work wonders.

This needn’t be expensive. You can throw out anything old and dusty and replace it with relatively smart but cheap furniture.

Also, you don’t need to waste money. Paint and elbow grease are cheap enough and any furniture can be carefully chosen to be reusable wherever life takes you. You’ll always be able to find a place for a good sofa bed from a sofa bed sale, for example, no matter where you live.

Most of the real improvement comes down to hard work – but you’re also going to need a little objective, candid opinion from someone you can really trust to insult you! In other words, you need to ask a friend who doesn’t visit your house a great deal what he or she thinks of the place as a potential buyer after you’ve go it to state you think is ready; and really encourage him/her to give you some direct, constructive criticism.

Just try not to be offended – and act on what they tell you!

Cute Blarney Stone Paperweight

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Although you might never get a chance to visit the real Blarney Stone in southwestern Ireland, your children can make their own cute version to decorate their desk. In fact, this version of the Blarney Stone is so cute that it will probably get more kisses than the real Blarney Stone does. This craft is quick and easy enough for even a young child to make, and is fun !

Materials You Will Need

To make your own cute and kissable Blarney Stone, you will need some very basic and inexpensive materials. Of course, your child can make his or her stone as simple or as elaborate as they desire. If your child is particularly creative or artistic, they might enjoy having even more embellishment materials to use.

1 – Clean, smooth medium-sized rock (river rocks work quite well)
Green acrylic paint
Artist’s brush
Fast-drying tacky craft glue
Markers, paint pens, or other colors of acrylic paint
2 – “Googly eyes”
Glitter, yarn, pipe cleaners, plastic jewels, sequins, small pom-poms and other embellishments as desired
Plastic tablecloth or other waterproof material (used to protect the table or work surface)
Small containers (to be used for acrylic paints)

Preparing the Blarney Stone

Before you start to decorate the stone, it’s very important that it is completely clean. If necessary, wash the stone and let it dry completely. Then, cover your work surface with a plastic tablecloth or other waterproof covering before you begin the Blarney Stone decorating process.

Pour some of the green acrylic paint into a small container. Using an artist’s brush, paint the entire stone green. Because the stone should be painted green on all sides, it can be helpful to paint one side of the stone and let it dry. Then, you can flip the stone over so that another section can be painted. When the entire stone has been painted green, set it aside until it is completely dry.

Decorating the Blarney Stone

Once the green paint is completely dry, you can start decorating the stone. Start by gluing the googly eyes onto the stone. You can use a marker, paint pen or other acrylic paint colors to add a nose and mouth. Or, use small pom-poms, sequins, small plastic jewels or other embellishments to create the stone’s face.

Once the face is in place, you can use other materials to add more details. Small pieces of yarn or pipe cleaner sections can be used to give the Blarney Stone a cute “hair-do.” Markers can be used to add eyebrows, freckles, ears or other details. You could also add a bit of sparkle to the stone by adding some glitter. Once your Blarney Stone is decorated the way you like it, let everything dry. You now have a cute St. Patrick’s decoration that your child can use on his or her desk as a paperweight. In fact, this stone is so cute that your child will probably want to keep him around all year long.

Jessica Ackerman from WallDecorandHomeAccents.com, has skills in decorating with large wall art and art.