Jun 27, 2018 | Blog, Home Hacks
Store-bought Cleaners Vs Home-made DIY Cleaner
Our kitchen cabinets get dirty easily. From spilling to cooking oil to cake batter, our kitchen slabs are often covered in grime. Most often, we clean the grime and grease with store-bought cleaners.
Store-bought cleaners works fine. But they are loaded with chemicals. Using chemical cleaners for a long period of time may hamper our health. Secondly, we keep groceries on our chemically-cleaned kitchen slabs and cabinets. We may unknowingly contaminate our food.
Natural cleaners, on the other hand are free of toxins, are effective and affordable. They in fact, works better than the store-bought cleaners. Even better, if we can learn how to make a DIY cleaner at home.
How to make natural cleaner at home?
Vinegar is the go-to natural cleaner when it comes to cleaning kitchen grease and grime. Mixed with half proportion of water, it can clean even your toughest stains.
Ingredients that you will need:
- One cup white vinegar
- Liquid soap (to clean extremely tough grease)
- One tablespoon of baking soda
- Warm water
- Essential oil (optional, if you want to smell your kitchen really fresh)
Tools that you will need:
- Clean spray bottle or a bowl
- A sponge
- Clean dish-cloth
Steps to make the DIY Cleaner:
- Rinse out spray bottle with warm water.
- Add vinegar, a drop or two of liquid soap, and baking soda to the spray bottle.
- Fill the spray bottle to the bottom of the neck with warm water.
- If desired, add a few drops of essential oil. Essential oils help mask the smell of vinegar. Citrus oil make your home smell fresh and clean. You can use whatever appeals to your nose.
- Shake spray bottle vigorously.
How to use your natural cleaner?
- Wet the sponge with the solution and rub it in the kitchen slab, and on the outside of cabinet doors and drawers.
- Use a toothbrush dipped in the cleaner to scrub the handles, and the crevices of ornate trim.
- Use a second cloth or sponge dipped in clean water to remove the cleaner from all surfaces.
- Dry all surfaces thoroughly with a clean towel.
Jun 9, 2018 | Blog, Home Décor
Everyone prefers calm and soothing interior decor ideas for the summer. Interior decor ideas play a critical role in managing the scorching heat of the summers. Here are a few tips on how you can keep your home cool and pleasant in this summer:
Opt for cool and soothing colours:
Using light colours within the house is the first interior decor idea for the summer. It will reflect light and heat and give a pleasant ambiance to the living space. Work with neutral colours like ivory or shades of green, to retain the cooling effect. Warm tones like olive, lilac or burgundy can be soothing, without seeming overwhelming. Blue, green and beige are the ideal colours for summer. 
Spruce up the home with natural fabrics:
Cotton is by far the best natural fabric to use in the summer, for bedding and sofas, followed by linen. It is a breathe-able fabric and have great insulating properties. Natural fabrics, like cotton and linen are skin and environmentally friendly. Changing your decor becomes easy by simply switching up your bed linen.
Go for floral this summer:
Floral is very trending right now. If you have been considering incorporating this trendy look into your home, summer is the perfect time to make the leap. It is an easy way to add a pop of nature to any room in your home.
Cool Interior Decor with indoor plants:
Keeping indoor plants is a simple way to cool a space and purify the quality of air. Indoor plants and plants on the window sills helps in bringing down the temperature. Arranging them fancy pots adds style to your house. Some
house plants like English ivy and peace lily absorb moisture from the air and reduce humidity. Plants tolerant to heat are sunflower, lemon grass, banana and palm. It gives a cooling touch to the house.
Choose energy-efficient and cool lights:
Switch to compact fluorescent or LED lamps to reduce the heat .These lights helps in saving energy. You experiment with mood lighting for a pleasant ambiance. There are a plenty of devices in the market that allows you to set different lighting tones depending on how you are feeling.
Below there are a few points that will make our home summer-friendly:
- Insulated walls and roofs and double glazed windows can substantially reduce the heat gain and reduce the load on air-conditioning units.
- Ensure that the air-conditioners in the house are serviced regularly and their filters cleaned to maximize efficiency.
- Raxene, leather and other artificial materials should be avoided for sofas. Opt for cotton and linen for a more comfortable setting. You can even use cotton slip covers on the sofas, for a quick seasonal makeover.
- For beds, keep away the heavy duvets, velvet satin silk and opt for lighter cottons.
- Cluttering makes a space appear smaller and adds to the heat. Think minimalistic and weed out unwanted things.
- Avoid silk carpets for the floor. Use stylish cotton woven rugs or let the floor remain bare.
- Installing bamboo blinds on doorways, balconies and verandas, will keep the house cool. Use natural materials like rattan and teak, for a relaxing feel.
- Use shading devices over the windows, to reduce the heat gain. Allow for ample cross-ventilation at home, by opening the doors and windows on opposite directions, in the evening.
- Add aromatic tropical scents to your living room to give your home a summery feel.
- In summer, the bathroom can be a relaxing space to beat the heat. Dress it up in colourful and stylish accessories, soft bath linen, fragrant oils and refreshing bath products.
Jun 9, 2018 | Blog, Home Hacks
There is no limit to how one can beautify her home with paper craft items. They are easy to learn and implement. Paper Craft Art needs a bit of patience and practice and one can be a pro at crafting their own designs.
It is not expensive.
Decorating up the home isn’t always about spending high. Paper craft art are low cost ideas that are high on beauty. Such crafts can enhance the beauty of the interiors at a negligible cost. Easy to learn, they are perfect for beginners and the final products are versatile decor items. Depending on your skills, select simple or intricate and inter-weaved designs.
Origin of Paper Craft
The origin of paper crafts art hails from China. The sheer beauty and simple methods to craft them, have earned them global recognition. Paper craft art have found a place not only in the craft classes in our schools but also grabbed the attention of interior designers who are incorporating them lavishly into their interior designs.
You can either get the ready-to-use paper craft art from the market or try the DIY crafts to brighten up the dull corners of your home. Read on and transform your home from drab to fab.
Blend of origami-fractal
Origami is the art of folding paper repeatedly and fractal deals with repeated forms and when mixed together, they create amazing artwork. Why not try fractal origami to deck up your space? The options with fractal are myriad, right from flowers such as fractal lotus to roses. Give it a shot to the snowflake fractal or Origami fractal pyramids. However, remember that the latter demands a lot of time. It is a tedious process. Learn Here.
3-D wallpaper cubes
If you are bored of the usual 2-D origami pieces, try a fresh twist with the 3D pieces. Begin with the easiest 3D shape, i.e. a paper cube. Gradually move to a tad difficult shapes, such as pyramids, teddy bears, penguins, birds, or even flowers by using 3D origami art.
Paper lamp
Paper lamps are in demand in the home as well as in party settings. Try your skills at ‘Do It Yourself’ and opt for origami lamps.
These variants are one of the simplest yet stylish ways of incorporating origami decor in your abode. Get some coloured origami papers, preferably the bright-hued ones and start making your lamps. A few popular ideas to consider are the geometric shaped lamps, intricately cut paper lamps, rolled paper lamps, and the pendant lamps to craft an origami paper lamp. If you don’t want to make it by yourself, try the ready-made ones easily available in the market.
Learn to create, click here.
Variegated animal paper heads
There must be favourite animals of your little ones and they would love to have their replicas in interesting ways. Instead of stuffing their rooms with soft toys, try to create variegated animal heads with paper and adorn the walls with them.
While the children’s room appears to be the best spot to flaunt them, alternatively you can be bold and create a small zoo on the living room’s wall. This quirky display is sure to earn you rave reviews from the onlookers. If you wish to make them look real, use the same coloured paper akin to the skin of the animals you are crafting. Add an extra touch by painting it with other features, to make them look like the heads of real animals. Learn to create one.
Get the ready-to-use paper craft designs from the market or try DIY crafts at home. You can learn from the various videos on YouTube, to brighten up the dull corners of your home. Protech Group encourages DIY crafts.
