Spring is in the Air and in My House
1. Create 3-D Collage Wall Hangings
I make a couple of different ones using pictures from magazines, greeting cards, old calendars, post cards, and some with my own personal pictures. I will make one for the kitchen using colorful pictures of berries, salads, jello desserts, etc. from my Cooking Light magazine. For the bathroom, I make one using pictures of beaches, tropical resorts, etc. For my living room – it’s flowers, flowers, flowers. To make a 3-D collage wall hanging, get a posterboard and cut into whatever size will fit on your wall. Buy sheets of styrofoam in varying depths and shapes. Decide how you want to lay out the pictures. Glue pieces of styrofoam to the posterboard and then glue the pictures to the styrofoam to create the 3-D effect. You can then frame the wall hanging or place it in a shadow box frame.
2. Use Spring Colored Night Lights
I collect night lights since they come in so many cool designs now. For Spring, I found these mini lava lamp night lights that have pink light and floating glitter. I use those in the bathroom with my tropical destination 3-D wall hangings. I have purple iris night lights in the kitchen. In the bedrooms, I use night lights with stained glass filled wild flowers like bluebonnets from Texas. I also have butterflies and dragonflies for Springtime night lights. I change them every week just for fun.
3. Reload the Digital Picture Frame
I get the 4 gig memory card out of the digital picture frame and replace the snow pictures with flower pictures, national park pictures, animal pictures, and everything else Spring!
4. Replace Candles on Pedestals with Mini Vases
I have candle pedestals all over my house that I use over the winter holidays. In Spring, I put away the candles and bring out the flowers! I have a set of 8 drinking glasses that are plain and straight. They look like small vases. I set one on each candle pedestal and fill them with flowers from my bulb garden. I grow tulips, daffodils, paperwhites, hyacynths, irises, and lillies that I put in the glasses around the house.
5. Paint the Mirror Frames
I have several inexpensive mirrors with wooden frames that I got at garage sales and flea markets. I paint the frames whatever color I want to match the 3-D wall hangings, flowers, and decor of the room. Sometimes I go with vibrant tropical colors, sometimes I go with soft pastel colors, and sometimes I go with earthtone Southwest colors. If the wildflowers have a good year, I will glue some around the frame as well.
6. Fly a Kite in Your House
My husband and I like to fly kites at Zilker Park in Austin. We buy different shapes and colors that are not too expensive, and we make tails out of Spring colored fabrics. When we are not flying kites, we hang them on the walls in the bathroom and guest bedrooms for decoration. Of course, the colors match the rest of the Spring decorating ideas for the that particular room’s theme!
7. Spring Decorating Around the Fireplace
My husband made me a 3-panel, thin plywood fireplace screen with hinges and arches. I cover it with different Spring fabrics each year and place it in front of the fireplace. I have a copper bucket I use for pine cones in the fire and a copper flat basket for wood. In the Spring, I fill the bucket with fragrant potpouri made from my flowering vines and acid-bed gardens. The flowers and vine I grow include coral honeysuckle, white jasmine, gardenias, lilacs, mountain laurels, and lavendar hydrangias. I don’t use all of them at the same time – pewey. Then, I fill the basket used for wood, with different sized styrofoam balls that I covered with fabric using straight pins. Once again, I take great care making sure all the colors, patterns, and themes work together. Finally, there are two windows on the sides of the fireplace. I hang my stained glass Cardinals and Hummingbirds in the windows for Spring.
8. Dining Table Centerpiece
I bought a shallow, plain glass salad bowl at the dollar store that I use to float flowers as my Spring decorating centerpiece. I fill the bowl with water and cut stems and flowers off my Magnolia tree and Azalea bushes. They will float like lilly pads on a pond. If you include a small piece of the stem in your cutting, they will stay alive for quite a while in the bowl.
9. Aquarium – Terrarium
We have a 30-gallon lighted aquarium that we turned into a terrarium. I buy inexpensive wind chimes that have butterflies, dragonflies, birds, or anything else Spring. I also look for small garden poles with silk Spring designs. I cut the animals off the wind chime strings and using fish wire, I suspend them from the lid of my terrarium. I also put silk butterflies around the African Violets and miniature Pansies to create an effect that they are on the flower. It sounds cheesey – but if you hang them strategically, it looks really cool at night with the light on.
10. Wildflowers in Wild Places
Central Texas has a gazillion wildflowers in Spring. I have them all over my yard and I think they are beautiful even though my husband says they are weeds. I cut different wildflowers, tie them into bundles and hang them on the sides of the mirrors that I painted, or from the fireplace mantel, or sometimes to adorn the fireplace screen. I hang them in the windows of the kitchen and sometimes as a wreath on the front door.
I love Spring and I hope you have fun with these Spring decorating ideas.
