Few easy and economic tips to make your home look cozy this Christmas and New year

Perfect cozy bed room ideas

A fire stove in the living room and heavy furniture surely makes the house look very cozy and comfortable during winters but the idea of having a fire stove in the house requires a chimney connection or a special space for the stove. The ideas of heavy furniture and fire stove may sound expensive for the temporary winter season, especially in a state like Delhi, where the season changes after every few months.

Here are few easy and economic tips to make your home look cozy this festive season. Whether you're relaxing or entertaining, these cozy decorating ideas will create a warm and inviting house this winter. Steal these ultimate ideas to celebrate a super cozy Christmas and new year this season.

• Yellow bulb/ lamps rather than tube lights

Yellow lights rather than tube lights

According to the color psychology, yellow colour is associated with the feeling of warmth. Using yellow lights at home during the winters, tends to give a warm and cozy look than tube light in your room.

• Soft Cushions/ pillows of different sizes

Cushions and cushions

Using soft cushions or pillows on beds and sofa makes you want to snuggle to joy. Using big/small cushions is a great idea to attract everyone.

• Say yes to rugs

layer the floor with beautiful rugs

Use of rugs makes the home look neat and saves you from the cold floor. If you have a light coloured wall, then its better to choose a dark coloured rug and vise versa. Contrasting the colour of rug/carpet with the wall is a great idea to make the house look cozy and beautiful.

In smaller rooms one may use the light coloured rugs to make the room look bigger and for a larger room, like the living room, one may use dark coloured rugs. This will help the home in looking vibrant and neat.

You may use two or multiple layers rugs to keep the room more cozy, if you have a flat on the top floor, as the flats on top floor are colder as compared to other flats on the lower floor.

• Wood accent and pine cones

Wood accents and pine cone for winter look

A room having wooden accent gives a feeling of warmth, comfort and affection. You may choose to use wooden tables, wooden chair or wooden decoration items which will give the house a feeling of 'home sweet home' this winter.

If you are someone who is thinking of buying wallpaper to cover the stains on the wall, then you may choose a wallpaper showing wooden textures which will give you a more cozy looking room.

You may use pine cones as a piece of decoration to make the house look more creative, giving it a winter theme.

• Scented candles

Scented candles

Say a big yes to scented candles this winter. Candles give a very peaceful, cheerful and warm feeling in the winters. You may choose to use different shaped candles in different areas of the house.

Using scented candles like 'lavender', 'hot cocoa' and 'the first snow' in winters, will add on to the theme of the house.

• Cozy nook

Idea of a cozy nook

If you are someone who loves to read novels, then you may place a shelf for your novels in the seating area or beside your bed for a cozy nook.

String lights or lamps, visible from outside the window give a festive and cozy look. You may choose different shaped lamps and different coloured lights in contrast with the wall colour for a cozy nook.

• Layering the bed/furniture

Lots of layering on the bed

Layering the mattress makes the bed cozy. You may choose to layer the mattress with a normal bed sheet, further covered with a warm bed sheet and quilt.

• Heavy drapes

Heavy drapes

Dark coloured drapes or heavy drapes make the house look cozy and warm. Choose the drapes according to the colour of the walls and the furniture to give it a classy look.

Avoid dark coloured drapes if the room is small in size. You may choose pastel coloured drapes for a small size room this will not only make your room look bigger but also cozy and warm.

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The Roving Feet

Bhuli art reviving the culture of Uttarakhand

In today's world everyone talks about western culture and practices. Very few people look upon the rich traditional culture, art and practices of India.

Tanya Kotnala (Founder of Bhuli art) and Tanya Singh (Co-founder of Bhuli art) are among those few people who are trying to revive the tradition of art and culture of India, specifically the culture of Uttarakhand. Tanya Kotnala holds a degree in Fashion Design from NIFT, Shillong and Tanya Singh holds double masters in Food and Nutrition and Food Communication from IHM, Pusa India and University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy.

After finishing their education, they have worked in rural clusters of India, in their areas of expertise. This has helped them both to run Bhuli (their enterprise which was established in March 2017) and promote the 3 things they are focusing on, namely art, craft and food of Uttarakhand.

The term Bhuli means younger sister in Garwali (the dialect of Uttarakhand). Bhuli art is promoting the Indian culture by drawing illustrations of the culture, cuisine, flora and fauna, costumes, practices, history and basically everything about Uttarakhand . They also sell these beautiful pieces of art online. Their intagram and facebook page namely Bhuli features beautiful piece of art showing the beauty of India.

They say "Uttarakhand is a state which is not recognized in terms of Arts, Craft and the cuisine. The prime motive to establish Bhuli is to make a platform for the state where its essence can be celebrated and it gets the recognition it deserves."

Here is the glimpse of their work

Bhuli art showing bride of Uttarakhand

Bhuli art showing Himalayan Monal, the bird of Uttarakhand

Bhuli art showing history of Uttarakhand (chipkoo movement)

Bhuli art showing Garwali women preparing the local dish of Uttarakhand 

Bhuli art sharing recipe of the local dish

Bhuli art spreading awareness about flora of Uttarakhand

Bhuli works in two phases;

• Government Collaboration -The government projects help them to outreach remote areas, thereby helping them to get a better insight of the persisting problems in the community. In the past Bhuli, did a 'Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign' where the posters designed by Bhuli were displayed at 19,000 Anganwadi Centers across Uttarakhand. On the occasion of 'International Breastfeeding Awareness Week' these posters were used to educate the caregivers of the children on the importance of breastfeeding.

Currently they are in the process of making the Anganwadi centers of Uttarakhand attractive for kids to make the process of learning fun for them. Every month they go to one of the district of the state and paint an Anganwadi center.

• Self-Initiated Projects Apart from collaboration with the government -Team Bhuli conceptualize creative projects around social causes while promoting flora/fauna, arts and crafts culture of their home state Uttarakhand. Through these self-initiated projects, they try to generate revenue to fuel their future long-term goal that is to upgrade skills, (trying to minimize the effects of Palayan (migration) in rural areas of Uttarakhand) bring development and innovation in existing products trying to make it attractive for the masses.

In their entire journey their family and friends have been supportive throughout, but still they faced two major problems.

Our societies have always been male-dominated and no matter how much the times have progressed, these deep rooted traits always crop up somewhere or the other. A woman exhibiting entrepreneurial prowess is presumed as wanting to take over the role of the male.

Second problem that they face is balancing time between business and family. They say "Guilt of not being able to devote sufficient time to home creeps in sometimes, which negatively effects both, the entrepreneur and the enterprise".

But they have taken up the challenges with open arms and are facing them as they come.

At the end of year, they also plan to celebrate the diversity and culture of India as a whole through their beautiful cultural calendars.

Stay tuned to know more about India's culture, practices, beliefs, tourist places, best hotels, cafe/restaurants, offbeat places and inspirational stories of the people of India.

-The Roving Feet