Time to light up style

Swati Rai 

A warm, welcoming host's house is incomplete without artistically placed, procured and curated lamps. Be it the traditional, minimalistic, or a theme décor you are catering to, placing lamps aesthetically adds charm and character to your designs sensibility.

Ethnic lights

Give your ethnic décor in the living room a leg-up by adding a brass lamp fitted with warm lighting options. Place them in corners with flower laden urlis to give a traditionally rich look backed up with brass planter carrying healthy palms. Experiment with different shapes of the lamps — hanging diya shaped or the regular one with the stand, Use the traditional leather shades with ethnic motifs to go with vibrant upholstery. Handpainted and embroidered cloth shades work well with earthy tones décor. Keep the Mughal styled glass lamps handy to give a period touch to the décor!

Minimalist appeal 

Diffused lighting can be best achieved by the placing of a tall metallic baselamp with a one-piece shade in muted tones. A cocoon or bird's nest shaped metallic lamp adds to the minimalistic touch. It helps in bringing the table and the linen into focus. A good idea is to keep the lamp and the lighting away from corners that you'd rather not highlight or bring to prominence. There is also a strong case for not placing a lamp between seating - restrict it to corners and also avoid these at the entrance. The intention is to highlight and highlight a prominent piece of art or a well done up corner.

Reader's paradise

A reading corner in the house doesn't necessarily have to be dingy and dank. Agreed that the book shelves are in classy dark mahogany shades, however, there's no excuse for not having warm lighting placed either at the table or the bedside - a functional yet sassy one will achieve the required effect. Here a potted plant next to the lamp will add a splash of green and brighten up the room as gold and rust light falls in the room.

Go on light up your world with these ideas — or else open your window to let the Sun come in! 

DIY lamps for kids' room

Australia based, mother of two Upma Mangal Mittal, shares tips on making DIY lamps for girls and boys to jazz up the kids corners 

Vroom Vroom- Hot Wheels Shade 

• Take an empty vase, fill it with old, unused hot wheel toy cars of your child. 

Tip: To be more creative you can fill varied shaped glass vase with Lego pieces, scrabble letters, action figure toys, dominoes, dice, blocks, colourful lollies, pegs, crayons, billiard balls, coins or any other treasured collectible. One can also half fill it with sand and top that up with different types of shells. Use coffee beans or the nuts in a shell or layers of different colour lentils. Create a long square base by building a block using Lego pieces or action figures glued on top of the other.

• For the shade, use anything colourful or plain and give it a design to go with the base. Here I used a shade with a car design. 

Tip: Use plain black shade and mark the centre with dot white line and glue cars in either direction to give the feel of road. 

• To fix the bulb in the holder use a square coaster to put on top of the vase. With the help of a cutter cut the round shape hole to fix the bulb holder n a cut at the edge for the wire. Then with the help of glue put it on top of the vase.

Barbie Doll Lamp

• Use any old lamp base that you want to spruce up.
• Stick the old unused Barbie Dolls together around the base using a glue n transparent band. 
• Give the shade a makeover by melting crayons with the help of a hair dryer, let your imagination run. Put the colours in front of a dryer. The heat will melt the crayon so you can create your personalised modern art! Caution: Be careful in this step and proper precautions should be taken to avoid any burning. The area should be covered with old newspapers so that there is no spillover. 

Tip: Use plain or drilled shade and cover it with artificial flowers or with ribbons.

• For the vase, fill with your girls' toys and baubles like ribbon, fancy rubberbands, clips, toys like shopkins, fancy key chains etc. 

Voilà - Your creations are ready- Light them and see your Kids face lit up!