Do it the ‘DIY’ way

Ever been to a furniture or flea market lined up with simple stools, shelves and home décor items and thought, ‘Hey, I’m sure I can make that at home myself’ Well, you’re not alone. In fact, the world over, people are taking things into their own hands when it comes to simple furniture and décor and going the DIY or Do It Yourself way. This trend is now catching up back home too, with several folks, especially young professionals living alone in the city lapping it up. From decorative glass lanterns to bookshelves, here are some of the folks who are saying no to market items with expensive price tags.

Ruchika Shah Using empty glass bottles for making lamps and lanterns has become the most common DIY hack employed by folks today. However, media professional Ruchika Shah took this simple idea a step further and decided to give glass lamps a professional touch. “There are a lot of shops now that are selling things such as lamps made out of glass bottles. Sometime back I was looking through stuff at one such store in Bandra and I saw a lamp made out of a painted used Old Monk bottle. I saw the price tag, which read `3,000 and thought ‘I’m sure I can do it at home for a lot cheaper.’ After that I started learning about glass-cutting techniques and realised that it could be done easily at home. All this information is available on the Internet. I use Acetone and cotton yarn to cut glass. For the Old Monk lamp, I used glass colouring and painted different colours for each of the tiny sections it is designed with. I initially thought it wouldn’t take much time, but it took me over 10 days to finish it because of the detail,” explains Ruchika.

Satyabati Bhattacharya For Satyabati, the creative bug has been a long inculcated habit that’s been with her ever since her teenage years. “The habit caught on from the days when I used to watch Art Attack. Whenever I get time, I make it a point to take up some project or the other. I usually paint glass bottles, but I also recently did up a accessory hanger from a used up wooden photo frame. It was lying unused and I decided to put the wood to good use. I first upturned it and then made use of coloured wool to add to the appeal. It can be hung from the wall and it can be used to hang accesories of different kinds. “

Bhairavi Malkani As an artist who is passionate about up cycling, Bhairavi has not only taken up the DIY route but is also spurring others in her circle to take it up as a hobby. Telling us about her projects, Bhairavi says, “I try to use up as much scrap as possible and give it new life. So when we were moving into a new home I was left with a lot of empty cartons and fragile good wrappers. I thought instead of buying storage units why not create one myself with all the scrap I had. Being a Bollywood buff, I had an old poster of dialogues and a lot of craft supplies. Combining all of the supplies, I created a big box for my shoe collection (the husband was happy about not having to spend on a shoe rack). I have done many more such projects, for example, I took a coral that I once found on a beach in Thailand and painted it and made it a pen stand.”

Telling us why she took up the DIY route, she says, “To make a house a home I wanted to give it my personal touch. Also it’s very cost efficient than having to spend so much on machine-made decor!”

Alkesh Varma A teacher in an engineering college through the week, Alkesh says he and his sister Anisha Varma make it a point to dabble in one DIY project or the other over the weekend. The most recent project the duo took up was to build a bookshelf for his tomes and course books. Telling us about the project, he says, “We had a broken table at home, which we didn’t want to throw away. And since we needed a bookshelf too, we decided to use the wood from the table for the shelf. We zeroed in on a DIY idea for the shelf and decided to make one that’s shaped like a tree. We used wood from the table for the branches and then we also made a few leaves with painted glass.” Telling us about how the DIY bug bit him, Alkesh says, “My sister is very creatively inclined and we both have weekends at our disposal. So we thought we should make use of that time. We have also made a lot of colourful lanterns using painted glass bottles.”