Celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi At Home With These Easy Decor Ideas
Sukhkarta Dukhharta Varta Vighnachi || Nurvi Purvi Prem Krupa Jayachi ||Sarvangi Sundar Uti Shendurachi || Kanti Jhalke Mal Mukataphalaanchi..||
Jaidev Jaidev Jai Mangal Murti || Darshan Maatre Man: Kaamna Phurti ||
Come August and you will get to hear this aarti in every part of India, if not the world – over the past several years, Ganesh Chaturthi has moved on from being a festival that was celebrated predominantly in the Indian state of Maharashtra to a global one. Not only people from all parts of India choosing to celebrate the festival with all the rituals and absolute aplomb, it has spread across the world, with more and more Indians travelling overseas and wanting to stay in touch with their roots. Today, you will be able to see the festivities in the United States, Australia and several parts of Europe too! Before you head off to buy lord Ganesha idols online, let’s read a little more about the festival.
What is Ganesh Chaturthi and how did the celebrations grow?
Simply put, Ganesh Chaturthi is the birthday of Lord Ganesha – he is known as the Lord of good fortune, knowledge and wisdom and prosperity and his birthday is considered one of the most auspicious days in the Hindu calendar. While the festival has been celebrated for the longest time, it was during the reign of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that it attained the status of a true festival – in order to invoke the spirit of oneness and solidarity, he ordered the entire kingdom to celebrate this day with great aplomb. Most people would have Ganesha paintings in their homes, but for this festival, they would bring home a statue that they would keep at home for a certain number of days, praying to it everyday and making offerings and on the final day, the statue would be carried with fanfare to a water body and immersed. In the later years, during the Independence struggle, it was Bal Gangadhar Tilak who brought the celebrations back to the forefront, because he considered this a good way to unite the people of India, especially because the festivities were hardly considered religion specific.How to make Ganpati celebrations special at home?
If you too are planning to have a Ganpati celebration at your home too this year, then you will need some interesting ideas for Ganpati decoration, so that your home looks special and unique. There are people who spend a lot of money in creating an elaborate setup for their celebrations, but the fact is that you can make really pretty looking setups, right at home and by doing a lot of it on your own. Here are some interesting ideas on how to decorate your home with DIY tricks and easy tips:- Start with a theme: This should be the most fun part of your planning process and also the most important, because it will be based on the theme that you will be able to pick the rest of the Ganpati decoration items. While there is nothing wrong with going the traditional way, choosing a theme could add an element of interest. You can choose themes based on colour – so let’s say you are going monochromatic; you can find white Ganpati decoration and add some black or maybe some grey. This could lead to a very sophisticated looking setup for your home. Alternately, you could consider a south Indian style setup – with a south Indian looking Ganesha idol, jasmine flowers all around and Kancheepuram sarees as the backdrop. And rather than serving the sweets and prasad in a plate or tray, you could look at brass urlis online that will add another southern Indian touch. You could also go international – why not be inspired by the Hindu elements of Thailand or Cambodia and have a Ganpati decoration waterfall to remind you of these holiday destinations?
- Flowers can be more than decoration: Ganpati decoration ideas with flowers might not seem like a brand-new idea, but what if you made the entire Ganesha with flowers? Would that not be interesting? You can use a thermocol structure and insert flowers to create a lovely looking Ganesha. Normally, the decoration is done with marigold flowers and mango leaves, but these days, you will be able to find several exotic flowers and you can use those to make your mandir look so much more magical. You can buy these flowers and string them into garlands or you can use long stemmed flowers to decorate as is and if you want something really unique, you can consider handmade flowers using paper. So many decorative wall hanging options can be created right at home, like torans and floral strings.
- Paper art: If you have children at home, then homemade Ganpati decoration ideas with paper would be a wonderful bet, because this would be a great way to involve them too. Check online and you should be able to find ways of making everything from flowers and leaves to Ganesh himself with paper. One really interesting idea would be to try your hands at origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, using which you can make birds, stars and several other things and you can either place these near the mandap or you could even hang them on the walls or from the ceiling. Should your kids be helping out, you can also use colourful balloons to amp up the decorations for your Ganesh Chaturthi setup. As a matter of fact, these days, several people choose to use balloons, because it adds an element of fun and whimsy, is easy to set, comes in myriad colours and the easiest wall decor items online to locate!
- Drape your Ganesha: This is that time of the year, when you can open up your wardrobes and bring out all kinds of fabrics out and get creative with them. Ganpati decoration with saree, especially those with silk sarees, is a great idea because you can hang those stunning brocades behind the mandap and you will have a wonderful background. From Kancheepuram to Banarasi, from Paithani to Kantha, there is no limiting what type of sarees you use. Same goes with those really heavy and pretty dupattas that you have had stashed away in your wardrobe – you can do dupatta decoration for Ganpati mandap as these are generally easier to drape as they tend to be lighter in weight. You could even have some lights fixed under the dupattas, and that will offer the space an interesting lighting option.
- Light up the festivities: Whether you choose to light the traditional brass diyas or prefer to buy lamp & lights for home that have a more modern touch to them, there is no way that the Ganpati decoration for home can be considered complete without the proper lights. You could make diyas by hand and use those to light up the mandap or you can even consider tealight candles or scented candles. These days, you will be able to find a range of electric lighting options – from twinkling fairy lights to ones that have multiple colours or those dangling ones that can help create the night sky within your home. These kinds of lights can be used to highlight the regular decorative showpieces too – wrap the light string around that teakwood elephant or the large brass traditional diya!
- Go the eco friendly way: Over the past several years, there has been an introspection related to the materials being used to make Ganpatis and what impact it could have on the water bodies and general environment. If you too want an eco friendly Ganpati decoration and celebration, why not start with an eco-friendly Ganesha – one made with clay or mud or even seeds that can grown into new plants. Stick to natural ingredients to deck up the mandap – get creative with fresh flowers, leaves, fruits and vegetables or why not make a rangoli with lentils, grains and seeds? Rather than buying new products, why not repurpose the home decor items that are already present at home – have an umbrella with a broken handle, paint it and use it for backdrop; tore a saree at the last family event, cut and stitch to make the cover for the peeth.