Diwali Decor Shoot – Behind The Scenes

It all started with a short message from Ridhi Kale asking if I wanted to do a Diwali decor feature for India Today Home. A message like that makes you stop, and then stop again. India Today Home? Did I want the feature? How could I say no to that?

Diwali Decor Shoot

Except that they were working on a deadline. I had three days in which to get it all ready. This in the middle of an already crazy work week which was crazier still because of other upcoming Diwali collaborations and because I was leaving town on day four. Every hour was already planned for and Diwali decor for our home was nowhere in the agenda.

I usually find that the hours in a day are not enough to be fit all the work that has to be done into them. If I start to think about how and when I’m going to do what, it sometimes becomes overwhelming.

So I’ve made myself a simple rule. Don’t think. If an interesting opportunity comes your way, first say ‘Yes’. Once you make a commitment, you automatically start working towards it and everything falls into place.

So commitment made, three days to go and I had no idea what I was going to do. I knew I didn’t have time to go shopping, so plan 1 was to use everything that I already had at home. Mom came to the rescue here. I called her and asked her to send me anything at all that she thought was Diwali decor worthy. This included candles, diyas, dupattas, shawls and all her brass ware.

Then I started browsing on the net. I searched Pinterest and my own blog posts for Diwali decor ideas. It’s what I usually do when I’m looking for ideas from scratch. Bombarding myself with beautiful images starts giving me a mental picture of where I’m headed.

A Warm Welcome

The first place I wanted to decorate was our foyer. Having a festive entryway means you’re already anticipating and wondering about what else lies in store inside.

Now the thing was that I was taking the time out to decorate for Diwali a month in advance. It felt like a huge waste of time to have to do it again just before Diwali. So plan 2 was, that all my decorations from now had to last me up to Diwali so that I didn’t have to decorate all over again.

This meant that fresh flowers were out. I used these strings of faux marigold I had and simply hung them as a back drop to the Buddha. Another advantage of using faux flowers was that I could start setting this up a day in advance. I didn’t have to wait for fresh flowers on the morning of the photo shoot itself.

The Inner Entrance

Next came the second entrance… the one from the foyer into our living room. I decided to use dupattas to make a pretty drape for this one.

The local carpenter helped to fix the 5 hooks along the top of the door. Then I folded each dupatta in half lengthwise and put a safety pin on the 2 ends and the centre of the dupatta. I simply hung the safety pin from the hook and it gave me the pretty scallops on the top of the drape.

Next came the marigold along the edge of the drape. There was no way I was redoing this one again either, and so faux flowers came to the rescue once more. I tied these strings of marigold along the length of the dupatta using a needle and thread and stitching around the stem 3 to 4 times. I did this at a distance of every 5 to 6 flowers.

Then I had to hook the two dupattas on the side of the door at different heights to layer them on top of each other. After trying a variety of hooks with two sided tape that kept falling off, I finally laid my hands on these Command hooks which stayed strong and didn’t budge. A string of embroidery thread went around the drape where I wanted to hang it. I tied this loosely enough so that I could loop the same string over the hook on the wall.

And so we had our beautiful entryway ready and festive from both inside and out.

The Dining Area

Next came the dining niche. This is to one side of our living room and doing this up would give festive vibes to our entire living area.

I saw a beautiful flower chandelier in our post on Diwali Decor Ideas which made me think a marigold chandelier would look just perfect above our dining table. This was easy enough to make.

I started off with a metal wire hoop, about 2 feet in diameter.

The logic behind the chandelier was the same as the rest of the decor. I used faux flowers and leaves so that it would last the entire festive season. I started with the greens, wrapping them around the hoop, one string at a time.

The hoop got a little heavy with the greens on it and was becoming difficult to manage as is. So I hung it on to the rafters using black embroidery thread. The existing pendant lights from the rafters above were coming in the way of the hoop. I pulled these upwards to touch the rafters so I had space for the chandelier to hang below them.

I then started loosely twisting these strings of faux marigold around the hoop.

Next came these gold fillers, twisted on the hoop at regular intervals, to add some glitter to the chandelier.

Finally I added a string of fairy lights to the chandelier and it now twinkles when I put off the pendant lights above it.

A red and gold festive table cloth and a large bouquet of fresh flowers completed the festive look. A brass urn for the flowers along with the big brass lamps say ‘Diwali’ all the way.

Lastly, inspired by a pic on our post on Marigold Decor Ideas, I strung fresh marigold garlands behind our dining chairs. Our dining niche was completely Diwali ready.

Living Room:

This left the living room. We had to get it looking festive too. This beautiful, bright phulkari spread from mom’s collection was just perfect to brighten up the cream sofa.

A whole lot of brass ware, candles, diyas and fresh marigold had the living room looking festive in no time too.

Then it was up to Danesh to work his magic. We thought it would just be a couple of hours, but it took him almost as long to shoot the home as it did for me to put it all together. Every time he would finish clicking a ‘scene’ I’d quietly hand him my phone to shoot some pics for me too and he sweetly obliged. So the pics you’re seeing here today are pretty much his.

I don’t know how many more hours he must have spent filtering and editing all the pics he took, but this was the end result.

I don’t know what it looks like to you, but it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. There is something magical about being able to see your work in print and I can’t really explain the satisfaction and pride I feel every time I hold this copy in my hand. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time. Maybe I won’t be so excited about the next time… and maybe I will!

I went from a rush to finish my Diwali decor every year and get the pics up on the blog in time, to decorating way ahead of time this year… without being able to share any pics till the article was published. It was well worth the effort and well worth the wait.

And so here I am again, wishing you all a very happy Diwali! To lots of bright, happy and sparkling this year.

May we continue to meet here as we always do!

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Until next time,

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