Important aspects of home décor are the decorative elements and home accents you use to complement and accentuate the general decoration and furnishings of your home. Furnishings includes the furniture, and while beautiful furniture goes a long way towards making a home what it is, it is nothing without the smaller items that complement it.
Among these smaller decorative elements are vases, trays, candles, bookends and figurines that can be use to provide home accents that can both set and accentuate the theme of any room. To that list you can add oil paintings, prints, lamps and boxes that have a specific use and that appear entirely appropriate to the setting in which they are used.
Here are some examples of home accents that can offer the decorative elements that make a home a home and not just a collection of furniture.
Home Décor: Vases
Vases can have several functions in your home. The most obvious is to hold floral arrangements, whether these are real flowers or synthetics made from silk or polyester. Flowers offer a means of accentuating any style of décor, and are easily changed to suit the seasons or your color scheme. There is a wide range of synthetic floral arrangements to choose from, and an even larger selection of natural flowers and plants.
Many use vases to offer not just visual beauty to a home, but also to provide an enhanced fragrance to a room. While genuine flowers can smell lovely, silk arrangements have no smell, and the entire fragrance of a room can be designed as you want it by the use of vases containing reed diffusers steeped in essential oils.
Glass vases can also be used as decorative elements in a home by filling them with pebbles, colored glass marbles and glass fragments, seashells or varying colors of spices. The only limiting factor to your creative ability using vases is your imagination. Larger glass vases can even be used for small fish.
Decorative Trays
Decorative trays can be fashioned from metals, glass or ceramics in various shapes and colors, and are even made from highly colored plastics and many types of hardwood. Fragrant sandalwood is good choice for a decorative tray, as is a half pineapple or even a coconut shell.
Trays can be used to hold the same items as for vases, such as colored glass or stones, and also nuts. However, your guests would prefer them to be filled with chocolates and other sweetmeats. Fruit is also an option, although a very unimaginative one - unless you choose exotic fruits - and keep them fresh!
Ceramics: Plates and Other Ceramics
Among the more popular types of home accents are decorative plates and ceramics such as jars and jugs. Plates can be displayed on racks on tables and sideboards, or in display or curio cabinets. If you hang them on your walls, make sure you do not use metal racks that damage the plates.
Decorative jugs and jars can be small and used as table and display ornaments, or can be large floor-standing jars (think Ali-Baba) that are suitable for large entrance halls, larger themed rooms and patios. These are also available in almost every material, natural and synthetic, although clay, porcelain and glass are the most popular - and the most decorative.
Mirrors as Home Decorative Elements
Mirrors can make all the difference between an ordinary room and one that receive admiration. Mirrors make small rooms look larger, and offer light to darker halls and rooms that would otherwise appear gloomy. Two or three strategically placed mirrors in a room can multiply reflect the light of only one lamp to provide a scintillating effect that deserves all the admiration it receives.
Mirrors in bedrooms and bathrooms are not so much decorative as functional, so when selecting them, make sure you understand the difference between the two. You need at least one full length mirror in a dressing room or bedroom, and at least one face mirror in a bathroom: the latter being mainly used for shaving or applying night creams.
Candlesticks as Home Accents
Candlesticks are a good choice if you are seeking unique home accents. There is a massive range of candlesticks and candelabra available, both online and from a wide variety of mall stores. Many people use candelabra on their dining table, particularly during dinner parties.
Others use candlesticks around the home, and while you will find a huge selection of different types of decorative and scented candles available, many people prefer a simple straight cylindrical white candle to colored or twisted candles. Others don't care, and use the type of candles they like best - twisted or not! In fact, such items are used more as decorative elements in the home rather that for their functional use
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