Designer DECOR on the Cheap

The times dear friends, are hard....but funky,cool,designer chic home deco need not be the sacrificial lamb. If you live in South Africa, they say that MR PRICE HOME is the average Joelene's Stuttafords or Boardmans - but what happens when you are an over-extended homemaker like myself and even MR PRICE HOME cringes your pocket? Do you give up and make do with Tannie Sanet's crocheted doilies? Lemme let you in on a little secret of mine - I furnish/decorate almost entirely at PEP Home, Crazy Store and those fabulous hole in the wall made-in-China type of places.

Today's TINCAN HANDMADE Project yields delightful designer tealight holders with materials sourced entirely from the stores mentioned above and "a friendly SPAR wherever you are"

I must admit that I am somewhat of a compulsive, impulsive buyer and have been known to purchase whatever grabs my attention. At one of my drop-in at PEP trips I found these beautiful handmade flute glasses. So I bought them. I brought them back to the lair and discovered that my cup cupboard runneth over from similar whim purchases. Besides, they were too pretty and too matched to my Orangey, yellow, green colour scheme to be relegated to some dark crevice of storage. So here is what I did.

I chucked about a capful (+/- 10ml)of Citrus Oil into about a handful of Rock Sea Salt(uniodised) (you can get the salt at the Spar or any supermarket, and the fragrance Oil from the Crazy store or any Health Shop, Clicks, or Pharmacy should carry some essential oil or Fragrance Oil, if you cant find it there - I know of 2 fantastic suppliers of all kinds of Fragrance Oils and you can order online), stir in the Fragrance Oil so that the salt absorbs the scent.

Next - I had some wee little pebbles (another binge buy)that I got from the Crazy store, I have seen them at Mr Price Home as well - and remarkably at Padayachee Bros stationery store. I carefully dropped in a teaspoon of the scented salt and then about 2 teaspoons of the pebbles and layered more salt over that so that it filled the little crevices in between the pebbles. I continued this until I reached the fill capacity that I liked.

I then merely took a tealight candle (available at PEP/CS/MPH or Shoprite/Checkers) and placed it on the top. Looks lovely and very Mr Price Home-ish.

Here are a few random pieces of info for you - salt retains scent really well (think bath salts), when there is heat, the scent is sorta encouraged to disperse.

And there you have it - designer deco on a scrooged budget. Stay tuned!