Diwali Decoration Ideas to Jazz-UP your Home

Diwali Decoration ideas to jazz up your home for this festive season. These are sure to pump up family and friend’s moods. Simple Diwali decoration ideas that will completely change your home ambiance to create an enticing and welcoming space. Most decoration items used here can be found locally or online. All you need is little planning to create lasting memories.

My Diwali During Childhood

As a kid, Diwali preparation in our family would begin several weeks before the actual festival. The atmosphere inside the house and in the city markets would be ramping up at the same time. People are naturally motivated to make memories by decorating your home both inside and outside. However, for those of us who live outside India, this can be a little different.

Diwali Celebration Outside India

Outside India, Diwali is not celebrated by the majority of the population. We don’t see much enthusiasm for Diwali outside our homes or in markets. Despite that, we put our best efforts into imparting and transfer our cultural traditions to our kids. We want our kids to have the same childhood memories as ourselves.

Importance of Diwali Decorations

Every Diwali, I try to create excitement in kids with all the decorations, lights, and fire-crackers. Now they look forward to it every year. Even if the busy schedule does not allow time to implement all the ideas presented here, do what you can. Something is better than not doing anything. I am sharing some ideas from my home Diwali decorations which you can use in their entirety or in pieces that suit you.

Diwali Lighting – Festival of Lights

Diwali is a festival of lights. Outside decorative lighting is my husband’s responsibility, and he really jazzes it up, attracting everybody’s attention in the neighborhood. Pictures don’t do justice to the efforts, but the overall impact of the lighting was breathtaking.

He used professional installers for the roof lining lights, which cost approximately $500. He could do the rest of the lighting by himself as it could be safely approached using a regular home ladder. For driveways and circles around the lamp-post, he used the programmable LED rope lights. He decided to go with net-style LED lights for the tree trunks, home pillars, and big planters. Regular LED string lighting was used for creating the pyramid around the lamp-post.

Diwali Decorations - Make it a Family Activity

Kids loved helping with Diwali Decorations, making it a family project. The toddler was busy managing the spikes for rope lighting while the middle schooler gave her ideas and passed on tools to dad up on the ladder. Please make sure that you use the appropriate GFCI protected circuits to power your lights and take electrical hazard precautions when installing lights.

Main Entrance Diwali Decoration

In Indian tradition, the main door has a special significance. Many Indian traditions revolve around decorating and performing various ceremonies at the home or pooja room entrance. The same applies to Diwali decorations.

The home's main entrance décor has been enhanced using bandhanwar (toran), flowers, diyas, and lamps. I got these Bandhanwar (toran) during my last visit to India. These are some of the usual few items I get from India every time I visit back. Diya refers to the earthen lamp used in the Indian sub-continent. These days, you can purchase decorative diyas in almost all major cities in the USA at Indian grocery stores. These are also available on Amazon if you do not have time to visit the local store.

Artificial Flowers or Natural Flowers

After a lot of research, I decided to use artificial flowers that I found on Amazon. I was delighted by the overall quality, feel and look of the flowers. I also used some fresh flowers from my garden and local store. The lamps were purchased from Pier1 Imports.

Rangoli – Keep it Simple

You have the option of making the Rangoli both with colors and flowers. In my case, since I Have a toddler, powder colors did not seem like a good idea. So I went with a simple design that could be made quickly in 10 to 15 minutes with a combination of natural and faux flowers.

You can further jazz up your Diwali Rangolis by combining it with beautifully crafted diyas.

Did you notice the urli in front of Rangoli? Urli, a brass bowl for holding floating candles and flowers, adds a different dimension to any festive or ethnic décor. It immerses life into your static décor by making it dynamic with floating candles and flowers.

Entry Foyer – Create Anticipation to explore more Diwali Decorations

Next is the Entry Foyer, which is any visitor's first glimpse inside your home. It creates the first impression and anticipation to see what else is there. It should convey the festive mood of your home while creating a desire to come in and immerse themselves into the festive mood. The foyer décor presented here uses a Ganesh idol centerpiece sitting on a beaded medallion table runner and surrounded by decorations consisting of brass artifacts and decorated tea-light candle holders.

Over here, I have used my existing bangles as tealight candle holders, which are inexpensive and a great way of adding Indian touch to your décor. I have a huge bangles collection, so I borrowed some here to decorate the tealights.

The Ganesh idol was gifted to us by my brother-in-law. Over here, I have used the brass bowls as urlis. To add urlis as a decoration piece, you don't have to buy them or use a brass bowl. You can use any flat-topped shallow bowl to create the same effect.

In the picture above, I have used kundan rangolis for floor decorations. Alternatively, you may use a Rangoli design like the one shown below. In my case, with a running toddler, it only lasted a few hours.

Inside Diwali Decorations for Living Areas

Inside the house, you can add little decorations at various places to change your home's overall look and feel and make it look more festive. For example, I enhanced my living room coffee table with candles and flowers. 

You can easily see that I am a big fan of Pier1 Imports. Most of the items in this décor are from that store. Whether you are looking at the table runner, or the trays and candles, all items are from Peir1 Imports, which I have collected over time. I keep moving them around the house to create new decors using different combinations.

I have a good collection of runners and trays. They are my weakness. So, whenever I see a good designer piece, I tend to buy it for future use. Trays provide a defined space and attraction focal point, allowing me to focus on the limited space. Runners add a different texture to the space and help bring color contrast and further glorify other décor elements. I have also used kundan rangolis as fillers between the space to give it an ethnic touch.

Fireplace Diwali Decorations

Another example is the Fireplace decorations, which is usually a focal point of the living room in an American home. You can create a nice ethnic décor by simply placing a few artifacts on the fireplace hearth and in space immediately in front of the hearth. 

Over here, I have used a combination of three independent elements to create variety with a common purpose to showcase the various ethnic elements of India. I have used two beautifully decorated elephant heads with Nettipattam in combination with brass musical instrument artifacts. Fell in love with adorable Nettipattam elephant heads during the Kerala visit and could not resist adding them to my collection.  I love the authenticity they add to any space I use them in.

Table Setting for Festive Meal

No festivities are complete without a festive feast around a beautifully set tablescape.

It’s an amalgamation of diyas, kunda rangolis, fresh flowers with carefully selected place-mats, and a creative centerpiece that anybody can easily assemble from the picture. The Pearls & Twigs Shimmer Placemat and Glitz Beaded Silver Placemat are both available in Pier1 Imports.

Pooja Room Diwali Decorations

Last, but the most important location to decorate in your home on the occasion of Diwali is the pooja room and the temple. Laxmi pooja is the most important component of the whole Diwali celebration, which is performed in the pooja room at the temple. My family moves every few years due to the nature of my husband's job. Hence, even though I would love to have a separate pooja room, I currently have to share it with the office.

Hence, I use a handcrafted wooden temple with Rajasthani work with a matching backdrop. This backdrop uses tulle fabric adorned with peacock feathers, pearl bandhanwar, and pearl strings. The ends of the tulle fabric have been tied using the brass elephant diyas. This setup amplifies the pooja corner.

The door to the pooja room, which I share with my home office, is also decked up with bandhanwar and flowers. Try to add little details like satiya stickers and maha-Laxmi footprint stickers. The swastika is associated with Ganesha, and maha-Laxmi footprints are associates with the goddess of wealth and prosperity. These little details greatly enhance the impact of your décor.

Diwali Feast Menu Planning

Now, when we are done with the Diwali Decorations, let's start planning the festive feast.

I am still working on that next post with all the recipes, but meanwhile, here are some teaser pictures to tantalize your taste buds. Few suggestions from my blog that you could prepare for Diwali dinner or feast as below. Most of these recipes are no onion, no garlic version, which is often needed for religious and festive occasions.

The menu for the Diwali feast featured here includes snacks, the main course, and of course, sweets. I have baked methi mathri, shakkar para, churma laddu, peanut, sesame seed burfi, pistachio-gulkand burfi for snacks.

For the main course, the feast includes methi aloo, stuffed parval, dal-makhani, paneer makhana with cashew gravy, sham savera, pumpkin poori, and urad dal kachori, fried rice ships. Other than the sweet snack already listed above, I also have ras-malai as a dessert.

Shubh Deepawali

This has become quite a long post with a lot of details. Hopefully, you will be able to incorporate some of these decoration ideas into your upcoming holiday events. Please share your feedback if you liked a particular section.

Happy Diwali to everyone. May your life be filled with love, light and blessings of lord Ganesha!

||Suklaambara Dharam Vishnum, Sashi Varnam Chatur Bhujam; Prasanna Vadhanam Dhyaayet, Sarva Vighna Upashaanthaye||

Meaning: Lord Ganesha always dressed in white represents purity. He is omnipresent with a gray complexion like that of ash glowing with spiritual splendor. The Lord with a bright countenance has four arms. I meditate on the God who can destroy all obstacles, whether material or spiritual.