Wallflowers

THESE beautiful handcrafted feather butterflies caught designer Malini Ramani8217;s eye in Bali. 8216;8216;I saw them lying in a warehous...

THESE beautiful handcrafted feather butterflies caught designer Malini Ramani8217;s eye in Bali. 8216;8216;I saw them lying in a warehouse where I had gone to source clothes for my Goa store,8217;8217; she says.

8216;8216;The colours are just stunning8212;bright fuchsia, turquoise, aqua and yellow. And they don8217;t even look like feathers, just real butterflies.8217;8217; Ramani liked them so much that she ended up buying three cartons.

The psychedelic wingers were carefully transported back to Delhi where Ramani created a display on her living room wall.

8216;8216;I had so many left over that I also have some in my office, and my store and bedroom in Goa. I gave a few to my cousins to hang above their daughters8217; beds,8217;8217; she says.

DESIGNER Sabina Singh is all about colour. And typically, the Mumbai home she shares with restaurateur hubby AD abounds with all sorts of blooms. A wall she8217;s particularly proud of is the orange-washed space in her bedroom. 8216;8216;I got the stencils from London and painted a gold Mughal pattern,8217;8217; she says. But the crazy splashes don8217;t end there8212;the rest of the room has lime green, blue and violet walls with yellow and peacock blue doors, not to mention kites hanging from the beams. 8216;8216;I8217;ve also painted a rose pattern on the pelmet above my curtains,8217;8217; adds Singh.

WHEN designer Krsna Mehta, of home furnishings brand Zeba, saw a padded leather wall in a European hotel, he decided to try something similar.

8216;8216;I made wooden frames, padded them with sponge and covered them with waste fabrics of different textures,8217;8217; he says. The blocks are attached with velcro, making it very mobile8212;8216;8216;just like a Lego set8217;8217;.

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Wall Art 101

Meera Dabir specialises in walls. She8217;s jazzed up the homes of Aamir Khan, Sheetal Mallar, Jaaved Jaafery and Adhuna and Farhan Akhtar. She shares a few tips on decorating painted walls
8226; The easiest way is to use stick-ons and embroidery patches, zari borders, lace decals, tiny mirrors, sequinned motifs, stones and pebbles. Just stick them onto your wall in a specific pattern, or randomly
8226; Cut out stencils in different shapes and paint them over with gold, silver or white
8226; Stick strips of wood at waist level to divide your wall in half. Paint the lower section in a different colour8212;it adds dimension and is a nice architectural detail
8226; For childrens8217; rooms, use crayons to add motifs or do freehand drawings on the walls

He brightened a narrow passage by oil-painting a flowering tree, and sticking beads on the blossoms.

HERBALIST Shahnaz Husain calls her home a memory kiosk where family heirlooms jostle for space with artefacts from foreign holidays. One wall of her posh Greater Kailash-I apartment in New Delhi is covered with quaint masks from Venice.

8216;8216;In Venice they use gondolas to ferry you about. I was on my way to the airport when I saw them being sold on another boat. I stopped and bought a few,8217;8217; says Husain. A particular favourite is a white ostrich feather mask she picked up after seeing it on an actress in a Venetian play. 8216;8216;I do the interiors myself. A professional can decorate your house, but they can8217;t make it a home,8217;8217; she says.

Shobha Deepak Singh, director and vice president of Delhi8217;s Shri Ram Bhartiya Kala Kendra, has a wall display of restored antique saris. Singh came up with the idea about eight years ago when she held an exhibition at her boutique. 8216;8216;I put up a few restored pieces over the new ones as decoration, but no one wanted the new stuff,8217;8217; laughs Singh, who periodically changes the display. At the moment, it8217;s a black temple sari.

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8216;8216;Temple saris are usually in red and other bright colours. This one8217;s a rare combination and I love having it there,8217;8217; she says.

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By Parizaad Khan/Mumbai and Paromita Chakrabarti/New Delhi