Home for the Holidays Means Extra Time for Decorating Projects

There’s something about cooler temperatures that stimulates a homeowner’s creative juices--or maybe it’s just that the crisper weather makes doing any kind of project more of a pleasure.

No one knows this better than the folks who make products aimed at the do-it-yourself home decorator. Here’s a look at some new items that might inspire you:

Faux finishing: Everything you need to know about PaperIllusion you learned in kindergarten. You can decorate walls, floors, picture frames, even appliances simply by tearing PaperIllusion into scraps, soaking it in water and sticking it to your chosen surface. You can cut it for more precise designs, and you can paint, stencil or stamp-print on top of it. The paper, from Village, a brand of F. Schumacher & Co., has a mottled, veined, marble-like pattern and comes in seven colors.

A PaperIllusion kit ($39.99) comes with a roll of paper (covers 100 square feet), water tray, smoothing tool, trimming knife, instructions and a how-to video. (Extra rolls of paper are $29.99.) For a store near you, call (800) 552-9255, or visit https://www.villagehome.com.

Wood works: Decorative moldings can give any room enormous character and needn’t require professional help in trimming. The Hardwood Information Center, a trade group in Pittsburgh, suggests using corner blocks at the edges of window and doorway molding corners to avoid having to miter. Add a chair rail in a dining room, and apply two different finishes above and below (a mix of paints and papers, or a combination).

If you have crown molding, add a strip of decorative molding about a foot below, and fill in the space with a contrasting finish in paint or paper. For information about working with moldings, call (800) 373-WOOD, or visit https://www.hardwood.org.

It’s a match: Sometime when we ex-bohemians weren’t looking, bamboo matchstick and slatted shades moved up-market. You can still have the insouciant look of burnt bamboo at your windows, but even a small blind can cost as much as $100, and they’re mostly special order.

Or you can create the look on your own. Craft shops such as JoAnn ETC and Pier 1 still sell wood matchstick blinds at reasonable prices. One recent weekend I trimmed and hung three matchstick shades, with superb results. On two of the 36-inch-wide blinds, I cut about an inch off each side. I used craft snips for the matchstick parts and a Dremel Multi-Pro Rotary Tool to trim the bamboo rods.

I used a 2 1/2-inch-wide brush to give those two a coat of water-based mixable color stain in coffee and to give the third a ready-mixed stain in white oak.

The shades took the stain beautifully, and the result is a subtly irregular surface that looks great when the light shines through. For information about Dremel tools, call (800) 437-3636 or https://www.dremel.com.