How to Furnish, and Decorate an Area to Acquire an Oriental Theme

In order to choose and decorate furniture for interior decorating you must first decide what theme you want to have. Once you've decided on a theme you must decide what type or style of furniture is best suitable for the area you are decorating.

For the oriental theme that I'm sharing with you the dominant color for the theme is red, and you can compliment this with a golden color. Go natural with the type of furniture you choose, chairs made of bamboo, antique medicinal cupboards, even a food stall type dining table and bench set. Don't forget to beautify with accessories such as framed images of the first Chinese settlers, lampions (small oil lamps with glass chimneys), richly decorated oriental throw pillows, chopsticks, and lampshades and picture frames decorated with eggshells.
You don't have to pay an arm and a leg for all of these furnishings. You can create lamp shades and picture frames with eggshells on your own.

What do you do after cracking eggs for your omelet or cake batter? Throw them out! You say. Well maybe some of you put them in your compost pile. But with eggshells that we generally dispose of, we can turn simple home furnishings into beautiful works of art. Eggshells can be used to decorate vases, plates, lamps, ashtrays, chairs, tables, paintings, even tiles, and one of my all time favorite's picture frames. In fact, you can also use decorated whole or broken Easter eggs for a head start on beautiful decorations.

The first step is to wash the eggshells, if they are really dirty you may find it easier to wash the shells before you crack them. Clean out any left over egg white or yolk making sure to leave as much of the thin paper like membrane on the inside of the eggshells as possible, this will make gluing the shells easier. Put the eggshells out in the sun to dry for about 2 or 3 hours. The eggshells are now ready to use.

How to decorate furniture, tiles, lamp shades or any surface you like with eggshells.

For best results pieces of eggshell should be only slightly larger than the tip of your index finger. Clean and dry the surface that you have decided to decorate. If the surface is smooth you will have to rub it a bit with sandpaper to create a rough, porous area that will hold your glue well. Hold each piece of eggshell gently with a pair of tweezers, inside of eggshell should be facing you. Add a drop of wood glue to eggshell and place glued side down on the desired surface. If you have pieces of eggshell that still have the membrane attached just break the eggshell by placing the eggshell membrane side down on a firm surface and slowly and gently pressing down on it to break the egg shell into smaller pieces then add drops of glue to the membrane side as directed above and place on desired surface. Arrange pieces of eggshell close together or overlapping. After the eggshells have dried in place, use an artist's brush to coat your eggshell decoration with 2 coatings of clear acrylic polyurethane (available in hardware stores).

What can you do with it?

You can liven up your home by decorating your home with eggshells. Start a new family past time, lay out all the supplies needed for decorating with eggshells and each family member can decorate something of theirs. Sell it. Teach some one you know how to decorate with eggshells.