Oriental Decor on the Cheap

I'm into Oriental style, but I can't necessarily drop lots of money on expensive figurines or elaborate murals.

Instead, I just add a few touches with a fun Oriental flair!

Trick 1- Paper your world!

You can use newspaper with oriental script as a design tool. There are generally free papers at the Oriental market, but paying a couple of cents might be worth it. Use the paper to wrap storage or decorative boxes. You can make the newspaper more durable by simply covering over the surface with wide packing tape as a laminate after you've wrapped it. If you mess up, well, there's more where that came from.

A fun idea I've come up with is to use the paper to cover a straight, fairly wide chair rail molding. As in using newspaper for wallpaper you'll have to coat it with polyurethane for added durability.

You can also cover a lampshade (make sure the paper won't be near the bulb) with the newspaper.

You can use origami craft paper in all of the ways you can use newspaper, though it will be more expensive, and much more colorful. Also, most origami paper comes in smaller swatches than newsprint.

Origami paper can also be used as matting for pictures (cut it precisely with an exacto knife) or to frame on its own. You can make a bold statement simply by framing several squares of the colorful paper in black frames.

Also, of course, there's the classic-hanging a group of origami paper birds from the ceiling or a ceiling lamp.

Trick 2- Fabric is your Friend.

Curtains are not that hard to make, even if you don't have a sewing machine. Seriously, all you really need is an iron, ironing board and a few cheap supplies. That means that any fabric can be used for your window treatments. You can spend the money you'll save on gorgeous oriental style material. Making pillow covers is an easy project as well.

Trick 3- Porcelain, Tea Sets and Sake Cups

Find an Oriental market and see if they have a section that sells dishes. Most of the time they're fairly cheap and you can repurpose them as other items. Long sushi dish? Actually a great place to throw your jewelry on your dresser. Tall tea cup? Perfect as a tooth brush holder. Larger plates with great designs can go on stands or they can be hung as art. Tea pots are super containers for flowers, paintbushes, chopsticks or anything else you'd like to both store and display. If you have a small ceramic cutting drillbit and a few other supplies, you can also make a lamp out of your teapot using a lamp kit set.