10 SANTAbulous DIY X’mas Decoration Ideas handpicked by ShopYourWorld

Christmas is that special day of the year when people honour the birth of Jesus Christ. Celebrated all over the world especially by the Christians on 25^th December, it is a festive that’s all about family, friends, Christmas decoration, great food and gifts.

While Christmas is just around the corner, many of us are struggling to give our homes a bright and beautiful Christmasy look and feel. To lend you a helping hand, we at ShopYourWorld over our tea-time gossips hit on a SANTAbulous list of creative and ingenious DIY Christmas decoration ideas. Whether you prefer to do it yourself or haul your family members on it, these incredibly easy DIYs will gracefully transform your home and make your neighbours green with envy.

1. Redo Your Wreath

Stack three different sizes of wreaths one below the other using hot glue gun, add few accessories and it dress it up a little to give it an adorable snowman look. Hung this Snowman Wreath on the door or a living room wall to accentuate your home.

2. Bottle Cap Snowman

If a Wreath Snowman is too big for your wall or door, try this cute little snowman ornament that can be effortlessly made using bottle caps of Coke, Pepsi or whatever your favourite beverage is. All you need is few bottle caps, glue sticks, acrylic paint, ribbons and buttons.

3. Sit in Santa Chair

Our Dinner tables on Christmas family get-togethers always look delicious and are the ones to get more attention. ;) So why not make it appealing! Top off your beautifully decorated Christmas dinner table with Santa hats for the chairs. These DIY chair toppers are simple to make, washable and charming. For those who are far off from sewing or stitching, this might be a slightly difficult task. But if you are good at measurements, a local tailor can do a great job for you at hardly any cost.

Spice up your festive dining room table with this easy-to-sew Santa Hat Chair Covers! Take a look at this video guide for more details:

4. Wooden Tree Sign

A few sticks found in your garden area can create a beautifully rustic Christmas sign to hang either indoors or outdoors. If you prefer some colour, you could certainly spray the sticks. But if you ask me, I would suggest you to stick with the natural colour and let the décor work its charm!

5. Santa Hat Door Vase

If you’re in the mood for an alternative to the traditional wreath, turn a Santa hat into a vase and hang it from your door this year. Some evergreen and poinsettias would finish it off perfectly.

6. Holiday Shakers

Here’s a Yuletide DIY idea that is worth a salt: Take a transparent glass/plastic salt shaker and turn it into mini winter wonderlands by nesting toy evergreens and deer atop iodized "drifts".

7. Sweetness Personified

Sweeten up your decorations instantly by putting out bowls of cute and tiny holiday candies in pretty, stemmed glassware. Swipe the edge of the glass with a lime or lemon, and dip the glass into salt or sugar. Leave it on your dinner table or center table to glam up the festivity.

8. Let it Snow

Many regions in India don’t see snowfall during winters. And Christmas without snowfall is a little incomplete. So here’s how you can give your home a chilly snowfall-like feeling for a beautiful white Christmas: String the cotton balls together on a thread to make a garland or hang this literally anywhere; the more strings the merrier!

9. Penguins on a Roll

Here’s a great craft that will attract a lot of attention this Christmas. You will need a bottle, scissors, paint, cloth, and a paint brush to bring life to this penguin decoration. The below image describes detailed steps to make this fun and festive DIY:

10. Advent Candles

Line up some candles in mason jars (or Kissan Jam Jars) and fill these jars with either sugar, salt, raw rice, coffee beans, white pebbles, decorative stones or whatever element you prefer. This DIY idea is absolutely simple, sweet and stunning way to light up your living space.

Try these magical DIY Christmas Home Décor ideas and have a holly jolly Christmas!

Like Burton Hillis rightly says, “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a Happy Family all wrapped up in each other.”

Merry Christmas to one and all! :)

5 Reasons Why We Love Vidalia Chop Wizard!

If your ardour for cooking runs deep in your veins, then this super-efficient Vidalia Chop Wizard, available on ShopYourWorld.com in India, is going to be your best kitchen companion. From chopping apples, mushrooms, blocks of cheese to fine dicing shallots, nuts or ginger, the Chop Wizard does it all! We love this handy gadget for many flattering reasons, but let us count the top five!

1. Go Chop, Chop, Chop!

How about impressing your spouse with an instant vegetable soup? Alright, get all the vegetables out of your refrigerator, fit one veggie at a time inside the little wizard, simply press down the lid and voila, your uniformly chopped vegetable is on the container base in no time. Place another - chop, and the third - chop, and the fourth...khachaak! And in less than five minutes, all your soup ingredients are ready to be thrown into the slow cooker. All you got to do is let your instantly chopped veggies mingle with those amazing spices. Isn’t it simply charming?

2. The Time-Saver Hero!

 

Amidst all your efforts of getting the flavours just right, you might quickly need a bit of finely diced garlic to bring that much needed aroma to your delicious dish, and this miraculous ‘genie’ provides you what you want in just a press! One swift moment is all it takes to get those entire vegetables or fruits sliced in equal pieces. It not only chops your veggies but also chops off your kitchen prep time!

3. No More Tears!

 

Chop onions like there’s no tomorrow with this brilliantly-designed Chop Wizard that literally does magic! Just peel the onions, slice it into half and place them in the chop wizard. You will be amazed to see an entire onion being chopped so swiftly and consistently. If you’re a perfectionist, you are going to love this! And since your job is done in seconds, you can easily win the battles against those ruthless onions with no more tears, ever!It’s a 

4. Child’s Play!

I’m sure your kids or little sibling loves to play about in the kitchen. Next time they fool around with a knife or come close to the oven or gas, hand them over few vegetables or fruits and ask them to dice it with this easy-to-use chopping device. We bet your tiny tots will love you more!

A tiny piece of advice: If your kids are too small to handle this device, we hint you sit next to them when they are chopping your veggies with love for you.

5. Measure what you eat!

 

If your doc advised you to lose a few pounds, the very first step towards this mission is to measure how much essential proteins of the veggies or cheese you are consuming. Well, don’t fret! The catch container at the bottom of the Vidalia Chop Wizard shall take care of that! Being calibrated with marks from ½ cup up to 2 cups, you can now know the exact quantity of what you eat, thanks to the Chop Wizard.

If you have already started seeing this incredible Vidalia Chop Wizard doing wonders in your mind's eye and want to desperately buy one or gift your loved one, just a few clicks on ShopYourWorld.com and a very little share of your pocket money should suffice! Get your chopping mate today! 

The Right Care with Aveeno

Our skin is the first fabric we wear and it is essential that we take good care of it. When it comes to babies, especially, early care goes a long way in developing a healthy skin for life. In that case, the Aveeno Baby Products is the best bet for your baby. 

Although Aveeno(from the scientific name for the common oat, Avena sativa) began as a basic skin care company that made ‘Soothing Bath Treatment’ way back in 1945, it soon began to expand to produce quality products using “active natural” ingredients that cured all kinds of skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, pruritus ani, chickenpox, hives and sunburn. Being a subsidiary of the giant FMCG and Pharmaceuticals Company, Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno has been the doctor-approved brand for kids’ skin care, since its inception. 

Providing a head-to-toe baby care, Aveeno has a series of kid friendly, specially formulated with Active Naturals’ Natural Colloidal Oatmeal products. The Aveeno Baby Wash and Shampoo is mild on the skin and leaves your little one moisturized and cared for. The Baby Calming Comfort Bath is a soap-free cleanser with the richness of lavender and vanilla that makes up a calming bath for your baby. Follow this up with the Baby Daily Moisture lotion and hydrate the baby’s skin, making it refreshed and smooth. What is most important is that your little angel gets the best care at all times, through the day. So there is everything from Baby Calming Comfort Lotion to Shower and Bath Oil for Babies to pamper their skin all day!

Not just protection and keeping their skins healthy and fresh, it is also important to protect your baby  from skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, pruritus ani, chickenpox, hives, and sunburn. Aveeno has a series of products that aid in solving these skin issues for your baby, understanding that a sure yet gentle treatment is the need of the hour. So while the Aveeno Baby Cleansing Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Wash Scent cleanses the skin with its ‘fragrance free, dye free and alcohol free’ formula, the Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream uses the active naturals oatmeal to prevent the recurrence of extra dry skin and reduces  itching and irritation. If diaper rashes are a big issue for baby, fret no more and simply apply the Aveeno Soothing Relief Diaper Rash cream. 

Aveeno also has a line of products for adults – ranging from stress busting creams and lotions (that make use of the Active Naturals to calm the senses) to eye creams and Nourish + Style Volumizing foams and style creams. Lip Balm, shave gel, sunscreen, ageless serum and more also add to this product range. Each of the products makes use of ingredients intended to improve, nourish, cleanse and protect you in the best way possible. 

With Aveeno baby products being recommended for years by every paediatrician worth their while, it is no surprise that even their products for adults are getting some great reviews. So whether you want a stress buster cream that will calm you after a hard day at work or need that natural shine back on your hair, even if you have coloured, permed or treated it – Aveeno is where you should look for the right products that care for you!

Summer Stuck – ShopYourWorld’s guide to beat the heat this summer

At ShopYourWorld.com, we suspect someone somewhere switched on the heater to full blast for the winter and forgot to turn it off. It’s either that, or this scorching heat is a result of some seriously damaged eco-system. So while stepping out of the house in the afternoon is next to impossible, (no SPF 90 won’t save you either!) we've figured ways to beat the heat and boredom from the comfort of your homes.

We all know the drink-more-water-and-wear-cool-clothes drill, or better yet, sit at home and shop online for all the pretty summer dresses, catch up on your favourite TV series, watch all the award winning movies or just take multiple cold showers in a day. These common tricks are probably on your list already, but if you’re holed up in your home and looking to do something fun, try our suggestions below!

Camp rock

Is it too hot to go camping? Just gather your friends and family and camp indoors instead. Revisit your childhood by making pillow forts and camping tents with bed sheets in your living room. Eat junk food, share ghost stories, get portable speakers to blast some music and watch movies on a home projector – make it a slumber party you’ll never forget!

Look it’s a bird!

If you’re literally melting in the heat, imagine the poor birds out there in the sky. Be a gentle soul this summer and hang a simple bird feeder with a bowl of water on your window. And you don’t even need to buy one. Just take an old plastic bottle, pierce two holes through the body and insert a wooden or plastic spoon (as in the picture) and fill it with bird feed.  String a sturdy twine through the cap of the bottle and hang it on your window. It doesn’t cost much and who knows; maybe it’ll attract some beautiful rare birds to your home!

Do you want to build a snowman?

Okay so we don’t have snow, we wish we did, but all we have are sweet grapes this season and we’ve found a way to make them fun too. Take a bunch of ripe green grapes, wash them thoroughly, place them separately on a wax paper and put them in the freezer for 5-6 hours. Once done, you can eat them as snacks after a long day or add some in your glass of wine to keep it chilled for a longer time. Isn’t that really cool?

Ice-ice baby

Staying indoors all through summer sounds like heaven, but let’s face it, not the most practical idea. At some point you will be forced to brave the harsh sun, and return home with terrible sunburns. So make sure you have aloe vera ice cubes to rescue you and soothe the burning skin. They are simple to make too; buy any regular aloe vera gel available, pour little portions in an ice cube tray, and freeze it overnight. Voila! You have an ice cubes to relieve your skin with all the goodness and benefits of aloe.

Frozen treats
There’s nothing better than eating buckets of ice cream or frozen yoghurt in the summer, and it’s especially cooler when you’ve made it yourself. Invest in a Classic Electric Crank Ice Cream Maker and whip up a different fruity flavoured ice cream each day of the week. Or get the Yonanas 901 Deluxe Ice Cream Treat Maker and treat everyone at home to a smooth and delicious frozen yoghurt dessert. This one even has a lever to dispense the yogurt or ice cream making it extremely fun for kids too.

 

‘Texas cool’ your house

This is more of a hack to keep your house cool, rather than yourself, and will require you to wake up way before sunrise. All you have to do is open all the windows in your house before the sun dawns. The air is cooler at that time and the cross ventilation will prevent your house from turning stuffy during the day. Shut the windows a few minutes before sunrise and prevent the hot air from entering your safe haven. Repeat the process after sunset if the need be, but strongly avoid it if mosquitoes and bugs are a problem.

Bugger off!

In case you accidentally let the ‘friendly neighbourhood’ bugs in, don’t choke yourself by dousing your house with bug repellent sprays. Try this fun and easy DIY candle instead. Things you’ll need; melt-able wax (leftover wax works just fine), citronella oil, wicks, wooden stick or spoon, container to melt wax, candle jar and hot glue to attach the wicks. Remember the citronella oil is the essential ingredient, so if you don’t find it in your local store, buy it online from ShopYourWorld. Just follow the process to make a regular candle and add a few drops of the oil in the fully melted wax to create your own DIY bug repellent.

Armed with these handy tips, team shopyourworld.com is all geared up to battle the heat effectively this summer and we hope you are prepped too. If you have some of your own secret tricks to tackle the heat, do share some with us!

One stop sound solution – Sonos Speakers

You can have the best food, amazing costumes and the liveliest people at your house party, but nothing is complete without good music and a rocking music system. If you have no time or budget for an expensive wired sound system and would love to have a music system that covers your entire house (yes, your kitchen and store room included), the Sonos speakers are your best bet.

Setting up a fail-proof wireless sound system in your house has never been easier. All the Sonos Zone Players – Play:1, Play:3 and Play:5 – are best suited for rooms of different dimensions and sound requirements. High quality integrated speakers with digital amplifiers enable the Zone Players to deliver crystal clear sound with a deep bass and rich mid-range level sounds. They are elegantly designed to blend in with every decor style and look impressive no matter where you place them.

The Sonos speakers connect to your home WiFi network using a Zone Bridge - a device that physically connects to your router and creates a Sonos mesh network to link all the Sonos Zone Players in the house. This mesh is like a private network, created to control the individual speakers, with two advantages. One, it doesn’t affect your WiFi speed in any way, in case multiple speakers are in use. Two, it lets you stream music wirelessly without any lag or distortion caused due to other media devices on the same network.

Once this network is established, you can play music via your Android phone, iPhone, iPod and iPad. Just download the free Sonos app and stream unlimited music stored on your device or via Internet radio. You can control individual speaker volume levels, what should be playing in each room, sync music in two areas and have something else playing in the third room easily and a lot more. You can also use two zone players in the same room and tune them to work in pair, as a left and right stereo output speaker.

Just imagine, now everyone in your house can listen to what they like, anywhere they like. You could be belting out the latest tunes by Imagine Dragons in your bedroom on full blast, your father can enjoy a talk radio show in the living room, your mom can catch up on the news while cooking in the kitchen and your grandma can meditate with low instrumental music playing in the background. Or, the whole family can clearly listen to the same content, despite being in different rooms.

Whether it’s a house party or you need to move throughout the house finishing your chores, group all Sonos speakers to stream from the same source and don’t miss a single second of your favourite song or radio show. No more ugly wires or complicated set ups with wall mounted speakers. So waste no more time and simply go wireless with Sonos Zone Players.

Tipper Point: The many uses of a freezer

There are always a bunch of things on our checklist that we keep pushing right to the bottom simply due to the enormity of the task! It could be anything from a boring chore to a new hobby we have been postponing. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that the task at hand is so complex; we will never find time for it.

That is where ShopYourWorld walks in and presents some tips and life hacks that will make your life a whole lot easier. The first thing that we are going to tip you about at ‘Tipper Point’ is how to make the best use of your freezer. Yes, your freezer can more than just keep cold meats, beer and frozen foods.

There are some fabulous things that your freezer could achieve that you never knew about. For instance, did you know it could extend the burning time of your wax candle? All you have to do is freeze the wax candles before use and lo, they are going to shine their light for longer! The freezar also works its charms in increasing the life of your NiMH and NiCad batteries if you store them. Just remember you need to thaw them completely before use. 

Seeds that grow well in cold climes can be beautifully preserved in your freezer till you plant them. You could also place a sealed envelope inside the freezer for a few minutes to open it. So just in case absent-minded-you forgot to keep that document, this is how you can reseal it! 

Keep all your soft furnishings and delicate stuffed toys in the freezer before you wash them. This removes all dust mites. You could ‘cold clean’ your jeans by keeping it in a Ziploc bag and stashing it in your freezer. Be assured that the smells and dirt will disappear in a week’s time. 

We saved the best news for the last so you could savour it with a pleasant shock. So here’s the showstopper of a tip about your freezer: you can actually revive your cranky hard drive for a while, if you store it in your freezer for 3-5 hours in a Ziploc bag. Remove it from deep freeze and attempt to access it once again. Leap in joy, for your hard disk will work for a while. Quick, backup all the important data! 

So now that you are well equipped with all the other secret super powers of your freezer, remember to drop by the ShopYourWorld blog every once in a while for more tips and tricks. Be the know-it-all around the house and save yourself plenty of time, money and energy.

The battle of the books!

Many a childhood would have remained incomplete had Peter Pan and Wendy, Akbar and Birbal, Tom Sawyer and the Four Musicians of Bremen had not paid a visit. Kids would have grown up, for one, unaware of a Neverland; and wit and values would have remained lessons they had to learn the hard way, through life. Thank god for books, most of us lived vicariously - laughed, cried, suffered and rejoiced with many a feisty character - and our lives have been richer for the same. With a growing trend of e-book readers replacing physical books, one wonders if it is wiser to gift a Kindle e-reader for a 2 year old’s birthday or go for a trusted paperback edition of Grandmother’s Tales!

The battle of the sexes has taken a temporary backseat, all thanks to the battle between physical books and e-books. While each have their own pack of soldiers fighting the cause, one needs to take an objective look to understand the whole picture. 

Let’s first look at physical books – old world charm, musty odors that tug at memories and all the romanticism associated with it! Agreed that there is nothing more wonderful than the tangibility of a book – the whole sensation of flipping pages and literally moving forward in the story is beautiful. However, the same physical space books occupy, making us giddy with joy, also proves to be a burden when shifting houses! Thousands need to be spent packing these heavy tomes into boxes and parcelling them. But then, you don’t need to use up electricity to hold a book now, do you?! 

When a work associate, a know-it-all relative or a date you want to impress comes home, these very imposing hardbacks and paperbacks and their cracked spine give you leverage. They turn you from a nobody into a wise bibliophile who can quote Kafka, flirt with the transcendental verses of Rumi and discuss over wine, the Fibonacci numbers and the plumbing of Harappan times. That is, if you actually spend on rare books, fight crowds to make a beeline for signed copies of new releases and let many a tree get pulped to hold your physical copy. 

If you are still reading, let’s take a look at how e-book readers, like the Kindle and the Nook, can save you a guilt trip. You may have to shell out a lot of money as an investment. Please dig it out of that fund you had saved up for that gargantuan library you once wanted to build – this will still turn out cheaper! Without wasting wood or paper, you now have your own e-reader that can store within its circuits, thousands of books! Agreed you don’t get the tingling sensation in your finger when holding this gadget like you do while flipping a page. Technology, however, has mirrored reality as much as is possible – from textured screens to flip style navigation! 

Download your must-reads in a matter of seconds at cheaper prices, get extra information, character biographies, and share and discuss plots with fellow book lovers using your e-readers. If you are getting nostalgic about your neighbourhood library’s subscription, fret no more! Many e-readers are now coming out with lending facilities which let you share your library with friends. There is even a paperless library in the US where the entire facility supports e-reading! 

While reading under the sun is a delight that e books can’t completely offer, reading a paperback through the night is sure to burn midnight oil and some lamps! In the endless battle of physical books Vs e-books, people are losing out on the concept of reading! Ultimately, it is a story that needs to be read. Be it a biography of someone fabulous, or the crushes and sexcapades of a 20-something – the tale seems to be hanging between choosing which of these two methods one uses to read! 

Gift yourself a Kindle e-reader or go ahead and bury your head behind the piles of paper – never forget that what you are in search of are words that spell out intimate tales. And no matter how, the joy of reading, my friends, is still intact!