As the weather gets colder and you find yourself indoors more often, making your space at school cozier and more personal may just be the thing to get your mind off of finals.
Some of the most versatile dorm decorations are any type of garland. Fabric garland, like the one pictured, can be made by tying strips of fabric onto string or twine.
For smaller pennants on the garland, you can cut two equal-sized triangles out of fabric or felt and place your string between them with hot glue. Another option is to glue the two triangles together and cut two small holes at the top and pull your string through.
Large pennants can also be made by creating one larger triangle and one smaller triangle out of felt or heavy fabric. Once hot glued together and trimmed (if necessary), small triangles can be created to decorate the ends.
Once you have a solid base for your pennant, you can create letters or cut out pictures with fabric to personalize. Some skilled artists may even be able to embroider the pennants.
With the holidays approaching, paper angels, snowflakes or dolls are common (and simple!) to make. They can be made in any shape, connected and decorated freely.
To make the connecting paper decorations, fold a piece of paper in half and cut down the crease, holding the cut paper strip horizontally, fold in half again, then fold each “flap” back toward the other end of the paper. Draw your figure, making sure it touches the ends of the paper to connect, then cut it out.
For visual instructions, check out Miss Lam’s paper doll chain video on YouTube.
If photography is more your style, getting small clothespins and gluing them to twine or clipping them to wire can be a good way to display polaroids or developed photos. Having pictures of friends and family on your wall can make any day easier.
If you want more pieces of friends and family, asking them to create things for your room might help you through the tough days. Exchanging paintings, doodles or crafts among the people in your life and hanging them up keeps them present in your mind.
Saving gifts from others can be fun, but they don’t always last. If you’ve received flowers, or just bought some for yourself, it can be sad to throw them away. Drying flowers is very simple.
Once they’ve lived out their life in a vase, step outside and seal every part of the flower, from petal to stem, in hairspray or spray glue. Tie the flowers at their ends in ribbon or twine and hang them upside down in your room anywhere you’d like.
Another simple way to personalize your space is buying small magnets from any dollar store and gluing them to any miniatures you can find. Five Below character blind boxes, Mini-Brands, little dolls/figurines and decorative stones and beads can be found at craft stores and dollar stores everywhere.
As with any posters, photos or bandanas you may want to display in your room, Scotch tape often does not hold. One pro-tip is purchasing Command hook strips from any department store and using them to hang up all your decorations. While they are a bit more expensive, they hold much better and are easily removable.
As an additional way to fill empty wall space and add a fashionable layer of comfort to the usual beige dorm rooms, you can display handkerchiefs, scarves and loose fabrics from local thrift and antique stores by tying them to Command hooks. These add a fun pop of color and texture to any room.
As with all things crafty, decorating is a labor of love. Even when it does not come out perfect, knowing you made an effort to make your space your own and seeing the personalized decorations around you will make the effort worthwhile.
