Diwali 2016: Quick and easy DIY projects to spruce up your home for the party

Diwali means house parties, which are incomplete without some prior house cleaning. But, if you want to go a notch higher, these listed easy and quick DIY projects will help you in leaving your guests impressed.

You will be serving drinks, and you don't want rings on your table. Hello, coaster. Add these lovely ice cream stick ones to the collection your kitchen already houses. Start with laying out two sticks flat down and then glue two more sticks on either sides to make a square. Add another across the square to make a sturdy base. Keep adding the popsicles and when you are finished, color or stain it with coffee. The Sorry Girls YouTube channel has a detailed video on it.

Take wine bottles from last year, or whichever you have on hand and repurpose them into cool pieces of art. Because Diwali is about lights, you can take your regular fairy or Christmas lights and thread them into the bottle, for which you can either drill a medium-sized hole at the base of the bottle or drop it from the mouth of it. Remember to buy battery-operated lights. Check ehow.com for a complete tutorial on it.

Also, mutli-coloured LED lights go really well with ping pong balls. Important: LED lights are a must because they don't heat up and that way the plastic balls keep from melting. For making these lights, you will need to make a ¼ inch wide cut along the seam of the ping pong ball and another one right across it. After you have a cross-shaped cut on your ball, try pushing a bulb into it. The Say Yes blog has a complete how-to-do piece on this DIY project.

Marble mugs and glitter bowls are the easiest, even though they need to be dried overnight. For the first one, pour nail polish of your choice into a container of warm water and then dip your white ceramic mugs in them for a marble effect.

For the glitter bowls, inflate a balloon and paint over it a mixture of mod podge and glitter. Remember to coat only half of it, else you will just have a shimmering piece of balloon. After it has dried out, poke the balloon and your glitter bowl is ready. You could use it for a holder for keys, chargers or any such objects your guests bring along.