Beautify your home with inspirational messages

Lauren Apio says she is a proud born-again Christian. In fact, when one visits her apartment, her Christian virtues are reflected on different boards in the living room, inscribed with messages of prayer, hope and forgiveness.
“Jesus loves you,” a message on one of the board reads. The other boards bear messages such as “I can do all things through Christ,” “Don’t worry, God is in control” as well as “When life gives you more than you can stand, kneel.”
On why she chose to have boards bearing religious-affiliated messages inside her house, Apio gives three reasons.
“These statements are a reflection of my Christianity,” she says.
Secondly, the messages help boost her mood during life’s low moments.
“Sometimes, if I am going through a very difficult time, I look at those messages to find solace,” Apio briefly explains.
The businesswoman also says these boards act as attractive decorative pieces for the apartment.
There are many tenants and houseowners like Apio who are today opting to include inspiring messages as part of their home interior artwork.

Home virtues
Some homeowners enjoy including certain inspirational messages as part of their home decoration because they (writings) reflect the values of individuals living in that home. For example, in David Kiganda’s apartment where he lives with his wife and four children, there is a frame hanging in the living room.
Inside the frame are words that read, “We are one loving family. We care for each other. We help each other. We forgive each other. We don’t hold grudges.”
Kiganda says he bought the frame three years ago from a gift shop because the words seemed an appropriate guiding moral campus for his children.
“I have a tendency of always showing my children the words in that frame when they are behaving badly within the confines of the house,” he says.

Family expectations
According to Kiganda, the framed words are often a reminder to his children of what is expected of them during their stay in the house.
As much as most of these framed messages are intended to motivate individuals in their daily life, on the other hand, some homeowners may opt for certain messages because they are a reflection of their current life’s struggle. Some of such messages include “I will overcome,” “I will survive,” “God will make a way,” among others.
A few years back, after losing her sales marketing job during a company restructuring process, a 30-year-old woman who preferred to remain anonymous, says she went and purchased boards with uplifting messages.
The then jobless woman took the boards and placed them on her dressing table in the bedroom as a constant reminder that probably the job loss was a redirection to a new path.
Today, the woman runs her own retail shop in the Kireka, a suburb located in the outskirts of Kampala city.

Where to find inspiring artwork?
• One of the places to find these pieces of artwork are gift shops. These shop shave different boards or frames bearing messages with different themes. There are those with religious writings. Some have motivational texts while others are inscribed to celebrate special occasions like anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, among other events. The boards or frames often have different prices attached to them depending on their design. There are those you will find at Shs30,000. Others cost Shs50,000. There even those artworks you will find costing over Shs100,000.
•The other places to find these artworks are supermarkets or showroom shops dealing in different types of household interior decorations.
or those interested in engraving particular messages of interest onto particular boards or frames, you may seek the services of an artist to help you with the packaging process.