Decorative Border Designs

Borders instantly perk up the appearance of any surface. From documents to wallpapers to flooring, borders are used everywhere. The main purpose of borders is to break the monotony that comes with a plain surface. Moreover, borders also allow you to stamp your personal style on the surface. Although, hiring a professional designer to design a border for you is an option you can implement, but then you will miss out on all the fun that you would have had by designing it yourself. Given below are some design ideas for decorative borders.

Decorative Borders for Wallpapers

A wall adorned with plain wallpaper looks pretty dull. The large surface covered in a single color or design gives a prosaic appearance to the room. Thus, contrasting decorative wallpaper borders can add a lot of character to the unglamorous room. If you are planning to do the project on your own, start looking for decorative border designs in home dcor magazines, catalogs or even on websites. Decide the height of the border by measuring the total height of the wall. If you have a scanner at home, scan the design on your computer. Now using a graphic designer tool, edit the design according to your dimensions. If you experience any problem with this particular step, then take your design to a copy shop. You can get the copy of your design template according to your dimensions. Now cut the paper along the lines of the design very carefully.

Transfer the design onto the contrasting wallpaper of your choice. Draw faint lines along the design on the wallpaper itself. Cut the wallpaper according to the design template. Usually, scalloped borders look better than straight edged borders, hence do not hesitate to experiment with the edges of a wallpaper border. Your decorative wallpaper border is ready to hang.

Decorative Borders for Documents

Certain documents look better with borders, than without them. These include certificates of honor or excellence, invitations, etc. A decorative border highlights the purpose of the document and renders it a very distinct look. There are a myriad number of border designs available online. On some websites, you can get a good selection of decorative page borders, which you can print for free. If you want a border for a particular business document, then you could benefit from websites which specialize in business document borders. Many professionals share the borders of their business documents on these websites for you to print. Depending upon your individual business purpose, you can browse the borders from categories such as legal, tax, entertainment, travel, education, etc.

If you have a particular border design in mind, then you can get it customized from certain other websites. These websites offer customized borders by charging a little fee. The borders provided by them are elegant and unique. If you want to design borders for certificates or other such documents, then perhaps you should try websites with good collection of classic borders with Medieval or Renaissance effect. However, these borders do not come for free. Alternatively, you can also design your own fancy, decorative borders by graphic designing tools. Word processing programs like Microsoft word offer simple borders for official documents. Other word processing programs may allow you to choose from their collection of borders in clip art directories.

While selecting decorative borders for documents, one must consider the nature of the document. Flashy, bold borders should be saved for informal documents, whereas elegant borders look apt on formal documents. Similarly, while designing borders for wallpaper, one must consider the rest of the decor of the room.