SuttaCentral
Rather than buying more mass produced “stuff”, a better option might be to take a print out of such an image ( wiki has great open source images of aniconic images as you can see), or if your are artistically inclined, create one yourself like Ven Dhammanado instructed above 
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I remember seeing households in Sri Lanka with just a framed photo of the Buddha on a high shelf ( sometimes an old print inherited from family),a simple oil lamp and a small cup of water and some flowers.
Those aniconic images created at that time were certainly meaningful, but I think, they are not really useful in a practical sense.
Why a cup of water is presented?
It’s symbolic of the offering of permissible drinks to the Sangha in the afternoon (gilanpasa)
I can see the different behaviors, ideas of individuals, Buddhists toward the Buddha image or its related images presented in an altar, room, garden, or/and in a living room.
Offering drinks toward the Buddha image at home altar seems very religious! But I have seen people in Thailand offer drinks (and other things) toward Brahma image or other images of deity.
It depends on how you see it. It may be part of a process that helps to remind generosity, caring and so on. Buddha himself spent time to thank and contemplate a tree, the bodhi tree. Would you see that as “religious”, or was Buddha confusing the tree for an entity? We know that it’s not the case. Some acts are based on humility and understanding of symbols, acknowledging that not everything is about ourselves.
On the same line, the Buddha did not have a teacher, nobody to acknowledge as a respectful student should. He could have just accepted that. Yet, he spent some time reflecting and decided that he would recognise the Dhamma as his teacher. Why? Because this would avoid the perception of arrogance. Even the supreme Buddha acknowledge something other than himself.
Offering things to the altar from many is not “religion” or superstition, rather a similar act to the decision of the Buddha to thank the bodhi tree. And maybe he did more to teach us.
It is often essential for us humans to acknowledge something beyond ourselves and to help us to reduce that sense of entitlement with which we are programmed as humans.
I interpret that like that, and I do offer things both to the altar and to spirits too 
Do you offer drinks to Buddha images at home or in temple?
I know Buddhist followers will make offering of flowers, incense, candles/oil lamp, food, fruit to Buddha images.
Also, in some Thai Buddhist temples, Buddhists will take two 5 centimeters of gold leaf to put on Buddha images as part of their offerings.
But, I have not seen they make offering of drinks to Buddha images. Maybe they do?
Yes, I do so at home. In particular, since I live unfortunately very distant from any temple. Bit yup, in some of the countries I have been it is not unusual at all. In the case of other traditions, such as some Tibetan, it is part of delay contamination.
I don’t know how widespread it is, but in all the Khruba Srivichai monasteries that I’ve stayed at in the North of Thailand there is a pre-meal ceremony of offering the food to the Buddha before the monks partake of it themselves. It might be compared to the Hindu practice of naivedhya:
Naivedyam means food offered to a Hindu deity as part of a worship ritual, before eating it. As such, tasting during preparation or eating the food before offering it to God is strictly forbidden. The food is first placed before a deity and specific prayers are offered with accompanying rituals. Afterwards, the food is considered as having been Blessed by God, and has officially become the sanctified प्रसाद (prasāda).
Before eating, all of the offered food is placed before the shrine and one of the monks will offer it to the Buddha, reciting:
Imaṁ sūpabyañjanasampannaṁ sālīnaṁ bhojanaṁ udakaṁ varaṁ buddhassa pūjemi.
Then there’s usually a minute’s silence, followed by a dedication of the merit of the offering to one’s attainment of Nibbāna:
Sudinnaṁ vata me dānaṁ, āsavakkhayavahaṁ nibbānaṁ, hotu me anāgate kāle.
And then the monks ask for the leftovers, using the word “maṅgala” (“blessing”, “good omen”, “something auspicious”) for what Hindus would call prasāda:
Sesaṁ maṅgalaṁ yācāma.
The food is then taken to wherever the monks eat, but always leaving one tray behind for the Buddha.
At my local Thai monastery it is similar. One of the lay people will pick out a selection of the food offerings that have been brought for the meal (alms round isn’t practical here), and present it in front of one of the Buddha statues.
Thanks for your explanation about the ceremony of the food offerings to Buddha statues/images. It seems offering of drinks/water to Buddha images is not included in the tradition.
again it depends in which tradition. Other than you think there is only one, which of course cannot ever be the case.
Yes, as earlier mentioned by Ficus, households in Sri Lanka offer a small cup of water to a framed photo of the Buddha on a high shelf.
If you mean the Northern Thai tradition, drinks are offered too and are explicitly mentioned in the offering formula:
Imaṁ sūpabyañjanasampannaṁ sālīnaṁ bhojanaṁ udakaṁ varaṁ buddhassa pūjemi.
“This meal of rice, together with curry etc., and pure water, I offer to the Buddha.”
The chanting does mention the word udaka ‘water’ for offering to the Buddha.
I was finally able to make a more or less proper altar for my consecrated Thai Buddharupa. It is standing on an oak shelf behind the kneeling figures of a monkey and elephant who serve to me as a reminder of the Madhu Purnima celebrated by Mon and Bangladeshi Theravadins. I chose them because I like the story of the Madhu Purnima, and besides the Russian culture also has a honey-themed festival, so that was a good chance to connect Buddhism with my native culture. Beneath the shelf is my wife’s Romanian Orthodox calendar.
For the more uniconically-minded, I have recently hanged a photo of the 19th century Khmer Buddhapada next to a reproduction of Andrey Rublev’s Christ the Redeemer (I love this icon and wanted my wife to have a sacred image in our living room as well). I intend use the Buddhapada as a help for my Budhanussati on Uposatha days.
Finally, last but not least, I wanted my baby daughter to have her very own Buddharupa to accompany her through the early years of her life. As she was born on a Tuesday, I bought her a Bali-made Buddha in the sleeping lion’s position. At His right side there is a Chinese Buddharupa I bought at a Chinese store here in Berlin for no reason at all. At HIs left there is a murti of the Lord Ganesh ji that my Bangladeshi best buddy brought to me as a present. In front of my daughter’s Buddharupa there is a wooden frog I bought on the Khaosan road from a tribal woman: it was so cute I could not resist my urge. So now this frog is a constant reminder of how powerful our sudden urges could be.
Coincidentally, in the Lamphun monastery where I’m presently staying, the local Pgaz K’Nyaw tribespeople recently decided to erect a Buddha-and-frog shrine.
When I enquired of the frog’s significance they said it represented a frog-like deva and they hoped that propitiating it would ensure plentiful rain, unlike last year when we had quite a drought.
As I’ve been getting drenched on almsround nearly every day for the last fortnight, I guess it’s working rather well.
https://museumsvictoria.com.au/childrens-week/look-and-listen/tiddalik-the-frog/
thank you so much for sharing the photo of the frog and Buddha, this is deeply meaningful to me.
→ compare this statue of a rain with-holding and releasing dream-time frog, Tiddalik, from Warwick, Queensland, Australia. Some things are universal!
You are right venerable;, as an anthropologist, I have seen such universality in action in different communities and places. But we know the Dhamma can take many shapes and forms, but it is only one
The frog statue seems bigger than the Buddha image! Hopefully raining will not be too big for the people in the area!
I know this is an old thread but I couldn’t resist posting this of my partner and I and her daughter celebrating our new home in San Sai Chiang Mai Thailand with the house blessing today. Probably my favorite part of this house is the small Buddha room that we have with a beautiful altar, that my Wife assembled. I just wanted to share this and wish everyone Metta and that everyone have a very good week.
