Love and Quilling.

Some cards I made for Valentine's:

Experimented a lot with quilling in the last year.

Rain!

So, over a month ago, J and I were talking about rain- especially rains in Bombay and how we missed them! (considering I am in Hyderabad at the moment :( ).

While going back home from work that evening, I happened to visit the Himalaya Book store (to purchase a magazine). They have a vast stationery collection and I happened to notice this umbrella punch they had!

I love punches and this one was just so cute. It also fit with the day's theme - "Rain"!

My roomie motivated me to do something with it right away. She too loves punches and punched out almost a hundred small umbrellas.

We put them to use by creating a double sided bookmark that said "RAIN" on both sides. We used a brown and a lime green coloured paper for this.

These letters were cut by hand. I think I should buy a stencil of the English alphabet for perfection.

Anyway, what do you think??

This is apt for that book you curl up with under your blanket on a rainy day! :)

Orange peel body scrub

It's been a while since I posted here.. not that I haven't been doing much craft- just that I get lazy to click pictures and..hmm.. *running out of excuses* ..oh well, I've just been lazy!

Anyway, so recently, I was in a mood for some pampering (I am always in the mood! :P) and came across this orange peel scrub recipe on Sakhi's blog.

I decided to try it out immediately..

First, I dried some orange peels in my room. I forgot to put them out in the sun but it was actually a good thing that I didn't, because later I read somewhere that the citrus in the peels reduces when dried under direct sunlight. (Take note!)

After about a week, I ground them but could not do so properly to the powder form. There were some big pieces remaining but I didn't mind it and let them be there. You might want to grind them as soon as they are dried & hard (after about 2-3 days) and not wait for a week or two like I did because they start to smell a little bitter (along with smelling like orange, which they are supposed to). I didn't have a mixer where I'm put up right now and so I had to wait to go home to do it.

Olive Oil

Dried and ground orange peel

Next, I missed this peel powder (along with the pieces that didn't get ground properly) with granulated sugar and olive oil.

Dried and ground orange peel mixed with olive oil and granulated sugar

The mixture still smelled a little bitter but the scrub, once applied on the body loses the bitter smell and actually smells good. I tried it on.. My body felt super soft and I was smelling like orange cream biscuit :D

The skin on my face is sensitive so I didn't try applying it on my face but it works wonders on the body.. :)

Filled it in this little yellow-orange jar I got from "China Bazaar". I might try to decorate this jar too!

Thank you Sakhi for sharing the recipe! :)

And now for all you "crafty" people out there, she has hosted a give-away on her blog. She's giving away a lot of craft supplies like wood embellishments, handmade paper sheets, cardstock punch outs etc. and you have to be really lucky to get all those goodies.. all you have to do is post a comment there! So go on, type out a comment telling her how much you want it and how you'll put it to use..  and keep your fingers crossed!!

Do take part and better hurrrryyy!!!

Recycled Paper Craft - Workshop

Pleased to announce my first ever workshop!! :)

 

Learn how to make bags, envelopes, coasters and gift boxes from old newspapers & magazines! :) It's part of Nature Bazaar organised by the Earthoholics group. You'll also get a chance to visit other stalls and check out some cool stuff like pottery, organic farming (grow tomatoes & pumpkins at home!!), food and lots more!! So if you're in the city (Bombay) tomorrow, do visit the Nature Bazaar at:

Kreeda Bhavan, Shivaji park, Next To Mahatma Gandhi Swimming Pool, Dadar West, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Anytime between 11 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. :)

  

Hope to see you there! :)

Easy Pillow

Last week, Sakhi had shared this video on Facebook which was on how to make a pillow out of a tshirt (with zero sewing):









As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to try it.. and in the next ten minutes, I was down with scissors and an old piece of silk cloth that mom had in her cupboard (that she never used to make a blouse out of). I could use a tshirt as well, but I don't have an old tshirt that looks as good as the one in the video. I wear tshirts till they start to fade :P and who would want to spoil a brand new tshirt anyway? Also, it was a good opportunity to put the silk cloth to some use.. it couldn't be used to stitch a blouse as it was wearing out.

Instead of making a round pillow, I decided to make a rectangular one. I folded the cloth and drew a square like this:

If you look closely, you can see my pencil marking..

I started cutting vertical strips from the (outer) edge of the cloth to the inner square like this:

And then, I just had to tie knots between a strip of the upper cloth and the corresponding strip of the cloth below. Within thirty to forty five minutes, my pillow was ready (well, almost)!

I left one side untied, so that I get an opening to fill cotton/fibre/sponge or a plain pillow inside.

My next task was to fill it with cotton or fibre. Sakhi had suggested using fibres that are easily washable, but I decided to get a small pillow made of fibre instead. I thought it'd be easy to wash the two separately.

I finally got the pillow today (after much delay from their end).

And I stitched one of mom's old buttons onto it (that was the only sewing bit):

Ironed the cover a bit, put the pillow inside, and tied the knots of the side that I had left open. My pillow was ready!!

Mom's cloth and her old button.. makes this pillow all the more comforting! :)

There are different ways you can make this more attractive. For example, if you choose a cloth with a border (e.g. saree cloth with zari), you can use the border for those strips so that your strips look a different colour (and texture) than the pillow. Alternatively, you can also stitch up a cloth of a different colour around the edges and use that for the strips! :)

It is time to clear your cupboard of old sarees, blousepieces, tshirts that you can't wear anymore and put them to use! :)

How do you like it?

And the winner is ...

First of all, I am realllllllllllly sorry for having delayed this for so long. More than being stuck at choosing the best entry, I was also getting worked up (and excited at the same time) about making this really special. Every answer I got was so unique, innocent, fresh & genuine that I wanted to do something nice with all those answers. It was really difficult even choosing the best one. After a lot of thought, I decided to make a movie out of all the answers..  

After experimenting for text effects on Windows Moviemaker and not being satisfied with what it offered in terms of text animation and effects, I finally decided to make the movie in Powerpoint as I had heard of softwares that convert Powerpoint presentations to videos. I searched for an apt audio track for a day. The movie was done pretty quickly but the next four days were spent in hunting for a good software that would do the conversion. Some softwares had huge watermarks on every slide, and some didn't record audio. The one which I finalised is fairly decent (though it does have the logo and a play/pause menu). Any suggestions for a better software?

Art means different things for different people, and that's what makes it so special. 

"Art is its own reward. Except if you rely on it for your bills" - Cynduja on slices of time


So, here's the movie.. I hope you like it and I am sorry about the logo & the menu bar messing it up! :(






Music: "Yellow" (Instrumental) - Coldplay

All the answers were so lovely.. I really think we should find time for ourselves more often to get in tune with our creative side. Each one of us has an artist in ourselves.. we just have to wake him up!

 "We are artists,writers,dancers,musicians. Everything else is just a way to pay bills" ~ Rehab

And now, announcing the winner of this contest... the proud owner of the box of rum chocolates is........ *drum rolls* .. AU for his poetic answer on what art means to him! :) Loved his way of expression.. sweet, different and appropriate! :)

Congratulations AU !!! Do let me know how you like them :)

@Everyone: Thank you so much for taking part.. you made it all so beautiful.. and have also encouraged me to organise more contests here!! :)

Thanks to Sanjita for spreading the word around :)

Much love,

...Anu

Diyas, Art and first contest!

If you've seen my earlier post, a lot of people asked me if the coconut shell burns when you light the diya. I had not given it a thought before making the diya as I thought I would cut the wick really short later to avoid it touching the rim of the shell. I am a risk taker in such matters anyway, which is risky for people living with me :P But my dad had confidently said it won't burn. My uncle confirmed it for me by saying it has something to do with the density of the coconut shell. I took pictures of it when it was lit. I lit the diyas for a good 4-5 hours each and I can assure you now that it won't burn the shell a bit.

I cut the wicks short later so that they don't touch the rim.

You can safely make use of the empty shells at your place :)

In other news, recently, someone asked me what art meant to me. I was surprised that I had never given it a thought before. It is something very abstract and personal. But after pondering over the question some more, I came to a conclusion that art, for me, is seeing a soul in a form. When you create, you are giving a form to your soul or heart or your inner self. When you create, you are one with the universe, you are in the moment or in the flow, and that is when your soul shows itself completely- in your eyes, on your face, in each one of your movements and in your art work/creation! :)

Also, each soul is unique.

It is also often said that the secret ingredient to most things is love. If you do something whole-heartedly, the end result is beautiful even if it is imperfect. Art is as abstract as your soul. It is never right/wrong or logical. It just *is*.

I know that each one will have a different answer to what art means to them. The answers also change over time, so I just thought of holding a small contest. I know it's too soon to host a contest on my blog but couldn't find a more appropriate time and reason to do so. 

I am not very good at cooking or making Diwali sweets, but I did try making a few rum,raisin & almond chocolates. My friends tasted some and they have safely made it through their lives :P Jokes apart, I am quite pleased with the way they have turned out so I thought I'd give away a box of 15 of these chocolates to the one with the best answer to the question "What does art mean to you?"! :) Of course, you cannot judge each one's interpretation of art but you can always judge the way of putting it across.

 So.. the rules are... there are no rules!! :D All you have to do is answer the question: "What does art mean to you?". You can post a comment here with your answer and email address. If your answer is lengthy and you'd like to express it in the form of a blog post instead of as a comment, you can do so. Just share the link to your post & provide your email address as a comment to this post. If you want to express it with an image or with your art work, that's okay too. Just provide the URL of your image/work along with your email address as a comment.

Entries will be accepted till the 15th of November and I will announce the winner on my blog besides contacting him/her separately. So do take part!!

I am so excited :D