Paper Mountains for Golu

I always wanted a mountain in my Golu for Navarathri. As we are in flats, we dont get so much mud to create a big mountain. Last time I used a basket and covered it with mud so that I dont require huge amount of mud. So this time I created this paper mountain. I wanted them to look natural with the rugged look.

I made two types of mountains a simple one with painted steps and a gopuram on top of it. Another on with road and a holiday home on top of it.

All you need to make these are:

Newspaper - lots and lots of them

Fevicol

cello tape

tissue paper

Colours and Brush to paint the mountain

Roll the news paper lengthwise(along the longer side of it) and rotate it forming a circle(like a mosquito coil, but tightly). The coil with larger diameter forms the base. Stick the open end of the paper using the cello tape. Make another coil of paper but less in diameter than the base. Keep it over the base and stick it with the base. Repeat until you reach the top of the mountain. Stick the tissue paper all over to cover the newspaper. Dry it over night and paint in brown. Stick some grasses made out of paper. Draw the steps. Mountain is ready.

Glass Painting- 2

Glass Painting is not a difficult one, provided you have a good design and and you are able to get rid of the bubbles while painting.

It is not new to me. I did my first painting almost 2 years back. But never framed it. I had wrapped it with a paper and kept it in the loft. Now I have all the worlds time, I thought of framing it. OMG, the paper was sticking to the paint and I couldnt remove it at all. Now I learnt one important lesson about Glass Painting : You should never wrap it with paper and should use only cloth! Lessons learnt the hard way.

I had some left over paints and now that I painted the bottles, I started thinking of a complete painting. Finalized the design and here is my first framed Glass Painting.

Glass Painting

It is appropriate to call it bottle painting!

Painted these Heritage flavoured milk bottles with Glass colors. Initially intended for money plants now it has the colored bubbles!

Ganesha Wall hanging

Yet another art work using chalk powder..

This time a wall hanging.

The base is a card board from calendar. The wavy effect, outline, Jewellery and designs in the dress for Ganesha has been given by Chalk powder + Fevicol dough. Used Acrylic Pearl metallic colors and some kundan stones.

Chalk powder Jewellery

This is the first work I completed using the chalk powder. I made this for DD for one of her silk pavadai.

In this piece, the pendant, earrings and the golden beads in the necklace are made of chalk powder. I mixed the chalk powder and Fevicol in a consistency of Chapathi dough to be shaped. Made balls from the dough and inserted a thin stick for making holes on it for beading with the gear wire. Shaped the pendant and the earrings. Once dried, coloured with Fevicryl pearl metallic golden colour and let it for dry. Applied blue paper glitters for the pendant and the earrings. Had some age old blue beads with me. Alternated that with the golden beads and attached the pendant!

Decoration with Chalk Powder

I requested DH to to buy ceramic powder for making ceramic jewellery from the hardware shop but he ended up buying chalk powder. I didnt know anything to make from that. But once I bought it I googled day and night, (yes its true) to make use of it. You know its such a costly thing! Costs Rs.14 per kg :-)

Sad that not many used chalk powder extensively. So I replaced the ceramic powder art works with chalk powder and started my expedition and here is my first work(First conceived but finished last)!

It is a candle holder bought some 3 years back without much use.. Stuck DD's photo and decorated with the flowers made from a mixture of chalk powder and Fevicol MR.

Shaped the mixture(should be like chapathi dough) into flowers and leaves. Used Fevicryl pearl acrylic colors to color them and stuck it on the candle stand with Fevi qwik.

Beading!!

I bought a Beading kit for my DD during her Summer vacation to improve concentration. It had around 10 different shapes/colours of beads along with the wire and locks to make the bead strings. She liked it and experimented with different combinations.

Now that the school has reopened I took over it and used the beads to make these.

The below are the pictures of crystal set made for a designer saree. With the left over crystals I made the earrings.

Zardosi Work

I accompanied my SIL AA to Pandian Thread Store in Ranganathan street as she wanted to buy Jewellery Making materials. I also bought some along with her to just give a try. I saw a very beautiful wall hanging and enquired abt that. The girl told it is Zardosi Painting and they have ready to use kit available. I decided to try it and it costs Rs.120.

The kit had Felt cloth with the design, Zardosi thread(looks like springs, should not be stretched), Glue, Glitters, a brush, Kundan stones.

All you need to do is stick the Zardosi thread on the outline given, decorate with glitters and kundan stones.

Though the procedure is easy, it required good amount of patience. It was not easy to stick the threads in curves. They came out. So I had to cut and stick it. I did a messy job. I thought I will never finish it. Moreover the zardosi thread given in the kit was not sufficient. I again bought some more threads for Rs.10.

First day I had severe neck pain and DH told me not to strain. I worked on it for a week and the end result was quite impressive at least for me :-)

Now I am ready to buy the next kit- Embossed painting which I saw in the same shop. This costs Rs.55 for the kit with the design and paints.