Ushering in the Season

With the dawn of December just around the weekend, I’m really excited but am also beginning to panic. With having to decorate ours, my parent’s and my in law’s homes all within the first week, it’s quite a daunting task at hand. And undeniably, bringing out the stored up fake trees and decorations also brings on a lot of cleaning and allergies. So between the sneezing and the cleaning and the running around, it’s only logical that I dread this season. But apparently my brain knows and understands no such inconveniences. The more the merrier it tells me. One house is boring. Three houses! How exciting is that! Putting up three Christmas trees, three stars, and three different decorating schemes to think off! Awesomeness I say!!!

So what’s the first thing I would do to welcome the season into our homes and lives? The festive wreath on the door! This year I thought I’d try and make a couple of wreaths instead of using the store bought ones . My husband cut and carved two thermocol wreaths and then I just spruced them up with some ribbon, pine cones, flowers and twigs. 

At Christmas, all roads lead home.  ~Marjorie Holmes

{AWESOMENESS} Green Thumb!

I’m surrounded by beautiful things everywhere I look. Along with the feeling of being absolutely blessed that floods me, my mind also very freakishly, in a very high pitched tone, screams “AWESOMENESS!!!” (All caps with three exclamatory points.) So AWESOMENESS would be posts paying tribute to all handcrafted things I see and love and the wonderful people who create them.

My first post in this series is about Divya from Bangalore, a super cool friend of mine. She has a wonderful hobby. Gardening. As age old as this hobby is, Divya’s super crafty too, and that should mean something. So she got to work and decided to spice up her balcony garden by adding character to her pots. Check out her work!

She followed these instructions and used the material shown below.

Here’s what she has to say to help.

“The stuff in the blue bottle is turpentine oil, that’s like the thinner for the paint/ varnish and primer. I got wood primer from Asian Paints, Asian Paints white paint (I asked for the trial pack that will go on wood) , and the varnish bit, I never used it at all , I think that will make it look nicer.


The first time, I didn't use enough turpentine oil, so the paint was super thick and took forever to dry, so make a thin coat instead and do another coat if you want to later.


For the pink shades I used Asian Paints red stainer with the white paint and for the violet shades I used Ujala (liquid blue) with the Asian paints white paint. And brushes are super cheap if you get them from a hardware store. The huge one you see in the picture is for Rs. 12. They have smaller and bigger sizes too.


For the "art" work, I used acrylic paint from Fevicryl.


After each coat, you have to let the coat dry: primer- 6 hrs, paint 4 hrs. Also ensure that you are working in an open, well ventilated area because the whole place smells like a car repair place. Turpentine oil smells like kerosene and the paint, when you smear it on yourself, has to be removed with turpentine oil. I am sure my domestic help suspects I try to kill myself every weekend...she keeps asking me why the place smells of kerosene :D”


I told you she was super cool, didn’t I?

Silk Route

A few weeks ago on my usual trip scouting for fabric and ribbons, I stumbled across the prettiest ribbon ever! It’s beige tulle (net) with a satin trim in the same colour. I just had to create something worthy of it. I finally decided to experiment with silk (which I had been avoiding because of how expensive the fabric is) and an opportunity came up as I had to make something extra special for a friend.



The beige tussar silk frame is accessorized with three ribbon flowers and some dried teak tree flowers stalks.



I used creamy white handmade paper for the backing of the frame.



And doesn't pretty things in pretty packages make everything so much better?

Tickle me pink!

If I were a man, Harry from SATC would’ve described my life best – “It's my lot in life to be surrounded by beautiful women.” Man or not, it still describes my life!

Every beautiful girl I know seems to be giving birth to the most gorgeous baby girls in the world. It seems like my life has turned into shades of pink- A colour that I never particularly warmed towards until three years ago when my niece was born. And now I dream in pink.

Of three of my pregnant friends, two have scans confirming that they’re going to have baby girls (they live abroad) and the other one in India is keeping her fingers crossed and hoping that she’ll have a baby girl and can dream pink the rest of her life too!

So with Christmas around the corner I decided to make two first Christmas photo ornaments - one for Baby K and the other for a friend’s yet to be born baby girl who’s expected to make her debut in the first week of December.

Awesomeness!!!

Look what I found on Martha Stewart’s website! Glittered Candle Holders!!! Makes my Nativity Hurricane Candle Holders look so amateurish in comparison. How does she do it?

And also Bakerella, one of my favorite bloggers ever, is hosting a giveaway by Shutterfly. And check out the prize!!! Downside… you have to be living in the US to enter. No fair :(

Tissue Paper Pom Poms

I came across these tissue paper pom poms a long time ago while browsing through some blogs. Martha Stewart apparently is who it all tracks back to. Some women have made booming businesses of these pretty fluffy paper balls. They make an awesome addition to a birthday party, wedding or dinner party… or even just home décor.

With the apparent lack of coloured tissue paper in large sizes (if such paper is available in Chennai please, please let me know) I decided to use kite paper. I initially wasn’t sure what that kind of tissue paper would translate to in India and kite paper seemed the safest bet. So here’s my not so great attempt at re-creating those lovely tissue paper Pom Poms.




You can also check out Pom Love on Etsy. Happy Floating Paper indeed!

Cupcakes!

The thought of cupcakes make me happy! I read Bakerella’s blog and drool thinking of cupcakes. But they aren’t so popular here in India. Or are they? The only ‘cupcakish’ food I’ve come across are chocolate muffins and the plain sponge cake variety. Someone had put up a cupcake link on Facebook and that got me so excited. But it all looked pretty disappointing mainly because everything looked so fluorescent. I only hope it tasted better than it looked.

I remain undeterred though and have decided to make myself some cupcakes this Christmas. I plan to try Bakerella’s S’more Cupcakes. I could probably opt for something simpler as this would be my first try at cupcakes… but what’s trying if you’re unwilling to go the distance. So I went the distance and even bought myself some very pretty cupcake liners from Sweet Estelle’s Baking Supply on Etsy to inspire me.

Here’s hoping that this Christmas my cupcake dreams come true!