I Heart September

After 4 years of marriage, my husband fails to realize that he can’t say “It’s a surprise!” and then expect me to wait for the surprise… not another second, forget about an entire month!

So my birthday is just around a corner and just thinking of my birthday gets me excited. And no… it’s not just this year that I’m super excited. It’s every year. What can I say?  I love my birthday! J

I also make it quite a task for my family to live up to my expectations. My husband especially!

This year, after years of clothes, perfumes, watches and everything nice, he decided to build me a small piece of furniture. I would so opt for all the other things, but I never turn my nose up at a DIY project.

Coming home from work one day, my lungs filled with the smell of paint. (Yes, my husband didn't realize that painting should be done in well ventilated areas).

Anyways, I sniffed out the surprise and here’s what I found. (This is the final product and it took him a couple of more days after my discovery to finish it.)

 I love my little bedside stand! I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!

{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?