It Is Time to Paint... Pebbles

The Saturday has arrived and has brought some fresh wind to Chandigarh. I kind of like going to office on Saturday. Reason? Because there is much less traffic on the roads, morning seems brighter, I observe beautiful blooming trees, and today particularly I could see the hills afar! 

Our preschool is starting a summer camp on Monday. For the past two weeks we were busy preparing the program and daily schedule for kids. Among the activities we proposed was pebble painting - it seemed like so much fun to me that I couldn't resist to try it all myself! You should have actually seen me collecting the pebbles from the road side! I had to manage to pick them up without others noticing me, which was almost impossible. But here I am a happy owner of a few round rocks plus those I had collected before. So I grabbed my acrylic paints and ...

Ta-dah! They make me really happy, okay. I painted just four of them and was literally happy like a kid, showing them to my D again and again. I choose nature and summer related pictures. The cat totem was indispensable of course! The human paw didn't come out as I imagined it to be, but still, looks kind of cute.

I decided to give some paint touch to the other side too, this way I'll be able to change the look of the pebbles whenever I want to :) As you can see I am yet to decorate few more of them, and I can't wait to be back home and start doing it. The best part about this simple craft activity is that you can paint anything your imagination gives you, and make it a part of your interior design. This bowl now sits on my room table, making me smile every time I look at these colorful cameos.

Thank you all so much for good health wishes for the baby! He is all right now, but it took so much efforts to save his life! We visited him yesterday, and I was really glad to see his cute face, though he looked exhausted by one and a half week stay in the hospital. His Mum was smiling all the time and it was so good to see. Wishing you speedy recovery, baby boy!

Have an enjoyable weekend, my dears, wherever you are! 

Grateful, Creative and Happy

Dears, we are more than 100 now! To be precise - 101! Yes, I reached this milestone as well :) Thanks to all of you, who in spite of their busy lives, still find time to blog about this busy life, and in spite of different problems and difficult times, still support and inspire others. I'm grateful that at some point of time, I discovered blogging, though I always used to lead diaries, blog was a mean of communication with outer world, which helped me to reflect, recollect, realize things in my own life. In the end, I see that we all live similar days, celebrating same holidays, and becoming sad because of the same reasons.

Last Saturday I was happy because we spent great time with my D, roamed in the surroundings of our sector, had a nice lunch, bought yummy pastries and ... you know how it feels being with someone you are so in love with. My D of course kept his promise to mark my 100 followers, and we had a simple chicken-beer dinner the same evening. Very simple you see, even with news paper as a table mat :).

In a little more than a year I connected to a great number of creative people for which I'm grateful too. To spread the happiness I will definitely organize a giveaway in a week time, just let me prepare something good for you to give. It's going to be something of hand made of course, and a piece of India too.

Also, I made a jar cozy last weekend. As you see I used those nail polish colored pebbles as a base for t-light - worked well for this purpose!

 The jar itself spreads the patterned light on the table because of the glass design - a nice addition to a already cozy effect. Loving this simple jar so much now, and it looks good in the company of the crochet box cases I made two weeks ago.

 That's all for now, but I still have something interesting to share with you, and hope you'll like it. Today is my sister-in-law's birthday, so I wish love, health, and be happy always!

Wishing you all a happy week ahead, filled with love of your close ones. 

The Small Joys of Stationery Shopping

   Yuppiee, I am doing my 10th post in September, which is not common as I usually come up with only 8-9 posts a month. Today I wanted to tell about my small joys I get here in India. This week I discovered few stationery shops near my office in sector 17. It means that now I don't have to go especially to any other sector for purchase of crafty supplies and can buy them in my lunch time or after office hours :) These stationery shops are mainly "built in" the book stores. First time I went there with my nice colleague and friend J, she is also a foreigner married to an Indian. I bought these nice wrap paper sheet, my friend approved the choice. I really enjoy their designs!

                               

                               

                               

  Today I went shopping again and picked up 8 colorful craft tapes and three pens and paid 70 rupees for all. I mean to say that the stationery in India is very cheap and this is my joy too :) I was longing also to buy "craft scissors" as I call them. How happy I was when found a set of four such scissors with zigzag, cloud, wave and mountain shaped razors. However I didn't want to buy so many of them straight away and continued searching for a single item. I ended up buying these awesome colorful zigzag scissors from another shop. Oh well, there is loads of stuff left over there still, so will plan another "trip" sometime later ;) 

                                

                               

                                

***Have a joyful weekend ahead!***

Choosing a craft - sewing, stencil, knitting

   Crafts...hand made... - I have been planning to do more of all this stuff and just have to begin. Begin...but what? Internet is full of diverse crafty ideas. I have also discovered great sites for crafting people like Craftgossip. I really don't know when all of them have time to do all those beautiful things! Recently I happened upon beautiful hand made works of the lady from Cards, Crafts, Kids projects blog and who is a practising surgeon at the same time! She makes lovely paper cut projects: cards, boxes, decor pieces and so on. 

  Another blogger and a DIY sewer from Creating my way to Success has incredible sewing tutorials for a beginner as well as advance level sewers. I have noted few of them for myself.

  My dilemma as of now is what craft to start learning. I want to get to know other crafty worlds like sewing, stencil, and knitting. Any craft needs special supplies, so first I have to check out what to buy  or what is already in the storage. The site Simply Modern Mom  advises these to begin sewing: 

bobbins (with the threads for a sewing machine)
measuring tape
pins and pin cushion
safety pins
scissors
seam ripper
sewing machine needles
sewing machine (obviously!)

sewing needles                       

                                                     Also I think I will need marking tools like pencil, chalk, and obviously I will need fabrics or any material I am going to work with. Besides there are many such tools like see-through ruler and some other. I will also need space for all those tools to be arranged. Well, somehow sewing seems a little more supplies consuming than crocheting for example.

a stencil rose

  What about stencil? Stencil art was discovered by me today itself. I was using stencil before for some school projects of course, however never tried to think of it as an art. This hobby can become a great source of ideas, because you can use stencil for decoration of your house, for making pictures, for designing furniture etc. Stencil is also easy to start. All you need is a thin plastic sheet, paper cutter, marker, a stencil pattern you are going to trace and some paints. Today I am going to try it out. Patterns are ready to be printed out and plastic sheet will be found somewhere at home. 

 Knitting..hmmm.. not so much new to me, but I would like to go on upper level now as my knowledge so far is just how to make basic stitches. Knitting is just same as crochet - a great way to make beautiful things for yourself and close ones, also supplies are easily available and minimum tools are required.

  These days I don't take pictures at all, may be got bored of it or just want to change the format of my blog for a while. That's why mostly I share my inner world here, what I am up to now and what I think of it. Nevertheless I am going to post some pictures of my new crochet project soon.

***Have a nice day!***