Another challenge entry!

Hi! Back with another challenge entry.

Second entry for Itsy Bitsy's Make It Dimensional challenge and Indian Craft Room's ICRC 22: Monochromatic + Letter Family challenge.

This time it is a card.



I have chosen the colour Green. Green brings to mind greenery, leaves; so decorated a piece of white handmade paper with leaf prints in three shades of green.

G also stands for glitter. I used silver glitter to print as well.

G brings to mind juicy grapes, quilled here in shades of green again and layered for a 3D effect. The green gems add a bit of interest.

I am also entering this in Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge 265.

Little bit of red...

A quick post today.

My entry for Itsy Bitsy's Make It Dimensional challenge and Indian Craft Room's ICRC 22: Monochromatic + Letter Family challenge.

I had seen a cute little basket on the blog The Little Blue Room by Rachel Ricks sometime back. Rachel was kind enough to include a detailed tutorial (thanx a ton, Rachel!). When I saw Itsy Bitsy's challenge, I knew I had to make this basket!

Indian Craft Room's challenge was a tough one. A monochromatic project with a letter family. So I chose the colour Red and used white rickrack and a rhinestone for embellishment.

I used a red leaf shaped rhinestone to accentuate the punched butterfly. Wanted to keep it simple, so used minimum embellishments. The sentiment stamp is by Micia and used Faber Castell's red stamp pad. The red jingle bell was an after thought. But it adds a bit of whimsy and sounds so sweet when the basket is carried!

These baskets are definitely on my Diwali list; they are just so handy for giving small gifts, sweets, chocolates etc!

A stroke of inspiration & a quick card...

Hi! Have you ever been really stuck for inspiration? Or worse still, got a concept in your mind but it is just not gelling completely.

That was exactly what happened to me when I read the September challenge at the Indian Craft Room. The challenge was interesting...



I like making cards using card sketches. But somehow the card wouldn't come together in my mind. Every time I decided to sit down to work I blanked out. I was sure that I wanted to make a card with robot theme. But that was all.

Then yesterday, late at night, I got this brainwave and every thing just clicked! I started making the card after the kids & hubby were asleep and finished in record time. Went off to sleep tired, but feeling oddly light and happy.

The card is meant for my niece, who recently participated in the International Robocon 2012 held in Hong Kong this year. Their team won this year beating strong competition from several other countries. The achievement is all the more remarkable, as she had a very, very bad accident last year. So bad that for a while we were not sure whether she would ever be able to walk. She ended up spending a large part of the year in the hospital and undergoing physiotherapy. Despite all these obstacles, she has triumphed and I am very, very, very proud of her!

So this card is going out to her and also her team, who have really made India proud!

I have used the first sketch. The card base is a lovely white hand made paper. The bands of orange, white and blue represent the Indian tri-colour and are cut out of scraps of handmade paper. The dancing robot, of course, alludes to the Robocon competition and is hand cut and paper pieced out of silver corrugated paper. The arms and legs are paper clips that I cut and bent to shape and are the metal component of the card. Google eyes and a smile out of a red scrap of paper finish the robot.

The sentiment is from the Happy Days stamp set by Micia  that I bought recently from Lulupu. I used a dark blue Faber-Castell sketchpen to ink and stamp the sentiment.

I am entering this card in the ICRC21 card challenge of the Indian Craft Room.

Love,
Nan

A rainbow in my sight...

Good morning!

A peaceful morning for a change! The baby is playing happily and the older one is away at school. Bliss!

Moving away from paper craft today, I want to show you a project I made with some fabric, felt and paint sometime back. I decided to hang it on the door of our room and put it away while the room was getting a make-over.

I was looking to make something cheerful and colourful, for the new baby. The concept sort of grew from there to this...



I started with a scrap of thick fabric and a sponge which I cut into semi-circles to make the rainbow. I machine stitched the divisions for the colours. Then I added acrylic colours in the suitable shades, finishing up with a light blue for the sky.

The lines of glitter added a bit of sparkle as well as masked the stitching lines.

The sun and the cloud were both made of felt and embroidered with floss. I stuffed them lightly with some polyfil for added dimension. I stuck the rainbow on a stiff piece of mount board with fabric glue after adding a loop of cord for hanging. 

The final touch was gluing the sun and cloud on either end of the rainbow with fabric glue.

And this is how the rainbow looks hanging on the wall. I took the photo against the bookshelf as the light near our room door is not too good.

Hope you liked this little hanging; it always brings a smile on our face each time we see it. Like catching sight of a rainbow in the sky...

Monogram Challenge

Entering this in the Quilling Me Softly's First Blogoversary Giveaway & Challenge.

I am a great admirer of Pritesh's work and have always found her creations inspiring. I have used her beehive technique in this project. I also want to thank Pritesh for setting such a tough challenge. It definitely made me stretch myself.

Here is what I came up with.



The frame is made for my daughter Saee. I will put up the details later. Just want to thank my wonderful husband who not only created the beautiful monogram template, but also put up with his wife working like crazy on a Sunday. I also want to thank my daughter Saee who put up with Mama's bad temper and my son Neel who was a little angel, playing by himself. So thanx guys! This wouldn't have been possible without you.

Origami Heart Box - Snehal's Creation's challenge

A late, late post tonight...

The deadline for submitting entries for Snehal's Creation's challenge is tomorrow morning. So here I am sitting up late after everybody is fast asleep (thankfully!).

The challenge is interesting - make a box, any kind of box. Right up my alley, as I love making boxes. I originally planned to make a Pentagonal Gift Box; I had demonstrated this box on one of the episodes of Mogara Phulala on Mi Marathi in the Kala-kaushalya segment. But the concept wouldn't gel in my mind. So I tried another. And this is the result...

This a Heart Box made with origami. I have used simple chart paper in a pretty shade of turquoise. There is nothing except paper folding used. No glue, no scissors. You can find the fabulous tutorial by Jo Nakashima on YouTube.

The major challenge was making a bigger box, as the original box is made using A4 sheet and turns out to be rather petite. However, some trial and error yielded good results. My husband had just one suggestion. He said keep it simple, so that nothing takes away attention from the beauty of the box itself.

So I decided on a simple quilled motif. This also gave me a chance to break open my new mini shredder, which I have been just waiting to use!

I think this box is a good idea for Diwali, to give sweets or chocolates. Also a good idea for presenting little trinkets.



I am sure I will be making many more of these in the days to come.

CAS Card - Beyond Grey Challenge

Happy Independence Day everybody.

A quick little post today. I am entering my card in the Case Study Challenge (BGC#14 -Case Study) 
at Beyond Grey. The Card for inspiration is this...

A really lovely card by Romina.

My take on this card is...

I bought this beige textured paper ages ago because I liked the texture. Unfortunately I could never think of a place to use it. Till I saw this challenge! The base card is dark brown card stock.

The quilled Royal  flower I had made sometime ago from the tutorial by Alfardh on YouTube. The pretty ribbon is part of the freebie from A1 Craft Supply last month. 

I stamped the sentiment using dark brown sketch pen.



I brushed the paper with some Brown shimmer paint by Fevicryl with a sponge. A dashed line around the sentiment, to pick up the white hearts by a Uniball white pen, and a white gem on the flower completed the card.

Hope this card meets the criteria of the challenge. I had fun making it in any case.

P.S. Also entering the card in the For the Love of Crafting Challenge# 9 - CAS Card and the Paper Shelter Blog Challenge # 77 - 'Clean & Simple'.

Tangling with Zentangle

Zentangle...

When I came across this word some time back, I was intrigued. The images I saw reminded me of doodles as well as intricate mehndi designs. I started experimenting with it and thinking of ways to incorporate it into paper craft designs.

The applications are endless. The beauty of this technique is that no two designs are ever alike. Here are some articles I have made using this technique.

My first zentangle project. The card is made using red card stock and computer paper. The heart is made from a scrap of white handmade paper and doodled with a black micro-tip pen.

Pale green handmade paper layered with a darker green paper. This time I sketched out the flower and leaf shapes. Then filled them with zentangle doodles.

I wanted to try colouring with water-colour pencils and got the idea of combining it with zentangle designs.

I started with doodling on a scrap of white chart paper with a black glitter pen. then I filled in the pencil colours along one side and shaded with a wet brush.

When the piece was done, I mounted it on  piece of navy blue handmade paper. A silver eyelet and some pale lilac ribbon completed the bookmark.

My daughter, who has recently started reading Enid Blyton novels, loved it so much that she immediately laid claim to the bookmark.

I made two more book marks. One for myself. And another for my husband.

This time I coloured using sketch pens and mounted on red card stock.

I am sure I'll end up making more of these. They are quick and easy to make and will make great gifts to give along with books. What do you guys think?

Folded Box Card & Triangular Star Card for ICRC19

Hi! Two new cards to post today. I am entering both in the Indian Craft Room's July challenge. This month's challenge is very interesting. Make a card with fancy folds, but no easel cards. Hmm... lot of food for thought.

It was fun thinking up a card which fits the bill. I came across this card at Stamp with Heather and fell in love.  I found a great tutorial at Stampingvideos. I have tweaked the tutorial quite a bit, but the basic idea is from there.

From the moment I saw the card, I had the image of a window opening and closing. So that's what my card is like.

A closed window framed by pretty blossoms...

Open the doors...

To a birthday party waiting to happen!

Now for some close up shots...

Left window:

Right window

Inside the room, hung with a birthday banner

A pile of presents and a yummy chocolate cake waiting to be cut!

The biggest challenge was working out the mechanism for the door. But after some trial and error I managed.

Now onto the second card.

I came across this triangular card tutorial at My Cards for You. For some reason I immediately thought of making a Black'n white card. The idea expanded to a card with music as the theme.

And this is the result!

I created the pattern paper using a free brush I had downloaded ages ago. The word 'ROCK' was created by simply cutting bit of black paper and mounting on foam pads. 

I cut out the star shape and added a patch of pink glitter on the paper below. The white circle is mounted with foam pads and the pink circle is stuck directly.

The card opens out into this.

And fully open, looks like this.

I am quite happy with both the cards and hope you like them too!

My first post

Hi! My first post... Am a little nervous and very excited! I have been thinking of doing this for a long, long time and finally decided to just take the plunge.

I have been crafting for as long as I remember. Everything from paper crafts to sewing to crochet to painting. This blog is a showcase of my work. Also, I want to share some of the techniques I like and use.

I want to start with a special invitation card I made for my daughter's 7th Birthday recently. 



The base is some dark blue card stock I have had for ages. All the supplies were already with me and I was determined not buy any extras.

I wanted to have a birthday related motif, hence the candle. The candle is made using the Bargello Technique from Splitcoaststampers. This technique is a great scrap buster. The flame is made using the Teardrop punch and holographic paper.

I also made matching gift bags for return gifts.

I was quite happy with both articles.

I think this a good idea for a quick birthday card. What do you think?
Love,Nan