Another small item

that I have been wanting to complete for a very long time got done this week. :) Yet again, a very tiny and simple matter but I kept postponing !

From the time I saw this entry in the hall of fame art blog, I wanted to do the same for Jillu knowing it would do wonders for her if I displayed her work. Did you notice the post date for that entry ? Yeah. It dates back to May of 2010 and I saw the post on the day it was posted :)

But here, it is at last a similar creation hanging in my home for Jillu now :)

And she was really overjoyed :) Now she keeps asking for "good and fresh " white paper every time so that it can go up on the board there :)

Thermocol Crafts

Here's our entry for the May Artsy Crafty challenge !

I had some thermocol packing material that came along with TV or Music system. Don't remember which one ! I thought I will use that to come up with some thing !

After great scrutiny (yes, it was too haphazard and could not be used as such!), I spotted a mini staircase form at one end and my mom spotted a sloping area at the other end.

Color, Color, Which color do you choose?

Jillu's art using the Microsoft Paint Application 

Her latest craze : "Naan color pannanum Amma." (I want to color, Amma)

The fight for the PC has started before the fight for the remote :)

A mad rush again!

This time again, its the last minute rush! 

I am reminded of many sayings in Tamil 
- yevalo kuppara vizhundhaalum meesaila man ottradhu dhaan ottum
-chattiyil irundhaa dhaan aapail avarum 
and so many others. (non-Tamizhians, please excuse me. All these roughly means that  basically that you need to have inherent talent in you in the first place to do well and that I am trying out stuff (art) that does not come easily to me and it shows :) ! )

However, not stopping with the March entry, I have gone ahead with April and here's our entry to April month's Artsy crafty challenge! And today is the last day !

There will be some words which you will be familiar with, but will not know great details about it. Do you know of any such words? "Papier mache" was one such word for me. Knew it, but didn't know much about it as well ! As usual, google became the "Aabath baandavan!"

So, this is my first attempt at papier mache and did the basic stuff for the first time!

So, here's the papier mache chair!

I prepared the form for the chair using just card board strips. Cut out appropriate lengths of cardboard and stuck them together to form the chair.
This was followed by 2 layering of papers. I wanted to do 4, but due to lack of time, stopped with 2. 
After allowing to dry, I used acrylic paint to color the chair!

Recipe for papier mache paste : Mix 1 cup flour with 1 cup (may be even less) water to glue consistency without forming any lumps.

There are still lots of rough edges in the corners and they need to be smoothened out! But one has only so much patience at midnight :) That was the only time I could manage and the result shows :)  It took me 1 hr for preparing the chair and 1 hr each for the 2 layers of paper mache and 1 more hr for painting. The rest of the time was basically for drying

Now that I have completed one, hoping to try out more and come up with better ones than these hopefully!

I actually wanted to make beads and a necklace/bracelet out of them as a second attempt and then present that to the challenge, but didn't find enough time for that ! But anyways planning to try it out in leisure.

Adhisayam , Annaaal Unmai (A wonder , but true!)

I never thought I would do this ! Get crafty and do art ! Participate/ contribute to a puppet contest ! For more details please visit the lovely blog with the Artsy -Crafty contest for March

Inspired by clowns and aliens, (Thank you, Uma) I rummaged among all the clutter that we had to see if I could make up anything for Jillu. And, not to my surprise, lot of unused things were scattered around the place. However, I was inspired by a chewed (by Jillu obviously) rubber ball to make a girl out of it.

Since the rubber ball came handy with a smiley, I had a ready made face. I just used my used rubber band for the hair and cut strips of another rubber band to make the wisps of hair on the forehead. Jillu's baby bangles made gorgeous hooks for the girl's ear. As soon as I was just fitting around loosely to see how it looks, Jillu loved it and immediately named her Dolly. So here, I (We) present  Dolly to you :)

So how does it become a puppet ? I used the cap of a specs holder as a base for Dolly. So now, Jillu can put her finger inside the cap and do puppet shows.

Now Dolly is lonely and has no one to play with ! And she wanted to go on a ride too ! (Just like Jillu does always)! When Dolly was scouting for a play mate, there came along this cutie elephant.

The elephant was absolutely simple to make and I followed instructions from here. 

As I already had a gray paper plate, I skipped the painting part and just reversed the paper plate. I used black bindhi for eyes.

And then we use our hands to make the trunk and it becomes puppet as well. I just loved this ! 

You will have to bear with the poor pic above as I was using my one hand for the puppet and the other for clicking shots.

So to get back to our story, Dolly was real excited to see the Jumbo (elephant) and was jumping up and down ! And the jumbo delighted her by giving a ride.. How ? Look here..

A really simple story right ? I am a very bad story teller and couldn't make up beyond this :( But I loved doing it. 

Jillu has seen the dolly. But she is yet to see the elephant. I made both, though Jillu helped me with the glue-ing part (rather she applied glue all over my dress :) ) for making the Dolly. 

Both can be easily made by 3 yr old kids, I guess