Beautiful Memories - Gift Box

Hello guys
Today I have a Big beautiful gift box to share with you all today. This box is custom made for a client who wanted to fit in some beautiful gifts for her beau. This box is huge and measures 15" by 13" by 8" and weights 2kgs as the lid is pretty heavily embellished.

The box is made from scratch using 1500gsm chipboard and handmade paper from ItsyBitsy craft store. I built my entire box using white handmade paper and chipboard and then decorated with the floral linen paper and colorful cardstock (Lilac and Turquoise). To further enhance the look, I gave it all a quarter inch border of gold glitter paper.

To add texture to the box, I did some senticlling using modelling paste and script stencil on all the sides, base as well as the top. I embellished the lid using a lot of handmade flowers, doilies, diecuts, sequins and glitter, cardstock banners, pearls, mdf birdcage and more.

I love embellishing such boxes because it gives me an opportunity to recycle and use a lot of stuff that I hoard. The pearls used are a part of home decor " TORAN " (Hindi: तोरण) (origin: Sanskrit. torana, from tor, pass), which is a decorative door hanging in Hinduism, usually decorated with marigolds and mango leaves, or a string that is tied on the door with the flower on it as a part of traditional Hindu culture which is for decoration and beautification.  They can be made of fabrics, pearls, beads or metals or any other embellishments.

 The MDF bird cage I used here is actually part of a tag which adorned a fancy birdcage lamp I purchased.....it was too good to throw away. A few flowers used here were actually reused from few of the gift boxes I got this year for DIWALI. I hoard a lot of beautiful elements that I get and reuse them.There is some thing amazing when you see the random pieces you use coming together and becoming like they always belonged together....MAGIC!!!!!!

Here is a video clip to see the box upclose..I hope you guys enjoy watching it.
I am putting this box up the following challenges:-

1. UnstampaBelles November Challenge #85 launched: Boxes, parcels or bag.
2. Rhedd's Creative Spirit November Challenge
3. HLS November Mixed Media Challenge - Birds

Diwali diyas- 2

Hey everyone
Diyas are getting painted and decorated at a very rapid pace....which is very unusual for me...as I am a very competant person and dunt like anything to be messed up. Everything has to be perfect mostly beacause these diyas are made specially for family and friends to be gifted for Diwali. These are the second set of the diyas and more are yet to come....

 Yet again, I bought these diyas from a local potter and then painted them using pearl acrylic colors and decorated with some rhinestones. Don't they look pretty and cute.....I have made around 100-150 of these and I am putting pictures of them. They are just repeated patterns and so I am putting up one from each type I made.

I hope you all like it. thank you for reading my post and have a great day ahead.

Diwali Diyas

Hey everyone
Diyas are getting painted and decorated at a very rapid pace....which is very unusual for me...as I am a very competant person and dunt like anything to be messed up. Everything has to be perfect mostly beacause these diyas are made specially for family and friends to be gifted for Diwali.

Yet again, I bought these diyas from a local potter and then painted them using pearl acrylic colors and decorated with some rhinestones. Don't they look pretty and cute.....I have made around 100-150 of these and I am putting pictures of them. They are just repeated patterns and so I am putting up one from each type I made.

Thank you for reading my post and I hope you all like it.

Peacock diyas

Hey everyone
Its all festivals in India....and i am gearing up for diwali. Diwali or Deepavali is the festival of lights and its not complete without lighting up oil diyas or lamps or panti. Every year I paint and decorate 100 or more for frenz and family as a Diwali favor with sweets and other gifts.

so, painting diyas on my end is going on in full force at my home and I thought to share a few pictures of one particular diya I have painted.

This is a Peacock diya and I have painted it with pearl acrylic colors and added some shimmer for the pretty shine. I added a few rhinestones to them to make them look a little blingy. Took me around 1 hours to paint 2 diyas and decorate them.
I hope you all like it. Thank you for reading my post.

Mails - Newspaper Basket

Hello everyone
I have new project for you this week ad it a newspaper basket made specifically to keep your mails. It is made from newspaper tubes using the coiling technique. The best part about making such baskets, you can first figure out what size you want and then start the coiling process. To make this basket, I needed about 60-70 coiled tubes and now this again depends on the size and thickness of your tubes.

This basket it different from the most of the baskets I have done previously because I have used lot of techniques to make. I have colored the basket with acrylic colors and then decoupages on it using flowers cutouts from tissue napkins and mod podge. Another thing, I have incorporated is some glitter or confetti glitter at few places. To add some more dimension, I have outlined the flowers using some white 3d liner and added few 3D stickers of stamps and a beautiful chipboard key. This basket was way out of my comfort zone wrt to colors and bling...but I liked it the way it turned out.

 I started by making 8 circular coiled discs which are about 5" in diameter. I coiled them around a small bottle to get the uniform hole in the center. Then I went ahead and stuck 2 coils together to make a sturdy biscuit like piece. I made two such pieces. These will be used for making the base. The remaining 4 discs will be used for the sides of the baskets. 

Now to make the piece supported by the discs, we need to make 2 small circular coils with diameter 2" and then coil more tubes over it in a square fashion. This will give us the desired shape. Keep coiling until you are happy with the size. Repeat the step for the other side too.

Not to make the rectangular pieces for the other sides, I suggest you make these when you put your coils together. When you do so, you will come to know the size required for the sides and then it will be easy to coil it.

 Once everything is done, put them together and that should give you the basket frame. I added a coat of gesso before I painted it with acrylic colors. I used Fevicryl colors in mauve, purple and magenta and did some shading. Once throughly dried, I decoupaged it with the flowers and while it was wet added some glitter to the project. After, the drying period, I did the outline in white and then gave it a few coats of Asian Paints Aquadur varnish.

Then came the fun part, adding the little stickers and the beautiful key and some glitter alphabets. These were all glued using Epoxy 6000 just to be sure nothing comes apart ever.

I am adding a youtube link for the tour of this basket.

Thats all folks, my basket is ready. I hope you all liked it. Leave me your comments and queries and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Kitchen Tissue Paper Holder made using Newspaper.

Hello all you beautiful people

Its heavily raining in Mumbai now and I am snugly sitting home with a cup of hot tea with my laptop at window. I have not been well this week (viral flue...I hate you. What did I ever do to you?) which means I have a few pending projects which are very close to deadline and should have been ready to ship them this week end, but will be shipped next week. I hate it when I cant reach my deadlines because of reasons I cant command over. So I am a bit upset about this and walked into my room and saw all my crafty things( glue, scissors, colorful paper, embellishments, flowers) and immediately got cheered up.

So to cheer myself up more and since we are doing up cycled projects this month on our blog, I decided to my revive my old project which was to make a Kitchen Tissue Paper holder using newspaper. When I conceptualize anything, I just scribble it down in my diary and make notes about supplies and procedure. Then I compare its design with a actual product and work out the design and then make my own version of the same. I did the same with this and I finally decided it was time to make it for real.

So lets begin

Supplies:

1. Pva glue( Fevicol)
2. Newspaper 
3. Dovel or crochet needle
4. Acrylic Paints
5. Varnish 
6. Scissors/ cutter
7. Binder clips
8. Gesso ( if you intend to varnish your project)
9. Mod Podge or any other decoupage glue
10. Tissue napkins or any other paper for decoupage

Procedure:

• We need to start by first making newspaper tubes to make the base of the Kitchen Tissue Paper holder. I have used almost 50 tubes of newspaper for this purpose. Plz refer earlier posts to learn how to make newspaper tubes. I make my tubes by dividing a single sheer of newspaper into 3 parts and rolling then using crochet needle. MY tubes re a foot long and 1/4"in diameter.
  
  
  
  
• To make the central pillar, you need to take the entire newspaper double sheet and roll it in a straight manner to get a uniform straight coil. I rolled the entire newspaper up....so I must have used 6 double sheets and my central pillar is 1"in diameter. Dun't forget to apply glue at the edges of the paper while rolling. This will keep your paper intact.
  
• Once you finish making your central stick, you can trim it for any unevenness. Check length of your tissue rolls and if your stick is too long, trim it again, You will have to trim it using cutters.
  

• Once you are ready with your tubes and central stick, we have to coil the tubes to to make a small disc of 3"diameter around the central pillar.
  
• Once you do that, keep it aside while giving it as good wash of glue and water(1:1 ratio).Make another coiled disc which is 6"in diameter and give it a good glue wash to. Let everything dry properly. Now glue the stick with small disc onto this bigger disc with strong adhesive. that should give us our body.
  
• Once all the coiling is done at the base, I went ahead and made it a cap so that our tissue wont jump out when we use it. 
  
• To make a cap, I coiled the tissue paper with keep 1"gap in the center to make a circle. You can also make any other shaped cap. Then, I pushed the coils outwards to obtain a something like a bowl. So now it looked like a little cap.
  
• I didn't paint my tubes at first as I am going to decoupage it. By coiling around the central tube to get small disc and then attaching it to a bigger disc, added to the sturdiness and weight of the holder and it wudn't move around when we use it. Too light and the holder will keep falling down.
  
• Try to fit your cap on the stick such that it should fit tight and not fall through. If loose, roll some paper around the stick and try adjusting.
  
• Once all this is done. give all the parts a good coat of glue mixture( 1:2 glue:water).  Let it dry thoroughly overnight or 12 hours.
  
• We have now assembled our kitchen tissue holder and we cant start painting after this or if you want decoupaging. I gave it a coat of Gesso so newspaper print is not seen. Then using Mod Podge Gloss I decoupaged the project using napkins, Applied thin coat of glue , then place the napkin carefully. Let it dry and then applied a thin coat of Mod  Podge over it. Then I used acrylic colors in the remaining places where I didn't decoupage. Once done. I gave it another coat of Mod podge. 
  
• I went ahead and added 2 coats of varnish/ sealer to it when I was dried. You can skip this process because Mod Podge itself if a sealer. I however did this because I place my Kitchen holder near the wash basin and I know it will be wet for more time then I want. 
  
• At the end, I tied some bakers twine around the base to add some color to it.

That's all guys. We have our very own Kitchen Tissue Paper Holder. You can even attach it to your wall with strong double side tape. I dun't know, if it will stay....but you can try and see for yourself.

Thank you guys for reading my post and I hope you all liked it. I am all ears to your comments and questions.

Have a great day ahead. Till next time...Keep upcycling.