My Garden Resort

My post on ceramic works  was actually a filler post when I was trying different ways to engage myself somewhere. But it got me many like minded visitors, mostly complete strangers, but eventually we hit it off beautifully as we all liked the same things - art and crafts. I did learn some new tricks from them as well and one of the frequent requests I get is to share the works. So here I am at it again :)

Have a look at my very own garden resort which I toiled for a very long time and I have to tell u working on this really tested my patience what with 60 odd shades, 200+ threads and 1000 odd minute areas for each shade! When my mom saw me doing this, she had scolded me saying my eyes would go for a toss by the time I finish it as she felt it's too strenuous for the eyes. I did get bored and stopped it in between many a times, but finally managed to finish it and waited for still many more months to get it framed and this is the end product. You should tell me if the effort was worth it ;) While doing this, I had thought that this will be my last attempt at quick stitch work, but a visit to a friend's place and seeing a new design saw me running to the store and I am half way through the next work already and thankfully it's not this intricate :) Will post it once it gets over, hopefully soon ;)

In the mean time, some stitching I had done long back. It does look very kiddish now, but yeh I was a kid then ;) If I remember right I hardly took a few days to complete them and was super excited at the end of it. I was always fond of cute cartoon characters and I have many stories related to it. I made sure I filled the greeting cards I sent to my friends with them to give it that personal touch. Even margins of my boring textbooks (mostly Hindi) used to be full of these characters much to the dismay of my mother ;) I even used to draw some cartoons and passed it around in the class and end of the period it used to come back with lots of funny comments from everyone in the class. And drawing them on the hands of my neighbors was also one of my favorite pass-time :P Yeh I was quite naughty though very few close ones realized it. Many a times my neighbour used to get caught for our pranks and no teacher even assumed I could also be a partner in that crime. Looks can be very deceptive u see: D

Now here is some wood work done sometime back. Now it badly needs another coat of varnish. This is one of the easiest to make if you know what shape of wood pieces u want. You can pick the same from a carpenter and then just unleash your imagination. 

This is another piece that most of my friends don't believe I did it myself. You knit the frame of your pattern by wool (The same way u did your bangle decoration back in school), dissolve the alam in hot water n immerse the frame overnight. Next day u get a crystallized version of your frame. Unfortunately I didn't have a big enough container to immerse my cart and had to do it over two days and that explains the unevenness of crystallization on either side.

Embossed painting is done in different mediums. Common one is done on felt cloth using an embossing liquid. The embossing liquid is applied on the pattern in the felt cloth and ironed at the back so that the pattern is embossed which can be painted accordingly. But a visit to Raja Market and I realized you get all sort of designs ready-made. Only problem being the patterns may not be very well drawn and you might find many duplicates of your work everywhere. I am posting some of my trials anyways.

  Whenever I see medium sized stones cut n kept in construction sites I am tempted to pick them up. I have invited many a curious glances and questions when I search for that perfect shape from the pile. This is again one of the easiest to make using m-seal and perfect for a quick gift. This is one such piece lying with me as I felt the painting on it is too silvery and needs a repaint which hasn't happened yet.

Thermocols are another good friend of art lovers. I have no clue what all they can be used for - greeting cards, wall hangings, stage props, decorations,.. - the list is endless. So here is one of my attempts - a waterfall. But I really have to confess: it was way too messy. You need to first shape each block to resemble a stone. This involves scrapping it using a sandpaper and the stupid thing flies all over. End of it I had a layer of thermocol flakes on everything in the house - books, dresses, vessels, bed even water.  Then it had to be waterproofed using white cement and then painted. Water is filled in the base and I used a 1/2hp motor to make it flow from top. Actually mine now needs a touch up n repaint but the very thought of a snow-flaked house is putting me off. And I don't feel like throwing it when I think of the effort I had put in to make it. So poor thing is now resting in the car-shed, all dusty :( 

[N sorry for the bad pic also. I fished it out from some old collections]