Diwali Decor : Crepe Paper Marigolds

Festivals in India are incomplete without Marigolds. These saffron and yellow colored flowers has been one of my all time favorite for their beauty and pungent scent. Today I am sharing with you a tutorial on making the marigold flowers.  Off course they do not match the fresh and real flowers completely but they can be incorporated in your décor. You can use them at the tables, or simple string them to make Toran.
Please note that since these are paper flowers, do not place them near the candles or your wicker lamps.

Gather the items that are required to make the flowers. Please note here that I have taken a thick and strong thread not the regular embroidery floss. I felt that while tying the ends together the regular thread easily slips and you will not be able to form a tight loop.

Using craft scissor with zig-zag shaped blade, cut the crepe paper about 2 and 1/5 inch width.

Taking a thread and a needle, start stringing these strips. Use a running stich along the center of the strip.

When you feel they are of enough volume, tie the two ends of the threads tightly.

For the center part of the flower, create a 1/2 inch wide and three inch length strip. Make fringes. Twist a small piece of crepe paper for a stalk. Glue the fringe to this stalk. Note that the stalk is very small here about two inches but thick enough to get inside the flower.

Insert this into the center of the flower, gluing to the flower.

For the base part, twist the base part of the flower as much as possible, to make it pointed at the bottom. Glue them with a floral tape.

 

 

 

Post celebrations of Ganesh Chathurthi

Bangalore is the only place in India where the festival of Ganesh Chathurthi is celebrated at people's(our) convenience. You can see various pendals/mandaps sprouting here and there throughout the month of Ganesh Chathurthi. The same thing happened in our residential layout too. Our reason for celebrating off time that we wanted the weekends, so that working people can freely participate in the celebrations. The last few days were hectic for me and few residents in organizing the cultural and sports events for our community. In the end we were applauded for our efforts and volunteering. We were felicitated with the bouquet of roses. Aren't they cute? They are there in most possible corners of my home. Don't think that I am going gaga over the roses, it's just that they are just perfect after engrossing celebrations.

 

I don't want to part away with them even though they have dried..

 

Flower power

Who doesn't like to have flowers at home? A single bloom can make a great difference to the look of your home. Having flowers at home is the display of your creativity. They add grace, charm, bring good luck, and enhance positive energy in home.
While arranging the flowers, keep in mind that the height of the flowers depends on the type of the vase. Tall vases demand the long stalks while with smaller vases you can put short stalked flowers.Trim them and add some green foliage to break the monotony of the flowers.
The flower arrangement need not be always expensive. Ditch the traditional way and have flowers in small mason jars.  When bunched together in small container, it can create an interesting coffee table setting.

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Otherwise, tie them with twines or wires and hang them onto windows.

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Bring out your vintage copper or brass containers, arrange ordinary flowers in them and see the difference they make.

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Wrap the glass bottle with colorful yarns, dollies and fill them with the contrasting flowers.

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Taking the cue from above I have put few dried flowers in jute wrapped glass bottle.

Jasmines of Udupi..

Today I am sharing with you a flower which is famous for its fragrance, soothing beauty in and around the regions of Udupi, Coastal Karnataka and other places. Shankarapura mallige or jasmine is from the small place called Shankarapura in Udupi district, Karnataka, India. These flowers which recently acquired GI tag from the Horticulture Department of India are quite sought after during the festive, marriage seasons and their prices soar during such times.

These jasmines are plucked in the bud stage , stringed together and sold.
There are two ways to string these jasmine either through thread or by string made of plantain stalk. The latter one looks beautiful with brown plantain string in the middle of flowers.  What I observed was that stringing them through thread is easy, latest trend but with plantain stalk it is difficult as plantain fibre breaks in between. The stringed flowers are first measured as 'chidi' or a handspan. About 70 flowers make one chidi. As many as 800 flowers go into the making of one ‘chendu’(ball of flowers), while four chendus make one ‘atte’.
The attes are collected from farmers by agents and sold to retailers in Udupi, Mangalore and other places.

The humid climate is suitable for growing these flowers. Many people around the area of Udupi have cultivated either in large or in a small space of their garden.
Why I am writing so much about this? My mother is a small scale cultivator of this jasmine. Her daily routine includes plucking these flowers and stringing them together and then taking it to a local flower seller. Its about two to three hours of work daily and she earns reasonable amount of extra income.
All this time while I was at my moms place with my kids, I was helping mother with her jasmine routine and could not be an active blogger for a while.

Mango... in progress

In India, it's the time for the Mango fruit tree to produce beautiful off white to pale yellow blooms.  The mango tree in my backyard garden is no exception. I am waiting eagerly for the spring to arrive to see them developing into tiny tender mangoes.

 

Linking this to Our World Tuesday , Outdoor Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday

 

Have a nice weekend!

Yesterday while pruning my plants I gathered these Tulsi flowers. Instead of being thrown away, they are now sitting prettily on the breakfast table. Wonderful way to invite the weekend. Have a nice weekend everyone!

 

Flowers of Sim's Park, Coonoor, Tamilnadu, India..

We had been to Ooty, Coonoor in the first week of November. Ooty as expected has changed so much since last time I visited as a kid. All I remembered was munching carrots, fragrance of eucalyptus trees, unbearable cold and rolling on the lawns of Botanical gardens.

During our stay we visited Sim's Park in Coonoor. Could not resist sharing few pics of blooming beauties. While admiring them all I could wish was bringing and growing them here in Bangalore. I did bring lot of seeds and about 12 saplings each costing 10 bucks.. I have to wait and see whether they like Bangalore or not.

This is picture heavy post, hope you enjoy it. All clicks by my husband...

 

 

 

Happy weekend with flowers..

 

Few unusual flowers put into vase, uruli whatever available.. Most of them are put on display on Friday morning while  waiting eagerly for the weekend break..

 

 

This yellow flowers has grown like a weed everywhere in the vacant sites and they make a delightful sight inside home.

 

 The butterfly pea flowers abundantly grown,  they are so frequent in my home..



Hibiscus.. A Few of them

 I have been missing in action for a long time. With kids gone back to school, I am back to being myself. The house is so peaceful for a while.

I always wished to have many varieties of Hibiscus in my garden. With a small garden it's bit difficult to have different kinds, colors of Hibiscus but it's not impossible. Most of these are propagated from the stem cutting and couple of them bought from the plant nursery.

 

Flowers, Plenty of them..

How do you spend your week if you are a homemaker like me? 

Me, all I do is arrange and re-arrange most of the things at home, and I am sure most of the decor lovers do the same. Apart from this I constantly try to arrange flowers. Oh, don't think too big on this, all I am talking is putting the flowers in a holder/vase, few match here and there and then making a pleasing flower arrangement for myself. 

Who doesn't love flowers in their home? Flowers brings happiness and adds cheerfulness to your life, your home. I am one lucky girl who has sources of flowers other than buying from outside. Yes, I pick flowers from my own garden, from the scarcely populated public garden, few fallen flowers from trees, fresh flowers from trees etc.

Colors of summer

Summer, spring seasons bring out the best in trees. The place where I stay, you can see flowers in myriad colors, beautiful shapes, and added to this you can hear birds chirping in the background constantly. Just makes me take a break from whatever I am doing and get lost in them.










Just could not resist myself by bringing few twigs for my breakfast table bouquet.