News Paper Tube Owls

Hello people..

I have been collecting owls from wherever it's affordable and worthy.  I also found some simple fabric owls and paper owls images online. Thought to try them once.

Here is a tutorial on how to make cute owls from the newspaper rolls.

First thing you need to prepare the news paper rolls. You need few of them and take the best ones. In spite of doing newspaper rolls, I am still not achieved that perfection yet. Many which I make are not the same from top to bottom.

I always find helpful in flattening them first, make a rough roll and then use it.

You need to make a fair roll of at least diameter of 9 cm. Apply generous amount of glue on both sides of the base body of the owl.  Meanwhile prepare two rolls of diameter 4 cm for the eyes.

Coloring is optional. I don't like a thick acrylic layer on the owl, so I used the thin coat of acrylic on the base. I love the effect of newspaper print and colors.

If you are planning to make a hanging then put sufficient length of thread from the middle hole and tie it at the rim.

After everything has dried, colored, attach the eyes to the base body,on top.
For the head, a made a thin strip of roll which can be flexible. It can be easily bent and can be attached on a top of the eyes.

I also made a branch at the base.

You can make few of them and make a Garland or use it the way I have used.
I have put few glass beads and hung them on an indoor plant and one on the knob of the door.

A DIY simple glass painting

It's always a crafter's dilemma as which craft to do first. I am also one such case who is shifting between one craft to another, abandoning the thing in between. I had bought a pack of glass colors with a plan to color the glass bottle, obtaining a  tinted  bottle. I abandoned this after not getting the expected results. After a few months again I bought a pack, this time of another brand, left it unused for many days.  Few days back I saw my relative using the glass colors to make a beautiful glass painting. I got so inspired from her and try a simple one on my own. So here a simplest way in which you can use the glass colors.

I took two drinking plain glasses.
Cleaned it first and let it dry.

I took Camel glass colors, Water based, which comes in a pack of six colors and a black liner.

Drew the desired design using the glass pencil. This is optional. If you are confident enough, you could do free hand directly with the liner.

With the liner that comes with the pack, drew lines, on already sketched design. I drew multiple diamonds around the curved surface of the glass.  Let it dry completely for about an hour.
I filled in these diamonds with the desired colors, one diamond at a time. The liner acts as a boundary and will not let the color spill to the next cell.

Since it was a curved surface, I had to fill each one and wait till it dried completely.While drying it again I had to lay it flat. Since glass colors run crazily, it would get concentrated at one place, look plain in some places. Its OK for the first time and its OK because making the paint stay on a curved place is not easy. But in spite of all these minor glitches the finished piece looked cute.

I used my terrace space for drying. It was sunny and was good for my project. This way the paint dried quickly and I could fill in each color quickly.

This is how it looks in the night

Recycled bottle with dot painting

Thanks for your lovely comments on my previous post, Weekly Market(Santhe)

I have been experimenting with Batik Design Technique on fabric for a long time, I have been successful to get the desired result in few,  and few of them were totally disastrous and unexpected. To take break from that, and to cheer myself I am exploring other crafts which are in my To-Do list.

There are few wine bottles that I have been hoarding for a long time to get them painted.  My first thought was to try dot painting with acrylics on the bottle. Before doing that, I tried dot painting with Fevicryl Liquid embroidery tubes. These are actually used for doing liquid embroidery on fabric but I have used to paint my bottle with them.

I got few limited colors in the shop, and the shop was selling more metallic colors. I bought orange, blue, yellow. I was looking for white color but I got pearly white which I thought was OK and still doable. Before I got started I had to remove the labels from the bottle.

How to remove the labels from bottle
There are methods to remove the labels which many swear by but this following process has most of the time worked for me.
Initially soak the bottle in hot water(not boiling) for about an hour. If the label has any paper part, it would come off with scrubbing.
To take off the tough, sticky glue, apply some oil and baking soda on the sticky label. Leave it for a while(about 10 min). Take a scrubber and scrub the label off. This should get you a sparkling bottle.

How to paint

I have used the fine tipped pen to draw my designs on the bottle. I didn't go about drawing the entire design initially instead drew only what was necessary. . I just drew step by step, as my design demanded it.  Keep a wet cloth handy, because if you do not like what you have drawn, you can immediately wipe it.
Start with slowly squeezing the bottle. You would get tiny dots, which looks like tiny spikes.

I tried first on the plain glass bottle, free hand without any particular design in mind. I am happy how both have turned out. Best way show them off is to have golden pothos in them.

Linking this post to Craft Schooling Sunday by Creative Jewish Mom

Dot Art to decorate

A very happy and prosperous new year to all my dear readers. I have been too busy to post anything. According to latest article in prime newspaper of India, Indian women are most stressed out. I think it's so true in most of our cases whether we are employed or homemakers. While sometime when I am awake in middle of the night, I would be thinking what should I do tomorrow, what should I cook, what should I pack for lunch etc.,. I keep reminding myself to take everything slow and love what you do at least once a day.
Coming to my post today, it's simple and I think you need to have a very little artistic talents. It's the dot painting.

Dot painting are part of the Australian Aboriginal art form. They are done using naturally available materials. It's vibrant, interesting, aesthetic, and these arrays of pattern of dots may seem meaning less to us but they do have some meaning to the Aboriginal artists. Each painting tells a story and are hidden sacred meaning, known only to the artist, hidden to the westerners. More about this art read from here

What I have done doesn't have any serious meaning but inspired by Aboriginal art. I created few simple art just to decorate my home walls. I drew the design on a handmade colored sheet roughly and used ear buds to put drops of acrylic paint on the design. If you want smaller dots then do let little paint drip from the ear buds(just a small touch to the paper)and for larger dots drip more paint. Do not add water to the Acrylic Paint, use as it is from the bottle.
My art teacher mentioned about these kind of Painting, and the first one was done in our class. This was done on a green colored fine handmade paper.

My husband had a T-Shirt bought as a souvenir from a recent trip and I loved the elephant face so much that I wanted to try that using dot painting. My second attempt was this.

 

So how did you like my painting? Want to try yourself? Have a wonderful, and happy year ahead.

DIY: How to paint the terracotta

I had bought few plain terracotta lamps, lantern few months back and thought to make it fancy for this Deepavali festival. Due to overtime on the Internet and thousand other things I could not complete them in time. Hopefully they are ready for the next year.

I wanted something similar to the ones that we get in the shops like ExclusiveLane,  Jute cottage .The normal acrylic that we use from brands like Camlin, Fevycril etc., were not giving me the desired results. These paints apparently give a glossy look to the finished product.

There was an exhibition during Deepavali near my residence. The painted terracotta hanging bells were cute and I bought one for home. Soon as I showed it to my family, their unanimous reaction was that why did I buy it since I could color them myself. But there was a selfish reason behind it, I wanted to know the type of paint she used. But to my disappointment the she didn't part with her trade secret.
This incident made me more determined to find the paint. And to some extent I found it I think. I used the left over Asian Paint premium emulsion paint( Matt finish) from our painting. The results exactly matches what I had in my mind.

How to paint

For the terracotta lamps, soak them overnight in a tub/bucket of water. Next day take a old unused tooth brush and brush off any dust/mud in the corners or holes. Let it dry thoroughly in the sun light.
Apply a coat of terracotta primer. It would fill the small holes or cracks in the lamp and you would require less of the main paint.  I used  Fevycril Terracotta Primer and diluted a little adding water. This primer comes in 1 kg bottle( they didn't have lesser than this, while I was buying).
Let it dry in the sun.

After it has completely dried start painting with your choice of colors.
For the lamps after they are primed, I have used yellow shade of Asian Paint Premium Emulsion Paint for the base color and later for the designs I have used acrylic colors. I didn't want yellow but I had no choice since that was the only one left out from my house painting.

Here for the lantern I have used three shades of Fevicryl Acrylic colors. It looks OK, bit glossy, and I plan to use in my balcony garden, lighting it with a bulb.

If you are not confident with directly painting, you could draw using color pencil initially(very lightly), as you can see it here.

I have painted these only for decoration purpose and thought it would look cute among lighted diyas. You cannot really find much difference between the lamp and the lantern here in the photos but they do look different in real. The lantern is shining in color while the lamps are not.

Please feel free to suggest or any other tips you have.

Diwali DIY : Bangles Tea Light Holder

It's just a day to go for Deepavali, Indian festival of lights and I haven't done any decoration so far. I am down with heavy cold and severe lower back pain. In between I am busy in cleaning the house for the festival. Searching my crafts stuff I realized, I could do a quick craft for a tea light holder.

It's a tradition in Hindu religion, to gift bangles to the married women along with vermilion. This is something we women cannot refuse. Over years bangles have piled up in my home, some pretty some very dull. Often I donate them to my helper.  For our DIY today, gather some of your old unused bangles, strong adhesive(fevicol), some small golden/pearl decorative buttons/artificial stones.

Roughly arrange the bangles of same size, and start gluing each one on top of other.

In between make sure that your tower of bangles is straight and not slanted or in other shape. You can take break in between to make sure that glue has dried properly.

I managed to decorate with the items that I had in my home at the instant. On the top bangles I decorated with the golden buttons, gluing them.

I used approximately around 15 bangles for one tea light holder.

Finally place your bangle tower on the card stock, measure from outside and cut it.
Stick it to the base of the tower. This is optional step.

Wasn't this simple? Place the tea light inside and watch the glittering light. Have a happy and safe Diwali.

Update :
Adding this to Craft Schooling Sunday @ Creative Jewish Mom

DIY : Paper rolled pens

The other day my gel pen got over while doodling something and I was in urgent need of the black gel pen.The nearest store fellow tried to sell me couple of new branded pens as he did not stock pen refills. I inquired in few other ordinary shops and to my surprise none of them had refills. When the cost of refill and the pen are almost the same, people would more likely to buy new pens rather than buying a refill. Ever thought what would happen to your old pen? You would either hoard it, throw it or if you are eco conscious and old fashioned like me, you would put a new refill. I have seen many people around me buying new pens on a whim. Finally I got my pen refill at a stationary shop.
I remembered seeing these paper pens in few craft stalls that I frequented in the past. I decided to make these pens at home, try and use it myself. These are cute and you don't have to feel guilty when the ink is over.

Things you need.
Pen refill, Paper. The thickness of the pen depends on the thickness of paper. If you are using newspaper strip, you need a long one as they are thin. I used the paper bag's paper which was slightly thick.
Glue, scissors, ruler, pencil/sketch pens.

Cut out a rectangular shaped paper whose height is that of the pen refill(width is approximately 30 cm).

Draw a slanting line from the top left corner, to the right side like shown below. This is for tapering of the pen, to get cone shaped tip for the pen. Cut the paper along the line.

Lay the pen on the left edge and firmly glue the refill onto the paper initially. This step is the only tricky step and if you do it correctly then your rolling would come out perfect.

Start rolling and apply glue at the end of the roll.

To make the cap, take a rectangular strip(height less than half length of the pen, width less than half of what you had taken for the pen).

The diameter of the cap is slightly more than the pen. Take the pen and start rolling the strip to the other end of the pen. Do not roll tightly and you should be able to remove the pen in the end.

Apply glue to one end of the rolled cap and press it hard to close it. Let it dry.

My pen was simple but you could finish it with a strip of nice gift wrapping paper to make it attractive.

Please note that this may not be appropriate for students who have heavy writing work but more suitable for casual use.

Quick Coasters

I seem to be doing a lot of recycle related posts nowadays. I promise, this would be last for this month. You must have seen my garden some time back which was a total wreck due to renovation and painting of our home. The good news is that the me and my husband have managed to resurrect it back. Yes, the plants seem to be forgiving and they have decided to cheer back. I would be soon sharing my garden.

Coming to my post, this is about making coasters out of your old CD's. In the age of pen drives, mobiles the CD's are almost obsolete. My son's few text book publications have have attached CD's along with them. I didn't know what to with them other than throwing them once the year passed by. I had this fabric which I loved and bought it cheap to wrap the boxes. I utilized the left over cloth for the CD's. The project is very very easy and hardly takes time provided you know the basics of stitching.
Things you need.
CD's, Cloth, Glue, matching thread, needle, scissor, something to trace the CD

With the CD trace the outline of the CD. Leave 2 cm more.

Cut the fabric.

Apply glue on both sides of the CD and lay down the fabric on both the sides of the CD. Let it dry. Take care to remove any creases.

.
Using the matching thread, stitch the rim of the fabric, I chose the simple blanket stitch and dark blue color,three strands.
Trim any extra threads.
Do not worry if its not perfect and enjoy your tea/coffee!!!!

Linking this to Craft Schooling Sunday of 2nd July by CreativeJewishMom

DIY : Semi quilled flowers

Hello friends, what are you up to?
My online window shopping has become so compulsive that my data pack gets over in no time. I am sure there would be many people like me around this world who are into this addiction. I have made a strict resolution of limiting my browsing the e-commerce sites. My attention now is on few saved pins that I thought I should try in my lifetime. This one DIY which is quite easy but bit wearing.Hope you like it and give it a try.

So here I go with the steps.

Things you need.

I chose blue colored strips because it went well with my vase. Since the blue color was monotonous I also made few white colored ones(I did not have the white quilling strips, so I ended us making them but cutting the white colored A4 sheets).

Initially cut a quilling strip into strips each of length 9 cm. You require about 12-25 strips of this size for the base. Keep decreasing the length and the number of strips for each layer.

Fold the strips at the center and using the quilling needle curl the end of the strips slightly.

Start laying each strip over the other gluing at the center with a glue dot.

 Take the floral wire and wrap it with the floral tape.

 

Make a small tight rolled coil of the same colored strip and attach it to the base of the flower.

 



After it has completely dried attach the floral wire to the coil at the base with a bit of glue.

 

Adding this to Welcome Back To Craft Schooling Sunday Jan 09 2016