Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – June 2015

It has been drizzling in Bangalore for the past few days, fantastic for the garden.  I love seeing colorful flowers first thing in the morning with a cup of tea.

Varieties of jasmine producing flowers, filling the air with their sweet fragrance.

 

The night flowering jasmine locally known as Harsingar. They are so unique that they fall down seeing the first light of the day.

 

 

New colored Hibiscus that I planted in winter, now producing at least 2 blooms per week.

 

 

I am loving the roses, one or two per plant but I am content with them.

 

 

 

So what's blooming in your garden?

 

See the colorful flowers blooming around the world at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - June 2015 . Thanks Carol for hosting it.

Fabric covered boxes

Hi friends, how are you all doing?

We all come across the cardboard boxes that comes along with packaging in our daily life. Few of us keep them for storing things instead of throwing them, isn't it? I use them usually to store my kids toys, blocks, receipts and all those petty things lying around.  For the boxes which are visible I wrap them with gift wrapping paper, and store documents, bills etc.,  While browsing through Pinterest I came across couple DIYs which involved fabric and boxes. I had few extra fabric left out from my dress, so I thought to give these boxes a new look. Here is the tutorials for the same. To add that extra charm, I wrapped them with jute twine. I was in that great DIY mood so up-cycled three boxes at a stretch. Hope this inspires you to do something on the world environment day.

Have a great weekend friends!!!

 

A small box to hold shampoos in the bathroom

 

 

A magazine holder

 

A small box to hold my cookbooks.

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.

Tube Man - Craft for kids

 

 

 

The summer vacation has begun for most of the kids here in Bangalore, India. Well it's relaxing, fun time for the kids but I am sure most of the moms would have a tough time controlling them, keeping them occupied for the day.

Here is one of the craft that we did recently. This was originally published in one of text book activities section. We have done few twists and made it more fun.

 

Things you need

 

                      

1. Colored A4 sheets. For this we used red, yellow and white. You can altogether do away with color papers and use the colors instead. My kids are messy with colors so I find using color papers are more neat way of doing.
2. Black acrylic colors
3. Black marker pen
4. News paper - 4 sheets
5. Tape small or big
6. Glue.
7. Small jug with water.
8. Black cardboard sheet for mustache.
9. Scissors.

Steps 

• Take the paper sheets, roll them together into a tube.
• Put a tape at the edges so that roll doesn't unroll/open.
• Cover this entire roll with the color paper leaving about 5 inch in the top for the hair.

 

 

 

• Start cutting the upper portion into thin strips(these would be the hairs of the tube man)
• Take a jug and fill with water. Put black acrylic color into it. Mix it well. 
• Invert the roll and dip the roll this water and let it completely dry. Take care not to dip too deep as the water may dribble into the body of the tube. Alternatively you can use a paint brush and color these strips.

 

 

• Cut out two small circles for the eyes, mustache, mouth, tie and stick them all.
• We realized that step 3 can be done after coloring the hair.

 

And you are done. Have fun!

 

 

Sharing this with

Bowdabra Saturday Crafty Showcase
Ladybug Blessings Handmade Tuesdays
 

My own cosy corner

It's incredible, the way pop of color bring magic to any corner. This is my reading nook where I relax on few afternoons and catch up with a good book. I got this brass cradle from my mom, lying in the cupboard for long, unused. I decided to bring it down and use it as a small side table to display books, handicraft's and other knick-knacks(which I am never tired of buying). The only investment I made was couple of matching cushion covers. Isn't it a cosy and cheerful corner?

Linking this to Coloursdekor The-weekly-story-wk-10

Splash of Color -- Tabebuias

We are having this street near our residence where Tabebuia trees are grown along roadside. It's a spectacular display on this street where all the trees are full with bunches of flowers.
These trees thrive in open spaces and sunlight and often starts blooming in the month of February March welcoming the spring season. Although we don't play festival of colors, Holi here in South India, it gives a splendid feeling having splash of colors around me , yellow, pink, green etc.,
It's a burst of colors when in full bloom, not a leaf in sight.  I could hear the bees buzzing when I went to click them.

Linking this  to Outdoor Wednesday , Wordless Wednesday

Simple beaded bracelets

Two months of this year have passed away with the blink of an eye, don't you feel so?

Recently my cousin gave her broken bracelet for repair. She was under the impression that I could repair it.  I didn't want to disappoint her and keenly wanted to give it a try. She wanted it to be re-strung as it paired with other accessories like necklace and earring.
While re-doing her bracelet, I realized it's very simple. All that had to be done was stringing the beads in a stretchable elastic chord.
I made a few for myself with few wooden beads and silver, and golden colored beads. It's not glamorous but for a simple person like me definitely wearable -:))

All I did was string them and tie them in the end.

 

Things you require

Here is the first one that I made, about 7 inch long in length. You can see the knot, which is not so appealing. Hence for the other two bracelets I took a slightly different shaped bead with a larger hole and hid the knot under/inside it applying a bit of glue on the knot.



 The whole process was super easy and took only less than 10 minutes.