My first Madhubani Painting

Here goes my first Madhubani painting using the poster colors. I saw this illustrated in Kannada magazine 'Taranga'. It hasn't come out greatly, you can see lot of mistakes in the borders, colors spreads. But for a first timer like me its OK I guess. What do you think? This is my inspiration for more Madhubani Paintings.

New beginning

I know its late to wish anybody happy new year but never too late. A very happy new year, new beginning to the people who have accidentally visited this blog. Last year saw myself in lots of downs and few ups. On the family side, there were sad happenings, on a personal side I was excited to learn the basics of sewing, car driving.
Posting here a few pics of my garden, few plants on which I had lost the hopes of surviving. Roses which were neglected, few plants were not watered properly in our absence. Seeing them surviving teaches me to be more patient, and hopeful of tomorrow..

My lovely creeper is blooming

Finally this creeper(Thunbergia Blue) which we planted almost a year ago started blooming. I am so happy seeing its flower.

Sweet corn salad

Our shopping isn't complete without the warm cup of flavored sweetcorn. Tell me, who doesn't love sweet corn. Well today's recipe is of sweetcorn, easy to make and yummy too, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this recipe here -:). This is a kind of koosambari(Salad) we often find in Kota brahmin's feast.

Serves two

1/2 Cup of sweet corn, sprinkle little water and bring it to boil in m/w(approx 90 sec on high power). Discard the water.
1/2 Cup of finely cut cucumber
1tsp of lemon juice
2 tbsp fresh coconut
salt as per taste
little fresh coriander leaves to garnish

for tadka
1/2 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp of urad dal
1 small piece of red chili
pinch of hing
1 tsp vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients and give tadka. Enjoy your salad!

Crepe paper twine ball

Ever since I saw a twisted crepe paper twine in Reliance Timeout, I wanted to try doing it myself. Well, after doing one, I realized making crepe paper twine is not that difficult. I used few of it for gift wrapping. I tried making ball of it later. Here is how I did it. I did three of them, first one turned out to be best. Other two didn't come out well as the balloon I used were not of perfect round shape

Step 1.
Cut the crepe paper into one inch stripes.



Step 2.
Start twisting the papers into thin twines.
Step 3.
Start joining all the individual twisted twines by sticking them together with the glue


Step 4.
Blow up a small balloon, apply thin coat of Vaseline all over it.

Step 5.
Take few drops of synthetic gum and put equal amount of water into it. Apply this mixture on the balloon.

Step 6.
Start putting the twines all around the balloon, completely covering it.

Step 7.
Leave under the fan overnight

Step 8.
Next day the balloon would have shrunken, if not wait for it to shrink naturally.

Step 9.
Once its completely shrunken, pierce the balloon and take it out from the ball.




Although the photos aren't that good(I am very bad in taking photos), believe me it looks good.

This is how I kept it for time being.

Happy Deepavali

Happy Deepavali to everyone out there.
Deepavali at our home is a simple affair begining with Naraka Chaturdashi. We take bath using oil, cut lemon and turmeric mixture. New clothes are worn and after this lighting Diyas and bursting crackers and finaly consuming few sweets. Its is enjoyable if you have relatives or friends around you.
Deepavali brings back the old memories where we as kids refused to wake up early and take bath. Early here is 4:30 AM, this was because after applying oil we had to wait till the oil got inside our skin -:). Soon after the bath we used to go back to sleep again. Few years when we were in Gujrat we were living in apartment, sweets were exchanged among neighbours. We as sweet deprived kids were sighing why there were so many sweets at a time. By the end of the festival we used to run away from sweets for few days.
Nowadays the celebrations have become so minimal, it is hard to imagine that our children may not have memories like us.
Posting couple of pics

Lavender Beauty

After a break, I am back again, not that anybody is eagerly waiting here for my posts -:)
I usually take my two kids to park either to play or just for a stroll. I particularly like this lavender flower which I believe is a creeper. I have no idea what is the name of this but its really beautiful. Once I bought the fallen flowers and painted them but they were very few so I didn't put it for display. This time I bought a lot of them and put them into the basket.