DIY Ganesha efforts this festival

As during every year, I looked forward to this year's festival season too. And particularly towards Ganesha Chathurthi, that gives all of us a chance to get our hands dirty! It is so heartening when friends return to their creative side, pick up that lump or clay, and roll it to Ganesha shape, year after year. And, its time for a Ganesha post!

The number of those indulging in DIY among my friends has only increased. Never mind the quality of your effort. Making your own little Ganesha keeps the essence of this festival grounded. From earth, to earth, with minimal or no damage to the earth, for those blessings from heaven. And with your own hands.

Am sharing here, some efforts by friends. Am also penning this post, praying for my dear friend in Dipti Nair, who is gracing through grief, but whose creativity inspires me a great deal.

Sankgetha Sripathy of Smudgy Trove Facebook page was super generous in sharing step-by-step pictures of the cute little smudgy Ganeshas she made.

Sankgetha is a pro at terracotta jewellery, which is why she always has some wet clay around home. No wonder the Dubai resident did not struggle with the basic Ganesha material.

If you notice, she used other materials such as toothpicks, carving stick, and some beads.

The next lot of pictures are self explanatory.

Notice how simple it gets to make the turban for the deity. Roll the clay into a long thread and coil it on the trunk's top.

Notice how the cute little cone of clay comfortable sits on top of the turban to give it a natural feel! Now for the body of the lord.

This is how her Ganesha looked after finishing. Pasting below, picture of her two Ganeshas. She used some beads to embellish. And a thread to symbolise the divine serpent that ties his belly.

Here is how they looked on the altar.

The next effort is a more colourful one, by Pavani Prasad who now lives in Netherlands. She used cake fondant for her Ganesha. And the result is remarkable.

Here is a picture of the materials she used. Fondant sheeds of different colours, sprinkles and cake beads. Last year, she used food colours to make her piece.

I like the detailing here. Green base to symbolise a large leaf, and a crimson base beneath to match the turban, and sprinkles to add sparkle.
 
Those tiny bananas on a betel leaf and the mouse only add to the feel. Below is a picture of the deity, worshipped with grass and flowers.

Isn't that lovely? As for the immersion, Pavani says she will leave it in her garden so that rains take care of the `back-to-earth' part.

On similar lines, my friend Deepa Balakrishnan's three-year old son Kabir got all  excited with play-doh or kids' modelling clay, and created his own version of Ganesha, two days before the festival. In her Facebook post, she wrote of his sudden zeal to do it early morning on a rainy weekend. Mommies have the toughest jobs on earth!

 

This is why I love kids' craft! How much more colourful and cute can a God's impression get? We adults are so conscious about colours to use, texture and sundry other tidbits. But put clay in the hands of a toddler and creativity peaks.

This Ganesha has a red tummy, green trunk and ears, and to top it, mouse seated at his legs too! I so wish those cute little food balls on that yellow plate were edible! They look so real!

Veteran journalist Janaki Murali from Bangalore took the trouble to attend a workshop, to make an eco-friendly Ganesha for her home. The idol, she made with clay.

I love the grand ears that she painted with poster colours at home, besides using the real cloth turban and his clothes. She used toothpicks for the lord's tusks.

Most of all, it is the size of the idol that floors me. Not big.

Size does matter when you celebrate a festival. It's better to stick to smaller sizes of idols for home worship, rather than overdo the attempt for grand celebration. Sometimes, the gigantic sizes of community Ganesha idols scares me.

Having a small idol is easy on immersion too. You need not head out to the lakes in your vicinity. A bucket of water does it. And all you need to do is pour the water out into planters or the garden.

Here is how Janaki's family did it.

Thanks a tonne Janaki, for sharing the pictures.

As I look at these amazing pieces of creativity for a religious purpose, I am reminded of earlier efforts by other friends too.

Theatre personality Kirtana Kumar posted the Ganesha Chaturthi celebration by her family a few years back. Here is the link to her post in her blog.

Infinite Souls Farm and Artists' Retreat

Scroll down the post for pictures of their open air celebration of the festival. Gowri and Ganesha idols made by children are a treat. And so is the ambience of the no-fuss celebration.

Another friend Aishwarya Kumaresh from my school had made a lovely clay  idol last year, which I could not post about. But the sheer memory of beauty in her effort prompted me to post some pictures here this time.

The idol is not as big as it looks in these pictures...

...and that is why, I love it all the more.

As for me, I stuck to a super simple worship, given that an elder in my family is still recovering from an accident, and am in the middle of doctor appointments. Like during other festivals when a tiny turmeric cone on a betel leaf becomes the lord's symbol for worship, I mixed some water with turmeric and made this. A toothpick came in handy for the image.

Flowers used here may look minimal. The truth is, my husband brought home a planter full of flowers instead of plucked ones. That's because these potted flower plants cost just as much as plucked flowers do. I had not the heart to pluck all those from the lovely plant.  Instead, I plucked some, and placed it at the altar and offered it, as it stood. It's not seen in the picture here.

My thanks to all friends who let me use the pictures.

For the rest of us, we may or may not have managed an eco-friendly effort at home this time. This post is so that we make sure God's gift called nature is not messed with at least at a personal level, during worship. Do try the DIY option next year. You could get more ideas from my post last year: Ganesha on my plate.

Pictures courtesy: Sankgetha Sripathy of Smudgy Trove, Pavani Prasad, Deepa Balakrishnan, Janaki Murali, Aishwarya Kumaresh, Kirtana Kumar and Radhika MB

Please note: Pictures and content should not be used without prior permission. Copyrights of these pictures rest with the photographers who shared them with Imprints Handmade.

For use of pictures and content, write to: radicreative@gmail.com

If you have DIY and eco-friendly Ganesha pictures, please share them.

Gift-wraps from the backyard!

After a long gap on Imprints Handmade, my dear friend Lalitha Menon is back with her original gift-wrap ideas!

Nothing says it like a sustainable gift wrap. Before you reach out to those expensive sheets at the gift store, try this. You're super lucky if you have a treasure trove named - garden! Lalitha has the knack of picking up little somethings from behind her home to use on her gifts.

Here's a quick look at what she did to pep up her recent gifts.

Surprise Soiree: that's what I'd call this first gift-wrapping project of hers (not sure how much wrapping goes on into it). Read on.

If you're wondering how a bunch of flat coloured marbles embellished with mint sprigs could make up for a gift as in the picture below, dig in. Beneath those aquarium marbles lies the real wow.

 The gift started off somewhat like this:

- an empty wooden box, the kind that holds jewelry
- actually, it is an old square handmade soap box she had, that she decorated in such a way  that it resembled table decor

Lalitha filled it with the cute jewellery set, a chain with locket and earrings, and placed the marbles over these, in a transparent plastic tray that fit into the box perfect.

 All this needed, was some dressing up.

And a satin ribbon to embellish!

Her second gift project, was with a tiny mud-pot, or kulhad.

 Instead of opting for garish sequins and paints, she simply glued mint leaves for the decor element. And taped satin over the gift wrapped in a banana leaf piece.

Please bear with the fuzzy pictures here. Inside the earthen pot, are Dilmah brand tea-bags as the gift.

Next, she shared with Imprints Handmade, something similar to what she had done many months back. Read here.

Instead of the mud pot, it was a coconut shell that came in handy, with the banana leaf from her backyard.

This moisturizer tempts me enough to grab one! Lalitha wrapped the piece with the banana leaf. Not available here, is the picture of satin tape tied up to finish the gift wrap. Any guesses about how she revved up this natural soap?

Banana leaves of course!

These gifts were for friends who visited Lalitha Menon. Those who've seen her previous work would remember how she wrapped a shirt in a teak leaf before! Here is a link.
As for the shirt below that she gifted to her son for his birthday, Lalitha did not worry much.

An old dupatta or stole in bright red did the work, besides some silvery satin. Also seen in this picture above, are mugs that Lalitha's students gifted to her.

Thank you Lalitha Menon, for sharing pictures of these thoughtfully wrapped gifts!

And the rest of us! Time to get inspired and look in our own backyards for some wrapping ideas!

Try them at home, and share with Imprints Handmade.

Pictures courtesy: Lalitha Menon

For permission to use, write to: radicreative@gmail.com

All pictures are watermarked.

Graduation party: DIY archway

Ti's party season at peak, in New Jersey, just like in other States. And so party shops have been in brisk business all through.

With practically every part of party decor being thrust at you on party shop shelves, is it possible at all to add a DIY element to decor?

A quickie image search on Google throws up plenty of DIY theme decor ideas. They range from colour-coded cup-cake holders, to wall decor festoons and cutlery holders. But when family friends needed to host a graduation party for their twin sons who are headed to college recently, Shirley Gandhi took it on herself to make it super special for the boys.

She spent endless hours on making a massive party arch-way. The project took her three-four hours every night over two weeks, after dinner time when kids were asleep.

And the results of her sleepless nights and meticulous work show.

To most of us, these two black columns may look like identical-size cardboard cartons stacked over one another. In reality, they are about 40 sheets of thermocol, popularly called styrofoam in US, cut to the same size and glued and piled over each other.

Shirley stuck to the theme of silver and black colours for the party.

 If you notice the column, you see that black colour gift wrapping paper, and silver lace or ribbon have been used extensively.

As for the letters, she bought a few shiny silver paper gift totes, used one larger side of the bags each to cut out a letter, and glued them over.

``Each sheet had to be cut about 12 by 12 inches each. I did not really measure before cutting them because I used same sized sheets for the whole project and cut them in halves and quarters,'' says Shirley.

To work on it easier, Shirley divided the two columns into three parts each, rather three blocks each, carried them over to her friend's place, and assembled them. She then used the silver lace or ribbon to glue them for the finishing look.

If you look in the picture, the part where the blocks have been glued has thicker silver lace.

Such an archway would have cost several times over if they had ordered it from elsewhere.  A lot of material went on in making it nevertheless.

``For the top arch alone, the silver lace cost me $ 5 a yard, and I used about five yards of that lace. Other ribbons cost about $ 3 per yard. Besides, there was picture printing, gift wrap paper, glue, and cardboards too,'' says Shirley.

Using thermocol made the columns easy to carry, and the archway's height at 7 feet, gave them the right weight. As a result, they did not wobble too. There was plenty of taping, gluing, and cutting involved, so you can guess the materials.

The top part of this welcome banner was made of black cardboard.

Shirley also made the Thank You cards for display on behalf of Wayne and Warren using off-white card paper, and some silver paper. She embellished the card with a ready-made flower.

The black theme has been in use here. Shirley bought photo frames and used the graduation profile pictures of Wayne and Warren in them. The pictures have been mounted however, on carefully black-wrapped cardboard cartons that seamlessly blend into the decor.

She used coloured mesh-cloth to fix the cards that she made, for the respective universities they are to join. Taping the cloth to the roof must have been a daunting task.

Naturally, these elements blended into the overall decor and colour scheme for the party.

 It's amazing how easily such party supplies are available at party stores too - custom made to hilt.  Please bear with the fuzzy picture below.

The festoons above are bought from a store, but my hunch is, they can be made at home too. Shirley's massive archway project overshadowed these decor elements.

And the compliments were plenty.

``The boys walked in and said, `Wow! We've a party at our house!' looking at the archway. That was the biggest compliment,'' says Shirley.

And the `Wow! 'bit did not stop there at the party. Shirley ended up pitching for the graduation party of another friend. This time, she did it differently though.

She used red mesh, black cardboard and shiny red paper to make the welcome decor. She twisted and turned the same mesh to make a flower on either sides, and knotted the part below them to give it the look of a festive curtain.

The colour theme of this party was red and black, and so she made the wall-decor card using the colours. The young lad Andre is headed to Colgate University, and that formed the basis for thie card alongside his pictures - profile and family.

``It took lesser time than the thermocol archway. I had only a few days' time for the red decor project,'' Shirley notes.

She is all geared for more such projects after the positive response with these. Shirley used DIY extensively for her own daughter's first birthday party, which is what puts her at ease with other such party decor projects for friends.

If you look close, the pink profusion in the picture has `butterflies' theme running through it. She made the `happy birthday' banner using pink sheets and cutting them into a butterfly festoon. On either sides of the wall, she used pink gauze bags, filled them with pink M&Ms, and made the pink badges for her daughter's name - Ria. The pink paper badges were stuck on to satin tape and fixed to the wall.

She used the pink mesh-cloth for a casual decor feel, besides cardboard boxes wrapped with shining pink gift paper to mount the candy buckets. She filled the tiny pinkish cartons with other goodies.

If you have a party coming up at home, you could try your own bit too. With some planning and minimal purchases, you could turn the decor into a satisfying project. All it takes is some decision on colour scheme and some goodies to match! And what a feeling when you get to bask in compliments from near and dear!

Imprints Handmade looks forward to more such projects from Shirley. And more such projects from the rest of us reading in too. As August gallops by, am hoping for more DIY crafting - Dasara, Diwali, Halloween, Raksha Bandhan and Ganesha festival besides Id! Don't we have plenty of excuse to create some crafting mess?

Picture Courtesy: Shirley Gandhi

To use the pictures, write to: radicreative@gmail.com