Glittering Candle Holders for Diwali

Diwali is a festival of lights, diyas and candles light up every doorstep and fireworks light up the night skies. I am feeling very nostalgic this year and missing India, the beautifully decorated markets, television advertisements, street food, late night shopping and saris. 

Diwali cleaning is a very big project (much bigger than spring cleaning), every home is warm and welcoming for visitors. I am still in the process of cleaning and getting rid of all unwanted stuff from my house and it looks like this year I just might achieve my goals! 

Every craft project I do reminds me of the very basic techniques which I learned in school and that is where I get my inspiration from as well. These candle holders are results of applying some wheat paste/ cornflour paste/starch on a balloon and using different materials to form bowl shaped objects. For the small candle holders I used water balloons and latex balloons for the others. Materials for the structure are just anything that glitters, metallic paper confetti, coarse glitter,sequins and fabrics.

Here is how I made the glues-

• wheat paste: just add wheat flour to water and boil them till it becomes smooth paste
• Cornflour paste: Add craft glue, cornflour and water in a bowl. If the paste needs to be thickened add more cornflour or glue to achieve desired consistency.
• Starch: Just add fabric stiffener to boiling water and make a smooth paste

I used cornflour paste for the coarse glitter and confetti candle holders, different paste and materials produce different results so trials are highly recommended. Apply a layer of vaseline or oil to the balloon before applying any of the above pastes. Once my first layer of any material dries up, I add the second layer and so on. If you want just add some newspaper bits after the first layer of glitter or confetti and then finish with glitter or confetti, this will add more body to the candle holder. This will work best if your material is not dense. It will take longer to dry with the newspaper layers (min 24 hours ). I used wheat paste for the metallic paper bowl and starch to make bowls from fabric (jute and silk). Add glitter to the surface of fabrics when wet to give the sparkly effect. Once the candle holders have dried just pop the balloons and remove any bits of balloons from the holder. Trim the edges of these holders to your liking or leave them rough for an abstract shape.. Place tea light or bigger candles in the holders and light them up for Diwali. 

Cornflour paste dries with a white tinge as you can see the image below, while wheat paste and starch dries clear.

Get creative with the materials for the body and you will be rewarded for sure when the balloon pops! I did have some disappointments as well but the overall result was a success. These candle holders are delicate and beautiful, light up any special occasion with these handmade delights.

Fairy Lights Dress Up-Option 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I did another version for the fairy lights for Diwali and here it is. This one is quite similar but I have added streamers and the size is much smaller. 

 I have cut thinner strips from the gold sheet of paper (card stock thickness) and punched holes through out the strip of paper. Then I cut some thinner strips of fluoro coloured streamer, any colour would look good. Stick them to one edge of the gold strip of paper with glue stick. Now just roll the gold strip and let the sheet take its own shape. Since it is thicker paper, I got a pentagonal shape instead of a round cylindrical shape, when i folded the paper. Stick the ends together with sticky tape and hang it onto your fairy lights with a string or fishing line.

These looks just awesome during the day as they would at night with the Diwali diyas.

Dressed Up Fairy Lights for Diwali

This year for Diwali I want to do as much handicraft as I can besides trying to clean and organise my house at the same time. There is less than a month before the celebrations! I absolutely love this month every year as there is one festival after another right from Navratri to Bhai dooj and Diwali is my absolute favourite. Beautiful lights and fireworks fill up the dark sky and the food, Oh the food!!!! Oh how I miss home on Diwali, so many beautiful childhood memories! 

We have some old fairy lights left from last year and I wanted to dress them up for this year. When it comes to craft for an Indian festival I just want it all metallic, well mostly metallic or the rich indian colours. I have done two versions of these lights one just metallic(shown below) and the other with some fluoro colours and gold (which I'll show in my next post).

These lights are gold with red and green metallic fringes. I have made a small string of lights which would look quite similar to a bunting indoors up against any plain wall.

It is super easy to jazz up any old fairy lights and you can make different versions of this with different colours. Here is what you need gold paper cut into strips of any thickness you prefer. Bright metallic sheets of paper to cut into fringes of around 1 cm thickness, Cotton thread or fishing line,scissors,fringe scissors,glue stick,sticky tape and a single hole punch.

Fold the gold strip of paper to form a rectangular box, a wide fold followed by a thinner fold, another wide fold and finally a thinner fold. Use your fringe scissors or simple scissors to cut a fringe and stick the fringe to one edge of the gold strip. Fold the strip and stick the end with a sticky tape as shown in the picture below. Punch holes on the wider sides of the rectangle box in any pattern you like I have just punched three holes on each side and one single hole on the remaining two sides to tie the thread. Finally just tie these box shaped dresses to the lights ensuring that each fairy light is inside each box and plug them in.

These look beautiful either ways, plugged in or not and I hope you enjoy making these lights.

Halloween Decorations: Magic Potions

Halloween is not spooky enough without a bit of witch craft and magic! So I made these concoctions which will satisfy any child's magical imaginations. Some glass jars with coloured water and icky gooey looking stuff will make an ideal potion display. There are lots of images on the web for potion labels, I've printed out a few of them (just google for potion labels) to go on my glass jars.

For Witches Brew I have just filled water with some red food colouring in a jar, as this is the most popular one in the magic store the jar is almost empty! Snake oil is water with a bit of food colour and oil (If you shake the bottle the oil bubbles give a spectacular look) 

  Wing of Bat is water with green food colour and a fig stem with one fig on it. i think a few more leaves can add more substance. Ogre snot is green olives. The rest of the jars have water with a bit of soy sauce and some dark colour jujubes and a chalk in the other one. These jars would look perfect on a window sill with some cobwebs around them and candle lights all around.

 So easy that you can get kids involved in the process and let everyone's imagination run wild to decide what to fill in the jars, the more the better. Halloween is coming get your magic working!

Halloween Treats: no bake slice

Halloween treats are so much fun to make as they can be a real challenge to be tasty as well as look disgusting or scary all at the same time. This is my first treat for this year's halloween. Well it is a bit early so we will be eating this batch and I'll make another batch for later. This was an experiment which I am very happy about as Elina really enjoyed these slices.

 Ingredients:
150 gms Unsalted Butter Softened
1 Table spoon cocoa powder
1 table spoon icing sugar
8-10 wheat or milk biscuits
1/2 cup Kellogg's Nutri grain
1 cup Kellogg's Coco pops
350 gms White Chocolate Melts
Fondant for decoration or Icing Pens

Recipe- Mix butter, sugar and cocoa in a bowl until well combined. Crush the biscuits and Nutri grain together in a kitchen towel or just wrap in a cling wrap and crush. Mix the crushed mixture with the butter mix and add coco pops. Combine well and line them in a slice tray or a baking dish. It is best to line your slice tray with baking paper first so that the slices can be removed easily. Pat firmly with a spoon and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Melt the white chocolate in microwave or over a pot of boiling water. Remove tray from the refrigerator and spread white chocolate evenly over the slice. Refrigerate again for one hour or until firm.

Now comes the fun, remove slice from the tray and cut into square pieces as evenly as you can. I found it is easier if you dip the knife in hot water before chopping. I have used fondant to decorate these slices in these ghost and vampire faces in black and red.

I couldn't resist making some of these more colourful monsters as well. Let your imagination run wild and have fun with these easy no bake slices.

Halloween from days gone by

It was a fun year and the greatest halloween party we ever had! We had fun preparing for the party although it was a very last minute decision to have a party, all our friends made it and looked just the part. Memories become more dear when we have shared them with our friends and family. With halloween not so far away now I just loved digging into these old photos and I'm really excited about Halloween this year. 

For this party a few years ago, we decorated the house with cob webs and spiders everywhere with candles all around the room. We hung strips of tissue paper on the window instead of curtains.

My husband and I were dressed as corpse bride and groom. With such short notice we tried to make the best possible with what we could find in the party shop near by and with our imagination.

I replicated this haunted forest salad from a picture I came across on the web. Ghost eggs with olive features, broccoli trees with green coloured spaghetti vines. I cannot wait to get started on this year's halloween with my little daughter.

Dots Appliqué

Another one of Elina's basic striped dress has now got my handmade marks all over it! This is a very basic but comfy striped dress which Elina has worn a couple of times. I found a print that would look good on green stripes in my bag of fabric pieces, feels like I am rummaging through a goodie bag with lots of treats. I don't like throwing away any fabric which is more than 5 cms wide and especially if the print is really interesting. This print is paisley in bright colours on a white colour base. There is something about dots and stripes together that makes anything look bright and fun. I really enjoyed this very easy appliqué  These dots are just circles cut out of a printed fabric and stitched together with running stitch done in a spiral pattern. I have left the edges raw so that they fray after wash and would give a  different look after wash.

Here is a close up of these appliqué  I have used yellow, green and pink colour threads to embroider the spiral pattern. I like asymmetrical patterns so I haven't placed the dots in any particular pattern. 

I have another dress in Pink stripes for Elina and this time I think I'll embroider it a bit traditionally with a modern twist maybe!

Birdie Appliqué Onesie

Basic clothing look good but they look even better with a bit of handicraft. When I was shopping for my baby  I just felt that there are quite a lot of options in the market yet there seems to be something missing, could be just me. I just wanted to add something handmade to my baby girl's wardrobe. I enjoy gifting handmade clothes as much as I love receiving such loving gifts. during my maternity leave I just went a little overboard and made quite a lot of stuff including clothes, toys and bedding for Elina. She enjoyed everything I made and I loved it when she noticed the bright patterns and colours of my handmade creations.

This onesie was the very first piece of clothing my baby wore. She looked like an angel in Pink (I tried not to buy too much pink but it does look the best)  I have used two different prints and a plain yellow coloured fabric to create this Birdie design appliqué. I have used Blanket stitch to create the outline of the bird. Prior to embroidery I prefer to use fabric glue to place the fabric pieces just where I want them to be. It helps keep the fabrics in place.

Here she is five weeks old and as bright as sunshine. She is the most expressive and candid baby I have ever photographed. Although she grew up to be quite shy from six months of age, Elina is a much more friendly little girl now. I love this picture more so as it catches her trying to move her arms when she sees the camera lens.

Khichdi Tikki Recipe for Toddlers

Ever since my daughter has turned one I have got the license to feed her a variety of foods and develop her taste buds to try avoid having a "fussy eater" at home. Elina is very tiny and her Pediatrician has put her on a fat diet so if the recipe below is a bit too fatty then you can Bake them for a more low fat version and remove the potato from the recipe.

Firstly let me explain how I make Khichdi for my little one. I just heat a teaspoon of ghee or oil in a pressure cooker and add cumin, corriander powder and tumeric to taste. Then I add 1 table spoon rice and 1 table spoon daal(any daal or lentils of your choice). Grate some veggies (carrots, zucchini, cabbage,cauliflower) and add some peas, a pinch of salt and one glass water. Then just pop the lid on and pressure cook for 10 minutes or till the rice and daal are cooked. Just stir them after opening the lid and top up with ghee or butter or just serve as is to your hungry toddler.

No matter how little I make but there is always some leftover khichdi which isn't as good to eat by itself the next meal or day. So I came up with this recipe and it was a success so here I am sharing it with everyone.

Here are the simple ingredients:

1/4 cup leftover Khichdi
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 boiled and peeled potato
1/2 teaspoon corriander powder
Salt to taste (or leave the salt out for a more healthier version)
Oil/Ghee for pan frying

Step 1- Mix all the ingredients together to form a dough. Add more bread crumbs if required.

Step 2- divide the dough into equal parts and make round balls out of the dough. Now flatten these balls a bit to resemble a patty/ tikki/ burger shape.

Step 3- Heat a pan with some oil or ghee for pan fry you can shallow fry it as well. 

Step 4- Keep an eye on it and turn it on the other side and cook till golden brown or cripsy skin appears.

Step 5- Take them out of the pan and into your dish you can even drain the excess oil on a paper towel first before serving.

I served my Tikki with yogurt eyes and tomato ketchup nose to intrigue my lil one and it did work and she loves dots these days and is being encouraged self feeding. A glass of watered down juice and this can be served as a snack or a brekky.

Happy 39th Birthday New Dad!

How often does it happen that you become a new parent on the same day as you 39th Birthday! Well not quite as often so it is a really special occasion won't you agree. My dear friend became a dad on the same day as his 39th Birthday! I have been so busy with so many things lately that it just slipped my mind that I needed to bake a cake. So I put on my super fast thinker's hat on and got baking! I baked dark chocolate mud cake and iced it with my new favourite dark chocolate  Ganache.It is so easy to make and use under fondant covering and just divine to taste, feels like you are in chocolate heaven!

With whatever time I had left after baking, icing and letting the icing set I got onto colouring my fondant and thinking of the easiest but prettiest look on the cake. I did intend to make a figure of my friend holding his bay but just didn't have enough time to do that maybe I will make it some other time as the thought is quite fascinating! 

I covered the cake in white fondant and added stripes of different width and colours onto the cake. Then added a Star shape to the centre and rolled out the fondant in a cylindrical shape to form the numbers 39 with some tiny stars on top. It's done well it sounds easy I guess! some sparklers and the cake is all set to cut. I don't think you can have too much of anything and although all my recent cakes have been made out of fondant I still feel that I have not got tired of the idea! I love baking and love it even more when I get complimented so go on take a hint!

I  just love my Jamie Oliver  two tier cake stand, it's so retro! Might not work  to display very traditional sort of cakes but anything modern and funky and it is the right stand for the job. I even use it sometimes for afternoon tea to serve sandwiches and pastries. Ooh that makes me want to bake some scones now!

 I prefer random thick and thin stripes more than just one width. Single width stripes might look good if they are adjacent to each other in monotones or similar color or maybe patterned!