Glass painted candle holder and basket decoration

Initiated this project with the interest of expanding my knowledge in glass painting. This was my long time craft which I could not try out as I have small kids as the glass paint is not safe to be used when they were at home.

Since my kids have started going to school, decided to try out and make something useful for my daughter's day care teachers, 2009 christmas gifts. Made 3 of of them. Also to the right you will see a basket. The work was also done by me. Details are given below.

Glass Candle holder :- Clean the surface with a nice soft cloth. Traced the design on a paper and kept it inside the glass holder such that the design faces out. With a gold out liner (delta brand air dry permEnamel Accent Liner for glass,ceramic and tile) outlined the design shown. Then waited 24 hours for this to dry. Then painted the red flowers and green leaves with glass paints. The glass paints I used was bought from India. We need to paint the red and green such that it does not come out of the lining. This was a very tough project as the glass candle holder is a curvy object and we need to hold it in place such that each petal or leaf I painted sets before I keep the holder down, otherwise the paint will run out.

Basket decoration :- I wanted to package this candle holder,the red bookmark (shown above) , a greeting card and another gift inside this basket. This basket was bought from a craft store. It was very plain basket with the Christmas ribbon attached to it. I gave its shine by painting with gold metallic paint and then with white paint I put thick white dots to look simple and yet elegant. Packaged the whole thing like a basket gift. They just loved it.

Red Bookmark :- Due to the time limitations I could not do a detailed design for the bookmark. But just wrote happy 2010 in a dotted format. Came out pretty cool.

The teachers loved the gifts and especially when they came to know that I had done the whole thing and packaged it like a gift basket to them.

Thanksgiving Game and Activity

Game played as a family and Decorating a Turkey feather was the activity.

For my son's school project we had to decorate one turkey feather to make one "family turkey" for their classroom. We had to decorate it however we like. This was a project "for family to do together and mainly we had to make it represent our family."

My idea of doing this project together was to allow my son to decorate the feather how he wanted and the only way to include my 2 year old daughter and husband to be a part of this was to play a game and attach it to the turkey feather. Since as a family we do lot of activities together, we decided to do this thanksgiving game as an "activity together".

ThanksGiving Game :- I found this game over the internet when searching for thanksgiving ideas. This game is called "Thankerchief" - Pass a thankerchief (handkerchief) around in a circle. The player holding the "thankerchief" when the poem ends, must say aloud, one thing for which they are thankful for. The poem is as follows :

Thankerchief, thankerchief, around you go
Where you'll stop, nobody knows,
But when you do, someone must say,
What they are thankful for this day.

We played a game as a family and it turned out to be a huge success !! My kids still want to play this game !! They just loved it. Since we played this I represented this on a card. Inside of the card as we open I have put all our names and on the right hand side (inside of the card) we have written what we are thankful for.

Feather Decoration - Coming to the main part of decorating the feather which was my sons contribution , he asked for feathers, glitters, leaves and buttons (as per the instructions given ) and I had told him only to include feathers in the middle with the "card I had made". The rest of the area was totally his idea of decorating with all the items.

He actually surprised me with his motor skills from creating patterns, applying glue and sticking all the items. My assistances was very minimal (except for the card) and enjoyed more by watching him decorate the feather.


Back Side of Feather - At the back of the feather he wrote his name, room number and his grade. I created the back side of the card to include the "contribution information" and mainly a "thank you" note to the school for giving this wonderful idea of decoration which got us to play this game as a family and a group hug.
This Game and activity turned out to be the best activity done for this month.

Halloween crafts and decorations 2009

Usually we have the tradition of pumpkin carving and because of time limitations we had to skip it. But it does not feel Halloween for the kids if you don't do anything. So this year we (my son and I) decided to do the decorations and hang it outside instead of buying the decorations from the store. It was indeed a nice project for both of us. We could sit and complete this in 2 days.

I will walk you through the list of items created.

From the door:- we can see few things. A Happy Halloween writing, a pumpkin wreath, a bat and ghost cutouts. Clear picture is given below.

Happy Halloween writing:- We wrote a "HAPPY HALLOWEEN" on a long paper and painted it using "glow in the dark" paint (orange color) and my son colored the rest with black crayon. We did 3 of them (One for the door) on on the sideway (done by my son) and one on the front gate.

Pumpkin Wreath :- Mommy did many pumpkin using dot-art pens on paper and my son gave directions on how to draw the eyes, nose and mouth. Then we taped to a pipe cleaner in a circle form and hung it on the door.

Bat and Ghost cutouts :- From the web (activity for kids website) got a picture of bat and ghosts. So I asked him to cut out bat on black paper and ghosts on white paper. For the ghosts, he drew the eyes and mouth and wrote BOO. For the bat we put eyes with white glow in the dark paint.

On the sides :- we just hung the "happy Halloween writing" or only the bat and ghost cutouts. We did the same on sides visible near the door and near the postbox area.

On the bottom:- near the door and step (see the top picture) we can see a white ghost (4 of them). This one we used a milk can painted the front"white" (glow in the dark paint) and my son got to do one can fully. He drew eyes and the mouth with black marker on all of them. Then I cut the back little bit to stuff the white kitchen tissue roll so that can will look more white. To cover the lid just used a white kitchen tissue and taped it at the back.

Overall the project came out well and we just loved it. The only draw back was the glow in the dark paints did not glow as much as I expected it to !!.

Peel & Stick Foam Mosaic Art

This Art project is called "Peel and Stick" by number - theme is spring flowers.

Knowing my work I like to try different crafts and decided to choose this one to try out with my Son (its for ages 5+) and we just loved doing this together.

On the top left was done by me. The other two (flower in a pot) and (3 flowers with stem) were done by my Son (5 1/2 year old). My Kid loved it as much as I did !!

As the name suggests "Mosaic Art" is basically lot of small pieces of any kind (glass or ceramic or foam) put together to form a design. So chose the foam material which is safe for kids to do.

The foam pieces come in different sheets in sticker form. We have to make the picture come alive by creating beautiful mosaic scenes by placing the sticky foam squares on the numbered scene boards.

Instructions from the box is as follows.

1) Choose one of the 3 scene boards to work on first.
2) Pick a colored foam sheet you want to work with first and look at the legend on the box to find the matching number.
3) Peel off a 1/4" foam square from the foam sheet and place it over the number on the scene board and press it down with your finger. Continue to place the colored foam squares on all the numbers for the color you are working on.
4) Continue to place the other colors on the scene board just as you did for the first color.
5) For outer boundary areas only a few numbers are given for a whole section. Fill the area with colored squares of that color.
6) Congratulations ! now your piece is ready to be framed !!

Bought the frame from IKEA store (colored frames) and framed it and the 2 pieces are hanging in our living room and one in my Son's bedroom.

I consider this as "good motor skill development activity" for kids to work on.

Building a Farm and a small Barn with my 5 year old

This project was done for a function (Indian Function - Navarathri Gollu) where we keep God in few steps and a theme which you create (its not a mandatory one, but a fun activity for kids to participate in the whole function part). This craft was done with my Son (5 year old) .


My son was always fascinated with barn and farm animals when he was young and now when he used to read more in books. So decided to create this with his help.

So the basics of the project is building a farm - arranging the grass, putting the fence, keeping all the farm animals and building a barn. He also wanted a pond for the ducks. Lets go through in steps on how we created this project.


The Barn - Basically taking any juice carton (small size), paint the carton with Red color (2 times to hide the writings on the carton), remove the opening (cut it off). Then using the mailing labels sticker, did the door and window by cutting thin strips and paste them as shown above. The design of the barn was taken from a book which he used to read. Only the white sticker for the door and window was done by me. Rest was my son's effort.

The Green Tray - So we took a thin aluminum tray and he painted it with green color. This tray was done to keep everything the grass, animals , fence and the barn on it for display. Since aluminum tray has a shinning effect painted it green to match the grass color.

The Items purchased :- The grass (artificial grass) , the fence and all the farm animals were bought from a craft Micheals store.

The pond :- we took a small paper and cut it in a round shape and he painted it blue.

The final arranging :- Once all the items dried after the painting process, I put the grass on the green tray, and the fence but arranging the farm animals and the barn were done by my Son. So he loved doing this project every second of it.

Indeed a nice project to do with your kids. The photo below shows the navarathri Gollu.

Magnetic pen holder or a gift card holder

One of the teachers in my daughters day care were leaving (May 2009),I had to complete this project in a day as her last day changed all of a sudden. So due to time limit constraint, I executed this project for all the teachers in a day's time. So I basically came up with a multipurpose item as mentioned in the title.

Painted this wooden gift bag in Red color (used metallic paint) to get the shiny affect. Then stuck 3-d gem stickers on them to fill up the space. At the back of gift holder I pasted the magnet (comes with one side sticker and other side magnetic layer) to create a magnetic pen holder.

Filled it with a thank you card, a gift card and some chocolates.

So here is a simple project for anybody to do in a day. The ladies liked it, and its simple and different .

Scratch design DIY kit

As you know by reading my posts that I'm very much interested in crafts. I created this DoIt Yourself Craft kit as one of the items in our this year goody bag for kids.

I ordered the scratch design frames (100 of them) from the web which comes from different shapes and sizes.

Created a kit where- each kid gets 4 frames to design ,a craft stick, instructions and a sample frame designed by me. Basically you can draw with the craft stick (cut at an angle and can be the tool to scratch or draw) and the black part comes out and your design shows up with rainbow colors. Decided to do this as one of the items because my son loves rainbow colors.

The picture included in this post are frames designed by me and given as a sample for the kids to get an idea on how to go about doing this craft. Seems or looks to be very simple but when we need to do 35 of them, what do you say ?



For me this craft and making this craft kit for kids was very exciting and new thing to try. So hoping the kids are going to love it the same way as I did.

For more information on the goody bag craft in detail refer to my blog post "A Goody Bag with butterfly and 3d gem stickers".

A Goody Bag with butterfly and 3d gem stickers

Its this time of the season called the birthday month in our house and I'm very busy with organizing my kids birthday parties. Like before, I wanted to do something creative for the goody bag and decided to decorate the goody bag itself. My daughter's first and my son's 4th birthday were celebrated in India and did not get to use my talent to personalize anything for the kids as we could not carry them due to baggage limit.

Since this is my daughter's first birthday celebration in US and she gets very fascinated with butterflies I used butterfly theme on this bag. As my son loves rainbow colors I decided to use different color 3d gem stickers in making this bag. I also bought a rainbow image name tag to write each kids name on the other gift. Also created a thank you sticker having the rainbow and butterfly image with my kids name on it.

The FOAM BAG : The Foam bag, butterflies (different designs and colors) and the 3d gem stickers were ordered from the web. Made a very small hole on the center of the foam bag and attached the butterfly (pinned) to the bag. Arranged the gem stickers around the butterflies to fill up the space. Simple as it seems but when i completed doing 46 goody bags (14 for my daughters day care kids and 32 for "the" birthday party kids), I had a big SMILE on my face. The satisfaction you get when you achieve something this small is GREAT !!

STICKERS/NAMETAG: Created a thank you sticker with rainbow image and butterflies image with my kids names on it from the software's available with me and pasted it at the back side of the bag and the other gift. Also bought a rainbow name tag to write each kids name and my son with joy helped me write all the kids name, helped me pack the other goody bag gift and pasted the stickers on them. He is 5 and proud to be the BIG BOY and helping me with all this. It was really fun to do this project with him.

thank you sticker designed by me.

For more information on goody bag items I have created refer to my previous blog -"Goody bag for my son's birthday" and "Windmill for my sons bday party gift".

Ceramic tile - Candle holder (wall hanging)

To blend things in the kitchen and family room, I used the same color theme for this tile (as my ceramic toothpick holder) to the ceramic tile so that they can go in the same room. I created 2 pieces of the same deisgn to be hung either side of the patio door in our family room. I ordered a iron cast frame (from online) for this tile which comes with candle holder. The tile size I've used is 6 inches.

The design was very simple, just a color of orange,blue, green as border then a red flower in the center. Outlined the orange, blue and green border with black paint to give an elegant look. Also colord the back of the tile black to match the cast iorn frame.

The 2 tile candle holder which I created are hanging in our family room and filling up the empty space in our family room.

Reading my other ceramic projects, you bet must be wondering how different it is from the rest. Well it is. If you observe the paint, its different from my other ceramic crafts projects. It is called "sparkle paints", so it has tiny particles along with the paint to give it a shine once glazed. So there are very few colors to choose but I've used sparkle paint throughout.

For more information on my ceramic projects, refer to my previos blogs "Introduction to ceramic painting" , "ceramic mug painting", "ceramic plate painting".

Ceramic toothpick holder

This piece was created to enhance my kitchen window . With curtains and windows being all white in color, wanted to add small details to the window. We put a small plant on a thin dark blue vase. So wanted to add more details to the whole area.

This piece in the store said it can be used as a toothpick holder. So for parties I can use it as a toothpick holder and for the rest of the time it can be a decoration on my kitchen window.

Reading my other ceramic projects, you bet must be wondering how different it is from the rest. Well it is. If you observe the paint, its different from my other ceramic crafts projects. It is called "sparkle paints", so it has tiny particles along with the paint to give it a shine once glazed. So there are very few colors to choose but I've used sparkle paint throughout.

For more information on my ceramic projects, refer to my previos blogs "Introduction to ceramic painting" , "ceramic mug painting", "ceramic plate painting".