Valentine flower Arrangement

My Daughter's day care teachers were celebrating the valentines day with all the kids exchanging gifts, to make the day special for her teachers I decided to do this flowers arrangement and box of chocolates as a last minute gifts. I really hope they will appreciate and like it.

To go ahead with this project all I did was I purchased all the items individually and put them together. The Tin and the Red Red artificial flowers were bought from the a craft store (Micheal's craft store). The tin was already painted red with white hearts and had a pink ribbon attached. I bought a Styrofoam , to fit inside the tin, arranged the flowers on the Styrofoam and placed them inside the tin. This whole project was done less than 45 minutes. Also one of the reason I have not glued the Styrofoam to the tin is basically to give the flexibility to them to use the tin for other storing purposes (holding kids pencils or crayons or even for potpourri arrangements).

The red color heart chocolate box was placed inside the flower arrangements before giving it to the teachers.

To see one more of my flower arrangement project you can refer to the recently done craft for my son's school teacher "Teacher's appreciation week gifts".

3 Flowers from pipe cleaners

When we suddenly came to know about My son's teacher's birthday and my son wanted to do something for her, we decided to try these a bouquet of flowers with the pipe cleaners.

First take the red pipe cleaner and make it into round coil form. Then take the blue pipe cleaner and start making a flower shape (like an oval) going underneath the red coiled pipe cleaner and coming above and so forth. I used two blue pipe cleaner to make one flower( 5 petals). Then attach it to the green stem (green pipe cleaner). Similarly do the orange flower and white flower and attach them to the green stem. It was a cool thing to try out with a 5 1/2 year old boy.

Then added a white (address label sticker) and asked him to write happy birthday and another one from having his name and attached it to the bouquet.

Teachers appreciation gifts - year 2010

A Terracotta Painted pot and A Book mark by Me.

A drawing and a thank you note puzzle by my Son for his teacher.

Teachers appreciation week in my Son's school is celebrated from Feb 1st to Feb 5th 2010. The Theme is winter olympics and tagline was "our gold Medal educators". Every day we need to take specified items (assigned by PTO) to the teachers. Details given below for each craft/project work completed by Son and me.

Day 1 - Fresh cut RED, White or Blue flower to support our USA olympic team.
My project :- When we think of olympics we first think of the opening ceremony to light the olympic torch. Hence I used a similar idea of to start the appreciation week with a "TORCH". The pot was painted, decorated with "RED" and white flowers and on the middle placed the white candle to represent it like a TORCH.
My pot colors were Red at the bottom, white in the middle and blue on the top of the pot. At the rim I painted it dark yellow to represent "GOLD". I added few dots, stars and spiral design to fill the pot with gold and black pen. On the white part I added this quote "A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others", Added a "Thank you" in the front on the red colored area. Finally glazed the pot to give its shine.

Day 2 - Classroom Supply. Whatever is the supply we need to pack the supply in either red/blue or white wrapping paper.
My Son's Project :- Made my son draw something for the teacher to show his way of appreciating the teacher. Taught him the Olympic symbol, the significance of the torch and few sports. So he decided to draw a man skiing and snowboarding for representing "sports" and snowman, a Christmas tree to represent "winter". He also drew the Olympic symbol along with 2 medals and wrote the letter "T E A C H E R" and wrote a Thank you at the bottom of the page.



Day 3 - Gold medal/Ribbon note : written note from the student to the teacher thanking or praising them for an accomplishment or nice gesture.
My son's Project :- One day as he was working on puzzles, he took one puzzle with 12 pieces and drew/traced it on paper and gave a color to each puzzle pieces. We thought this was his creation and will use this to write a thank you note for his teacher. I asked him to write on small white stickers "the thank you note wordings" for each puzzle and made him paste it on each of the puzzle pieces. Over all its the thank you message broken down into 12 pieces. Due to the time limitations for the teacher, we are not going to cut the puzzle but just give that sheet as a thank you note inside a envelope.


Day 4 - A New, grade level appropriate, book or game for the classroom.
Bookmark project :- Since we were donating a book to classroom I wanted to have the teacher have something for memory. Crafted this bookmark for her memory.
Take a red book mark card card stock. I used a concept of "Paper embroidery (oval design and flowers outside as borders) and quilling to make the flower (inside the oval design) on the book mark. Then to fill the gap I added a small ribbon on the top and added 2 flowers (bought from a craft store) at the top and the bottom. Its in a form of sticker. Stick another red card stock at the back of the bookmark to make it look clean and to write a note for the teacher.
For detailed information of this project refer to "Bookmark - Quilling and paper embroidery"

Day 5 - Come dress in Red, white or blue to honor the teachers.
this was simple and nothing extra done but dress my boy and send him to class.

This whole project done this week gave me a sense of satisfaction and happiness when I can make something personally for the teacher to appreciate her work.

A Bookmark- paper embroidary and Quilling

Bookmark project :-Initiated this project make something useful for my son’s teacher as one of her appreciation gift. I have used 2 craft concepts in making this bookmark. One is paper embroidery and the other concept is Quilling.

Quilling, also known as paper filigree, Artist discovered that narrow strips of paper could be rolled, scrolled, fluted, and fringed to make beautiful designs. Quilling can be added to any scrapbook, memorable photos, certificates, invitations, announcements, and greeting cards.

Paper Embroidery is not new to me. I have done couple of projects and you can refer to them for more information.

Bookmark project :- Take a red book mark card card stock and did the oval embroidery design in blue color thread and the flowers in light pink color as a border (four on the top and four below).
The flower inside the blue oval part is another craft concept called "quilling". You roll thin paper using a tool and once done shape it to any shape and glue the end to the shape. So each petal of the flower was done separately and glued to the card.

Then proceeded with the round shape in green color and stuck it next to the flowers inside the blue oval part. Then to fill the space outside the oval area, I added a small ribbon on the top and added 2 flowers (bought from a craft store) at the top and the bottom. Its in a form of sticker. Stick another red card stock at the back of the bookmark to make it look clean and to write a note for the teacher.

This gives me a sense of satisfaction and happiness when I can make something personally for the teacher to appreciate her work.

For more information on my embroidery project on paper refer to my blog "Embroidery bookmark".

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".

Terra Cotta Candle Holder

This is one kind of Terra Cotta plate candle holder which I painted (did 4 of them) for my son's school teachers. Painted inside of the pot Dark green and the rim Red (inside and outside of the plate). The outside was painted sandstone color and made green and red stripes and added a flower design.

On the inside I drew a Christmas tree with golden Terra Cotta marker, and wrote Merry Christmas and Happy New year. To add to the Christmas theme, I added glitter on the outside rim of the pot. To finish it I glazed the plate with glitter glaze to give the finishing touch (shine).

Another kind was Terra Cotta Pot candle holder (2 of them) for my daughter's day care teachers. Made a similar concept as my "First Terra Cotta pot painting", but added the glitter on the outside rim of the pot. Painted the inside of the pot RED. Finished the piece with glitter glaze.

For more information on Terra Cotta painting refer to my blog "First Terra Cotta pot painting" .

Embroidary Card - Holly Wreath

Initiated this project to make a card for my son's school teachers. Since I was busy with my baby last year, I could not do something of this kind ( Embroidery on paper) which needed effort and patience.





This card design downloaded from online, pre-pricked the embroidery design with a special piercing tool and pricking pad. Completed the embroidery (Green for the leaves, yellow for the bow each of them with - 2 strands of embroidery thread) and finished off with red dots for border, and wrote Happy 2009 in the center.


Covered the inside of the card (which shows the thread) with another white sheet so it looks clean and nice. Wrote a personal message on the inside of the card.

This gives me a sense of satisfaction and happiness when I can make something personally for each of them to appreciate their work.

For more information on my embroidery project on paper refer to my blog "Embroidery bookmark".

This was one of the craft I did for them.. Refer to the other gift I did for them in my blog "Terra Cotta Candle holder".

Personal Ceramic purse gift

This was personally done for our Friend's daughter who was performing Bharatnatyam (Indian Dance) concert/achievement. This is very tiny gift (amount of effort) compared to the effort the girl put in for her achievement. I wanted to gift her something which she can use.

Again as you know me, I tried out a new technique. This technique was done on a ceramic plate by a staff member in that store. So they taught me how to go about doing this one.

So paint the base white (only once) and the handle, rim and inside of the purse pink (3 times to get a darker color). Then using the other side of the paint brush keep dots (one bigger dot) using one color. Then on top of that bigger dot, keep a little smaller dots (using different size brush) with a different color. Then again a third smaller dot on top of the second dot using a another different color. Fill up the whole purse with this kind of dots. Finished the piece by writing her name.

For more info on my ceramic painting experience refer to this link on "Introduction to ceramic painting" post.

canvas painting - wall Art

To add color to our living room I painted different colors on a canvas (which is already framed). Blocking the white areas with a tape, paint different colors on the bigger shapes as shown and once dried remove the tape. Then bodered the shapes with golden lines with a golden pen and drew spiral designs on each of them. Then on the white areas, made dots with different colors and with black paint made lines to get a design.

This project was actually a trial and error thing, but now this is hanging in our living room , liked and getting appreciated by all our friends who come by want to know,how I went about doing this one.

First Terra Cotta POT Painting

Terra cots Pots :- have come a long way into the crafting world with delightful results. They can be used for candle holders, bells, ornaments, and even angels. You can use any type of stencils or rubber stamps, rub-ons , scrapbook papers, florals, charms, buttons and everything. The book I reffered for my projects are from Micheals store "102 Terra Cotta Projects" by Lenae Gerig.



About my project

This was the second gift given to the teachers during Dec 07 Christmas time. To view the other gift done for the teachers Refer to blog "Dec 07 ceramic gifts for teachers". Designed it as a candle holder and of Christmas theme. Painted the pot green and the rim red. Then did a snowflake design with white pen (terra cotta marker pens) and wrote merry Christmas on them. Painted the inside of the pot black. Sealed with a glaze selear which gives a shiny effect for the pot. In some pot as you can see I have used also the golden pen for the design. Wrote my son's name and the class name under the pot.

The basic tips for working with Terra Cotta pots are

• Sealing :Terra cotta is very porous and requires sealing before painting. Seal with the liquid sealer before painting. This will save time, the amount of paint used to cover the pot and help prevent breaking and chipping.
• Painting your Design : Paint your project with the desired colors and design.
• Seal at the end: After painting your pot, seal again, this will not smear any pen work and give a nice finish. I used a glaze sealer, which gave a shinning effect to it.

Dec 07 Christmas Gifts for teachers

CERAMIC MUG

Have been doing lot of ceramic projects, but did not find the time to upload them in my blog. I guess with 2 kids just life circles around them and we hardly get time to update.

Coming to the picture on the left was given to my son's school teachers (preschool class ) (did 2 of them same type). This was tough one as you had to mark each row and paint different colors (3 times to get that intensity). Then the black design was done with a stamp with the black paint done only once. Under the mug wrote the teachers names in black paint and the class name.

The picture (purple and yellow) on to your right was given to his music teacher. This also you had to mark the columns and paint them alternatively purple and yellow 3 times. Once they are dried, made the white design (love sign) and wrote "live, Love and laugh" on each column.


For more info on my ceramic painting experience refer to this link on "Introduction to ceramic painting" post.
To view the other gift done for the teachers Refer to the blog "first Terra Cotta pot painting"