Birthday gift for P made by k!

Last few terracotta projects have been birthday gifts!

This time - close friend wanted to make jewelry for his wife's bday gift!
She is into terracotta jewelry and anything rustic ethnic indian... and so K wanted sit with me for some jewelry making sessions!

After S he is the first boy I have made jewelry with and he surprisingly "gets it!" :) The boys do get it! Now S has appointed himself as my design critic! And he does not hesitate one bit, to tell me when the design is not up to the mark!

K managed to free up 2 evenings and we sat and baked up couple pendants  :)

Here is how they look...

This green one is totally K's design and he came up with it just like that after a 15 minutes of playing with the clay! Everyone has hidden talents! Such a pleasure when you uncover them!

And the second pendant is a sun inspired pendant... Liked the blue and gold in combination (as usual)



I am waiting to see his wife's reaction when he tells her that these are handmade by him!

Another closer lok at the pendants :)

Happy bday P! you have a very thoughtful loving and a creative hubby! :)

Added these jhumkas to match with the green pendant.. :)

Happy bday Jates.

April is so full of birthdays for us!!

This time my oldest closest friend was with us to celebrate her birthday!

I have know Jates for more than half of my life! She is just one of those people who I never lose touch with. We would not have spoken for months at a stretch - owing to time zone differences and other life's events. But still when we catch up, it is like nothing has changed! She is just the same her and I am just the same me.
You know how you are always in touch with some people! :)
Wow I can be pretty bad at expressing certain emotions eh? ;)

We managed to put together a small party for her. Being a weekday, things barely came together, but you know there is definitely some charm to ad hoc unplanned celebrations.

Since she was with us for a week - I decided that we would hand make her gift and have her customize it the way she wants. And what's better than custom terracotta jewelry!!

Here we are sitting up late into the night, baking, molding, painting and clicking pictures. :)

All supplies spread out.

We ended up creating this pendant for her. It is a double colored pendant with blue on the flip side.

We also made couple studs for her. All in the aroma of a Moroccan spice candle! Girls night out :)

Happy bday JT! Love you!

Yellow green jhumkis

I am now reading this book called - I am a stranger here myself. Written by Bill Bryson, it is a pretty funny book.
The author has moved back to the United States after about 2 decades in the UK. He wrote these as small funny anecdotes about day to day things in a UK newspaper. This book is the collection of all those articles.
Each article is like a short story, just the right quantity for me - to read a couple of them at night before bed time. A few giggles before I retire for the day :)

Now that the book review is out of the way, I now present to you my latest Jhumki.
Got a chance with terracotta jewelry making after a month almost! Life has a way of getting so busy.



Bought a new mustard color - craftsmart.

I think the color itself is nice, but the finish is not as smooth as the metallic colors.

Will try a glaze finish on top to see if it shines better.

Anyyways... here is me selfie - trying out the latest Jhumki.

Small jhumkis - 2

After we made and wore the first set of small jhumki's we were very excited to say the least!

Lil Sister and me sat down the very next evening late into the night thinking up and trying new designs and patterns and color combinations.

Eventually the long long day we had started showing and our creativity decided to go to bed!

But we ourselves just refused to go to bed! Considering we had very very little time left before she would return back to India, we decided to make whatever that could end up pretty looking :)

We made a lot more small jhumkis. This time we got out of the comfort zone of blue/green/gold and used various colors.

I liked the cranberry color so much. Especially that its not metallic. I was skeptical to start with, but after a couple coats it was beautiful :)

So we used a lot more cranberry and of course there had to be gold!

One more experiment we did this time around, is to attach earring posts instead of french wire danglings.

More jhumkis with pretty much the same molds.

This stud below is M's experiment. They turned out cute! We were thinking of painting cranberry where ever it is black now. But that's still not decided - what would you say?

Here is the entire collection we made that evening.

Our favorite display case :)

Here's my verdict:
One of the best things in life is a night out with your sister making colorful jewelry :)

Love you M!

Pendant for dear sister

All 50 states of the USA will record a temperature of below zero at some point today - Tuesday the 7th of Jan, 2014.
That's a first - at least during my stay here! Even sunny Florida and hot Texas!

Its still not too bad here is warm california.. I am thinking / hoping that sub zero temperature will be recorded here late in the evening when we are all done with the outdoors and cozily tucked in at home :)

Annyyhoo... coming back to colorful jewelry...
This is one more piece dear sis and me created over the 2 weeks that my family was here.
This is something that's wearable with western outfits as much as with casual Indian outfits.

She wore it to the farmers market last Saturday - with a black pant and black T and yes we thought it looked great! :) What do you think?

Small jhumkis -1

In our jewelry making spree - our next stop was Jhumkis.
We used the molds for the jhumkis and simple dots to give the jhumkis a causal look.

Like I said earlier, by this time we were totally head over heals in love with Blue Gold and Green colors.
We just could not think of any other colors to paint with :)

A new role for the lovely lantern (See how it was given a makeover here). Its now our beloved jewelry display case :) You will definitely see more of it.

Blue pendant

We had a holiday shutdown for 2 weeks at work, D's was off day care for these 2 weeks and the best part, Ma and dear sis M were here! Oh! such a lovely time we had!

Among other things, I got a chance to bring up my terracotta jewelry making supplies out and I got to make jewelry with my favorite craft buddies this time!

This is blue pendant is for my lil sis M. It is not yet finished into a necklace, but here is how the pendant looks.

We fell in love with the blue - green and gold combination, so much so that, it was hard for us to think of any other colors to paint our future jewelry! 

More earrings

This weekend was pretty tight. Amma left for India. Could not get around to do much crafts. 

Baked these earrings, yet to paint them.

Hope to get things done over the course of this week. 

Will be able to complete some more simple Diwali DIYs and gifts for my girl friends :)

Blue jhumki

Found a mould to make the jhumki shape. This was listed as a mould to make miniature bowls. Worked out just fine for Jhumkis. Now I can get the same jhumki shape not just twice consistently but many many times.

Attaching the small beads at the bottom is patience intensive work!

Again the colors and the paint is something that I am not totally happy with - I have to figure out how to make the paint even and not blotchy. The top bead is of a color called halo blue gold - tried it for the first time and I feel there is a lot of hope for this color. You might see it more often.

Here is a link to a detailed step by step instructions on handmade clay jewelry that I wrote up.

Linking it up to 

craft-o-maniac

madebyyoumonday

sundayshowcase

dreamalittlebigger

Birthday earrings and Felt box

This is a double DIY post. One handmade terracotta earrings and two - DIY Stiff felt box.

Oct 5 was the birthday of a cousin sister. I thought what better gift than handmade earrings.
So made these specially for her. I wanted it to be something which she should be comfortable wearing even to work.

While I was waiting for the first coat of paint to dry - I made this lovely gift box, it is that quick and simple.
Sometime in the past 2 weeks I remember pinning this very simple tutorial of how to make a box out of stiff felt. Picked up one stiff sheet at Michael's - just to try it out.
Here is a link to the original tutorial. This is how it ended up - I improvised the lid a little bit by adding a washi tape trim and sticking a kundan piece on each face

One more look at the box...

And the earrings...

Happy Birthday dear sister! :)

Linking up with:

craft-o-maniac 

sunday showcase party

Madebyyou monday

Found these link parties at My Girlish Whims blog- Thanks!

Beads

Kept it quiet last night - just painted some beads.
Tried out some new colors from Lumiere. The Met. Russet color is a favorite so far! :)
(the cluster of 4 on the right top in this photo below)

I should have enough beads to finish up the brass pendant into a necklace.

On side note - I never thought I would be able to use this agarbatti holder again. Our dear generously energetic D, tried his strength on this agarbatti holder and the sides gave way :)

He started daycare at S's this monday and its been 3 days and he is holding up well. I think he likes this better than M's. 

Update on Oct 2, 2013:
I managed to use the beads to finish up the brass pendant into a necklace.
Will pair it with the red hoop Jhumkis to be worn with a red bandani saree.

Update on Oct 5, 2013

At S's friend's place - They invited us for Golu. 

Raw pieces ready to paint

Couple of pieces that have been baked ready for while and they are waiting for their colors.

Purple and green jhumki

Second attempt at a Jhumki.
Made these a little smaller than the original red one. And kept the design simple.
Loved the green and purple combination from the pendant, so decided to make one more with the same combination.

Started them off by keeping the top half black and then I yielded to S's comment about purple not showing much on black.

So I painted the whole Jhumki in gold. May be I regret it. May be its fine.

Either way the next such jhumki will be a half black - half gold combination like in the first picture.

This Jhumki design is simple and can be done easily - so we are going to see a lot of this pattern in many colors! :)