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!

Tiny gift boxes

Sankranti is an indian festival celebarted on Jan 14 every year.
This marks the day the sun's transition into Capricorn. Specifically in kannada tradition, this is the day fresh vegetables are harvested for the season. On this day - people exchange sweets, fresh harvest samples and other goodies.

Since this is the first sankranti since D was born (sort of), Ma wanted this to be more special.
So apart from the regular goodies, five families of relatives/ friends will get a small idol of lord Krishna.

To pack that miniature idol we decided to make special boxes. Using rhine stones and ribbons, we tried to upgrade small plastic boxes.

Here is how we worked and finished the boxes.

Lil sis working on the rhine stones...

Our work bench.

All 5 boxes and their designs.

This is the idol we packed inside with tissue.

Irrespective of how the boxes turned out, all 3 of us had a great time sitting together and making these boxes.
I think this is one among the top best times that we have all spent together. Glad to have been able to do this!

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! 

Hot cocoa jars

At D's daycare there was an xmas party this evening. So I decided to make small presents for his teachers.
Both Anu and Karen have been great and have helped D settle so very well in this daycare. I am so thankful for that. D is so happy at this place.

I found this nice tutorial with recipe for hot cocoa at weelicious. And this is how I went about my hot cocoa in a jar.

I used 16 oz mason jars.

Cut up scrapbook paper to fit the inside of the lid.

Tied a bow around the jar.

Now for the recipe - I made these labels using colored paper and a washi tape border.

Punch a hole for convenience of stringing it, later to tie to the jar.

Write down the recipe (original recipe found here) by hand on the labels that you just made.

I also made one more set of labels with merry Xmas written on top with 3d paint. Of course punch a hole in this too, for easy stringing.

String the labels together and tie it around the jar with another string / tape.

Then fill up layers of hot cocoa in the jar. From bottom to top the layers are:
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- handful of mini marshmallows

This is how they ended up looking. Hope they enjoy their drink.
Cheers!

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