Mixed Media - Project 1: Maa Papa's Anniversary 2015 Gift (with tutorials !)

Today is 13th March 2015,  it's my Maa and Papa's 33rd Marriage Anniversary! I make gifts for my friends and relatives, so there isn't a possibility in all of the universe (universes, if you believe in multi-verses) that I won't make one for my parents' anniversary.

It's their "33rd Marriage Anniversary" and normally wedding anniversaries have some symbol connected to them like 25th has Silver and 50th has Gold, but 33rd doesn't have any traditional symbol associated with it. I had already decided that whatever I am going to make for them will be related to, or inspired by the symbol for 33rd anniversary to mark it special. So I searched and found out that there is a new Modern-Day list of symbols for almost all anniversaries and only the 33rd Wedding Anniversary has a modern-day symbol as "Amethyst".

Amethyst is a gemstone (a violet variety of quartz) which comes in various shades of purple, from lightest lavender to dark, reddish purple. Sometimes this purple, translucent stone has white or green inclusions also (however, honestly I was absolutely not aware of this fact about inclusions till I started to write this post and had a chance discovery of this fact when I had to look for how to describe Amethyst! Will tell you later why it is important.)

Anyways, so I decided to make a layout for them and take this opportunity to try my hand in making a mixed media project for the first time.

So here is the Amethyst-inspired 33rd Wedding Anniversary gift for my parents:

Let me give you a tour of the whole layout and I will tell you how I created these individual elements.

First of all, I had a rough idea as to what will be the color combination of my creation, that being purple and white (green was not even in my mind at the time when I conceptualized it or even when I started working on it). 

The fabric lace and purple rhinestone:

I added rhinestones as an afterthought, sort of replica of Amethyst gemstones!

The Sentiment:

I decided to highlight my sentiment with a frame around it. First I stamped a flower wreath using black ink on white cartridge paper. Since I do not have any acrylic block for stamping, I used a clear plastic box. I stuck the stamp at the base of the box, covered it with ink. I left the lid of the box open and then stamped it on paper by dancing my fingers inside the box, over the stamp to give an even pressure. Well , it is true when people say that necessity is the mother of invention!!!

Ooh I love the detailing on this stamp!

But I wasn't satisfied with the plain white color, so I colored it with pencil colors. Here again I tried couple of times to decide the look that would go with my layout. Finally I decided to color all the flowers in the stamped image with purple and all leaves with 2 shades of green, dark and light! Finally I cut the stamped image out and removed the inner blank portion as well, making it look like a frame. I pasted a small strip of purple pastel paper at the back of the image and wrote the sentiment with Pearl White 3D outliner. I used foam tape to raise them off the BG.

The purple and white flowers:

I started by making quilled roses with strips of different shades of purple. But after making just one quilled rose, I realized that this won't do because I need bigger flowers for my layout. I had come across flowers made out of paper spirals a long, long time back and I had wanted to make them ever since. So I decided that this is what I am going to do to make flowers. However, to make these, neither could I use die cutting machines or dies (as I don't have either of them) nor could I get it printed (as I had no idea how many would I need). So I tried to make a couple of them using trial-and-error method with scissors. I wanted my flowers to have look of petals therefore, rather than using simple scissors, I used my fancy ones. 

After a few tries, I came up with a proper way to make these flowers which I am sharing with you. If like me, you don't have dies and die cutting machines or cannot get template of these flowers anywhere, you can use this simplest of methods to make these gorgeous flowers. And the pros of using this method is that you need very few basic supplies like pencil, eraser, paper and scissor; you can play with a lot of variations in your flower like you can decide the color of the flower, you can play with the size of the flower, you can make the flower as dense as you want! And, of course, you can minimize the amount of waste paper. And they just look fabulous in 3D. Without further rambling, lemme give you the tutorial for it.

Cut a square out of the paper

Start drawing a spiral from the middle of the square

Finish the spiral at the outer edge of the square

With light hand, erase the pencil marks so that only
 a trace is left on your paper and no pencil marks
are visible in your flower

Now cut along the trace of the spiral . Start from the outer edge
and finish with the middle of the spiral 

You will get something like this

If you are someone like me, you will keep the rest of the waste
paper to be used in some other way in some other project.

Fix the outer edge of the spiral in the slot of quilling needle 

Now with the help of quilling needle, 
start rolling the spiral from outer edge

Once you complete rolling the spiral around needle and
reach the middle of it, put glue at the base of all
the layers to fix it

Let the glue dry and you flower is ready

The numbers:

These were hand-drawn and cut out of the same paper which I used as BG. To highlight them , I mounted them over shimmery white handmade paper and roughly cut it out in oval shape. But still they looked very plain so I used purple rhinestones to add some bling and they just looked perfect instantly.  Then I used foam tape to raise them off BG. 

The photo- corners:

Using the same paper as BG, I stamped a flourish on it with Versamark watermark ink. I then sprayed pearly white Perfect Pearls on the stamped image to add more shimmer. I added another layer of white handmade paper beneath the purple one and painted the edge of purple with pearl white acrylic paint.

The quote:

Got the quote printed out on a normal photocopy paper and cut it out. Then I pasted it on BG and highlighted it using silver metallic paint pen.

The leaves:

When I finally added all the elements, I still thought something is off about it, it didn't quite looked complete. I pondered over it for a long time and then it stuck me! The green petals in the stamp were looking a bit off and odd one out since they did not have anything else on the whole layout to go it. And the flowers were looking a bit plain and laid back. Then I got this idea! Why not add leaves to the flowers as it will add the pop to the whole layout due to contrast and will also compliment the colors in the stamped image linking it more with the layout. I wanted leaves to be 3D like flowers and of same two shades as used in the stamp and luckily I found both the color papers in my stash. Here is a small tutorial on how you can make them too. Remember how earlier I told that I wasn't aware of the Amethyst having inclusions? What a co-incidence is this that I had decided to add this particular color to go with my purple and white theme! Now it is indeed truely Amethyst inspired! (however I came to know about the colors of the inclusions in Amethyst way after I completed and presented it to my parents!!!) :-D

Roughly draw outline of a leaf on paper

Cut it out

Now score along the mid rib of the leaf

If you don't have a score tool like me,
use the back of the paper knife to do the scoring

Now draw the veins of the leaf with a sketch pen

Minutely fringe the edges of the leaf with scissor

Now fold the leaf gently along the
scored midrib to give it a 3D effect

I made leaves in 2 shades of green,
the same shades I used in coloring the stamped image

Finally I mounted the whole layout on a cardboard covered with white photocopier paper. I also made a stand for it at the back.

My parents were so happy to get this as a gift! And if they are happy, I am happy too! 

Tea light candle stand for Papa,
their previous anniversary gift from my brother

Tea light candle stand for Maa,
their previous anniversary gift from my brother

This year's gift standing between the candles,
you can see the soft glow of the tea light at the lower right potion of the layout

They suggested me to enter this creation in a challenge. I am linking it to:

Beyond Grey Challenge: Mixed media challenge - I used, fabric, memento ink, watermark ink, metallic silver paint, perfect pearls, pearly white acrylic paint, rhinestones, pearls, sketch pens, color pencils, handmade paper, pastel paper, cartridge paper as different mediums in this project.

Try it on Tuesday: Pearls for Girls challenge.

Cheers!

Quilling Project 4: Wedding gift for Prakhar

We are a group of 3 very close friends. One already got married in October 2014 and this time it was another of my very, very good and close buddy, Prakhar's marriage. It was on 26th Feb' 2015. And yet again I found myself pondering over the gifts that we will give him! We decided to shower him and his bride with certain gifts that will mark this D-Day (read it as Designated Day) in his life with love, care and blessings!

As you already know through my previous posts that I have almost a habit of  making handmade and personalized gifts for my friends and family, how can I not make such an artwork for him too? So after a little thought process, I decided to make something unique for him too, something new that I should try. (And of course since, I have started giving full fledged time to my craft addiction and new crafting techniques, like quilling stamping etc, recently, therefore anything I make now is actually my first attempt at trying something new. Hehehehe ) 

Prakhar's is a love marriage for which he and his bride fought dearly to convince their family and have their blessings so I wanted to give them something which they can cherish all their life, something which will keep reminding them of their love and their fight to make their love triumph! And I thought what could be better symbol of this than their "Wedding Invitation"! Therefore, among all other gifts from us friends, I decided to make a quilled artwork using his Wedding Invitation. 

I had certain obstacles before making it like I had to convince and coax Prakhar to send me two set of his wedding invitations (and that too atleast 15 days before his D-day) while making sure he remains clueless as to why I am making such a request (since this gift of mine was meant to be a surprise). Believe me this is was the biggest obstacle! Another trouble came while looking for the handmade papers for making the base or the backdrop. I had to spend an entire week, walk 9-10 kms and hunt 3 entire markets for them! Although I still did not get exactly what I wanted but I was more or less happy with what I got. And then another obstacle was that after all this, I had only 3 days in which I had to decide the layout, make his artwork and get it framed!

Anyhow I managed to make his gift, get it framed and packed well in time. Here is how it looks from start to finish!

This is how laid the invitation and the background

And this is how I started Quilling around it

This is where I wanted to finish it, upper right corner looking like a book/photo corner

But my parents suggested to complete the borders for a more finished look

Before framing

It's always difficult for me to click a nice picture of the artwork after it is framed. The glass cover either always reflects the light or acts as a mirror. Anyways, here I tried to click a couple pictures trying to avoid both of the issues.

After framing

After framing

The gifts were opened 2 days after the wedding and we had left his place by that time. But they told me later how much everyone loved it! It's always a satisfaction for an artist to know that his/her creation is appreciated by people for whom it was meant. Thanks for such appreciation!

Please do leave some love if you like it too!

PS: Please contact me and place an order with me if you too would like to gift something similar for your loved ones.

Entering this creation in Try It On Tuesday's New Beginning challenge.

Quilling Project 3: For my Valentine, my best friend!

This is my first craft for 2015!

This month of February is unique. It's the month of love, yet for me it brings mixed emotions. Lot's of love, joy, tears, happy moments and sad moments, longing, yearning as well as ecstasy!

To celebrate all this, I thought about trying to create something new, something which I have never attempted before, go beyond my comfort zone, explore the possibilities of crafting realm.

I made this card for my best friend, my Valentine! It has so many elements which I have tried for the first time.

It's my first attempt at making side step card, stamping and making a shaker element...

This is how it looks:

Here are the new elements that I tried for the first time:

Shaker

The red, pink and white seed beads form the shaker element with heart base painted with white pearl colour on white chart paper. It's depth was created with some foam tape that I had.

Stamping

Black stamped borders above and below the sentiment are stamped. Also the heart made with 2 white and pink paisleys are stamped with 2 different paisley stamps.

The sentiments were taken from Amy Castle's song. Hope my friend likes it...keeping my fingers crossed.

Please do leave some love if you like it too!

Quilled Project 2: My First Quilling Artwork Made On Order

For this I have to thank my beautiful, intelligent, energetic, weird and crazy buddy, Gunjan!!! She was looking for something to gift to her soon-to-be sister-in-law and asked me to create something for her. Of all the options available to her, she chose me to become my first customer and so gave me the opportunity to create something as a professional artist!!!

Since her soon-to-be sister-in-law was married and have two cute boys, I thought the best gift for her will be something which will always remind her and make her proud of her motherhood. It were the name of her two kids, Soumil and Soumitr. Since both are young boys, I wanted to have an outdoors-y look, like a playground or open area like park where kids play sports like football, basketball etc. So this is what I made:

Without frame

Without frame

After framing

After framing

Here is a closer look at it's different elements:

This peacock feather was result of  an after-thought. Before I made this peacock feather, the artwork looked incomplete and I was contemplating as to what other element should I add which goes along with the theme. I thought about making a guitar. But, like on so many other occasions, the idea bulb in my head switched on and I remembered Gunjan telling me kid's complete names. Their names are Soumil Krishna and Soumitr Krishna. So what better to represent "Krishna" than a beautiful peacock feather. It was a little difficult element for me to imagine and make. The one I used was my second attempt, exactly like I wanted it to be. First one was not being to my liking. (BTW I HAVE A THING FOR PEACOCK FEATHERS, IT ALWAYS ENTICES ME)

This tree alone took 2 days for me to complete, with lots of times my mind going blank and as usual my Maa coming to my rescue with her ideas . But I am so happy with it!

I can never forget the look of awe and appreciation for me in Gunjan's in-laws eyes when she presented this to them. It was beautiful experience for me.

Thank you Gunjan for believing in me and encouraging me as always!

It will be wrong if I don't say how much my Maa supports me. Gunjan's marriage was in second week of December 2014, so I had to complete it before that. Unfortunately my Maa met with a small accident and broke her right wrist, so that left me with almost without much time to give to this project. It took me a week to complete it. But even with her fractured wrist, Maa kept on doing small household chores and errands herself, even sometimes attempting to make lunch or dinner so that I may get little more free time to devote to this project. Of course, she got good scolding from me everytime she did something like this. :-) It's been years but my Maa continues to amaze me with her caliber and stamina! Hats off to her!

Diwali Time = Rangoli Time

Since I was a young girl, I have observed the tradition of decorating our home with beautiful rangolis made by my Maa (I got this artistic streak from her). She used to use paints for making rangolis. These would last almost an year till the next Diwali and were such a beautiful sight.

When I was old enough my Maa taught me to properly hold and use a 1" paint bush to make these super sized, coloful rangolis. Then I made my own supersized (about 4 ft. diameter) rangoli with paints when I was in 12th . By the way I did mention that my drawing is BAD, so I don't draw the designs  prioirly, I just let them develop when I make them, so this rangoli was indeed a feat for me because since I was using paints, I HAD to draw the sketch, it was a beautiful peacock inside a circle. It's such a shame that I don't have any pics of any of those.

However, when I went to Pune for my postgrad studies, I was exposed to the beautiful "Sanskaar Bharati" rangolis. I was mesmerized how beautiful, complex but at the same time how effortless they looked. This was back in 2008. 

But I could not find these rangoli powders in Kanpur when I came back home. However, when I went to Delhi for my job, I found these rangoli powders in the makets there. So I bought some to try my hand. And these two are my very first Sanskaar Bharati rangolis that I made on Diwali.

Diwali 2010

Diwali 2010

Whenever I am away from home, I make sure that I celebrate Diwali at my hometown with my family. No matter where I am in India, I always come back home, even if it means that I to travel 500 kms without reservation in trains or even if I reach home at 7 or 8 pm, just before Diwali pooja starts. So sometimes I might be too tired or I might not get enough time to make a supersized, huge rangoli (like the way I like it) or even make any rangoli at all.

Diwali 2011
(each grey mosaic tile is 1 ft X 1 ft., therefore, this rangoli is almost 2 ft X 2 ft))

Diwali 2012

In 2014, I was lucky enough to be in my hometown 20 days before Diwali so I had enough time on my hands to look for Rangoli powders in local market. I was amazed to see that now these beautiful, bright coloured rangoli powders are easy available here in Kanpur too. Since I had enough time and resources this Diwali, so this was perfect opportunity for me to fulfill my desire to make a huge Sanskaar Bharati! And this is what I made after 4 laborious hours. (it's diameter is 6 ft.)

Diwali 2014
(diameter of 6 ft.)

In making this particular rangoli, I used only 2 stencils, the white designs in 8 outer red circles), rest everything is done by hand.

Diwali 2014

I love to make rangolis, either by paints, rangoli powders or even with white/yellow aipan (paste of finely grounded rice). I wish every one celebrate these joyous moments with their family, friends and loved one!

  

Quilling Project 1: Wedding gift for Azeem

In my previous post, I had introduced my romance with quilling, which started when I first made Quilled Corner Bookmarks and how that inspired me to take up an ambitious project since I was (and I still am) just a novice in the grand art of Quilling. As mentioned, my first stint with this art was in Feb 2014 when I made these bookmarks. After that stint, unfotunately neither did I get enough time nor opportunity to try my hand once more.

When my best friend Azeem announced his wedding date to be in first week of October 2014 , my mind started whirring to think of an idea as to what should be his wedding gift from me. Of course, there was a gift from all of us friends but I wanted him to give something personalized, something which I have made myself, something to mark the beginning of a new phase of his life. And what would have been better than giving him Quilled "Basmala".

The Basmala , also known by Bismillah, is the name of the Islamic phrase "b-ismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi" meaning "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful". The Basmala has a special significance for Muslims, who are to begin each task after reciting the verse. The Basmala is used extensively in everyday Muslim life, said as the opening of each action in order to receive blessing from God. So now you can understand why I wanted to gift him Basmala in Quilling, as a blessing to start his married life.

But since I don't know how to write in Calligraphy, that too in Urdu, I got help from Internet. I got it printed on an A4 sheet. However, since my idea was to make it in size of about 1.5 or 2 times of what was printed on that sheet, I literally did calculations to scale up each and every twist and turn in the writing and mark it on my handmade paper.

Scaling Up of the Calligraph 

Now the next part came of quilling the outline of the verse. Since this was the first time I was doing quillography, my natural curiosity led to inventiveness and I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

After this came the most tough part of finalizing the color combinations and how to quill it. I decided it has to be colorful with almost all the major colors of the rainbow. After all, it was supposed to be a blessing to make my best friend's married life full of bright colors!

I have to confess that my drawing is very bad. That's why I always let the design develop like in Zentangles. I like to make abstract designs, where I don't have to premeditate and draw a particular design on the paper. Believe me when I say this. The only pencil marks on the paper were the ones I made when I wrote the scaled up Basmala. That's it. So I decided to fill the outer portion of calligraph with abstract design so that the empty written words would come up due to contrast of positive/negative space.

Deciding the color combinations 

Close up of the quilling 

Close up of the quilling 

Close up of the quilling 

Many a times my mind went blank and I was stuck as to what should I make next. Here my Maa and my Papa came to my rescue. They would give me suggestions, "yahan yeh bana lo", "do something like this here" etc. Needless to say that although I didn't comply with their each and every suggestion but these suggestions did help me to switch on the idea bulb in my head!

It took me exactly 5 days ( almost 7 - 8 hrs each day, in total 35 - 40 hrs in total) to finish it. Finally I was happy with the outcome.

Final look (without framing) 

After Framing and stuff, it finally looked like this:

Final look (a foot scale beside the creation to give an idea of the size ) 

Needless to say that my buddy absolutely loved it. And now it adorns his living room!

At Azeem's place 

This post won't feel complete unless I say thanks to some very important people:

Maa and Papa - Thanks a lot for bearing with all my crazy ideas, encouraging and supporting me and allowing all my whims to be fulfilled.

Niharika: my chaddi buddy! Thanks for saving the day by suggesting use of self designed white handmade paper (and so introducing me to this wonderful thing) rather than just using plain white chart paper for background. It just magnified the beauty of the whole creation by more than 10 folds! Thanks for accompanying me multiple times to find out the shops in Kanpur to buy the raw material for it and partnering with me in all the bargaining bouts with the shopkeepers. And last but not the least, for encouraging me and motivating me (sometimes even by mild scoldings)!

Azeem: You have always, directly or indirectly, inspired me in life. You have countless times inspired me to come out of my comfort zone, push my boundaries and explore the world (both within and out). It was because of you that I thought about undertaking such a magnanimous task in my second attempt at quilling on such a scale. Thanks for letting me be me, thanks for pushing me to explore the unknown possibilities. Thanks for just existing in my world!!!

Entering this creation in Try It On Tuesday's New Beginning challenge.

The Corner Bookmarks!

My very first creation which kindled the idea of opening my own online store for my creations were these amazing "Quilled Corner Bookmarks". These marked my very first attempt at quilling as well as, at making corner bookmarks! I made these in the month of February 2014 but since then I have been busy in numerous other tasks and errands and responsibilities so I could not get enough time to start writing my blog. Now that it's 2015, almost an year later, I thought it's high time to do it!

These bookmarks were made by minimal craft supplies like coloured A4 sheets and some small leftover pieces of laces which I had used in making a birthday garland for my very special friend about 3 years back! I have this habit of keeping small cutting and left over pieces of paper, laces etc. when I finish a craft project.

I made about 5 of such bookmarks and when my friends saw them, they insisted that I should open my own online craft store.

However, these creations of mine sure did one thing for me....hooked me for life with Quilling! I fell in love with "Quilling"!!! And since I am an adventurous gal, the next project which I undertook for quilling was very ambitious for me since I was just a novice in the art of quilling. However that's something for another post.

For the time being, please have a look at my bookmarks. Please do leave me some love! In case you would like to buy them please click here.

BM 01

BM 02

BM 03

BM 04

BM 05

- Priyanka Srivastava @ Priyaz Creations