Diwali is coming....

Oh my ... I'm off-track by 8 days ... oops... I had decided to blog every day this month but derailed with no post for last 8 days :(

But I'm now back and here is what we did over the last week...

Rangoli, Tealight holders, Diyas and Fort

We got this wonderful craft kit for making Rangoli from Creative Bits and Kuhu enjoyed thinking about the design to make, sticking the beads and the mirror. She is now eagerly waiting for Diwali to put these to use. The craft kit had everything needed to make the Rangoli... the foam base designs, beads of different shapes (even a few extra ones), mirrors and glue. This made it so easy to get started and finish in one shot... we loved it. Thanks Creative Bits !

Sunday evening, Kuhu declared that she wanted to paint so we pulled out the earthen diyas (left from last Diwali) to paint. When she was done painting those, she was in no mood to hang up the brush and paint so I pulled out old coffee jars to make tea-light holders and the old glasses followed. :)

Last Diwali, Kuhu went to see the fort making competition cum exhibition with her cousin Shubhankar. This year we were recounting that experience when she said she wants to make a killa (fort) of her own. That got us started. Kuhu's dad assembled the fort and her Sangeeta maushi made the steps with Kuhu helping them with fetching water and throwing in mustard seeds to grow forest surrounding the killa.

Hope you like it and make your own too.

DIY - Hairband holder

Pre-diwali days at my granny's and mom's place  were days to clean, organize and rearrange. I remember organizing my books for Saraswati pujan on Dassera day and wardrobe and the rest of the house followed till a week before Diwali. It was a fun time with my little sister where we found some hidden treasures ... books, collectibles, frocks, cards... what not !

This weekend I started this pre-diwali cleaning/organizing with my little daughter's stuff assuming it would finish quickly... how off I was in my estimation !! I opened her drawers to be greeted with a bunch of hairbands tangled with each other, screaming to be managed better. So I had to make a holder for those right away. There are tons of tutorials / DIY projects for making these. I choose one that could be a space-saver. But all that I had bookmarked needed a hot glue gun. Only one used a stapler but that didnt give enough strength to hold a dozen (and counting) hairbands. So here is my improvised version of this one... just in case some one needs it.

Materials Needed -

1. Strip of cloth (preferably cotton) of the length of the holder you want to make. (I re-purposed the border from my old Saree to give the holder a rich and ethnic look.)
2. Thread and needle.
3. Satin ribbon or a contrast piece of cloth for the loops.
4. Circular loop to hang the holder. (I used my daughter's used metal bangle.)

Steps-

1. Hand stitch the cotton strip borders to make the base for the holder.
2. Hand stitch the circular loop at the top of the base.
3. Make the loops from satin ribbon  big enough to remove the hairband easily.
4. Hand stitch the satin ribbon loops on the base.

Variations -
You could add a big towel ring on the lower end of the holder to hang stretchable hairbands.

You're done ! This was one of the simplest and quickest project I did off-late. It took me just 30 mins to make one. Here is how the finished one looked -

This also seems like a good DIY gift for my nieces. So looking forward to making a few more..

Our first report day

First Report day for my kindergartener... Oh my she has grown so quickly! We saw what she was up to over the last couple of months when we met her teachers. One comment that I liked was "she is very happy child". I'm going to make every effort to help her retain this and would love to hear this from her teachers on every report day! 

So we girls were in a happy mood and what better way to enjoy than shopping !! So we three- my mother-in-law, my daughter & myself, went out to have fun. Wish there was a coffee shop around to end our shopping spree. 

Dasshera

Happy Dassera to all!

The day began with preparation for the festival with rangoli, garlands and all. Food was the next in line to be enjoyed. 

One of the best time of the day was with my dance teacher enjoying the performance of all. The senior students did superbly and rookies were good too. 

The next best was meeting an old friend from Bangalore. We were hoping to meet  one but met many more and that was the best. 

Let our days be satisfying and fun-filled as today. 

What a day it was....

Late last night, I knew today won't be a day off for me and my team. We were up for a challenge where we were forced to test all that we had in theory and to prove it. While we knew we had to do this some day, we didn't expect it to come at a notice of 6 hrs! And the outcome .....we did it, proved our theory right to ourselves and the rest. This near-24 hour work day was full of excitement, anxiety, coordination, hand-off, huge learning and satisfaction. Loved it.

Today it was great catching up with my parents over lunch. Small pleasures !

Write 31 Days: One good thing a day !

Every day presents something that makes me smile, laugh and feel-good about myself. I've been meaning to capture it for long... finally starting today... So for the next 31 days, I will be posting just-about-anything that made my day.

Here is one from today -
It was my day to drop my daughter and her friend to school today. Being girls, we three chat a lot on our 20-min drive, usually about what they did at school the previous day. Today, both the girls demanded that I tell them a story. And that seemed like a planned thing as Kuhu had brought along retell-the-story page from one of her books in her bag! So there I was ... caught in a spot...I was apprehensive honestly.... will I be able to recollect the story? will I be able to make it interesting?  will the girls get the story without any pictures? Oh so many questions ran in my head ! I had never done it before. But I managed...and managed well. Yoohoo.... I could see the excitement in their eyes to know what happened next in the story.  Felt superb.... Loved it... Enjoyed it.... I must do a story-session for kiddos soon...