Happy New Year!

Welcome 2007........... Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Secret Pal Doll

Last Tuesday was our Secret Pal Doll Exchange at the doll club. This is the doll my secret pal made for me. Isn't she lovely? Thank you secret pal! Thank you for making such a beautiful doll for me. I made a doll for the exchange but can't post her picture before April. In April I will know who my secret pal is and I reveal myself too. This is the first time I am participating in secret pal exchange and it is so much fun.

Nita's Henna

When mommy gets henna, Nita wants it too. Except she will do what I did my entire childhood, take the henna off after just 10 minutes. My husband took this picture right before she made a mad dash for bathroom.

Indian Doll

Even as a child I remember wanting an Indian doll dressed in a saree (saree is a traditional garment for women in India and is usually 5 yards long and is draped beautifully around the body). I did have some dolls back then but they were "baby" dolls. When I was 6 my friend Sita's grandma taught me to make dolls with palm tree leaves. (one long section of a leaf can be used to make one doll). I guess that I must have made at least 2 of them each week. To dress them in "saree" and the blouse I used pieces of my mother's old sarees. I used black thread for hair and my mom's eyebrow pencil for her eyes. Those dolls were so beautiful- I do remember.

On a subconscious level I think my venture into making dolls the second time around is to actually duplicate that level of happiness and satisfaction with my creations. I am not so sure if I can ever get there- aah such sweet sweet childhood.

My friend Purna's mom visited me a couple of weekends ago and brought me this beautiful doll from India. This doll has a wire armature wrapped up in cotton batting and a layer of pink yarn. The face is cloth over some kind of mask. I love the face painting and the hair is beautiful. Don't you love the ornaments? They are all custom made for her! Nice.......

Henna in the Library

After a henna workshop in the local library I decided to experiment again. I love the color and have not had such a dark stain on my palm before. I have to get me more henna.

Beach Babe

Here is the final version of my Beach Babe. I picked the red hair and gave her matching nail polish. She was auctioned off at the doll club last night and she went home with my friend Nancy.

What Says Thou?

I decided to take it easy today. I have to pick up my kid around noon but until then I am FREE! I actually have time this morning to experiment with my hair color. Oops did I say mine? I meant my doll hair. I am making Jane Coughlan's Beach Babe for a Silent Auction at my doll club tomorrow. I could not decide on a hair color last night so I tried them both today. I like the red one. What do you say?

Happy Halloween Everybody!!

Lizzie Doll Close Up Picture

The doll was designed by Patti Culea and her name for the doll is Glorya. I had a fun time making her and am working on a second doll from the same pattern. I have not picked fabrics for the clothes yet but will surely post pictures soon.

Lizzie Doll

I have heard of people buying a jacket because they like the button on it. And have you seen an ad on the TV where a woman brings a faucet to the architect to build a house to match the faucet? Well I made the doll because I love her shoes so. I made 4 different pairs of shoes and then picked the green ones for Lizzie. (I have never done that even for myself!)

Lizzie wears my friend Liz' grandma's antique linen for her apron and a piece of Liz' scarf for her hair ribbon.

Doll 2, Take 2

Well, I tried putting the second picture in yesterday but could not because I think there was some glitch with Blogger. So here I go ....

Doll No. 2 Valandrial of Green Elves

Here is my second doll from Patti Culea's class. I had stopped working on her since I did not have the Ultra Solvy to make her shoes and top. I finally got to work on her last week since I was in a somber mood and wanted to do some repetitive work.

Valandrial now insists on having a tiara but I haven't had the time to make it. I had made a crown for the last one and I want to do something different and something new for this one. Maybe one of these days................

Found Objects Doll

My doll club had a "Found Objects" challenge last month. Here is my entry. I call her "Nita's Bag Doll" since I found all the components including the measuring spoons in one of Nita's bags. Nita is almost 5 and is an avid collector. Of what you ask? Well.. everything actually. The other day I opened her box of Hotwheels cars and found a couple of my bangles, 5 little pebbles, 2 beads, few marbles and of course 25 little cars. Need I say more?

The head is one of my little dolls. I had been searching for it for quite some time now and it was in Nita's bag . I used a green monster finger puppet which she must have collected from her brother's goody bag for the doll's hair. The body is a chocolate box which my husband brought from a trip to Sweden. (The chocolate was yummy!) The base of the doll is a toy plastic hamburger. Nita is patiently waiting for me to give the play hamburger back to her so she can add it to her restaurant menu. She loves to play "restaurant" with Daddy. The shiny "armor" is a controller for a spider robot which does not work. The spoons worked very well as arms.

It was a fun project and next time I won't think or worry too much about finding objects and head straight for Nita or one of her bags.

New Face, New Doll

Well, actually the body is the same only the head is different. I made another head and put on new hair. Here she is the new Valandrial. The second picture is some clever editing done by my DH.

Putting on a New Face

Practice makes perfect people say but what if it only confuses me? Here are 11 doll heads that I have made for Valendrial and I still can't pick one of them for my second Valendrial doll. Note: The doll face on the top was painted by Patti Culea as a class demo.

Some of the faces are only half done. I am trying to get a perfect symmetry here but they turn out so different and so lopsided. I think I should first get to work and finish painting the faces and then pick the one I like the most. And maybe next time I should make just one head for each doll and learn to accept it. After all I can't do anything about my own face, now can I? And I have learned to live with that!

Found the Picture

Valandrial of the Green Elves from Patti Culea's doll class.

Doll from Patti's Class

This morning I thought I should post the picture of my doll and wrote a short note about it. But what can I do when I can't find the picture! I could not even find the folder which had my pictures in it. So here I am.................

Happy Blog-a-versary

It has been a year since my first blog entry! I am so glad that I lasted this long. I have been looking forward to today for over a month now. I tried to finish a doll so I could post some pictures but could not finish the doll with a face that I am not very happy with.

Rakhi Day came early this year and here is a picture of Rakhi Day at my house. Nita is tying a Rakhi on her brother Neel's wrist (with a little help from Mommy). This Rakhi was sent by my brother's little daughter Minty to Neel.

Tiny Doll

Every month my doll club has raffle for which the members contribute dolls or doll related items. This one was my contribution this month. The doll is just about 3" tall and loads of fun to make. The turban is made from angelina fiber we made in Patti Culea's class.

First Day of Schools

Isn't first day of school so much fun? I remember very fondly my own school days when I had a big school supply list to "lug" to school which included new notebooks, text books (which were used- back then when I was growing up we always tried to recycle textbooks in India. I am not sure how it is now.), pencils in a new pencil box and above all a brand new school uniform. Well, I re-lived that feeling yesterday when I accompanied my 9 year old on his first day of school. He sported a brand new uniform and he never had to wear a uniform before (he just changed schools) and a happy excited face, eager to meet his new classmates and his new teacher.

When I was in my elementary school, I would not know who my class teacher was until she/he stepped into the classroom. We would peep through the windows or into the corridor (hallway) to see which teacher was walking towards our classroom. Of course there were rumors and lots of discussions about who it could be, way before school reopened. Unlike here in the states where one teacher teaches everything (except, maybe PE) , we always had 4 or 5 teachers teaching different subjects and languages even in elementary school and one classroom teacher.

Oh, enough about my nostalgic memories. Lets talk about the title now. I say First Day of Schools because both my kids' schools reopened yesterday. My kindergartener started her school yesterday too. Since both the schools have similar opening time, my DH drove her to school and I did my son. Today we switched children and I got to see my daughter go to her classroom with a very shy smile (which lasts for about a minute because she is very social and has already made a few "best friends" (And who keep changing everyday because her list of best friends was very different today- her second day at school!).

Henna at School

We had a major fund raiser at my son Neel's school on 2nd June where I put Henna. It got very popular with the kids and since the moms were busy organizing and helping with the events, they want me to put henna on their hands on another day. My little girl wanted a mermaid on her arm. Here are a couple of pictures of henna on my own hand. The first picture is with the paste on and was taken on Sunday at night. The second picture was taken on Monday morning an hour after I scraped off the henna. Yes, I did sleep with the design on all night. I love this henna from Yemen since it is pre-sifted and has a lovely stringy texture to it when made into a paste. The design got very dark (they do get darker for a day or two before they start to fade away) and has a dark red color to it today. Hope DH will take a picture of it today so I can post it tomorrow.

Art Everywhere

Almost a month went by since I wrote in my blog and I did not even notice it. I can name a whole lot of reasons for not writing but it would actually be more fun to just write about something-anything else instead.

Looks like nice weather is here to stay. We went out for a walk in the new neighborhood and enjoyed looking at the lovely flowers blooming everywhere. My DH had a ball taking pictures with his new camera. And he did get some really beautiful ones too. But that is not the kind of art or inspiration that I am talking about. I am talking about mundane things like trash (trash!??!).

One must walk around in my neighborhood on a 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month to see what I am talking about. It is almost festive. Everybody arranges their trash and recycle items neatly in stacks or side by side and in lovely bright blue and green colored bins. And they do it over a 2 day period, all ready for the trash people for pick up. Looks like they treat their trash as their own treasures?

I am still new here and have a lot to learn and to get trained and to put the glass in green and paper in blue (or the other way around? ) so I won't miss the trash collectors. Maybe I should give them a more glamorous name such as "Used items picker uppers" but that sounds like a Bounty commercial!. Anyway, we all wait for them early on Wednesdays so we will have more space in the garage to collect more "used items" for them to pick up in a week or two.

Mehendi Maidens

Here is a picture of a project that I have been working on and off for a few months. I used to be a henna mehendi artist when I was a teenager. It was a favorite hobby of mine and a very lucrative one too since I made a lot of pocket money putting mehendi on brides. These dolls have mehendi designs on them and some bright Dye- Na-Flow dyes. When I am all done embellishing them with beads I have some faces to put on them. Now, should I use my air dry clay faces or should I use the new terracota ones? Ummmm....that is a good question.

Box Challenge

"Bozo In The Wrong Box" I made this doll for the doll club Box Challenge but was too busy to finish it on time. Here is the story which goes with the doll. Bozo gets into the magician's box- the one which the magician puts a person in and then cuts the person up into pieces and then puts them back together again. You know what I am talking about? Well the same one! Bozo comes out of the box only to find out that he was not put back well at all... (I would not want to look at my own behind, would you?)

My 4 year old listened to the story and said, "put him back into the chest again".

Here is another picture of Bozo.

Why I have so many UFOs

This is the primary reason for my UFOs (Unfinished ....) I forgot! Well, I do have a big problem about finishing my projects because I tend to line up a lot more projects in my mind before finishing the last one. The fairy is still "almost done" and I am already working on the next project. This one is the spring challenge at my doll club. It is a doll with/in/out/or pertaining to a box. I feel that I am all boxed up- oh wait... That is not me! That's my doll. I wish I could share the picture of the yet another un-finished object/project but I think I should share it with the Gals in the club first. I will have to wait until the 13th before posting the pictures.

Talking about dolls, it is my niece's 2nd birthday today. She is such a doll, so cute and cuddly. Happy Birthday Mimmi! Love ya....

Ms. Fairy Almost done

I am almost done working of High Maintenance Fairy. I need to put some bling bling stuff on her and her antennae need to be attached too. A few more inches of lace and she will be very pretty indeed. What do you think? She feels quite insulted because I had no other seat for her to sit on when I took the picture. She has a list of her demands now which include a royal chair with purple satin fabric and gold trims. Maybe some day I will be able to meet all of her demands.

Ms. Fairy

I finally gave in and worked on Ms. Fairy tonight. She is already complaining about her underpants. She says they are a bit too tight and restrict her movement. I might have to work on her pants all over again. And she also wants more "bling" on her shoes.

My daughter has a few corrections of her own, two to be precise. She was looking for the fairy's boobs this morning. My baby does not understand how I made a "woman" fairy with no boobs??! So there we go again...... I have a feeling that I won't be done with Her Highness anytime soon. (I know that I will not give her boobs for sure- even when the complaints are from my little princess.)

Rest Day

Did nothing as far as dolls are concerned- just rested and took care of my 4 year old who has a stomach flu or fly... some such thing. Kept me awake all night yesterday and the whole of today too. Now she is blissfully asleep (Bless her heart) and will wake up all rested and bouncing just when I get ready for bed tonight :-). I coughed all day and kept staring at the Fairy who is demanding to be finished. Your day will come soon...Oh Fairy... the beautiful one. Let my baby get well ...and I will tend you thee...and all of thine wishes!

High Maintenance Fairy Unfinished Pictures

Or should the title say "Unfinished High Maintenance Fairy Pictures" or perhaps "Pictures of Unfinished High Maintenance Fairy"?

Here is my on-going project of High Maintenance Fairy. She is Betts Vidal's design and I took Betts class in January. Here is a picture of the torso, hands and legs. Everyone who reads my blog will now know exactly how long I take to finish my doll. I hope to finish her by the second Tuesday in March. (before 6pm- so I can get ready and go to the doll club meeting. I normally leave for the meeting around 6.30 so I can reach at 7pm) I want to take her for Show & Tell.

Almost a new year's resolution

When is it too late for a new year's resolution? The thought occurred to me that I should write every day in my blog just to keep in touch with my thoughts. Since this blog is about my art, maybe I should talk about what I did or did not do or what I plan to do everyday. That way even if I do not get the time to do anything that day, I atleast can talk about it.

Ok, so, this is what I did today: went to the Sew and Quilt show at San Mateo Expo Center. I found some beautiful purple beads, some glass head pins, a couple of stackable bead holders and some buttons. Some of the buttons are really tiny and they will go very well on pin dolls. Ooooh I want to make some soon.... I looked for some lace but could not find the kind I was looking for. I had a wonderful time looking at the Hoffman challenge dolls and quilts. Also feasted my eyes on dolls at the Treasure of the Gypsy stand.

I came back home all charged up and went to work on my High Maintenance Fairy, a doll designed and taught by Betts Vidal. I had taken her class in a log cabin surrounded by beautiful Sequoia trees in Saratoga couple of weekends ago. The setting is very beautiful and that is the usual hangout for our doll club retreat every year.

Dolls for Doll Club Project

Here are a couple of dolls from the doll pattern I designed for the doll club. I dressed them as medieval maidens. Modern clothes are fun too and maybe that will be the next project? That's a whole another post altogether. I am hoping that most of the girls will make them.

Doll Club Project

A couple of pictures here of Indian doll project that I am making for my doll club. I am making 40 doll bodies, and some clothes for the doll. And the hightlight of the project is the doll dresses I got from India last October. I am very excited about the project and will post pictures of the dolls at the club.

Amparo's Doll

One of my friends was sick and had to undergo surgery last year. That's when I prayed a lot and made this doll for her. The doll is still with me since I wanted to make a doll for her daughter too and send them together. I finally decided to part with a doll from my collection. So it is time for the prayer doll to go to her rightful owner. I am sending Rudy's (Chief Ornament Polisher's apprentice at Santa's workshop)(go to the post dated Dec 24th, 2005) sibling to Amparo's daughter. Hope she will like it.

I enjoyed making this doll and I used my newly acquired art of beading on the project. I was so proud that I could bead in nice swirls. One of my dear friends from Gals and Dolls (my doll club based in San Jose, CA), Diane, had taught me to do it. Notice the clay face- I had long finger nails back then and I used them to etch the features on the mask.

Sushi Anyone?

Like most of the things I attempt in life (including my latest craze- weightloss), I try and try again until I get it right and then the most amazing thing is that I don't make it anymore! Hope I won't give up on my weightloss journey just like everything else.

Anyway, coming back to the topic, here is a picture of sushi I made a few days ago. I made it again today but did not take pictures of it. I make the California roll with roasted sesame seeds on one side of it. I have improved since the last time in that I do get defined ridges/edges on the roll now. Since I am a vegetarian I enjoy eating the vegetarian sushi I make with yummy avocados, cucumbers and carrots in it. The little cup in the middle has the wasabi swirl (very aesthetically arranged indeed if I should say so myself!).

A word about Wasabi here: Wasabi is horse radish- the same kind which when you taste, feels like something just exploded in your nose and brain and everywhere else in between all at the same time. A good treatment for sinus pain I will say - you forget your sinus pain for several minutes after eating some horse radish because a pinch of it (almost a lethal dose according to me) makes you forget everything else! But wasabi is a good thing . It gives sushi a good spicy flavor and taste and is yummy on green peas which I get from the Chinese store.

Curves...

Went to Curves after more than 3 weeks and I feel alive... I can feel all my body parts (aching)! But it still is a wonderful feeling after a good workout. Am planning to join Weightwatchers next week. I have 7 more pounds to lose and I think WW will help me keep the weight off better than if I tried to take it off by myself.

3 Stitches in and 9 Stitches Out!!

Well, I hated the color combination so much that I just ripped the whole row out. I have a feeling things will go faster if I start again. I do want to go to the other side of the bag and work on it. Now I think I will get into a better mood and work on it and not just stare at the ugly.

No No No....Not Those Colors!

What do you get when you put together some very different and bright colors and a very preoccupied mind? A really bad not- so- fun looking bag. (note: two negatives do not make a good looking bag here).

I had bright yellow pearl thread (what we call mustard color in India) and a bright red-orange pearl thread and I am not sure what I was thinking when I used a combination of the two. And on top of that I used some odd cream color too and that just hit the spot! Now the bag looks horrible. I hope that if I put another row of the same "ugliness" somewhere else on the bottom side of the bag that it will be symmetric and the two rows will sort of knock each other out??? or cancel each other out??

I think I know why I used those colors. I love that combination of colors in my sarees. I have 2 sarees with those same contrasting colors and I love them and wear all the time.

Will post a picture in a day or two. Meanwhile I think I should stare at the bag a few hundred time to internalize it, meditate on it and then finally hypnotize myself into liking it just a bit. (like what I do with some songs/music - listen to it lots of times until I begin liking it)

Fun Bag, Fun Bag, Talk to me!

My bag isn't talking to me yet to tell me what to do with it. All I am doing with it is going around in "circles" doing blanket stitches. My dolls talk to me all the time and demand for laces, trims, beads and other stuff but this is a tough cookie. Maybe there is a communication gap since it is my son's jeans. What do you think?

Fun Bags

Shannon Boggon has a wonderful website and a blog called www.inaminuteago.com in which she shares many embroidery designs and projects. She also teaches classes through Joggles.com. Check it out, the class description and the sample looks gooood!

When I saw the Fun Bags project on her website, I liked it so much that I went hunting in my son's closet for jeans. Here are a couple of pictures of the front and the back. I started working on the back and you can see some of the embroidery. I am still thinking about the front and what to do with it. Oh, BTW, I call my bag "Neel's Butt Bag" and Neel, my 8 year old loves it and my little girl has her eyes on it too. But I have told them that this one is for me.

New Year- New Project

I am looking forward to doing something with my hands again and not just bake cookies. I did not bake cookies this year.. I cooked rice pilaf instead! I think I won't be mistaken when I say that most Indians are not good at baking( other than what comes out of a box or a tube of dough with the Dough boy's picture on it). When we cook, we normally do what I call "pinch & dash cooking"- you know, a pinch of this and a dash of that. I know some people (I mean some Indians) do use their measuring spoons and cups for cooking and baking but that is not me.

My new project is a bag made from my son's old pair of jeans. I lovingly call it Neel's Butt Bag because according to him, that's where his butt used to live! This is the only time I wish my son were a little older or taller because after trimming out the large holes on the "knees" of the jeans, there is very little cloth left for the handle. I might have to use some other cloth on one side of the handle and I will think of it later. But his butt/ jeans seat is a perfect size for a small purse and not a diaper size bag I would get had I used one of my old jeans.

Will post the picture of the bag as soon as I find those extra batteries. I know they are hiding from me as usual.

Happy New Year 2006

WOW, Its here...It is here....2006! This is my 15th new year's day in the US as I came to the country from India on 1st Jan, 1992. I am looking forward to

• New Year..
• A New Me...
• New Resolutions (cross fingers and hope I won't break them- not my fingers, just the resolutions )
• New Dolls..
• New Projects....
• New kids....nay....got 2 ...no more!

(I can finally (;-) ) change colors of the font from greens and reds to other colors- now that Christmas and the holiday season is over) (But I do still like greens and reds and so might decide to use them again soon.)