Decor - Eye Candy

I was looking for inspiration for bookshelves and upholstery fabric, online. As usual digressed and chanced upon something beautiful. There are some lovely lovely ideas out there and I fell in love with these. Have been day dreaming and drooling ever since. Sigh!

There is something beautiful and zen like about this room. Elegant. Peaceful. Love the neutral effect, the layout, the decor. 

Oh! I love love love this one. For the bookshelf, the colour coordinated arrangement of books, the reading chair, the Ikat cushion, the footstool, the blue pottery scattered throughout the room, the whites, creams and the rug. 

And this one for the pink dining chairs and the white kitchen. I love white to the point I am getting a white kitchen, yes in spite of all those concerns of "Indian kitchen and cooking. Are you sure you want white?" Now, if only I was gutsy enough to get chairs in such a colour. Love the elegant look of this one. 

All images - Windsor Smith, Room in a Box Do check out her work. It is lovely and inspiring! 

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Indya Kaleidoscope - a treasure chest!

Indya Kaleidoscope is a treasure cove tucked away in a corner. You won't spot it unless you are looking for it and once you do you won't want to leave :) 
It is a cozy little store with walls painted in bright colours, some peacock blue, some red. They showcase and sell, like they say on their FB page, good quality traditional arts and crafts. Be it in their original form or with a contemporary twist. 

They have on display Channapatna Laquerware, Banaras wood crafts, Brass artefacts, Terracotta products, Manipur Longpi pottery (also called Black pottery), Blue pottery, Plam wood crafts, Pondicherry stone pottery, Kantha work soft furnishing amongst a whole lot of other stuff. 

What welcomes you as you walk in to the store on the 1st floor, is a bright yet warm red wall and a whole room full of collectibles, home decor items and treasures to die for!

The brass idols collection against this red wall looks stunning. We saw a whole range of Ganesha idols, from classic to contemporary forms. Go find your own! 

There are beautiful paintings, like this one below, from Banaras. 

Collectibles, mini vases, pots, all hand-painted. Beautiful! 

Fabric clutches in all colours and shapes.

Colourful painted wooden dolls and boxes.

Krishna in all his glory.

                             

Madhubani work lampshades. Hand-painted wooden boxes for storing your jewelry, nick knacks and small trinkets.

Brass and copper minis. Kitchen utensils, pots, miniature equipment. They look so so cute!

And one of my favorites - pottery from Pondicherry! 

Kantha work cushion covers.  They look beautiful, don't they? We are going to place our custom orders once the new place is ready.

The owner Preethi writes a blog too and does a lot of DIY-ers. You can check them out here.  
She also sources furniture and antiques on request. So contact her if you are looking for that antique wooden mirror for your bedroom wall or chains for the swing in your living room. 

She has recently created a space in the store where artists, craft makers, writers, bloggers, decorators, designers or just book readers can come, sit surrounded by some exquisite crafts and do their creative thing. They promise to keep the coffee flowing!! What more can you ask for? :) 

Drop in and find your treasure. They keep adding new stuff every now and then so worth scheduling a regular visit :) 

Store details
The IK store in Bangalore is at - 
BNRK Towers, 891/A, 1st Floor, 
7th A Cross, Koramangala 1st Block, 
Bangalore - 560034

Tel - +91 80 40981536
Email: indyakaleidoscope@gmail.com
FB page - https://www.facebook.com/Indyakaleidoscope 
Website - http://indyakaleidoscope.com/ 

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Day 23 - Graffiti in Wellington

I spend a lot of time walking around in Wellington, partly because we live in the CBD (Central Business District) or downtown and partly because we do not have a car. The city is very compact and everywhere we go on a daily basis, is walkable. S and I made a conscious decision not to buy a car unless we move to the suburbs. Though S does miss the driving around sometimes.

I on the other hand feel that it's been working great for us. We are "green", get our 30 mins a day (and sometimes more) of brisk walking and no parking issues. 

While I walk around town I see a lot of art and graffiti on walls, garages and buildings. Don't know if any of this is legal or not.

Here is some of Wellington's graffiti through my eyes. 

This is a residential building with modern loft style apartments

This was one smart and innovative artist! 

Hope you are having an awesome Sunday! Thanks for visiting!

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012. 

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Day 19 - My home tour on Magical Homes!!

My ex-apartment in Bangalore was featured on Magical Homes yesterday. The site also has a lot of tips and ideas on all aspects of a home. Makes for an interesting read. Hop over to check it out :) And let me know what you think, by leaving comments there. 
This is the 2nd home tour for my rented apartment and Dipika the editor has put together the post so well. Thanks Dipika!! 
We spent 2 years there and it was a wonderful stay. I miss my home, my neighbours, my friends from that place and hope to go back there soon.

A cozy corner in my balcony. Books and a cup of tea made it awesome! 

The 1st home tour for that apartment is here on The Key Bunch. 

With that done, my task list looks much better now - 
- Send pics for home tour - Done
- Write article for my first freelance assignment - Done
- Send pics and info for a lifestyle site coming up in Feb 2013 - Done
- Gifts for N's teachers at kindy - Done
- Holiday and Christmas shopping - Done
- Bulk of the packing for N and me - Done
- Donate N's clothes, the ones he has grown out of, to The Salvation Army - TBD 
- Last few rounds of laundry and ironing - TBD
- Clear and clean the fridge - TBD

This month has been crazy! I thought it would be the slowest month of the year, relaxed, easy breezy. But instead it has turned out to be the craziest of them all. Started with the blogging marathon and I took it up as a challenge and a way to meet new bloggers. Then came the tug-of-war of going to India vs staying here. That was is mental torture. And all of a sudden I had these 2 requests for pictures and an article to be written! Plus all the stuff for the holiday - shopping, packing. Phew! I am so looking forward to the holiday. 

What are you planning to do on New Years? Where will you be? At home with loved ones? With extended family? Out of town? Partying somewhere? Watching TV? 

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012. 

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Day 3 - Gift paper love

We all have those quirks that define us. Some small, some big. 

I have traits that make me "me". One of them is that I have a photographic memory for birthdays and anniversaries (the ones I want and need to remember). Some of my friends admit to relying on me to remind them about common friends' birthdays. They say they don't need a calendar, they have me :) 

My other quirk is gift wrapping paper!! 

 I have a thing for it. I hoard it. Shhh! I just can't help walking over to the gift paper section in a store in a zombie like trance. And I keep adding to my collection, under the watchful eye of my now-very-vigilant husband. Every time I buy a new one, he does try to remind me that I have a dozen of them at home already. But this addiction is hard to get rid of. I swear I am trying my best though.

My friends and even some of my neighbours know that if they have a wrapping paper crisis they can come to me. I always have something or the other available. Always!!

I have this one which is perfect for a little-man aka pre-school boy's gift with robots, gifts and balloons. A gift tag from Templetree, Bangalore with an alien space ship to go along. 

This one is simple and blue (yay!) and I have these perfect little message tags/cards to go along with it (again from Templetree). 

Gift bags are elegant too, with a matching or contrasting colour of tissue paper inside. Sigh! How I love those pretty gift bags stuffed with crinkly tissue paper inside (I know, I know, I am beginning to sound crazy now). 

Want some tags to go along with that? 

And this one is one of my favourites. It's stamps of different colours, sizes, shapes on a basic brown sheet. I love basic brown sheets coz there is so much you can do with it. And I have message cards for this one too! 

This one below is the latest in my collection. Spotted it the other day and could not resist buying it. Ain't it cute? I love those tiny shoes. Perfect for that girlie gift!!

I like wrapping gifts nicely and could do it all day long. Who doesn't love a neatly nicely wrapped present?  Now all I need to do is make a career out of it ;) 

Happy Monday!!

P.S. - This post is part of Day 3 of The Marathon Blogging_Dec 2012 event. 

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Cookies and Salsa

I get the inspiration to cook like the monsoons in Bangalore. Somedays there is nothing - zilch, a very dry spell. Whatever the cook makes, we shall eat.  And on other days there are heavy showers of motivation and an intense desire to cook something. Last week we had one of those heavy shower days and the after effect was very pleasant and mouthwatering.
And I started watching Nigella Kitchen recently so am inspired all the more :) Cheers for Nigella Lawson, the hot sexy mama who cooks awesome food.

I collected some of these beautiful coloured veggies and roasted them in the oven.  

I added these for some tangy yummy flavours.

Pulsed them in the mixer and made this hot tangy roasted tomato and capsicum salsa.

What's salsa without some nachos? Umm, yumm and like N says "Yummy in my tummy" combo.

But that couldn't satisfy my sweet tooth. So, I took these ingredients (in pic below) along with some butter and sugar.

And made these simple, flavourful and melt-in-your-mouth cookies.

If you need exact recipes or process, let me know, will share.

Linking this in to Patty's Weekly Party and Tanya's Tea-Time Thursday!














Happy Monday!!

Edited to Add - Here is the recipe link for the cookies (It is by Rachel Allen) - http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/8947/basic-cookie-recipe
I modified the basic version, slightly, by adding Hersheys cocoa powder and reducing the amount of plain flour to accomodate the cocoa powder. You can go light or dark based on taste and colour preference. I added some crushed walnuts too. And ofcourse I did not want to make 35 cookies, just a trial sized amount so I reduced the quantities by 1/4.
Happy Baking!
The salsa was as simple as the pictures show - just roast/grill the veggies (tomato, onion, capsicum, green chilli (as hot as you want) and garlic) in the oven/microwave (use grill mode). Then blend them along with the coriander, lemon juice, salt and some cumin seeds. Now dig in with some nachos (for the ideal combo) or some chips :)

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New header image

I wanted to change the blog header image. I picked these elephants up at the Dastkar Bazaar last weekend. And they seemed just perfect for a header image along with my mother's green saree as a backdrop!

Though I wish I could do something smaller for a header image. I love Anu's header over at My Dream Canvas and have always wanted to mimic hers. But that just doesn't happen in spite of efforts on Piknik :(

I'll leave you with another glimpse of my new elephant pair.

More about these beauties and my other picks in another post.

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My 100th post! Bird wall art - Tutorial

Yay!! This is my 100th post and it feels great writing it :) Wait, lemme quickly check the fact again before I make an announcement in error..... Yes it is! I am so HAPPY. When I started the blog I couldn't have imagined today and now that I am here I feel inspired and all the more eager to reach the next milestones :)
And the announcement - Keep a look out for the 100th post giveaway coming soon!!

For this post you can enjoy these birdies sitting on trees.

I was very inspired by Becca from Blue Cricket Design. She made this bird wall art here. Check it out, it even has a video of her TV interview explaining the process. I have been trying to attempt this since ages and finally could complete it last week. My guest bedroom walls were bare and with family coming down for a visit it was the perfect time to get this done.

The raw materials used are - 2 canvases of the same size (mine were 11x14), fevicol, permanent markers in black - one thin to outline and one thick tipped to fill in, a pencil, the local yellow pages directory (which was free by the way) and printed bird images off the internet.

I chose the pages from a yellow pages telephone directory. Like Becca suggests you can choose any material - newspaper, pages from an old book, scrapbook paper, gift wrapping paper etc. Let your imagination go wild!
I started with mixing 1 part of fevicol with 1.5 parts water. You can thin it out further if it seems too thick. Thin is easy to spread with a brush.  Next I tore out random pages out of the telephone directory and spread the fevicol mixture on one side with a brush. Then I stuck the pages on the canvas in any shape and manner that you want to. Random is good. Overlap, overlay and cover the sides of the canvas too.
Once both the canvases were done I kept them overnight to let them dry out completely.

The next day I started with drawing branches on the canvas freehand with pencil. Make sure that you continue the branch from one canvas to the other to get the illusion of one single branch across. Once the branches were done I outlined them with the thin marker.

Then filled them in with the thicker marker.

Once the branches were all done I placed the bird images at different places and traced the outlines. For the bird images I googled birds on the internet and printed them out. You can also stick the images onto a harder paper like card stock and cut along the outline. This will make it easier to transfer onto the canvas.
Then I filled in the birds and added the details like leaves and small branches. After this I coloured in the images one last time to ensure an even colour.

It looks lovely on the guest room walls, haven't been able to take pictures of that yet. But here are some more pictures. I already got some great reviews from the guests :)

Linking this in to Patty's Weekend Wrap Up!

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