Hand Sewn Toss Pillow

A few days ago while cleaning up one of the cupboards, I found a bunch of scrap pieces of cloth and gave it to Hrishika. I didn't have much use for it.

This evening she surprised me with a toss pillow which she made all by herself. She sewn the whole pillow and the applique work by hand. If I may say so, she did a wonderful job of that. It is very well made. She did a good job of cutting out the butterfly. It is so cute. The color choices are great too.

By the way, the pillow feels super soft!!!

Twirled Animals

Hrishika's friend Monu gave her twirled paper craft kit for her 10th birthday. It comes with thin strips of colorful paper and a special tool for twirling and of course instructions on how to make different animals etc. Hrishika chose to make the above animals. They do look cute.

Reverse Glass Picture Frame

Hrishika's friend Chandana gifted a reverse glass picture frame to Hrishika on her 7th birthday. She finally got to work on this picture frame. I got these Fevicryl glass paints from India.

Hrishika learnt that you start glass painting by outlining the design with a black out liner. Here is the picture frame with the outline done.

Once the outline dried, she painted the blue and green glass colors. Here is the finished product.

Canvas Tote Bag

Hrishika's friend celebrated her 9th birthday at Michael's Craft store. So they got to decorate a blank canvas tote bag.

Hrishika decorated hers beautifully. First she started with an orange border on the top edge. Next she ironed on some applique flowers, dragonfly and a butterfly. She used 3D outliner to outline the dragonfly. She glued on some stones and stars randomly. She also did some stenciling using lavender and purple. Finally she wrote her initials using permanent markers.

More Bracelets ...

Hrishika made a new bracelet. She made up her own design. She used her current favourite color, teal and silver beads.

Weaving With Wool

Hrishika got some left over wool from her grandma. This is what she made. She taped the both ends of the wool. She then actually weaved another strand of wool through these taped woolen strands.

Notebook Cover: Hrishika's Style!

Front Cover

Back Cover

Here Hrishika took an ordinary mini notebook and gave it her own style. Basically she made a book cover using a sea green foam sheet. She cut out her name out of a brown foam sheet and glued it to the front cover. Finally she put a small brown bow on top. How pretty. I especially liked the way she cut out her name out of foam. Pretty good job.

Flowers made with Model Magic

Hrishika made these beautiful flowers using model magic. Her friend Jena gave her the model magic variety pack with a princess mold. Since Hrishika was no longer into princesses she decided to make these flowers instead. She learnt to make the blue flower from her Sharada peddamma. I was totally impressed with the flowers. They are beautiful.

3D Outliner and Mirror Work

While we were visiting India during summer of 2008, I enrolled Hrishika in an art class near my mom's home.  There she got to make this art piece.

It started out as a 12" x 12" plywood.  First she started by painting it all in blue paint.  Next her teacher outlined the design in pencil.  Hrishika used silver colored  Fevicryl 3D outliner  to go over those pencil lines.  Before she could actually draw using 3D outliners, her teacher made her practice using mehendi cones on rough paper.  That practice really paid off.  All the lines came out very good.  Then she glued all those different  mirrors in the design.  It's a beautiful work of art.

Blue Box

I got a plain box from Michael's store. This is how Hrishika transformed it. She painted it blue and added a pink fringe all around the box. She then displayed a heart pendant in the little window.

Bracelets

Paper Butterfly

Blue Purse

Yesterday we had been to a Arts and Crafts fair at the local high school. There we saw a lot of crafts. Hrishika and her grandma decided to make their own purse. As soon as they got home they got started. They used adhesive foam to make this purse. Hrishika in fact took it with her to a store the very next day.

Wood Carving!

During our recent trip to India, we had been to Kaveri Emporium in Mysore to look at some handicrafts. While we were shopping around, one of the craftsmen asked for my daughter's name. We did not know why he had asked, since they wanted to know the right spelling. We forgot all about it and were busy buying stuff.

In a little while the craftsman came back and surprised us with this .....

Hrishika's named carved out in wood with all those beautiful and intricate decorations. And he did all this in less than 20 minutes. Wow! We were totally amazed. Indian craftsmen are really talented bunch!!!