Peppa And Pitari

 

Although managing Pink Pitari takes most of my time, certain things are absolutely required to be done. One of them is taking Coco to little people's birthdays and other special occasions. He has learnt to bring gifts (which are already packed and he has no idea about what is in there) and other procedures typical of such events. He is most fond of the return gifts that he gets at the end of the party, so much so that he would like to end the party as soon as he reaches the venue.  

Choosing gifts for little people is a much more complicated task if someone wants to give it a thought. Well, there are not many options besides toys, and there are times when one tends to think beyond toys, especially when likes and taste of people at the receiving end are also well known. Things can also be planned well in advance for people who are enthusiastic about it so that they never let you forget such an important date. So when such a friend and a neighbor had her son's birthday coming up, I straightaway asked her if she would like to receive custom made lunch towels like these (Made for Coco when he first started going to playschool,) as a birthday gift for her little gentleman:

She replied with a chirpy yes and I set myself to work. I was planning to make a set of two linen napkins with the kid's name simply embroidered on them. But that would be simply copying, even if it is copying my own work. With every new project, I ought to bring in something new. I thought of adding his favorite cartoon character on the napkins then and asked her which character would it be. I was thinking about Doraemon or Chhota Bheem but was almost shocked to know that it was Peppa The Pig, shocked because I didn't know there was such a cartoon character. I came home and researched a little on the internet and indeedy! There is not only Peppa, there is a whole pig family which I didn't know about. I found the pattern and started making it. I was doubly shocked when Coco exclaimed, 'Mommy... it's Peppa!' Oh! So I am an oldie. Pigs are in! And all the smart little people know them.

 I overcame my shock soon because the pig came up adorably. When I sent my friend a little snapshot of the pig, she declared, 'I will get it framed. No way am I going to give this lovely thing to a four-year old to wipe his greasy hands on.' Considering this, I decided to do more embroidery to make this napkin look like a picture. Since Peppa was already done, I had the surrounding areas left, but it required me to try a lot of permutations and combinations because the pig was only meant to be an embellishment originally and hence at an odd place for a frame.

 Some more research took place and I finalized the above design, decided the fonts and stitches and completed it as soon as I could. Though, my promise of a lunch towel was still not fulfilled and only a framable piece of cloth did not make sense as a birthday gift to me. So, I also embroidered another napkin with the kid's name in red cross stitch letters. Now I had a set of napkins, one for framing, one for actual use. 

 While I was working on these, Coco kept me entertained by asking all kinds of questions about them. 'Mumma, why are you making this? Who are you making it for? Is it for me? I like George pig more, so please make George pig for me!'

'Who is this George pig now?' I wondered and Coco promptly told me everything about them. I also saw a few episodes of 'Peppa Pig' series on TV and it helped me overcome my ignorance. Mighty big pigs, driving cars and learning ballet! 

To round everything up, I made Pink Pitari's signature pompom tie and neatly stacked the two napkins, tying them with it. Packed together with a chocolate box, these made a good gift, making both mommy and her little gentleman happy. That was what I was precisely aiming for. Mission accomplished!

By the way, these ties are exclusively made by me for Swati from 'BloomingBluess' who uses these in her rainbow candles. Go, visit her page now which is a collection of colourful handmade home decor items. Feed your eyes some more candy. It is good for them!

Love You Mom!

Coco and mommy in Lansdowne

It was a chaotic morning as usual this Friday, like all school day mornings. To add to my stress, Coco was in a bad mood, sleepy, whiny and not ready to go to school. Somehow, we got ready and reached school. But he refused to get down from the car and insisted that the school was closed today. I gathered up my last fragments of waning patience and asked him if we could just go and check whether it was open or not. If it was closed, he could come back with me. If it was open, well, we shall see then! Nope, not ready to come!

Chef Coco on Labor Day 

Thereafter, I tried to convince him by telling him that Mother's day was around the corner, so there might be some card making today, it will be so much fun and he will give mommy a card today. Nada! Not charming enough. At last I picked him up and deposited him inside the school gate where one of the teachers received him. As it is, we are always five minutes late, no matter how fast we get ready. But it is still acceptable because a lot of kids are coming around that time. Any later than five minutes, and the school gates look abandoned. Everything suddenly seems to grow eyes, looking at me accusingly, 'you're late!'

The whining turned into wailing that I could hear from far away, but kept walking to my car. Mornings are sometimes tough like that. 

When I went back at noon to pick him up, it was a happy sight to see the children coming out and handing a colorful flowery card to their respective moms, with the teachers reminding them of how they taught them to say 'I  love you mom.' I waited for my turn as I saw smiling, glowing mothers walking out with their kids. So, my prediction this morning was correct. Though there was some more activity scheduled solely for mothers the next day, a card was a must today. However, 'I love you' is something that Coco and I say all the time to each other. Expressions of love need not be restricted to special days.

In a few minutes, Coco came out smiling, holding a paper poppy flower and ran straight to me saying, 'See, ma'm gave me caad.' His 'Ma'm' interfered, asking, 'Coco, how should you say it?' Coco thought for a moment and held the card to me, saying, 'Ye lo, Mother Day.'

His mam asked, 'And?' He racked his brains, then mam hinted, 'Love you?'

His eyes lit up as he remembered and jumped, 'Love you mom!' 

'Aww, I love you too baby!' I said and hugged him, picking him up instantly. Though I knew I was going to get a card and hear 'love you mom,' it still made my heart skip a beat. I smiled at the teacher, wishing her good day, thankful for my dark sunglasses which didn't show my misty eyes. All of a sudden, I was missing my mom.

Little Miss Pinky!

The lazy woman has got rather active hands which do not like to stay still even during her laziest lounging-in-the-sun sessions. She is also constantly on the lookout for interesting new projects. Knitting for fashionable little girls figures very high in her list of interesting projects. So, when she heard a very good news of the long awaited arrival of a baby girl in one of her husbands' senior colleague's home, she shed a few tears of joy right there in her bean bag and then it was all cheer and laughter at the prospect of yarn shopping for a new project in Coco-land.

All the internet was rinsed thoroughly for the cutest available pattern and I settled for this pair of booties. Then the hunt for a matching hat began and was met with success a short while later. A pattern for sweater was also searched for, but after a lot of search generated not much, I decided to make a simple front open sweater knitted from neck downwards, and make it a little wider at the base to make it look fashionable and not boxy. 

I am not happy with the yarn that we get in Indian markets, whether for babies or in general. I do not find the colors or the texture attractive but have to make do with whatever is available. I went to the market and with great difficulty and little inputs from Coco's dad (which rather confused me) chose baby pink and purple in Vardhman's Baby Soft. 

The booties were ready quickly and so was the hat. The sweater stayed rather neglected and was knitted in many installments as a result of lazy woman's busy social calendar in December. It was lying in my closet for at least two weeks under piles of sarees from the Putti Parade that I mentioned in the previous post. Finally, when I realized that winter will be over and the baby will grow big before the sweater is finished and delivered, I hurried up and finished making it and decorating it with little crocheted flowers, after a lot of brainwaves about buttons and ribbons and what-nots. 

After everything was ready, it was duly taken out to the lawn for a photo shoot and at least a hundred pictures were clicked before pack up. Meanwhile I stared at the lovely set and drooled at all the cuteness a lot. I promised myself to keep making such sweet little things every once in a while to keep in touch with my love for cute little things. With a lot of love and care, I packed the entire set in the same plastic clear jar in which the yarn came, and mailed it the next day.

It's Raining Love!

(Theme 2)

Every year on her wedding anniversary, my mother makes quite a stir about shopping for gifts. She makes sure that both the involved parties exchange gifts, however small the gifts may be. Once or twice, I have been caught unaware when she would suddenly ask me what I gift on special occasions to my husband, and I have nothing to say, except give her a blank look.  However I am observing that gifts for husband/boyfriend/fiance are more common than I know and girls enthusiastically planning/buying/making their gifts or surprises inspired a tinge of jealous competitive pondering: is it high time to give a gift to my husband?

Today when I was going through rewardme.in, I came across many articles about gift giving in the family life section ( https://www.rewardme.in/family/family-living ), and a particular one caught my eye. The article was about homemade gifts for husband. I was perplexed again. I realized I have almost never gifted anything to my husband on anniversaries or birthdays, bought or homemade, other than thinking about gifts and conveniently forgetting buying/making them, on the pretext of being busy with something else. Though it did not mean that I forgot receiving gifts. I never let a single chance go when I could get a gift from him, sometimes waiting quietly, sometimes dropping hints, sometimes even asking blatantly, as per the demand of the occasion.

Though I have made a solid resolution of buying a gift for my husband on the next special occasion, the rewardme article inspired me to gift him something today, without any occasion, just like that. It was well past noon and I was already late for my household chores, and homemade was the natural choice for the lazy wife, since it involves working cozily on one's kitchen chair/sofa/bed, while sipping tea comfortably. After a little thinking and planning, I settled on writing a letter to him as a gift, on a doodled paper. For this I only required pen and paper. Well, not just pen and paper, nice coloured pens and good looking scrapbook page, thank you.  

Then I started my little doodle project, which I think is a very easy thing to do. If you cannot draw a straight line, this is meant for you, for it seldom requires many straight lines. Once you have caught your doodling pace, it can have meditation like effects, and it can be done anywhere with limited resources. The above collage is my attempt at presenting the step by step progress of the work, without putting too many pictures. It begins at top left and goes clockwise, as you would have guessed.

So, I started at the bottom of the page and figured out it is turning out like a landscape, little plants and flowers on ground, trees on the sides and dark clouds above, raining little swirly raindrops and little hearts too :). Then it was time to write the letter, which I wrote, not quite an elaborate one. The reasons for the brevity are, one: I wanted to preserve my privacy (its internet, remember!!) and two: I was lazy, well, mostly lazy. 

After completing it and writing enough words to express my feelings (hey, pictures/doodles are worth so many words, right!), I presented the letter to its intended recipient whose head was buried in a heavy book, and he made his 'like' face, which I know by experience; he also readily agreed to leave the page in scrapbook itself, so I could write him a scrapbook full of such 'letters', as I told him. I think that would make an awesome gift. 

“I am participating in the ‘Ready For Rewards’ activity for Rewardme in association with BlogAdda.”

Quilled Gifts

                                     

Some of my friends have become quite the fans of my quilling since they saw my quilled explosion box card. A couple of them also wanted to learn it. But some or the other engagements kept us all busy and before we could all get together for a quilling session and a cup of coffee, one of them had to leave station due to her husband's posting. Yes, this happens very regularly with army wives, friends going away... but it is also fairly regular to make a lot of friends and to meet those friends over and over, in different locations. 

Anyways, senti stuff apart, the one who was going away kept mentioning quilling whenever we met, and I wanted to make it up to her by gifting her something quilled. I thought over many ideas and the best thing that I could think of were quilled earrings, along with a quilled card or something if I had time.

I searched the great ol' Internet and many interesting patterns came up. Now, I like to refer to patterns or designs and give them my own little twists, instead of copying them. It's not something moral, but it has got something to do with my critical eye which makes my brain itch to add something here, cut something there etc. Many times, I take so much time mulling over the colour scheme or pattern that my projects refuse to get started and take forever to get finished, if they start at all.

But, in this case, I did not have the luxury of unlimited time on my hands. Plus, if it is openly available on internet and I can figure out how to make it, it is not copying, it is called getting inspired! And I did not have quilling strips of the colour scheme of my chosen pattern, so I used different colours. See, I did add my twist after all. 

So, here we are. After the earrings were all ready, I also 'figured out' how to make your own paper bag, made one with some fancy paper available with me and in went the earrings, lovingly kept in a 'shagun potli', not made by me. :D Do I need to mention, my friend was incredibly pleased to receive this gift.

When I shared some of its pictures with my sister, she liked them and mailed me some patterns asking if I could make those for her. So, here we are again, making quilled earrings, on one of my kitchen counters. If you are wondering, I have three counters in my kitchen (wide smile here!), of which, one is my dedicated crafting counter, away from Coco's reach.

This pair is almost finished and I have to figure out how to insert those tiny hooks in these thick paper beads. Meanwhile, I have moved on to other projects which can be done sitting in the sun, like knitting ;). The lovely warmth of sun is too precious to miss. Winter is here in Cocoland!

Mommy Goes Quilling!

Where does my day go? Where do my weeks go? Or my months for that matter? Well, apart from the usual house-and-baby-keeping, I tend to have a gazillion ideas floating in my head, which soak up my time, so much so that I am no good to write about them at the end of it all. There are numerous projects lying around me, in various stages of unfinished and finished craft. So what is the latest? See for yourself!

Paper is my new love. And creating cutesy little stuff from it, including quilling which seems to be ruling the internet space nowadays, slowly crept into my craftspace as well, though I kept trying to not involve my lazy crafter self into it. I was literally shoved into it by my Ladies Club here, for which I was asked to create a couple of invitation cards and a circular for the monthly Ladies Meet. For those who do not have a clue what on earth is Ladies Meet, stay assured that it is your regular Kitty Party on a Fauji scale, a monthly get together for all the army wives in a location, hosted by ladies of different battalions when their turn arrives.

So, at the first opportunity of making cards, off went my mind to quilling. Then I also remembered the paper craft crash course that I had attended last year when I was writing these posts ( Link) last June. And then my gazillion ideas started colliding violently with each other, causing a chemical release of some kind which would not let me sleep till I completed the cards.

After seeing the samples, the ladies agreed upon an explosion box card  and a simple card in a box. The theme that we all had agreed upon was 'Retro Bollywood' and the cards also needed to show some of the spirit. And then I was left to my own devices, with my coloured printouts, handmade paper sheets and quilling kits. The explosion box was going to have three layers, each of which will show some 'Retro Bollywood'.

For the bottom layer, I took color prints of old movie poster images from our own Google Baba and pasted them along with some fun-funky words which would coincide with the theme and some cut-paper itsy-bitsies.

The middle layer would have vintage style machines like a car, a gramophone and such, along with sticker bindis which were a last minute idea to give it a polka dot background.

The topmost layer was going to have the actual invitation in the centre, with more 'Retro Bollywood' on the four panels surrounding it. Notice those dance poses of Helen? I am in love with them. I even used one of them as the backdrop of circular. Aaand done!...wait! Did I not mention quilling above?

Yes ma'am I did, and I would decorate all the four outer walls and the lid of the explosion box with quilling, which I have never done before but claim to myself that it was a no-brainer, simple thing. After all, how difficult could rolling paper be?

Not Much! Except that I have a limited knowledge of making colour combinations and I had a hard time choosing the right colours of quilling strips for each arrangement. And it took a lot of time too. The fact that I could only get assorted strips in the local craft stores added to my woes as I had to use different colour combinations on all five surfaces, even after buying four different packs of quilling strips. Each colour has only five strips in an assorted pack which hardly complete a single flower, let alone a whole arrangement. And so, I did not get the more professional colour-coordinated look in the finished box that I wanted. But people who saw it liked it for being the kaleidoscope that it was.

                                        

Getting the other card ready was comparatively easier. I had saved a sweets-box made of cardboard a few months ago for crafting. After searching the local bakery and a couple of other options, I remembered I had this box stashed away waiting for its stars to shine. I pulled it out of its hibernation, covered it with a lovely gold-printed handmade paper sheet, cut out some lace out of tracing paper, pasted around the box and the lid and sat a neat little flower on top of the lid. Voila! But the card that was to go inside the box could only be ready in the last hour before delivery.

                                         

This card was a simple affair with two sheets of handmade paper pasted together for stiffness, folded into a card. On the front went a beautiful portrait of Madhubala, to show some old Bollywood charm, inside a handcut 'Photoframe', decorated with a hint of quilling. It carried a similar invitation as the explosion box on the inside.

And off she went into the box, which would later include the circular too, scrolled and tied with a ribbon. 

As my five day marathon crafting session came to an end abruptly, I suddenly felt very sad that all this colourful, crafty goodness was about to leave me. Those five days had been nothing short of a fever for me, with the frenzied crafting, messy home and kitchen, everything going haywire, and nothing on my mind but colours, patterns and handmade paper. As much as I had wanted it all to get done soon, I did not like the emptiness that was ahead.

As I was already an hour past my promised delivery time, I quickly took as many pictures as I could and hurried off to give the boxes to the senior most lady of the battalion who would be inviting the guests next day. It was great to see that she liked it. Even better, she asked me to accompany her to deliver the explosion box card and I quickly said yes. After all, I always wanted to know how did the person who actually received it react. And it was great to see her (our guest) looking at it again and again, sitting on her beautiful coffee table among expensive objects, looking so rustic and homemade.

She is known to be an artist herself, and made me really happy by saying that she would convert it into a jewellery box later. But happier than me was my husband, who got rid of taking care of the little tempest known as Coco round the clock while I was locked away in his study room, crafting away to glory!

What I Did Last Winter!

Ours is a large family and the numbers of relatives runs into at least high 3 digits. So there is an abundance of occassions especially weddings and arrival of new babies. Every time a little one is born in a relative's home, my in-laws visit them with gifts for the newborn and the new mother. These gifts include clothes. And if it is winter, there have to be warm clothes for the baby.

She is an avid gift-giver, my Ma-in-Law. Her gifts have to be unique and useful. She knows that I am a knitter and thus I am commissioned to accomplish the task of knitting cute baby sweater sets. Please note that red is her preferred colour for baby sweaters.

This past winter, though Coco was quite a handful, I was required to work my needles again. It was a welcome change in my somewhat still routine and warmed me in drab Delhi winter. So, here is the main sweater, semi-ready after much brainstorming over yarn and colour and pattern and such. The wide yellow stripe is not really flattering, or is it? We will see. 

                                                                                 Here we go with some little red things to do this...

                                                           Of course that yellow stripe was a road, on which these red cars were to whizz by! What did you think, the roads could not be yellow with black footpaths in Babyland? The car pattern was thankfully taken from this blog.        

                                                                                                                                                       

                                                 

The little sweater now looks happily cuddling itself. It is time to move on and prepare matching accessories... 

So much tangled confusion of yarn isn't it? And we are calling it an accessory?

Well, of course, its a teeny-tiny bootie for cosying up those little feet. The Zebra Crossing of yellow Babyland roads ;)

Of course, a sweater set is not complete without a hat. And a sweater with cars has to have a hat with a car.      

After the set was ready, it was time to pack and give away, but not before my customary photo shoot of the above items to my heart's content. I laid them out onto my quilt, and clicked away.

Clicking and taking an eyeful in, touching and smiling, making mental notes here and there about what I should change or improve the next time I take up such a project.

Loving the way the laces are jumping up looking cheerful.

The last picture, taken hastily and blurred slightly, but generally able to look like what I had in mind at the outset. Oh, knitting for babies is the best. They have so much scope for bright colors and cute patterns, and they are ready in no time, the small sizes. I do not know whether babies wear them or not, however I would love to see them wearing it, but I sure do know, handmade gifts of this nature are a rarity nowadays and make good keepsakes.