Century Post: Reminiscing Through Pictures!

What happens when someone scores a century? The highlights of their innings are shown. So as the lazy woman is finally scoring a century of blog posts, highlights of her blog-life are a must. For this express purpose, I tried to collect a few favorite images published on this blog. These images have meant a lot to me, because to me, these are frozen chunks of time gone by. These are moments that meant a lot to me for many reasons or even without a reason. These images open floodgates of memories and nostalgia. (Links of relevant posts at the end of descriptions.)

 

 I have tried for long to use the first image as my blog banner(mission not accomplished due to technical challenges). It is a wall art done by some art students based on the above picture of me and Coco. We were hosting a ladies club meet, and as everyone was getting their picture clicked with this rainbow umbrella at the end, Coco came running, having found me after hours of separation. He would not leave me for getting a solo picture clicked. So, we got this picture together. Little did I know that it will be such an iconic picture to inspire artists.

 The image above is the first image on the first blog post. Those were the days when I used to spend all my time with Coco, quietly in my room, clicking a lot of pictures. The image reminds me of those early days of motherhood. It does not make me very happy though. Too many reasons! Link

 

 Looking at sweet pudgy hands and feet of a sleeping baby can make any mother happy. It was a matter of special joy for me to see my prematurely born underweight son fully recovered and turned into a chubby little cutie within three months of being born.

Tiny feet and little legs! Coco had just learnt walking, and would wobble away, wearing shorts that were too long for him. I could capture this precious shot after a lot of missed opportunities and blurry images.  Link

 We all were on a trip to Pathankot, and one evening, the guys decided to take a walk. I tagged along, hopping and skipping, plucking leaves and flowers, listening to birds, feeling the breeze in my hair, when I spotted a  cloro...dendro..er..rhodo..um...chlamy...WTH.. a Dandelion...! Clicked it instantly, before its strands could separate and fly away. Link

 We had just started setting up a new home. It was a first for Coco. He might have thought of helping us by categorizing things like above. A new insight in home decor.

What happens when little people meet other little creatures? This beautiful image, clicked in Rock Garden, Chandigarh. 

This bell was bought from Bikaner, though it is a product of Moradabad clearly. It was beautiful and I literally loved it. Sadly, it was stolen when we were not at home. This image reminds me of the lovely Bikaner trip, the first Diwali that we three celebrated together, of the joyous festivities and beginning of sweet pink cold weather in Doon valley. I have been trying to find a similar bell, but all my efforts have not yielded any fruit. Soon, I hope! Link

In the picture above, Coco is sitting on top of and amid his birthday gifts, on his second birthday. It was a busy day for me, but I still managed to click this cute picture. It was quite unlike his first birthday, which was an utter chaos, with barely a memorable picture of the day. Link

 I was merely splashing colours, trying to get a feel of free hand painting. The resulting image became the background image of 'Bringing Up Coco's' Facebook page. Why do I love this image? Look at those colors and ask again! Link

 The joy that I experienced when I came back home after a week long trip is still with me, in the form of this image. Those days were really incredible. Link

 One look at this image, and the lovely spring scents come back to  me. A picture is more than a visual sometimes. Link

The picture above was taken on a visit to my parents, last year. The visit was quite a memorable one for many reasons, especially bad reasons. During this visit, the Nepal earthquake came, which shook us all up pretty badly. Though we were safe, it had a deep impact on our minds. Even at the slightest shaking of furniture I am sitting on reminds me of the day I ran three flights of stairs barefoot with Coco clutched in my arms.  Link

A paper boat is always loaded with memories. This image is a reminder of the friends who brought me a gift wrapped in this beautiful paper, the beautiful rainy day and the thrill of making paper boats for Coco. On top of everything, it reminds me of the story that I wrote about monsoon, the reason why I made this paper boat and clicked a picture. Link

A lovely sunny day in Himalayan winters, a long walk in Landour, Mussoorie with friends and a refreshing brew of ginger, honey and lemon, with a satisfying snack, this picture says it all.   

 Just my favorite, for no specific reasons. 

The image of this setup and its accompanying blog post got me a winner's seat in a blogging contest, with some good shopping vouchers up for grabs. As much as I enjoyed the shopping, I loved this whole setup even more. Because at the end of it, I got to sip this lip smacking lemon tea. Mmmm!  Link

Images from parents' home are always full of stories and nostalgia. My mom had bought these dolls for us sisters from Banaras after a lot of pleading, when I was a kid. The little pot was probably a gift my sister got from her friends in school. My mother keeps these and all our stuff safely and lovingly. When I went home with Coco, needless to say he was very attracted towards these, and soon the dolls started losing their limbs. I salvaged what I could and clicked a few pictures before the naughty boy would totally destroy my precious toys.  

 Before I threw away the empty cocoa powder container, I spotted COCO written on it and immediately took a picture, profoundly proud of my artistic eye. 

 

These colored feet have a long story. Traditionally, in Eastern UP and Bihar, married women colour their feet with 'Alta' on any auspicious occasion or while travelling etc. Coco and I had to catch a train that evening, when my mother called her domestic help to colour my feet. Coco was very interested in this activity and I allowed him to get his feet dyed too. Irony is that we missed our train that day. We traveled two days later in a sleeper coach, through a hot May night. I swatted mosquitoes all night, standing near the middle berth that Coco slept on while he turned and twisted and cried intermittently, only half asleep. All the red dye could not make our journey happy. But looking back from here, all this looks like an adventure, especially with these red feet.

During school and college, I used to read a lot. My mother has kept all the books that I bought during that time. On my last trip home, I re-read a short story collection by Munshi Premchand. This particular part from the story 'Eidgaah' had me in tears. It is written beautifully. I aspire to write stories like this one day. The shot was worth saving.

There was a phase when Coco used to pretend cooking. He liked it so much, he did it all day long. While I fed him khichdi hidden under soupy instant noodles, he prepared all kinds of exotic dinners for me, even ice creams and cold drinks. He served me beverages in saucers and his cakes were made up of building blocks. But boy, did they taste amazing! Or at least I pretended so. Link

Those initial day of his playschool were quite a job for me. He stayed for only an hour in the school and while I waited outside in my car, I used to bring a snack and something to do. The doodling paid off, as I used them in making ladies meet invites. Link

Why would I not show off my embroidering skills, when all I was required to do was use a permanent marker for Coco's lunch box napkins? Sometimes, I am a pain in my own neck! Anyway, loved doing this.   

When we are talking about the best images of this blog, this one has to come up. I would not write a lot because I already did quite a marathon series of posts about these. I just love looking at these pictures, wondering when will I have so much time again! Link

Cars, cars and more cars. Coco is in love with cars. The above picture is from an evening in Mussoorie. Lovely time! Link

 On this particular day of his school, Coco was dressed as Hanumanji, in a red dhoti made with my dupatta, though he was also wearing a red shirt and an orange sweatshirt owing to the cold weather. His dad made him a 'gada' fashioned with a ball and a stick and a newspaper tail. After dressing him fully in this costume, I laughed for a whole minute. When I went to pick him up later, the dhoti had come off and the tail had withered, hanging from his waist. 

 My beloved rosebush. I am so in love with these flowers, it seems crazy sometimes. I had no other plants to transport but I made grafts of these rosebushes and happily hauled them to Nilgiris. The plants are doing well. I intend to keep them forever. Link

 After I copied this from internet and it came out pretty okay, I assured myself that I could draw and paint if it came to it. Even small successes count, don't they? Link

 My first ever published story. Is it the beginning of a journey or the end? In fact, I cannot decide, nor do I know. But it felt good definitely! Who knows what comes next?

 An image that signifies the bond that we share, Coco and I. What's not to love?

The last picture ever that was taken in my lawn in the previous station, after the truck was loaded. I was tired and sad, but also excited and happy. Moving is such a part and parcel of army life, that it makes us feel all these emotions at the same time, and we love it!

August Craftathon: Wrapping Up!

I still have stuff remaining from August that I intended to show here, and that could have taken another two or three posts, but as I realized it is already October, and I am kind of getting tired looking at the same old stuff again and again, I thought of making this as a final post, and posting all the remaining stuff here. Additionally, I want to write about other things also, and that would happen only after I wrap this up. Fancy making stuff in one month and spending the next two months talking about it!

The pic above has the inside of the card, it's envelope and the paper bag, which was described in the last post. The envelope for the card was fashioned out of a card sheet, using the simplest pattern from the internet, as shown below, and was decorated with a few quilled leaves and paper roses like the paper bag. 

The last thing that was reamaining to do was to make a folder to be placed for the chief guest at the ladies meet. Now this was something that I had not done last time (Read about the last time here ). I was given a ready folder to see and find what type of folder was expected. It was made using a simple office folder. I did the same and cut an office folder to size, covered it in handmade papers of my choice front and back and decorated it in my signature style, using hand cut paper flowers, even used the paper lace from last year's card in this one. 

After delivering everything on time, as I was catching my breath, I came to know that two more folders were required. With only a few hours in the main event, I was not left with much choice, and I reached the venue, carrying a bag full of my craft supplies. On the senior most lady's advice, I used the two hand drawn circular backgrounds (from this post) and scribbled some more on the empty spaces of the two sheets, while all the other ladies were decorating the place. Then these two doodled A4 sheets were hurriedly pasted on two plain office folders and voila! We had everything ready.  

 While the main circular sheet became a green grassy field with giant leafy plants in the centre, the doodle for special personalized invitation got a colony of pretty little houses on a elevated ground, with a red fence. I would personally love to live in a cottage on a hill, and I guess that reflected in this hurriedly drawn doodle, because tiny cozy huts and red fencing were all that I could think of on that chaotic day.

August Craftathon III

After the invitation card fiasco described in the previous post, I was crestfallen, uninspired and cuddled up in my bed while Coco was in school, when the senior most lady of the battalion called to inform me that we would have to deliver the card personally, and therefore in style. It is not a great idea for three people to visit the chief guest and hand over a mere feeble card. So she was planning to buy a paper bag to keep the card in. I volunteered to make a paper bag, and immediately my mood lifted up. After all, all the handmade paper that I had bought in anticipation was finally going to get a chance at being used for the intended purpose. Plus, there was the opportunity of exercising my paper craft muscles in a guided way.

My next stop was internet, to find out how to fold a paper bag. It is wonderful, this internet thing. It really is interesting to observe how we have almost all the knowledge available to us, just in a few clicks. Anyways, I found a suitable pattern and made my bag. I am not sharing any links that I used because paper bag patterns are easily and freely available all over the crafting sites. And, I also forgot the link that I used :)

Then came the most interesting part of making cute paper flowers and leaves and decorating the bag. In order to enjoy this process, I completely disregarded the theme 'rain and smiles,' because that ugly smiling sun was a prime reason in ruining the whole idea of the card. (Read in previous post.) 

I used the same card sheet that I had used for the card, and made strips of pink colored sheet, which I used as ribbons to twist and make these cute roses. After trying various leaf varieties, I finalized decent looking quilled leaves. It reminded me of my lovely rosebushes, probably because of the same size and color of flowers and leaves.

I laid out all the flowers and leaves on one side of the finished paper bag and found a satisfactory layout. Then the layout was roughly outlined with fevicol and the flowers and leaves took their respective places on the rust background of the bag. It was a little difficult to make the stiff paper flowers stick to a soggy background, even more difficult due to their diamond like shape, and they kept rolling away. So I placed a heavy object on top and waited for a few hours.

It was comparatively a lot easier to paste the flat surfaced leaves and after finishing the floral arrangement, I punched holes on the two edges of the bag and inserted wide green satin ribbon handles. They looked okay because they matched with the leaves if nothing else. After finishing the bag, I really loved the look of the bag and proceeded to do my next favorite thing, i.e. click loads of pictures from every possible angle. 

Crafting this felt really good because it looked so pretty and neat at the end. It also kind of resolved my issues with the main invitation card. I think, it will be a great idea to prepare a few bags like this, maybe with less flowers, and using them to deliver gifts. In the army, it is customary to get invited to dinners etc. and we usually carry little gifts for the hosts. I think receiving a gift in this bag will make the host happier. I know, I would love to get a gift like this. Some of my friends ooh-ed and aah-ed and rolled their eyes in mock anger because they want these bags. Soon!

August Craftathon II

So back in August, when it all began, the preparations for the month's ladies meet, which comes annually to our battalion, I grabbed the job of circular and card making, which was granted to me readily, looking at my past record, and no other contenders looking for this work. I went crazy thinking about all the different things that I could do with paper, sticking to the theme which was Rains and Smiles. I finalized on a pop up box card, and tried to make a rough sample of the card, which is photographed above.

Though this rough draft was way better than the skeletal draft that I had shown as an example for the last year's card (an explosion box card with quilling details), it was way too little charming to see, and as expected, it was not received with as much enthusiasm as its predecessor, and I was asked to make a simple card. Though I was not very happy with that idea, I gave it some thought and found lots of card designs on Pinterest themed on raindrops and rainbows. All I had to do was incorporate some smileys and voila!

Shopping from the craft store is a favorite part of crafting for me. I generally end up buying stuff which has no use whatsoever, like any crafter true to her craft. Basically I am a hoarder of craft supplies. This time too, I bought different color card sheets and handmade paper. The theme was such that it had great scope of using all the colors. So, I happily snipped a few colored strips for a rainbow which neither had seven colors, nor true rainbow colors. But hey, there is no right or wrong when it comes to art! (quoting Mickey Mouse) 

I chose a blue sheet for the main body of the card, because you see, rainbows appear in the azure sky :D. A few dots and dashes with poster color and the appearance of the rainbow stripes began to look closely associated with funny-kiddy smileys. 

After the rainbow-y strips of painted paper were fixed in their respective places, all I had to add was some clouds cut out of white chart paper and a yellow smiling sun. That's all, and the work was mostly done. Then I got the doodled circular and the invite from the previous post printed and pasted them inside the card. This entire process was not difficult or time consuming, it was not interesting either. Compared to the last year's beautiful quilled box card, this looked boring and my creative itch kept itching. Anyhow, I decided to share it on my blog.  

Next Post: August Craftathon continued, with better paper craft, promise!