A tea party for three...

Greetings from sunny Minnesota!

It's been exactly one week since we left Bangalore, India.

Here I am typing away on my laptop in a hotel room trying hard to communicate the memories of a delightful July afternoon in Bangalore, spent in the company of two most amazingly talented ladies.

Before leaving our beloved home in Bangalore, India, before it disintegrated into pieces to be bubble-wrapped and packed in cartons, I invited two lovely ladies whose work I have always admired to come have chai with me...

Super talented illustrator, charcoal drawing specialist & cat lover~ Priya Sebastian and multi-talented, creative self taught artist & dog lover Aarohi Singh.

So over huge mugs of chai and thick slices of plum cake we talked about how as bloggers we felt instant creative connections when we met in real world.

Aarohi, gifted me a tea kettle on which are painted two of my favorite things: Frangipani flowers & mugs of hot chai!

These will always warm my heart in a cold country far from home.

 I absolutely do!

Priya, brought with her a bunch of gorgeous bright cheerful flowers !

 I just had to get the artists to pose with their work:-) Priya with her bold charcoal self -portrait that watches over our study.

Aarohi poses with her vibrant kettle.

...and Priya decides to shoot me while I adjust the camera's timer.

I guess the timer worked well:-) 

This was a fun post to put together, an archive of happy times spent with creative friends in our Bangalore home. A special home that brought loads of happiness to us and corners of which I loved sharing with dear readers of Rang Decor!

These memories will keep me going while I wait for our 40 feet container to come sailing across oceans to our new home after 2 whole months!

To see Priya Sebastian's work do drop by at her blog the plum tree.

To see Aarohi Singh's work do drop by at her website Art by Aarohi.

Do stay tuned for some new features planned for Rang Decor!

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Oh so French End Tables!

Do you love the French Look as much as I do?


Do you also love the look of a finished piece after it was painted and loved with Chalk Paint?

 

So do I! That brings me to these to end tables...





I picked these two tables up at a garage sale because they just spoke to me. They said, "Take me home and show me how to look lovely in French Frocks!" I listened and I heard. So out came the

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Before It's Over ...

I wanted to share our *summer* great room!  Annnd, to show a subtle change done earlier this summer.

Below is how our great room looked last Fall ... can you spot the little difference between then and now?  Yes, we lightened the walls ... yippee! 

We (meaning, I) decided to paint the walls the same color as our dining and sitting rooms, which is BM's Manchester Tan.  Since our home is one big open floorplan, I thought it'd be a nice change to have them all the same color so that one room would flow into the other.  We're enjoying the change and will soon be carrying the same wall color into our kitchen/breafkast room, as well!

While we're in here, I'll show you around our *summer* great room.  First stop, the buffet:

A small demijohn from TJMaxx:

A tall, inexpensive lamp and fun, vintage boat (both from Home Goods):

A rustic anchor and oversized lantern frommmmm ... you guessed it, Home Goods! 

Of course, in keeping with the nautical theme, I simply *had* to wrap the base of the candle with nautical rope, add a small starfish and layer a sea fan behind:

Up above, I found this beautiful piece of art at Home Goods (last year) and was glad I finally found a fun spot to hang it ... I love the serene feel and soothing colors in it:

Come on over and sit a spell (if you can find some room in between the pillows)!

Pillow covers (from Pottery Barn) are pretty popular in our home.  I love being able to change out the covers to suit the season!

A simple vignette sits on the coffee table ... hmmm, *who* emptied the decanter?  Oops:

On our mirrored tables sit the brown lamps that were once on our dining room sideboard.  And, an inexpensive pot filled with faux fern leaves serves as a easy filler for that spot, too:

Sp-EAKING of lamps, this little diddy by the sofa got a little makeover (pictured from last Fall):

No surprise that a bit of leftover Annie Sloane's Old White made its way over the gold:

Lastly, our summer, nautical mantel, which I already shared, but, since it's getting ready to lose its summer look, I thought I'd show it one last time:

I can't believe that in a few, short weeks, I'll be decorating for Fall, will you?!  In the meantime, I've gotten myself in a bit of trouble in the kitchen ... it's going to take awhile (along with pleading with talented neighbors for their carpentry skills since both John and I aren't doing too well in that department), BUT, I know I'm going to love the results ... stay tuned!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Becca

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Garden Teacup Chandy

Do you remember this teacup CANDLEIER that I made and did a post on last year? No?




I had stripped the old electric wires out of it, added these lovely teacups after painting the chandelier. I thought it came out lovely and put it in my antique mall booth.



And it didn't sell. I figured that people want electrified ones, since those sell in my booth. So I brought this one home.


I hung it

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Indian Art: Kalamkari (South Indian Art)

Here is an update. Some of my dear blog readers requested me to elaborate more on different arts I publish under "Indian Art" series on my blog. So from now on posts on different art forms will cover every possible detail. Thanks to all my blog readers for their feedback and lovely comments.
                                                            Kalamkari
As the name suggests kalamkari is an art done on fabric mainly cotton & silk using pen (kalam) and kari means craftsmanship. Kalamkari is an exquisite art of hand painted and hand printed fabric.

Origin:  
It evolved in two villages in Andhra Pradesh  Srikalahsti and Masulipatnam/Machilipatnam.  In Masulipatnam, the weavers took to this art so they used block to print the fabric, while at Srikalalahasti, the Balojas (a caste involved in making bangles) took to this art and it is characterized by freehand drawing using the kalam. 
Kalamkari is a popular art form in the Mithila region of Bihar in India, where women in mostly rural areas paint mythological characters and depict stories in their paintings. These range from flowers, birds and animals to indian god and goddesses, including Rama, Krishna as well as Buddha.

Image Source: Click Here

Style:
Under the influence of Muslim ruler, the Masulipatnam Kalamkari was influenced by Persian motifs & designs,catering to the Islamic aesthetics widely adapted to suit their taste.It involves both printing and painting.This style is characterized by intricate plethora of motifs and forms including the tree of life, creepers and animal figures. Use of flora and fauna were common in this style.

Masulipatnam Style
Image Source: Click Here

Srikalahasti, on the other hand, owing to Hindu rulers, flourished under Hindu temple patronage, and exclusively drew inspiration from mythological figures. Characteristics of this style are excess use of colors like Green, Red, Black, Yellow and Blue, figures of God's like Krishna, Brahma, Ganesha, Durga, Kiratavinyaarjuna, Lakshmi, Rama, Shiva and Parvathi, round faces, long and big eyes, stout figures, motifs with no shadding.

Srikalahassti Style
Image Source: Click Here

The artists use a bamboo or date palm stick pointed at one end with a bundle of fine hair attached to this pointed end to serve as the brush or pen.  

The dyes are obtained by extracting colours form parts of plants - roots, leaves along with mineral salts of iron, tin, copper, alum, etc., which are used as mordants.


Process:
The production process for both the styles of Kalamkari painting is similar to a large extent and is very time consuming. The technique consists of a painstaking process of resist–dyeing and handprinting.  It involves 17 meticulous steps for the Srikalahasti style and 12 laborious steps for the Masulipatnam one.
The fabric is first treated in goat or cow dung to be whitened. Milk is mixed with the solution called Myrobalan to inhibit the color to spread to the next step. The iron acetate solution is filled in for solid spaces or as outlines using brush/kalam in Srikalahasti style ans using block in Masulipatnam style, and all the areas intended to be red are tinted or printed over with the alum solution as a mordant.
The cloth is kept in the same manner for a day and excessive alum is then washed off the cloth under flowing water.
After this, the areas on the cloth that are not meant to be blue are covered with wax and then the waxed cloth is immersed in the indigo solution. In Srikalahasti, the blue is painted with the kalam. The wax is then removed by boiling the cloth in water.
The yellow is dyed on to create the yellow and green motifs.Yellow and green colors are the last ones to be painted on the cloth. After each treatment, the fabric is washed. The piece of Kalamkari undergoes at least 15-20 washes before the final colors become apparent. A complex piece can take up to 9 months to be completed. 
The dyes are obtained by natural resorces liike extracting colors form parts of plants - roots, leaves along with mineral salts of iron, tin, copper, alum, etc., which are used as mordants.

Image Sorce: Click Here

These days lots of variations can be seen in kalamkari. Artists are mixing this art to various other arts to form a masterpiece. 

Image Sorce: Click Here

Though Kalamkari in its simplest version (i.e only outlined figure/motif on fabric) is a masterpiece.

Image Source: Click Here

Leave your comment and let me know what do you think about this art and hope my blog readers will be  satisfied with the more elaborated and detailed post on Indian Art.

Linking this to ShowAndTellFriday @ MyRomanticHome

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Art To Me Is........

Art means a lot in my life. Its everything for me and its everywhere around me. As I said earlier "I find solace in Art". So whenever I'm sad or disappointed I create. Saying that doesn't mean that I create only when I feel down but Art has such impact in my life that it revives my inner-self, it oozes confidence in me, it kills negativity in and around me,it charges my soul,  its sort of energy booster. I find myself as a very new me. 

After a month long sabbatical I'm back and such long vacation made me lethargic.........So to lift up my spirit I created. I wanted to stencil one of the wall in my living room but before that I gave it a try on this pot and it  turned out so well that I'm confident now and soon I'm going to stencil wall also.
This stencil I got free with my acrylic color pack and was wondering since then where I'll going to use it. Then saw this blank and dull pot and decided to give it a new look and here it is............

Now that my creative juices started flowing again stay tuned for more exciting DIY and inspirations.



P.S : All images are blur and dull because I used my VGA mobile camera and these are night shots.

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Thanks Again, BHG.com!

Happy Monday, friends!  I cannot believe that we're already at the end of July!  As much as I love Fall, I don't want summer to end just yet.

Speeeeeaking of Fall ... I was be-YOND flattered (and dumbfounded) when the kind folks at Better Homes and Gardens recently contacted me to see if they could include another Fall mantel of ours as part of this year's Fall Mantel Decorating Ideas feature on their website! 

Here's our mantel from last year and what BHG.com had to say:

Welcoming Fall Mantel

"Becca (adventuresindecorating1.blogspot.com) combined rustic and vibrant elements on her fall mantel, using a metal-and-wrought-iron frame as a focal point for her design. A vintage wooden pheasant figurine, a red fall sign, and small gourds placed under a glass cloche to give her mantel pops of color. Creamy pumpkins, candles, and burlap-wrapped pitcher add to the design, and a garland made from fall-hue wooden beads strung together on picture wire adds a fun layer. The mantel gains a welcoming glow with light-up branches placed in a pitcher alongside faux florals, natural branches, and feathers."

I'm like a proud Mom seeing our little mantel included on their website! When you have a moment, you should take a peek at the other mantels they featured (click here) ... they are fabulous!  And, I'm sure you'll recognize quite a few of them!  Yes, I'm truly humbled to be in their company.

So, again, thank you, BHG.com ... I'm not worthy, but sincerely appreciative!

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Becca

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