Madubani Painted In Natural Dyes

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
Few days ago when I decided to paint the Madhubani art that my sister had drawn for me, an idea sparked in my mind. The idea was to paint the madhubani art in natural dyes to give it a perfect look and feel of ancient art form of India. Here is my artwork.Here is how I prepared natural dyes:1 part Turmeric powder+2 part water+ boil = Yellow ColorLeaves (preferably spinach/smooth gourd/beans) + crush and squeeze = Sap Green1 Part Beet root + 2 Part water + boil = Red color1 part Blue berries + 2 Part water + boil = Blue colorYou can use various flowers and vegetables to get different colors. Once you are ready with your natural dyes you can get more hues by mixing colors. Like mix red and yellow to get orange, mix blue and yellow to get green etc.

My palette of natural colors 

 I had hard time filling colors in this art as it has very intricate work and I completed it with utmost dedication and lot of patience.  

Closer look of intricate work..

Yes it has turtle too :)

I loved the painting totally. It has come out as I wanted it to be.Have you seen my new blog Lakshya...not yet...then head over there and let me know what do you think of it :)

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Fall Around MY Home!

From outside...









To Inside...


Jello Molds that I hand painted





















Be Thankful










Leaf Watercolor found at a garage sale, put into a vintage frame







The secret to great looking chalkboards...damp chalk!




Evening lighting BEHIND the tray
















Burlap leaf garland from Hobby Lobby this year



















I am ready for FALL!

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Online Shopping @ Pepperfry: Review

I have shopped online with numerous online shopping sites and It's always fun and super easy to shop online. Recently I was asked to review Pepperfry hence I shopped from their 'Home Decor' section. So let me take pleasure to introduce you to Pepperfry.

About Pepperfry:
Founded in July 2011 by Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah, both ex eBay employees who decided to set up their own company. Pepperfry.com opened for business on the 3rd of January 2012 to give customers a wide selection of amazingly priced Furniture, Home and Living products and a consistently great shopping experience.
Pepperfry is today India’s No. 1 online Furniture, Home and Living destination, offering products across categories like Furniture, Home Décor, Furnishings, Kitchen & Dining, Housekeeping, Fitness, Leisure and Pet Supplies.

My Shopping Experience With Pepperfry:

I was asked to choose a product from their 'Home Decor' section. I opened their site and found some very striking features like it is very well designed, easy to browse, vast variety of products, hassle free, time saving and most importantly there are multiple and secured payment options available. Take a look of their well designed portal.

I browsed through 'Home Decor' section and found very interesting and ample number of decor items. To narrow down my search I selected 'Clock' option from the many other available there. That means many products are available there and narrowing your search is just a click away. You can sort the items by their price and  shipping time.

I clicked on the product that I liked and there full description of the product was available with dimensions, colors, price, availability and shipping time. I rolled over the image of the product available there and got a bigger and nicer view of the product. Truly amazing isn't it and I'm very well satisfied now.

You can take their online help at any moment if you have any query or doubt.

Then comes the trickiest part of making payment, but here it seemed the easiest part of the shopping. I took a whole 3 days to choose my product but made payment just in 3 mins....wow that's wonderful. You can pay through Credit Card/ Debit card, net banking, most popular in India COD (Cash On Delivery) and Paypal. 

After placing my order I got confirmation through mail and on the phone also. I placed order on 29th Aug and received it on  4th Sep. Now here I would like to share some pictures that will tell you about their excellent shipping services and well packed products. 

Yes I purchased this 'Vintage clock'. More about it in next post. It reached me safely and as you can see it has a glass panel on both the sides so I was much worried about its safe arrival but when I opened the package I was totally amazed to see the excellent packing and I received my clock without any damage. Thank you Pepperfry for your excellent services.

Stay tuned to see my Painted Madhubani and I have something to share too :)

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Some Pink Beauties

Some pink beauties from my archive.

Tell me aren't these beautiful!!

Images: Homeklonedike

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No Befores, Just Afters

Every once in a while, I get in a hurry and forget to take a before picture. That is the case with this table.


Someone did the work of stripping it down and refinishing it, but with the norm in my booth, if I don't do something different with a piece of furniture, it just sits there not selling!


The top was pretty with the wood inlay...


So I simply paint the legs with Annie Sloan's French

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Fall Sitting Room

As much as I love trying to create soft and serene spaces in our home, somehow, the "old Becca" resurfaces each Fall, wanting pops of bold color!  So, when it came time to tossing pumpkins around our sitting room, SOMEthing just wasn't working.  It was then that a trip to my favorite "Fabric Showcase" solved the problem!

BEFORE ... our "Summer" sitting room was calm, with panels done in soft shades of grey, cream and taupe:

And, HERE it is today!  COLOR!

When I spotted this pretty fabric, I thought it would be a fun addition (thanks to its beautiful deep orange background and various shades of brown, cream and duck egg blue) and tie in with the blue accent chest on the opposite wall:

Pieces which blended in with the other curtains now seem to have a bit more presence:

You may have noticed that I didn't stop there, as the bookcase got a little change for the new season, too.

BEFORE:

AFTER:  I traded out the grey and white script fabric for this cool brown and white chevron fabric (thanks for pointing that one out, Beth):

I love how Fall goodies bounce against it:

Even cute, inexpensive pumpkin plates (from Home Goods) seem to play nicely with it!

I also brought in these large candlesticks from the dining room (and, oops, I forgot to light the wicks for good luck) ... just might have to splash some AS Old Ochre on them to tie in a bit better with the new colors in here!

Over on this wall ... I added large Fall branches to an otherwise muted arrangement.  Annnd, to tie in with the curtains, I decided to add a tiny bit of the same fabric to a simple white pillow:  

I suppose I shouldn't get tooo used to these colors, as I'm sure the oranges and browns will be traded for lots of red later next month!  Oops ... thank goodness Fabric Showcase's prices are really reasonable!

So, tell me ... do you change your fabrics out to suit the seasons, too?  

As always, thanks for stopping by!

And, come on over and party here:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia/Tuesday's Treasures
Stone Gable/Tutorials, Tips and Tidbits
Clean and Scentsible/The Inspiration Exchange

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Quick Update!!

It's a quick update on what I am upto. 

This is Madhubani that my younger sister drew for me. 

Something very special and amazing that I would like to share here is that my sister never heard of Madhubanhi paintings, didn't even know how to make it and then too when I asked her to make one for me she just said yes. You must be wondering here that if she doesn't know Madhubani then why did I asked her to make.
Because I know she can draw very well she is a good painter too, she is an artist at heart who doesn't know much about different art forms but is an excellent artist.

She just googled, stared at some Madhubani paintings, stayed awake till 3:00 AM and next morning I was just surprised and amazed to see what she had come up with. My jaw dropped and eyes popped out when I saw her work.

She made such beautiful Madhubani, I am awestruck to see such intricate work....every detail she gave is beyond excellence. Not sharing complete artwork here as I want to paint it first.

You lovely people...you just stay tuned and I'll be coming up with painted and complete piece of this artwork. Till then you just tell me how do you find the sneak peek of my sister's artwork.

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