Children's accomplishments, and gold painted tree branch with pom-poms and paper flowers

Recently, both my children were honored for the hard work they have done in different areas. My older son Jeremiah Anthony was honored with the Youth Human Rights award for starting a twitter account in his school that sends compliments to other students. My younger son Joshua was honored for receiving the 7th place in the country and 4th place in the state of Iowa in a national level French language test. So I displayed those two certificates in the corner of the family room that I have been working on. I already had the blue border from the scrapbooking section in Hobby Lobby and so I made a frame on the wall with the blue border by sticking the border onto the wall. With Joshua's certificate, I had to place the certificate first in black construction paper and then place it inside the frame made by the border. Jeremiah's certificate already came in a black frame. Also, I had this pretty branch from my yard. So I painted it gold and hung pom-poms I had made earlier, and paper flowers and just placed them in different spots on the branch. In early spring I had seen an idea in marthastewart.com for making paper flowers and hanging them on a tree branch. So that was my inspiration for this. I hope you have a great day!

Flower arrangement with pink, white and yellow flowers and Jasmine sprigs (updated)

With the roses my husband, Jerry, gave me on Sunday (so sweet of my husband) I made an arrangement for our mantel yesterday. Today I made another one for the dining table. I added white daisies from my yard, yellow flowers (Sunray Coreopsis) and two sprigs of jasmine and made this arrangement. I painted gold dots on a table runner I had bought from Hobby Lobby a while ago. I also made gold patterns on the glass fishbowl vase but it isn't visible. Shall take better pictures and post. Have a great day!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

Yesterday my husband got me a few roses. I am very thankful. To make the vase, I made these gold dots on two jars. Then I tied pieces of lace on the jars and then I got two pretty vases for my roses. Have a great day!

Simple DIY using pom-pom trim

I made this simple DIY using some pom-pom trim. I first saw this or something similar to this either in glitterguide or camillestyles. I think the DIY I saw used lace to embellish a clay plant container. To do this I secured the trim to the container using a tac and also drew some patterns on it using gold paint. I hope you have a blessed memorial day weekend.

Organizing with cupcake liners

In a drawer near our kitchen there is a lot of random stuff. Things that are useful but still random. Between yesterday and today I placed cupcake liners inside a plastic tray and organized some of those things inside. Before doing that I dipped the tip of the cupcake liners in gold paint. Now when we open that drawer to get something we can see these pretty cupcake liners. I found this idea in bhg.com. I think they used non-paper cupcake liners. I hope you have a wonderful day!

New gray and white stripe pillow with gold dots for the Family Room

Here is the second gray pillow for the family room sofa. This pillow cover was originally a floral pattern one. I do like floral patterns but more than that I want this room to be soothing for our family. That is why I want to add as much soft gray and soft blue into this room. This is not fully complete because I have to add gold dots to the ruffle on one side. I also have to do a bit more hemming. I had bought this fabric a long time ago just because of the gray. After I made the pillow it seemed kind of drab looking. So I decided to add gold dots to it. I have always loved gold dots on everything. Sometime in January I posted about drawing gold dots on yellow fabric after seeing it in an Indian movie. But I did not want just polka dots. I wanted a small design and so I made dots and surrounded each dot with more smaller gold dots. Tomorrow I hope I can share a sort of an organizational post involving more gold paint. I hope you will check back. Have a great day!

Bird Drawings in the family room

I pray today that God will hold in His arms and comfort all those who are suffering due to the tornado. If you have been following my blog you might remember that last week I drew some birds on a blue fabric in order to introduce more grays and blues into the family room. When I do DIY projects, I usually am in a hurry to see how it looks in the setting where I plan for it to be before it is even done. Well, last week's birds were like that. Done in a hurry 'coz I just wanted to see that blue color framed on that wall. Over the weekend, I realized that it was incomplete and tried to complete it with these. Although I had downloaded several bird images from marthastewart.com I decided to trace the outline of just one bird onto the fabric. So in these two pictures all the birds are the same. I like the uniformity. There is more space on that wall and I am planning to put more pictures. Shall show more as it comes along. Meanwhile, over the weekend, I worked on another pillow cover. I am almost done and cannot wait to share it tomorrow. Here is a sneak peek at the pillow. Yes, this is more gray. Remember I want to incorporate more of that color in the family room. With this pillow I can do that. Shall share more about the gold dots on it etc tomorrow. Hope you will check back. And hope we can all continue to hold up in prayer those hurting due to the tornado!

Adding a bit of blue to the Family Room

Yesterday I drew the outlines of three birds on blue fabric, framed it and hung it on the corner wall of our family room where I made a vignette yesterday. I printed out the bird images from marthastewart.com, traced it first on plain white paper, and then on the fabric and then outlined the image with white fabric paint on this fabric. Recently, I read in an old issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazines that if we have lots of warm colors like yellow or gold in a room, it can feel overwhelming and we can cool it off by adding blues and grays. My family room wall color is a shade of yellow, the curtains are bright yellow, and there are other gold accents in pillows etc. That is why I want to add blues and grays wherever possible. And that is why I chose this blue fabric for drawing the birds. I think, blues and grays can be soo soothing too and it will be cool for the coming warm days ahead of us. My plan is to make this wall into a sort of gallery wall with at least three more pictures on blue fabric. I am hoping it will look nice. What changes are you making in your home in preparation for summer? I hope you have a wonderful day!

Vignette in Family Room

I made this little vignette on a table in the corner of our family room. I made it with this frame I bought from Hobby Lobby yesterday because I love, love this frame. I love the swirls around the frame. I think this type of swirly pattern falls either in the category of Baroque or Victorian style. Either way, I love it. I was so happy to find it half off. The flowers are from my yard and the white cross also is from Hobby Lobby. It also has swirly patterns on it. The C like pattern on the top of the cross is the same as the wrought iron pattern in front of the windows of the home I grew up in, in India. I remember how carefully my parents chose it for the windows when they were building our home. Also, although the above picture is terrible I wanted to share what I did on the lamp over our dining table with sequins. I had a pack of white sequins in our craft cabinet and one day last week inspiration suddenly struck and I wanted to do this to that lamp with these sequins. I looped each sequin through a thread and tied it until I made lots of sequin garlands and then I draped those garlands over the lamp. Does it look nice? I cannot decide. Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. Shall try to take better pictures of the lamp decorated with sequins and share.

(Updated) Tulip with Sequin trim on Gray pillow for the Family Room Sofa

I made a new pillow for the sofa in our family room. On gray fabric, I sewed a silver sequin trim in the shape of a tulip. I had this trim for a while and did not know what to do with it. Since we are in the season of tulips and since the shape of a tulip lends itself to being shaped with sequin trim and since we have tulips in our yard (my husband planted a ton) I made a tulip pattern on this gray pillow. I changed the position of the sofa also. Earlier it was like in the photo below. Also, the sequins on the white lamp you see in this last pic was made by me last week. Shall blog about it later, if possible. Have you done anything with sequin trim? I hope you have a great Monday!

A Journal for Mother's Day (updated)

For Mother's Day I made a journal for my mamma. I made this journal with scrapbook paper, paper border available in the scrap book section of Hobby Lobby, an old picture of my kids, a piece of yarn, and computer printer paper for the pages, needle, thread and glue. I got the idea to make this from MARTHASTEWART.COM. Here is an image of my inspiration. I interpreted this craft in my own way by using scrap book paper, sewing my own book and other small changes. First I made the book itself by folding the scrapbook paper in half, like a book and cutting the printer paper to a size slightly smaller than the scrapbook paper, folding it in half and then sewing both together. Like this. The sewed pages inside would look like this. Then I decorated the cover with this piece of black scrapbook paper with the fleur-de-lis pattern on it in the shape of a rectangle. Inside that, I cut out a scallop-edged oval shape (I had a small photo frame in this shape, so I just outlined it) and stuck it with glue on top of the fleur-de-lis paper. And then I cut out the photo in an oval shape and stuck it with glue on top of the oval shaped paper. Next, I used a paper border and stuck it on both edges of the book. My mamma's name is Leela and so I formed a small piece of yarn in the shape of the letter "L" and stuck it with glue on top. I think after the glue dries I will place a heavy book on this journal so everything gets strong. This is how the back side of the journal looks. Here is a picture of my mmma for my son's baptism in Kerala, India at my parent's home. Isn't my mamma so beautiful. To me, she is the most beautiful woman in the world. I love everything about my mamma. Her voice, her handwriting, her taste..... every thing. Here is a picture of my mamma and my pappa when my son Jeremiah was born. Jeremiah is now 17. When I was really little my favorite thing to do was to do my mom's hair, and reorganize her hand bag. She always had a huge collection of really cute bags. I loved taking everything out and then putting them back in the bag. I loved going shopping with my mamma. If I were in India now or if she was visiting me now I would go shopping with her coz we both enjoy that a lot. I really wish I can spend Mother's Day with my mom. I am really jealous of all people who can actually spend time with their mamma on Mother's Day. Here is a picture of my husband's parents for my son's baptism 17 years ago. My heart goes out to my husband because his mom is with God. She passed 16 years ago from cancer. My mother-in-law used to be a super talented person. I learnt pretty much all the basics in cooking and home management from her. She was just sooooo perfect in the way she managed her home. I really miss my mother-in-law a lot. When I got married, I had no clue about cooking or how to manage a home. My mother-in-law taught me soo much. She was a role model to me. How are you celebrating Mother's Day? Have a blessed day!

Happy Birthday Joshua

On Mother's day, 15 years ago my husband and I brought Joshua home from the hospital. Everyone we met in the hospital hallways, elevator, parking lot etc kept wishing me a Happy Mother's Day. I felt so happy to be holding a perfect little bundle in my arms on Mother's day. Yesterday, our family celebrated Joshua's 15th birthday. Here are some pictures of the table. I really am blessed to be Joshua's mother. Joshua has always been a perfect child. This year, however, probably due to the fact that it is his first year in highschool which is new to him, he has changed a bit. He is not just as perfect as he used to be. But, I know God is testing me to see if I trust Him with my child and so I know everything will be okay soon and Joshua will be perfect as usual. When Joshua was in Junior High he got many opportunities to use his talents. Joshua loves singing, writing songs, dancing etc. In Junior high, he would write a song about pretty much every school assignment and subject and present it in class. But this year, his very first year in high school he has not so far received many opportunities for expressing his talents. Maybe that is why I chose Psalm 1:3 as inspiration for this table. I want Joshua to know that he will be successful in using his talents. I wrote a paraphrased version of Psalm 1:3 on two of the place mats using fabric paint. Because of the tree metaphor in Psalm 1:3, I painted a tree on the table runner using fabric paint. I made banners with pale yellow and mint (I think) green scrapbook paper. On each triangle I either spelled the letters to "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" or I wrote something about Joshua so Joshua could read it. Here is an example: Here is another example. I made a banner for the wall along the stairs so when Joshua woke up in the morning and came downstairs he could read these words about himself. I made this big pom-pom with tissue paper and hung it on the fan in the family room. This is my favorite detail. I sewed pom-poms on both edges of the table runner. The birthday boy. I made a classic vanilla cake from bhg with sour cream frosting. Have a wonderful day!