DIY's For A Rainy Day

An Indian Summer's DIYs are in Grazia! 

The Makeover: Reclaimed Bottles

The Senior Features Writer at Grazia, Spardha Malik, reached out to me last month, to put together three easy and quick DIYs for Grazia readers. It was after a really really long time that I got my craft supplies out, and then scouted the home for things that could be reclaimed or up-cycled or re-purposed or generally beautified. Not only did I have to Do the It-Yourself's, but also style and photograph each step of the process. And what fun it was to do it all;  industrial strength glue sticking my fingers together notwithstanding! All the three DIYs can be easily done within ten to twenty minutes, and you don't really need any special supplies to make them.

The 2 Minute Cake Stand 

 I upcycled old glass bottles, made cake stands and prettied up a lamp :)

Baubles On A Wire: The Lamp Updo

Grab the June 2013 issue of Grazia India, for step by step instructions on all three DIYs. You can buy the online copy of the mag on zinio or magzter.

Click to Enlarge

Do tell me if you try any of these on a rainy day, or a non-rainy day :)

[All images: An Indian Summer]

Ria's home...

...And a giveaway!

Ria Kaushal wrote to me a couple of weeks back and shared a few tantalizing images from her home, along with the inspiring story of the origin of her organic, handmade, ayurvedic skin care line called Skin Apotheke.

Giveaway alert! Continue reading to win fabulous products from the line!

Mmm...I wonder how she knew about the two loves of my life - beautiful homes and fabulous skin!

I am so excited to share Ria's lovely home in Miami with you. Ria has a natural flair for styling and it is inspiring to see how she transforms a room just by rearranging a few decor pieces and adding fresh flowers and tea lights.

Ria enjoys hunting for eclectic pieces on sites like EBay, One Kings Lane, Fab.com, Amazon and stores like Kilol, Anokhi, FabIndia and Good Earth back home in India. 

I love how Ria uses textiles to change the look of the bedroom. She made the headboard herself using a large canvas and fabric from Anokhi.

And the view that draws her back home, each day :)

This lovely warm home is where Ria works hard to create her organic skin care range of products for us. A quick introduction to Skin Apotheke:

Skin Apotheke is fresh handmade organic skin care based on ayurvedic principals from India. Ayurveda is the oldest healing science dating back to 1500 BC and ayurvedic beauty is holistic, deriving its knowledge from the laws of nature. Skin Apotheke products are 100% natural, organically sourced, chemical free, paraben and synthetic free products that deliver. Skin Apotheke uses only premium USDA certified organic oils, butters, flowers, herbs and other botanicals for all the skincare and incorporates some of the most effective anti-aging ingredients available in the market.

 

The Giveaway!

Ria has very graciously offered to giveaway, not one, but two of her products to 'An Indian Summer' readers. And we will pick two readers (by random number selection), who will receive these amazing skin care products in a package:

Organic Ubtan face clarifying cleansing scrub, and

Rose quartz organic essential cellular peptide serum

Thank you, Ria!

How to enter the giveaway?

Just comment on this post, and

Apart from letting us know how you like Ria's home :)

Tell us your favorite skin or hair care tip!

You have a week to comment

Make sure you leave your email ID so that we can reach you

Ria and I will announce the names of the two lucky readers

On Aug 24th!

[Open to all. Ships anywhere in the world]


All Images: Ria Kaushal
Buy Skin Apotheke here
On facebook
Write to her

Kalamkari - The Art of Textile Painting

I am in love. With the amazingly rich textile tradition of India! As I select exquisite fabrics and furnishings for the upcoming bazaar, I can not resist buying double the quantity, so that I can have them at my home too. You can very well imagine what this is doing to my budgeting and thoughtful financial planning!

One such rich textile art that I am planning to get is Kalamkari. Kalam means 'pen' and Kalamkari literally would mean 'Pen craft'. The name is believed to be derived from trade relationships between Persian and Indian merchants as early as the 10th century. Interestingly, European merchants had different names for similar textile art in their geography: the Portugese called it pintado, the Dutch used the name sitz, and the British preferred chintz. Kalamkari today is synonymous with both painted and hand block printed textiles that incorporate natural vegetable/organically derived colors, and the art is primarily practiced in the state of Andhra Pradhesh in India.

Kalamkari in contemporary furnishing...

Beautiful designs from Anupama

Kalamkari bed furnishing found on Overstock

If you would like to try your hand at creating Kalamkari fabric or painting yourself, you can find excellent tutorials here

[History source: Kalamkari Art]

Paper Art

Leave me unattended in a paper shop

And I can browse for hours

Feeling the texture

Smelling the unique fragrance of handmade paper

Fingering the delicately embedded bougainvillea flower or a tree leaf

Lingering over the translucent sheets

Trying to decide what not to pick, what to leave behind

And walking out with arm loads of delicious paper

Promising to be back soon!

Showcasing Art made of

Organic hand made paper

Simple and elegant

something that we can create ourselves

when at home on a rainy day!

[These beautiful posters are from Auroville]

Now why didn't I think of this before...

Presenting some really cool home products as showcased on Better Living through Design. What I love about the products showcased in this post is that they are simple, very practical, yet great to look at and acquire for your home!

Unfortunately, a lot of the product manufacturers do not ship to India directly. So the options are:
- Browse Better Living Through Design and order for these to an address in the US from where you could get the product shipped to India
- Try recreating it on your own. Read my expert (ahem!) DIY tips...



What a great idea for apartment dwellers! Designed to straddle the railing of a balcony, the pots are made from water-resistant polyethylene

DIY - Would be tough to get this made in polyethylene yourself (unless you know a manufacturer!) - try it out in fiber glass.

I often grumble that my planters spoil the surface they are kept on - whether granite or tiles. The planters shown in the pic here are the perfect solution! Not only do they look good, but can be arranged in stacks or rows - as you want.

Simple, classic, can be placed anywhere and looks awesome!

DIY - Get a carpenter to give you an estimate of how much wood will be required - get the shelves and side bars cut at the wood shop itself. With a good drill, solid nails and strong adhesive - this is probably a 4 hour job (with a drink or two thrown in for good measure - after all, you need to replenish yourself while working so hard!). Paint/polish it to go with the rest of your furniture, or paint it in a contrasting color to stand out as a feature in a room

And, here is another option for simple, but oh so chic shelves!

DIY - Material same as above. This could be built to be put up on a wall too.

Lamps...with holes :) ...this reminds me of the quick fix Rangoli maker somehow

DIY - Need soft metal sheet, or handmade paper. Draw the pattern out (i.e. mark the holes) on the flat sheet and then use a sharp object to puncture the holes. Place the rounded lamp shade on an existing lamp base and you are done!

Another great lamp! This one would look so good in an all white setting

DIY - You can customize it for a kid's room. Take translucent paper, and either paint on it, or print out a collage of pretty images on it. Use it as a shade on an existing lamp base

This is one of my favorites! I love the natural look and feel. This table/console has been made of concrete

DIY - Use flamed granite slabs to create this for your home. If you are building a house, you would typically have left over stone slabs/strips which could be used for this. Something like this would look awesome at the entry foyer

And finally, monsoon has arrived in India! Umbrellas are out, and who wouldn't love a self respecting umbrella which can stand on it's two feet...i.e. stand on its own little stand!

Isn't this a great idea? ...Now, why didn't I think of this before...

All images courtesy Better Living Through Design

Tools of the trade

For folks who are in the process of doing up their homes - some tools which can help you visualize and play around with the layout of a room

Kitchen planner from Ikea

Design your furniture and try out placement within a room with Bo Concepts

Interactive room planner and also a home decor organizer from Pure Contemporary

Happy Designing!

Now, where have I seen this before...

...in my grandmom's kitchen!

Not the fountain of course, but the copper bowls :-) I am impressed by such an innovative use of a day to day utility item - though yes, we don't really use such dinnerware/utensils any more.

These mini fountains are from Gaiam (pronounced "guy-um") who specialize in 'green living products and natural home decor'. The good thing about these fountains is that apart from looking awesome, they run on solar energy!

DIY: Taking a first cut at how something similar could be built at home:

- Gather or buy copper bowls as shown in the pic. If not easily available at home, you would be able to find these in old city markets

- Get a stand (iron stands would also do) shaped the way you would like to place the bowls. Such stands are easily available at the plant nursery (planter holder), or can be designed by you and created by the local ironsmith

- For the fountain effect, ie. overflow of water from one bowl to another, decide whether you want the bowls to have a spout, or you want the water to 'overflow' (possible when you place bowls in order of small to large to hold the overflow), or you want to water to seep through (drill holes)

- Placement: Near an existing water source. Ideally in the garden or terrace that already has a water tap and drainage. I am not a big fan of placing miniature fountains inside the house - I think that looks tacky :-

- Now the interesting part: Making the fountain operational!!

I will try and take a stab at this one ;-D ...

I guess at the most basic, you will need a thin water hose. Attach it to the base of the top bowl in a way that its not visible (try camouflaging with plants, or route it through a cooper pipe). Now, the simplest way that I can think of is that whenever you want to run the fountain, open the tap (at the desired flow level), and close the tap when you want to shut it off! :-D

But if you want to keep the fountain running, you need more engineering and equipment like a pump and connection to electricity (or as with Gaiam, solar panel to power the pump). This is a good time to catch hold of your husband/brother/father/handyman, and before I get accused of being sexist, catch hold of Anyone who knows how to hook all this up!

- Additional feature: If there is enough space, and placement looks good, you can add in a nice wind chime which will chim and chime when the water flows! (something like this should go with the look)

The one key thing would be to make sure that the water used is being recycled - use it to water the garden, or Mr/Ms. Handyperson can fix it up in a way that the water is being recycled for the fountain itself

This post is inspired by my favorite aunt who has lately been thinking of DIYing a fountain in her garden and has been discussing some very interesting ideas with me :)

Color me tender, color me true...Wall Art Part I

As I gradually do up my home (trust me, it does take time for some one as 'selective' as I am- that's what I call myself, but others might just call it being in the state of 'can't ever make up her mind!'), I become fascinated with one aspect of interiors from time to time. My current mind space occupier are Walls - colored walls, patterned walls, textured wall, wall papered walls, rocky walls - you name it, I have visualized it!

While there is an amazing variety of options available in the US and UK, I did some research for what is available in India. In this post, I will cover some interesting options provided by Asian Paints , and also what I will do MYSELF [:-D] to one of our master bedroom walls

First, some Elvis Presley for walls by aforementioned paints:

Quite nice...though I wonder how long can one live with a dominant wall color...in any case, there is no harm trying!

Now, what I want to do MYSELF...

1. Pick up a wall and color it in ochre- which along with sounding quite exotic, looks somewhat like the color tick marked in the shade card below:

Pic Courtesy: http://www.apaints.com/

2. The paint would be textured and would look something like this:

3. Now, pick up a nice wooden handblock (see pic below):

Pic courtesy: http://www.eastofhere.co.uk/

4. Some of the maaany designs available in handblocks are given below:

Pic courtesy: http://www.craftrevival.org/ (ask me why I put the link before the image and spoiled the consistency of this post...^&*@# formatting trouble)

5. Dip the handblock in deep cooper color and run amok printing on the ochre textured wall (not run amok exactly - but do some thinking around spacing the prints out, symmetry etc)

6. And voila! the wall that I did MYSELF...ahem, will do MYSELF will be ready! :-)

Well, there will be a day in the near future when I post the pic of the finished wall!

More to come on walls in Part Deux of Wall Art...