Diwali Sparkles With..

Coppre and Poshlyfe!

Tis be the festival of lights and sparkles

And the season of giving

Two more lovely giveaways

For anyone and everyone with a shipping address in India

Coppre

Coppre reflects the legacy of metal craftspeople. It is the outcome of a creative collaboration with the Tambat metal craftspeople, to evolve a contemporary range of copper products that cater to the present while retaining intact, the heritage craft process. Coppre works with the craftspeople, by contemporizing their products, thereby making the old relevant in the new. The team at Coppre [Rashmi, Seemantini, Supriya, Sudakshina and Anita] bring dignity and efficiency to this ancient craft by linking talented designers to craftspeople and presenting their craft to the world.

Seemantini reached out to me in September this year and shared the beautiful metal work done at Coppre. We decided to host this lovely giveaway during the festive season where one lucky lucky reader will get one meditation urli and a set of 'circle of light' tea lights.

 

And here's how you enter the giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on facebook right here, telling us how you would like to use the two beautiful pieces from Coppre in your home (make sure you are logged into facebook to do so)

2. Double your chances peeps! Leave a comment on this post too!

3. That's it! Wait for result to be announced on Nov 16th.

Poshlyfe

Poshlyfe is a children's online boutique offering fun, fashion forward and effortlessly cool clothes and accessories for girls, boys and babies, was started by Sangita, Sinduja and Bhaskar this year in August. Sangita and Sinduja are both fashion graduates from NIFT, currently based in California, with more than a decade’s experience in design, in various roles. The labels carried by Poshlyfe are a handpicked collection of premium international brands from across the world ranging from popular name brands along with lesser known specialty brands but all well-made, beautiful but-not-terribly-expensive kids’ stuff. Poshlyfe’s unique service is to provide creativity with functionality via our Stylist. The built-in Stylist shows how to combine pieces from our collection to create a look and complete an ensemble. 

 

For the Poshlyfe giveaway, there are three happy readers to be picked, who can chose one from the following products, based on whether you want to pick up a dress for your little girl, or Tshirt for your boy or a knit pant for your baby (various sizes available in all three).

And how to enter the giveaway? Here's how:

1. Leave a comment on facebook right here, telling us which of the above product you would like to win and how would you style your little munchkin in it? (make sure you are logged into facebook to do so)

2. Double your chances peeps! Leave a comment on this post too!

3. That's it! Wait for result to be announced on Nov 16th.

Coppre and Poshlyfe: Thank you girls for the lovely giveaways for An Indian Summer readers! :)

[Images copyright: Respective stores and An Indian Summer]

Diwali Blast With..

Play Clan and We Make Love!

Two fabulous giveaways

For anyone and everyone with a shipping address in India

For this Diwali,

We are going to have a blast!

Play Clan

Awarded the Best New Talent by EDIDA and selected as a finalist for the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award 2011 by British Council in India. Play Clan combines fashion, art & design to create collections in home, apparel, stationery & gifts. Inspired by everyday observations & vibrant colors, Play Clan celebrates life & Asian subculture. Play Clan retails from self run stores in: Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Pune, Chennai, Fort Kochi, and Pondicherry.

And this superb store would like to giveaway not one, but three lovely items to one lucky reader. A bright cheerful cushion, a quirky eye mask and a Ghalib journal. Read below on how to enter the giveaway..

1. Leave a comment on facebook right here, telling us your favorite memory from Diwali (make sure you are logged into facebook to do so)

2. Double your chances peeps! Leave a comment on this post too!

3. That's it! Wait for result to be announced on Nov 16th.

We Make Love 

We Make Love is a theme based webstore for design originals, gift ideas and creative finds.  Products are carefully curated on the basis of a theme. These themes are based on occasions and festivals and may change as quickly as festivals in India! The theme sets a guide line for what is to be curated and the team start their hunt for designs and ideas, scouring designer workshops, ransacking vintage markets and traveling to far flung places to find fun, loving and unique objects.  It has been three months since Nikhil Paul launched WML. Nikhil is a post graduate from Domus academy, lived in Italy for five years and then back to India to start WML, bringing his interdisciplinary approach to this eclectic webshop.

We Make Love is very happy to giveaway a goodie bag filled with three unique products to one happy An Indian Summer reader. Enter the giveaway to win 'Get Lucky Playing Cards from Iktaara, a set of Flight tea light holders from WML Home, and Fluke books journal from Tara.

And here's how you enter the giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on facebook right here, telling us what you love about this festive season (make sure you are logged into facebook to do so)

2. Double your chances peeps! Leave a comment on this post too!

3. That's it! Wait for result to be announced on Nov 16th.

A big thank you to Play Clan and We Make Love for these lovely gifts for An Indian Summer readers! 

[All images copyright: Respective stores and An Indian Summer]

 

Shivani Dogra

I love it when readers share with me what they think I will love and what other readers might love. With so much love in the first sentence of the post itself, you must have gotten an idea of how happy I was when Elise, a long time reader, shared Shivani Dogra's work with me. As I browsed through her portfolio, I marveled at the range of her design aesthetics and the brilliant styling. Her creative use of textiles and colors seem to bring new life to spaces, as is also very evident by some of the before afters showcased on her website. 

Shivani and I connected, and she shared her portfolio of work and her story with me. Over to Shivani now, as she takes us through her journey so far, in the world of beautiful interiors...

I left my first job in the film industry in Mumbai to take a break and stay with family in Delhi hoping to return shortly. That never happened and I soon found myself in a new job in Delhi, and in a small 1 room set with, a large, shady Jamun tree just beyond the window by my bed and masses of vibrant bougainvillea - something I could work with; even it wasn’t in the best shape inside. I worked on these rooms in fits and starts. I’d pick up artifacts from old markets around the country on my travels for work, reuse old bedspreads to upholster chairs, paint the walls and doors in colors I loved, till it became a space that I loved coming back to in the evening after work. It wasn’t till one dull afternoon at work, however, when I decided to start a blog about my room and how you could live quite well on a relatively small budget that a new, unexpected career started to take shape. That amateur blog opened new doors for me and I find myself deeply involved in a career I love..

My biggest influences and inspiration is color, color, color. Present in abundance throughout this country, the creative use of color is a constant source of inspiration for me. The varied shades of a street vendor's saree, a two-tone book jacket in a store window, bright graffiti on a crumbling wall, intricate weaves dipped in natural dyes--the sight of vivid colours uplifts and excites me, even when I'm stuck in traffic.

I find it thrilling to encounter beauty in today's built environment, amidst concrete monotony. Despite the mad rush to grow and develop in India, beauty in our lives and surroundings persists and that encourages me. I see examples of this constantly-- in a charming and quaint old home, with a sprawling veranda, amid Mumbai's high rises, in a uniquely preserved and a colorful old house amid Amritsar’s bustle.

Old homes and gardens have long been a passion. This goes back to my upbringing on the tea plantations of the South. The simple, elegant bungalows  surrounded by flowering gardens and orchards, were my first lesson in style. It was a lifestyle that reflected warmth, simplicity, and a closeness to nature. I work to create those qualities in every project I take on.

 

Whenever I begin a new project, it’s important for me to wander a bit at first, exploring the space’s environs, learning about those who will reside or work in it—their stories, its story. Much like a good novel, the space becomes a world that I inhabit for the length of a project and miss when it’s over. I immerse myself in the design traditions and crafts of the area and source materials locally whenever possible. I also work closely with the client to understand his or her vision and interests. A space should reflect both the personality of its inhabitants and the context in which it exists. I strive to bring these together in my designs. I especially love creatively matching and harmonizing the colors of a space’s interiors with the shades of its natural surroundings.

  

Shivani: Thank you for sharing your work and inspiration with us! Hope we get to see many more of your creative projects on An Indian Summer in the future!

[All images copyright: Shivani Dogra and An Indian Summer]

Like Magic..

..I vanished

And now I am back!

I have been traveling, my dearest peeps. Spent a week at the Neemrana Hill Fort and a week at Jaipur and once again marveled at the heritage, architecture, crafts and textiles of the royal state of Rajasthan. I had a great time, but I did miss you! To make up for time that I was away, I have many lovely posts lined up and some exciting giveaways scheduled for this starting-to-get-chilly month of November.   

Thanks to all those who dropped me an email or a note on facebook. If you haven't heard back from me yet, fret not, for you shall within the next couple of days. I'll be back on Monday, with fresh inspiration and more such things that make us go aah! :)

[All images taken by this person who writes this blog. This person being moi :)]