The Two Bits: 5/1/08

Ok, so my blog looked pretty dull today and so I decided to add some personal color to it :

Those are my brand new tulips. I LOVE tulips and my favorite dream is running a mile between rows & rows of Tulips in Holland... a pretty Bollywoodian dream ;)

And these are my 'Astadhatu' figurines. 'Ashta' means eight and 'dhatu' means metals. These are made of an alloy of eight metals. I love my little iron... er...brass..er... bronze...well Ahatdhatu Men ( Tony Sharp still has a chance, he is HOT ! ;) )

Then again, these are Indian musical instruments made from metal alloy. The stringed one is called Veena and the two drum like instruments are called Tabla.

A Side view....
But wait.... are they really musical instruments?
Can you guess what they are???? ;)

Surprise!!!

This is a After mint & tooth pick serving set!

And this box is my family heirloom! It belonged to my Mother- in- law . It is a handcrafted sandalwood box, with some finest craft I have ever seen! I just love it! :)

Top lid view! That is not very clear in the picture here. It is a pastoral scene of deer grazing in the forests! It reminds me of the scenes on John Keat 's Grecian Urn!

In inside view :) to show you that this is a really really old box being handed down in the family!

And this is my green marble dinning table; inlayed with granite, lapiz lazuli, white marble and some other stones. The coasters you see there are hand made with flat wooden beads colored and strung together with a strong string.

A closer view!

My green marble coffee table hand inlayed with granite, lapiz lazuli, onyx, coral and white marble!

A close view of the design and potpourri :)

She ( does not) sell sea shells on the sea shore ;)
Those are some shell I collected from a beach from South India

Ariel view!

Well this is a sad story. My rooster's faithful hen died . He broke a leg trying to save her but could not ( there you see her lying by at his feet while he is grief stricken and is unable to look. He is leaning on the wall crying his heart out ( Sniff!) ) The whole host of animals heard him crying and came running to see what the matter was. You can see the whole giraffe family there trying to console him and the parrots are observing two minutes of silence. The mother & father horse came with the baby horse too and the deer family came a running as well. The ambulance could not reach on time because of the traffic jam caused by humans, so the bull ran to get his bullock cart. But he could not reach there on time to save the poor hen. (you can see the bullock cart reaching only after the sad demise!
Please observe two minutes of silence even if you are cooking chicken at this moment! Thank you!

This is another sad story. The milkmaid is so sad here, because her cow has been stolen ( really it is the truth. The cow was stolen by one of those painters who came to paint my house, along with a Walkman and some of my son's toys and T- shirts)
In reality , this is a salt & pepper cellar :)

I sometimes dabble with paint on canvas too! :)

& this is acrylic on canvas ...

And this is again oils on canvas

Ok, there is not one but two of these, serialised ;)

And this is where I decided to add some color to the ugly ventilators of my skylight

& this is another story. It was a fancy dress handmade by me for my son's fancy dress competition.It was made from scratch. At eight o Clock in the evening, my kindergarten going son started bawling . When asked why he was crying, he said he needed a dinosaur dress for the competition the next day. He made us rush to the market. all I could find was some green plain material and some fabric paints. I came home armed with these and set to work, using sewing machine and scissors and soon the body suit with a tail was ready. Stuffing tail with cotton made it too heavy and it failed to stay in place. So I finally had to stuff it with rolled up old news papers. And yes, before that, I had to paint those yucky red & yellow spots on the suit. Then I set to make the head. I had to cut two similar heads out of cardboard (teeth & all) and stitch them up to a cap. Then I had to cover the cap with another strip of cardboard , and then paint the spots and the fierce red eyes. I had to stick cones for claws on his fingers too!
All this took me the whole night long! You can see the result for yourself!

And this is Heavy Indian silk with gold and colored beads hand embroidery. This is usually used to make Indian Bridal dress!

And this is Mona wearing the self same Bridal dress on her wedding! :)

& Remember? I told you a long time ago that when I was a kid I was a " candle stick with matchsticks for hands & legs" ( No prizes for guessing which one is Mona out there ;))