Quilled Aluminium

       Inspired by a post by Ann Martin at All things paper I tried some Aluminium quilling. I used  a big needle to roll and it is not as easy as paper of course. I need to do more of this and learn how to cut smaller strips and find some nice tools to roll and clasp the Aluminium at folds.


    I first marked on the bottom of the can to size the strips. (Too big it turned out:(   )

       I cut out the strips .

             I then turned the strip with a twist and then curled it with a needle. 

            After curling for a bit I curled with my hand, somehow after a couple of curls it becomes easy.

         I adjusted the coils as best as I could to get a symmetry . One or two strips tore when I twisted them .

GIVING

             Chart work for Akhil's school -Chettinad Vidyashram. 

Tree tutorial

While working for a Golu many times tree are needed in a scene and this I found is an easy way to make a tree, I have especially made this using bits of themocol that remained from the previous year.

 

I have used both one inch and two inch thick thermocol to make this tree. First I cut the one inch thick thermocol in the shape shown below.

                     

cut the one inch thermocol in the shape of the stem of a tree( you can draw and cut out the shape and then smooth the sharp edges with a foot scrapper) . 

        

Place the cut one inch thermocol tree shape on a two inch thick thermocol and trace the outline.

Cut it out and stick it on the one inch shape one on top of the other.

Fix the stem as well and then randomly remove chunks from the thermocol so that the even surface looks like this( you can give this job to your kids who would love to pluck out small bits of thermocol ).

Paint the green part with yellow first and then with two different shades of green.(Unlike me, please spread an old newspaper down first to save yourself from cleaning all the mess)

Paint the bark of the tree brown, let it dry.

Navarathri Golu

          These are some of the work I did for this year Golu at Avvai.

       

    

       

This origami lotus in a pond is a miniature pond of Madurai Meenakshi temple.(Porthamarai kolam)

This is a scene for a story where the crane refuses to eat the fishes that nibble on the sages who take bath in the pond. I added a quilled lotus to the pond.The fish I cut from thermocol and added silver glitters for the scales.

It became my job to set up these steps . It has five stories for which I have created the scenes and put them up. Though we have our assigned work  , we take lot of help from others.This is just a small part of the golu, the actual story for this year about the Nayanmar , Thirunavukarasar (Appar) covers one half of the hall and two other steps form the Main golu. 

 

       This is a scene again from Madurai Meenakshi temple where lord Shiva dances in a silver stage.(I made this using thermocol wrapped in silver paper.

Along with mythological stories we also have fairy tales and moral stories. This is a tower for Rupenzal I made. I have quilled some creepers on the sides of the wall.

This is the tree I made for the scenes on the steps. I made three of them. They are made of thermocol and painted with acrylic paints.

flower kolam

       Today for the valedictory function of Avvai's inter school competitions we chose to make a poo(flower) kolam. This image of Lord Ganesha is the symbol of Avvai academy . 

       My friend Kavitha and I made this kolam at the entrance of the auditorium .

Positive quotes.

Kaleidoscope

     I have always been fond of kaleidoscopes, but never though of making one. This summer camp at Avvai my friend kavitha taught the students to make a kaleidoscope.( I taught one class of paper art:))).After she finished the class she still had material for two more kaleidoscope. She gave me material to make one for myself .For a long time the mirror strips were in danger of being broken to pieces,lying by themselves on a shelf , then one day I sat down and got it done.

      The materials required are :
3 strips of mirror.
1 triangular glass piece. 
glue
cello tape
butter paper
wrapping paper
cardboard
small beads or broken bangle pieces...

        Join the three mirror strips as shown with the help of cello tape.

    
      Stick the triangular piece of glass on one side also with tape.

Cut a card board into strips with length and breadth a little bit bigger than the mirror. 

      Stick the card board strips on top of the three mirrors and join the edges with tape.The card board should be stuck in such a way that the extra length of the cardboard pieces should stick out on the side where we have stuck the glass piece.So that we get a small space over the triangular glass.

      Put some small shiny objects in that gap and close it with a piece of triangular butter paper piece. on the other side of the kaleidoscope stick a triangular cardboard piece with a hole in the middle.(Feeling the butter paper to be very thin , I have placed a piece of card board strip on top of the first triangular glass along all the three sides and fixed another triangular glass piece over, that is, the shiny objects are between two triangular glass pieces and over the second glass piece I have stuck the butter paper).

      Wrap the whole thing neatly with a wrapping paper. Your kaleidoscope is now ready .