My first art exhibition

I am writing after a long sabbatical. The post I am writing today was supposed to be posted a long long time ago. Never the less, I am writing it today.

Last season, ie. in October, I joined an art class which is an Adult education class sponsored by the LAUSD. Its a small class that is conducted very near to my home in Los Angeles with a very minimal fee. It is a studio class for painting in different mediums - oil, watercolor and acrylic. It is not a strict serious art class but I would say a readymade studio with an instructor who lets you do what you wish to do during class hours. We have an interesting lot of students coming in there. The class consists of not more than 20 students out of which 90% are retired and at the last innings of life. The enthusiasm with which they are involved in the class is so encouraging. I just love it. And truly, most of them are real good artists. As a matter of fact, I am the only amateur in the class still struggling with mixing the right colors.

I started with Oil painting in this class and I still continue to do so. Just before Winter break, the instructor (Ms.Sybil Gonzales) organized an art exhibition to in the basements of one of the tower buildings in the community encourage her students . And truly, with hardly any investment, she managed to put up a wonderful show. It had all the ingredients of a professional art exhibit. Some students had even put their paintings on sale. We had wine, crackers and cheese and a small silent auction too. She was also very happy to display my quilled cards at the exhibition. Let me share a few pictures from the exhibition with you all.

The lady in black is the instructor - Sybil Gonzales

People at the art exhibit

Beautiful Still life by one of the students

Joseph's Picasso kind  paintings

Few more water color paintings

Beautiful collage and paintings by a friend

My first amateur art work at the exhibit :)

My quilled greeting cards which the instructor called - one of a kind :)

We would have another Art exhibit coming up at the end of the summer season which I am pretty excited about. This time I would have at least 3 paintings at the display and hopefully some cards too. 

 And this time, I hopefully will be on time to blog about it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I made a bunch of New year cards but unfortunately I have pictures of only one.

The colors look pretty dark in the picture but they aren't in reality. Its shades of purple.  Here is a closer pic:

 

 The sentiment is heat embossed with clear embossing ink. I got the MArtha Stewart embossing starter kit but wasn't really happy with the result. I figured out it is the glue pad which is the culprit. To solve the problem, I got Versafine watermark glue pad, and it works just perfect. Here in this card, I have used the cheap $1 ink pad that you get at Michaels and embossed it with clear embossing powder. You may not see the embossing clearly here but it looks much better than simply stamping the sentiment. It gives a dimension to the card. Gosh, I so should have taken pictures of the other cards which involved a lot of embossing.

Anyhow...Hope you all had a wonderful New year's eve and wish you all a very Happy 2012. 

CHALLENGES:

Anything goes - Challenge #58,

Holiday season cards!

Hi People,

I have not 1, but 2 cards to share in this blog post. They were all made for the holiday season.
Being a quilling enthusiast, I usually like to incorporate  small quilled trinkets in my cards. However, I would always shy away from making the most beautiful of all - the quilled snowflakes. I used to see so many quilling geniuses making these beautiful intricate snowflakes and I wished if I could achieve the same perfection. So here are my quilled snowflake cards following the tutorials from Ann Martin's blog. I am avid follower of her blog and I guess most of you must be following her too. She is simply awesome :)

Here are the pics:

Snowflake card

Snowflake in two colors

I wouldn't say these are my best quilled snowflakes. I am sure I can better this. Its not perfectly symmetrical. But never the less, I am happy with the outcome.

Hey people, have you noticed the textured paper?  You guessed it right! I got CUTTLEBUG...Yipppiee!! I got it as a gift on thanksgiving from my gem of a husband. I am sure most of my fellow crafters already own one, but the sheer joy of receiving your first is awesome. Isn't it? When my mailman got the parcel, I was jumping with joy.. (Well, not literally..but I am sure my heart did take a leap of joy !!)

Many more cards to follow and I have to tell you about the art exhibition in our community. I had my cards displayed there and...well well well..I will save it all for the next post. Till then..Happy Holidays!!

                                                                                        

Lil Birdie Card

As I promised in my previous blog, I am back to share my second card with all of you.

Here it is:

 This is my Little birdie Birthday card! I had these plastic funky eye stickies in my stash since a long time. I received them in my first quilling set. Almost after 1 and half years, i thought of using them and I am pretty happy with the result. It really looks like the birdie is staring at you with eyes wide open :). I even quilled a fish similarly but I have still  not used it on a card. Need a fishy sentiment to go with it. Put it in comments if you think of a fishy line for an occasion and I will use it to make my fishy card!

Quilled Santa Claus Card

Hi People!

I am so glad I finally took out some time to write a blog post. Its almost after two months but believe me, I keep checking out your blogs and its fun to see all your lovely creations.

In the community where I live, we are having a small ART exhibition this weekend. I made quite a few cards for this exhibition and I am excited to share all of them with you. But it would come one by one.

Here is a quilled Santa Claus card I made as it is the Christmas  season.

Isn't he cute?? :)..I wish I could make a better beard for him though :) Sentiment is hand-written. Rest is usual. Let me know what you guys think of my Santa!

Make A Wish Card

Hi Everyone...

I guess it has been more than three months since I have written a post.. I myself don't know the reason very well. I have been busy but now if I think of it, I did have time to write but just didn't happen..Anyhow...Here is a card I made after ages...And I love the way it has come out.

Make a Wish Card

My photos never do justice to the real card. The colors are much softer in reality. Next time I would use a better camera to take pictures.

Do let me know what do you think of the card. I would be happy to know your views.

Navy Blue and White Thank you card

I have been soo busy... Its more than a month that I have done any craft...And I sure missed it...
Sneaked out a little time and made this.. I have also observed, I cannot force myself to do something creative. The creative juices got to flow :)

Here is a card I made yesterday.

 

Its a 4"x5" card. The layout is a self thought.  I wanted to do a navy and white card since a long time and finally I made one. The sentiment is hand written. Spare me for the poor photo quality. I need some photography lessons for sure :)

Another news!  A very good friend of mine who is a very good artist cum writer cum photographer cum guitarist and the list goes on has started blogging. Here is the link. Vinu's sketches and photographs are spectacular and I am happy, after a lot of urging, he has started writing. Do care to visit his blog.

Till my next card, a very happy weekend to all. Enjoy!

My Mother's day cards

I know its a little late in posting my cards for Mother's Day..But better late than never right!! Honestly speaking, I am not very much for these kind of day celebrations...be it daughter's day, father's day, brother or sister day. We don't really need a special day to celebrate life.. Do we? I don't intend to start a debate here... I am just being honest and everyone has a right to personal opinion..Why did I make these cards then...simple..I love making them :). I am sure my folks will appreciate my honesty !!

Did I mention 'cards'?..well, no typo here. One is for my birth Mom and the other is for my after marriage Mom..technically put Mother-in-law but I don't like the technical term anyways..

Well, here are the cards I made for my dear Mummies -The left one is for my Birth Mummy and one on the right is for my post marriage mummy :). The sentiment truly say what I feel for both of them. We are in different continents but lucky me is going to meet both of them soon. Love you Mommies :)

 

Card making details: The layout is from Clean and Simple stamping blog. I really love their layouts.  The sentiments are partially stamped and partially hand-written. Next thing to add to my Michael's shopping list - Alphabet stamps :) ..

Hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day.. I couldn't celebrate with them the same day but I am looking to all the good time I am going to have with them soon :) :)

Challenges: sparkles forum challenge
                   Paper Cuts challenge
          SNSDC Challenge
        

Cupcake card and the Award

Crafty Ann's Challenge blogNews ..News ..News .. My elder sister had a baby girl a few days back and she is such a gorgeous little angel..  Luck me, my sister is just two hours from my place and I got to spend some time with my niece. Hence, the long break from blogging.  I was waiting to share the new stuff I made since a long time.

Here is another digital stamp that I made. It's a cute little cupcake digi-stamp..my husband helped me watermark it. The water-mark would be my blog logo too. I ma working on it and soon it will be there!

.

Cupcake Digi-stamp    

It is a freebie and you can grab the JPEG image just by clicking the below thumbnail:


I made a Happy birthday card using the same image. Here it is:

 

Cup-cake card

 Hope you all like the freebie and if you grab it, do let me know! I would like to see your work using it :) !!

And hey..I got one more news to share . I got this 'Stylish blogger Award' from Romina of  Romina's Creative Crafts. Thank you soo much Romina. Its my first award and I am thrilled to get one. Romina has lovely ideas and wonderful cards you all should check out.


Here is the Award. Thanks once again Romina !!

 

Stylish blogger award from Romina

         

Challenges: Moving along with times-Cake challenge, Paper craft star challenge  
                    Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog

Damask Patterned Card

I never really thought I would enjoy card making so much. Here is another card I made this weekend following the layout on clean and simple blog.

I have tried to make damask patterned paper here with a stamp that I got from Michaels. Lately, I am quite attracted towards damask patterns and I keep looking for them everywhere. The pattern gives a classy feel to anything it is used on. Be it fabrics, wall-papers, furniture, books and the list goes on.  I especially like it in the grandpa kind of armchairs. 

I wish I have a big house someday where I can have my own library.  I would place a big damask armchair there. What a bliss it would be to enjoy reading a book sitting on it with a cup of hot coffee. .. Okay...eyes opened...whooosh goes the dream!! :) Time to get back to work. Hope you all had a good weekend and yes.. happy crafting!

Challenges: Craft your passion , Incy wincy Designs 

First Digistamp made by me!

Yes...Yes..Yes...I wanted to do my own digistamps since a long time and finally I could. Thanks to my husband who helps me in every way possible to let me achieve what I really want. :).

Since childhood, I used to doodle a lot. Any scrap of paper or clean white boards I came across, I would doodle something on it. The first and the last page of my notebooks would usually be filled with flowers, stars, and of course my signature (As if I was practicing to autograph someday :P).When I was working in India, we had this personal white boards, and everyday I would draw anything random on it, just to take a break from the mundane routine. Thus, doodling and drawing has been a part of my life. And now that i am into crafting so much, I thought to myself why not do it digitally.

Here is my first digistamp - 'The fly and the caterpillar' that I would like to share with you all.  To all my friends who are into crafty stuff like me, I am giving it out as a freebie. Click on the image for the PNG and JPEG format. Do let me know if you like it and use it in your project. I would be very glad to see your enhancements to it.

THE FLY AND THE CATERPILLAR_PNG FORMAT(Click image to download)




THE FLY AND THE CATERPILLAR_JPEG FORMAT(Click image to download)

Punched flowers

I have been so busy since last few days. But it has been a good week! Since I am involved in a job where we need to send shipments to clients, I had made a lot of thank you mini cards to send along with them. I hope it brings a smile on their face when they receive it. :)

Here is the card I made yesterday with punched flowers. The layout is inspired from Clean and simple blog. They have super layouts laid out for beginner card-makers like me.  There was this good 40% off sale going on in Michaels for paper trimmers. And I bought the fiskars paper trimmer. Its such an awesome tool. Totally worth the deal :) I want to buy scrapbook floss and paper piercing tool and the stores never have it. Hope to find them soon!

Challenges: Moving with the times,Pals Paper Arts

Spring again!

I guess the spring season is reflecting in my work. Today I made a quilled card which I was so eager to share to with you all. Its almost 1 am in the night but I couldn't wait till morning to share this. Here it is!

The colors never come up as good in the picture as in reality. The twirls are actually in silver tone and not grey as it is seen in the picture. I think I need to buy a SLR to click better images of my projects..or may be its just my dumb photography. Anyways...To me, nothing looks as pretty as a quilled flower on a card. I just love quilling. It requires a lot of patience and hard work but its all worth it in the end. Here is the complete card.

I am quite happy with the stamped sentiment too. You know what, I made the entire card first, and then did the stamping, Now I am just a beginner in stamper and believe me it requires a little amount of skill. Especially with the wooden stamps, in which you cannot see the bottom of where you are stamping exactly. A little here and there, and your card is ruined. I literally prayed for a second before stamping this one ..:-D..And it worked huh !! :)..The screen seems to be blurring on me now..or is it my yawning thats got tears in my eyes!! I should be off to sleep :)..Have a great tomorrow!!

Stamping and quilling !!

Here's my first card where I have tried to create a pattern on the paper using clear stamps.

Sorry for the poor image. I always blog in the night and click images then. So, do you like the pattern in the card? I could have done a better job but still, its cute..isn't it?

The ribbon is from India. I just love the color of it! Thanks to my lil sis :). The sentiment is handwritten with the 3D liner. I had quilled the flower long ago. Finally, I used it.  I am quite happy with this card. Do let me know what you think too !!

The color is blue!

Did you guys watch the cricket semi-finals between India and Pakistan? It was the god of all games I would like to believe. Wow..a huge huge win for India..And I am glad I witnessed it. The men in blue did an awesome job. I was especially impressed with our much under-estimated bowling line. Nehra made every Indian eat his words. What a game! Phew..Just waiting to see the Sri Lankans getting beaten hard at the Finals..Sachin, you deserve the World cup.. Currently, every Indian must be in love with the color blue as I am.So, I had to a make a best wishes card on this occasion and it had to be the Indian blue for sure. Have a look!

My beloved sister sent  the 3-D sparkling liner and the buttons from India for me. I was dying to use them and here I got the opportunity. The sparkling liner looks a bit tarnished in the picture but in real, it looks very pretty. The rhinestone, stamp and ribbon are from Michael's Art and craft. I still have to improvise on my cutting skills though. But I am happy with the card :)
 So, heres wishing the Indian team all my best wishes my style!

I am entering my card to the following challenge:

Paper Romance Bling Challenge

Veggie Muffins

Yes...Its a recipe post after a long time. As I have always mentioned, baking to me is like magic. The mystic joy of seeing my pastries and muffins puff up through the oven glass door is something I always look forward to when I am baking. I know...silly me :)

Anyways, the recipe that I am sharing today is quite different. I am sorry I lost the link where I had read it long time ago. I was simply blog hopping when I came across this recipe for corn meal muffins. It just stayed with me and I thought to myself, I will try it someday. Well, I did and added few tweaks to it. Here it is:

For 10 to 11 medium sized muffins, you will need:

1 and 1/2 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1 and 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 cup cabbage
1 chopped green chilly
chopped coriander
1/2 cup green peas
shredded cheese
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Method -

In a skillet, just saute the green chilly, cabbage and green peas for 2 mins in oil. Add a little salt to taste.
In another bowl,  mix rest of the ingredients and whisk them together. I made buttermilk out of two spoons of plain yogurt and water blending it before adding it to the mixture. Now add the sauteed cabbage to the batter and mix it all well.

By the time you get all these ingredients ready, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (It can vary for different oven. This is the temperature at which my oven bakes the best!).  In a muffin tray, lightly butter the muffin cups so that muffins come out easily leaving one cup empty. Fill in the cups 3/4Th. of the original size with the batter and top it with shredded cheese (I used cheddar cheese. You may use what you like.). Fill the remaining one cup with water to assist baking well. I don't know the exact reason why it is done, I simply follow it :D. If anyone knows about it, please share it with me too!

Place the tray the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes at 450 degrees F. After around 20 minutes, check the muffins by inserting a fork. It should come out clean. Yoohoo!! Our veggie muffins are ready to eat !

Veggie-muffins

Just to give you an idea, I would say it tastes a little like the indian Dhokla or idli but still has its own unique flavor. It could be ideal for breakfast or to carry it with you when in a hurry. Relish it with tomato ketchup or green chutney.

Vegetable muffins

You may also add your favorite veggies to it. Next time, I would try adding diced carrots, beans and corn to add the veggie content. I loved the recipe totally and hope you like it too. I hope I come across the blog link again so that I can share my gratitude with the originator of the recipe. Its a must try recipe, believe me you will love it :).

Spring..flowers..butterflies

The spring season is almost here and I am loving the weather so much. Nothing feels as good as enjoying the nice and bright California sun :). Though I would love to visit any place where it snows in winter, and all the trees have lost their leaves. And then with the arrival of spring, every plant starts budding. For a gardener, it must be a joyful experience to see his plants blooming with the first bud of the spring season. Year after year, after the harsh winters, the spring brings hope, cheerfulness and yes flowers and butterflies...And thats what is the theme of my card :)

Spring Card

For this card, I used a freebie digi-stamp saying 'Spring' available here. It is freebie for a limited time so grab it soon if you like it . This was my first time to use a digi-stamp and its fun working with them. Its simply a png or jpeg image which you can play with either coloring it yourself or using softwares. I tried my hand on photoshop with this. My hubby Pathik who is a photoshop pro was after me since so many days to learn using photoshop for my creativity. But the "old-school-me" never took it seriously. However, this time I did give it a shot with a little help from my hubby dearest :). Now at least I can play a little with layers.

Spring-hand-made-card

The flowers are made using a flower punch. Its 3 punched flowers stuck together. I just pinched each petal lightly to give it a little realistic feel. The center of the flower is a quilled tight paper coil. The butterflies are again punched and the trail i hand drawn. For the grass, I cut quilled paper in grass shape and stuck them on the card. It took me a long time but the end result looks good! Isn't it?

I am putting this card for the following challenges:

PCJ challenge 6 - Up in the air
Southern Girl Challenge
SCH-handmade flower challenge

Bee Carafty spring challenge

cheerful stampad challenge

Hearts and Ribbons

I think I am getting the hang of card making now. And I am loving my creations. Here is one of the cards that I made and quite pleased with it.

With love card

How I made this card? Here it is:
-The heart shapes are hand-drawn and thats why not very neat but still I am happy with them.
- The small pink hearts are quilled with 1/8th inch quilling paper.
-For the polka dots, I simply used an office hole puncher.
-I used double-sided tape for the pop-up effect on the hearts.
-The caption 'With Love'  is printed on avery labels.

I am still learning how to tie a neat ribbon bow. Will have to search for a tutorial for that.

Card making is so much fun. There is so much of creativity floating on the internet that you get addicted to it. I surely am :).

My card goes to the following challenges:

http://alyssundaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/03/asc-anything-goes-sponsored-by.html

http://stampingvacation.blogspot.com/2011/03/no-no-challenge-no-fancy-borders.html

Mini Cards

I have been a little busy in the last week. We attended a nice Indian-American wedding here in Los Angeles. The groom was American and the girl was US born Indian. so it was a fusion kind of a wedding and the irony was we were from the Groom's side :). So, we were the only Indians making the 'baraat' (wedding procession) dance in our typical desi style. It was so much fun...In fact one of the fellow American friend asked me, "Is it normal? Are we doing it right" with funny expressions on his face ..He was referring to 25-30 of us dancing frenziedly on the beach side road with cars swooshing by..:) :)..and I said, "Thats the way you do it !!". What is an Indian wedding without the baraat and the baraati? Isn't it? We had a gala time at the wedding and the best part was I got to wear a saree after a long time :). All in all it was a beautiful weekend. And that is why I didn't find chance to post on my blog.

Coming back to my card making, after a few poor attempts, I thought to myself..instead of wasting my good handmade paper, I should first try small cards first. And they I came up with these:

Mini Card 1

Mini card 2

Mini Card 3

Mini card 4

These are all 2"X3" cards. I have combined a little quilling with paper punching here. And I used address labels to print these quotes. You will find the software on http://www.avery.com. Isn't it a super cool idea :) Pat on my back ;). These cards can be used as small notes added to a gift or a bouquet and you may add a small message inside. Ain't it a cool idea? Do let me know which card you like the most, Mini card 1,2,3 or 4?

You may put your comments through facebook too!

Card Making - trial 2

I am trying and I am trying hard, but still the results don't satisfy me. I thought card making would be easy but it is not.  I see so many blogs dedicated to card making and I m literally in awe of all of them. I mean people who are doing it since a long time make seriously awesome and unique ones. But before I get a hang of the art,  I don't want to spend my money on all the fancy gadgets they use. You know what happens to me when I  walk into any scrapbook store, or Crafts shop, I am like a little girl in a candy store. There are stamps, buttons,colors, colorful papers, punches, stick ons, all sorts of funky machines,and I go crazy looking at all of them. When I was in Pune, I could spend hours in the 'Venus traders stationary store' on the FC road. It was heaven on earth for a stationary junkie like me. In such places, I have to control myself before my temptations to buy the entire store takes over me. I am sure there are many like me out there and thats why the stores sell :)

Well coming back to the original reason of writing this post,  this is my second try on making a card. Somehow I feel its not even worth a post but still I would like to know your views.

You are my star Card

Whatever you see on the card is hand drawn by me. Inspiration is a tattoo design I came across while surfing the net. I used a black gel pen to do the drawing and thats it.

All those who visit my post and know even a little about card making, please share your pointers and I will be a happy learner.