Saturday, October 10, 2009

Handicrafts made for this year's Kolu

After my earlier posts giving a detailed description of the dolls and theme, here are some of the handicraft items that my kids Vishruthi and Vishvesh did for this year's Kolu :

1. minAkAri painting done by Vishruthi:




















2. Tray decorated by Vishvesh:





Vishvesh's main source of inspiration is his Akka !! He has about 10% of the patience that she has (which I think is typical in most boys), but nevertheless does these items with a lot of enthusiasm and interest. (Veena,are you reading this??!!)







He has decorated this tray with glitter colors, has placed a CD at the center, decorated with beads around it and pasted an idol of Venkatachalapathy at the center.


3. suvAsini kOlam:




This kOlam idea was given by my mother. The items used in this are the regular items like bangles, cosmetic items like comb, mehendi, mirror, kumkum, chandan etc. Using these items, any design can be done for this kind of a kOlam.









4. Decorative plates:




These are again ordinary plates painted and decorated. In the plate on the right, the leaf at the center is a real one, painted in golden color by Vishruthi.









5. Variety of kOlams:





kOlams are my mother's and daughter's work zone:-). I must admit that my knowledge of kOlams is very basic:-(. Vishruthi comes up with a lot of innovative designs.(As Amma and Vishruthi were doing these kOlams, I was busy writing and cutting out labels that I used for the theme. Labels were about 40 in number and took a lot of time.)






In the above photo, the top left kOlam is the hrudayakamala kOlam. In the second row, the kOlam in the middle is done with javvarisi. The one on its right is the kundan kOlam, done with transparency sheets.To the left of the javvarisi kOlam are terracotta diyAs painted by Vishruthi and Vishvesh.



6. Decorations on Terracotta items:







This tray contains terracotta Puja items, again painted and decorated. On top left is a decorated coconut:-). Other items include a bell, agarbatti stand in terracotta and a decorated water jug.





7. marapAchi dolls decorated:

tirupati is famous for marapAchi dolls.







The base for the dolls as seen in the photo is handmade. The small kumkum containers that we see in front of the dolls have been decorated with rAkhi thread, done by Vishruthi.





8. Terracotta diyAs:







The terracotta diyAs seen in the picture were painted by Vishruthi and Vishvesh. Vishruthi has used clay to do the girl doll and the sunflower.






9. Top-water rangOli and under-water rangOli:

Vishruthi did these too, befitting to this year's theme. (Photos of these are on a different camera, I shall post them in a few days.)

8 comments:

Veena said...

Gayathri, Vishvesh and Vishruthi have definitely inherited your creative side! phenomenal effort. I am going to use it to spur Shankar on a little bit!!

Thanks for sharing..

Veena

Anonymous said...

like hip hip hurray...three Congrats...

#1: For being a good parent to instill such creative works and encouraging them.

#2: to Amma, for being so supportive and not making grandchildren missing grandma tale.

#3: to kids, for being so participative and being creative.

jeevagv said...

Those are very inspiring for the rest of us, the dummies,
Thanks Mam!

Unknown said...

Dear Gayathri:

I had no idea that you were so much into thematic Navarathri Kolu. The family effort with Mami and the kids pitching in is truly amazing. Needless to say, I am greatly impressed, and will surely share this with KKK and Appa...

Affly,


Ramani

Priya Ram said...

Hi Gayathri,

Was caught up with my son's health. so couldnt post. Very creative handicrafts. Best wishes to your children :-)

Revanth said...

Wonderful work by Vishruthi and Vishvesh! :)
My wishes to them

nagraj said...

Belated thanks for inviting us to this year's kolu at your home. Your mother has passed on the heritage & nolelty in the idea process to you, I believe; and the same is passed on to your lovely kids too. Your Family is a well knit nice union and we were happy to have glimpse of it. The way the kolu theme was presented by Vishruti in flwaless tamil was really laudable.
Infact, we were not aware about the so many rituals taking place in the shrine of Tirumala in so much detail. It was informative too. Now, you are setting new targets for your own, our expectations are soaring high on your next kolu too.
Needless to say, you are a perfect host. Many may learn many things from you, I would like to pick up the humaneness from you.

nagraj said...

May be next year you can play a recorded version of the narration of the kolu theme and go with a pointer like in 'Light and Sound' presentations. Because,
* Not all visitors arrive at the same time
* You will not tire out
* You will not miss out certain details
Fill with apt songs, stothras.

You may have more time and energy to interact, have personal rapport