A couple of weeks back I was in for a pleasant surprise, I got a mail from a lady (Sonal) mentioning that she had seen a few of my cards and liked them a lot. She wanted me to teach some techniques to her, her teen aged daughter and one of her friends, I was a bit apprehensive but agreed nonetheless. And I am so glad that I did! I put together a few card making supplies into a small kit and gave to each student.It was a great experience, the kids were amazingly talented, I learnt a thing or too from them too. Sonal herself is an accomplished artist, she does beautiful glass and warli paintings, warli is a tribal Indian form of painting. Here are a few of her creations;you can view more of her work here. Overall the cardmaking workshop was a rewarding experience for all of us and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I also went shopping last week, I had gone to a toy store to get some toys for my nephew and guess what I found there chipboard alphabets!!!! I had never seen them in Bangalore before, so obviously I’m soooooooo excited!!!I also bought some 3-D flower stickers.Now finally to this week’s Card Patterns sketch. Here is my take on it.A good friend of mine, Krishnan, is a very tough critic of my cards. According to him I almost always make floral cards and that I should try out different types of cards, though I never accept it I know its kinda true . So this time I made a non-floral card.......Do check out the Card Patterns blog for some great takes on this week’s sketch by the DT.

Well we finally got curtains for my room last week. Me and my husband, Aridaman have been curtain hunting for a long time, somehow we never seemed to agree on any pattern! I also got loads of transparent plastic boxes to store all the scraps and odds and ends that I am not able to let go off. This is what my work corner looks like now.........I guess I should have taken a picture of what it looked like earlier for you to appreciate the difference.......
I also got a cutting mat.........up till now I had been doing all my craft cutting over old newspapers as I was under the impression that cutting mats are not available in India, I just happened to spot it while walking out of the local craft store.........I’m very excited about last week’s shopping......I still have get these organized...........and these too......any suggestions about how to store ribbon rolls?

Now to some cards I made last week. This one is for Daring Cardmakers........the dare this week is to use something related to music. I have used a tiny musical note punch for the notes........the image of the girl is from Arthur’s Free Clipart. I got this link from Carol’s blog. I have colored the image with oil pastels.
I made this one for LSC220 Life's a beach (SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS). I stuck real sea shells which I had handpicked from the beaches of Goa; Aridaman made the background paper by placing wet teabags on watercolor paper, isn’t it neat? I love how this has turned out but cannot think of a good sentiment to go with it...plzzzzzzz do leave a comment on this post if you can think of some nice sentiment to go with this card......I’ll appreciate it.

Finally this one is for card patterns........I have again used an image from Arthur’s Free Clipart......I just couldn’t resist using this adorable little girl on my card.........

I received this wonderful kinship award from Smita. Thanks a ton Smita!This award is a great way to show appreciation to all the lovely ladies who motivate me with their sweet comments.......
Smita and I discovered each other last month; since then we have been regular visitors to each others blogs. Smita is one of the very few card making enthusiasts from India that I am aware of, I have learnt a lot from her experiences.

Do drop by Smita’s Blog to see her lovely creations.
I would like to pass on this award to:
Archana
Michelle
Tracy
Tami
Erin
Amy
Eveline
Meghana
I guess most of you must have already received this award from someone else, but I too want to pass this award to you to show how much your comments on my work mean to me.
This award comes with the following description to be added & passed along: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in selfaggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated." It also says: "Please give more attention to theses writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."
Now to some work I did last week but couldn’t find time to post. The Card Patterns DT is looking for a new design team members. They had provided a sketch based on which you had to make yours. This is what I made. I wanted to make a card with ethnic Indian prints.....at the same time I didn’t want it to look like a traditional Indian wedding invitation....and I guess I did a pretty good job too ;) ........the top strip in the background is recycled handmade gift wrapping paper, the second one is handmade paper from Pondicherry, the third is recycled from an old wedding invitation and the last one is stamped using a wooden block stamp (mehndi stamp). The tassel is also from an old wedding invitation (Indian wedding invitation cards are a great source of all kinds of lovely handmade paper and misc adornments; I have become an ardent collector.......). The bling is also ethnic Indian; it is usually used in traditional attire.

I made this card for SplitCoastStampers (SCS) CAS14 challenge. We had to made cards using a technique known as Rock and Roll. The technique involves inking a rubber stamp with one ink and then rolling the edges of the inked stamp on an ink pad with another coordinating color. You can find the entire tutorial about the Rock & Roll technique here.
I stamped the smaller flowers using the Rock & Roll technique; cut them out and stuck one flower one top of the other. Here is a closer look at the flowers.The bigger red flower is made by placing 4 punched hearts with their pointed ends together and placing a punched flower on top and small punched sun on top.

Here is my take on this week’s Card Patterns sketch. The cards by the DT are awesome as usual. Here is the CP sketch.I clipped the star using a colored paper clip.
The sun has been stamped using a traditional Indian stamp carved out of wood. Such stamps are traditionally used in India to stamp images on cotton/silk fabric woven on hand looms using vegetable dyes. The technique is known as block printing.
They are also used to put henna or mehndi (in Hindi) patterns on palms and feet. Mehndi is a ceremonial art form used on special occasions like weddings and festivals.
The sentiment is handwritten.

This week’s challenge at Creative Card Crew was “Everyone Emboss”. I have only a basic dry embossing tool which is not too good; nonetheless I used it on my card. I embossed the top and bottom border of the gold background paper (its not clearly visible in the photograph :( ). I used some embossed paper from an old wedding invitation above the gold paper.
The sun has been stamped using a traditional Indian stamp carved out of wood. Such stamps are traditionally used in India to stamp images on cotton/silk fabric woven on handlooms using vegetable dyes. The technique is known as block printing.

I made this card for SplitCoastStampers CAS13 - It's A Sketch Challenge. This was one of the easiet and quickest cards I have made. Took me less than half an hour to make it!!! And the best part is there are so many things that can be put instead of the punched four leafed clover!!

I can't wait to try out other variations of this sketch.

Here is my take on this week’s Card Patterns sketch. I made this for a friend’s son’s first birthday.

This week I discovered another card making challenge, Creative Card Crew. The challenge this week is to make a card based on this sketch.