Creative kids

My 10 year old niece was on school holiday and at home. She is very creative and is always doing some creative work. Here is some of her work. I showed her to do a paper doll. I drew her a butterfly template and this is what she did.

She made this penguin with mashed tissue and glue and an empty water bottle. She had seen this project being made in the telly. I think she and Bella could work wonders together.

This is another project she had seen on the telly so she made it with paper towel as background and the giraffe with fallen twigs.

This is supposed to be a spider. She cut the bottom of the plastic water bottle and used it as the body and the lid as the head.

On my way back

On my way back we stopped in Dubai for a day and a half. This is one of the famous hotels on the beach over there Jumeriah beach hotel and the beach.

While my husband was busy with his business meetings this is what I did there. I found a bead shop which is run by a Canadian lady and took a course in bead making. Here are some of my attempts. I enjoyed the course very much and loved the way the beads turn out. No matter what colour you mix or what you do they all look great. Mine are not perfect infact the red one has developed cracks but it was fun.

So here is a small puzzle for you to solve. This a bead that went disastrously wrong LOL. Can you guess what it was going to be? I will put the correct answers in a hat a do a draw and the winner will get a little surprise prize from me.

Some more glimpses of India

I went to Calcutta for a day and these are some of the quick pictures that I took while I was there for a few hours. The sun was so hot that I just could not take proper pictures of some of the interesting sites that I would have liked to.

This the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta. The whole building is built in marble. The building itself could have been anywhere in England it is so English except that the palm trees give it away. There was an exhibition of paintings by Emily Eden which were beautiful .You can read about it here.

http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/ex_eden06.html

The mote surrounding the building it could be somewhere in hide park it seemed so familiar

The grounds in Victoria Memorial Hall. Feels almost as if one is in England here.

This is Birla Mandir a temple which I took a picture of from the cab.

A street in Calcutta with its tram lines. During the hey days of British Raj it must have been grand but now it has all gone to seed.

Even the tram carriages look as though they have never been changed since the British left. I tried to take a picture but was not very successful. The Ganges and in the distance you can see the famous Howrah Bridge. The taxi man dare not go on that bridge as that bridge is perpetually gridlocked. This picture I took from the new bridge on which we were not allowed to stop but the taxi man took pity on me and risked his license for me to take a picture LOL!

A minaret of a mosque with beautiful mosaic work. Wish I could have had time to stop and take better pictures.

Back in Chennai a lorry laden with bananas. I think the best bananas come from Tamil Nadu . I may be biased but I have never seen so many varieties or tasted such sweet bananas anywhere else. For those who don't know, Tamil Nadu is one of the States of which Chennai (formally known as Madras) is the capital .

Some glimpses of India

Made a trip to the beach this time Chennai. These are some of the boats donated to the fishermen by various charities after the Tsunami. Those buildings in the distance are the houses built for them not a very good picture I am sorry. I meant to take some pictures later but forgot that dusk falls rather suddenly in India so I couldn't take any more pictures of them.

One moment the sky was like this

In a few moments it turned like this

The water looked as though it was a sea of blood.

He looked familiar

When I came back from my holidays I found this little fellow waiting patiently at the door for me. I thought he looked familiar but I was a bit puzzled as I could not exactly place him. Then a bell rang and I realised that he was none other than my Flat Stanley Dude come back home at last! Wow he has grown so handsome I never thought he would turn out so goodlooking. No wonder all the ladies wanted to keep him. On his way I see he has picked up a new hobby surfing. Well it has been worth waiting for him and all the ladies have worked wonders on him. Thank you everybody for this wonderful RR I can see my dude has made lots of friends and has lots of stories to tell me. I shall find a quite day to read all about it from the journal.

Beautiful 'Haathee' awaited me!

Hello everybody, I had a wonderful holiday. Hope you all had a great time too. I will be very brief here as I am still tired and have to get many things to do. When I got back a lovely surprise awaited me which I must share with you at once. A few weeks ago Sylvie posted this exquisite 'Haathee' in her blog and I didn't even imagine in my dreams that this beautiful stitching was for me!! When I returned from my holidays I found this parcel in my mail box and I was astounded when I opened the parcel and out came this beautiful needle case. Sylvie thank you so much. You are much too kind and sweet person to have sent me this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It will be one of my most treasured possessions. Sylvie even made me the beautiful hand made card which accompanied the gift. The pictures just do not do justice to this beautiful gift.

Happy Holidays!

Just a little note to wish you all a very Happy Easter!

For those who do not celebrate VERY HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

See you all in two weeks time.

And finally Thyme

I have at last managed to finish the class doll. She is a wire wrapped doll. Her face is soft sculpted for the 3 dimensional look and she has hands with seperate fingers. I used some tricks of costuming which I learnt from Jacque a few years ago . It took me ages to finish this doll as nothing would come right. At one point I almost lost one of her foot so I nearly ripped her apart. Then stopped myself from doing that as I knew I didn't have the time to make another one. She has a multitude of sins hidden behind those fine cloths. I am not pleased the way I did this. I think I also chose the wrong hair to do her hair. At first she looked as though she had had a bad hair day LOL so I gave her a hair cut which makes her a bit presentable. I usually like to get the basics at least right. I hope my students will do better than me. I have named her Thyme as she came together finally on a lovely spring day and the green colours reminded me of Thyme which grows profusely in springtime. I may not be able to do another blog entry since I am leaving for India on Good Friday. So I wish all of you a Very Happy Easter in case I don't get to write before I leave.