Before & After!! A mosaic makeover!!

Before and after! A stool makeover!

Some time back, when we got the house painted, the contractor used a wooden stool from our furniture.. and left it in such a messy state, that it used to take an effort to look at it and not feel disgusted. Poor piece of furniture must have suffered loads. (sigh!!)

One fine day, when the stool was lying in the corner of the dump-area of the house, I started wondering if only I could change its appearance and make it a piece of art. My brain started whizzing with all its might and came up with a design from the scrap items available easily at my home.

My dear hubby has got a beautiful, small workshop where he gets custom ceramic tiles designed, printed and processed. There are always scrap pieces of ceramic leftover taking their space in the workshop's frontyard. So I decided to a little mosaic design on the stool.

I started exploring the scraps and came up with a simple design of spiral with a light contrast background.

I sandpapered entire stool first and then pencil-sketched the design directly on the top.

The pieces of tiles were cut and pasted with glue adhering the sketch.
The inner design was done first and then the background.

After the pieces were set properly, I applied the cement mixture on to the pieces. The slurry had to seep into all the rough edges and gaps and then it was left to dry for about 10 hours. About midway through the drying process, I sponge-wiped the extra cement layer off the top of the ceramic pieces.

After the top was ready, the legs were wood-polished.

A closer look of the mosaic design!

And here is a before and after look!

So, yet another mosaic piece is ready to add to my collection!!!
Mosaic inspiration is still on and who knows what could be done next!!

Ceramic wall plaque

This one has stayed longer than others!!!! My ceramic love has not only stayed longer than other things that I've started doing in the past.. but also it is growing by each passing day!!
The fact that my ever-growing body is not allowing me to do much of it, I still managed to put together a sample plaque along the lines of Italian name plaques.

The photo of the raw sample is -

And the photo of the finished sample is -

Ceramic colours can be soo tricky and you are never sure what will the final result look like till you actually see it!! Same thing happened with me while working on this but still I was pretty satisfied with the end result. I think thats the beauty of handmade.. the runtime inspirations make each work so unique!!

As I've already told many of my friends, another mosaic piece is ready and I'll post it soon in the next blog. Till then keep the inspiration flowing!!!

Mosaic art

More renovation at home means more ideas cluttering my brain!!!
So when it was time to do the main door, I went with my all-time-motto of adding a handmade touch to it.
I can't even remotely think about doing anything to do with carpentry work because the nightmares of using the saws and drills during the engineering time was enough to put me off it!!
So I decided to go with embedding a ceramic piece into the door surface.

For the first time, I tried using the mosaic technique and now I'm in love with this. Mosaics is such a beautiful way of creating a kind of handmade digital effect to any picture or design.
Its no doubt a very time-consuming process and the intricacies of it can baffle a beginner like it did to me.

A brief process was -
1) I traced the design that I wanted to do on a piece of tracing paper. I actually drew it because the dimensions had to be precise.
2) Then I stuck the tracing paper on the back of a mosaic net that was cut to the dimensions.
3) On the mosaic net, I started sticking the pre-cut mosaic pieces in the colours of my choice.

Here are some more photos of work in progress -

After the pieces were set properly, I applied the cement mixture on to the pieces. I let them seep into all the rough edges and gaps and left it to dry for about 10 hours. About midway through the drying process, I sponge-wiped the extra cement layer off the top of the ceramic pieces and....

The finished mosaic piece looks like this -

So every time I enter our house, I can see he handmade mosaic piece waving out to me and inspiring me to make more of mosaic art on various other surfaces!! Who knows, in a few years, I would make a complete house out of mosaics!!!

Finished level 1 - Pottery

The finished objects of my pottery love has come into existence!!!
The jewelry box, the vase and the bowl are all here.

I actually did not mean to paint them all red.. but somehow they turned out so.
Look at the crackle finish on the bottom of the bowl.. Isn't it lovely?

My next project is a ceramic charms mobile to hang over the crib or in the window.
I've taken print-outs of various charmy things like star, heart, butterfly, flower, cupcake, sun, moon and cut them out. Using the cut-outs I'm in the process of making small ceramic charms. Lets see how it turns out. Till then.. keep getting inspired!!!

Love,
Prachi

Sweet nest of baby birdies!!

Curled up in the cozy nest..
In mom's lap, Oh! how we rest!!

Looking up at her with baby eyes..
Inside this cocoon, our world lies!!

We are all so different.. yellow.. n white..
But, together our den is a beautiful sight!!


Sawubona everyone!! I couldn't help but wish in Swazi because that's where my sweet little birdies came from...!!

We happened to visit a wax museum while in Swaziland during our Africa trip a couple of months ago. I couldn't help but pick these little cuties up from the store.

Though they are actually made of wax, I don't know why would anybody ever use them for lighting purpose!!

For the time being, they are all resting in a small nest created just for them.. waiting to be picked up and loved!!

Is it my new would-be-motherhood speaking from the poem inspired by the baby birdies?.. I have no idea.. either ways.. the babies are so adorable.. Don't you think!!!

My new love - Pottery!

My new Love - Pottery!

First of all.. I dont believe I did this again!!! Started something and left it half-way..or rather it was not even started properly.. :-(
but never mind.. I can sort my mistakes.. I guess!! (Well..yeah.. I'm talking about starting this blog.. and not writing anything for so many days!!)..
The reason (excuse!!) not to write any post is because .....(a a pause and drum roll!!!!).. I'm expecting!!
I'm in the fifth month now.. and a trip to Africa.. some very nauseating experiences when back home.. regular visits to gynac.. juggling with home and office (did I miss anything!!).. did not leave blogging anywhere on the list of things to do!

but now the things have settled down a bit..and I've even managed to do a few crafty things after a long time!

The latest crafty thing that I've recently taken to is pottery!!
I've joined a pottery class and learning some basic concepts about ceramic clay like kneading, slapping techniques, coiling, pinching etc.
I've created these two pieces in my last two sessions and they are still unbaked.
We'll be applying glaze, colouring it etc in the subsequent sessions but till then I just couldn't wait to share even these unfinished work's photos.

The first one is a handmade vase done using pinching and coiling methods.
The second one is a kind of a jewelry box done by rolling the clay and cutting it into geometric pieces that are stuck together using the clay paste.

I feel so good to have made these.. and hoping to create a lot more!!
I'll try and post more regularly from now on with all the new creations, updates on these pieces and so on.. till then keep getting inspired!!!

Love
Prachi

Prachodayam debut!

Welcome to Prachodayam's debut blog!

I love love love colours!!!
The rainbow.. colour of grass.. colour of sandy beach.. golden orange colour of setting sun.. bright umbrellas.. amazingly fresh blue sky...umm..
hold on.. Is this blog about the colours? yeah.. but not about any colour.. its the colour that I'm in love with these days..!
Its the king of colours.. Purple!!!!
But not just any purple.. a specific shade of purple.. which has a tinge of bluish..pinkish.. indigo to it!! (now that's complicated!!) I'm yet to find a proper term for this shade.. but I can spot this colour on any object from miles!!
When my hubby made our bedroom.. he made it pink at my request!! (He picks on me for that till date!!!)
As it happens.. the age of pink got over.. and eventually I got so bored and a bit irritated with the colour!! It was still not in the list of things to do to repaint or re-do the room.. so I decided to take the matter in my able(!) hands.. and took a bold decision to paint the most blank wall of the room with a pattern in my favourite colour.
It was a huge task.. and since I was the one to blame for the original wall colour.. I was no way going to get any help for the new layer of another mistake!!
but.. fortunately.. the design came out well in the first go..and has spared me the horror of looking at the pale pink blank wall at least for some time to come!!

Here is how the patterned design wall looks like -
{ Sorry about pic quality, I'm yet to figure out how to use my DSLR with lesser light }

.. And here is a closer look -

I used the "Asian Paints" water-based eco-friendly colour for this.
To give it a bit of a flourished look, I used some semi-transparent wall colour friendly floral stickers.

I'm so so happy to have finished this project and so happy with the floral stickers.. they went well with the pattern colour!! (In spite of them being pink!!)

More such projects coming up soon!!! :-)
Till then keep the inspiration comin!