Paper Cracker Snaps

 It was too late/ when I found out I had no cracker snaps to make my Christmas crackers this year . The shops had run out of them. I decided to make my own. :-) The only thing is... crackers won't crack with a big pop. Instead, we will have to sound the snaps after opening the crackers.

To make it....

Cut 4 c.m strips (lengthwise)  out of A4 paper.

Fold it into half lengthwise.

Open and fold a side inwards till it meets the central fold.

Fold the next side too.

It should look like this.

Fold it along the central fold again. The open ends should be inside.

Fold the entire strip into half.

Fold the two sides out to form an 'M' shape.

Hold the middle fold of the 'M' by your left hand. Set the right hand above the left allowing the flaps to rest on the thumb & the index finger. Pull the strips upwards fast to hear it 'snap'. 

Mehendhi

Mehendhi from last Christmas.

Food covers (2 - 4)

Buy a plastic holly sprig.

Separate leaves and berries.

Hot glue two leaves along with a berry where you want them to go making sure you are not gluing any to the skeleton of the umbrella. This umbrella was a rectangular one.

A square one.

One which had six segments.

Food Cover - 1

I saw a decorated food cover in a gift shop lo...ng ago. The price on the tag was shockingly high. I can't recall what those were decorated with now.

Some years later I started decorating food covers to be gifted to friends. This is one of them. I trim artificial leaves to the shape of holly and hot glued them along with  red plastic berries.

Kolam Coasters

Kolam is a form of drawing (in the Indian culture) that is drawn at the entrance of a house using rice flour. People use coloured powder, coconut, dried tea leaves and all sorts of things to make Rangoli - a coloured kolam. The ones above are called 'pulli kolam' (dotted kolam) or 'kambi kolam' (string kolam) and is popular among the Tamil speaking population of India. Since I am Tamil... I claim it as my cultural stuff too. :-)

All four are 5x5 doted ones that I found in arusuvai website. The instructions on how to make these are on http://www.arusuvai.com/tamil/node/30530

In a nut shell... clean tiles with methylated spirit. Mark the dots; draw the kolam and paint it. Follow paint manufactures instructions on curing & fixing / baking. Remove pencil marks gently with a soft soapy sponge when tile cools completely. Pat dry. Stick foam backing when tile it completely dry.

Done!

One thing I have observed with any hand painted tiles is that they tend to stick to the hot mug and lift with the mug often. :-) With time, paint may peel off or the tile will lift with the cup, drop and attempt for a suicide. :-)