Broken CD - Beautiful Vase

I have tons of CDs which no longer work or are useless. But I don't like to throw them. That shiny surface always holds me back when I want to put them in the bin. So here's what I did with them when my olive oil got over and I had a beautiful green bottle at my disposal.

Step 1: With pliers remove the rings that are surround the rim of the bottle and any other unwanted parts.

Step 2: Thoroughly clean the bottle and the CDs (of course without damaging the shiny surface) to get rid of any dirt or oil. They dry them well.

Step 3: wrap the CDs in a cloth and use a hammer to break them. I used two CDs. The cloth will prevent the pieces from flying and collect in the cloth.

Step 4: Smear one side of the bottle with glue.(I had a square shaped bottle. You can do part by part on a round bottle so the glue does not dry out. Use a strong glue for a lasting product.)

Step 5: Now choose the pieces of broken CD and place them on the glue with shiny side up in a mosaic form. You can play with shapes and sizes so they look different and individual.

Step 6: Keep them to dry and make sure the pieces stay where you have glued them.(keep the bottle on it's side to prevent the mosaic from slide off,out of pattern.

Step 7: Wipe your bottle with a soft cloth to remove any glue sitting on top of the CD pieces and bring back the shine of your bottle.

Step 8: With a ribbon or a thread cover the rim so the groves in the bottle are covered.

Step 9: Place a nice bouquet in the bottle.

Step 10: Admire your creation, your very own CD bottle.

These bottles are easy to make, hardly cost any money and will keep your house nice and beautiful.Why not try some other things that you should keep in like a tiny light or a candle? or maybe change the shape of your container!

Kid's Collage 2

Its those times when kids have holidays and no one to play with and to make things more worse, you are left alone with them for extended periods of time. What do you do to keep them engaged so that you can complete your household work before playing with them? Its just that little extra time you need.
When my kid was young, I used this trick to keep him engaged. It not only helped pass time but also helped him improve his creativity. All I did was very simple. I took some colorful papers and cut different shapes out of them like triangles, circles, small strips, thick and thin strips, etc. Gave him one A4 plain sheet of paper with a glue stick and asked him to create designs using those paper clips. He could create anything real or imaginary limited only to his imagination. You never know what they may create...We may stumble upon some master artist...

This is what my son came up with during one such session.

I used his talent and coaxed him into creating one very beautiful collage with a combination of plain paper cuttings and magazine cuttings. This time he imagined the picture and asked for images. He also did use the scraps lying around. I had to make him do it a few times before I was satisfied. I sent this creation to a competition held by Ryan Global School, Mumbai and guess what, his creation won the first prize for kid's under 5!

The first image won the prize. But we did not get the art back. So we had create another one on similar lines to display in his school.

Warli Wall Deco

When we shifted to our new home, we had to buy new items like washing machine, fridge, etc to get started. I had saved up the large packaging materials of polystyrene (thermocol) for later use. The material that came up with the washing machine was quite big and looked good. 

In after Christmas sales, I bought disposable table cloth at throwaway prices. I pasted it on top of the polystyrene sheet to make it look even. But this created a problem, The table cloth was not suitable for painting! So I took some cereal box cardboard and drew the Warli pictures on them, cut them out and painted them with two coats of metallic color.

I used a combination of string art and Warli cutouts to create this wall decor. This work was much appreciated and also won first place in my son's school for recycling project.