Loved making this custom "Our Family" wall art with Paper Quilling for a wonderful customer. We had been thinking of offering our popular Owl ornaments framed in a wall art for quite some time and this custom order gave us an opportunity to bring one of our ideas to reality. Our favorite part of this art is the cute little birdhouse. It just ties the sentiment with the art. The heart in the birdhouse represents the love between family members that makes a house a HOME.

We also tried a  new browser based tool to give customers an idea of how the Wall Art will look in different settings. The tool is WallApp and is really easy to use. We wish it could let us scale the art to exact dimensions and hope that feature will be added soon. Nevertheless it is a great tool.

Here is another photo we created using the same tool:

It is a great tool to imagine how the wall art will look in multiple themed decor.

As you can see we spent some time playing around with the tool.
Let us know if you use any other similar tool and what you think about this one. Have a great rest of the week you all !

Tiny Tales and Short Stories

A lot has happened in last year in my life. We moved to a new home, new school for my son, new neighbors and new friends. The most pleasant change has been the arrival of our baby boy, a little brother for my elder son.

When Seattle Handmade  announced the Tiny Tales and Short Stories challenge I knew what I will be making. This is the first time I tried three dimensional quilling and I learned a lot during the process. 

Participating local artists from all over the Puget Sound were challenged to create a TINY work of art; no larger than 6” with an accompanying story so SMALL, it can be told in less than 200 words. 

The art work of 17 artists was revealed in an open-to-the-public artist’s reception at the fabulous Stunningly Strange Gallery during the Edmond's Art Walk, Thursday August 21, 2014.

All artwork will continue to be available for purchase through September 17th at the gallery. 


I will be posting the pictures of the show and stunning work of fellow artists soon.

Here is a picture of  my art work and the story.  

“My Little Brother”

When I turned four last year, Mommy told me I was going to be a big brother soon. I made big plans of playing baseball and soccer with you. I was ready to teach you everything I knew and be the best big brother. 

The day you were born, I was very excited to bring you home from the hospital. You were so tiny and beautiful but when you came home, it was too hard to share Mommy and Daddy with you.  You could not play baseball or soccer with me and you kept sleeping most of the time.  I wished you would go back to Mommy’s tummy but that did not happen either.

You are a little older now. I love it when you hold my finger and smile at me. I love it when I sing for you and you stop crying.  I enjoy playing baby games with you and am so happy when you come to pick me up at school.

 Most of all I am proud being your big brother.

Welcome to this world my little brother! Welcome to our family!

14 Canvas Art Project - Sneak Peek

 Here is a sneak peak of our project for Seattle Handmade's challenge.

I have been trying to finish the project as soon as I can. I am so excited to meet my baby boy. This project has become very special for me. It will always remind me of the time I was eagerly waiting for his arrival. The project is almost ready and I will be submitting it before the deadline. Very proud of myself :)

14 Canvas Art Project - The Progress

Here I am in my third trimester and I decide to participate in Seattle Handmade's  14 Canvas Challenge :). I was not sure earlier if it was a good decision but with my parents visiting from India (yay!) and my need for distraction from the usual discomfort of third trimester , I think  I should be able to finish my project.  My due date is just two weeks before the Artist's reception. I hope get to attend the event in person. Keeping my fingers crossed !


I picked up the 12" x 12" canvas from the organizers, started working on it to make the base of my project and am learning a lot in the process.

I had never glued card stock on canvas and had to figure out a way so the base paper does not wilt. I also wanted the binding medium to be acid-free. After doing a lot of research on internet I learned that I could use Acrylic Gel Medium to bind paper on canvas.  Here is a tutorial that I found useful.

I used Liquitex Brand gel medium and it worked out great.  First I painted the edges of canvas with gold acrylic paint. Then I covered entire canvas with a thin layer of Liquitex gel medium and then laid the scrapbook paper on canvas.  Then I used  a  roller brayer to even out any kinks / air bubbles.

 
Then I applied the gel medium on paper again to get the brush stroke effect.

Since the show opens in May,  I can not post pictures of the actual artwork but will keep posting the sneak peeks!

Keep creating :)

The 14 Canvas Project by Seattle Handmade

I  am so excited to represent Navanka Creations  in Seattle Handmade's Creative Challenge, the 14 Canvas Project! They have distributed 14 identical canvases to 14 different local artists with only one requirement. The canvas must be used in it's entirety in the final piece; whether it's whole, manipulated, or even deconstructed.

Here are the participating artists (including yours truly);
· Amrita Singh – http://navankacreations.etsy.com/
·Darien Waggoner – http://dariendesign.com/
·Heidi Kappes-Belinsky – http://maxandcopost.com/
·Jenni Kane – local knitter
·Jenny Chang – http://thepaintedmenagerie.etsy.com/
·KB VanHorn – http://kokoleo.com/
·Kelly Affleck – http://tomato-tomato.com/
·Kimberly Smith – http://stirboutique.com/
·Lois Gaylord – http://loisgaylord.com/
·Mallory Milke – http://mayhemhere.etsy.com/
·Samantha Yang – http://cargocollective.com/samanthayang
·Shelley McElhiney – http://samsstuff-samsstuff.blogspot.com/
·Marina Lesnikova – http://marinarly.etsy.com/
·Mary Clymer – http://facebook.com/happydelusions

All pieces will hang at Luther's Table in Renton for the month of May. Mark your calendars for the art opening on Saturday, May 10th at 7:00 pm and check out the final pieces!

Come out and enjoy the works of these talented artists, enjoy some live music, and have a bite to eat - all in one place. See you there and I am off to think what I should do with My Canvas!

Custom Favor Tags for Bridal Shower

I made these Bridal Shower Favor tags as a custom order for a friend who is organizing the bridal shower for her friend. The color theme for the bridal shower is green and pink. Loved making these cute little lacy wedding gowns. It took quite some time to decide the perfect shade of green for tags.  I was surprised to see how many shades of green paper I had in stock!

 

The wedding gown itself is hand cut from a pearlized white card stock. Then I added rhinestones for the right amount of bling. I made 25 of these favor tags. It was quite time consuming to add the rhinestones one by one.  Imagine gluing  75 rhinestones to make these wedding dresses.  But the result was totally worth it.

 

Here is another picture of the bridal shower favor tags. This is the first order I made at my studio ( still getting organized) in our new home. Hope the bride loves the tags and the guests love their favors :).  Getting to be part of  an important and happy occasion in someone's life and making it little extra special for them...that is the payback of the handmade business. And we totally love it !!

Custom Favor Tags for Ladies High Tea

I made these favor tags as a custom order for a friend who needed them for a Ladies Tea Party she was organizing. As soon as she told me that she was planning to give tea bags in a mason jar as favors, I knew I had to make tea cups on the tags.

First I thought of quilling the tea cups but then saw this elegant floral print paper and felt they were perfect for cute little teacups. And then I added buntings. It was the most time taking task to add these little triangles for 30 tags but I feel it made the tag extra special. Added baker twine instead of ribbon as I felt they went better with the theme.

 I was making these while packing for moving to our new home. It was super hectic and tiring trying to pack an entire house in boxes :) .  Making these gave me the much needed break I needed .We have moved now and almost unpacked. I just set up my computer yesterday and thought about sharing these cute little tags with you all.

 This is a picture of the tags tied to the mason jars filled with tea bags .  The tea party was super fun and the best part is I got to keep one of these cute favors. 

P.S. If you like these or want something similar then you can request custom item at our shop Navanka Creations.