DIY: Recycled Planter

I hail from south India.  We use a lot of fresh coconut in our south Indian cuisine,  So there is no dearth for coconut shells in my house hold.  LOL

DIY - Plain wooden tray modification





Here is a easy DIY. 

 Imagination is all you need.  I bought a couple of these plain wooden trays.

Back after a long hiatus

I am back after a long break.  This one was not planned.  I went to India during summer.  I thought I will take a couple of weeks break and be back on the blog......

Summer 2014 was not what me or my family had planned for ourselves.   Have you ever heard of a saying "Man proposes and God disposes"......   We as a family still tried to make best out of what we could do.

Soon after returning from India, first Gowri and Ganesha festival.   Gowri and Ganesha is a big festival for those of us who come from Bangalore.  Soon after Navaratri snuck up on me and so did Deepavali.  Things have been crazy on the work front too.  When it rains, it pours right?

Enough of that.  Here are a few pictures from my Navaratri and Deepavali.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

 

Partying with these good folks:

• Making The World Cuter Monday 

Guest Post: Bottle painting

Today I am bringing to you another tutorial about Bottle painting.  My talented SIL R had earlier done a post about Glass painting.    Here is the tutorial

 



From my garden - Jasmine

To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.

~Beverly Nichols

 
What comes to your mind when you think of childhood?  Every one has a few favorite things which they associate with happy times.  For me it is monsoon rains, Jasmine flowers, spicy peanuts to name a few. 

I love Jasmine flowers.  I  am collecting different types of them.  Here are a few of them from my garden.

 

Summer has begun





Summer has begun at home. You know it has started paint, canvas and the brushes appear in the girls bedrooms. Today I am bringing to you my older daughter's paintings.

My epidendrum collection

 It all started 2 years ago in our local farmers market.  Regular orchid vendor in the farmers market was ready to pack up for the day.  I was the last customer for the day.  I told her I wanted an orchid which wasn't a Phalaenopsis.  

Post card from Novice Decorator

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's day.  We did have a quite and enjoyable father's day at home.  Work and other activities have been keeping me so busy that I am unable to post anything.  I will be back next week.

Wishing you all a good rest of the week.   I will be back next week. Until then .........

Spring has Sprung - Part III

I hope you are all having a good week.  I have been having a pretty hectic week myself.  I am hoping it will ease in next couple of days.

Here is what is blooming in my garden this week.

My Dahlias have started to come back this year and this is the season's first bloom.

Etsy Store find - The Second Life

Last night I was browsing through the Facebook group page of Second to None.  I have had some good luck with this group which gently used items.  I will post details a little later.

In one such browsing session  I landed on a photograph  for a block print wrapping paper.   It belonged to a store called "The Second Life".  

Visit to Flower Fields - A garden tour

I hope your week got started on a good note.  I had a very productive weekend.  As the weather was good, I cleaned up both front and the back yard. They were screaming for attention as I had not paid much attention as we had really weird warm weather.

Today I am taking you on a tour of the Flower Fields of Carlsbad, CA. 

Spring has sprung - Part II

I hope you all enjoyed the artist feature.  Don't forget to enter the Giveaway.

We have been having very harsh weather these days.  Temperatures are very high.  We have had no winter or spring this year.  

Here is what is blooming in the back yard.

Athena Hues - Artist Feature and a giveaway

I am extremely happy and excited to be doing this feature on my blog and hosting the very first giveaway here at Novice Decorator.

Couple years ago I reconnected with my engineering school classmates thanks to Facebook.  Creator of Athena Hues, Malathy Kumaran is my classmate’s wife.  We both connected over Facebook as well and have been in touch for a couple of years now.   When we chatted last time, we talked about featuring her work on my blog and she agreed readily.

I am pleased to present an interview with Malathy along with a photo essay of her work.  

Athena Hues

Exclusive handmade jewelry for today's woman...for price details, send in a message to Athena Hues...

Happy Mother's day

Wishing all the moms out there a very Happy Mother's day.

Back in action - Spring flowers

I had disappeared for a while.   I apologize for that.   I hope you all have had a good month.  April is a month I struggle through some times as we had our son is April 2001 and he became an angel for us during the same month.  Some years are better than other but this year was a hard one but it is getting better each year.

Sping has sprung - part I

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
― Pablo Neruda

Painted pots - Garden decor

I hope you all had a lovely relaxing weekend.    My life is returning back to normal slowly.  It was too hot weather-wise this weekend in sunny southern California.  I couldn't work in the yard.  So to relax a little bit I decided to work on a fun project indoors.

Table decor

Remember guys, I fixed tassel for one of my daughter's dresses couple of months ago for an engagement party.  Yes, that party took place couple of weeks ago.  It was a beautiful party.  we had lot of fun.

I helped my friend out in setting up the front entry way and the signup table at the party hall.  Here are the pictures from the event.

P.S:  I took these pictures with my cell phone.  They are not of great quality.  Sorry about that.

Simple pleasures of life - flowers from the yard

We have had a wonderful weather this weekend in my part of the world.  Perfect southern California weather you might say.  I wish I had time to enjoy this weather and do some yard work.  This year I am way behind on my spring planting.  Two more weeks and my work schedule should return back to normal. 

Sending warn hugs on this day

Hi There,

Hope you all have had a wonderful week.  As I had mentioned earlier it been crazy but manageable.

I have been blessed with some amazing women in my life.  They have crossed many obstacles to get where they are and they are such a role model and inspiration.  I am talking about my mom and mother in law. 

Indianroots - Part 1

I am back with a online store review this week.  I am always on a look out for Indian decor items for the house and browsing around on the Internet. 

I landed on Indianroots once such time.  I am not being compensated or anything for this post. 




Via

Looking forward to spring - seriously....

I hope your week is going well.  Mine is getting busier by the day.  

I will have to keep my head down and concentrate and get things done.  I am looking forward 10 hour working days and I also need get work done for the course I am taking.  They will all be getting done soon. I will be back next week.

Painted tiles

I have been having a hectic week both at home and at work.  Have you heard of the saying " When it rains, it pours" ? That holds true for me this week.

Few months ago I worked on a project and had forgotten to share with you all.  I used a basic porcelain tile.  Cut it in to four pieces and painted.

Whats blooming in the garden - part 3

I hope your week is going well.  Mine is a bit hectic and I know it will be this way till end of March.

This is the third post of the series.  These are about my African Violets. 

These plants were an impulsive buy from Lowe's as they were on clearance and they had couple of blooms and colors were so attractive, they just came home with me.  I had planters which were part of my indoor herb garden experiment.  It was not successful experiment so these plants were planted in them.

All these days, they had lush green leaves but no blooms and one of the plants gave me 2 baby plants as well.  I now call that plan "Mother plant".   Those baby plants were separated and they found a new home i.e. their own planters.  None had  flowers.

New Header

I thought it was high time I got a new header.

Just makes things interesting I decided to change. 

Do let me know, what you think of it?

Small modifications Big impact

It is almost February, we already completed one month in new year.  Time flies.  

I hope you are all having a wonderful week.  We are having **weird** weather in southern California.  It feels like winter gave us a miss.  Haven't used many of my winter apparel this year.  

One of our dear friend's daughter's engagement party is fast approaching. My younger daughter decided to wear her one of Anarkali Suits.  Older one is yet to decide.

The back tie came with a boring tassel.  Ready made suits some times come like that.  I like it like that as it gives me an opportunity to experiment.

Whats blooming in the garden - part 2.

Last time I talked about how my succulents are blooming this year in this post here.

I started collecting orchids 2 years ago.  This year has been good for my orchids as well.  ** Knock on wood **  as last year none of them bloomed.  I was hearing conflicting advice and also how some people thought they were pretty easy to take care of and some thought they really need to be babied.

All in all, I have made some progress after killing 3 orchids most of them have survived and my collection has gone up to some 15+ plants.

Here is the blooms.

Phalaenopsis

Burlap Message Board

One of the long term goals of 2014 is to DE clutter the house as much as possible. 

Our office room at home is not just an office room,  Its partially a library too. We also share the office room.  I was in need of a message board to all the users of that work area can pin what they need and clean up once they r done using.  So the table will not be cluttered.  At least I am (secretly) hoping it won't cluttered.

I purchased a message board.  This burlap was in Xmas clearance at Wal-Mart.  I couldn't pass that up.   I already had the cork sheet which I had used for a project I had done a couple of years ago. 

Whats blooming in the garden?

We are having unusual weather in southern California these days.  It is not feeling like winter at all.  I am not complaining about the weather at all.  I am quite enjoying this weather which means we can use the outdoors.  We are having what you call a sweater weather. 

My garden both in the front yard and backyard, I have quite a collection of succulents in the containers.    I noticed some of them were blooming.

 I have had some of these for 3-4 years now and I have never seen them bloom,  I am very happy to see the blooms but it also worries me , I will get to that later.

The one below you see I have had for 6 years.  As per my husband its the most neglected plant but I say its the most drought resistant plant.   Haha...............................

Its such a pretty color on the bloom

My Japanese magnolia in front yard is blooming too.  It is a month early.  I wish you could smell them through the picture.   They smell divine.

I have a few in the backyard as well.  Some are in bloom and some are getting ready.   

I hope you are having a wonderful week.

Partying @

• Tuesday's Treasures
• Be Inspired
• What's It Wednesdays
• You're Gonna Love It Tuesday!
• Inspire me Tuesday
• Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
• Home and Garden Thursday
• Show and tell Friday

 

Easy decor idea - Guest post

My SIL R again comes up with a brilliant easy décor idea.

This requires a nice piece of cloth like below.  Kalamkari or old scarfs which have interesting designs are a good choice for this.

You can use any frame you have laying around the house.  Don't we all have unused photo frames in the closet or garage some place.  I do too.

Don't they look fabulous?  Enjoy the pictures and post comments.  We love hearing from you.

Joining these link parties:

• Nifty thrifty Tuesday
• what is it Wednesday
• Inspire me Tuesday
• Thrifty Things Friday
• Show and tell Friday

 

Jewelry Organizer

Happy new year folks  May this 2014 bring you lots of happiness and peace.  May this year provide new beginnings and lots of success in what ever your heart desires.

I hope you had a relaxing and fun holidays.  I did have a fun and relaxing holidays.  I relaxed and did some small projects around the house.  We did have few house guests and we had lots of fun with dinners with friends.  Isn't that what the season is about??

Today you get to see one of my projects.  You already saw the picture frame and Wine bottle lamp I did for the guest room.

I made a jewelry organizer for my younger daughter's room.  I had an old frame for the past 5+ years.  I think one of my cousin left it behind when she moved to India.  It was from one of those calendars.  I could never bring myself to throw that away. 

This is what I came up with for that frame.

The hard wooden board backing was carefully removed from the frame so it could be reused.  I already had the cork roll and I pasted that cork role to that hard wooden board.  I bought the burlap from Joann's for $1.34.  This is what the end product looks like.

I attached hooks to hang the long necklaces or bracelets.

Wire to hang the earrings.

It is now mounted in my daughter's room.  How do you like it?  I would love t hear from you.

I am joining these link parties

• The thrifty groove
• Home and Garden Thursday
• Saturday nite special
• Fridays unfoalded
• That DIY Party
• Inspire me Tuesdays