Diwali Blog Hop 2014

Hey everybody! We all are blog-hopping today to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights! Join in and participate in the hop to learn more about the festival and see some beautiful ethnic creations! 

What Diwali means to me?

Diwali has different meanings for different people. It is a great occasion to meet friends, relatives, eat sumptous food, burst firecrackers and celebrate the festival together. For me it is a great time to follow all the rituals, decorate the house with diyas (earthen lamps), rangoli (floor art), paper lanterns and toran (festive string for door). We begin preparations for Diwali a month in advance by cleaning the home, throwing away unwanted stuff, purchasing new clothes for Diwali, buying stuff for Diwali puja (prayers), etc. I begin the day with preparing the food so that I have the rest of the day free for other things. After lunch, I sit down to make rangoli and keep all the diyas ready. I do the decor a few days before Diwali and add fresh flowers on that day. In the evening, we perform Laxmi puja (Pray to Goddess Laxmi), and eat sweetmeats. After that we burst a few firecrackers and visit our near and dear ones and have dinner with them. Here is a collage of my previous years' Diwali celebrations.

About my card

Although I love making traditional looking cards for Diwali, this time I gave it a slight twist with a special fold and by using some non-traditional colors like teal. This type of card is refered to as a 'Building Block Card'. I made it using this tutorial from Splitcoaststampers blog. The pattern papers are from DCWV paper stack.

For the front, I used a punched border to look like toran (festive string for door) on the top of the card and added some bling onto it in the form of rhinestones. The greeting is computer generated. I made the Ganesha using this stencil and dabbing distress inks over it. Then I fussy cut it and popped it with foam tape.

Now, for the inside of the card, I made some diya embellishments on my own. These are handcut using paper scraps. I stuck them on alternate blocks and for the rest of the blocks I added stamped, inked and fussy cut flowers.

Hope you like my card and all the fun stuff I tried in it. To view my other Diwali cards, please visit here. I also have a small tutorial on 'How to create a dot rangoli in 5 easy steps' on my blog.

Below is the blog hop order for reference. Have fun!! 

Chaitali

Gayatri

Mayuri

Smriti 

Deepti

Indira - You are here

Piali

Sindhu

Isha

Tasnim

Shilpa

Happy Hopping!!!

Challenges Entered

Imaginations October Challenge - Festivals

Pop-up Box Card - Birthday

Hello. Here is another Pop-up Box Card made on Birthday theme. I have used loads of embellishments from Itsy Bitsy. The sentiments are from various stamp sets and the big circle birthday message is a digi.

 

Some space at the back for writing a personal message.

 

Close-up of the panels...

 

Pop-up Box Card

A few days back, I saw a tutorial for this type of card on Splitcoaststampers site and loved it to bits. It's like a short version of the explosion box, another favorite of mine. I wanted to try it out immediately. Here's a look at it.... and the beauty of this card is that it can be folded flat and tucked into a envelope or box!! How cool is that. I think I am gonna try more of these...

A close-up of the center part.... I have used a mix of stickers, flowers, feather and washi tape flag to adorn it.

I used brown paper from a cloth store paper carry bag and distressed it. I wanted an old vintage look on it. I have used the same paper to stamp the sentiments on. This space below, at the back of the box, can be used to scribble a private message.

This is how it can be folded flat....

The pattern paper used here is from Lulupu store: Bo Bunny Serenity Collection 6x6" Paper pad. 

Hope you like it and I would highly recommend to give it a try.

Challenges entered

Lulupu Challenge #25 - Oh So LOVE-ly!

Slider plus pop-up card

 This is my first slider card. I really got inspired from Dr. Sonia's awesome slider cards and wanted to try out one. It wasn't surely as easy as it seemed to be. My friend had ordered this card for his li'l baby doll's b'day which was just one day before mine :)

I also added a cake pop-up inside the card. This too is inspired by Dr. Sonia's pop-up cards. She is a pro at interactive cards! Do check out her blog: Cards, crafts & kids projects.

Pop-up card

I just love crafts and my hands start itching if I don't make something for a little while......... however small it may be.

I came across a site with very good video instructions for crafts items. I made this pop-up flower card for my mom on mother's day. For instructions refer to http://www.instructables.com/id/Seven-flowers.-Awesome--pop-up-card-.