Rock people rock

So I painted some rocks. A woman with red dress, bright yellow leggings and stylish bangs, another woman in a bright patterned salwar kameez, a bearded man in a striped t shirt and jeans, a bald headed moustached man in a white kurta pajama. One big rock for the body, one small rock for the head. There is a lot of fun involved in this, you just keep scrolling down. 

The very chic lady. 

Stripes are so in.

So is the salwar pattern.

I am sure everyone knows at least one Uncle who looks like this dude.

Fun story, I was sitting in the courtyard, taking pictures of my rock people. I spent a long time arranging and rearranging my rock people, giggling all the way.  Father was sitting close by, reading his newspaper. He now believes that I have gone crazy.

Now if the bearded man wants to wear the red frilly dress with bright yellow leggings, he totally can! :) No body is going to judge him in this tiny online space of mine. If the girl with the bangs want to rock the striped tee with a jeans, she can too. It is all cool here.

Same rule applies to the bald headed man in a salwar, the woman in her white kurta pajama.

Incidentally, if the old man wants to wear a trendy tee or the elderly woman wants to wear a frilly dress, that is also cool in this space.

These ones can go traditional too.

 All four of them!

 Use any head on any body, have fun! I used fabric paint on the stones.

The boy played with it for a minute or two and then he started throwing them stones at me.
It hurts, ouch!

Final Verdict: Appropriate for kids who are three years or more. Keep out of reach of troublesome 19 month olds who are in that weird phase of throwing everything. Stay out of their throwing track incase they get hold of these.

Have fun.

The little book of fish

Remember the very tiny alphabet book and the little red book of Malayalam Alphabet? We made another little book, this time about fish. This is dedicated to Daniel and his love for fish. 

Mee Mee is the kid lingo for fish in Malayalam. He calls fish Mee Mee! 

There is a tiny aquarium in dmy place in Kerala. That was bought in when Maman was a little boy. Maman was the first batch of DPEP, the primary education program that emphasized on alternative methods of learning. The aquarium is kept alive even now. I remember the little boy Maman obsessed with creating a perfect natural habitat for the fish. His text book told him to create an 'avasa vyavastha' for the fish. Avasa Vyavastha was probably the first ever big malayalam word he learned. Anyway, years later, Daniel too enjoys looking at Maman's aquarium and the fishes in their aquarial avasa vyavastha :) 

And like any other fellow Mallu, he loves his fish fry with his rice. :) That makes him a well rounded fish-lover.

His favorite fish is Rohu. While we are in North India, we try to overcome our coconut oil hangover and fry the Rohu pieces in Refined Mustard oil.

But we love other fishes too, sea fish, fresh water fish, dried fish, pickled fish, all kinds of fish.

And that is our little story about mee mee.

Whimsical Sock Monster Puppets

There are these socks, you do not know where the pair is. These socks, they have the habit of disappearing. You can either be a hipster and do not give a damn to the colour coded sock wearing world, go ahead and wear them mismatched monsters, or you can transform them into sock puppet monsters. Now, I don't really care whether the socks on my feet will match with each other, but I so wanted to try out making some whimsical sock puppet monsters. Just look at them, adorable things! I am also adding a step by step tutorial into how to create one of these using an old and fuzzy sock.

Before we move into the tutorial, take a look at what fun thing a sock puppet monster is... 

It sure does have a lot of character! 

It can talk and give weird smiles and all...

They are very smart photobombers!

I have used wool for the nose and hair of this one. You can use pretty much anything, it is that random whimsy.

Here he is displayed next to the boy's artwork :P

Ha ha, monster smiles.

Hide and seek.

Let us feed the monster a magician panda!

Now the tutorial.

Draw a rough oval on a piece of chart paper.

Cut the said oval. No need to put pressure on perfection.

Grab any random waste cloth, preferably bright shaded, fold it and cut it in a similar shape. This should look somewhat like this. Again, no pressure on perfection.



Keep the paper oval inside.

Next item you need is your old sock: the fuzzier, the better.

See that line over there, that is where we cut.

This should look like this.

Lookie look, the plan is evolving now.

Now insert the oval paper covered in fabric.

Next step is to stitch the said oval formation to the sock, cut the sock as and when you want it fit around the oval.

See, this is how it looks.

Now we will make eyes. You can buy those readymade teddybear eyes, but I wanted it to be from recycled stuff, so I cut a piece of fabric from an old tshirt.

Then that was rolled in to a not so neat fabric ball...

Finished rolling it.

They were then stitched into the sock as eyes.

My washing and sketching unit.

Sheets are washed and monsters are made in this household.

I drew eyes with black fabric paint. He now looks a little tipsy, don't you think?

Then I made some hair from another piece of waste fabric.
I took a roughly cut long piece of fabric.

This was then cut to make tassels, all done quickly, not so neatly.

That was then rolled and stitched on to the sock where hair should be.

Sock puppet happiness :)

This is really easy folks. Next time you see a sock without a pair, make a monster.
:)

Enjoy the puppet show.