New Papercuts

One of my favorite people in the blogging world is Elsita. She is such an amazing artist and person, and is so inspiring, emotionally and artistically. This latest series of papercuts I've done are inspired by her. My papercuts are little rememberances of growing up in India. I will describe each of them.

ELEPHANT BLESSING
As kids in India, we often went to see temple elephants to get a blessing - the elephant would lift up his trunk and put it on our heads to bless us. I remember this wonderful feeling, and when I took my kids back to India last year we watched the same amazement on their faces while getting an elephant blessing.

Elephant is cut out of black paper, child is drawn on white and temple is cut out of white and pasted on white.


LIONS IN THE WILD
There are not many lions left in India. This one has gotten so close to the city because his habitat has been destroyed and he's looking puzzled as to what's coming next...


VANITY OF THE PEACOCK
The peacock is the national bird of India. These birds were always portrayed in folk tales to be proud and vain and not very smart! Mine likes to admire himself in the mirror.

DIY Kitchen Christmas Present

Our daughter wanted a play kitchen for Christmas. After many hours of research, and not liking any of the commercially available ones, we decided to do it ourselves as my favorite was one I saw on Apartment Therapy made using an Ikea side table.

Since we didn't have an Ikea nearby, I went to Joanns, and luckily found the perfect unfinished wood 2-cube shelf for $35, which served as the base. Dave got the rest of the elements cut at Home Depot, 2 doors, the face plate and the back splash, which were all cut from scrap so cost very little ($4 total), and the cuts were made for free by them.

The knobs were also available at Joanns for $0.50 each (I would get smaller ones if I was to do it over), the burners were unfinished wood plaques, and the faucet was a Paper Mache alphabet S cut in half! The shelf was an unfinished CD shelf which works perfectly. We pasted hooks underneath so that utensils could be hung.


My favorite element is the oven rack which is a chrome shelf available at the grocery store.



I got the vintage accessories at one of my many thrifting expeditions. The total cost was about $60 in all, we are so pleased with the results, and she LOVES it!




Here are some drawings to print out in case that helps...

Happy New Year!

Here's to embracing 2009 with wild abandon!