Green design: Preethi's Fan blade Lamp ~ DIY

I have already spoken about this amazing lady on the blog here. Preethi is full of surprises. This time around, she made a set of pendant lamps from discarded fan blades.

 And here is the story in her own words.

"Pendant lights can be expensive and yet not unique. Here is a quick DIY pendant lights idea. 

On my last trip to the weekly Bangalore Sunday market, which happens on the BVK Iyengar Road, I chanced upon these table fan blades in different colors. They weren’t pretty when I saw them, I had to look through a load to get the least dented ones, but I think I could see through the dusty blades and I had an instant idea. I picked up four of them and they sat in a corner of the house for a few weeks before the time came for it to see the light of the day."

"So when I was decorating my husbands office meeting room, I visualized the three fan blades hanging from the ceiling above the table. I wanted a retro feel in that space, and the fan blades were best suited there.  I brought them out and shined them with some soap water and wet rag."

What I used for this project?

• 3 meters of wire (White)
• 3 white bulb holders
• One metal wire manager strip ( can find in any lighting shop)
• 3 LED bulbs

How I did it? 

"It was just a matter of cutting the wires to 3 different length, attaching the holder and passing it through the fan blades. The wire manager holds the wire tightly in place and conceals the wires connections. Since the connections to be made to the existing building wiring, it needed an electrician for installation. And it was done! 

I think it turned out pretty cool, and I am quite proud of it. It sort of fit perfectly into the theme and looks very impressive."

Awesome is't it. 

I had to feature this as it works so well and it goes so well with my green design ethos :). Need to see more of her awesome DIYs? Hop over to her space... preethiprabhu.com

Thanks a ton for sharing the DIY with me Preethi. :)

PS:
She is an entrepreneur and deals in Indian handicrafts and exclusive textiles. I hope to do a tour of her awesome office space she did recently... :)

DIY time

I am so proud of my dear H. This trip to India meant a lot of family time and some DIY (only by my Ma-in-law and hubby dearest). I wrote about the Ikea Poang cushion makeover by my ma-in-law, last year. 2011 look for the living room is ...

and

I am so proud of him :)

While on Vacation ~ Celebrations time!

I am in my hometown, Hyderabad, India, and celebrating festivals and participating in rituals. Had the varalakshmi poojai on friday

and the last year's arrangements in atlanta looked something like this

I liked being with family this year...:)..before I say bye for now, wishing everyone a very happy independence day.

(saluting the Indian flag!!)

Linking up to Weekly stories at Patty's

Monday Morning

Have a great week ahead!

Kamini's Guest post on my Green Blog

Hi Folks, Here is a must read guest post by the very talented Kamini (of Saffron and Silk and Zingara Girl). I had requested her to share her (and her husband's) experience with Hydroponics; And she obliged. This post is a must read for all you organic food patron (it is a must even if you are not!!)

The Post: Pass the spinach....er.....diazinon please! ~ Guest post ~ Kamini Raghavan

I promise, you will be inspired!

Patricia's Hand Painted Feature Wall (with updates)

Dont you just love this feature wall...All hand painted and wonderfully done!

Wondering where i picked this picture from? It was a feature wall in Patricia's previous home. I was hoping to write about hand painted feature walls but then decided to dedicate a post to this fabulous wall art


sneek peek via a mirror on the opposite wall...

  
Colours used

Work in Progress

The peacock was painted free hand.. most of the borders were done with normal water based paint for walls... The peacock was done using acrylic.. and shadings were done with pencil, pastels and crayon!!

All done...Beautiful feathers!

The Elegant peacock..wow!

A glimpse of the entire painting and the wall

Anyone familiar with the Home Design & Decor blog scene would surely know Patricia, of the Colours Dekor. She is among those is always encouraging and appreciative of fellow bloggers and takes time out to interact with them. An amazing lady who is open to ideas and is personal with her blog post and her comments on others' blogs. (oh yes! I can keep going)

Patty! do what you are doing and we all love you for that :)...Wishing you many more wonderful blogging years ahead! Looking forward to all the wonderful things you are doing with your new home!

Read more about the hand painted wall >> Here and many more wonderful things on her blog >> Here

An update: A very dear friend and a wonderful blogger, Rashmi of Ethnic Indian Homes had done a post on Patricia's wall earlier (thanks patty for sharing this as well)...It is a complete DIY guide to how this wall was done...a must read :) - HERE

Pictures courtesy : Patricia  Thankyou patty for the pictures...your pics make the blog look beautiful!! 

Friday Finds - Interesting Wall unit

Like everyone else who is interested in design and home aesthetics, I browse through websites, blogs and yes the craigslist (how could I forget my eternal source of research insipirations!!) for interesting finds. I had shared an interesting danish style magazine stand earlier, a craigslist find!! >>Link. Keeping in view my overflowing folder of  inspirations and finds for the future, I decided to write about one such item per week, say every friday.

For starters, let me share this very interesting looking wall unit found via Thomaswold's blog>> link. Do check out his blog for more amazing DIYz. (i just skimmed through the blog and fell in love with his work..planning to take a day out to read through his work and posts where he talks about his projects and work in general). 

The wall unit

Created from a set of unused or unwanted furniture. I am major fan of upcycled and repurposed things. (obvious that i loved his idea right!!).

This Pile ....

Transformed into this work of art...

Pic courtesy: thomaswold

Painted furniture is not really my style, but what I liked about this piece is that he has repurposed, recycled and upcycled most of the furniture, which would have otherwise ended up in the landfill. It is simply a super cool DIY idea (I could totally steal!!)  to create a really unique piece of art!

Really amazing work I must say :). Don't you think :-) so too. 

PS: Check the blog for more details on such projects.

Before I forget, Let me link this post to show and tell ` @ My Romantic Home :)

Happy Ganesh Chathurthi

Wishing a very happy Pullayaar chathurthi.

I came across a Friday Show and tell event at My Romantic Home and decided to participate in it. I thought I would talk about my 2009 Ganesh Chathurthi celebration at home.

It is a tradition in our family to make a clay idol for the celebrations and then immerse the idol in a well or a lake nearby after Three days of festivities. The tradition of immersing it in a local lake or a well makes it is very important to avoid synthetic colours and plaster of paris, etc to sculpt the idol. Keeping my green design ideology in mind, I made a whole wheat (atta) ganesha (the pic above) and used water colours to decorate it.

 2010 - This year's ganesha is a Work  in Progress.:). And now, I am off to post my entry @ the Show and Tell event!

Flowers @ Home

I am quite excited to see these lovely Bitter Gourd Blossoms (guessing!) in my balcony garden. I had a neat growth of saplings last year and had harvested chillies, capsicum, tomatoes and okra/ladies finger. This year, however, the garden is rather sparse. I planted has a few chillies and this lone creeper. The best part about this Bela being - it sprung out of my compost bin and was later transplanted into the milkcan I re-purposed as Planters. I am yet to find out what this is going to yield :-).

I am looking forward to a few home grown vegetables  :-)

I did this post for another reason. For saying a Big Thank you to Rekha of The Key Bunch. She invited me to join their "Say it with Flowers carinval"  ...I am sending in this post to their super party!! Sharon and Rekha are celebrating two years of their blogging by asking readers and co bloggers to Say it with flowers. 


You could participate too...All you need - Do a post on your blog with a picture of flowers from your abode. It could be an arrangement, a potted plant, your garden, stringed flowers or anything you can imagine... Do join in and wish them for being such great bloggers and dishing out yummy eye candy for the last two years.

Wishing them great blogging years ahead.

DIY - IKEA Poang Cushion Cover

I bought this IKEA poang sometime back. It works well with my living room setting and is a great chair for lazing around and doing nothing!

I had requested my ma-in-law to stitch a slip on cover for the cushions. She repurposed an bedsheet (twin bed) into this lovely cover. I am glad she did it...the chair looks so different and the colours are so apt for Fall / Autumn.

A new cover brought in a lot of freshness and warmth into the decor and a light feel to the chair. Ah!.... talk about a single change making a major difference :).