This Design Journal

Autumn is the season to eat pumpkins and gourds and adore the beautiful fall colors. There are thousands of recipes to try with the pumpkins and another thousands of ways to decorate with fall leaves yet I decided to take on the same combination to make this tablescape. Why? Because they are irresistible and charming and I can not "not do" this.

This is yet another tablescape I did for my magazine feature (malayalimag.com). It is also a tablescape on which I spent nothing other than some time and effort. The fun part is with some colorful leaves and flowers from the garden and some fruits and vegetables from kitchen you can take your table from ordinary to special and pretty.

I know it would be overkill to explain the "to make" part because these pictures speak for themselves. It is simple, colorful, happy yet organic. As you can see I have set it up outside to get better picture, but it lasted for weeks on our dining table with occasional change of water and of-course you have to change the vegetables as and when you use them up. (How do I insert a smiley here? You can't see but imagine I am smiling here)

So go around your neighborhood, collect as many bounties as you can possibly collect and set them on your table, make your dear ones feel special and as in my case get the ordinary food to taste special.

Hope your weekend was relaxed and memorable,
Keep Smiling and enjoy your surroundings.
Anima

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you would know that I have a thing for painting things. I can paint, rather I am willing to paint anything - paper, plastic, vinyl, metal, wood, clay, canvas, glass, walls, ceilings - I haven't even left our poor fan alone. Anyways my point is I love painting.

Today's DIY is painting just one another thing lying around here for a while now. I bought two bowls from the local thrift store when this "succulent terrarium" thing was hot, actually it is still hot in the blogland I believe since it is a thing of beauty. In my enthusiasm I painted the first one red and planted some but they soon died, like a 'month soon' died. It made an appearance here.For a fact, I did try again, multiple times until my poor husband asked me to stop spending money to kill.

For that reason I left the other one alone in a deep drawer and forgot about it. Then I came across this cool project from Little Green Notebook blog and felt this "compulsion" to do something similar. I love painting, I told you right! So I started looking out for a surface to do the same and during a de-cluttering spree ( do you ever do that?) came across my bowl again.

To cut the already long story short I painted my bowl with faux malachite effect ( I hope so) .

Supplies :

1. Two shades of green acrylic paint , one darker than the other. ( I did not have in hand, so just mixed a bit of black to make it darker.

2. Paint brush ( Best if you have what they call "fan" brush - if not no worries, regular one will work too)

3. A bowl, rather a surface to do this.

4. Sealer. I use my Mod-Podge all the time. But poly acrylic sealers are recommended for protecting such surfaces.

How-to :

This is a simple project. The trick is to use a brush that has bristles with some width and loading half of the brush with one shade and the other half with the other shade. Once you have the brush set up, paint with your hand moving in circles as in the above picture.