Naradtales

A situation – you call black, I call white
We discuss all through the day into the night
Into the dark, unto twilight
Our understanding – our imagination taking flight

Slowly our words become trite
We argue, with no respite
Not a worry, about the consequences of the fight
Not a worry, about the slew of slights

Supporters of both our camps, quite forthright
In their understanding, of wrong from right
Quite a riot , they manage to incite
There seems no end, no end at all in sight

Seemingly, at the rope’s end, one reaches a bight
Another look at the situation, an idea ignites
Maybe it was wrong to reject black outright?
Maybe it could be understood just a shade light?

Slowly, the discussions start to get polite
Looking at their view, and loosening the hold on ours – tight
An understanding emerges – Neither black nor white
But, beautiful shades of gray, a true delight!

Recently, a friend asked me to paint a castle for her twin daugther’s princess themed party.  I had so much fun resizing the clipart she gave me to fit the screen curtain on which I painted the entire scene.  The trees were the hardest to get right, I am so happy with the way they turned out.  

So what do you all think? Like the way it turned out? 

Tata,

Shankari.

Taking care of three girls and my “crafty” pursuits allows me no time to blog!  I have been wanting to start writing again for quite sometime and decided to make a fresh start after R’s 4th birthday. 

She wanted a Rainbow birthday and I fell head over heels in love with the theme.  My sister and I spend weeks, planning and working on the various aspects of the birthday party, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the guests. 

Below is a collage of photos from the party – 

Rainbow tissue paper pompoms – I followed instructions from http://www.marthastewart.com/265163/pom-poms-and-luminarias-how-to

Rainbow crowns – I follwed instructions from here.  Each child was given a premade crown(each crown took me about 10 minutes to make) along with a zip lock of adhesive jewels to decorate their crown with.  We had them fix it to their head with hair clips. I was a little apprehensive that this might be too girly, but the boys that came to the party had fun with it too 🙂 Oh, the kids also got a nametag attached to a friendship bracelet made with rainbow twine. The nametags were then used to play the “Pin the nametag on the rainbow” game. 

Once decorated, each child was invited to stand near the tissue paper rose wall to get their photo taken. 

We had an art table set up with a crayon resist activity. On white sheets of paper I had the message “Thank you” and the child’s name written with white crayon.  The children were asked to choose a rainbow watercolour to paint on the paper.  The look on the children’s face when they unraveled the message was priceless!  The inspiration for this came from you Shruti! A big thanks to you, for your crayon resist ideas 🙂 

My good friend read the book Elmer’s special day. It was thorougly enjoyed by all the kids and even now by my kids.

Lots of rainbow snacks like rainbow goldfish, rainbow vegetable salad, fruit salad, home made rainbow frosted vanilla cupcake and rainbow cake and pizza made the rainbow party a grand success. 

 After food, the kids played a “Pin your name on the rainbow game” and then just hung out playing among themselves before calling it a day 🙂

I had a blast planning and executing this birthday. Thanks for the wonderful theme R, may you always have a Rainbow Birthday 🙂 

Tata, 

Shankari!