Torans-1

Beads Toran


Torans (in Hindi) and Toranalau (in Telugu) are valences that are hung across the door ways. We Indians decorate our door ways with Torans. Torans are valences. They are usually made of Mango leaves and marigold flowers for festivals and auspicious occasions. The colour green denotes prosperity and the orange or yellow of the marigolds stand for happiness.

Apart from the above traditional ones, people use torans made of other  real and fresh flowers and artificial things. It could be torans made of plastic flowers, papers, wool or silk threads, fabrics like silk, velvet, cotton, embroidered with zari, mirrors, stones, pictures of Gods, goddesses, animals like the elephants, horses, birds, like peacocks etc. They could also be made of various beads, cowrie shells, coins etc. there are also crocheted ones. I am going to introduce to you various torans made from a variety of materials as the time permits.

So here I share one from my collections.....

 

Here you can see the one made by my aunt very long ago. Its made of plastic and glass beads. You can see the peacocks and parrots. I was privy to the making of this one. The design was first drawn by my aunt on a paper. Then this was drawn on graph papers, marking each bead, colour by colour to get the desired shape. Then this was actually executed. It was a long and tiring process. Any small mistake, it had to be corrected before proceeding further. But the end result is very beautiful. as you can see it decorates one of our door ways.

So, What do you think of it? Please leave your comments....

Rangoli-15

Here are two more designs from our traditional ones...

 This one is 15 to 7 but can be drawn using 15 to 8 dots.

This is also 15 to 8 dots. Hope you have liked these.

Coconut Crafts

I love attending various exhibitions being conducted in my city. Specially if they are related to arts n crafts, textiles, horticulture etc. Recently I visited one. I just want to share with you the products made from coconut. 

Coconut you know is widely grown and used in the coastal areas more so in South India. The fruit is offered as a token of respect to gods. Its used in our cuisine widely. The water of tender coconuts is very tasty, refreshing and highly nutritious, so is the tender flesh. Summertime is the best time to enjoy them. Coconut oil is used as medium of cooking and is very good for our tresses. 

All the parts of the tree are useful. The trunk is used for various purposes like making small boats, as timber,etc, coir is used for mattresses, carpets, ropes, and  so on. The sap from the flowers is drunk known as neera and is very good for health. The same is fermented to get wine known as toddy. Grated coconut mixed with water and boiled gives the milk which is used in various dishes, especially by the South East Asian countries. Coconut is basically good for our hair.

The shell of the fruit is hard and is used for making various crafts and utility items. I could get a glimpse of them only. Here they are:

Here are the fruit. They come in bunches, green, yellow and orange colour. The tender ones have more water and less flesh or is it meat they call it? But once it matures, there is less water and the flesh is hard.

 

 Aren't these faces cute? They are made from the coconuts.

 

Here are the vases, cups and other things made out of the shells. Aren't these artists really good and skilled?

Hope you like them......