Bloomin' Design Studio

We wish you and your family a very Happy Diwali !

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This is my original drawing of an Indian lady holding a lamp. The lady was painted on watercolor paper, outlined in ink and then attached to a cardstock paper. This challenge required the use of only blue and red colors and hence these are the dominant colors including the use of blue ink for the outline.

Diwali/Deepavali, the festival of lights a major festival of India is on Oct 17/18 this year and this card seems perfect for this occasion.

I made this card for Paperminutes Sketch Challenge 83.

Supplies: Plain cardstock, watercolor paper, water color paints, ink pen and glue

Welcome to our Navaratri Golu also known as Bommai golu or festival of dolls. Hope you enjoy our creations as much as we did creating them. Not many scenes were created this year as the main focus was my temple scene and also wanted to keep the overall look clean and simple.

The Golu

Outside Kolam


Just a simple kolam drawn using wet rice flour and an araku border as folks will be stepping on it before entering our house.

First Step

Hanuman, Lakshman, Rama and Sita next to Lord Venkateshwara and Padmavati

Second Step - Vaikunta set

Parthasarathy set with the 12 alwars, the followers of Lord Vishnu

Third Step - Couples

Thallaiaattu bommai, Jaipur couple, the traditional marapatchi bommai which ia a must for every golu and a Delhi couple.

Fourth Step - Aarupadi Murugan Set

Murugan idols from Tiruchandur, Pallamulzhicholle, Tiruthanni, Swamimalai, Tiruparamkundram and Palani

Fifth Step

My Musical Ganesha creations on the left with the instruments in mostly white with highlights of black and red.

Dasavatharam(the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) can be seen on the right. My daughter keeps switching the idols here and hence will not correspond to the actual order of the avatars. The ten avatars in the right order are Matsya(big fish), Kurma(Turtle), Varaha(Boar), Narasimha(half man and half beast), Vamana(sdwarf priest), Parashurama(Rama with an axe), Ramachandra(Rama), Balram(Krishna’s elder brother), Krishna and Kalki

Chettiar Bommai

These dolls respresent the business community and hence you can see them selling grains and lentils.

Bommai Rangoli

What other rangoli can be more suitable than one which has drawings of dolls for this festival of dolls. Used sand for background, rangoli powder, rice flour, brown rice, crushed tea leaves, rhinestones, sticks and of course my daughter’s favorite embellishment glitter. The rangoli was made to look like a rug.

Park Scene

My 5-year daughter created this park scene and wanted no help or suggestions from anyone. Bench was painted in gold(her current favorite color), barely standing slide, free merry-go-around, silver bench, teeter-totter also called see-saw, a swing set and sand box on the right. This scene is the highlight of our golu.

Temple Scene

All the pieces in this scene was handmade by me with the exception of the coconut tree which was a hand-me-down from a family friend. A little boy monitoring a chappal stand can be seen in front of the temple on the left. A lady selling flowers and coconut can be seen on the right. She is supposed to also be selling bananas which disappeared and must be one of my daughter’s prank. A white elephant was added to this scene on the request of my daughter as she believes that every temple has to have a white elephant (the St. Louis temple has two white elephants in the front).

Boy monitoring the chappal/shoe stand

The boy, slippers and shoe are made of clay here.

Coconut, flowers and fruit vendor lady

The lady, coconut, bananas and flowers(jasmine and others) made of clay except for the jewelry on the lady.

The Ganesh idol inside the temple

The idol was made to look like it was carved out of stone.

The Poojari with tamboolam

The poojari comes with a white dhoti with gold border and has a red angostram with gold border too and is seen holding a tamboolam with coconut, banana and flowers. He also has a shaven head with just a kudumi on the back of his head.

The Navagrahas

The Navagrahas are usually carved out of a piece of stone found in the temple itself. This piece is made to look like something carved out of stone. The configuration of nine idols, called Navagraha, represents the nine principal heavenly bodies. Each of them confer different benefits like good health (Surya - Sun), Victory (Chandra - Moon), Wisdom (Buddha -Mercury), honor (Guru - Jupiter), Vocal skills (Sukra - Venus), joy and happiness (Sani - Saturn), strength (Rahu), personal opulence (Ketu) and family prosperity (Angaraka - Mars)

Some of my creations from my golu are for sale. If you like any of my creations and like to order something similar for your next year’s golu or just for displaying around the house, please send me an email at (bhanu@bloomingdesignstudio.com) or leave me a comment.

Thanks for visiting my humble home to take a look at our golu.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to all!

The idol:
The Ganesh idol was handmade using terra cotta clay. Gold paint was rubbed onto his crown and some yellow paint for his dhoti and shawl.

The rangoli:
The outline of the rangoli was drawn with chalk which was later colored in using rangoli powders by my daughter. She seems to be doing better spreading the rangoli powder with her two fingers. You can see her in the picture adding glitter to the rangoli in the end.

The offerings:
We offered fruits, flowers, modakas and masala vadas to the lord.
My daughter enjoyed helping me make modakams for Lord Ganesh. It brought back my memories of helping my mom in the kitchen during festivals. My daughter thought the rice flour dough for the modakas was just like her play dough. We decorated the altar with fresh flowers from our garden.

Gokulashtami, the birthday of Lord Krishna, a hindu god is celebrated on Thursday, Aug 13, 2009. It is also called as Krishna Jayanthi or Krishna Janmashtami and Shree Jayanthi amongst many names. Krishna was born sometime in the night and hence the pooja and celebrations is performed in the evening.

Lord Krishna was welcomed into our home wih a simple rangoli drawn with a lot of help from my 5-year old daughter. See the little feet drawn on the floor to show little Krishna coming into our house? Uppu Cheedai, Pal Kova, Curd and Milk was offered to Krishna in our home which are a few of Krishna’s favorites. We used baby Krishna idols, decorated with flowers(Kanakambaram and roses) from our garden and a kolam drawn on water(my first time). Happy Gokulashtami to all!