Parent’s Day Competition, Best out of Waste!!!

 

This is the one day at the child’s school when we as parents become children again, trying to bring out the creative mom/dad that’s hidden inside us-

Parent’s Day Competition!!!

When the circular regarding the same came in my mailbox, I was super thrilled and at the same time a little nervous thinking that what could the best thing that could be made on the spot,  in front of the judges within the time limit of 1 hr, and that too out of waste. We had a week to collect the materials as the event was to be held the following Saturday.

I suddenly remembered an empty gift box with a velvety inside that I had saved to be used at a later date. I was so happy to open up my carefully stowed away box of craft supplies  with a lot of beads and threads and tassels but the rules were very  clear:

No store bought new material to be used excepting gums/glues.

It has to be made from waste.

Wondering what to do, as I entered the kitchen my eyes fell on an empty coconut shell along with the husk that was kept to be discarded after use. I immediately got my cue- this is what I am going to use!. So the “What” part of the question was solved now and what was left was “How”.

After some brain-storming as to whether it should be something like simple wall hanging or a painting and so on, I finally came across a broken piece of one of the old clocks I had saved some time back which was still working. So I decided to do a perfectly working coconut shell clock wall hanging.

I am sure all of you would agree with me when I say Our Families Are Our World, and so I decided to make that as the theme of my work.

 

                                                

Come along as I walk you through the entire process…

 

Materials Required:

 

Empty gift box base

Coconut shell thoroughly scraped and cleaned

Coconut husk

Coconut stalk (flower portion at the base)

Golden Chocolate wrappers-8-10

Tissue Paper & news paper pieces-5-10

Water

White glue

 Cardboard piece

Toothpicks

Paints- orange, white, yellow, brown, metallic bronze

 

Method:

Papermache heads: Tear the newspaper into strips and soak it in a bowl of water and leave it overnight. Next day strain away the excess water, mix few drops of white glue and start kneading into a smooth ball. Now pinch a lemon sized ball out of it and start moulding to form the face. Depicting my own family, I made 4 faces.

House: I cut out a piece of cardboard to the shape of the front portion of the house. I gave a bright orange colour to the house as a  contrast to the background. The walls were ready now and what better than the coconut husk to give an earthy feel to the house. So I stuck the husk to the top part of the house to form the roof. I also used papermache balls to make the pots and rolled paper and toothpick pieces for the ladder to give a village feel to the house.

I felt a scenery was incomplete without a sun. As I looked around I stumbled upon a coconut stalk flower that rests on top of the coconut. I added some orange paint and added some lines to give it an abstract look.

As I would call myself a warlioholic for the love of WARLI art form, to finish it off, I added some warli motifs with bronze metallic paint around the box.

Coconut Clock: I took an empty coconut shell with the side which has eyes on it and scraped the inside fully so that no residue is left. Then gave it a good wash and left it to dry. Once dry, I used a knife to scrape through the centre eye of the coconut such that a hole is formed. 

                                                

Then I inserted the hands of the clock through the inside of the shell and attached it to the back behind the shell.

I added some hot glue between the shell and the back of the clock to keep it  from moving.

I broke the other half of the leftover shell into 12 small pieces to mark the hours. I used some metallic paints inside the shell to add some highlights. I made a small hole at the top of the shell so as to add a string to attach it to the box.

Now that the box and the clock part were ready what was left was to attach all of them together to look like one single wall piece.

I attached the box to the clock with a string and added a handwritten note “ Together We Make a Beautiful World”. I crushed some golden Ferrero Rocher wrappers and rolled them into small balls and beaded them to the note along with some papermache accents and my BEST OUT OF WASTE WALL HANGING was ready!!!

 

Even though assembling all of this in a short time was nerve-wracking, I enjoyed the whole process with my little helper doing all the gluing part. Afterall its all about becoming a child once again and having a real fun time with kids.

I hope you enjoyed reading this I much as I enjoyed creating it. Would love to hear your thoughts and your stories….

 

Until next time its ciao from yours truly…