Peg people

Here's a peg wooden doll we made. Nadia colored her clothes and hair.

The next question was where does she stay? So we made this house using a box. Her roof are walls are painted pink. Here, she is looking out of a window we cut out.

We added some minimal features...here's her washed clothes drying in the hot sun. They are pink too :-) She has a small potted plant outside the window. Also a table is set with cookies and a drink.

So the next question Nadia posed was who could she share these cookies with?

Enter a second peg doll, he's a guy with a funny moustache and a little beard. Again, a pink shirt :-)

The requests are now increasing...a peg family, neighbors, more houses. Hmm...I think I see a potential future village in the making!

Have a great week ahead.
Cheers,
Aruna

Painting on canvas

I found these canvas squares at a sale and stocked up on a dozen. Nice for Nadia to get her practice and we can also put them up on the wall. So here, Nadia started with painting  simple design. 

My sister is visiting this weekend and we had a great time with Nadia just chatting and painting away.

This type of work is really good for children of small ages. It improves their patience and hand-eye co-ordination.

Here's the final version.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,
Aruna

Airport runway

We have been working on a runway for an airport for the last few days. I started by spray painting an entire side of a UPS box. Once it dried, we measured and drew a runway on it. Nadia painted the runway white.

We added some yellow lines and LED lights. Using a screw driver I poked holes in the cardboard and we inserted the lights from the back. Here's our plane being guided by the LED lights.

We added some cones and other goodies that were in the US Airways plane set.

This is our control tower. It's made out of a toilet paper roll and a empty cheese carton. We painted them black. The plan is to eventually add a helipad to the top of the control tower.

Needless to say, Nadia is having a blast with this as you can see below.

We have more plans with this project. We plan to add a hanger for the plane, an arrivals/departure lounge, a car park and then add some lego structures around it. It's a big treat to photograph and play with this :-)

On another note, we have a super exciting weekend ahead. Our album "Jiyaa Lage Na" is getting released this Friday by the great legend Shri Bappi Lahiri. I owe my friend Neeraj Agrawal a big Thank you for letting me add my vocals to his project. Here's a link to the CD if you are interested.

 Have great weekend.
Cheers,
Aruna

An underwater scene

We are working a project that will take us a few days to finish. Meanwhile, we are also doing some minor activities on the side just to keep it diverse and also to keep the posts coming :-)

Lately we have been watching the "Land before time" movies on the weekends. It really a heartwarming series of cute dinosaurs. In the last one, we heard this song "Big Big Big Big Water". That has inspired this underwater scene. At swimming class today, Nadia announced that she wanted to paint a water scene...so here goes. Nadia is painting the blue waters here.

There are some rocks at the bottom and a school of fishes swimming happily.

Here are our little critters that we plan to stick in the scene. The crocodile is really a belly-dragger and the shark is a sharp-tooth!!

Nadia then stuck them to the scene. The sharp-tooth had fun swimming around.

He then spotted the fishes and the rest is history.

Weekdays call for 15-20 minute sessions. It's a great way to connect with Nadia and relax a bit before her bedtime. Nadia added a few more creatures next day morning. Here's the final version.

Have a great rest of the week.

Cheers,
Aruna