DIY Hanging Bird Bath

A famous quote says " It's nice to be important but more important to be nice", let's begin to be nice. The scotching summers...scarcity of water takes away the life of many living beings not just humans, but animals, birds and plants also lose their lives. With this rise in mercury level a kind effort from us can save these innocent creatures. The life saving H2O, that's water can be kept in our garden or terrace or balcony or near windows or on any place in our house where birds can visit easily and have water. These speechless physiology of our planets are helpless and are in continuous search of survival, we can join hands to save them and our planet. 

With a small effort towards this, I have made a bird bath in my balcony. I thought I'll keep it simple. But finally ended up doing this, which is neither too simple nor too complex. All my DIY works are my weekend projects :) and every weekend comes with a long To-do-list. This is a result of last weekend which was made in a hurry, as summer has already set in. All was done in a very unsystematic manner :(, along with a surprise visit of some guests :), sudden outing plans and many such interrupting things. But finally I am sharing the idea with you all. 

So here it is without strings and pebbles;

Items required :1. A flat clay pot (If clay pot is not available any other pot will do)
2. Acrylic Paint (Any colour of your choice)
3. Paint Brush
4. Twine
5. Some pebbles (Optional)
6. M-Seal
7. A big piece of cloth (I used an old cloth)
8. Talcum powder
9. Some plastic leaves (Optional)
(Unlike earlier DIYs this time don't have a picture of items required)

Step-1

Take a big piece of cloth and keep it in a round shape like the following image. Circumference of the cloth should be according to the circumference of the clay pot. First roughly tie it with a twine, then again tie it tightly and thoroughly. Then take three long twines and tie those to hang this. Length according to the length of hanging bird bath.

Step-2

Dust your hand with some talcum powder and take equal portions of both mixtures of M-seal. Mix them well and give shape to your desired object. To my surprise when I opened the M-Seal packet there was only half of the mixture. On questioning my husband teasingly he replied with a smile "I did some real M-seal work :)." I was determined to complete this DIY on the same day so I made the body of birds with whatever M-seal I had and it's tail was made with plastic leaves. Insert the leaves when the M-seal is wet.

Step- 3
Paint the clay pot according to your choice and hang it this way.

Step-4
Then stick the M-seal birds on it and paint it.

It's now done and ready to move to its final place.
Here it is in my balcony garden with some pebbles.

So let us all keep some water for birds this summer and if this can be done with some personal touch like this it will enhance the beauty of the place along with a noble cause as the primary focus. This can also serve as a bird feeder.
Looking for your feedbacks and suggestions.

Pizza Chaat

Most of us like Chaat, a famous street side food in India. Its mouth watering flavors -salty, spicy, tangy, sweet can tickle anybody’s tongue. Today I am sharing a different version of it, an Indo-Italian version i.e. Pizza Chaat. 

 Ingredients :
1- Pizza base (I used whole wheat flour pizza base)
2- Refined oil - 1/2 cup
3- Finely chopped vegetables (Carrot, Cabbage, Capsicum, Beans) - 2 cups
4- Finely chopped green chilies -2
5- Finely chopped coriander -2 tsp
6- Horse gram flour (Besan) - 1 cup
7- Ginger, Garlic and Onion paste - 2 tsp
8- Boiled mashed potato - 1 medium
9- Salt according to taste
10- Turmeric powder -1/2 tsp
11- Red chili powder - 1 tsp
12- Coriander powder - 1 tsp
13- Cumin powder - 1 tsp
14- Chaat Masala -1 tsp
15- Finely chopped Onion - 1 medium size
16- Yogurt  - 1/2 cup
17- Sweet tamarind chutney / Imli Chutney - 1 tbsp
18- Green chutney (Coriander, Mint chutney) - 1 tbsp
19- Mixture/Sev - 2 tsp

Step- 1
Heat half of the oil in a Kadhai. Add green chilies, ginger-garlic-onion paste and fry for few minutes. when the oil starts separating add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and salt. Fry for few minutes again.

Step-2
Add the chopped vegetables (cabbage, capsicum, beans and carrot) and cook till the vegetables are done. Cover with a lid to cook it fast. Once vegetables are cooked add the mashed potato and mix it well. Then add finely chopped coriander and Chaat masla. Switch off the heat. Allow it to cool down.

Step-3
Make a batter with horse gram flour, salt, chili powder and water. Spread the fried vegetable curry evenly on the pizza base. Then cover it with a layer of gram flour batter.

Step-4
Heat oil on a flat pan. Then place this pizza base up side down. Cook it for 2 minutes on medium flame and then turn it carefully. Let the pizza base side to cook for 1 minute. Once both sides are done take it out and cut it as we cut pizza.

Step-5
Garnish it with yogurt, green chutney, sweet chutney, mixture/sev and chopped onions. Can also add tomato sauce.

So enjoy this Indian version of Pizza with your loved ones. 

You can add any vegetables of your choice or can make only with potato. 

Make the curry and keep it in freeze, so that can make it instantly whenever required. 

Can also go for homemade pizza base. 

* tsp (Tea spoon)

* tbsp (Table spoon)

Blissful Bottles

I believe a lot on the mantra of Three R's - Recycle, Reuse and Reduce and try to implement it on day today life to best possible way. Not a single bottle is thrown at my place, specially the glass bottles. All the bottles are reused. Sometimes even bottles of unique shape and size are collected from friends and relatives. 

Then they are given a new look................here are some. 

My art bottles. Had a desire to have a collection of different art forms, so came up with this idea of art on bottle.

Now lets have a look of these three bottles individually...

Black and white Warli art bottle. 

Madhubani art bottle. Just madly in love with this art form. 

An art bottle inspired from Meenakshi designs. An art form that she calls Madhukari... 

Pattachitra, an art form that is basically done on palm leave and cloth in Odisha by using natural colours. Got a place on a bottle. 

A simple Warli art bottle in my balcony garden.

Candle drop bottles. Will come up with the tutorial soon :)

I had just cut the embroidery from an old dress and glued it on a bottle. Then glued some twine and painted it. Here is the outcome. 

Mosaic art bottle. You can make you own bottle. Find the tutorial here...

A green plastic bottle painted with simple flower design...

Another bottle in the kitchen looks perfect with my handmade Paper Mache small pot and Pistachio shell lotus.  

It was a tomato sauce bottle and  now its a chalk board painted bottle. Find the tutorial here. 

Had these small blue medicine bottles. Now they are a part of my sea themed decoration. They got this look for the summer with some sea shells and twine. Sea themed decoration for summer coming soon on blog :) ...

Cold drink bottle planters with the concept of vertical gardening...

..............will continue adding more bottles to the collection and more content to this post :) :).