Friday, October 29, 2010

Bali Wood Carving – Great Form of Art

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Bali wood carving is perhaps the most popular of all other kinds of wood carvings. Artisans and craftsmen are doing the carving from centuries as this is their family business and art. Every kind of item is carved on wood in Bali.

Bali is known for its art, beautiful nature of people and their spiritual values. All these are highly visible in the Bali wood carving especially the spirituality. Their love to their God is represented in their every craft. Their artifacts will give your home a different and refined look.

The best part of Balinese woodcarving is that you will always find something you are looking for and that too in an expected price. Bali wood masks, wood banana tress, wild flowers, animal sculptures are the most common to see on the shelves of retailing stores.

Most of the artists there work without any prior education and training in this art of wood carving as it runs in their blood. So they are really capable of giving shape to their thoughts and creativity through this art. Jewel carving along with this is particularly popular. On this also you will find many kinds of Balinese sculptures, modern fashion as well as traditional style.

Bali wood carving earlier was done on temples, spiritual places etc. Also the carved demons, pillars having mythical beings, door panels having the wood carving are the most popular as these keep the evil intruders out and wont allow these to enter.

Every village in Bali has its own specialization and style of work. Village Mas near Ubud is known for its wood carving. Here beautiful female figures, Buddha sculptures and other characters from Hindu epics are carved in a very beautiful way.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Pandora Animal Beads : Product Review

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Pandora jewelry shop is around for quite a long while now. A small enterprise started in 1970's has now taken up shape as a major brand. People love to flaunt their pandora jewelry pieces, for these are classic pieces of grace and timeless beauty.

One of the many items that the pandora jewelry shop deals into are the beautiful animal beads. The animal shaped beads in sterling silver, gold or glass look extremely trendy and reinforces a person's animal love indirectly. Just pick up your favorite pandora animal bead and paint the town red with its style and trend.

The best part about these beads is that even after coming from a popular and renowned brand, they are quite reasonably priced. This makes them perfect gift items for the pet lovers. Animal bead bracelets or a silver animal bead pendant in a silver chain not only look fashionable but also happen to be a one of of its kind of a pick too. The finesse and carving on each of these animal bead is a work of expertise and precision. Being small items to carry, the pandora animal beads can be easily shipped to your loved ones on negligible shipping charges. Pandora animal bead jewelry is great to gift on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or valentine's day.

Pandora jewelry shop offers these beads in all kinds of animal shapes like cats, dogs, fishes etc. the glass beads in this category are more economical than the gold and silver beads. Hence, if the silver, gold do not fit the budget, you can opt for the glass animal beads too. One can easily source the design patterns and the corresponding rates from various jewelery shopping sites on internet.

To know more about animal beads, click here.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Handcrafted Wooden Cigar Boxes : A Tutorial

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Crafting a wooden cigar box can be a fun project, especially if you plan to gift it to somebody who loves to smoke cigars. These are actually a very trendy yet royal gift choice for men of all ages. Thus, making it personally for gifting purpose can be a very special experience. Though, one is expected to have some basic woodworking knowledge to make a cigar box. Mentioned below are few ideas to handcraft cigar boxes. Check them out:


Materials
Wooden cigar boxes are mainly creased with cedar wood as it is the most fitting of all the woods to maintain apt humidity level for cigars. Besides, cedar is also known to have a pleasant fragrance. Generally the interior of the finest cigar boxes are always lined with cedar wood, while the exterior is often made of hardwood. Hardwoods refer to walnut, mahogany, redwood, spruce and oak woods. It is a personal choice to make the cigar box completely from either of the woods or in combination of cedar and hardwood.


Assembling
Slice the hardwood as per the calculated measurements using a table saw and miter attachment. Next you would need to rout out the corner joints with the help of a corner joint bit and router. Gather the entire box by patting wood glue onto the linking sides of the corner joint, and fix the sides together and let them dry. While the other technique is to nail the sides together with small nails or staples.


Wood Finish
An ideal cigar box is conventionally finished by sanding the three facets of the box namely- top, sides and corners using a 120-grit and 360-grit sand paper. Thus, for finishing round out the corners with sand paper manually until it offers an impeccable look. Afterwards, one can use a hand-applied stain which is later hand-buffed using a rag for a natural, antique wood feel. Stain application with a brush provides the box a sophisticated style as well as designer finish.


To know more about wooden cigar boxes, click here.

Making a Cross Bead Necklace

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Cross bead jewelery is quite a rage among people these days. The whole gothic feel that this particular jewelry provides to the appearance is something which every true fashion lover adores. In fact, you can make it all the more special by crafting it out out on your own. Mentioned below is the process of making a cross bead necklace at home. Check it out:

Material Needed

30" Leather lacing, approximately (Suede Cord)
7 Translucent blue pony beads
1 White pony bead
Glue, optional

Procedure

Step 1
First of all to start with, you would be needed to fold the leather lacing into its half and hold on to folded end firmly.

Step 2
Now in the second step, you would need to push two of the translucent beads on to the folded end. But, while doing so, you have to be sure of leaving a little length of lacing below the beads. This extra length would justify its purpose in the later stages.

Step 3
Once the first two pony beads have been inserted into the lacing, you would next need to again, string one translucent bead each into each of the leather lacing from the other end.

Step 4
Now you'll be left with three more beads, push these remaining beads into the leather lacing from both ends.

Step 5
All the beads are within the leather lacing now so, you would be tying both the ends of the leather lacing together in a knot tightly.

Step 6
Next, you have push two of the translucent bead towards the knot you just tied.

Step 7
In this step you have to be tactful. Here, you would have to push the other two bead which are on the strings towards the individually strung beads.

Step 8
Now comes the turn of the white bead. Place the white bead sideways that is, on the open ends amongst the 2 translucent beads and then gently push the double strung translucent bead down until it tightens the necklace enough to hold the white bead right in place.

Step 9
You can use glue to stiffen the hold of white bead, though it is no necessary.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Indian Wood Work: The Traditional Art

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India is known for its amazingly beautiful handicraft of wood carving. Being influenced by the diverse cultures and flavors in India, the designs and carvings too can be found in an array of different forms and types. Indian wood craft generally carries motifs which showcase the different culture and flora fauna of a particular region. The entire process of carving a piece of wood involves dedicated and well calculated strokes for chipping, carving and rounding the wooden surface. Skilled Indian artisans craft out exquisite pieces of traditional as well as contemporary designs on various wood items.
There are lots of reasons which support the existence and popularity of Indian wood work such as- availability of different types of wood, availability of skilled labor, presence of rich cultural traditions and values to inspire the wood art.
The major wood carving styles which are followed by the Indian artisans are:

Lattice Work
Lattice work is identified for its see through cut work. It basically involves carving on screens with exquisite see through cut work.

Undercut
The undercut carving is derived from the traditional stone carving which is used for making sculptures. This kind of carving often incorporates seven different layers in the making. Undercut carving is generally done on panels.

Deep Carving
Deep carving refers to the particular style of wood art where the carving results into raised designs patterns. This particular carving is often used while designing antique wood furniture.

Engraved Carving
Engraved carving is done on thin panels running along the hem of the surface, with a motif in the very center. This is the characteristic feature of engraved carving.

Plain Carving
In this particular form of carving flat surface is used to carve out the desired design. It is rather the simplest form of wood carving amongst all kinds of wood carving.

To know more about wood work in India, click here.

How to Do Hair Beading?

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Hair beading gives an opportunity to the girls for a funky look and hence done by many youngsters for a cool and a stylish look. Matching beads to the dress are beaded through the strands of hair. Kids just love this part of beads when they go out for a party etc. Beads from metallic, glass, pony, acrylic and more can be used for this purpose.

So if you are tired of styling your hair in different style and looking for something innovative, colorful and magical then check out the hair beads to bead your hair.

Instructions on How to Do Hair Beading
  1. First of all select the kind of bead you want to use on your hair. This can be large pony beads, acrylic beads, metal beads or very pretty glass beads. Then decide which color you would like to have for beading. Small beads look better than the bigger ones.
  2. Brush your hair to remove knots. If you need neat and clean result better to first clean and then dry your hair.
  3. Take the floss threader (it is very small and thin wire having loop and used by dentists). Sew beads in the floss threader. The sequence should be the same as you want in your hair. The order is from scalp to down.
  4. Pick a small section of your hair. For seed beads it can be just 4-6 strands whereas for pony beads it can be about 1/4th of an inch. Make a desire braid and apply hair gel to secure it.
  5. Place the strand of hair across the loop of floss threader and add the beads to hair.
  6. End of hair can be secured either with a rubber band or with a gel.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Give Your Young Ones a Beaded Phone Number Bracelet

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You must be worried about your kids when they go to school or for other extracurricular activities as still they do not remember the home or their parents' phone number. But here is a nice option of giving them your phone number in the form of numbered bead bracelet. It is an easy, inexpensive and a beautiful way to keep your important numbers with your kids and because these are so colorful, your kid wont remove this.

Things Required
  1. Pony Bead
  2. Numbered Beads (of your phone number)
  3. Elastic Cord
  4. Lanyard Hook
  5. Split Ring
Instructions to Make Numbered Bead Bracelet
  1. You can keep the color pattern according to your taste.
  2. Take the elastic cord and fix the split ring and then lanyard hook on one side of the cord.
  3. Now keep the two pony beads with you and divide the rest into two equal halves.
  4. Take one half of the pony bead and bead these through the elastic cord one by one.
  5. After this, take the numbered beads and bead in the pattern of your cell number or home number, whatsoever you need.
  6. Followed this will come the rest of the pony beads.
  7. At the end knot another split ring.
  8. If you want do not want to keep it open then just tie a knot of two open ends of elastic cord, giving bracelet a ring form. This is bracelet very easy to wear by children

You can also use the same instructions to make name bracelet by using alphabet beads.

Check out more on beads and bead craft on Beads Manufacturers.