Namaste Art: God Decoration

Create a Lotus for VaraLakshmi Vratam to place ammavaaru (varalakshmi Devi).
As Sravana masam is approaching and everyone started to think the ways to decorate the lakshmi devi mandap my sister has come up with this idea to create lotus. Here is what is needed to create the lotus.

Pink Chart paper
Scissors
Glue Gun/Glue
Cardboard
Velvet cloth
White paint and Paint Brush

Procedure to prepare: Picture speaks better than word. Hopefully the pictures help.

Take cardboard and cut it into round shape for the center.
Take velvet cloth and cut it into round shape to cover the cardboard. This is for the center of the lotus. Stick the velvet to cardboard and let it dry.
Use a pencil/stencil to cut the chart paper into lotus leaf shape 11 to 12 are needed and with different shapes(Small to medium size)
Paint the lotus leaves with white lines.
Use glue gun and stick the lotus leaves to the cardboard at the bottom.
Place the lotus leaves as per your requirement.
Let it airdry and the lotus to adorn varalakshmi devi is ready.
It can be decorated with pearls/Kundans as per interest.

Compromising on Pooja Mandir is pretty Frustrating so, I decided to make one and now I am glad I did it. It is Pretty Straight forward and Simple with a little bit of Homework.Well, I took help and dragged Mahesh to get some help and he ended up doing most of it.:).

So, I started of with little bit of homework and looked around for designs and I drew one. we ended up changing the measurements after we reached Home Depot. So, here is the final design with Measurements.

Once, we have it we went to a nearby home depot and took some help of the sales associate (Brian) who was way more helpful than we expected. I posted some pictures of the parts and accessories that we used through out the blog.

We picked 2 planks and 4 legs first and provided the measurements to Brian who cut the wood accordingly. Here are the measurements:
The Stair Legs are 28 Inches and they were cut into 23.5 and 4.5 (were used as the legs at the bottom).
One Plank was cut into 2 pieces each 24X20 (LXB)the other as 20X23.5 (LXH).
Decorative molding was cut into 4 pieces 26.5, 23,21,19 accordingly.

Step 1: Drill 4 holes on Plank 1 (Bottom Plank ). Use Sandpaper 1 and Sand Paper 2 to smoothen the surface of the wooden surface. It took approximately around 30 min to smoothen each of them.

Step 2: Drill holes to the 4 bottom legs and use glue to stuck the wooden nails to it and after an hour stick 4 Bottom wooden Legs to the plank. Leave it for an hour.

Step 3: In the meanwhile Stick the Decorative Molding using the Glue and let it untouched for an hour.
Step 4: Drill 4 holes to the Wooden plan on the top plank and Insert the TNuts to the Plank (You will need a Hammer for this. We also drilled some holes inside of the top plank so that we can screw in cup hooks and hang the bells.

Step 5: Once it is fixed screw in the legs (the stair legs comes with a screw).
Step 6: stick the stair legs to the lower part of the Mandir. Leave it for 2 hours. In the meanwhile you can stick the decorative molding and this is how it is going to look. Yes, it is going to be very messy because we are dealing with wood. We used a plastic sheet to save the carpet.

Step 7: Once the whole structure is strong enough we can screw in the back plank.

Step 8: Use the cloth to clean the wood before staining. We started staining it after testing the structure. 3 times using the mini wax poly shade giving 6 hours each time for it to dry. Used a smaller brush to stain the curves that we missed..( If you have pets keep them away from the structure. I have a cute parakeet which stayed away in the bedroom all along.)