Every house in North India is outlined with rows upon rows of tiny earthenware pots filled with oil.
Diwali, for me, as a child, was pure magic. At night, the house framed by an outline of diyas, the sound of firecrackers and the smell of the smoke in the air. Pure magic!!
As a child the fun was in laying the diyas along the balcony railings at precise intervals. Some are leaky which you discover only a while later when the marble (a very porous stone) becomes stained with the oil! So I figure out a way to protect the marble, by placing thick cardboard pieces under the diyas! Clever me, I always thought!! One year I alternated between one candle and one diya. The effect was gorgeous.
So here we are in Singapore, each year, still looking for ways to arrange diyas to make the house feel different and special. The kids are catching on slowly but surely!
When I had the first Diwali party at our apartment ,which barely had space to contain 10 small kids (and we had invited twenty), I thought that Diya painting was a must do. My older one was barely 4 at the time. I was new to the world of art and crafts!! Went out and bought Poster paints!! The kids loved to mess about painting the diyas. The result was a grey-green lacklustre diya. Surely there was something not right, I thought to myself. The unglazed earthenware soaked up the paint and that was that! Luckily the kids were too young to understand and the moms too appreciative of the Diwali party to care.
The next year I bravely decided to try acrylic paints. Have not looked back since.
Acrylic paints work beautifully on unglazed earthenware. And they dry within minutes. The colours are bright and happy as Diwali colours must be. So over the years we have painted our diyas a bright blue, green, hot pink, orange and red. Children, when left to their imagination, came up with amazing ways of painting them. The outside one colour and the inside another.
We went on refining our work. There were sequins to stick on in a pattern one year.
The rim was painted with glitter. It looked so pretty. After a couple of years we figured that if you take a plate, dust glitter over it, draw a line of glue around the rim and then simply dunk the diya upside down into the plate, its the most hassle free way to a sparkling diya!!
I am struck by how each year we repeat this one activitiy and the children never seem to tire of it. Apparently Diwali Party is not complete without painting diyas!! So the older one says.
Diwali, for me, as a child, was pure magic. At night, the house framed by an outline of diyas, the sound of firecrackers and the smell of the smoke in the air. Pure magic!!
As a child the fun was in laying the diyas along the balcony railings at precise intervals. Some are leaky which you discover only a while later when the marble (a very porous stone) becomes stained with the oil! So I figure out a way to protect the marble, by placing thick cardboard pieces under the diyas! Clever me, I always thought!! One year I alternated between one candle and one diya. The effect was gorgeous.
So here we are in Singapore, each year, still looking for ways to arrange diyas to make the house feel different and special. The kids are catching on slowly but surely!
When I had the first Diwali party at our apartment ,which barely had space to contain 10 small kids (and we had invited twenty), I thought that Diya painting was a must do. My older one was barely 4 at the time. I was new to the world of art and crafts!! Went out and bought Poster paints!! The kids loved to mess about painting the diyas. The result was a grey-green lacklustre diya. Surely there was something not right, I thought to myself. The unglazed earthenware soaked up the paint and that was that! Luckily the kids were too young to understand and the moms too appreciative of the Diwali party to care.
The next year I bravely decided to try acrylic paints. Have not looked back since.
Acrylic paints work beautifully on unglazed earthenware. And they dry within minutes. The colours are bright and happy as Diwali colours must be. So over the years we have painted our diyas a bright blue, green, hot pink, orange and red. Children, when left to their imagination, came up with amazing ways of painting them. The outside one colour and the inside another.
We went on refining our work. There were sequins to stick on in a pattern one year.
The rim was painted with glitter. It looked so pretty. After a couple of years we figured that if you take a plate, dust glitter over it, draw a line of glue around the rim and then simply dunk the diya upside down into the plate, its the most hassle free way to a sparkling diya!!
I am struck by how each year we repeat this one activitiy and the children never seem to tire of it. Apparently Diwali Party is not complete without painting diyas!! So the older one says.
