Garba And 9 in 1 Aarati Thali Decoration ...Jara Hatke!!!

                                                             ...By Mocktail Mommy Vidhi

Navratri is round the corner. It's celebration of the woman power, the divine power of Goddess Amba. Navratri parva happens to be the most auspicious and unique period of devotional sadhanas and worship of Shakti of the divine, conceptualized as the Mother Goddess Durga. Ghatsthapana is one of the significant rituals during Navratri. It marks the beginning of nine days festivity. Ghatsthapana involves invoking Goddess Shakti in Ghat or Garba i.e. an earthen pot and symbolically on the growing shoots of grains. 

Vaise to "Ghat" ya "Garba" ko decorate karane ke kai tarike hai...painting, embellishing, use of mirrors and motifs, kundan, laces etc to name a few. And now a days we get to see decorated garbas easily available in the market. They typically have mirror and lace work. Being a MocktailMommy, I always think of making something unique, something different from the rest and at the same time one which is easily manageable. 

I am sure you would also love to do something different, wont you??? Then, here is a step by step guide to decorate Ghat or Garba or pot..thoda sa hatake!!!

Material required:

• Acrylic Crimson red color
• Pearl colors - cherry red and spring green 
• Fevicryl non-sticky Shilpkar clay 
• Red , Green , White round kundan and golden Pan shape kundan 
• Fevicol 
• Fevicryl 3D cone out-liners of pearl golden yellow, pearl green and pearl metallic bronze colors
• Varnish 
• Colorful lace and golden Latkans 

Procedure :

Firstly , we will make some round and leaf shapes from shilpkar clay and stick it on Garba .( In whatever size and design you want ) I used clay work to give more depth to Garba. Now , we have three different layers : cut work one ,plain surface one and clay work.

Then we will paint two to three coats of acrylic Crimson red color on Garba.

Now according to my Garba design ,I created pearl spring green color's  leafs and highlighted clay works shapes and lines by using Pearl cherry red color.

Now its out-liners time... You can use any colors outliners to decorate your Garba . These 3D cone outliners are really a game changer for your decorations part!!!

Now you can use kundans to decorate a little more. I used kundans on all clay work so to enhance clay work.

At the end , I have used varnish's two coats on Garba for more shining and stuck colorful lace on the top of Garba and hanged golden Latkans on it. It's ready !!!

Now that Garba is ready, lets move on to the Aarati Thali decoration...

Every year, we decorate new Thali for mataji's aarti . And I know for making and decorating one thali, it consumes a lot of time. So, we end up using the same for 10 days of Navaratri. And unfortunately, after Navaratri, we never use it again. I always have a feeling that we love to wear different colorful dresses for all nine nights, then why cant we change Thalis for every nine days. But from my experience I know it's not that easy:(... So here, I come with new concept that you can use same Thali in nine different way for nine days. So here we go to know how to make 9 Aarati Thalis from just 1...

Material: 

1) Regular Stainless Steel dish

2) OHP sheets ( you can get that from any stationary 

3) Glue

4) Lace and kundan 

5) Glass colors ( water based ) and 3D outliner in golden glitter color

6) Pearl silver acrylic color

7) Scissor

8) 9 to 10 prints of designs of round rangoli for nine days

Procedure : 

1) First take any round shaped Stainless steel Dish

2) Then color the circle of thali with pearl silver acrylic color and decorate the border with lace and kundan.

3) Now how to create an inter-changeable base design part for all nine days. Take the OHP sheet and place it on top of any of the round rangoli design prints you have chosen (make sure the printout diameter is that of the same size as your thali) and outline it with using 3D glitter gold outliner.

4) Now using the glass colors fill the empty areas of designs in a colorful way. 

5) After coloring cut the circle as per your dish size. You will need one more plain OHP sheet circle of the same size to be sandwich on top of the colored portion and stick it with glue (Create nine different designs for nine days and decorate with beads, stones or kundans as per your choice)

6) Now place the circle in dish (don't stick it) and it's ready...you can change it everyday with different designs for whole nine days...

7) Wait ... We are not done yet... After the nine days of navratri the same designs can be reused for Diwali ...Yes, you heard it right ... It can be used as any of the following  as a Garland, as a floor rangoli, as a floating rangoli, as a diya (lamp) or as a sunsketcher mandala !!!