DIY easy cotton craft ideas for projects

 We can use different techniques to get beautiful cotton haara or garlands for festivals ( Varamahalakshmi Habba or Ganesh Chaturthi ).  The video is one of them.  Use cotton that is sold in Puja stores .  Make the cotton workable as shown in the video and depending upon the thickness we can use a single strand or split into two.  I have split the cotton into two .  Using milk or water make the traditional cotton hara or gejje vastra as it also called.  Fold it into two.  The rest is easy.  At the narrow portions stick decorative trinkets using fabric glue.  A different type of decorative trinket is stuck in the remaining gaps.  We need thread or string for tying the garland  to the idol of God or Goddess or kalash.  Decorative threads are available in craft shops and that thread can be fastened to the haara as shown in the thumb nail in the video below.  

     

Cotton crafts are among the most popular craft ideas for school projects and other craft ideas.  Traditionally cotton is also used in Pujas for vastra in India . We can also use cotton for craft ideas for decoration of God and for festival decoration.  Some traditional and novel craft using cotton are shared in this post.  Rangolisansdots is mainly about rangoli but there some  craft and recipe ideas and recipe ideas related to festivals ( called naivedyam ) so that Rangolisandots will  be useful for many purposes for many people.

This is the traditional cotton garland for God ( also called panju thiri malai or gejje vastra ) which  is used to decorate Gods and Goddesses .  The two cotton pieces at the ends are dipped in kumkum mixed with water to hold the vastra.  The belief is that we offer new clothes or vastra to God. 


 While for Varalakshmi Habba or festival and Navratri , Sravan Sukruvar we use kumkum to decorate the vastra , for Ganesh Chaturthi decoration and Naga Chaturthi we use turmeric powder mixed in water For Varalakshmi Vratham we use 25 cotton ball vastra for Ganesha Chaturthi we use 21 cotton ball vastra.

An easy craft idea for Navratri - cotton garland

This is an easy and simple cotton garland for school projects and festivals like Navratri, Varalakshmi Vratham and Ganesh Chaturthi.

An easy cotton garland for school projects / Navratri , Varalakshmi Pooja festival decoration

• Take a thin cardboard for the base and cut in the shape of a garland
• The material  required are cotton thread , kundan stones , chamki in the shape of a leaf , golden thread or lace.
• Cut the cotton thread to required length and roll as shown in the image below.
• After rolling in the form of a spiral , stick the end with glue and wait for some time till the glue dries
• Then stick the rolled cotton thread to the garland base using glue.
• Stick a kundan stone to the centre of the rolled cotton
• Then stick two chamki leaves on either side to complete the decoration
• Complete the garland by sticking to the entire length of the garland
• The garland after completion is also shown in an image below.
• Golden  lace or thread to attached to both sides of the garland for holding it

Another easy , simple garland for school projects , festivals Navratri , Varalakshmi Vratham 

Using cotton form spheres as we do for panju thiri malai ( gejje vastra ) for Pooja

Place on a clean surface as shown in the image below with a chart paper below

 Using a pair of scissors cut two get pairs of cotton ball or spheres

 Place one over the other and paste to a plus like flower shape

 Place two  more to get six  petalled flower and paste them together

 Paste a kundan stone or chamki on the flower and place it on a golden lace or thread

 The result is a simple and beautiful garland for decoration or craft projects as shown in the image below

Children  can make it quite easily and it is easy for us also the create simple home made projects for drawing room decoration or for festivals like Navratri ( Dussehra ) or for Christmas decoration and New Year too .

Also can be used as a summer camp craft idea for children.  Nowadays summer camps are common where structured play is very common , what we did in our childhood was unstructured but joyful i.e no one decided our activities during our holidays or spare time , we decided them individually or as a group of kids.