Kolam by Sudha Balaji

  First chukki rangoli is with 5 dots . In case we are trying first time for Diwali rangoli  and are looking for a simple design  a small version ( abridged version as my children say ) This kolam can be drawn independently or as the central design around which we can add free hand designs to get a bigger design the dot grid is 5,3,1 . An easy white rangoli design for the ensuing festival season. The second rangoli  is with  7 by 4 chukki rangoli The third design is 9 by 5 chukki rangoli .  Add colours to the white kolam to make it even more beautiful.  In my opinion white rangoli are beautiful in their own way. The fourth kolam is w ith dot pattern 15 dots - 3 rows then 13  , 11, 9 up to 3 dots. The rose buds are important for this kolam the other patterns can be according to our choice There were a few questions about my "team"  because I have many social media accounts for rangoli designs. My team has only two members Sudha and Balaji :)  i.e my husband and I.  His inputs

  Varmahalskmi Habba / Navratri decoration -  harathi preparation  Friday Puja procedure I use a small silver plate as shown in the image for preparation of aarti plate as it is also called , for Friday Puja and also for other festivals like Varamahalakshmi Pooja , every day during Navaratri , Sravan Sukravar Pooja  Add some kukkum in a small plate and mix it with water.  Apply sandalwood paste and kumkum on four sides of diyas  Place flower shaped cotton wicks or long wicks depending upon the type of lamps we use.  Add cow's ghee to the wicks, light the lamps and perform aarthi  or harathi .  We can sing suitable songs in a language of our choice or mother tongue  Harathi songs in Kannada and Pooja songs in Telugu are quite popular 

There is an artist hidden in all of us , creating and drawing kolam proves it . It is very easy to represent peacocks through rangoli The step by step  images below will show how to draw a white peacock with seven to four odu pulli dot pattern "Ethnic and homely "  " Beautiful rangoli and easy too.  keep up the great work .  All the best and good luck "   "Love the patience and time you invest in sharing these lovely pieces of art " .  These are some comments on Facebook When I  get such positive feedback for my rangoli designs , it is natural that I am motivated to create more and more kolangal. You may also be interested in 7 dots rangoli designs  or simple rangoli with 5 dots   or some simple kolam I draw daily at the entrance  This is the common mango leaf kolam theme that is converted into birds ( peacocks ) by replacing the leaf patterns with spirals with "feathers" to represent the tail and of course the crown to represent easily a bird s

 Two images giving 5 border rangoli ideas   In the first image the second  design can be independently drawn as a rangoli particularly for festivals like Republic Day  or Independence day because of the use of colours orange, white and green while the first design is a simple pattern. In the second image  three borders are shown. .  The first one is a simple design suitable for the circumference of a big rangoli.   The second one is a flower design with leaves on either side.  It can be drawn on the top or bottom of a rangoli or on all sides of rangoli.   The last one is a very simple design and is usually used as an extension along the periphery of free hand circular rangoli  This collection is in addition to many more ideas I have shared.  You can search in my blog for border kolam or border rangoli  or use the labels given at the bottom of the post to delve deeper into this variety of rangoli on this website.  Sometimes they are also  used as rangolis on  thresholds of doors,  exte

  Rangoli borders can be drawn at doorways too ( called vaasal padi kolam ). The doorway is also decorated with a rangoli design in addition to the rangoli drawn at the entrance.  Since only a width of 100 millimetre or so is available, very simple yet cute beautiful designs can be drawn in the available space. Doorways or doorsteps are given a lot of importance in our culture.  There is a custom of performing Pooja  to the door way and adorning with rangoli designs .  We also offer haldi kumkum and flowers particularly on Fridays. So we need lots of designs .  Since these rangolis have less height we can use them as borders for bigger rangoli. Beautiful rangoli designs with or without chukki are drawn for New Year and Pongal.  Usually they are decorated with borders at the bottom and sides.  We may use these ideas on those occasions too.

  Rangoli borders  may actually resemble jewellery in these parameters - beauty, intricacy.  Which of these two inspires the other  As usual these designs can be drawn for the doorway or door step .  Also we can use them to decorate a bigger rangoli We draw big rangoli designs for New Year and Sankranti.  It is customary to decorate them with borders at the bottom  or at the sides .   We need lots of simple designs for this .  Our imagination to create designs and patterns has no limits These designs can be bookmarked to try them on various occasions or festivals . May be they can kindle our imagination to create new designs side border kolam. Border kolam designs in this blog will invariably be without dots since the name is Rangoli sans dots ! However I have shared a few with dots too.   .                                                   

 "The old traditional way of making rangolis ... no wasting of rangoli, no fancy designs just simple and sweet " "Very nice.  Nowadays, people hardly draw freehand rangoli.  It is unique and much more natural looking " These are two comments from my Facebook Page Rangoli sans dots .   When I started sharing old type of muggu on social media I was hesitant because I was not sure whether they would be liked After more than a decade on social media ,  I am glad that I started sharing what I know and passionate about.   I have shared the colourful versions in another post in this blog.  Please give your feedback on the blog and this post in the comments section 

This colourful collection of  rangoli designs for door step can also be drawn for decorating a bigger rangoli . I have shared the designs with colour , you may use it as a white rangoli because usually we draw without colours for door ways. Drawing rangoli and offering Pooja to door step with flowers, haldi kumkum is quite common in southern part of India. flower patterns, usually lotus ,  leaves,  tendrils , spirals and a few other standard motifs are used because the space available is less . After drawing the kolam in white we can also decorate with kaavi ( ochre like colour )  daily or on Fridays at least. I also use neli ( wriggling lines ) on either side of the straight lines , particularly for door ways .  This practice I inherited from my mother  color border rangoli border muggulu with colours                       

  Many big muggulu with bright colours adorn many homes during this harvest festival season . It is more joyous because it is celebrated during spring. The climate is nice and cool in many parts of India.  There is a tradition of wearing new clothes and going to the temple as we do for Diwali  Drawing muggulu is also for  conveying messages through simple art drawn on the floor be it with tiles, cement or mud.  This kolam has all that are connected with Bhogi and Sanrkanti festival , namely Pot , Pongal , sugarcane , Sun  and  colours  Thee were requests from viewers on YouTube for a small pot muggu .  So I created this 7 by 7 design.  A compact one suitable for small spaces too. Nowadays space is a premium for rangoli designs , particularly in metropolitan cities.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  Viewers requests kindled my imagination and I created two rangolis one of which is shared here . White Pot muggu I liked the bright blue colour when I used it. Quality of colours is a

Apart from rangoli and few other craft types I try to create, I also try some artificial jewellery designs on my own.  All craft ideas I do are amateur attempts      However I would like to share most of them that are relevant to the idea of Rangoli-sans-dots - rangoli, kolam and some art and craft ideas to do it yourself. We can also use artificial or imitation jewellery a. ( made for this purpose -  if it made by us - it gives us a lot of satisfaction)  Some of the jewellery made by me and used in various decorations are in the images below.  Trinkets in various designs are available ready-made  They have to be assembled  into a necklace.   Our imagination is the key to get the final design.  Also, it is  time-consuming and needs lots of patience. Artificial jewellery - necklaces, ear rings are quite easy to make.  What we need is time and patience. All the parts of the jewellery are available separately.  We have to purchase them and create them. How to make imitation jewellery at h

    How to make the poola  jada at home , a simple idea through images   Floral decorations can be done in innumerable ways and along with rangoli form an art form that is creative in nature.   Alankaram  is an important art.   Traditionally decoration of the braid with flowers and hence floral decorations have been given  importance particularly for weddings.       The following images show how a simple poo jadi is made.    Usually we use three flowers of different colours choosing at least two fragrant varieties   As shown in the first image, jasmine flowers are  Not  tied following the traditional method of stringing  .  They are tied on one side only so that all the stalks are on one side .  The method followed for stringing the flowers is the same as that we follow for tying flowers on both sides of a string,  only in this case all flowers will be one one side.   The strung flowers are cut into three equal parts, in the image I have shown.  The number depends upon the length of th

 One of the quickest and easiest payasam or kheer recipes that can be prepared in a jiffy.  For all festivals like Varamahalakshmi Pooja, Navarathri and Deepavali It is possible that occasionally  sufficient time may not be available for kheer naivedyam that needs lot of time due to preparation of other dishes for a festival. On such occasions we can try this easy payasam. quick kheer recipe .  The simple procedure is given below. Fry rice and gram dhall in little ghee separately. For one cup rice take quarter cup gram dhal.  Mix them and cook in a pressure cooker. Add half cup jaggery and cardamom powder to little water in a vessel and heat it. When the jaggery melts add the rice and gram dhal mixture and continue cooking for two to three minutes. Once cooking is complete add grated coconut (optional). Remove the vessel from the stove, add fried cashew nuts.  One more neivedhiyam or offering is ready for Puja.

  Pitla recipe  This variety of pitla as it called can be prepared for festivals like Navratri, Varalakshmi Vratham or Ugadi. The ingredients required are t wo teaspoons of urad dal , one teaspoon of gram  dal , pepper , red chillies asafoetida and curry leaves. All the ingredients are roasted in little oil, curry leaves can be roasted separately also. Then grated coconut is added and the mixture is ground into a fine paste. Sauté with mustard seeds, urad dhall in a tava, add solution of tamarind soaked in water, allow it to boil. Then add the cooked vegetables - peanuts, beans and carrot slices and let the solution boil. Finally add already cooked thoor dhall and add salt to taste and boil for a few minutes We can use different vegetable combinations like yam and chick peas, bittergourd ( pavakkai ) and peanuts or ground nuts to make this delicious dish.   Pepper gives a fine flavour to pitla

  Varamahalakshmi vratham  recipes - Ambode for naivedyam Ambode ( amaivadai in Tamil ) in an important recipe for Ugadi festival. The following pics show the steps in making this traditional dish for this festival.    Soak gram dhall and red chillies in water for 45 minutes.   Drain the water,. Grind it coarsely as shown in the second photo. Add salt to taste while grinding.  Then add asafoetida, finely chopped coriander leaves and curry leaves. I have used grated coconut.  It is optional.  Make a medium sized  ball , flatten it with your palm and fry to get the ambode shown in the third photo.   On auspicious days and festivals some do not add onion.   ( If onion is added it  becomes masal vadai ! and we don't add onion or garlic for festivals  )  This is one of the important recipes along with poli for festivals. Preparation of the recipe through pictures                                  

Required ingredients 1. Chiroti rava or sooji (else use standard rava ) - 200 gram 2. Milk - 3/4 litre 3. Sugar -as desired 4. Cardamom 5. Cashew nuts 6. Raisins 7. Optional (almonds and saffron) Take required quantity of chiroti rava in a vessel and mix water to obtain a dough similar to poori dough.   Let the dough settle for at least two hours.  Knead the dough and using a rolling pin flatten as we do for poori or roti.   Cut the dough  with a suitable cutter in two directions to obtain square or rhombus shaped pieces and fry them in ghee (if you don't have objection to calories ) else use cooking oil.  Boil milk  and use flame in "sim" position. Add cardamom powder, saffron to it.  Now add the fried dough pieces to the milk and stir for a few minutes. Add required quantity of sugar.  Fry cashew nuts, raisins and add them to the kheer.  Your special kheer as shown in the photo below is ready to serve (and eat!). If standard rava is used grind it in a mixer for a few se