Holi Craft Ideas

Pichkari (Water Gun)

Things needed:
1) A plastic water bottle.
2) A plastic cutter or an X-acto knife.
3) A thin cylindrical pipe (about 2 " long).
4) A marker pen.
5) Super Glue.

How to make:
1) Take the cap off the mouth of the water bottle.
2) Place the thin cylindrical pipe perpendicularly on the centre of the cap.
3) Using marker pen, draw on the cap an outline of the diameter of one end of the pipe.
4) Use plastic cutter/X-acto knife to cut the marked circle out of the cap.
5) Place the cap back again on top of the water bottle.
6) Push the pipe through the hole on the cap until half of it sticks out and the other half remains inside the bottle.
7) Take off the pipe-fitted cap again.
8) Fill the bottle with water upto the brim.
9) Put the cap back again and turn it well to fit tightly on the mouth of the bottle.
10) Hold the bottle at a 45 degree angle and squeeze well to see how the water inside spurts out!
11) Your Pichkari (Water Gun) is ready for use. Fill the bottle with coloured water and let the fun begin! But never shoot at any person who does not want to be coloured. We should respect others' feelings.

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Eco-friendly colours

Commercially available colours that we use during Holi celebrations are usually industrial dyes that are unsuitable for human use. These contain toxic heavy metals that can cause serious health problems for all living beings besides being a cause of global warming. Try making eco-friendly colours all by yourself.

Dry Colour:
Green:

Things needed:
1) Green mehendi / henna powder.
2) Flour.

How to make:
1) Pour 10 g mehendi / henna powder into a small mixing bowl.
2) Add an equal quantity of flour to the henna powder.
3) Mix the ingredients well until you achieve a lovely green shade. Use this as your "gulal". Nobody will find it difficult to remove this colour from his/her face. But mixing this with water can leave your face coloured a little.

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Wet colour:

Things needed:
1) Leaves of green vegetables.
2) Water - 4 mugs.
3) A bucket/large container.

How to make:
1) Pour water into the bucket/container.
2) Add in the leaves of any vegetable like spinach (palak), coriander (dhaniya), mint (pudina). Soak overnight.
3) You can obtain a green coloured water in the morning. Use this to colour your friends.

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Gift Pouch

Things needed:
1) Cardboard sheet.
2) A pair of scissors
3) Jute cloth/gunny bag
4) Super glue
5) Pieces of broken glass
6) Small artificial flowers, beads
7) Jute strings

How to make:
1) Cut a rectangular piece(size must be bigger than your gift) out of the cardboard sheet.
2) Fold it to form a cylinder. Cut out a cylindrical piece from an inch below the larger cylinder. This will be required to fix at the bottom of the pouch.
3) Cut out of the jute cloth a piece of appropriate length to be wrapped around the cardboard cylinder 2-3 times. Allow some cloth to be left both at the top and at the bottom to cover the cardboard piece entirely.
4) Stitch(or stick with super glue) the lose edge of the cloth over the cardboard cylinder. Next, attach an appropriate length of jute string on the upper and lower edge of the cardboard cylinder and also on the mouth of the pouch.
5) Using one of the pointed end of the scissors, make holes on both sides the upper portion of the pouch (above the cardboard ). Pass the jute string through the holes on both sides of the mouth of the pouch. Tighten it.
6) Attach the glass bits on the body of the pouch with glue to decorate it.
7) Attach the artificial flowers and beads on the end of the strings.
8) Now drop a gift item into your pouch, tie the strings into a beautiful knot and hand it over to the one you want to present it with.

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Paper Flower Bouquet

Things needed:
1) 3 Paper Sheets of three different colours - red, green, brown.
2) A pair of scissors
3) 5 small wooden sticks
5) Rubber
6) A strip of Satin Ribbon
7) Perfume

How to make:
1) Using the pencil, draw some images of any flower you like on the red paper sheet.
2) Cut the flower images(dimensions 4" by 3") carefully out of the sheet.
3) Now draw images of leaves on the green sheet.
4) Cut the leaf images(dimensions 6" by 3") carefully out of the sheet.
5) Wrap all the sticks nicely with the brown sheet, keeping one end open. Fold the other end with the paper.
6) Then insert an inch of each leaf into the stick.
7) Push the red flowers into the sticks, one by one, on top of the leaves.
8) When you have finished, wrap it all with a transparent sheet and tie a satin ribbon around the sticks to make a beautiful bouquet.
9) Spray a little perfume to impart some fragrance to your bouqet. Add a small card with the name of the recipient of the bouqet addressed on it.

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