The Toran

No Indian home is complete without a Toran. Toran is a hanging at the door of a house. It can be decorative or simply made from leaves like Mango or young coconut leaves.

Mango leaves are hung on the main entry way door during festivals .

In Kerala, torans are created by folding the leaves of a young coconut.

This Deepavali, I wanted to hang Toran. Instead of the traditional Mango leaf toran, I wanted something different with almost no money spent.

I went through my stash of  miscellaneous craft supplies and found a piece of textured board. It was actually a wall paint and texture sample that I got from a company years ago. It measured 10″ X 10″ and I had four different types

I cut it in half so that I had eight rectangles.

Then i cut off one end so that it formed an arrow like shape.

As each was of a different color, I needed to bring the leaves together.

So i used the side cut offs of one leaf  on the next leaf.

It looked very unfinished. Mirrors are my favourite decorative accessory.
A round 1 inch mirror looks good.

The Middle looked very vacant. I thought of adding some motifs of gods etc but dd not have the time.  Reaching in again for my miscellaneous craft supplies, I got 8  pieces of red dyed veneer . It was the perfect thing to bring all the leaved together.

It still looked empty. Mirror To the rescue. This time it was a square 1 inch mirror.

I Put in some eyelets , strung them together and there it is!

And this is how my doorway looked on diwali evening

Well if i did not have the textured wall samples, I would have used thick handmade paper or may be paper stuck on cardboard.

Hope you like it

Love

Rashmi