Hope you all had a good long weekend. “dress your home” turned 1 on July 1st; so we’re officially a year-old now, and I’m taking small baby steps in growing this blog. I’ve decided to continue with the store tours as it gives me immense satisfaction to sift through dozens of home decor stores, decide which one fits in with my philosophy of serving a purpose, finally followed by the actual visit.

Last Saturday, I went to Namma Angadi which means “Our shop” in Kannada. Located in LB Shastri Nagar off Vimanapura, it’s a non-assuming, stone-walled building in a neighborhood most of us never would have a reason to go to. Anjula and Girish were quite helpful in helping me navigate down the narrow, winding roads from Old airport road to Namma Angadi. Namma Angadi is a marketing platform for traditional arts and crafts made by young workers in Kundapura, who were formerly child workers. It is promoted by a NGO called “The Concerned for Working Children.”

Above-18 workers are trained in various trades such as tailoring, embroidery, pottery, painting and weaving at the “Namma Bhoomi” vocational training center in Kundapura every year. The products made here are then marketed and sold through exhibitions held across Karnataka all around the year.

I know we’ve all read how everyday things like newspaper, wood and coconut can be reused to make interesting products. But doing is another ball game altogether? Seeing these colorful bags made from remaining pieces of cloth used for making kurtas rekindled the DIY blood in me. I was like, “Wow. This is nice, especially the door mat.” It’s so easy to discard things we don’t use, and here someone thought about making a nice, environment-friendly bag and selling it for under Rs.100. If only we refused those plastic stinkers at More/Reliance Fresh and used these cloth and jute bags for grocery shopping, they would have a future and the world would be a better place to live in.

Door mats

Are you also fond of Jute bags like me? I fall for the color, the texture, the ease of use and the style. After all, there’s very little one can go wrong with here, right Namma Angadi stocks a huge variety of these bags in different shapes and sizes. These would make for great gift items.

Jute bags

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For all you stained glass art lovers, I would like to share another discovery. Glasshopper, a stained glass art studio in Defence Colony, Indira Nagar, is close to the Glasscrafter’s studio I featured last week. I’ve not visited Glasshopper in person, so  it’s tough to talk about their products with the same conviction. Glasshopper’s portfolio is not as extensive as that of Glasscrafter’s since it’s only a year old. Though the studio claims to specialize in Tiffany-styled glass lampshades, it’s portfolio is diverse. Here are a couple that I found impressive, but I’m not sure if it’s stained glass or painting on glass as the textures are not clearly visible:

Chinese Calligraphy

Peacock Panel

Nestled in the by-lanes of Indira Nagar is a studio named “Glasscrafters“. Glasscrafters was started by Asad Hajeebhoy originally in 1991 in Bombay, followed by a four year stint in Muscat, Oman,and finally at Bangalore in 1996.  A physicist by education, Asad pursued stained glass as a hobby to take it up full-time in 1996.

Glasscrafters, Bangalore

Contrary to most Indian interior decor sites, Glasscrafters is well-designed replete with product pictures, portfolio, and course and service offerings. But, I still prefer to visit any studio/store in person to feel the pulse of the place.

A brief chit-chat on last Wednesday evening with Asad on art of stained glass was an eye-opener for me.  Tucked away from the hustle-bustle of 80 feet road,  Asad’s studio-cum-home is a flurry of activity with clients walking in, a designer working on some new project, materials spewn around, and finally, Asad talking about his passion for stained glass totally unfazed by his surroundings.  He demystifies the common perception that stained glass art is painting done on glass. In reality, there is no painting. Stained glass works are actually different pieces of colored glasses joined together with a copper foil to create a jigsaw-like piece of work.

According to Asad, his business broke even within 3 months of starting. Initially, he got his assignments primarily through references. The fact that there were no suppliers of stained glass materials in India back then made it a challenge. Mainly people who lived abroad placed an order for a specific piece. They brought the glass and materials with them for Asad to create. Word spread and now Glasscrafters has a impressive portfolio of over 2,000 projects. 90% of them are residential including some well-known ones such as Rishi Kapoor’s Mumbai residence.

A wide ranged of glasses are used such as wavy, wispy, opalesecent for the swirls and streaks, cathedral, streaky, textured, baroque, antique, and jewel.

Stained glass lampshade

A decade later, things have changed for the better. Glasscrafters is now a stockist for Spectrum glass.  The amount of  work involved in making every piece is mind-boggling. So, there’s nothing called a bulk order. A single piece or 100 pieces, to create each piece, small pieces of different colored glasses will have to be cut individually and joined together.

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So, shall we get started? The first in the Store Tour series is “Confluence” art store on the Jeevan Bhima Nagar main road. For folks who’ve been living in and around Indira Nagar with a slight inclination towards home decor, I’m sure you would’ve noticed this store next to Ek Bote furniture showroom. But, may be you’ve never stepped inside.

I know you are waiting to drool over the images. But, hold on. A little bit about the store owner first.

Parul Saraff, a trained interior designer from South Delhi Polytechnic for Women, started Confluence in 2000. After getting married in 2000, she moved from Delhi to Bangalore. It’s been 10 years since. Parul beams when she says she manages two babies now: her two-and-half year old daughter and Confluence.

I was intrigued by the name Confluence for which Parul said, the store doesn’t confine itself to any one art like Worli, glass or Tanjore painting. Since the store houses all kinds of art and she mixes a bit of everything in her creations, she felt there couldn’t be a better name than Confluence.

This will be a two part series with tomorrow’s post being exclusively about murals.

You get a taste of what to expect inside from the decor outside the store.

Confluence at Indira Nagar, Bangalore

What does the store sell:

Shall we step inside now? Confluence takes custom orders for name boards, murals, gift items, pottery and paintings. The theme for Murals vary from traditional and tribal settings to  abstract and kids-based cartoon characters.

Name boards

What I liked:

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One hundred posts in 1 year. “Dress your home” completes a year on July 1st, 2010.  My dashboard currently reads -

99 posts

263 comments

130 tags

12 drafts

Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for taking the time and effort to appreciate something, ask for a suggestion or leave a valuable input. It’s your readership that has kept me going, encouraging me to post week after week, and sulk on days when I haven’t been able to. I’ve enjoyed reading what each one of you has had to say.

To bring in the first anniversary, I plan to feature a few home decoration stores around Bangalore that sell accessories which fit in a modest budget - primarily home-grown businesses that were started out of passion. If you have any suggestions for store tours, please leave a comment.

Here is a teaser of what you can expect in the first post of this series. It’s a kid’s room decorated with murals.

Barbie Themed Mural

Barbie Mural