The Christmas cheer is in full flow at Simran Wahan’s home. Gift boxes lie around, wrapped in colourful ribbons and decked with flowers. “The season has been busy,” says Simran, owner of Amaya Stores. She lines up gift boxes on a table. She is readying them to take to her store in time for Christmas. Her gift boxes are priced between Rs. 90 and Rs. 1000. They have Parsi embroidery on them, quilled accessories, acrylic and clay flowers, kundan stones, crepe silk and fresh flowers too!
While some are beautifully simple, there are grand statements that are adorned with pine cones and sea shells. “Some of these shells are painted red, silver and gold as they are the Christmas colours. Of course, we also make them as per customer demand,” says Simran. She has also a range of gift bags ranging between Rs.30 and Rs.300.
If you want to go ethnic, Simran will oblige and will customise your gift boxes with zaris, zardozis or Kundan work. These ethnic motifs are trending now, says Simran. Simran also has Christmas decorations for the tree priced between Rs.10 and Rs.30. Made of beads and wood, these consist of Santa Clause, stars and miniature Christmas trees made of ice cream sticks.
If you have baked plum cakes for distribution to friends and family, instead of a boring sip lock you could put them into cute cake boxes Simran has designed. Ditto for chocolates. Simran has chocolate boxes with and without the chocolates.
It was at the age of 14 that Simran’s mother initiated her into the world of craft. “I wanted her to focus on some creative work. Simran took a liking to it immediately. Since then, there has been no looking back,” recalls her mother Meena.
As the raw materials are not easily available in Coimbatore, Simran collects her gift wrapping materials from different parts of the country and the world. “The gift boxes in Europe use mostly ribbons and they all are expensive. And unlike us, they do not have many options such as zari and kundans,” she points out.
The nice thing about hand made craft is that no two pieces look the same. “A family has ordered 25 plum cake gift boxes to gift their relatives. And they want each to look different! Each gift box of mine is different from the other,” says Simran.
Presentation is as important as the gifts. “People give a lot of importance to the wrapping. The value of the gift reflects in the packing as well. A person who has spent a lot of money already on the gift does not mind spending more on a grand gift box.” You can check out the Christmas gift boxes, tags and homemade chocolates at https://www.facebook.com/simran.wahan.
Simran will conduct a gift wrapping workshop for children along with Young Indians, Coimbatore Chapter, just before Christmas.
For details, call 98946-83225.
What do you need
Tools: Quilling needle, Crimpler, rolling pins, needles, skewers
Paints: Acrylic, Vegetable dye, glass paint, Gold and silver foils
Paper: Handmade paper, banana fibre, Elephant dung paper, hay fibre paper, Silk thread paper, card paper
Fabric: raw silk, Japanese silk, tussar silk, satin, French lace, hand-cut lace
