Time for Craft

Staring at my little garden at the corridor, I got a sudden urge to create something to mark my territory (sounds like a woof, lol). Just a signage to hang in there to spice up a little. I've a number of spare wooden board collected years ago from fruit crates, when I started DIYing as a new home owner. (not much capital la, no choice:<) In Singapore, you could easily get these polyform fruit trays that comes with fruit carton at any fruit stall or supermarket. So, I used a polyfoam cutter to cut out letters and shapes, plus the propellers of the windmill. Bright fabric paints was highlighted to make them livelier.  All out of recycled materials (black fruit tray, wooden fruit crate, freshmilk bottle cap).

Since the beginning of 2007, I've been actively involved in my son's pre-school class teaching them craft as a form of parental involvement. As the journey from home to school takes at least 2 hours to and fro, I must as well make use of the 3 hours waiting time to do something more meaningful. I remembered the very 1st craft I taught was a goodie goodie basket made of red packets. Handling 18 kids all at one time blows up your head. They just go 'Aunty this... Aunty that... Aunty blah blah blah...' But, to see them bringing back the crafts at the dismisal hall after the day, is what you called it a fulfilment. They showed off to their parents as they approached them and walked back home with it in their hands... This is Satisfaction!  During the September school holiday, I was approached by two teachers to help in a project about traffic, a topic that they're teaching in the Term 4. So I ended up helping both in their two classrooms, two notice boards a

I couldn't imagine when I received the notification letter, as I have never won a prize in any of the competition I took part.  It was really a great motivation that the lantern we submitted won the 1st prize for the 7th Creative Lantern Making Competition held at Chinatown Point in the Pre-school Category. It's like 'hey, you made it! Wow!' I feel so grateful to have insisted on using all recycled materials as compared to other participants who've thrown in huge cost on materials alone just to get them a place in the competition. Certainly, this has pushed me few steps ahead on this journey of go green crafting. Thank you Universe, I'm gratified!

This was another lantern project submitted for the competition which was not shortlisted. It  was a combination of 5 plastic egg cartons (translucent type) added with flowers made from it as decorations. I used the clear egg tray for those flowers, cut out each individual egg mould from the tray and coloured them with Peel n Stick colors, this created a transparent look with the lights on. I sticked two layers for each flower, one with the petal shape cut and spread out below the other without any cutting on top, which is the centre piece of the flower. I added some flower paintings in fabric paints using a more oriental style, the pop up effect of the paints looks outstanding on the plain plastic background. After the competition, I did some reflection and analyzed that I shouldn't have left the lantern plain without a coat of paint, and I have added too much flowers to it. The whole lantern looks complicated without a focus of attraction. Anyway it's a great experienc

It has been a busy week with a project to take part in a local lantern making competition. I thought I couldn't make it due to a few other things that came in at the same time. As Teachers' Day is drawing near, I have to produce at least another 8 gifts for my son's teachers as a token of appreciation. As I was not technically trained and the support from my 'personal technical officer' was unhopeful, I was unable to fix the light for the lantern. Luckily, I was able to recall a shop at People's Park Centre which might be able to help me with this. After much persuasion, the stall assistant is willing to do me that favor, he gathered the parts: LED bulbs, wires and battery holder etc., and started soldiering... Yeah! At last everything turns out well, though I stayed up till 3am to get those 8 gifts done. Well, I deserve a big pat on my shoulder! This is a heart shape lantern done by us which is made from vitagen bottles, submitted for the Pre-School