Time for Craft

On my lifetime to-do list, is to volunteer my skill and contribute in a meaningful oversea project that benefit the less fortunate. ACTS  started as an initiative of Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace in Singapore in 2007, to share the joy of Christmas with other less fortunate in Cambodia. ACTS is a year round program, a mission outreach that involved some 180 to 250 participants from different parishes as well as non-Catholics. ACTS participants have come from as far away as Mauritius and include Malaysians and Australians amongst other and some have moved on to start their own projects to assist the less fortunate. After months' of preparation for the art and craft curriculum and the mural wall paintings, I finally embarked on these 8 days mission trip at Cambodia on 7 December 2012. As the resources are very limited there, I faced difficulty even at the initial stage of planning my eco-craft curriculum. Recycling...

It was a competition hold by the school to make a toy from recycle materials. After attending the Sony Creative Award Prize Presentation held in July, we certainly gained more insight on the awarded toys children have made. For this reason, I wanted more contribution from my son this time. So he suggested on a number of designs, drew it out and explained to me on how to play with them. With all his ideas, I brought in all the 'free' materials that I have, we fixed them up and tested on the toy several times. We used toilet paper rolls and some bottle caps on the trial run. It was until we used the little green balls recycled from chinese medicines as one of the materials, then the idea of a war site striked our mind. Initially, the bomb loader that we came up with was unable to 'work' probably. We opted out a number of possibilties and finally decided to use two containers, a chopstick and a rubber band to do the job. It was an enjoyable process making this toy. The wh...

This was a rather big project that I took on about three or four years back, when my son was around 4 or 5 years old. It was a request from him to make him a farm. I remembered I really have no idea on what to make. It was not something that came out of a sudden. I done it parts by parts, trial and error and it took me many months to complete the whole thing. It is my unique way of showing my love to him to make him such a memorable toy. And it was until recently, when he took it out and started playing with it again, that I realised he treasured it so much. He remembered how to assemble them and where each and every item should be placed. He even remembered his own set of farm rules... As you can see from the pictures, it was really fun here, you can actually harvest the carrots if you wanna. There's a water well near the farm house. A windmill that can turn... ... Besides all the toy animals and trucks used in there, the rest are all recycled materials. As what I've alway...

  Egg Carton is another recycled material I often used in my craft, reason being it's easy to collect and lots of crafts you can make with it. As I was invited to conduct a holiday craft workshop at the family service centre, teaching a craft that the children can easily replicate at home will be even greater. I make use of the rounded shape that comes in polyfoam fruit tray as the top of the mobile, with a string attached to the 4/5 corners. As the cutting of egg cartons requires certain strength and technique, some of the parts of the ladybug were precut for the younger children in advance. The children has lots of fun especially on the painting of the ladybugs and chopsticks, which I think it's due to the less chances they are expose to such media in school or at home. Before the end of the workshop, the children were given balloon to fill it up with corn starch flour. Seeing them getting so excited about their Mr Potato, wondering whether th...

F or the very 1st time, I'm making my aunt a birthday gift. The fact was I just happened to know her birthday peeping at her identity card recently, so it's better late than none. For someone like her who will appreciate what's recycling, will definitely like what I craft for her. HeeHee... Heard of Shrink art ? It is a piece of Polyshrink that looks like a transparency (pvc sheet). Any artwork done on it will shrink 1/4 of its original size when heated up in the oven. The second pix above shown the original size that I've drawn and the shrinked art piece. Amazing right? Since she has just receive a new bunch of keys from her newly upgraded HDB flat, a keychain holder is timely. I chose a cow as it's her horoscope and attached a metal ring and chain recycled from a previous item to make it. Besides the shrink art keychain, I made a stationary holder with a Goosie egg mosaic art on it out from a toilet...