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...

One of the great way to bound is through crafting! Put away the demand of our daily commitment, take time out to sit down with our loved ones and enjoy the therapeutic experience of creating a masterpiece together. This is a time to smell the flowers! It's encouraging to see more and more dad attending this Parent-Child Craftogether workshop with their kid at a neighbourhood family service centre. Like in any relationship, a visual & tactile activity will stimulate and build bond. As they work together towards a common direction, team spirit is brought to another level.

Any idea what these are? Those children are busy filling tiny little bags with beans. Yah! They were making their own five stones and chapteh during their September Holiday Craft Session. Frankly, I don't have the time to work on these two projects before hand. Base on instinct, I gathered the materials I had and headed straight to the centre to teach the craft. The original technique to make five stones needs some basic sewing skill, but it's a big task for children around 4 years old to handle needle and strings. So I changed the whole process into a easier and faster way for them. That's to use UHU glue to put the two tiny pieces of cloth together. Easy Right?? The children filled up each bag with beans after the glue on the sides dried up and sealed it up again with glue on the last opening... All it takes is about 5 to 10 mins to get it all done. The children were so eager to play with their very own five stones, they started playing with it immediately even before t...

After working on this project for the whole of August, we are finally set for the fund raising. With the help of our fellow counsellors, we managed to rush out about 80 pieces of the finished products, just in time for the sales! The whole process was time consuming and lots of hard work. But I was rewarded when I saw the students involved in this program enjoyed the whole process... The 3 hours of sales was very successful and the students managed to raised about a hundred bucks to the charity. I was very impressed by the look of 'customers' walking away with our handmade stuffs. I can say it's all worthwhile and I look forward to another meaningful contribution to a charity as a volunteer.

Looks like there're lots of touching up need to be done and there's a short of time before the fund raising day. I brought back some of the unfinished work left over by the students and started the patching up here and there. On the other hand, few of the counsellors did their part at their office, rushing out the rest of the products. All thanks to them! I digged out few of my coconut shells, painted them, and turn them into decorated plant pots. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a 'sellable' item. Really no idea how the fund raising will end up with, but I'm very glad all of us here did all our best to make this event possible...

You know? All the while, I've a dream to tie up the areas of my interest with a charity funding project. Yah it's not easy. Remembering how I started volunteering myself at one of the Moral Family Center. The first time was a free distribution of children storybooks. It was donated from the National Library Board to those needy children. There was no connection with my craft, but both me & my son still enjoyed the involvement. It was until I realized a need to set up a blog as my portfolio, showing the things I produced, there I get the chance to expose the collections of the crafts I did. It was a stepping stone for people to know me and get me involved in the teaching of my crafts. This time round I took another great step, that's to teach a group of secondary school students with my gifts craft and thus selling crafts to raise fund for charity. Yes! Much more meaningful than the norm volunteer work. To me, besides the fund raising part that matters, most importantly...

On the actual day of the workshop, 6 volunteers and my dear Diana were at the centre to help run this craft session. Though its a 2 hour session, we are all in a mess!!! Paints everywhere, egg shells everwhere, sigh... But the most important thing, the children really enjoy themselves. They happily brought back their creation. And I, my main objective, is to hope that they can continue to recycle in their daily lives and remember this craft that they have learned today.

I 'm volunteering to teach some craft during this November holiday. These are the two crafts I'm teaching... Making use of the toilet paper roll (commercial type) , egg shells and "ticum" balls (扭蛋), I recycled these into useful items - Stationery Holder and Decoration Baubles. As you can see, I create mosaic art by using egg shells as material. Fabric paints were used to highlight the picture.

Spent the last two days at a family service centre decorating these letters that were hand written by some neighborhood secondary school students in Singapore. These letters were to be hand delivered to an orphanage in Thailand, sending them some words of encouragement and giving them hope from another part of the globe. For a good cause, I'm invited to help make these messages that were written on plain writing pad papers more appealing or heart melting to those unfortunate children at the receiving end. Hoping to catch a little smile when they receive them, or inspire them with some decorative ideas, I do my best to turn them as lovely as possible. I supposed this is what I can do for them at this point of time...

As part of my parental involvement effort and at the same time, well spending my 3 hours waiting for my boy while he's at pre-school, I was invited by the teacher to help up in the setting up of the stage backdrop for the school graduation concert this year end. As per request I need to create 5 ants, a boat and 2 big rocks as props. Hooooh! Is a great opportunity for me to explore, frankly, it's my first time! I stayed back in school not loitering around Chinatown area after sending my boy off to his class. Making use of brown papers recycled from packaging wrappers, the boat was sketched and cut out. Blue constuction papers was added on with lighter tone of blue colored pencil which marked the wave liked effect. Lots of newspapers was crumpled to form the big rock, coupled with paper mache technique. And lastly, some grey, brown white black paints were poured onto the rockes to create that rocky effect. It took about ...

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 teachi...