Time for Craft

It takes me around a year to collect the materials for these two projects. I've finished assembling the pieces many months back but hesitated to put it up as I've no idea how to fix these lamp shades with the existing lightings I'd on the ceiling. And truly, it takes some intuition to get a job done sometimes, and that was how I climbed up the high chair, stretched my hands and legs and go all the way without those thoughts that it can't be done... No regggrreet afterall!! Things fell in place. I was actually inspired by the creations I saw at a Christmas Recycling Exhibition done by the disabled at a shopping centre at Orchard road. Their works were amazing, turning waste plastic pep bottles into beautiful shades is really time consuming. It involved lots of hard work including cleaning the bottles, cutting out the shapes and combining them to form a shade. I replicated that idea to make two s...

How time flies, I nearly forgotten I'm once a felt lover, making little stuffed felt projects! Even the lizard couple lost their legs and had their skin color changed through the wear and tear of time. There's this copy of book on felted projects that I bought at MPH book store at Parkway Parade over 20 years ago, that I used to refer for inspirations. My son is nine this year. I started making the first snake, his zodiac sign, for him last year, I decided to make him this snake keychain this time. It's a simple sewing craft that I've not touched since my teenage years, a lot of flashback while I sew. Felt is great for beginners to start their sewing experience, especially for kids. Although you might find it a bit difficult to draft your patterns at first, use a water based fabric pen to ease your drafting. The thickness and firmness of felt make it very easy to handle during sewing. Just one tips here to share, a...

This was the 3rd time for me and my son to visit Singapore Garden Festival since they were here in 2006 and 2008. It's like a must visit exhibition for us since flowers and plants will simply light up our day. Besides the many flower arranging ideas using all sorts of media and materials, I'm always amazed by their creativity and innovations. Besides all the beautiful flower artworks, one of the kiosk is a must visit too. NPark will always be there to educate and entertain the young and old about the nature. These year, I'm overjoyed to know that they're teaching something I've long waited for. I'm really glad to be there. We queued up for our turn and after all the twists and turns, a grasshopper was created. Amazing, this is the grasshopper! I didn't know it's such an easy craft to make from a fallen leaves of a coconut tree! Within a short 30 minutes, a wish that had made for years fulfilled! Of course, I asked for...

My son has been pestering me to buy a dog house for his pet dog, Richie, ever since he arrived at our home last November. But I just couldn't bring myself to spent on something that may bring me more work to clean up. I might also end up buying something that the little creature dislike. After all, who will be moving in to the new apartment if this happened?? So after months of playing 'TaiJi' (delaying his request) with my son, I finally found this carton box that I can turn it into a temporary yet economical dog kennel. You know about 'test the market' right? So this is the way to test a dog on how he except his new home, heex. I started out by cutting the pointed edge of the two sides of the roof. Bending the front and the back pieces of the roof to meet at the top of the roof, fixing them all together with masking tape. And next, I cut out the door and the heart shaped window... Getting the kid to do the painting make them more involved in the project he hoped...

Pyrography (wood burning) means 'fire drawing' in Greek. It is the art of burning images on wood, paper, leather or dried hard gourds that results from the controlled application of a heated object which has advanced throughout the years. Instead of the old ancient way of using a fire stick, I'm using a soldering iron instead. These are two pieces of wood burning projects I did around 15 years ago. It used to be hanged at my dining area framed up as decorations, two pieces of thin plain wooden boards. I started out by sketching/outlining the pictures or theme on the board using a pencil. After all the planning and allocation is done on the board, the fun part begins, the soldering time! By soldering on the board, we are creating permanent burn marks and a large range of tones and shades can be achieved. Various type of tip, the temperature of the soldering iron at the beginning when you turn it on or after prolong usage, and the...

This was a great achievement for both me and my son for the year 2009! The toy we submitted for the Sony Creative Science Award 2009 , won Merit Award on 22 July 2009. The details about our submission is in this previous post here . It has been 2 months of waiting since we submitted the toy to the school. Out of 3,423 entries , from 101 schools , it was not simply luck to get us there. We jumped with joy when the school teacher informed us of the good news. During the prize presentation day, we had a chance to look at a number of great works from children at different primary school levels, some with the involvement of either the teacher or their parent, some have invested more on the materials while others insisted on recycled materials. It's really interesting just by admiring at their work and how, at a young age, they were presenting their work to the public. I sincerely hope that there are more of such platform for the younger generatio...

Just received a leaflet from the school to participate in a dragon puppet making for the upcoming Mid Autumn Festival celebration 中秋节. As the lantern making competition held at Chinatown Point has been put on halt, I decided to guide on this project. Basically, the instructions given by the school to make this puppet is very simple. If we were to follow it exactly, I'm sure 80% of the dragons will look almost alike. Really, it is not so much of whether this puppet we made will win in the competition a not, it is the passion in me to make a difference in every project I committed doing. We had a brainstorm session before we put everything in place. But, I got to really thank myself for the huge collections of recycled materials. If all these are not within reach, what magic can I perform? Golden & silver foil ice-cream wrappers, fresh milk carton box, bottle caps, polyfoam fruit net (the pink dragon body) etc.; all these are simply wastes that end up in the b...