Paper Fortune Tellers

Aki came home from school last year and begged me to make paper fortune tellers. I WAS THRILLED! I learned how to make them when I was 9 years old. Big big thanks to our trusty ChildCraft encyclopedia set.   I remember how proud I was because it was me who introduced my grade school classmates to this super easy and fun paper craft. How can I not be thrilled, twenty years later, when my own kid, born in the digital era, shows interest in the same old school plaything?

Here is you can win the mother-of-the-school-bus-rider of the year award.

Picasso Playdate Finally!

I can’t draw but I can paint! That is what I proved to myself last month. I have found another creative outlet and it is very forgiving.

Last April 20, Aki’s friends, Buwi and Maia came over for a painting playdate that I have been wanting to organize for ages.

Time really files. These were taken during our first playdates  in 2010.

Stamp Painting

Morning!

How did you celebrate Valentine’s? Our little family stayed at home. I was still in bed when I heard footsteps rushing down the stairs. In a minute, Aki gave me the loveliest bouquet, handpicked from the garden. Later that day, we tried our hands again at stamp painting.

Materials: canvas, acrylic paint, disposable bowl and spoon, and a box wrapped in string

Oh Christmas Trees! Oh Christmas Trees!

First of all, I want to greet everyone who will get to read this post a Merry Merry Merry Christmas! I hope you are able to celebrate the season with less stress and more meaning.

 

We kicked off the holiday season on the weekend after my birthday when we put up our trees. Yes, with an S. We bought a tiny tree when we moved in back in 2010. In 2012, we bought a proper tree, a white one. I was in loved with it until in 2013, when we took it out of the box, we discovered an epidemic that has been affecting thousands of fake white trees. Parts of our tree turned yellow  and dirty white. I was so disappointed that I lost the excitement of decorating for the holidays. There were other reasons of course, work for one, but I took the yellow tree as a sign to lie low on my Christmas decors.

This year, I promised myself that it will be different. As early as October, I have been turning down invitations to Christmas parties and get-togethers. We chose which ones  we’d attend. I wanted to make sure that we don’t get caught up with the busy-ness. I want to savor little quiet moments. The feeling that everything is falling into place when I fold corners and sides while gift wrapping… The fuzzy feeling when I drink hot chocolate in our holiday oversized mug… The silliness when Aki closes his eyes and sings Star ng Pasko in his made-up no-sense lyrics…Watching the snowman in our failed DIY snowglobe float…Reading heartwarming notes on gift tags… Swing dancing with Franco in the tune of All I Want for Christmas. I am lucky to be married to a DI  or dance instructor. Seriously, he can dance. He has the grace and timing that both Aki and I do not have. Haha. I’d love to post a password protected video here for posterity’s sake but the MB size is just too much for my free wordpress account.

 

Oh wait, back to our Christmas trees. Even though Christmas songs were playing loudly, the overall feeling on the night that we put up our trees was peace especially when the lights were turned on.

Aki’s Dinosaur 4th Birthday: Dino Stencil Shirts

Next activity in this dino party was making dino stencil shirts/sandos.

Prior the party, I made dino stencils usings sticker paper. Super thanks to Franco for making the templates and to my very crafty friend, Irene of Home-eco-nanay, for the tips! I put newspaper inside the shirts, transferred the stencils, and stretched the shirts using masking tape. Come party time, part of the excitement was letting the kids choose the shirt/dino that they will paint.

Teacher Joy, Teacher Tina and Teacher Me helped each kid  dip and dab and paint their chosen shirts.

Aki’s Dinosaur 4th Birthday: Simple Pop-up Dino Invitation

Morning! Here is the first of a series of posts related to Aki’s dinosaur 4th birthday partey! Aki has obsessed with dinosaurs since the start of the year. He has dino toys, dino books, dino clothes and other dino things. When he told me that he wants to have a dinosaur party, the creative juices just  flowed in. There are a lot of dino parties in the net but I still want our party to be different. Not the biggest, but the Aki-est party. I want the details and activities to be fun in the eyes of my son. The first DIY project was this simple pop-up dinosaur party invite. Cute eh?

Photo by CasLow Photography

I got the inspiration from Aki’s Tyson the Terrible book which has a surprise pop-up at the end of the story. I looked for pop-up invite 101 online but did not find any that was easy enough to do. I studied Aki’s book and tried to recreate.

Everything starts with the template. Thank God for husbands who can draw.

Now, the tricky part. I suggest you practice with scratch paper a couple times first. Once you have your dino or any cut-out, you need to make a y-fold. I invented that word, just so you know. Hehe

Make a vertical fold in the lower half. Then, add a diagonal fold. Make another diagonal fold to complete your Y.

Lastly, fully fold all the creases.

DIY Bird Feeder

This project is a spin-off from our save-the-caterpillars advocacy. Since the birds can’t seem to get enough of our caterpillar pets, I thought of giving the birds something else to eat. This isn’t our first time to make a bird feeder. Earlier this year, we made one for Aki’s class. As usual, I forgot to read the memo so we had to rush the project. We ended up with a Manila-paper covered bird feeder decorated with Aki’s doodles. I forgot about that failed project until I read about a similar project in one of my vintage craft books.

It is pretty simple actually. Cut a hole in an empty tetra pack. Wash and dry.

Once the bird feeder is clean, you can now decorate. We started painting it using a paint brush but Aki was so excited (and kuleeeet) that we ended up finger painting instead.

Originally, I wanted the bird feeder to look like a house but Aki had a better idea. We came up with monsters. Once the paint dried, we hang our scary bird feeder in the gate and waited for the birds to come.

This is Aki’s best impression of a one-eyed monster. Hihi

Gift Wrapping for Baby W and Baby X

When was the last time I blogged about gift wrapping? December?

Several of Aki’s classmates celebrated their 4th birthdays this year but I have been a very lazy gift wrapper. I just turned to my go-to spiderweb design.

Last Sunday, feeling inspired because of the gifts my boys gave me, I excitedly wrapped the books for Baby W and Baby Z.

For Baby W, I individually wrapped each book using craft paper and Japanese paper, stacked them  and bundled them.

The gifts look nice from the aerial view but something seemed missing if you look at them from a far.

So, I made a half pompom. See tutorial here.

DIY Abstract Art

Our house needs a personality boost. I am getting bored with the look and feel of the house. The walls are bare. The pillow cases look sad. Aki’s playroom under the stairs is forever a mess. Unfortunately, having a curious toddler means thinking twice about putting any decoration.

This simple project aimed to give the walls a splash of colors. This activity was inspired by the tape painting that Aki did last December (which was inspired by Leslie’s blog) and by the abstract paintings in Doc Samonte’s clinic.

We needed

A large canvass – can’t remember the exact size but it was about as big as an illustration board
Acrylic paint
Paint brushes
Little wooden things that come with the canvass.
Masking Tape

First, I randomly put masking tape around the canvass. Sorry I forgot to take pictures of it.

Then, we assigned areas of the canvass to each family member. Because Aki kept on over-mixing the colors, he was given only a small corner to paint on. That did not stop him from trying to mess up the little abstract paintings that Franco and I did. Sorry, no pictures again while we were painting. The istambay daddy was topless because it was so hot.

When we were happy with our creation, we let the painting dry for a couple of hours.

After removing the masking tape…

The worst gift to give this summer

… is a jacket!

But when Aki got into his dino obsession, I just had to do this easy project.

First, using a cardbord pattern, I cut diamonds from my felt cloth stash. I am glad I finally got to use those. I hoarded on felt cloth in 2011 thinking I will never get tired of sewing but I did. My husband will probably nag me for the rest of my life had I pushed thru with buying a sewing machine.

Wait. Where was I?

Oh, for this project, I needed a jacket, diamond felt cut outs and my sewing kit.

I sew, sewed, saw, what is the past tense of sew?? stitched the diamonds on the back of the jacket.