Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
October 16: H.'s tenth birthday party!
Of course, for daughter H.'s birthday we always do a craft party. I mean, what else would you expect from a mother who loves crafts! This year was no exception and 27 girls (we only have girls' parties as adding boys into the crafty mix of feathers, beads and paint would be too much for the poor mother organizing everything!) spent hours painting, hats, masks and bags and then covering them with beads, ribbons and feathers. After seeing the mess afterwards, I was very releived that I had refrained from giving them glitter as well! But as usual it was all worth it and the girls went home with some amazing creations! Here is a small selection:
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Oct 14, 2010: hats
Children love decorating things they can actually use, and these hats were no exception:
Sunday, October 10, 2010
October 7: autograph books
As many of the children who attend our craft classes are from expat families, we thought it would be a good idea to let them make autograph books. That way they could have their friends write something about themselves or make a drawing/ stick in a photo and they would always have something to remember the people they met in Manila by. If any of the kids needs extra pages, please let us know so we can send you the Word document to print yourself.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Oct 3, 2010: Tie-dye
E. had been asking us for quite some time to do some tie-dying. Unfortunately this is not that easy to do with a big group using the facilities where we normally host our craft classes. (supervising 10 kids running around a small room with lots of hot water and big dye pots, was not a scenario that appealed to us very much!) So we arranged a "private"class and over a couple of weekends tie-dyed some bedsheets.
It is actually quite easy to find fabric dye in Manila although only the Venus brand is available and the stock of different colours is quite unpredictable. Carolina carries it as well as National Bookstore and it is often available at stalls in public markets. We actually had to get a magnifying glass out just to read the instructions and unfortunately there are no indications of how much dye to use. We made an educated guess and used 14 sachets (2grams each) per bedsheet and otherwise followed the instructions to the letter and this is the result:
The colour on the packages was not very close to what actually came out in the end. The blue was more aqua on the package but was a more greyish blue on the dyed fabric. For more intense colours, we probably should have used a few more packages. We also dyed a T-shirt along side these bedsheets and that has already been washed repeatedly. The colours have not faded much, so all in all we were quite please with the results!
If anyone out there has more experience with the Venus dye, please let us know how you got on!
It is actually quite easy to find fabric dye in Manila although only the Venus brand is available and the stock of different colours is quite unpredictable. Carolina carries it as well as National Bookstore and it is often available at stalls in public markets. We actually had to get a magnifying glass out just to read the instructions and unfortunately there are no indications of how much dye to use. We made an educated guess and used 14 sachets (2grams each) per bedsheet and otherwise followed the instructions to the letter and this is the result:
The colour on the packages was not very close to what actually came out in the end. The blue was more aqua on the package but was a more greyish blue on the dyed fabric. For more intense colours, we probably should have used a few more packages. We also dyed a T-shirt along side these bedsheets and that has already been washed repeatedly. The colours have not faded much, so all in all we were quite please with the results!
If anyone out there has more experience with the Venus dye, please let us know how you got on!
Oct 2, 2010: Eygptian pillows
H+P, 2 of our 10 year old crafters made the Egyptian pillows using fabric crayons (available at National Bookstore and some SM department stores) on canvas. We used them last year when the children decorated pillow cases as Christmas gifts for their parents , and they stand up very well to washing even when using the rather harsh Philippine laundry soaps! The girls agreed to to the same rather haughty cat on their pillows.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sept 30: butterfly mobiles
After the girls (the boys are, unfortunately for them, in the minority ...) decided by unanimous vote to do a butterfly craft this week, we planned these mobiles. Cutting 13 butterflies was a bit time consuming for the kids who are still a bit challenged by cutting curves, but they all got a lot of practice today!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Sept 23, 2010: big wall flowers
This week, we made big paper flowers the children can hang on the walls of their rooms. The original inspiration came from Blue Cricket Design (Thank you Becca!) but as it is hard to find scrap book paper in Manila, we had to make some adjustments. Instead, we used gift wrap glued to bond paper so that the petals would be rigid enough to stand up. As usual, we had children who believe that more-is-more and used nearly every patterned paper we had! At the other end of the spectrum, we have one 4 year old who has decided that less-is-more and limited herself to 2 colors only!
Sept 16, 2010: Flowerpot scarecrows
These not-so-scary-scarecrows turned out so well, I couldn't resist posting nearly all photos! Sorry!
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