Craft exchange gift from the awesome Sri
I received it last month on an evening and promptly wore it to work the very next day.
It was an all day meet at work and I became quite noticeable in the crowd. Received so many compliments and was proudly saying “my friend hand made this for me”.
Thank you so so much Sri. This is a thoughtful gift to someone living on this side of the world.
I never imagined LHB would remember the valentine card we made for his classmates last year.
Last week during a car ride he said “Amma don’t keep lollipop this time with the valentime card. I don’t know if all my friends like it. Some of them could be allergic to it”. It took me few minutes for me to realize that he already assumed that we will be giving out cards this year too.
So, the doting Amma obliged and started looking out for craft supplies. Two hours well spent with LHB on Saturday evening. We made bookmarks for his classmates and teachers. He insisted on making it for his teachers too. He wrote his name at the back of stick and doting Akka helped to assemble the bag with candies, kisses chocolates and bookmark.
For the lack of time and being extremely tired both physically and mentally, I am going to do a picture post today. Today was being a couch potato day snacking unhealthy food all day long. I don’t want to remember this day if not for the office work I got done. That’s the one and only solace for the day!!
Guitar made out of cardboard box (costco tomato box), few rubber bands, gift wrapper , construction paper and a gift ribbon. One of the rare craft made out of own imagination 🙂 Adi liked it so much that she wanted to use it as a prop for her club. LHB used it for couple of days and then duly trashed it.
This Sunday, the girls had their weekly club meet at our home. As usual I sat by the dining table at the corner of living room and watched the girls multi tasking as in chit chat, practice, make props but mostly chit chat 🙂
It was an afternoon well spent but it got dragged as they had to complete some giant props. M jumped in to help and it went on beyond 8pm. That means its the boy and me again left alone at home. I kept him engaged with interactive learning websites and made a craft with him. No TV 🙂
It was a walking robot. Our first official completed craft. He has matured in following instructions so making this craft was not as painful as earlier when we always gave up in the middle as he messes up craft work area. This time we were able to complete the craft though it was alive for only few minutes.
I am happy for 2 reasons. 1. We completed the craft. 2. I took the pic in that 1.5 minutes it lasted after completion 🙂
It reminded me of all those craft sessions with Adi when she was of same age as LHB now. We have done so many crafts. Looking forward to more craft sessions with my little honey bun.
For those interested, here is the video we followed for this craft.
Note: Not ending today with great spirits but its okay. I will overcome this as well. Thanking God for all the strength I have been blessed with and helping me to move in constructive direction. It is a thin line and I am glad to be on the constructive side. Just a small slip and I will fall deep down that even I cannot help myself. But, I am not going to slip. I am not. I have my principles and values rooted very deep and strong that will hold me high and away from negative forces. I am glad to have found my way out and all I have to do is just hold on to it real tight. I will.
Adi’s recent artwork..
Thank you GB for the inspiration. She asked me to show it to you. She had hard time completing this as the glue became flat after drying and the foil was ripping off easily. I was happy that she didn’t give up.
Foil art:
Peacock:
Update on Mac: The service center came back stating the repair cost would be $1,240. LHB seems to be a very costly boy. M said, I am getting the cheapest laptop from Walmart as I need one to work remotely. I am very upset 😦
Cross-posted at IMC
I had always been a sucker to keep things organized at home. My brain shuts down if I see items scattered on the floor or items misplaced all around the house. In short, if the house is cluttered. Finding a perfect spot at home for any new item always gives me a high. So, as we setup our home, I take it as my duty to find the suitable spots for every item and instruct inform the family to stick on to it to avoid those “I am missing this” and “I am missing that” episodes at home.
I made these three organizers recently to store mails, notes from Adi’s school and her books.
Materials needed:
Cardboard boxes/Cereal boxes – as many as required and the size depends on the purpose of your usage.
Gift wrapper
Scissor
Cellophane tape
Method:
1. Cut the cardboard boxes into different shapes. You can see the cuts we made for our boxes in pictures. Go creative. The wiggly cut for books box was daughter’s idea.
2. Cover the box with gift wrapper and tape it around.
3. If you choose a plain paper, then make your designs on the paper. Daughter is planning to stick some cut out flowers on her book box to make it colorful. I choose this golden color glittery paper to suit our home with wood floors.
I am sure the most we will be left with when we move are cardboard boxes and I prefer to recycle them as storage rather than buying plastic storage boxes from store. I have also made similar boxes to sort our clothes that saves time from folding.
Linking the Christmas tree and wreath we made this year to Shruti’s Artys craftsy Dec 2013 challenge.
Tree and wreath has been made with simple colorful garland bought from dollar store. More details behind the making has been posted at IMC.
Hope all of you had wonderful Christmas!!
Better late than never. Our entry to this month artsy craftsy challenge. This Ganesha was made by Adi with very little supervision from me and this year we made it with home made salt dough.
Thanks to Swaram who has inculcated this idea on us. This is the second year we were making our own Ganesha. I was not sure about making him until two days before the Chathurthi as I had no clue of where to buy air dry clay. Even a small box of play dough was so expensive that I was about to drop the plan of “Our own Ganesha”.
As the saying goes “where there’s a will there’s a way”, out of nowhere I suddenly got the idea of making Ganesha using salt dough. I wanted to try it first before committing to the in-laws about our plan. So, we tried a small Ganesha on the day before which turned out good and we got approvals for the mission.
I made most of the trial Ganesha and Adi watched me with a grumpy face. She was constantly saying that her contribution is nil. So, next day for the real Ganesha I decided to let her do it on her own. As you see in the first picture, ,much to my surprise she did a pretty decent job 🙂 The painting, coloring and all details where her ideas.
The two Ganesha’s ready for pooja (arranged by FIL. The orange hibiscus and pink flowers are from his garden)
I hope we will continue this tradition in the coming years too. Thank you again Swaram..
Thanks to Deepika of D Diaries. It is her post that triggered me to introduce Adi to the beautiful art of Zentangle. Once in a blue moon day when we were left with nothing to do I grabbed the paper and pencil and sat with the girl to show her the art of zentangling. She liked it and came up with her art by squeezing her right brain for some creative juice.
She named her art as “Singing ghost”. I felt the title is apt for the picture. What do you think?
Do you see those musical notes next to so called head?
And this is my attempt:
As every year tradition I have created a page for all her artwork in third grade. It includes the work done at classroom, home and the art class. Click here to see them.
I gave up clearing my Feedly reader. The unread count is 400+ at the moment. I am randomly picking up specific blogs and reading them on a day. So, don’t be surprised if you are bombarded with comments from me on a single day.
Looks like I am still relying on 2012 for my posts. Squeezing my brain to recollect the incidents that I have missed to record in 2012 to make it a post for marathon. If only I had a Pensieve like Dumbledore I can just review the memories of 2012 and make a post every day 🙂
Adi had winter break towards end of December for almost 10 days and this year we had spent all ten days inside four walls. It was a herculean task to keep her occupied on these days. The most dreaded question was “what can I do now?” and I had to constantly rack my brain to avoid this question. I had ordered for few workbooks which she hardly touched after all its her holiday break and this is meant to have fun, fun and only fun.
So, the only sane way for both of us was to do get indulged in some crafting. Here are few crafts that we did during this break
Origami
I have ordered for this origami kit and it helped to keep the little lady busy for most days. She has tried most of the origami’s from this collection including the throwing away and crashing of papers if the folds or creases doesn’t come out the way it is supposed to be. The kit comes with an step by step instruction book and I would highly recommend this to kids and even adults who love origami.
Ginger bread house
One of our friend gifted Adi with a Gingerbread house kit and two days were spent in assembling the house and decorating it. This time, most of the decorations were done by Adi and she took her own time to do it which gave me some time to breathe.
Christmas tree ornaments
We made a bunch of ornaments using salt dough and she spent few hours every day in painting some of them. Details are explained here
Timeline collage
I bought a white chart paper and asked Adi to make a timeline collage with her pictures. Usually, when we start with a craft or project I try my best to make her finish it the same day but this time around I took it easy and let Adi do the things at her own pace. This means, she will do the craft/project for a while and then move on to something else. I did not remind her to complete the craft as the next time when she asked “What can I do now?” I had my answer ready 🙂 🙂
One of the weekend we had mommy/daughter day out. We watched “Life of Pi” in big screen. I was surprised to hear the tamil lullaby as title song. Wishing Bombay Jayashree to win the academy awards for her mesmerizing voice. Adi didn’t like the movie much and was not ready to discuss about it. She was scared about all the fights between Pi and the bengal tiger.
Rest of the times during holidays were spent by sleeping, eating, being mad over something, watching TV, playing in gadgets, playing board games and so on…
Between my littles and me 