Learn: Wreath making with Poppy Flora Studio

My birthday was last Saturday, and everyone woke up grouchy. Junior J didn't rest well the night before, and was in a bad mood. The boys kept fighting. I, in turn, was snappy because, hey, it's Mama's birthday, and all I get are tantrums? We were supposed to attend a workshop by Poppy Flora Studio that morning, and half the family nearly didn't make it, since Junior J declared he was feeling unwell and was too tired to go. In the end, I managed to convince him to come along, since I knew he would enjoy the workshop, and we made a mad dash down to the car. 

And enjoy it he did, so much so that he now wants to make more wreaths for the house!

The workshop was conducted at Poppy Flora Studio over at Old Birdcage Walk, in a charming colonial house. The studio was bright and cheery, and I could feel my mood lifting upon entering! The boys were immediately drawn to the bare wreaths, and couldn't resist twiddling with them. These are made from hay tied tightly together, and twisted into a circular shape, and can be reused in the future.

Sarah, who runs Poppy Flora Studio, taught us how to secure all our materials down to our wreaths using florist wire, and patiently lent a hand as we made our wreaths. 

We were provided with an array of materials, both natural and synthetic, to dress up our wreaths, from fresh pine and eucalyptus leaves, to fake berries and shiny tinsel. The boys went a little crazy choosing all their materials, and of course, both wanted some tinsel in their wreaths. 

Both the boys more or less arranged their wreaths on their own. Junior J cut his own leaves using the shears, and also secured everything down with wire, with me helping him to tighten the wires. The shears are really sharp, so I helped Lil J with the cutting, and he also tried his best to secure his materials down using wire.  Sarah also taught us how to secure the bulkier materials to the wreaths, such as the pine cones and acorns. 

I was really proud of the boys because they sat down and diligently worked on their wreaths for over an hour. After they were done, I hastily got down to doing my own wreath. I loved how we were given access to the same materials, but everyone's wreath turned out unique, from the elegant ones made by the other mummies, to the bright happy tinsel-wrapped one by a three year old:

Cheery smiles after working on our wreaths, with May of A Million Little Echoes, and Angie of Life's Tiny Miracles. 

The boys really had a good time making the wreaths. Who ever said such things were only for girls? They decided to give me their wreaths as birthday presents.

Now the wreaths are hanging on various doors in our home, and they really add some festive cheer to the place. 

This was Junior J's wreath. I love how the little bits of tinsel add some sparkle to the wreath, without making it look tacky:

Lil J surprised me, since he usually has quite a short attention span, but he actually sat through and finished his wreath! His does look like it had a dose of steroids, since it's so laden with berries (he just kept adding stuff and poking leaves everywhere), but I love it so. It's hard to believe this was made by a 4 year old:

We left Poppy Flora Studio in a much cheerier mood that when we had entered in the morning. Working on those wreaths reminded me how crafting can really calm the soul, and I realized that I've been neglecting this aspect for awhile with the boys. It's been hard to work on anything arty these days with a clingy toddler, and the thought of cleaning up the mess made by three littles has been a huge obstacle to starting any creative project at home. But that morning taught me that busy hands do lead to happier, calmer kids (and a happier mama too!), so hopefully we'll be getting down to some crafty stuff soon!

Thank you, Sarah and Poppy Flora Studio, it was a great way to spend my birthday morning, crafting with my two older boys! (You can read more about May's and Angie's experience at the workshop here, and here.)

~~~~~~~

For those interested, you can read more about Poppy Flora Studio's workshops here, and you can follow their FB page to be kept updated on their events and promotions. The Christmas workshops start at $290, but their "Christmas with the Family" workshop is now priced at only $65 per wreath. This workshop uses smaller wreaths, which makes it more suitable for children.  

The details are as follows:

Date: 19th December, Saturday

Time: 1600 hrs (workshop lasts for 1.5 to 2 hours)

Venue: Poppy Flora Studio, Old Birdcage Walk, #01-05, S(798484)

Price: $65 per wreath

To register, email poppy@poppy.com.sg with your details. These wreaths are perfect to decorate the home for the festive season, or as gifts to friends! 

Disclaimer: We were invited to attend this workshop for purpose of this review. No monetary compensation was received, and all opinions are my own. 

Survive the haze: 11 crafty activities to try

The haze has been keeping us indoors most of the time, since the boys start coughing and wheezing if they are exposed. Because of that, we've had more time to craft. I must say I quite enjoy our craft sessions these days since Baby J is happy messing with his crayons and dot-a-dot markers, while Lil J is now willing to follow instructions and not make a huge mess with the art materials. Junior J, as usual, loves painting and crafting, so he's more than happy to take part too!

I thought I'd compile a list of crafty activities that we've been doing the past 6 months, some which never got recorded on the blog (but shared on the FB page). You could try some of these at home with the kids when the PM2.5 levels shoot up. Have fun!

1. Spin Art: 
The boy have been loving their spinner (we purchased it here), especially Lil J who is particularly interested in the kinesthetic part of crafting. He loves cranking the button and squeezing the bottles, and seeing the paint splatter onto the paper, so I'd highly recommend this activity for kids who are more keen in the sensorial bit of art (smearing paint, working tools). Having the spinner means they get to see the painting process, however, you can also try this using a regular salad spinner, just that they won't be able to see the paint spread out as they spin the spinner.

2. Watercolour collages: 

We made this picture for the MIL recently, and now Lil J has been asking to try his hand at "dabbing". (You can read more details for this project here.) The older two enjoy experimenting with the paints, and watching how the paint spreads, and how the colours vary as they layer them. 

3 & 4. Washi-fied names & paint resist art:
We purchased these wooden alphabets from TYPO (you can also try cutting out alphabets using cardboard), and the older two had a field day covering them with washi tape! (Washi tape can be purchased from Daiso, various scrapbooking stores, and from MT Tape.)

The painting below the alphabets was made using the paint resist technique: Junior J drew the picture using a white oil pastel (you must draw the outline a couple of times and layer it thick), and then added the colours using watercolours. This works on paper, as well as canvas, and you can purchase canvases from Daiso or Art Friend.



5. Painting on canvas:
Junior J has tried using acrylics on canvas previously (the top two paintings were done with acrylic paints), but we stopped using these paints during this period because our windows were closed because of the haze, and I didn't want him breathing in too much of the paint fumes. However, poster paints work on canvas too, so we'll be exploring using those (the lower painting was done by Junior J using washi tapes and poster paints, when he was younger).



6. Ice-cream stick animals:
The kids in our co-op made these animals while exploring a farm theme, and they were quite easy to make! All you need are coloured ice-cream sticks (Daiso and Popular stock these), circle stickers (from Daiso), markers and coloured paper. The possibilities are endless, and you can add pompoms and googly eyes too!



7. Shape art: 
We experimented making pictures using shape cut-outs (we cut out shapes from construction paper) and circle stickers (these come in a few sizes in Daiso), after reading the book Wednesday, a sweet story about how a circle and square work together to form pictures. This was fun, and the boys loved thinking up pictures to make!

8. Beetle art:
The boys made these beetles after reading "The Beetle Book". They had quite alot of fun picking out which beetles they wanted to make, and made these using bits of cardboard, googly eyes and pipe cleaners (from CraftPlay, which stocks all sorts of materials for crafting). They decorated the beetles using glitter glue, markers and buttons. You can read more details for this project over in this post, along with more beetle projects!

9. Perler bead crafts:
We've been making all sorts of things using Perler beads, from giant cameras for the younger boys (using Biggie Beads), to My Little Pony and fruit magnets for a fund-raising project.

We keep getting questions about these beads, so just some info about these fused beads here:

- You place the beads on a pegboard in the pattern that you like, and iron them at a medium heat setting to fuse them together. You'll need to place a sheet of paper on top of the beads before ironing or the beads will stick to the iron. You can either use the papers provided in the bead sets, or baking paper. Don't use regular paper!

- There are a few brands of beads available, and IKEA stocks a similar version called Pyssla, and I think Daiso sells some fused bead kits as well. The most popular brands would probably be Hama and Perler. The former is available at Growing Fun stores, but we prefer the latter, as Hama beads tend to be much softer and the creations tend to break easily compared to those made using Perler beads.

- We buy our beads mainly from Amazon, as they qualify for free global shipping. We usually purchase the giant tub of mixed beads for Lil J, and the trays of sorted colours for Junior J when he works on his fund-raising project, as well as the pegboards (some of our pegboards are from IKEA). The Biggie beads and corresponding pegboards are from Amazon too. We've also ordered packets of beads of individual colours directly from EKSuccess, for the fund-raising project.

10. Build your own city:
We sometimes cut up a large cardboard box, or roll out mahjong paper and let the kids build their own city using their building blocks. They add roads and other details using markers, and have a ball of a time building their own city! (You can read more about our cardboard crafts here.)

11. Make your own aquarium:

We got the boys to paint a large piece of cardboard using blue, yellow and white poster paints, and called it our aquarium. They then filled it up with various aquatic creatures, such as fishes folded from origami paper, seahorses using Perler beads and sea urchins using pompoms!

So you have it, 11 crafty activities to try with the kids, during this hazy period. Have fun if you do try any of them!

PS: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon, but at no added cost to yourself. :)

Make: Inspired by Laura Blythman

I was introduced to Laura Blythman's work some time ago, when I was browsing Apartment Therapy's feature on her lovely home. I love her use of bright colours, and the layering of cut-outs in her work, and thought we might try making an art piece inspired by her style for my dad's birthday present.

So I cut up a piece of watercolour paper into smaller pieces, and Junior J got busy painting them with different colours. (A side point, DAISO sells watercolour palettes, and they are great for kids! Plenty of different shades, plus no fretting that they mess up the cakes since its only $2.)

We tried streaking darker shades of colours on the papers while the underlying coat was still wet, which let the colours blend nicely together. He also tried to make splotches on the papers, saying they would be the "rocks on the mountains". We then cut out the pieces of paper into the shape of hills, and used a circle punch to cut out a sun. I helped Junior J to print out an accompanying verse from Psalm 121, and we shuffled everything around until we had a nice layout, then pasted everything down. We then framed it up using a frame from IKEA.

I loved how it turned out, and I think my dad was rather pleased with his present. This technique is pretty simple and rather mess-free, so I think we'll be doing more of this in time to come!

Make: 3D Perler pianos

It's Teachers' Day today! The boys don't have many teachers, since we homeschool, and Junior J only gets music and swim lessons, and no other classes. As we will be stopping his piano classes very soon (after he finishes this term), we wanted to make something special for his piano teacher, both as a farewell present for his teacher, as well as to stay "Thank You!" on Teacher's Day. I had a chat with the little boy, and he said he wanted to make a piano out of Perler beads for his teacher, so we went hunting for a template on Google. We chanced across this video tutorial on how to make a 3D piano (Youtube is pretty amazing that way!), and Junior J instantly decided that he wanted to make that for his teacher, even though I told him it would take some time to make all the layers.

So he took two days, and painstakingly pieced all the beads together into the layers while watching the video. I helped to iron the beads together, and we glued the pieces together. I had to take over for the legs of both the piano and the chair, since they were so tiny!

He made a card to go along with the piano, and gave it to his teacher yesterday. She loved it, and Junior J was really pleased!

Anyway, some tips to share if you plan to try to make a Perler piano:
1. Try to iron each layer for the same amount of time, so that you don't have some layers becoming flatter and larger than the rest. Don't over-iron until the holes in the beads disappear.

2. Once you've ironed the layers, place them under a pile of books while they are still hot for an hour or so, to ensure the layers are flat. Ironing sometimes causes the layers to bend, which would make it hard for you to glue them together later.

3. We modified the legs and used 4 fused beads for each layer of the piano legs. The actual tutorial called for you to glue only one bead per layer, which was really difficult, since these were non-melted and really tiny. I was also worried that the legs might snap. Wider legs gave the piano more stability. One of the back legs dropped off during the packing process, but the piano was fine on three legs. For the stool, we used 2 fused beads for each layer, again for the same reasons.

4. We used PVA glue to glue the layers together, as many of the quick drying craft glues have fumes. PVA glue works, but it takes ages to dry, so you must factor in at least 12 hours of drying time. You'll have to work slowly, and the layers will tend to slip and slide since the glue is wet. Just place each layer carefully on top of each other, adjust them so they align, and resist the temptation to keep twiddling with the legs! It's best to let the piano and the stool dry upside down, with the legs up.

Have fun if you try this project, and here's wishing all educators a Happy Teachers' Day!

Make: Rainbow blocks for less than $10

The Germans seem to have a love and fascination for making children's playthings out of wood. It's just one of the things they do very well: toys beautifully crafted from wood, stained or painted to perfection. I think wood is one of the loveliest materials for toys, with its natural variations in colour, the swirling woodgrain, and it's ability to be sanded down to smoothness. When we were in Germany, I was really tempted to get some of the wooden toys made by longtime toymaker Grimm's Spiel and Holz Design, but they were pretty expensive, so we ended up not getting anything (I half-regret that now though!).

I particularly liked their rainbow blocks, since they came in such a range of colors, and I was very excited to read that you could DIY your own! I decided to try making some using materials from Daiso, and they turned out pretty well, so I'm sharing how you can make your own today:

1. You'll need just two things: a set of liquid watercolors (ours were from Daiso), as well as unfinished wooden blocks (again from Daiso). 

2. Squeeze a dollop of paint (in whatever colour you'd like) onto a palette or plate with a flat base (no rounded bases please), and then add in a few drops of water. Stir to mix. Place the wooden block into the paint, and let sit for a few seconds, before turning to coat another side. Repeat, until all sides have been soaked in paint. Gently tap the block at the side of the palette to let excess paint drip off. 

3. Leave the cube on a tray to dry, and repeat steps 1 and 2 with the other cubes. The cubes should be completely dry in a day. 

Some tips to note:

:: Adding a few drops of water to the paint helps to distribute the colour evenly, since I find that the undiluted paint is too thick. However, you have to trial and error to find the paint-water balance. We discovered that the colors were not as intense as we'd like them to be if the paint is too dilute. Letting the cubes soak in the paint allows for an even colour distribution, compared to using a paint brush (but Lil J insisted on helping so I let him!). The lovely thing about using watercolors is that the woodgrain of the blocks shows up through the colors (unlike if you use acrylic paints), and the colors actually accentuate the patterns of the woodgrain. 

:: To get a whole range of colors, I started by using primary colors, and then gradually mixing them (red with yellow, yellow with blue, blue with red) to get a range of secondary colors. Along the way, I also tried mixing in white to lighten the colors. If you do follow this method, don't forget to continue to dilute the paint by adding in drops of water during the mixing process!

:: The blocks fit nicely into those little crates that they sell at Daiso too. All in all, we used up 3 packs of blocks, so our rainbow blocks set cost us $10, if you include the crate!

:: The quality of the Daiso wooden blocks seems to be dropping. We used some blocks that were purchased a year or two ago, as well as some that were recently purchased. The older blocks were made of harder wood, were sanded smooth, and didn't have splinters. Those were lovely. The newer blocks unfortunately were made of softer wood, were rougher, and many had chips or splinters and had to be sanded down. I'd say that these would be ok for older kids to play with, but keep them away from babies who are still mouthing their toys. Also, remind your kids to ensure their hands are dry when playing with these. If you'd like an alternative (especially since the blocks can go out of stock quickly in Daiso), Amazon stocks these Hygloss unfinished wooden blocks and these quality for free global shipping (Note: These are a tad smaller than the Daiso ones.).

If you do try to make your own rainbow blocks, do share your photos with us over at our FB page ok? Would love to see what you come up with!

Make: Easy house building blocks

The boys and I are down with bad colds and we've been stuck home. Which probably explains why my brain is going into overdrive with regards to making stuff, because cabin fever tends to make my fingers itchy! Anyway, I'm sharing another easy DIY post today, instead of our usual "Grateful Gatherings" post. I am finding hard to write while my brain is foggy from the bug, so craft posts are more exciting to share for the moment!

So back to these wooden blocks. The boys have all sorts of plain wooden building blocks and they do play with them. But the sentimental side of me has been missing the vintage blocks that I used to play with, that have colorful architectural details, and even little pillars and arches. My parents probably gave ours away a long time back, and these days, vintage blocks are hard to find and can be costly. So I thought I'd try my hand at doing some, and it was fun, and pretty easy!

All you need are plain wooden blocks, which we bought from Daiso (since I can't bear to draw on their regular blocks), as well as a set of Sharpies or other permanent markers. I gave the blocks a quick rinse (to wash off any sawdust or dirt), wiped them and air-dried them, then started drawing various building features on them, from windows, to doors, to roofs and chimneys. The possibilities are endless: you can have hobbit hole doors and windows, doors of any colour, windows with curtains… Since you have 6 sides to work with, it means you can draw and build all sorts of crazy buildings!

We had these rectangular blocks from Daiso too, which were half the size of the cubes. These I drew various vehicles, fences and brick wall patterns. I'm still working on them, but the boys are all excited about them, and have been requesting construction vehicles in strange colors, and Lil J has been pestering me to draw him into some of the vehicles!

If you're working with Sharpies, I think the fine point ones are better, since the ink tends to spread out when you draw on the wood. Ours were purchased off Amazon, but no longer ship for free to SG. However, I'm thinking of getting this set with ultra-fine tips, since its now on offer and qualifies for free global shipping! As with working with all permanent markers, please use them in a well-ventilated area, and keep them away from kids unless you want a stripy sofa and graffitied walls!

PS: You can also check out this alternative version using acrylic paints from Mer Mag. I love their simple lines and soothing colors!

Children's Craft Fair

We've been busy preparing for the Children's Craft Fair, which would be held this Saturday at the Singapore Art Museum. Junior J has been really busy making all sorts of Perler and Hama bead crafts (like those pictured above), and would be selling these at the fair.

Bead crafts aside, there would be lots of other crafts for sale, like photo frames, coasters, rainbow loom crafts and greeting cards. These are all made by our homeschoolers, and a few co-ops were organized to encourage the kids to prepare for this craft fair. (You can view our behind the scenes video here, as well as more details for the fair.)

We got to teach some of them some basic scrapbooking techniques last month, and the kids spent two afternoons learning how to use punches, inks and stamps, and made all sorts of greeting cards. It was wonderful seeing all these little hands at work, stamping and punching, cutting and pasting.

The creations that they came up with were interesting. The boys preferred to work with lots of glue and glitter, and spent lots of time squeezing globs of glitter all over and pasting big buttons on their cards. The girls tended towards flowers and butterflies. All in all I think they had a good time!

I was pleasantly surprised because Junior J was very enthusiastic about making his cards, and came up with these designs (As you can see, he loves glitter too. Heh.):

We're still busy working on more bead crafts for the fair, and we hope to see you there this Saturday!