Necklace Day

What an accomplishment for a 6 year old. First, an initiative to start arts and crafts day on her own. Second, a beautiful masterpiece. Of many more to come perhaps?

This is the kit.  It's for 3 - 8 years old but the flowers cut out, which can be incorporated into the design, takes a little bit more skills to put the string into the little hole.  I used a piece of stiffer string that acts as a hook to fish out the actual string for the necklace.

Woman

The beautiful woman ....

Went into the powder room and applied something ...

She came out like this...

It happens sometimes!

Graduation Day

What cutesies graduating at 6years old. They had "Guadeamus Igatur" as their procession song and a bunch of eager spectators consisting of happy parents and big/& little siblings that are still quietly breast feeding. I may be the only parent sitting down happily blogging away this phenomenon.

Life surely will flash away before these kidlets lives. Hopefully they learn how to be compassionate and caring towards the future of their earth. Bring on Homeschooling!

Tom & Jerry

I know how most mothers will react when they hear that my kid watches Tom & Jerry shows.  ***Shriek of horror***
That show probably has the most torture ever, kicking, hitting, slapping, falling, etc.  The whole time she watches it, she kept on saying "I won't copy them mom", or "I won't do it mom", or "Promise you just this one ok?".  Well I never get that promise fulfilled because it is such an addictive show.

Just look at these.

Tom & Jerry in human form

Someone is stuck in the elevator while the other is enjoying the pool

The one who got stuck in the elevator came out dripping with water, wonder why?

Salon of Love, **wink**

Redecorating the house, choosing colours

Reading up on next undercover assignment "How to Act Like a Cat"

Acting like a cat but not looking like one, making the real cat person a bit annoyed

Still teasing the cat just like a mouse

Got the mouse person drowned, really?  A mouse person cannot swim?

Tea Party

The importance of reading the instructions thoroughly before handling anything is the pinnacle of success.  That is, if the paper in question is to be found after your child reads it.
Luckily I captured it on camera, but unfortunately, forgotten that I did.  Therefore spent a good half hour just pondering, searching high and low on the whereabouts of the instruction sheet.  The perks of aging, because I had a good laugh posting this and finding it in my camera file.

There are a lot of check list in this project.  Mainly because we're dealing with real breakable ceramics and the techniques that comes with it.  Which inspired me to remind myself to take up pottery or earthenware decorating or anything of the sorts, if the opportunity arise.

The tea set came bare.

The instruction sheet was quite precise, I heard her reading through the bullet points but it vanishes into thin air after that.  I still wonder up till now on its whereabouts.  Strange indeed.
Make notes to the allowing 24 hours before placing it into the oven and also not to take them out immediately after baking.

 A nice simple example of using the sticker stencil to make the flower.  Mind you, if you don't stick the sticker properly onto the surface of the ceramic, the paint will seep into the sides and when you pull out the sticker, the shape isn't apparent at all.  Just use your imagination would be the best option.

First attempt by little artist in the making.

Spent a good hour on the pieces, working her way out methodically.  Using the bright colours first, cleaning the brush with water each time she wants to change colour, and finally ending up with the darkest colour.

 Mommy couldn't help but to try out the sticker stencils and doing second coats.

Left is a poor pink flower that's been over baked (30 minutes in 150 degrees oven?  really?  This was 15 minutes only and the pink "turned").  Right is the pink flower that retained it's pinkiness after only 10 minutes.  I'm not sure why but it's probably the small oven that I have that's mucking the instruction up.  The cracks in the paints happens from the rapid change of temperature, I think.  Hence, follow the instructions when you do get something like this.

 The finished products.  Now we can have a lovely mad hatter tea party.  Pass me my tall hat please....

Sunday is now officially Arts and Crafts day.  This project is to replace all those odd boxes she's been using to keep her trinkets.  I thought she would have fun working on it, but oh how I was so wrong.

It came 'naked' without decoration

 
The gluing part was fun.  Hints that she can use her own trinkets and let her imagination runs wild was good too.  With a satisfying birds eye view result.

The next part, there's a bit of sewing technique involved and is proving too much for her.

This is when things got 'sour' with yells and screams because little kidlets are known for lack of patience and the tulle 'skirt' is more of a tulle 'bomb' when she does it.  Determination was high but when it kept on turning out wrong, it's mommy to the rescue time.

  The finished product with mommy's help.  Still insisting that the picture on the box looks much better than the real thing.

The little flowers was proving a bit difficult for her little fingers.  We ended up splitting the task, mommy does harder task, she does easier ones.  

The tulle skirt was proving to be too long and we ended up tucking it in and securing it with bits of the flowers.  This is where she commented again and again about how it is not like the one in the picture with big billowing skirt.  But what kind of a 5 year old says "billowing" anyway and finally succumb to the fact that it's all a marketing gimmick of lighting and angle to make her nag mommy to buy?

Hence I can now confirm to all parents that the creativity section is actually fun to do together with your children.  Warning that if you suffer from back and neck problems, it could heighten the pain especially if your children's trademark is still S & Y (aka. scream and yell) when difficulty arise.  So, choose your crafts wisely.

Shopping List

This is what happens when you delegate a task to a 5 year girl.

The Fairy that ended Blue

Since the very first time she knew colour, pink red and white were always the special ones.  So, how did this little fairy ended blue?

"It lacks a lot of colours", she commented, "no red....".....

This was the first choice of colour combo.

This is for the more adventurous ladies.

But how did it end up having cross breed smurf-ogre-ish face?

While mom renewed her driving license, little miss fairy had a battering of pink and purple.  Couldn't decide having her a smurf clan or the ogre princess.  The picture above is mommy's halfway saving attempt.  

Lets start from scratch with a little bit of painting technique shall we?

Making do with what's left of the colours available.  She's going to wear blue turtleneck and knee high green boots.

Little miss fairy actually suffered a fall and had to be glued back on, but all when mommy wasn't looking.  She's good as new in blue.  At least the smurfogre theme is there till the end.

Recognising Pattern???

This morning when I looked at the calendar, I went "Huuhh???"

When I'm Down...

All I need is to look at this:

And the many random drawings she did everywhere else...it took me a while to digest what she's drawing about but apparently they're the technologies she misuse everyday (that supposedly there to help with her education).

Introducing: "The iPad".  Appearing on the screen are her crayons for her art, instead of the mathematics apps that I asked her to practice on.

"Exhibit 1"

"Exhibit 2"

Above is: "The TV" that shows "Upin and Ipin" instead of the 3 channels I ask her to pay close attention to (Discovery, NatGeo, Animal Planet).

Below is: "Granpa's Computer Screen" showing Chinese dancers, instead of Mandarin lessons for her.  I don't think she approved of that either by the "What the?" bubble in her drawing.

"Exhibit 3"

By the looks of it, she is very honest about her tech usage, isn't she?

Microdoodle

As I entered my office this morning.....I was greeted by these two figures on my work.  The microdoodle is back!