Party: Paris in Turqoise & Pink

So the eldest turned 12 and wanted a Paris-themed tea party.

As part of the decor, decided to make Eiffel tower standees for the table. Have never tried something like this before, and it was surprisingly not too difficult.

Thought I'd share the process here, in case anyone else would like to give it a go.

Step 1: Googled an image of the tower and recoloured it according to theme. I needed 2 towers for each standee.

Step 2: Got the image printed on A3 sticker paper and stuck on foam board.

Homeschool: Art and Craft

Boy #2 starts his gap year with Teacher Mummy.

But am just enjoying seeing him be able to express his creativity through drawing and assembling stuff.

A gallery of his recent works:

Writing about his family

A TQ card to grandparents

To inifinity and beyond

Transformers ... More than meets the eye

A double-barrel automatic machine gun

Le-it-go, Le-it-go ...

Art: Loomy Times

So the latest fad of the day is the Rainbow Loom, and the kiddos have been riding the bandwagon of colourful woven elastic bands. Mummy gets orders for elastics refills and metal hooks to keep up with the "demand".

Girl particularly impressed me with her Ever After High (EAH)-Inspired Rainbow Loom necklace/headband. Each segment of the band represents an EAH character, identified by their distinctive colours and even style and length of hair.

A+ for creativity!

Art: Doll Craft

Girl has been busy crafting away these past few months.

Drawing inspiration from MyFroggyStuff, she's been making doll accessories, furniture and house for her new Ever After High dolls.

It's been a fun journey so far. Am glad that she's learning stuff from YouTube, recycling household materials and expanding her creativity and artistic abilities. Mummy got to help out too, so it was good bonding time.

It all started with a dressing table and make-up accessories,
complete with an eye-liner pencil for Maddie.

Dolls had a new tissue paper-themed wardrobe

Converting an old box into a house with loft beds for the dolls;
right: Raven with a queen-sized bed of her own.

Installing wallpaper and painting the walls

Giving the walls a personalised touch;
A homework folder, shelves and other tiny details.

Who doesn't love bright pink lockers,
lined with a Paris-themed wallpaper

Hanging out in their new home!

Art: Emerging Talent

Girl has been surprising us with her drawings of late. If you've seen her usual scribbles, there's nothing particularly artistic about them. But when she has a reference point, she is now able to replicate the drawing rather accurately ... a skill that she picked up mainly on her own.

Alice Miranda ... sketched while waiting for dinner to arrive

 

Respiratory system ... drawn as a school assignment

A pop-up card for Daddy before he went for an overseas trip

Monster High's Nefera

"Commissioned" drawing ... a request from a friend;
she learned to piece together parts of the body
that are not visible in a single reference photo

Doll house furniture making: learning to handle heavy machinery

Jottings: Bits & Bobs in March

Mummy has been busy, so here's a quick rundown of some of the fun stuff we've been up to.

Minecraft is the flavour of the season. But iPad time is limited, so when you can't play, you draw :-)

More lunch-time scribbles

We came home late to this Goodnight note from the kiddos.

Every Captain America needs a (disposable plate) shield!

Lego, lego, lego at Bricks 4 Kidz.

Girl and 2 friends assembled this wooden doll house all by themselves! This fantastic Malaysian-styled house was bought in support of EPIC Homes' fundraiser.
 

Finally finished our long-overdue paint-by-numbers canvas art!

Art: Cabinets in disguise

I was out for the evening and wondered what mischief the kiddos would be up to.

Was pleasantly surprised when I returned to see them taking the initiative to decorate their storage boxes with stickers on their own.

Colour me impressed!

Motor Skills: Slowly coming along ...

The boys don't really enjoy anything to do with the pencil — writing, colouring, drawing.

This was Boy's first attempt at drawing something on his own accord at age 3 (think he was kinda jealous that I kept posting his sister's artwork up on FB). It started out as a Transformer, I believe, that evolved into a peacock :-)

Then one day, 3 years later, he suddenly came to show me a piece of paper with his sketches of  Ultraman! I especially like that this was entirely his own initiative, and upon encouragement, he went on to draw all his other Ultraman figures. Glad he found something he enjoyed drawing. Hopefully there'd be more to come!

Art: Favourite songs from Les Mis

Girl embarked on this little project on her own.

Her original effort was a bit rough, so Mummy had to help her to plan and redesign the layout into something more befitting her idea and concept.

The final product!

When she first asked me to print out coloured pictures of the characters in the Les Mis movie, I dithered. Thankfully Girl approached Daddy, who happily obliged. Thank God for Daddies :-)

Visit: Penang Batik Factory

During our recent holiday in Penang, we paid a visit to the Penang Batik Factory on Teluk Bahang. It's a modest set up, but still a good opportunity for the kiddos to have a firsthand look at batik painting.

Different stages of batik painting

Drawing with wax

Tools of the trade

Various pails of colours

Artist at work

There is a showroom where you can buy the finished hand-drawn batik products at rather princely prices.

Unfortunately, we were not foreign tourists, which I suspect was one of the main reasons behind the cool reception we received by the factory guides. Smaller groups of Caucasians that came after us were given much warmer greetings and more detailed explanations. Oh well. If you have thick skin like ours, the factory is still worth a quick stopover.

Art: Merdeka

The Girl seems to see opportunity for art in everything.

She took a used packaging sleeve from a box and decided it'd make a good Malaysian flag.

I helped to mark the lines for her and she took it from there, Sharpies and all.

Just in time for National Day.

Art: Bird or ... ?

The beauty of my Girl is that she always finds something encouraging to say. 

After I failed miserably in adding a recognisable bird to her artwork (paint blowing is definitely not my forte), she just told me, "It's quite good, mum. It may not look like a bird, but it sure looks like bird shit." :-p

Art: Battle-scarred Beyblade Stadium

My boy has been accumulating his Beyblades over the past two years, thanks to all the generous aunties, uncles and grandparents.

The top can be spun on any flat surface, but a proper game is usually played in a Beyblade Stadium. I bought one for my boy, after much persuasion. Despite its price tag, it looked like a cheap piece of plastic that you can find as packing material :-p

After a while, the poor plastic took a real beating and ended up badly scratched.

So to "distract" from the scratches, out came the Sharpies again :-)

This time I searched for a design on the Internet, then flipped it on the computer before printing it out.

Then I stuck it on the inside of the stadium, facing the bottom of the stadium. That way I could trace the design on the bottom of the transparent stadium so that it looks right side up when in play. This way, the spinning tops will not scratch the design either.

 So here's the finished product ... and I bet the scratches are the last thing you notice :-)

Art: Jumble Sale Makeover

Picked up a pre-loved Mega Blok truck from a jumble sale recently. I love Mega Bloks, and my boy loves trucks. And I couldn't pass on a great bargain.

The truck works fine. Only problem was the really sun-faded red ... looked almost pink!

That's when I decided to put my Sharpie collection to good use. After all I was always thinking of trying my hand at art.

Trouble is that I don't really know how to draw non-girly stuff. So after some thought, I decided on some bugs would do the trick. I did add in some flowers later one to fill up the space :-p

So voila ... better than new! (I hope ;-))

Art: Make a Badge

My girl had a Girls Only Badge Maker for Christmas, so we decided to try it out one day.

It came with its own design sheets that you could cut out, but I decided to personalise it a bit by creating our own designs on the computer and print out in colour.

The badge diameter was a lot smaller than I'd expected, so I had to reduce my designs to fit. After 1-2 tries, we succeeded.

Art: Batik fun

A beautiful traditional art form that is simple for kids to attempt is batik painting.

We had an arty birthday party for the Girl and her friends, and I bought several batik painting kits, which came complete with a wax-drawn design, paint brush and paint.

There are no hard and fast rules with this sort of painting, as any colour combinations blend well together tie-dyed style. Even my 3yo Boy, who hates colouring, did an impressive magenta piece of a parrot.
 

Was wondering what to do with the many finished masterpieces. In the end, decided to get them framed nicely and hung on our kitchen wall. They sure add a splash of vibrancy to our kitchen and a good way to preserve the kiddo's early artworks.