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

Tractors: Climb aboard!

Guess who popped by our neighbourhood these past few days? They were just hanging around on the roadside for days. So we decided to pop over to say "Hi!"

Books: The Lorax

After watching Dr Seuss' "The Lorax" movie, we followed up with the book.

Bedtime reading: "The Lorax"

Was never a fan of green eggs and ham, but the movie definitely piqued my interest, introducing me to the whimsical, magical world of Dr Seuss.

"The Lorax" is an entertaining yet thought-provoking story about the importance of protecting and preserving our environment, long before it became an "in" thing. It brings us to a time where children grow up in a world without any trees and relates the events that led to the final tree falling — "the very last Truffula tree of them all".

The book is definitely worth a read.

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 :-)

Tractors: A lil' obsession

At 2, Boy was obsessed with cars. But his little brother seems to prefer big, larger vehicles, specifically tractors.

On any car ride, he would point out every construction vehicle in sight. We would know exactly how many tractors there are on a 4-hour highway road trip, thanks to his non-stop commentary. 

This lil' obsession seemed to have rubbed off on Mummy, hence a separate blog category just for it :-)

Newest addition: a preloved ride-on Kobelco excavator

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 ;-))

Malaysia: Cartoon time

We started off the New Year with another exciting initiative by Kill the Bill: Malaysian can draw cartoons for Academic Freedom at KLCC without police permit.

This was really interesting for us as we got to be up close and personal with some of the big names in cartooning in Malaysia, especially the more "controversial" ones like Zunar. It also exposed the Girl to all the different talents and art forms in cartooning.