Personalising a Kendama II

Continuing with the post on "Personalising a Kendama", here's another way to make your kendama one of a kind!  I just took out some acrylic paint and just went with the flow... faces for each of the cups of the kendama.  What do you think?

Sad face :'(

Happy face :)

Angry angry

Personalising A Kendama

Kendamas are all the rage now amongst students.  What IS a Kendama, you say?  It's a traditional Japanese toy made of wood!  Our first close-up encounter with a kendama was a small one that Big One got as a Children's Day's gift from his teacher.  Big One practiced really hard and seemed really serious about it, so we got a bigger, more standard size kendama soon after.  The price difference between the plain ones (raw wood handle + black ball) and the fancy ones (think lightning paint effects or Spiderman mask on the ball) was about $10-$20!  Fortunately Big One was convinced that the plain one was sufficient and Mummy promised to personalise it for him.

First off, let's imprint some initials on the plain black ball!  I did this using masking tape as the "stencil":

Masking tape "stencil"

Then, with a silver inkpad, dab on the silver!

Inked on

I happened to have some varnish on hand and gave this 2 coats of it, letting it dry completely in between and there you are, a simple way to personalise your kendamas!  These were made as gifts:

Customised Kendamas

Upcycled Vase

I rarely get flowers, so when I got a lovely bunch of flowers for my birthday, the first thought I got was to find a vase for the flowers, but....... there were none!  I grabbed an empty milk powder tin, some acrylic paint and did this:

Acrylic Paint on Milk Tin

 Ah.... now there's a place for my pretty flowers :)

Upcycled Vase

Upcycled Infinity Scarf

Upcycled Infinity Scarf

What do you do when your friend passes over very pretty dresses that you can't fit into (Boohoo!!)?  There was no way to alter it to fit me but it had such pretty fabric - a sheer blue with white spots and flowers.  So snip snip snip went the skirt portion of the dress, and sew sew sew lots of straight lines and Ta-daa - here's my new infinity scarf for those chilly bus rides!

Circle Batik Skirt

I didn't realise how long it has been since the Hubby bought batik fabric for me from Indonesia - more than a year ago!

If you recall, the only item I made with the batik fabric was a skirt.  That first skirt was a really easy project; a rectangular piece of cloth with an elastic top.  This time, I wanted to challenge myself with something I've never done before - a circle skirt!

I remember reading the tutorial on MADE and the skirts looked so so cute!  Then I noticed that more and more people on the streets were also wearing circle skirts.  So armed with batik fabric and black elastic, off I went.  I'm quite pleased with result, I have to say.  What do you think?

Batik Circle Skirt

Tissue Paper Holder & Pouch

Have you ever encountered this scenario?  It's time for lunch and you grab your wallet, tissue paper, office access card and mobile phone, then you realise that you are juggling all these items while trying lock the office door and accidentally drop something or, even worse, everything on the floor!  Well, I got fed up of carrying everything separately and decided to make something to solve this problem.

1. I needed a compartment for tissue paper
2. I needed a compartment for office access cards and keys
3. I needed this to be able to attach to a lanyard so that it's hands-free!

So, I grabbed some fabric from an old skirt that my friend kindly donated to me and came up with this:

Tissue Paper Holder & Pouch

It is slightly bigger that the usual tissue paper holder, so it can easily hold cards and keys or some spare change, and the loop at the end allows for it to be attached to a lanyard.  Now, this holds everything I need except my mobile phone.  No worries!  I have a cute pouch for this purpose :)

Plastic Bottle Shark

Plastic bottle shark

Give a boy a plastic bottle and pictures from Pinterest and what do you get? "Mummy!  I want to make a shark!"  So there you go, a shark it is then.  What would boring Mummy's do without Pinterest?

Ducky Operation

Do you recall playing with toys that can make some sound or even talk if you give it a squeeze or a hug?  There were 2 problems with such toys:

1. They can't be washed as there's some electronics inside
2. They stop talking/making noise when the battery runs out

So what can you do about that?  Upon request, I was told to "operate" on such a toy.  First, i unpicked some stitches to get the electronics out.  Next, I used some scrap cloth to sew a little pocket to the opening I created:

Toy with added "pocket"

Now, stuff the little pocket of cloth back into the toy, and you can insert the electronics back in:

Hidden pocket for electronics

Ta-daa! With this little pocket, you can remove the electronics when you need to wash the toy or when a change of batteries are needed.  Isn't that easier and cleaner too?

Paper Flower

After news of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's death was released on 23 Mar 2015, many tribute sites sprouted all over Singapore for people who wished to pay their respects but were unable to do so at the Parliament House.  We brought Big One and Small One down to one of the tribute sites to offer a simple flower made from paper cupcake cups and some recycled material:

Paper Flower

Making Good

This blog post is part of a blog train hosted by Agatha from Green Issues by Agy.  The carriage leading up to mine is A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E by The Accidental Mom Blogger.  Adeline is a Stay-at-home-mum and also a jewelry artisan, so check our her creations!

We've been lucky that when our kids were born, there were lots of hand-me-downs and we hardly had to buy any clothes other than the occasional splurge.  But when it came to Little One's turn, most of the items were already 4th hand.  Being 4th hand meant that the home clothes were nicely seasoned and softened until there were very comfortable, which is great for little ones!  But when it came to footwear, they were all in various sad states.  Fake leather on some cute mini shoes started flaking off. Other shoes had the entire sole fall off!  This particular pair of sandals started coming apart:

Sandals falling apart

The strange thing about this pair of sandals was that the Hubs actually asked me to repair it when I was ready to chuck it in the bin!  Why is that strange?  Because the Hubs is usually the "thrower" in the family.  Maybe he realised that the part that was still holding on (see ugly glue bits in the top photo) was actually the part where I used the glue gun on.  Anyway, I set about fixing this using my trusty glue gun:

Glue gun to the rescue!

After lots of glue, glue and more glue, the sandal is back in one proper piece again!  Yes I know, there's hot glue peaking out everywhere.... but my goal was to make it wearable, not to make it look brand new :p  Now, this pair of sandals will be reserved for wading in water when the Little One goes fishing in the river.  Hopefully all that water wouldn't make it disintegrate again.  If it does, I suppose a little drying and gluing will get it ready for the next fishing session.  I'd rather Little One keep his other newer, nicer shoes away from the water.

All fixed!

Now that I'm done with my repair, let's see who's in the next carriage - Yaney from Adopt an Ami!!  She is a multi-talented crafter who dabbles in various mediums.  Other than her cute amigurumis, what caught my eye were the Harry Porter series items - kawaii!!!

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This post is part of a blog train hosted by Agatha from Green Issues by Agy on "Making Good".  What is repair, and why do we even bother to repair the things we have?  Some see repair as a way of reconnecting with our possessions as we extend their lives.  Others see it as a form of creative potential and an avenue to express their craft.  The rewards for mending varies from feeling immense satisfaction to prolonging the life of the product. Follow the "Making Good" blog train this month and see what we have repaired and reconnected with.  Have you mended anything today?

Paper Plate Fish

Continuing with using paper plates to paint, we went a little further with Big One this time.  I showed him a few pictures of how others made fish out of paper plates, and he was off!  Here's his cute little red fish:

Paper Plate Fish

Painting on Paper Plates

Both Big One and Little One love to paint, but over time, they don't seem to be as enthusiastic about it.  Was it getting boring?  Having some old paper plates on hand, I tried them out instead of the usual drawing paper and Little One's eyes lit up!  Sometimes it's the little tweaks that give the same old painting a fresh twist :)

Painting on Paper Plates

Flextangles

It's been such a long long break since my last post at the end of last year!  Many things were happening at the same time and my usual time slots for blogging were over-written with other stuff.  Anyway...... when I saw this video, I just HAD to make this with Big One.

It was pretty straight forward as the printable template is available at Babble Dabble Do.  So all of us were happily colouring our own flextangles, but at the first attempt at assembling it together, I messed up and glued it all wrong :(  No worries, we just printed another copy and had another go at it.  Ta-daa!  It works!!

Flextangle

It's Christmas!!

It's that time of the year again - Christmas!!!!  Big One and Small One are having gift exchange in school tomorrow.  Instead of using wrapping paper, I made 2 draw-string bags in Christmasy red and gold!  All ready for tomorrow =)

Christmas drawstring bags

Here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

I Didn't Throw It Away

When Agy of Green Issues by Agy asked if I had anything that I have kept for more than 20 years, I went "Yes!!!"  I'm a hoarder by nature and get attached to the stuff I own, afterwhich I'll have trouble throwing them away.  So here I am, part of the Blog Train!

Out of the many things that I've kept for more than 20 years, I chose 2 cross-stitch work which i worked on as a kid.  Each was lovingly framed up by my Mum and were displayed in the home for many years.  Now, these are displayed in my own home :)

From what I remember, this rabbit cross-stitch could be my 2nd cross-stitch I've ever done.  While not exactly perfect (colours available in school didn't match the pattern exactly), this could have been the start of more complicated work.

This 2nd piece of work is a favourite of my Mum's.  The cost of all the material was sponsored by my Grandma as a birthday present and I couldn't wait to get started on it the moment my exams were over.  That year, my Grandma fell sick during the school holidays.... I would stay home with her, slowly working on the biggest and most complicated cross-stitch I've ever done.  Grandma passed away that year.....

Why haven't I thrown these away after all these years?  Because they were a part of me.  Because the latter piece reminds me of how much Grandma loved me...

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This post is part of a blog train hosted by Agatha from Green Issues by Agy on "I Didn't Throw It Away"

We have become such a throw-away society, but there are some things in our households that we still keep. Why is that so? Perhaps this blog train can unlock the reasons behind it! Follow the daily posts on this blog train and read about the stories behind the things we have kept for many years and why we didn't throw them away.

Tomorrow YP from Lapis William will share with us the stories behind the things she didn't throw away.  

Toilet Roll People

Here's a project for kids using toilet rolls.  Just give them some toilet rolls, coloured paper, googly eyes, pom poms, glue and let their imaginations run wild!  Here are 2 people Big One and I created:

Toilet Roll People

Final Acrylic on Canvas Painting in the Series

When I started dabbling in acrylics,  my first project was to have a horoscope animal for each one in the family.  This little dragon completes this series:

Acrylic on canvas - dragon

Check out my other horoscope paintings:
Mouse 1
Mouse 2
Horse

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Horse Painting

After painting 2 mice (here and here), some thought that I was going to paint a whole brood of mice!  Nah,  next up is a horse - my own horoscope animal!

Horse - Acrylic on canvas

And the Painting Continues

Once I got started painting in acrylics, I just HAD to paint some more!  Here's another mouse:

Mouse - Acrylic on canvas

Acrylic on Canvas

When I think of artists. I think of a wooden easel with a canvas panel propped on it, set out in a green lush garden decked in autumn colours, artist standing in front of the canvas with a palette in one hand and a brush in the other.

I never thought of painting on canvas, until I stepped into an artist's wonderland at Bras Basah..... aisle after aisle of art supplies, paints, brushes, and oh.... canvas!  It was way cheaper than I expected (not that I knew how much they cost anyway :p) so this started a whole buying spree that didn't end up very cheap.  I walked out of the store with brand new paint brushes, acrylic paint, canvas panels and some protective varnish!

These supplies sat around for quite some time before I actually did something with them.  Hmmmm.... I think I'll start with some horoscope animals for each member of the family.  Here's the first one.  What do you think of it?

Mouse - acrylic on canvas