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!!!

------------

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...

--------------------------
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