Abstract Painting

It's painting time once again in our home (but not the renovation thing). Rather, it's Ashrie doing some abstract painting. She has done a lot the past few months but I think this one is exceptional. Here are some photos, be the judge.

Like! :-)

Two and a Half

Time flies! Our toddler is now two and a half years old. She'll start attending a playgroup early next year and come April she'll be three! :-)

Happy 30th Month Ashrie! We love you dearly!

Nativity Sets

When it rain, it pours…

When the ‘ber’ months kicked in, we started looking for a nativity set for our Christmas decorations. We couldn’t find the perfect size for our console table. Actually, we couldn’t find any this early! So we “commissioned” my mom to buy one for us from the Philippines. Well, she did! And it was a great choice. My dad fashioned a stable because the 11-piece nativity set my mom bought contains figurines only. Fortunately, my sister-in-law visited us here in Singapore so we saved a lot on shipping cost.

But even before our guest was able to bring the package, we saw this adorable nativity set by Precious Moments. Enchanted by its delicate details (even though Joseph looks more like a shepherd than a carpenter) we bought it right away!

And lastly, we also did this nativity craft that we found on the web. It’s way much cuter than the one we made last year (here’s the link). And it comes in color and black and white options. You can download the free template here.

Christmas Luminaries

Let there be light!

This would probably be one of the easiest KidsCrafts that we will share here. So easy that you can quickly finish it in minutes, just in time for Christmas dinner. It may also be used on different occasions by changing the theme.

You will need:

Pasta Sauce Bottles (or any wide-mouth glass bottle)
Printed Gift Wrappers
Glue
Scissors
Small Candle or Tea Lights

It’s as simple as this:
1. Cut and paste the printed design of the gift wrappers onto the pasta sauce bottles.
2. Place a small candle inside the luminary, light it up and you’re done.

Nothing can be quicker than that. But the completed project is simply stunning! Here (of course) are the photos.

And there was light!

All in Day's Work

We have already done seven crafts on The 12 Days of Christmas KidsCraft Series and I would like to take a break from that for a while. Rest assured that there will be more nice projects to come before Christmas Day so that you can have plenty of decorating ideas just in time for the holidays.

I have been very busy at work the past month but that fades in comparison to the busyness of MyGirls. Homemakers will definitely agree that their work is more challenging than the eight-hour (or more) office hours. I have to concur that they're right.

If Jane is one of the busiest persons I know, Ashrie is one of the busiest, if not the busiest toddler I know. Let's see why by taking a glimpse on one of her ordinary days. (These was taken on a single day including all the play clothes changes.)

After all these, she still has the energy to wear down the “already weary” daddy coming home from the office. Oh, how I wish to have a toddler's vitality and a mother's patience...

Handmade Gift Wrappers

We love presents. We like to receive presents (well, who doesn’t), and we definitely enjoy wrapping them. There is a certain joy in carefully wrapping a present, wherein the “act of wrapping” itself can also be considered a part of the gift. All you efforts would all be worth it when you see the recipient’s eyes widen in delight as you hand the gift to them. Hence, we make sure that we give perfectly-wrapped presents whenever time and means permit.

This Christmas Season, most of us will be making a lot of gift-wrapping. This means we have to buy lots of gift wrappers, ribbons, and gift tags. And that will cost us a lot as well. So today, we would like to share some inexpensive solutions which are also creative, pretty and even green.

Materials:
Pattern Paper
Tape
Paper Twine
Raffia
Glitter Glue
Pencil
Compass (or any circular object)
Ornaments (optional) 

Procedure:
1. Wrap the gift as usual using the pattern paper.
2. Do your preferred design. For us, we make swirls using gold glitter glue inside big circles.
3. Tie with paper twine and raffia and use ornaments as accents.
4. Make a gift tag using ordinary paper with the same gold swirls design. 

Here are the photos and the finished product. 

The humble brown paper package

Detail of the gold swirls

And another example (within the same theme) which you can make using the same materials mentioned above and some gift wrapper scraps. We also added holly leaves made from green-painted paper!

And that’s a wrap!

Snowman

Here’s an easy craft for those who are dreaming of a White Christmas.

Materials:

Cardboard (painted white)

Scraps of Fabric

Buttons

Colored Paper

Glue

Procedure:

1. Trace and cut a snowman shape from the cardboard.

2. Paste some colored cut-outs for the eyes, nose, and hats, and some buttons for well, the buttons! We used painted disposable surgical mask for the snowman’s scarf.

That’s it, we’re done!

Hand Print Wreath

Wreaths are usually constructed using evergreens because its foliage can withstand the harshest winters. It can also be done using twigs, flowers, fruits and berries, pine cones, or even Christmas ball ornaments! I even saw a birthday wreath made from deflated balloons of different colors.

For today’s craft, we will not use leaves but hand prints. Let’s see how it goes.

Materials:

Cardboard

Green & Yellow Green Paper (we used homemade/hand-painted ones)

Christmas Ball Ornaments

Ribbons

Glue

Procedure:

1. Trace and cut your little one’s hand on a cardboard. This will be your template to make approximately 18 hand prints.

2. Cut the cardboard into a ring about one inch in width.

3. Paste down the hand prints onto the cardboard ring in your preferred arrangement.

4. Make a nice ribbon accent and attach it on the wreath.

Now fix it on the door or your favorite wall in the house. And here are the photos. Enjoy!