Arts-N-Crafts: Recycled Wraps

Inspired by Pepper's showcase of her very creative wrappers here and as a catch up on our Arts-N-Crafts activities as well, let me just share with you a few samples of the gifts we've recently given away (mostly to the kid's classmates) which we wrapped using recycled materials. I hope you have not jumped over Pepper's site yet as these are not in that caliber. But I wanted to publish this post, in the hopes that many would take inspiration and consider more creative ways of reusing household trash to help save the environment. It's a tiny step but at least YOU are making one. 

Most of these are recycled paper bags from National Bookstore (reversed). I keep a boxful of used japanese/tissue paper, ribbons from cakes and gifts (and some from our past runs too, low budget fun runs would usually just use ribbons as a mark that you already went past a turnaround point), used giftwrappers,  used yarns, fuzzy wires, boxes, cardboards, stickers and other what-nots that my husband would otherwise refer to as GARBAGE. 

Necessity as they say is the mother of invention. And this reusing thing was really borne out of necessity at first. And mainly because since the kid started preschool we had to prepare gifts once or twice a month and there were times that I'd really forgot to buy giftwrappers. I already saved myself some time by stocking up on Adarna/Tahanan/Lampara books (and lately some workbooks that were also printed using recycled paper) so I thought why not save me some money and help out too by reusing the brown paper bags. And that started our recycled gift wrapping adventures and my primary mission here is to expose the kid to the idea of reduce, reuse and recycle (and somehow she understands now that paper comes from trees so we should make good use of them).

This was a gift for a classmate who had a Hello Kitty-themed class party.
I told the kid this was patterned after Hello Kitty's ribbon and she giggled (apparently she agrees).
The flower cut out from an old glass coaster that I had left over from the flash card reviewers that I made for her when she was still learning to write numbers.

Since the daughter likes to scribble and doodle, I thought it would be fun to let her draw on the wrappers. The one at the bottom was my silly attempt to make girly designs. Which of these two look better to you?

blue balls for a boy birthday celebrant

I first posted these here

Lastly, this was from last Christmas. I did this without the kid's help and turned out to  be my very first venture into gift wrappers from recycled materials.

old manila paper and used cartolina from our previous art activities

How about you? Care to share what your upcycling/reusing projects are? Would love to see them!

My Fairy Princess - The Making Of The Wand

Dear Fairy Princess,

I intended to make this wand tomorrow. But in the middle of my run this morning, I got a text message from your shuttle service operator saying ESS declared a no school day for preschoolers today. I was overjoyed! You see, your dad's office is throwing a trick or treat party for the kids today and I so wanted for you to join. I've been wishing for years but we always had your costumes ready the last minute in the past. This year we were more prepared. You already had your costume ready by the time October hit. I learned about your dad's office trick or treat party last week but since I know that you still have school, I didn't push for you to join since you might get the impression that you can just go ahead and miss school anytime you wish to. No, that's not how we go about with schedules at home little miss so even if it saddened me a bit thinking you're passing up again another opportunity to see your dad's workplace I had to let it go. I have to teach you about priorities and this is one of those teaching moments.

When I told your dad you can now join the trick or treat party, he wasn't as ecstatic as me. He hesitated actually. I guess the idea of being bugged by a little miss makulit at work wasn't a very thrilling thought (you know how daddy hates being thrown out of focus). But since I am also Mrs Makulit, he relented. Not with some conditions though - that you only leave the house when the rain lets up and that you let us sift through the candies you get before you start eating. You agreed to all conditions. I went to pack up your stuff for him to bring with him this morning so you and Ate Inday will have a worry-free commute later.

That's when I realized you don't have a wand yet (and a headdress actually to complete the attire but I immediately set aside that thought else I'll just succumb to panic) so I frantically got my crafts box out and started working hurriedly on a wand. I already had a design in mind but I mentally computed the time it would entail me to finish and decided on a simpler version for now. I thought I will just add more embellishments tomorrow.

So what were the materials that I used to make this wand?

-a piece of balloon stick from a balloon that Maia took home from a Jollibee party (which I hid from the hubby else he might again scold me for hoarding trash) 

-a silver fabric ribbon saved from last year's Christmas gifts
- 2 pieces of 6 inch silver strings (sorry I don't know how they're called exactly)
-a ball of cotton for stuffing
-felt fabric (leftover from my holiday project)
-a tiny green pompom
-needle and green thread
-magic tape (to seal the bottom)

I just wrapped the silver ribbon on the balloon stick and stuck it in between the star-patterned felt fabric that I stuffed with cotton. I sewed the edges to seal off. The pompom in the middle is there for a purpose. I actually hides the stitches that holds the stick. The silver string that I attached on the sides were just a spur of the moment thing because I wanted it to sort of 'sparkle' when you wave it.

So there. I made you a wand. In 15 minutes. I am flash mommy! :)) I'm kinda proud of myself for coming up with this wand that fast. 

Sadly (and I'm a little heartbroken), your trip to daddy's office didn't push through because dad wasn't able to register you on time. They had a cut off and it was last Monday. You cried when I called to break the news but Ate Inday tells me you're all better now. And you seem to have forgotten about it already. 

So anyways, this wand won't be wasted at all. You still have the weekend coming up and you're going trick or treating with your cousins and Ate Chloe. It's still going to be lots of fun. And you're going to be the prettiest fairy princess ever. 

She goes -- MOMMY THIS IS SO PURRRRTEEEEE!
Ang likot lang I couldn't take a decent shot.

Arts-N-Crafts: Maia's Castle Of Shapes

I feel quite proud of this. It was a split-second idea that eventually came out to be a proud-moment project. 

It's review season once again as the second quarter of the school year comes to a close. Although the school does provide us with information maps and guides for review, I'd always still opt to make my own reviewers the way I deem the kid would learn the easiest. And to me the easiest way for my kid would be the most fun way possible. Math is a struggle. But we get by. Writing the numerals is a different issue but we also get by. I never thought she'd struggle with shapes but then stars and hearts become part of the lessons and that's where we started having problems. Identifying them is no problem at all (although she does get confused with rectangles referring to them as octagons most times, I don't know how that association came to be but I don't want to find out anymore). 

I've had this ink cartridge cardboard with me for almost 2 weeks now. The first time I saw it, I immediately thought it would be something we can use for the kid's art activities. When I brought it home, kid took it instantly and called it her castle. She's been bugging me to help her paint it and today I thought we'd finally get around to doing it. I promised her we'd do it in the afternoon after we've finished reviewing for one subject and she was fine with it. 

While waiting for the kid to wake up for her nap though, an idea struck me. I wanted to finish reviewing her this weekend and I thought why not incorporate the review with our arts and crafts time instead. So I took out some colored paper and prepared the other materials. I decided we'll build a Castle Of Shapes by filling it up with flags of different shapes.

What we used for this project were:

ink cartridge cardboard

paper tubes

colored paper

double sided tape

toothpicks

scissors

pencil

tape

How we did it:

I let the kid trace the shapes unto the colored paper first. Then I let her cut them. For the star and heart shapes, I had to do the cutting on the difficult corners since she started getting frustrated but for most of the shapes she had a whole lotta fun cutting them. 

After the shapes were cut, we put double sided tapes on them and stuck them unto toothpicks, sharp edge down. Then I had the kid stick the flags unto any part of the 'castle'. After the flags were done, I took a paper tube and I cut the other side of it to look like a tower. I stuck that unto the middle of the tower and tadah -- we're done. 

It was a fun, super easy activity to do and the kid proudly showed it to her village playmates. She had a blast quizzing them on the shapes and teaching them what they were actually called. 

I'd like for it to stay with us until the quarterly exams are over. But I'm really not banking a lot on that since I know how 'gentle' kids are with toys. I hope it serves it's purpose well though and help the kid out especially with her rectangle issues. 

Re/Upcycling Brown Paper Bags

I confessed a few posts ago that I am a certified TRASH LOVER. I keep toilet paper rolls, old newspapers,   shoe boxes, grocery cartons, paper bags, and all sorts of retaso aside thinking I will find a great use for them in the future. So far, they have been quite useful in most of our arts and crafts activities. Although my husband is not very fond of this, it seems to be growing in him already. Some days, I'd find him absentmindedly folding an empty Pan De Manila paper bag and hand them over to me to keep. Funny hubby.

Of late, the little miss's classmates have had back to back birthday party celebrations in school and at first I worried most about the presents (as I was never the planning kind and more of the cramming kind). To save my face from more wrinkles (I'm all for simple, useful stuff anyways), I decided to just stick to books to giveaway as presents. Adarna, Tahanan and Lampara has a lot of published books already I don't think we will ever run out of gifts to give (there's only 23 in class anyways). When I buy the gifts however, I always try to bring her with me because I prefer that she picks the presents herself rather than me choosing for her. Luckily, the birthday celebrations always fall after a weekend or a holiday so we have plenty of time to scour the bookstores. I limit the choices to 2 though so we won't spend the entire day looking.

We live in an area where plastic bags are not allowed in stores anymore. I always bring reusable bags with me but for small books and stationary supplies, I prefer to have them in brown paper bags. Coming home with one of the books in a paper bag one day, I realized the bags themselves can serve as gift wrappers already. What I did was have the little miss decorate them first by finger painting on them, putting glitter glue or stamping decos on them before putting the final touches of recycled ribbons and the like. It turned out to be one fun activity that the little miss is now always looking forward to doing everytime we come home with a present to give to a classmate. (don't you just love accidental discoveries?)

I wasn't able to take photos of the first 2 we did but here is the most recent brown paper bag wrapper we made:

had to take a photo of this because this was the first time she wrote on the gift tags neatly and correctly.
i just had to spell out the letters but this was written with no assistance from me :) 

It doesn't look fancy. Nothing Martha Stewart-ish. But these days, the only standards I'm really aiming to pass is those set by my little girl. This one passed with a big wide grin to boot. So when the little miss is happy, I am happy (100x more if you ask me).

Productive Weekend - Some Gardening and Arts-N-Crafts Time

It has been a very, very productive weekend for our little miss. I don't know if it's the days she missed in school that has gotten her extraordinarily energetic and receptive of every activity that I suggested for her to do this entire weekend but what I know for sure is that she enjoyed every bit of those activities.

Saturday, a village playmate dropped by early for a playdate session. The little miss was actually insisting to watch TV (because it's a weekend mommy) but since I'm still not fond of TV time I wanted to veer her attention away from it fast. And what immediately came to mind was this recent project that a fellow n@w Mec did with her boys. So I got some scrap manila paper, a used cardboard box and old magazines. With Ate Inday's help we cut out some leaves from the magazine paper and traced the two girls arms on the cardboard to resemble tree trunks and cut that as well.

Here's some photos I took to document the activity:

Then today, Sunday, Ate Inday got her involved in planting some of the vegetable seeds that Lola brought home last night from a trade fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay. I just proved that TV never stands a chance against any outdoor activity at any given day for this little nature-loving girl. Despite being a little neat-freak, she doesn't mind getting her hands dirty as long as it involves some planting/gardening.

I had been keeping these eggshells for future mosaic projects but they're starting to irritate Tibs already (having been sitting on our backyard for long and some of them turning moldy already) so Ate Inday thought might as well make use of them. Our plan is when the seedlings start to sprout, we will just break the eggs to transplant them directly unto the soil.

seeds galore!

making good use of our eggshells

our little patch of garden heaven. hoping to turn this into a patch of various vegetables soon!
(waiting for pechay and tomatoes to sprout from these eggshells soon)

Arts-N-Crafts: A Card For Mommy on Mother's Day

Today was some sort of a downer for me. I spent half of my day fighting my way through Hiragana and Katakana charts in my 4-hour Nihongo class. I felt I was at my dumbest today. I was stuck at learning the alphabets while everyone around me were already discussing and exchanging sentences. And mind you, my classmates were just in their early 20s. Amazing kids. Their memory just blows me away. I'm all praises.

But I'm glad we had a teacher who doesn't give up (thank you, Maam!), 30 minutes before we wrapped up the class I was finally able to construct my interrogative statements successfully and finish an assigned interactive activity with a classmate. That felt really good, I tell ya. Still, it drained me hard and left me with no energy to think of mother's day celebrations. All I wanted then was just to get home and sleep. SLEEP. sleep. All these things happening around me are making me miss a lot in the family front. That makes me even more guiltier than ever. Not that anyone's complaining.

If there's one thing that I realized amidst all these raucous around me, it is the fact that I think I found where my calmness lies. And that is in this motherhood thing. I may stumble in many aspects of my life, but it was from being a mother that I find my strength. I may be amiss on my family duties but they always rally behind me. No matter what. And while I was devoid of energy already when I finally got home this afternoon, I enter our bedroom and find this little surprise hanging by the cabinet door.

Tibs rarely makes the effort to engage on arts and crafts with Maia but today he surprised me with something that I never expected him to do - a handmade card for mother's day. You see that binding on the card, they painstakingly sewed that to convert the cover of Maia's used drawing booklet unto my mother's day card.

Admiring her work of art. She kept pointing at the heart doodles. Ang galing ko Mommy, di ba?
Tibs claims he didn't guide her hands while writing the Happy Moms Day part. Ang galing, galing nga ano?

And one more thing that made my heart flutter was that hearing the little girl say this straight and clearly: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOMMY!

Oh my heart was just bursting at the seams when I heard that. Of course, that came with her trademark "I LOVE YOU, WE ROCK! SWEET KISS!" But given this and the effort on the card, I just feel I'm the luckiest momma in the entire galaxy!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY AGAIN TO ALL YOU FANTASTIC, HARDWORKING MOTHER'S OUT THERE! 

How was your Mother's day celebration?

p.s. Tibs was nursing a little tampo the past few days because Maia has been refusing to kiss him. He feels bad that he now had to coerce the little girl who once generously showered him with kisses into giving him a tiny peck on the cheek while I would just say a simple good morning greeting and get not just one but a pair of kisses on the cheek. So he thinks by writing this, he's finally gotten back at me.

Sorry to disappoint you Sir. But I bet when she wakes up tomorrow, you still don't get a kiss while I -- still get tons.
**Evil Laugh**