Arts-N-Crafts: A Card For Daddy (2014 Edition)

Maia takes credit for every single word on this card. Even for the design, I should say. The only help she needed from me to put this card together was to reglue the frame and cut the photo to fit it. Everything else was hers to take.

Every day she amazes us. I barely have time to guide her in her lessons anymore. And yet, she carries on like a pro. All grown up. Doesn't need mommy anymore. Sigh.



p.s. Oh I take credit though for introducing her to the art of making cards. If there is one tradition that I can claim I started with this kid, this is probably it -- birthday card making!

Arts-N-Crafts: Birthday Card Surprise For Daddy Pogi!

Well, it wasn't actually a surprise anymore since she ruined it last week. She went to her dad announcing that we are making a card for his birthday surprise. That prompted me to ask if she understood what surprise means and apparently, surprise means gift in her preschooler vocabulary. I wanted to sit her down right away and review some words with her but I fought it hard. I thought better to let her discover the meaning of simple words for now. She will after all eventually find out what the actual meaning of the word 'surprise' is. If not, then that would probably be the right time to teach her already. 

Anyways, despite her ruining this particular surprise I still decided to go ahead with the project since we have the materials ready (thanks to Rachel and Coco's Christmas gift!) and she was pretty excited to embark with this project. It's for her Daddy Pogi after all! 

What we used for this project:

• a piece of kraft folder
• linen paper (green, because green is the celebrant's favorite color)
• sequins
• foam shapes 
• an old photo
• washi tape
• metallic marker
• scissors
• glue gun
• ordinary glue

How it turned out:

I won't discuss the step by step procedure anymore because really, it's just a matter of lay outing and pasting after you've gathered all the materials. The little miss picked the photo we used here herself, probably remembering fondly when this photo was taken. I would've opted to use a more recent photo though, but of course the choice is not entirely mine to take.

Here's a photo of the card. I only helped to position the photo frame but the design was entirely of her choosing. I had to also put in the glue myself because it's really not yet safe for her to handle. Ate Inday and I just helped spell out the words that she wanted to write on the card. Notice how she would put an underscore after every word. Every time we'd say 'space' she would put an underscore, we would later on realize it was because the space bar on our mobile phones and the computer key had an underscore on it. Funny kid, isn't she?

writing her promise down

FOR DADDY

Notice how she wrote the 'spaces'

this was the most interesting part of the card. i didn't expect this one.
can you guess what she drew?
this was apparently a scene from a zoo trip that the 3 of us took.
i was looking for the sun here and she told me "walang sun, kasi gabi na yan"

Arts-N-Crafts: Birthday Card Project

I recently signed the little miss  up for this birthday card group exchange with 3 other kids. I posted the background story here.

Having recently reacquainted myself with the wonderful FUN world of art and crafts (read: handmade everything), I thought I'd raise the bar a notch higher make handmade cards instead. Ambisyosa. Yes, that's me. This little miss's mommy.

I also wanted the kid to remember this card exchange and I thought doing the cards ourselves would definitely leave a dent on her memory. (Well, we won't know till next year if my experiment turned out to be a success. Of course that's discounting the fact that she still doesn't have a full grasp of dates nor of time yet. Funny mommy, yes again that's me)

So anyways, I thought it was going to be easy peasy. But just as we were about to start the project, I realized I don't know where or how to start. I don't even know how I'd want the cards to look like nor what materials I should use. Thank God there are super women like (who else) Martha Stewart! So yes, I got the inspirations from her (not ashamed to admit just this once).

So I zeroed in on affordable (read: cheap) materials and majority of which I hope is already in my crafts box. I just bought a pack of kraft folders and colored pens. And yes, I am proud to say, that the rest of the materials  we already have on hand.

The materials we used for this project are as follows:

- short kraft folders (bought a pack of 10 for P35, if i remember correctly)
- transparent alphabet stickers (P49/pack)
- craft envelopes (on sale at national bookstore, pack of 10 for P8.50)
- leftover felt cloth from my holiday project last year
- beads also a left over from my holiday project
- colored yarns and threads
- craft scissors
- crayons
- construction paper
- ribbons also a left over from my holiday project
- permanent marker

Here's how the cards looked like before we personalized them:

let it be on record that we worked on these for 2 weekends.
and had to do several trial and errors before we finally got them right.

The little miss also made her own version of the birthday cards and we're sending them along with these. All 3 kids get their own personal cards from Maia. I just hope they will be able to pick up the message from those cards. Here's a sample of her card masterpiece (and we're really proud of this. we would want to keep  and frame them but well, she made it for the other kids so it's really not ours to keep):

I initially wanted to do the card messages using watercolor but it might take me one more week to finish so I went with the ever reliable permanent market instead. Kid was proud of what we did. And I hope A, M and J will love them too!