All About Your Child

Because of the fatal accident yesterday ‘Love For Brother Paid With Blood‘, Binbin is limping badly.

So, our previous plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day had been canceled. In short, we are grounded till he gets well. In order to keep the spirit of Christmas alive, I got the kids down to making MistleToe for this Christmas.

Things needed for the 2 types of Kids Crafts – Christmas Mistletoe:

1. Newspaper
2. Crepe Paper
3. Scissors
4. Adhesive tape
5. Double sided tape
6. Ribbons
7. Christmas Magazines
8. Christmas Garland
9. Christmas Hanging Ornaments

Step 1: Open up the Newspapers. Crush 3 pieces horizontally like what Keatkeat did below.

Step 2: Twist the 3 pieces of Newspaper together as shown below.

Step 3: Form a circle by joining the two ends together with Adhesive tape.

Step 4: Cut the Crepe Paper, approximately 1.5 to 2 inches wide, as shown below.

Step 5: Unfold the strip of Crepe Paper, stick one end to the Newspaper Loop and start wrapping the Newspaper as shown below.

Step 6: When the loop is fully covered with the Crepe Paper, stick the other end of the Crepe Paper with Adhesive tape.

Step 7: Its Ribbon time! Fold the Ribbon into half and loop it over the mistletoe as shown below.

Step 8: Wrap the Ribbon round the mistletoe with spaces in between. Then tie the ends together so that you can hang it. See pictures below.

Step 9: Grab a Christmas hanging ornament and tie it to the top of the mistletoe. Ta-Daa. Simple Christmas Misletoe done.

If you think this is too difficult for your child. You may want to try an even simpler Christmas Mistletoe.

Repeat the above Step 1 to Step 6. But this time, instead of using Crepe Paper, use Christmas Garland.

Get the kids to cut out pictures that symbolizes Christmas. Then use the Double-sided Adhesive tape to stick the pictures onto the Garland.

After which, repeat Step 9 above and there you have it, a Fluffy Christmas Mistletoe.

Have a Blessed Christmas Everyone! *Grin*

School Holidays is a love and hate relationship for me.
Love it because I get to spend extra time with kids whom I seldom have time with and hate it because it would also mean that lots of my usual ‘work’ is being delayed due to lack of ‘me-time’.

My eldest niece wanted to learn how to do ‘proper’ beading so that she can sell her craft works at the flea mart.

Knowing that I was in this line for years in the past and doing beading for survival then in my pushcarts; my eldest niece’s parents decided to send her daughter over for a mini ‘Beading for Kids‘ session.

So she brought all her beads to my house while I provided her the finishing parts and the tools.

Its so different when you do beading yourself and when you teach. Its MORE FUN to teach beading than to do it! *laugh*

I think she did great! My eldest niece is an artistic girl by nature, so it was easy for her to pick up the tips and tricks in beading, whereby she had been ‘playing’ with for sometime. Thus I would not call it a ‘beading for beginners’ session.

So while we were having fun beading, all that she need was to master the basic finishing touches, the sell-able combination of colours and the proper way of grabbing the tools. Afterall, beading for fun and beading for sales purpose is different.

In a way, this ‘Beading for Kids’ session was funny to me. As the ‘teacher’ is trying hard to clear her 7 years of retail stuff on eBay and vowed never to go back to retail line again, yet she is promoting it indirectly. Hhhmmm….

Well, the only complain was my boys did not get a chance to play with their cousin. Lots of chatting definitely, but ‘real playtime’? Nah. *giggle*

Thank you 2nd BIL and SIL for this arrangement, it was a wonderful beading fun of 6 hours. *smile*

Making Valentine’s Day Heart Animals for Kids — powered by eHow.com

I wanted to do a video on how to make this Chinese Lantern, but YouTube no longer accepts videos which are more than 10mins long. And making this Chinese Lantern definitely takes more than 10mins.

So please bear with me on this super long pictorial post. I have already leave out many other decorations which could enhanced the outlook further to make this post shorter. *giggle*

The things you need:

• Cardboard 24 pcs
• Hong Bao 30pcs
• “Xuxu” 6 small, 1 big
• Red Ribbon
• Scotch Tape
• Double-Sided Tape
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Ruler
• Pen

The cardboard must be reasonably thick to give shape to the lantern. A good example would be the board behind the Drawing Block used by Primary School children.

Ok, I must make myself clear here: As much as I wish to be professional, I made a huge mistake while doing this lantern. The Hong Bao, which you see at the beginning has a rough surface, hence the scotch tape would not stick!

I was spending half the time Repairing, instead of creating. Thus when I reach my in-laws’ place on Sunday, I changed all the Hong Baos and redo, but I did not snap shots of the initial steps when I used the ‘Lion’ Hong Bao.

So please do not get confused when you see a different Hong Bao design in the middle of the process.

Step 1-3: Using your Hong Bao as a guide, leaving about 5mm-1cm space, draw out a rectangle on your cardboard. Meaning, your cardboard size, must be about 5mm SMALLER on each side as compared to your Hong Bao, so that the cardboard can fit in nicely without risking tearing the Hong Bao.

Step 4 : Cut out the cardboard and now using the cut-out cardboard as a guide to make the other 23pcs. You need total 24 pcs.

Keatkeat helped me to use the cardboard as a guide to draw out the other 23pcs, while I did the cutting.

Hands can be rather painful after cutting for awhile, if your cardboard is as thick as mine. The ones I use is another 2mm thicker than the cardboard behind the Drawing Block.

Step 5-6: Put in the 24 pcs of cardboard into 24 pcs of Hong Bao and seal it. Binbin did great for step 5 and 6.

Step 7: Some Hong Bao are not self-adhesive. Hence you may need to use scotchtape to seal it.

Step 8: Place the Hong Bao with the shorter side next to each other as shown.

Step 9-10: Turn them over and use ScotchTape to hold them together.

Step 11: Repeat step 9-10 by adding one more each time till you have 6 in a row as shown.

Step 12: You should see that all pictures are facing the same direction.

Step 13: Put the above AWAY before you continue the steps below, to prevent confusion.

Step 14: Place the Hong Bao with the shorter side next to each other as shown. This time, the pictures are in opposite direction.

Step 15: Flip one of the Hong Bao as shown.

Step 16: Use Scotch Tape to hold the joints together.

Step 17: Add another Hong Bao on top as shown.

Step 18: Hold down the ‘new’ Hong Bao with Scotch Tape.

Step 19: Filp the ‘new’ Hong Bao to the other side.

Step 20: Tape down the ‘new’ Hong Bao again.

Step 21: Repeat steps 17-20 until you have 6 pieces nicely joined to each other as shown.

Step 22: Bring back what you did in step 12 and put it FACING DOWN. Place what you did in step 21 ON TOP of step 12. Position ONE of the edge of the Hong Bao from step 21 to the JOINING part in step 12 as shown.

Step 23: Stick it down with Scotch Tape.

Step 24-29: Flip the entire ‘step 21′ to the other side and stick it down too. Continue to repeat step 22-23.

Step 30: Seal up the final ends to form the shape as shown.

Step 31-33: This is just a repetition of step 14-21 BUT this time, the Hong Bao joins on the LONGER SIDE.

(I’m sorry, I choose not to repeat using photos, or else you can imagine the length of this post! *faint* So just scroll up to see steps 14-21.)

Step 34: To create this, just repeat step 8-11. But again, this time they join on the LONGER SIDE.

Step 35: This should be what you see after completing step 31-33.

Step 36: This is created by repeating steps 22-29, but again, this time, they join on the LONGER SIDE.

Step 37: This is what you should have after completing step 1 to step 36.

SEE HOW UGLY IT WAS!!! I just could not stand the sight of the scotch tape! My perfect lanterns NEVER have scotch tapes seen from the outside! I had to stick scotch tape on the outside just to hold them together. So don’t be careless like what I did, by choosing the wrong Hong Bao.

I TORE EVERTHING UP when I was at my in-laws’ place and changed all the Hong Baos to the smooth surface type (which is the common kind).

Many people in the past have asked how can I secure both sides of the Hong Bao INTERNALLY when they have thick fingers? *giggle* Though I have small fingers, I do not poke my fingers in to paste the scotch tape down when going through step 14 to step 21. See Tips below…..

Step 38 (tip): BEFORE I hold another Hong Bao down, I would stick half the scotch tape at the edge of the Hong Bao, fold the scotch tape down to half…

Step 39 (tip): Pull down the Hong Bao and use a ruler to smooth out the scotch tape on the other Hong Bao.

Step 40: Place the wider one (step 30) ON TOP of the taller one (step 36). String the Red Ribbon through BOTH of them TOGETHER with the Big XuXu at the bottom.

Step 41: This is what you’ll get after completing step 40.

Step: 42: Tie a Knot on the top.

Step 43: Roll the remaining 6 Hong Baos on the longer side. Secure both ends by stapling it.

Step 44: Stick a strip of Double-Sided tape at the back, covering the staplers.

Step 45: Peel the double-sided tape protector. Stick the small XuXu as shown.

Step 46: Stick the ‘roll’ with the small XuXu onto the edges of the top section of the lantern.

And Ta-Daa!

You’ve got yourself a Chinese Lantern that does NOT have a single scotchtape show on the outside! *wink*

Though the steps are long. But it really takes less than an hour for any amateur to complete it. Which is only one-third of the time for me doing up this post!!! *faint*

Ya man! I took 3 hours to do up this post!!! With many “Mommy, can you come.” breaks in-between.

*Pat on my own back*

I just realised I had not been posting the handicrafts which we had been doing. The last handicraft post was back in 2008 March! *Faint* Where I shared how to create an Easter Bunny using a handkerchief.

So today, the handicraft post is back. This time >>>> SNOWFLAKES!

The things you need…

First fold the paper into half as shown below… (see arrow)

Then fold the paper into half again….. (see arrow b elow)

Half it again, but diagonally this time… (see arrow)

Without turning or flipping your paper, fold it UP as shown below… So that the shorter side is inline with the longer side….

Snip off the extra pointy end…as demonstrated by Binbin.
(the boys INSIST that I mention which hand belongs to who.) *laugh*

Use a marker to draw as shown….

Cut along the line….

Slowly open it up and Ta-Daa…. there you have it > SNOWFLAKE!

Either use a bluetack to stick them on your windows
or poke a hole on one of the ends
and tie a string to it
so that you can hang them on your Christmas Tree.
*wink*

Have Fun!