Making flower from strips of paper

This was gifted to my daughter's teacher.

The flowers were gifted to my Son's teachers.

While I was volunteering in class, one of my work was to trim the artwork done by kids (from my Son's class) and stick them onto another cardstock. So instead of throwing all the trimmed strips of paper  I decided to make something out of them. These were watercolor painting and were of different  colors. So all I could think of is making flowers out of them.  Turned out very beautiful and I gifted them to the teachers during Teachers appreciation week.


The strips I had were of different colors and different size in length and width. All I did was for one flower you need 4 strips (which will give you 8 petals) which I made sure they are the same size in length and width so that the flower petals will be uniform. Then you take one strip keep the white side facing you and then fold from both ends towards the center. Then take the next strip and continue to fold the same way. Then place this folded strip in the plus way and staple it. Then take the next 2 strips fold them the same way and staple it in the x direction. Then place the x folded flower on top of the plus folded flower to get the result. I made the kids also do some flowers. I had ready made paper flowers which I bought from Micheal's, taped it to flower in the center to hide all the staples. The kids chose those flowers and stuck them with glue.

Once you are done with all the flowers, I stuck each flower to a stick (with a tape) so that the teachers can use the flowers in future. Then arranged as shown in pictures and gifted to them.

the pot painting and other things you see were done by my kids and you can refer to the blog "Teacher appreciation Week - 2013".

Gift Card Holder - My own creation.

My own creation of a unique gift card holder which holds about 10 to 14 gift cards.

We all carry lot of gift cards and our purses bulge up and become heavy. If we leave it at home then we forget to take it to the stores at the right time. So I decided to create/ design this one for myself which has been very useful and you can keep it in the car and take the gift card before entering the store. I have also gifted to teachers, sister and now in the process of making for my friends. Now your purse is lighter and also I don't forget to take any gift cards as its available in my car. Just need to remember to take the right car :-)

This is very simple to make. I had bought an accordion album which I never used , so I decided to use it for this project. I glued one side so its like a 4 pages book (excluding the front cover and back cover).  Covered the album (which was plain with a design paper). As you see the left photo shows (the first 2 pages which hold 4 gift card holders where you can put one gift card per holder a total of 4 gift cards). The right photo (shows the next 2 pages where the left side has 2 gift card holders which stores one gift card per holder and the right page has 2 gift card holders which can hold up to 4 gift cards each a total of 10 gift cards).

The gift card holders are made out of vellum paper which is easy for you to see the gift cards so you don't have to search for the gift card. I designed this template keeping in mind that all the major gift cards from every store I had fits into the individual gift card holder. Also the multi gift card holder holds up to 4 gift cards.

This was a fun new craft project to try out. Please leave your comments and help me improve if need to. Other photos included for you to view in detail.

 Back cover

Front cover

 This gift card holder was done in 2012 May.

Teacher Appreciation Week 2013 by Kids.

Gifts made by my Son .

Gifts made by my daughter

 This is this time of the year I make my kids do little things for their teachers to mark our appreciation for all the hard work they put in.
We used materials which I had at home.



TerraCotta Pot :-

My kids are now grown up and are all ready to do a painting of the pot all by themselves. My Son painted the pots dark blue and yellow on the rim. My Daughter painted bright pink and purple on the rim. Always have used acrylic paints for such projects. Then I used something called bead paint (which can be used on fabric) , had it with me, and made them do dots  (written Thank you on top). They had to put dots on the written word. Then on the pot base where its blue and pink, I had bought this bead stickers from Micheal's craft store. One side of the pot they stuck a apple sticker, the other side they chose a flower sticker. This was a ready made sticker which I bought. So all they had to do was to peel it from the paper and stick on the pot.  This was easy for my 6 year old to do.

Badge design:- 
I bought this badge (3 of them as a pack) from the craft store. They designed it for their teachers. My son had 2 teachers and my daughter had 1. Instead of just drawing on paper, they can wear it as a badge and this was also easy for them to do. They cut out a round white paper and drew and colored it. Then they needed help in putting the white paper inside the badges.

Embroidery book mark :-
This was a tough and new project to try out by kids. It was not for my daughter but she still decided to give it a try. My Boy was curious about punching holes on the design. It was very simple flower design , and each petal is just a heart. So he had to punch holes on all heart (using the template I had) and then using embroidery thread I taught him one petal how to go about doing the design and he completed the rest.  He got the pattern immediately. I had to help out my 6 year old, with this more as she is still small for such crafts.
I had this snowflakes which they glued on the pot and on the book mark.

These were all done by the kids. There is one thing which I contributed, "Paper flowers using strips of paper" which you can view for detailed instructions on that project.

Refer to my other projects of terracotta painting or embroidery on Paper for detailed descriptions.
1. First terracotta pot painting.
2. Embroidery book mark
3. A bookmark- paper embroidery and Quilling.
4. Terracotta candle holder.

Christmas Tree from Paper Back made from scholastic book order pages.

I was volunteering in my Son's class, and one of the work was to assign all the scholastic book order pages for each kid. The were many pages left  in the book after assigning the orders for the class, instead of recycling those pages/books , decided to do this tree and gave it to my Son's teacher to keep it in class.

Its very simple, I have done this project before for my home and you can visit  this site for detailed instructions "A Christmas Tree from paper back" . This project turned out to be even better than my previous ones as there were many pages to the book. The more the no of pages, the better the tree comes out.

After this tree was done, I just hot glued some maple tree in green and golden which I had bought from the craft store just to give it shine. Then with a toothpick I glued the maple tree in golden and green on the top of the tree. I also glued white/silver ribbon around the tree. But other suggestions would be is to spray paint the tree silver and then accessorize with little ornaments. I have a problem with those paints, decided to do without the paint.

The teachers loved this tree and I heard that the other teachers visiting my Son's class also loved this tree.

Navarathri Festival 2012 - Sanfrancisco Bridge

Our Navarathri Festival which is celebrated for 9 days where we arrange Indian dolls and this festival is mainly to worship the 3 Goddesses (Durga, Lakshmi , Saraswathi). To go along with the Indian dolls, we had a tradition in my family  (when I was growing up) to build something and keep it for those 9 days. My whole Family used to participate in creating or building some theme and be excited with this event. My kids are equally excited as me to build something innovative, so its really fun to do with them.

This year kids helped me build this San Francisco Bridge project, mainly my Son's idea and and little participation from my daughter and me. I helped him build the San Francisco (a depict of Golden gate bridge) , along with his contribution was the football field and base ball field. My daughter helped us paint the buildings (buttermilk cartons to depict) and the trees and arrange the people and beans which you see. Detail explanation of this project is given below.

I have explained the whole things as 3 projects, the center (Navarathri dolls), the Rangoli (left hand side ) and San francisco bridge (right hand side)

Navarathri Festival - Rangoli (on left), Main dolls (on center), Bridge project (on the right).

1. Navarathri Dolls :- As you see in the center of the photo, is a stand. We have placed all the Indian Dolls used for this tradition. There are some important dolls which are a must, some are Indian Gods and some are Indian Dolls representing a story behind them. They are all arranged to fit in that shelf. Each year we buy one new doll to add to the shelf.

Rangoli and dolls

2. Rangoli :-
In India we draw designs (Rangoli) on the floor. This time I decided to try out this ready made Rangoli designs made with colorful stones. Each piece is individual, I made this pattern of a big flower on this white card stock.
 The dolls you see was made with paper, christmas  ribbons, wooden head. My sister sent me the wooden round head (which she got from a kit), and I used paper for the body, pipe strings for the hand, and Christmas ribbons for the dress. The body is done with paper, you make a cone and fix the wooden head, Then take the pipe string and tie it around the neck and cone and bring it out as the hand. Then using the Christmas Ribbon make the dress for the doll as shown.


3. San Francisco Building project :-

San Francisco Golden Gate bridge project.

This was My Son's idea to build the Golden Gate Bridge, and we started with that, but made it big project by adding the football field and base ball field, and connecting all the roads , with parking lots, few tall buildings.


The Bridge is done with popsicle sticks,  colored the bride red, added thin sticks to get the height and used a twine string to give the effect. Used black paper for the road and coming down and connecting them to the other road which you see around just to see they are all connected. The water is blue glitter cardstock, The plastic piece from the cookies we cut out the section where the cookies are placed and used them for boat. My son drew people sitting on the boat and a lego man as you can see. Around the water we used wooden blocks to block the water. You can see between the roads and the water  we used white kidney beans (lentil) to depict rocks or stones.

 In the Front, he built a base ball field by putting grass and fence. Then he drew picture of field on paper, drew pictures of the players, and we used tooth pick to make them stand on a clay to give the 3d affect. Similarly on the back left side is the football field he printed out the field on the computer and he drew players and made them stand. The people watching the football game was done as last years project and we are used them this year too. He just drew people and we made them sit with tape.

Side view of the project.

The trees were drawn by my daughter and we used tape to stick it to the wall. The buildings you see on the right are buttermilk cartons, she painted them purple, yellow and blue, I helped her cut the windows and we placed them there. She arranged all the beans as stones, she drew all the white lines on the roads and parking lot.  The buildings on the canvas on the extreme right was done by my Son few years ago and had buildings and road and we used it this time also.

Then both of them arranged all the cars we had on the roads and on the bridge. Turned out to be a big project than planned but everybody who were invited loved this project. 

Paper Christmas Ornament

Decided to try out this ornament made by paper. It was a easy one, and made the kids also help me so we gifted the teachers this ornament for Christmas.

Directions : for making 1 ornament
1. Cut out 12 circles (I used a circle punch) from Christmas card stock.
2. Then fold each circle into half (the design is inside or on the top while folding the circle)
3. Glue each folded circle to each other until the last one.
4. Before you glue the last circle place or glue the string (I used thin ribbons which I had at home). I made the string  into a loop so we can hang it on the Tree.
5. Glue the last circle and complete the  ornament.

Its a very easy project and kids found it easy to do this. Since I used hot glue I helped them with that part as I did not want them to get hurt.

Fun project to do with the kids.

Little Pot painting

Idea was to decorate something and place in the shot glass cabinet (which was lying in our house for many many years).  Before I had placed whatever  the kids painted in this cabinet. They had done things from clay and painted small items from a ceramic craft store. There were in the cabinet as a decoration. Wanted a change and decided to try this out.

I decided to paint tiny terracotta pots and write little things on them. So I painted the terracotta pot's with metallic paints and the rim of the pot I painted with glitter (blue) paint. Then with a white marker I wrote  "Dream Hope and Believe" in the first row (top) of pots. Then in the second row of pots, I wrote "Live Love Laugh" and in the third row of pots, I wrote "Home sweet Home". A nice message which I always believe in , so decided to put them up in the pots. Then in the remaining empty spots I've placed tiny flowers as I did not want to crowd it up with many things.

Artwork by my daughter

 Till now I've been including my Son's work and never got a chance and now I don't want to miss the opportunity of putting her artwork in my Blog.

These were done when she was 4 1/2 years (a year back) but decided to add it in here. She loves to draw hearts and flowers when she was 4 and even now. She calls them designs and draws it. So I asked her to draw 2 for her room so we can hang it in her room.

Halloween Decorations 2012

Every Year we make decorations for the halloween and decorate the front of our house. This year we reused some of our previous Halloween decorations  (the skeleton made from spoons and forks and the ghost from milk can)  from previous years and added one new decoration a monster (made from recycled bottles and card box).

On the door we had bought glow in the dark halloween stickers and made the kids paste them on the door along with the skeleton mades from spoons and forks.

Here are the detailed steps on how to make the the skeleton and monsters.

Skeletons :-

1. Take 4 forks and 1 spoon.You will need icrecream sticks for sticking them together and pipe cleaners for the ribs.

2. On the spoon back side draw the face (eyes , nose and teeth of the skeleton) and on the draw lines on the handle part. On the fork draw lines on the handle and on the edges draw dots to make it like the bones of the hand. These can be done by kids. I made my kids draw on the forks and spoons.

2.  Cut the ice cream sticks into small sizes (as shown) and glue the spoon in the center of the sticks. Then stick 2 forks on top for the hands and 2 on the bottom as the legs. 

3. Using one pipe cleaner make the ribs and glue them at the back.

4. Now your skeleton is all ready.

Monster :- holding candies

1. You will need 6 bottles  (drinking water plastic bottles). I had started saving these bottles in the starting of the month. Then I used a milk can for the head of the monster. Also you can use a shoe box  or (I used the empty box of the ice cream box) for the body of the monster. Then a old shirt for the monster.

2. On the milk can my Son drew the face for the monster.

3. Then we glued the milk can to the ice cream box. Then we glued 2 bottles for the hands of the monster. Used 4 bottles for the legs so that the monster can stand sturdy. 

4. Attached a basket on top of the milk can so that we can place candies when we are out.

5. Dressed the monster with that shirt. 

All these were combined effort from my 2 kids and me. It was fun seeing them so excited about the monster they created. It is a fun project  and a nice holder for candies (when we had gone trick or treating).

Starbella Ruffle Scarf

Knitting or Crochet I have not done much in these 15 years. Knitting was done last during school days and  I had my hands on crochet when doing a baby blanket for my kids ( a blue for my son) and (a pink for my daughter ). After that, this is my next try on knitting making a ruffle scarf for me and my daughter.

My sister sent me this wool to try out knitting,  which got me excited and inspired from her to try this ruffle scarf. She has done many  scarfs either crochet or knitting. This wool is made from a company called Starbella Premier Yarns.   I went on YouTube and found the easy Tutorial  on how to knit this ruffle scarf. 

For a Friend

For Me

I have also created a similar one for my daughter (a smaller one fits her size). I'm working on another one for my friend...

  

Instructions from the  Cover paper :  

1. Cast on 8 stitches as follows: Pull out a length of yarn and open it up; insert right needle into each loop along top edge, working from back to front.
2. One-ball scarf: Knit across each row until 1 yard of yarn remains. Bind off all stitches.
   

Wave of Life - Mixed media Art

Being from Indian origin and having so many bangles always wanted to do something creative out of them. I got the perfect opportunity of making a mixed media artwork with them. The theme was simple, WAVE of LIFE. Wave of Life - representing Ups and Downs of your life. The Up point when everything goes well, everything is going very nicely according to your way, and sometimes its DOWN point in life where nothing works the way you want and you are having hurdles after hurdles to get anything done. 
So basically life is full of Ups and Downs.

About the Painting - Used a framed canvas which I had purchased from a craft store, painted the canvas with grey metallic paint to give its shine. Applied 2 coats of the paint throughout the canvas.  Glued the bangles in this manner. I had 2 sizes of bangles (The big one is mine and the inner size fits my daughter's). Two ways to look at the painting. One as a wave form going up and down, another way to look at it as a W for Wave.  I did not want to mix too many things as this was my first attempt with mixed media art. With a black sharpie pen drew waves with the remaining empty space. The below photograph is with the light effect on the painting and the above one without the lights. 

Many who had visited our house loved the painting and were asking their kids to do something with all the bangles (which don't fit them anymore).

Teacher Appreciation Week 2012 - by my Son

Teacher Appreciation Week for my Son's Teacher.

Its again this time of the year where we appreciate our kids teachers for all their effort. My Son loves to come up with ideas and since he is 8 years, I cannot influence him too much with my ideas also. He was very clear that he did not want to do the same as his sisters ideas, hence a different post as the gifts/ideas have individually come from them and are different.

Day 1 - Acrostic Bookmark- He has come up with an acrostic poem bookmark for his teacher.

Bookmark (Front side)

Bookmark (Back side)

 During my Son's birthday we had donated a book to the class. So he wanted to make a bookmark which his teacher will use for that book and later for herself, as she is reading this book to the class. He loves rainbow colors and he loves acrostic poems. Last year he has done acrostic for  "Teacher," he modified it to describe his current teacher and did a acrostic for Rainbow. So basically its a  "Rainbow bookmark for a RAINBOW (Acrostic) TEACHER (Acrostic)". My only help was for printing out for him and putting contact paper to the book mark so that it will not get dirty easily.

Paper fortune cookies

Day 2 - Fortune appreciation  - This idea came up when I asked my Son to come up with 10 things he likes about his teacher which in turn will turn into memories of 2nd grade. He easily came up with the 10 things, but we wanted the teacher to enjoy it in a unique way. Tuesday is the day where 2nd grade parents are providing lunch for all the teachers, so the idea clicked of presenting it in fortune cookie way. My son loves fortune cookies when we go to Chinese restaurants, so we decided to make it "paper fortune cookie" where his teacher can open it and read them. I have bought a take out box and filled it with these cookies and put a small note for his teacher. Initially idea was to make my son do the paper cookie but it was hard so I had to do them all. Got the steps from youtube.

Sail boat thank you

Day 3 - Sail boat Thank You -  During my Son's spring break, he painted a terracotta pot holder plate. He painted the plate blue inside with red rim, and Yellow outside with green rim. The colors were chosen by him and painted by him. Only the glazing /shine paint was done by me. The idea was to use this plate to hold the fortune cookies, but once this was done, he loved the piece and wanted to use it to do the sailboat for his teacher. So he finally learn to make a sailboat with a paper and pasted it to the plate. Since the plate looked too plain, I bought some fish stickers, he stuck them near the boat. On the sail boat he colored them with a sketch pen and on the base he wrote "Thank you for a smooth sailing of learning. It was Fun". Making of sailboat was much easier for him than the paper fortune cookie.

Day 4 -  Puzzle - I asked him to come with some puzzle for his teacher.  He had read about code word (i.e for each letter you assign a number) and instead of writing the letters you put dashes and a number for each dash (representing the letter). Since it was his idea I did not want to change anything. All I did was to stick it to a colored card stock and rolled it and tied a orange ribbon to make it look presentable.

 Day 5 - Gift Card Holder - My son wanted to give a gift  (gift card) which will be useful for the teacher. So I decided to come up with something nice for his Teacher. So I designed a Gift Card holder. Since Teachers keep getting gift cards, I decided to create one (which can hold about 12 gift cards). They can keep it in the car instead of carrying all the gift cards in their hand bags.  Hoping his teacher will find it useful.

My Son is going to come with the order (he wants to give) his teacher. I've just put them all up here in my own order.

My Son came up with some ideas and so did I with some, but I had intense joy in helping my Son do this for his teachers, as this is our only way to show our appreciation and gratitude for all their efforts and time they put in each and every day.

Watermelon Basket

I had volunteered to bring watermelons to my Son's school for the teachers lunch (during teachers appreciation week). So I tried out a new way to take the watermelons in a watermelon basket.

This was my first attempt to craft a basket out of the watermelon and scoop out the water melons into balls and place them inside the basket. For the handle part, peel out the skin, I cut out some carrots and watermelon balls into a toothpick and inserted the toothpick into the handle so the handle is not plain.

There are lot of information on carving  which you can refer on the internet to carve a basket (watermelon).

I'm very happy my Son's teacher very much liked the idea how it was presented and  I'm thrilled to try out something new after a very long time.

 

Teacher Appreciation Week 2012 - by my daughter

Teacher Appreciation Week for my Daughter's Teachers.

Its again this time of the year where we appreciate our kids teachers for all their effort. This time I wanted to bring it out from the kids with very little help of mine. Since my daughter has started going to school, and is able to follow instructions, this time it was much easier than last year to make her do for her teachers.

We made gifts for the 5 days but gave it all on one day. She wanted to do it all on one day. We chose middle of the week and decided to give it to her teachers.

Day 1 Bookmark  - My daughter reads very well, and so wanted to thank them with a bookmark.

bookmark (front side)

bookmark (back side)

This is a very simple bookmark. If you see my other projects, this bookmark (in red) is a blank bookmark bought from the craft store (Micheal's craft store). On the Front side I had stuck a blue card stock. The flowers you see were bought  from this craft store. It had pins attached where you can prick a hole and fix it to the card with that pin. So I wanted to keep it very simple. The backside of the bookmark, I asked my daughter to write a note for their teacher "I love to read, thanks to you that I read so well!". She drew a small little girl and wrote her name below that. So this way we both put in effort.

Thank you note

Day 2 Thank you Note - My daughter made this on computer with the software kid pix. She loves to work on kid pix software, so I asked her to make a card for her teachers.  She  chose a rose and she added the border design and wrote a thank you and  her name. So I only helped her by printing this out and sticking to another thick card stock.

Paper Clay Magnets

Day 3 Magnets - During her spring break, she was doing things with paper clay so we decided to do some for her teachers. So all the 3  (we had clay molds) which she used to get the shape. She painted them last week before giving them. My part was to help her paint  the glaze paint (the glaze/finish) on them. Then the star face was drawn by me as she had already gone to bed. Following day after they were dry I had to stick magnets at the back, so they can be used as magnets. So that was my part but making the clay magnet was my daughter's part.

Day 4 Thank You Card - She wanted another card (with stickers).

I asked her to draw something for her teachers, and you won't believe it, she came with this heart sign (With I love you written inside) and the thank you coming as the string, she made it like a balloon, which I was really taken back. This was done on a white paper, so we used it as the inside of the card (stuck it to the inside). The front side had flower stickers so we used one flower and wrote Teacher appreciation week , and she stuck some bead stickers on top and bottom. Very simple but she loved doing it for them.

Day 5 - Gift for the teacher - She wanted to give something which they will use. Packed it in a little pouch and put all the item/gifts in one gift bag.

My daughter came up with some ideas and so did I with some, but I had intense joy in helping my daughter do this for her teachers, as this is our only way to show our appreciation and gratitude for all their efforts and time they put in each and every day.

Valentines gifts - A bookmark and ILove made by kids

My kids are growing up to a point where they can do their own valentine craft ideas for their friends and teachers. I'm teaching them to make something creative for their friends.

A Bookmark - My daughter who is 4 years old, crafted bookmark with Popsicle stick, foam heart stickers and bead stickers. It was easy for her to do this without my help. The heart stickers (foam) come in 3 different sizes so she put the big on the top, little big in the middle and the tiny one as the third. In between the spaces of the hearts, she chose 2 bead stickers (which I use for my other projects with kids) and pasted them. At the back she wrote "For my friend" and in the front her name. She gave the bookmark, along with a pencil and valentine cards and sticker all wrapped inside a treat bag.

ILove - My son who is 7 years old wanted him to craft something with the candy as they exchange cards and candies for valentines. So instead of giving just card and candy we picked up this idea from a website. It was easy for him to attempt this one with little help. From a target store, we bought conversational candy boxes. He wrapped the candy box in red card stock. Then I had downloaded the ILove valentine play list and the menu dial and he cut them out and pasted them on the red card stock. Then we went and bought strings from Micheal's (thin wool) and pasted them to the candy box and the other ends to Hershey's kisses milk chocolate (as the ear piece). Turned out to be a cool idea.

For the teachers of both my kids we did the same ILove but attached a gift card. First we wanted put the gift card inside the ILove box, but in the end decided to paste with a tape to the ILove box at the back. All the teachers came personally to us not only thanked us but really liked the cool gift ideas.

A cake made with paper clay and a terracotta pot

This is one unique gift which I made for a friend for her 40th birthday ! 2 things which I made, one is painted a terracotta pot decorated with beads, then another one is a cake made with paper clay as this can stay longer ! Placed the paper clay cake inside the terracotta pot and covered it with a use and throw glass. So when she lifts the glass you will see the cake for a surprise. This was decided last minute the reason being it will be a nice surprise (no one will expect a cake inside a pot) for a 40th surprise birthday party !

Paper clay cake - I wanted to make something unique and since I'm not into baking cake (even though I like to decorate one) so decided to give a try to this idea of making a cake with clay and then paint and decorate it.

This is a 4 tier cake (4 for representing 40 one for each 10 years) - the 3 tier cake is made with paper clay and the last top layer is actually a gift button (made in plastic) representing the top layer of the cake. With the button packet I also got 4 balloons (made with plastic) so I glued them to toothpick and made them stand on the cake (for decoration). The bottom layer of the clay I glued 4 designs which are made of plastic. Painted the lower layer of the cake blue. The middle layer of the cake I had made some designs in the clay so painted with pink and purple and pink on the top. The 3rd layer I had painted the cake orange. Then I glazed the cake with the shiny glaze . I had to glue the 3 pieces as they did not stick on top of each other very well. Then glued the top 4th plastic gift cake as the top layer. I made round balls and painted them with metallic silver and glued them to the 3rd layer (not shown in this photo) of the cake as decorations.


TerraCotta Pot - Painted the clay with green metallic paint and the rim with golden metallic paint. This is the first time I've tried with metallic paint. Then I bought these beads which can be glued and did a simple flower design with those beads. The color of the beads were silver and golden , so I alternated the flowers with alternate colors. 4 flowers below and 4 flowers on the top (below the rim of the pot). Then wrote happy birthday in the middle with golden paint.

Pranay won 3rd in Year book contest 2012

Proud again of my Son for winning 3rd prize in the year book contest. This year there is a 3 way tie for the 3rd place and its very exciting to hear and waiting to see how its going to come up in the year book.

Year Book contest is a contest conducted by my Son's school open to all students every year. They need to draw a page telling what their school is about and if they win 1st it will be printed up in front page and 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th winner's page will be at the back page of their year book. But this time its only 1st , 2nd and 3rd (3 kids who won 3rd) !

Definitely have to give him credit for winning it again.

Details about his Drawing

At the top - He wrote the school name and the year (2011-2012) below the school name. He chose to write these in one color which is blue.

At the center - We had asked him to come up with something different from last time. So he came up with a theme from things he has seen or done. He came up with 10 things, since its difficult to put all the 10 items for the theme, we asked him to choose 5 best out of the 10 he had written down.
Here they are -
1. he had planted some plants in school, he got excited and drew a man watering some plants and trees and added the caption "Grow trees".
2. "No littering sign" he has seen in many places. He drew a park by adding slides, kids playing soccer and put that sign "no littering" in the park .
3. He had seen solar power/panel being added in some homes in the neighborhood so he added that by drawing homes and added "save energy" as the caption for that.
4. Then "save on gas" he has been hearing a lot. So from home he drew people either walking or biking to school and drew a school on the right hand side below.
5. "Helping the old" was the last idea in the center which he picked up from a book. He drew a boy helping an old man cross the street.
These 5 ideas basically describe his theme.

At the bottom - The main theme was written at the bottom which is "learning to make the world a better place".

Finally finished the page with some coloring as he did not want to keep the page white.

If you want to see last year's year book page he had won 4th here it is. Refer to "Proud of my son for winning 4th in YearBook".

A Christmas Tree from paperback

This was a unique Christmas Tree made from a paperback book. Its adds a shimmering touch to the mantel. Found this in a Magazine and decided to give it a try. This craft was by Suzonne Stirling.

Followed the instructions from the book. 1) Tear off the front and back covers of a paperback book, leaving the binding intact. 2)Take the top of corner of a page and fold it down to meet the binding. 3) Then fold the same age down to meet the binding again. 4) Turn up the resulting triangle at the bottom of the page so that it is even with the bottom of the book. Make the same three folds (steps 2,3,4) on the next pages. Repeat the folds on every page until the tree looks generously proportioned - about 150 pages. (I had only 90 pages or so). To make things easier clip folded pages together as you go.

Glue first and last pages together so the tree fans around and stands on its own. To decorate you actually need to spray paint with silver color , but I decided to use a silver color ribbon and used a glue gun to stick it on the tree and some sticker beads to decorate the tree. My Son helped me fold some pages in a book and my daughter (4 1/2 yrs old) helped me put the sticker beads on the tree.

I tried this out first with Macy's coupon booklet (the picture to your right) which you get many during the holiday season. Then I tried out from a magazine (family circle) with has at least 80 - 100 pages.

I kept both this tree on the mantel (above the fire place) and then in the middle arranged all the greeting cards we received this year for Christmas and New Year !


Turned out to be a nice decoration for this year ! IF anybody wants to try this out and want clear instructions, I will be very happy to teach them !

A Gift/card holder designed for teachers

Its his time of the year where I usually make unique gifts for my kids teachers (one for my son's teacher and 3 for my daughter's teachers). Since our family was going through a season of flu and all taking turns in falling sick, I could not paint or craft anything for them. Due to lack of time, decided to gift them a gift card so they can use it anytime in buying what they want. Did not want to keep it very simple , so I used my creativity in packing the gift card.

Gift card holder Jar: Asked the kids to choose a jar from the craft store. My Son chose penguin jar and my daughter chose the snowman jar. I bought gift card holder which can fit inside the jar and placed the gift card. I thought surrounding the gift card I wanted to fill something. So I thought of a wonderful idea of filling the jar with nice Christmas quotes and New year quotes which they can read during the holidays.

Instead of printing them on plain white paper, I bought Christmas card stock paper. They had different designs. Printed about 9 nice quotes or sayings on 2 different prints of paper. Cut them into 9 strips, and used a crimping tool to create a texture to the paper. Then the kids rolled them and placed them inside the jar. I made the kids roll them so they can be a part of it too !

Quotes/Sayings which I used are...
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There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved.
It is God's finger on man's shoulder.
~Charles Morgan.
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From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.
~Emily Matthews
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The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:
the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
~Burton Hillis
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May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.
~Author Unknown
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Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
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Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on,
with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
~Hal Borland
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For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~Author Unknown
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The color of springtime is in the flowers,
but the color of winter is in the imagination.
~Terri Guillemets
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Winter is the time for comfort,
for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand and
for a talk beside the fire:
it is the time for home.
~Edith Sitwell
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Very simple craft but it was indeed very much appreciated by all the teachers ! They just loved reading all the quotes they said.

Navarathri Festival, Rangoli and World Racers creation

This Festival is celebrated for 9 days where we arrange Indian dolls and its a religious function. To go along with the Indian dolls, we had a tradition (when I was growing up) to build something and keep it for those 9 days. My whole Family used to participate in creating or building some theme and be excited with this event. My son was super excited this year and built a farm 2 years ago and so this time he wanted to do something. I wanted to make my 4 year old daughter participate so I did a Rangoli design on a white card stock and took her help in painting the design and used her help to stick the flowers stickers.

I have explained the whole things as 3 projects, the center (Navarathri dolls), the Rangoli (as you see on the left side ) and World Racers Event (as you see on the right).


Navarathri dolls : As you see in the center of the photo, is a stand. We have placed all the Indian Dolls used for this tradition. There are some important dolls which are a must, some are Indian Gods and some are Indian Dolls representing a story behind them. They are all arranged to fit in that shelf. Each year we buy one new doll to add to the shelf.



Rangoli project - In India we draw designs (Rangoli) on the floor and use color powder and color them. Here, I drew a Rangoli design on the White Card Stock, and My daughter and me painted the design with acrylic paints and drew a border with red sketch pen. My daughter chose the colors for the Rangoli and also in buying the artificial flower to decorate the rangoli and fill the white area.


World Racers Event - called by my Son as a project. He used 2 Lego boats called the "world racers". He built those Legos all by himself. He created a race event between the 2 boats he had done with Lego's and people have come to watch the final race event. I've just explained his project in 5 parts.

Part 1 of the project - He used two shiny glitter blue card stock paper to make it look like water and placed the 2 boats. With Lego's he built the deck and placed it on the side. He also used a 3rd boat from his regular Lego's and used it as a Police boat on water. To surround the water we put wooden fence (we used clay and put the wooden fence on the clay so it stands).

Part 2 was to build a road and parking lots. So in front you will see a gray card stock which he used to build the road and yellow lines to create a 2 way traffic. The road goes inside the building where the event takes place into the parking lot. The parking lot was with black card stock and he drew white lines to divide the car space. He added some orange Lego cones to indicate the exit.

Part 3 was to build the ticket counter, Lego store and restroom. So we put the artificial grass (for the lawn) , and created a path way for people to walk to the seating area. First on the right hand side we put a box and created a ticket counter and a Lego Store. Then we used another box and built a restroom. On the right hand side, you will notice a canvas painted by my Son (as one of his summer activities). The painting created a scene of lot of buildings (movie theater , bank, hotel ..etc) so we used this to create a background effect. The painting also had a gray road which we connected to the road we built so it was all connected.

Part 4 - was to create an audience. For this my Son he folded black card stock to build stairs where people can be seated. He put a green big card stock at the back wall and stuck the stairs to it and placed the other end to another box. He built a Lego stairs and connected to this box so people can climb to it. For people he drew people and colored them and I helped him sticking it on the stairs.

Part 5 - The Green board was completed by adding Lights, score board (this was my part as he was in school and I had to finish all this in one day). He had colored the "welcome sign board" which I stuck it in the middle of the green board and I wrote the 2 team names "Red skin vs Great white sharks".

To make it complete we put the fence (with tooth picks) on the audience stand, and also near the parking lot, also added some pots (with flower bush) to decorate the empty area.

The idea came from him and he took my help. This project looks hard but was very easy and simple. The major parts were done when he had a holiday one day. Then another day to arrange everything.

Indeed started of with a small thing, but by doing all this our hearts our filled with true satisfaction and felt like a grand one.