Thanksgiving decoration year 2010

Got this idea from my Son's school last year , where they asked each kid to decorate one feather and the teacher had done a wonderful job of putting all the feathers with one big turkey body on the door.

We decided to do a similar one where the blue feather was done by my Son, the purple feather was done by my daughter and the rest of the 3 feathers were done by everybody including my husband, and my parents.

The supplies include "craft paper of different colors, bead stickers which I usually use for other projects, feathers from last years idea and leaf stickers ". All we did is cut out the feather shape from different color papers. Draw an outline and then stick bead stickers. In the middle, stick feathers and leaf stickers. The body of turkey was drawn by me in brown paper and cut out , but my son helped me with the eyes and the nose.

It was a fun family project and we all loved it when it was hanging at our door. For more information on last year project refer to blog "Thanksgiving game and activity ".

May flower basket

One of my son's homework was to do a May flower basket and drop it off at the neighbor's house. Since I have a three year old also, we did a total of 3 baskets, one made by my Son, one made by my daughter (only the bead sticking part) and one by me just to show the kids how to do it.

Take a white paper and fold in in a cone shaped. Fold the bottom and stick it with a tape (middle and right one as shown on the photo), or leave it in tapered form. (left most one). Then with pipe cleaner make the handle as shown. Since pipe cleaners are easyto bend and fold, we used this to make the handle.

To decorate the basket we used bead stickers. It was easy to stick and make any design by kids. For my other projects with bead stickers refer to the project "Goody bag with 3d gem stickers", and "bookmark created by my Son".

Filled it with our garden flowers and handed one of them to our neighbor.

It was fun easy and kids loved doing activities with Moms !!

Halloween Oct 2010 Decorations

This year's halloween decorations was very similar to last years but skipped a lot due to time limit. Usual tradition of pumpkin carving was skipped this year too. But instead, we decorated small pumpkins with foam stickers and placed it at the entrance. You will see pictures of them below. Lets say it was very simple project done by my kids.

Let me walk you through with all the things the kids did.




 Pumpkin Wreath :- The kids did many pumpkins using dot-art pens on paper and my son gave directions on how to draw the eyes, nose and mouth. Then we taped to a pipe cleaner in a circle form and hung it on the door.
Ghosts-  I'm not into drawing ghosts. So my Son took in charge and draw ghosts and cut them out. The least help I did helped him hang it on the door.
Halloween glow stickers :- We received a 3 pack Halloween glow stickers which we pasted them on the door.



Pumpkin decorations :-

Pumpkins were decorated with foam stickers one by my daughter and the other one by my Son.  They were foam stickers to decorate pumpkins. Since we got this as a gift along with the 3 glow stickers, we decided to decorate the pumpkin with the foam stickers. The set had 3 different kinds of stickers. My daughter chose the one with green eyes and purple nose and yellow mouth. My son wanted to do the black one. It was a very easy project for a 6 year old but a good one for my 3 year old daughter.

This was a very simple project but my kids enjoyed doing such projects with me. This time their grandparents also loved seeing the grandchildren doing such projects.

Gift for teacher June 2010 - Painted terra cotta pot

As the school year ends, we decide to give teachers gifts. When it comes to individual gifts, I try to do something along with the gifts I buy. This time for my daughter's school teachers (year school ends in June) I decided to paint the terracotta pots and give the gifts and pack it along with these. The Pot can be used to plant pots or to use inside class as (pencil/pen) holders.

I painted 5 pots, 2 big yellow ones are for the 2 main teachers and the 3 small ones are for the remaining teachers who have helped. The size was no intentional, I got the count wrong and had to get 3 smaller ones as  the big size was not available.

The 2 pots were painted yellow with purple on the top, did some designs on the. The other 3 were painted pink with gold color at the top rim. Did a design with a black pen.To finish it I glazed the plate with glitter glaze to give the finishing touch (its shine).

To fill inside these pots, you can buy small gifts and wrap them and personalize it the way you want them. I bought small gifts put inside them, wrapped them with a transparent sheet and tied a ribbon on the top.


For more information on Terra Cotta painting refer to my blog "First Terra Cotta pot painting" . Another craft was the terra cotta candle holder "Terra cotta candle holder".

My scribbles over years grew into design

I found this among my papers I had stored, and would like to say "THIS IS ME" !

From young I always scribbled designs on paper. It was small little ones, to now bigger ones like this. This is the only sample I have to show my ART like this, never store them, but you will always find them in my school books (while studying school and college) and office books (which I used to write notes of office stuffs). This grew into putting Mehendi when I was young (Henna designs) or Rangoli designs(I wished I had a sample of my Rangoli designs).

But today you think I'm different, I would say "No not at all". If you give me a paper and a pen this is what I will do. This is one of my methods of relaxation. Many who come home and seen this have really liked this and today I decided to put this on my blog. If you ask me to repeat the same I don't think I can do the same design, they will be similar but not the same.

I see some kids doing where I started, and some kids doing other things (like origami or lovely painting, or even kids who are interested in sports...or solving difficult puzzles) and my advice to all those Parents, encourage them, as they grow. For me its a good feeling when somebody appreciates your art (whatever it is) , it keeps you going in LIFE with all the ups and downs you have in your journey life. This is how I started and THIS IS ME !!

I know my designs, arts and crafts and my Blog inspire a lot and my only wish it inspires more and more as years come by.

I would like to Pause and say "Thank you" for encouraging me , appreciating my BLOG and commenting on my projects which keeps me going and going and going !!

Unique gift card holder which can fold and expand

This Gift Card holder is Unique in its design , it can be folded and can be expanded. When expanded it shows the gift card and all the kids names. This was created for my Son's tamil (language) teacher for the year 2009-2010.

In a long strip of paper first make sure your gift card fits. In the remaining space fold the paper to that many number of kids in the class. Since this class had only 9 students, it was easy to use this method. So in each fold write one kid name in different colors.

On the left hand side wrote the teachers name. On top I wrote "From all of us" and at the bottom after the kids names in the middle, I added "and Parents".

On the 2 ends, I punched a hole and added the 2 ribbons to tie the 2 ends after folding the card. So this card can be folded. Placed it inside a pouch so that its easy for the teacher to carry.

Everybody really liked the idea because all the kids names could fit inside one card.

Bookmark created by my Son

As April approaches you know I'm preparing for the goody bag as its my kids Birthdays. I started this bookmark project and we suddenly we had to move to a different house. So instead of stopping and not doing anything as I had to pack for our move, I decided to involve my Son into getting to do bookmark for his school friends.

Very simple to make it, buy the bookmark (plain red color) from Micheal's craft store. I had these beads stickers which I asked him to stick. Then for the center, we had bought some stickers during valentines day time, so we used those and pasted them in the center.

Punched a whole on the center top, and tied a blue ribbon was the only thing done by me. We left the behind blank so that his friends can personalize them the way they want to !!

My son is 6 years old and they keep reading a lot of books both from school and public library. Hence I decided to do this so that all the kids at that age are into reading and excited about reading or getting books from library both at school and public library.

My son loved doing this project even though we had to about 30 of them. I had fun watching him do this project with a very little guidance from me.

For more information on my bookmark projects refer to my previous posts "Embroidery bookmark" and one I did for his school teacher "A Bookmark- paper embroidary and Quilling ".

Ceramic Business card holder

As you all know when I gift, I use my creativity and hard work which gives me intense pleasure and satisfaction when I do something personally for somebody. This project was done in March 2010 but gifted on April 5th 2010.

This gift which I've mentioned is very simple but got time to do this for my agent. She has indeed put in a lot of hard work in getting this house for us. So to really show our appreciation and her dedication I created this small gift - business card holder so that she can keep and use at her office.

I painted the main part with green sparkle paints and the front with orange sparkle paint. With black paint I wrote her name. At the back with black paints, wrote " Thank You". Underneath the holder,put my initials as usual.

For more detailed information on ceramic painting projects - refer to the following individual projects "Introduction to ceramic painting" or "Ceramic plate painting" or "Ceramic tile candle holder" or "Ceramic toothpick holder".

Valentine flower Arrangement

My Daughter's day care teachers were celebrating the valentines day with all the kids exchanging gifts, to make the day special for her teachers I decided to do this flowers arrangement and box of chocolates as a last minute gifts. I really hope they will appreciate and like it.

To go ahead with this project all I did was I purchased all the items individually and put them together. The Tin and the Red Red artificial flowers were bought from the a craft store (Micheal's craft store). The tin was already painted red with white hearts and had a pink ribbon attached. I bought a Styrofoam , to fit inside the tin, arranged the flowers on the Styrofoam and placed them inside the tin. This whole project was done less than 45 minutes. Also one of the reason I have not glued the Styrofoam to the tin is basically to give the flexibility to them to use the tin for other storing purposes (holding kids pencils or crayons or even for potpourri arrangements).

The red color heart chocolate box was placed inside the flower arrangements before giving it to the teachers.

To see one more of my flower arrangement project you can refer to the recently done craft for my son's school teacher "Teacher's appreciation week gifts".

3 Flowers from pipe cleaners

When we suddenly came to know about My son's teacher's birthday and my son wanted to do something for her, we decided to try these a bouquet of flowers with the pipe cleaners.

First take the red pipe cleaner and make it into round coil form. Then take the blue pipe cleaner and start making a flower shape (like an oval) going underneath the red coiled pipe cleaner and coming above and so forth. I used two blue pipe cleaner to make one flower( 5 petals). Then attach it to the green stem (green pipe cleaner). Similarly do the orange flower and white flower and attach them to the green stem. It was a cool thing to try out with a 5 1/2 year old boy.

Then added a white (address label sticker) and asked him to write happy birthday and another one from having his name and attached it to the bouquet.

Teachers appreciation gifts - year 2010

A Terracotta Painted pot and A Book mark by Me.

A drawing and a thank you note puzzle by my Son for his teacher.

Teachers appreciation week in my Son's school is celebrated from Feb 1st to Feb 5th 2010. The Theme is winter olympics and tagline was "our gold Medal educators". Every day we need to take specified items (assigned by PTO) to the teachers. Details given below for each craft/project work completed by Son and me.

Day 1 - Fresh cut RED, White or Blue flower to support our USA olympic team.
My project :- When we think of olympics we first think of the opening ceremony to light the olympic torch. Hence I used a similar idea of to start the appreciation week with a "TORCH". The pot was painted, decorated with "RED" and white flowers and on the middle placed the white candle to represent it like a TORCH.
My pot colors were Red at the bottom, white in the middle and blue on the top of the pot. At the rim I painted it dark yellow to represent "GOLD". I added few dots, stars and spiral design to fill the pot with gold and black pen. On the white part I added this quote "A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others", Added a "Thank you" in the front on the red colored area. Finally glazed the pot to give its shine.

Day 2 - Classroom Supply. Whatever is the supply we need to pack the supply in either red/blue or white wrapping paper.
My Son's Project :- Made my son draw something for the teacher to show his way of appreciating the teacher. Taught him the Olympic symbol, the significance of the torch and few sports. So he decided to draw a man skiing and snowboarding for representing "sports" and snowman, a Christmas tree to represent "winter". He also drew the Olympic symbol along with 2 medals and wrote the letter "T E A C H E R" and wrote a Thank you at the bottom of the page.



Day 3 - Gold medal/Ribbon note : written note from the student to the teacher thanking or praising them for an accomplishment or nice gesture.
My son's Project :- One day as he was working on puzzles, he took one puzzle with 12 pieces and drew/traced it on paper and gave a color to each puzzle pieces. We thought this was his creation and will use this to write a thank you note for his teacher. I asked him to write on small white stickers "the thank you note wordings" for each puzzle and made him paste it on each of the puzzle pieces. Over all its the thank you message broken down into 12 pieces. Due to the time limitations for the teacher, we are not going to cut the puzzle but just give that sheet as a thank you note inside a envelope.


Day 4 - A New, grade level appropriate, book or game for the classroom.
Bookmark project :- Since we were donating a book to classroom I wanted to have the teacher have something for memory. Crafted this bookmark for her memory.
Take a red book mark card card stock. I used a concept of "Paper embroidery (oval design and flowers outside as borders) and quilling to make the flower (inside the oval design) on the book mark. Then to fill the gap I added a small ribbon on the top and added 2 flowers (bought from a craft store) at the top and the bottom. Its in a form of sticker. Stick another red card stock at the back of the bookmark to make it look clean and to write a note for the teacher.
For detailed information of this project refer to "Bookmark - Quilling and paper embroidery"

Day 5 - Come dress in Red, white or blue to honor the teachers.
this was simple and nothing extra done but dress my boy and send him to class.

This whole project done this week gave me a sense of satisfaction and happiness when I can make something personally for the teacher to appreciate her work.

A Bookmark- paper embroidary and Quilling

Bookmark project :-Initiated this project make something useful for my son’s teacher as one of her appreciation gift. I have used 2 craft concepts in making this bookmark. One is paper embroidery and the other concept is Quilling.

Quilling, also known as paper filigree, Artist discovered that narrow strips of paper could be rolled, scrolled, fluted, and fringed to make beautiful designs. Quilling can be added to any scrapbook, memorable photos, certificates, invitations, announcements, and greeting cards.

Paper Embroidery is not new to me. I have done couple of projects and you can refer to them for more information.

Bookmark project :- Take a red book mark card card stock and did the oval embroidery design in blue color thread and the flowers in light pink color as a border (four on the top and four below).
The flower inside the blue oval part is another craft concept called "quilling". You roll thin paper using a tool and once done shape it to any shape and glue the end to the shape. So each petal of the flower was done separately and glued to the card.

Then proceeded with the round shape in green color and stuck it next to the flowers inside the blue oval part. Then to fill the space outside the oval area, I added a small ribbon on the top and added 2 flowers (bought from a craft store) at the top and the bottom. Its in a form of sticker. Stick another red card stock at the back of the bookmark to make it look clean and to write a note for the teacher.

This gives me a sense of satisfaction and happiness when I can make something personally for the teacher to appreciate her work.

For more information on my embroidery project on paper refer to my blog "Embroidery bookmark".