Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Sun Prints

A couple of years ago I ordered a pack of Sun Print paper from an online UK craft supplier.  It got lost in the house (yes I have too many craft supplies!), but finally turned up this summer.

Incase you are not familiar with Sun Print paper, it is paper that has a surface which is sensitive to ultra-violet light.  To create an image, you place the paper on a flat surface, place an object on top that you want to create a silhouette of, expose the paper to sunlight, then you process the paper by submerging it in water.  The colours will continue to develop after you remove the paper from the water.

You can buy Sun Print paper from a number of companies, one of which is Sun Print.  There are a number of other suppliers listed on Amazon.

We waited for a bright sunny day.  Firstly we gathered a whole range of items to use for silhouettes.  The girls raided their rooms and craft supplies, and I picked a few things from the kitchen and around the house.  This is what we found.

Once we had everything ready, we set up a tray covered with a tea towel.  The girls took turns arranging items on a piece of Sun Print paper, then we took it outside to expose it to the sun.  Here's a picture being created:

Once you leave the page to dry overnight, the blue colours deepen and produce a lovely dark image:

As you can see, we made lots of pictures which are all in various states of colour development:

This was an incredibly easy activity, and both girls had lots of fun.  I think you could do this with almost any age child.  The Sun Prints website has lots of inspiration for older kids (or even adults), and want to make something a bit more artistic.

read more "Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Sun Prints"

Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Picasso Dogs

We are coming to the end of two months of summer holidays, and have been keeping busy.  The holidays started with a family wedding (I drafted and sewed my own bridesmaid dress - I'll be doing a post on it soon) in France, and a visit to our family and friends in London.  It was so nice to see everyone.

Since returning to Singapore, we have been filling our weeks with playdates (lots of playdates), swimming, library visits, craft activities, and plenty of relaxing down-time.  Today Samantha had a friend over for a playdate and I decided that we would take advantage of a free online art class that a friend recommended.

Carla Sonheim has created six online art classes.  You can read about them and sign up here.

We registered for the online classes and began with Picasso Dogs.  Both my girls love art, and it's great when they have a plan to get them started.  I laid out the supplies required (paper, pencils, acrylic paint, paint brushes, water, palette and kitchen towel).  We began by watching the video, then the girls got started.

These were Olivia's paintings:

And these were Samantha's:

I even got in on the fun and made this one:

It's not too late to sign up for Carla's online classes.  We had great fun, and would totally recommend giving them a go.

read more "Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Picasso Dogs"

Kapa Haka Dresses for Uniting Nations Week

This week our school celebrated our Uniting Nations Week.  We are fortunate that our girls attend a school where there are students from so many different countries.  In both Olivia and Samantha's classes of about 20 students, there are around 15 different nationalities in each.

Both girls decided that they wanted to celebrate their New Zealand heritage this week (their Dad is a Kiwi), and asked me if they could wear a traditional Maori dress.  I hunted around on Google for some ideas.  In the end I decided to make a dress with a simple bodice, a shirred back, and a two layer skirt (with the top white skirt cut into strips to create the traditional fringe), and a headband.  This is the look I was aiming for:

I headed to Spotlight (Plaza Singapura) and bought 1 metre of white cotton fabric, 2 meters of black cotton fabric, shirring elastic. 1" wide black elastic.  I already had a stash of red and white felt at home, as well as double sided fusible interfacing.  I also picked up a black chisel tipped marker at Daiso.  All up I spent S$32.

I started by grabbing two dresses from the girls wardrobes that 1) have the right shaped bodice to copy, and 2) currently fit them.  I traced off the front bodice piece, added seam allowance and cut two pieces of each.

I then headed to the computer to create the black, red and white graphic to go onto the front of the bodice.  This took me WAAAAY longer than it should have, because I just couldn't figure out how to get the middle pieces to fit.  Clearly my brain wasn't working that day, but I got there in the end.  I ironed the fusible interfacing onto my red and white felt and cut out the pieces using the printed graphic as a pattern.

Once I had everything cut out, I peeled the paper off the back of the felt pieces, carefully placed them on the bodice, and ironed everything in place.  It took a bit longer than usual to get the fusible interfacing to properly stick.  I guess that's because it takes longer for the heat of the iron to get through the felt and melt the adhesive.

I was worried I would have to stitch the pieces down, but the fusible interfacing seemed to work really well.  Once the graphic was in place, I sewed the two bodice front pieces together along the top edges.  I then inserted a shirred panel into one side and sewed it in place.  I'm not sure how clearly you can see it here, but I added a narrow elastic casing along the top edge, to keep it nice and snug.

I haven't really done shirring before, so it was a bit of a mystery how it was going to turn out.  I did my rows quite close together (which gave a tight springy panel), but I really needed to have cut a panel 2x my width, instead of 1.5x.  I pinned the above bodice onto Samantha, but it wasn't quite wide enough.  I ended up unpicking the side seam and inserting an extra panel on each side of the shirred section.

I have to say, I'm very proud of how well this bodice fits.  I really like the look of the shirred centre and the solid edges.  I would definitely make a bodice pattern this way next time.

I wasn't able to find a striped fabric that would give me the right look, so I bought plain white fabric and drew the stripes on.

I pinned the fabric to some scrap cardboard, and stabbed pins into the cardboard to hold the ruler in place as I drew each line.  I sewed the black and white fabric into tubes, hemmed the bottom edges, slide the black skirt inside the white skirt and sewed them together at the top.  I then gathered the skirt and attached it to the bodice.  I ran it through the overlocker to neaten the edges, and sewed some elastic onto the seam allowance where the shirred panel was joined.  This pulled the panel in a bit tighter, and prevented the seam looking stretched and wavy.

To finish the dresses I cut the white skirt panel into strips.  I didn't do this accurately - I just eyeballed the dress, and cut it as neatly as I could.

The finished dresses looked fantastic.

The headbands were very simple to sew.  I just cut an oblong of fabric (two times the width of the elastic + seam allowance), sewed it together down it's length and turned it out the right way.  I folded one end in, slid the elastic inside and sewed the join.  I then measured it on the kids heads and did the same on the other end.  The pattern was cut out of felt and ironed onto the headband, using the same method I used on the front of the bodice.

All up this took me three days to complete.  I probably could have done it quicker, but I really wanted to make them as precise and neat as possible.  After completing the outfits and having the girls wear them at school for a day, I realised that I should have made the white skirt layer out of a knit fabric.  The strips have frayed, and are looking a bit hairy and thready now.  Oh well.  Something to think about for next time!

If anyone out there is thinking of doing the same, I'm happy to share my bodice graphic to save you the time creating your own.  You might also be interested in this tutorial showing you how to cut and pull the knit fabric to create the right look for the white strip skirt (this company sells pre-made dresses).

read more "Kapa Haka Dresses for Uniting Nations Week"

Who's First in the Shower?

I don't know about your house, but in ours, there's usually an argument when I ask "who's first in the shower?"  The discussion usually goes like this:

ME: Who's first in the shower?
BOTH GIRLS: Me!
BOTH GIRLS: But you were first last night!
BOTH GIRLS: No I wasn't!!
BOTH GIRLS: Yes you were!
BOTH GIRLS: MUM!!!
ME: I honestly don't care.  If you guys can't decide, you're going to bed without a shower.
BOTH GIRLS:  more arguing and yelling
ME: feeling a strong desire to rip my hair out

OK, I know this doesn't rate terribly highly on the "most important things that go on in my house" list, but it does drive me nuts.  So I came up with a solution.

I whipped up a quick chart in PowerPoint using some patterned digital scrapbooking paper, a yellow duck clipart and a couple of boxes with the girls names typed in them.  I laminated the paper, and used self-adhesive velcro dots to stick the names to the sign.

This sign now lives on the wall in the bathroom, next to the shower.  When the first girl gets into the shower, we swap the names around ready for tomorrow.  Since I made this we have had virtually no arguments about who is first in the shower.

As always, I'm happy to share with people out there.  If you are having the same frustrating arguments every night and would like a copy of this document, just send me an email at randomcraftingadventures[at]gmail[dot]com or leave me a comment.

read more "Who's First in the Shower?"

Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Long Stitch

Samantha has been badgering me for ages to have a go at sewing a tapestry.  Olivia has been working on one for a while, and Samantha was keen to try it as well.  I had a look at Hobby Craft to see what kits were available.  All the tapestry kits were a bit big for a five year old, and I thought she would get bored with the endless little stitches. Instead I went for a nice long stitch by Anchor, with a picture of a horse on it.

I wanted to put the fabric in a frame, to minimise the chances of Samantha pulling the yarn too tight and causing the fabric to buckle.  I used a heavy piece of poster board and cut a hole in the centre, slightly larger than the image.  I then used staples and masking tape to secure it to the board.

I threaded a piece of yarn onto the needle, tied a knot in the end and showed Samantha how to get started.  She found it a little difficult at first to find the right place to poke the needle through from underneath, but after a while she was able to work on her own.  Some of the techniques I showed her included:

1. Pulling the yarn until it is taut.
2. Pinching the yarn and needle between your fingers as you pull to prevent the needle slipping off the yarn.
3. Stitching from top to bottom across a section to fill in all the colour.
4. Choosing which hole to sew through to follow the printed pattern. 
5. Making sure you sew through the same hole where two colours meet, so there aren't gaps.

Here are a couple of shots of the work in progress.

She worked on it in bursts.  Sometimes she would fill in lots of sections in a day, then she would leave it for a week.  In the end it probably took her a month to complete the whole picture.

Once she was finished, I removed the tape and staples, and took the picture out of the frame.  I then trimmed it, and mounted it in a simple IKEA box frame.  Here's the finished picture.

I think she did a fantastic job.  She is delighted with the picture, and it is now displayed proudly in her bedroom.

read more "Getting Crafty in the School Holidays - Long Stitch"

Organising the Playroom - From Total Carnage to Neat and Tidy

Like many families, we have an ever increasing mountain of toys that we struggle to keep tidy.  We recently moved from London to Singapore.  Before we left London I took the opportunity to have a big clean out of toys that the girls no longer play with.  I managed to cull lots of toys, which went off to a charity sale.

We still had toys all over the house.  There was a play area in the lounge room, another one upstairs, and the girls both had loads of toys in their rooms.

In our new house we are lucky enough to have a basement room, which we decided to use as a playroom.  Since we have a dedicated playroom in the house, I decided to send all the toys there when we were unpacking.  After the movers had finished unpacking all the boxes, this is what it looked like.

Total and utter carnage!  I was still dealing with an entire four storey house full of chaos, so I left it like this for a few days.  After several days of feeling utterly overwhelmed by the chaos and mess, I had an inspiration for how to tackle it.  We started by setting out two plastic tarpaulins in the carport.  We then divided the tarpaulins into three sections and labelled them MUST KEEP, MAYBE, and DON'T NEED.

I then explained to the girls that we were going to take absolutely everything out of the playroom, and put it in piles in the carpark.  If they were absolutely certain they wanted to keep something, it went in the MUST KEEP pile.  If the were absolutely certain they didn't need something, it went in the DON'T NEED pile, and if they were not sure yet (or I was trying to convince them to get rid of something they wanted), it went in the MAYBE pile.

When we started there was lots going into the MUST KEEP and MAYBE piles, but after a while the kids were agreeing to get rid of toys.  About half-way through, both girls had had enough, and I sent them off to play while we finished.  By the end this is what the carport looked like.

We cleaned the room thoroughly and started with a blank slate.

We then brought all the toys from the MUST KEEP pile back inside and put it away neatly.  Once this was done we called the girls back downstairs.  We showed them how much space was left in the playroom.  They were then asked to go through the MAYBE pile and choose toys they really wanted to keep.  We slowly moved a few more things back into the playroom, and they also moved quite a few into the DON'T NEED pile.  After we had finished moving toys inside, this is what the carport looked like.  We had also consigned quite a lot of junk toys (odds and ends from Happy Meals, party bags, etc) and broken things to the bin.

I sent a message out to the other residents in the condo development where we live, and invited them to come and help themselves to any toys they wanted.  Before long we had got rid of everything.  I probably could have sold some of the larger items, but Singapore isn't a great place for selling secondhand.  I also wanted everything gone quickly, incase the girls started changing their minds and bringing things back inside.

So, after all that work, this is what the playroom looked like.

And here's the before and after picture.

It's incredible.  This is my favourite before and after picture.  That mountain of toys in the first picture was so completely depressing.  I just had no idea how I was ever going to sort it out.  By taking absolutely everything out of the room, and sorting it into those three piles, I was able to tackle the chaos in stages.  Involving the girls worked really well too.  I promised them I wouldn't throw anything away, and I would give them a chance to decide what to keep.   But at the same time I set limits - they could only keep what would reasonably fit in the room.  It's worth trying if you've got a similarly mammoth tidying task.

There's still some decorating to do (pictures to hang, baskets to label, etc), but for now I'm happy to call this task done.

read more "Organising the Playroom - From Total Carnage to Neat and Tidy "