Treasure from Trash

Here are my entries for lovely Shruti's July Artsy-Craftsy:

1. Flower from Plastic Bottle:

2.  A Sea horse from C's old T-shirt:

These I had already displayed on my blog but again listing here.

3. A Vase from PVC pipe:

4. A Ball cum Rattle from the same T-shirt:

None of them can be done by kids below 5yrs. But Flower from plastic bottle is suitable for kids aged 7-11 years.


Shalini

Summer Sewing

I enjoy stitching a lot and sincerely feel it rejuvenates me. But rarely I gets to do it. Generally I'm not able to squeeze out time from my daily schedules. Since past few days I'm seriously thinking of rescheduling my days and fit at least some sewing in to it.

Stitched two Frocks some time back for a little girl. One with layers and other a modified pillow dress pattern.

I gifted it to her and did not ask for pictures, so here are frocks without a model.

Hope to continue with regular sewing.



Shalini

Dressing up switch boards

Summer holidays are here and C is feeling hot. Generally he keeps busy doing stuff he loves (playing, watching TV) but sometimes gets bored for not being able to go out of house. It is soo hot here that I can not think of taking him out during day. Even evening breeze feels like coming out of some hot blower.

One such day we decided to do something crafty. I zeroed in on some thermocol craft since we had not done any thing this month (I submitted an old work). I wanted to do a mobile but could not cut proper shapes from thermocol which we had. C proposed a robot which can fly but i'm no tech geek so we settled down for a very simple robot.

Took a rectangular thermocol plate and cut one rectangle from it. Cut four other pieces from it for making hands and legs. Then this idea of transforming the swithboard popped up and we did a dry run by pasting all the pieces on the switch board and decided to keep it like that. Cut two more smaller pieces and made them its antenna. C painted them all by using black acrylic color mixed with white glue. Finally we pasted them on the board by using transparent tape. For mouth used a small piece from plate again. Eyes were made using thermocol balls. Here is the end result.

C is really happy about having a robot in the house. He proudly told his father and friend that buttons are making its body.

This is suitable for kids in the age group 7-10 years. Because it involves handling paper cutter and scissors.

I'm going to submit this to artsy-Craftsy. One day is left, gear up guys and submit what you have made.

Shalini

Handmade Hair Clips

For C's birthday I made few hair clips for giving away as return gifts. I used basic lock pins and added felt, white stones, lace trims and some craft stones. As usual, Fevicol worked as the glue.

I also reused brown paper bags and newspapers to make bags for keeping return gifts and candies. I added some colour by scribbling with colored pens and stamp markers.

Sorry for bad pic but I clicked only one to share.

So do you plan return gifts like I did or do you have some better ideas?



Shalini

Thermocol Board and A Pipe Vase

Some time back I made this Thermocol board for hanging some paintings and craft actiivties done by C(Shreyash) in school. Since Shruti's artsy-craftsy theme for this month is Thermocol, I decided to submit it as my entry (I could not think of any thing else actually).

Suitable for kids aged 7-10 years under parental supervision.

Materials Used:
Thermocol Sheet: 2 (1 inch width)
One cotton Fabric for covering sheets
Satin Ribbon
Fevicol or fabric glue
Few straight Pins
Transparent tape


First I joined both sheets using tape. Then spread cloth on one side. Used pins to fix it in place stretching it tightly. Glued Satin ribbon on all four sides. Attached Ribbon loops on top back side to hang it down. I also glued the board to the wall so that it does not move if fan is switched on (for gluing I put Fevicol on the cloth not on the Thermocol, Fevicol burns thermocol if used directly on it).

Now some work for you. We made this vase by coloring a pipe piece. Green was done by C and I just tried to emphasize that curve on it by putting black. I'm not able to figure out how it looks, is it good, bad or ugly. Your comments are welcome.



Shalini

We Won............

again in Artsy-Craftsy April @ mindful Meanderings. Here is my entry- papermache Elephant.

This months theme is Thermocol. Just hop over to Shruti's place and participate.

Papermache Elephant mask

It feels good to be blogging after a lonnnnnggggggg forced break. We shifted to a new house and could not get our trusted Internet connection transfered. So I took a cable broadband connection. But my bad luck, it gave me more panic than comfort. Everytime I wanted to work, it was not working. 3 months have passed and finally now I believe I'll get my old connection by tomorrow.Better late than never.

In the meantime I did lots of craft but that i'll post later. First I'll post my Papermache Elephant. We made it for Shruti's Artsy-Crafty but could not post it on time.

I used paper plates, paper strips, newspaper and diluted Fevicol for doing this. I pasted two pieces of paper plate(cut in half) on both sides of another plate. Rolled one newspaper like trunk and secured it in place with tape. Then we pasted paper strips dipped in diluted adhesive on it. I did two layers and then kept it for drying. After 5-6hrs. I cut two eye shapes on top side. Then we (most of it Shreyash did) painted it. After painting, I pasted wrapping paper as decorations. We can use it as a mask or it can be hung from wall by attaching a thread on the back side.

Swati Shruti is doing great job organising these monthly contests. Kudos to her. I wish her all the best.

Shalini

Hand - Finger Printing

Wish you all a joyous and prosperous 2010!

It feels good to be blogging after so long. We(me and Shreyash) went to my parents place in his Winter breaks. His nani cooked everything he wished for(Aloo tikki, Samosas, Golgappa and many more dishes.)  and now this chap wants me to do the same everyday. I told him strictly that it is impossible to cook all those dishes everyday. But he is still reluctant to eat simple dal-roti-sabji kind of food.  His school has started but its tough for him to get up and be ready in time. He wants to sleep more like he was doing during holidays. Hope he will be back on track with in few days.

Today he did this painting for  Artsy-Crafty Challenge on mindfull-meanderings. I told him what to do and he did it by his hand. He kept his fingers joined and thumb away to make an impression with black color first and then white color (while black was still little wet). Once he was done with bird he painted background as sky and them drew his favourite clouds (he does them in all paintings) using cotton. Then I added bird's legs, lower body portion and border.

Shreyash's colorful painting inspired the kid in me and I did this Ganesha using finger printing. I'm entering both paintings in the contest and hopes to discover many more such activities there. Contest is on till 20th January 2010. Anybody can participate but activity has to be appropriate for kids aged 1 to 10 years.

I had continued my crafty activities while I was not blogging. Here is a ball cum rattle which I made for my sister's one month old son.

I'm dying to post other things but do not have their pictures. Will post next time. 

Now something for charity. NGO GiveIndia is taking part in a competition on Facebook to win a US$1 million grant. The winner will be the NGO that gets the highest number of votes from Facebook users. The prize of $1 million will help put or keep 40,000 children across India in school for one year! Voting in the competition is for one week only, from Friday, January 15 – Friday, January 22, 2010. 

The link for voting, where you can also see more details of the competition is

http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/338730

 

We all talk about doing something for under priviledged children. Here is our chance to do something. Vote for GiveIndia and help change lives of some more children.


Shalini