Gifts, Ribbons and Bows for Motif No. 5

Tatted more gifts for another 3 colleagues who are leaving these few days. The pattern of the alphabets forming their names is Teri Dusenbury's, tatted using Guttermann Sulky threads.

Next up are gifts for Teachers' Day. It suddenly dawned on me - does Teachers' Day falls on an universal day? Apparently not, from a check on Wikipedia. Here in Singapore, it falls on 1 Sep. Every year, my children and I will handmake something for their teachers. We had done shrink plastic tags, quilled cards, beaded flowers, embroidered bookmarks cards, to name a few. This year, it's something new for them - needle-felted bookmarks!

I cut strips of felt, and gave them the needles and wool, and all of them were happily punching away! They worked pretty fast, and saved for an accidental punch of the needles into Kristine's fingers twice, the bookmarks turned out well with minimal guidance. Next, I cut plastic sheets and sewed up the edges. We are all so pleased with what we have created.

[Apologies that some of the photos are not in the right orientation, I have this problem recently and I just couldn't solve it :( ]

Ivan's

Joey's

Kristine's

I believe Faizon's birthday is the last lap of the current birthday exchange for the SnN group. Paul sent me my birthday gifts in Feb, and now, I sent these to Faizon. We are supposed to decorate a card, but after browsing a few gift shops, I decided to make one from scratch. Wishing Faizon a very happy birthday filled with happiness, laughter and crafts!

Paperclips for the month: Ribbon and Bow! My girls hanker after the ribbon rose bows, aren't they just sweet? The patterns are available on Georgia's Online Tatting Class. These will be Motif No. 5 for my Round 2 of the 25 Motif Challenge.

Take A Peek!

Noticed this little rainbow test and I tried it.

Found my rainbow to be intensely shaded green, violet and white.

So what it says about me:

I'm a contemplative person.

I appreciate beauty and craftsmanship.

I am patient and will keep trying to understand something

until I've mastered it.

Those around me admire my fresh outlook and vitality.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

For my giveaway, I have mailed these off to Randi,

and these to Vicki.

For those who have been following my paperclip patterns, you'll recognise the lucky clover and owl paper clips. The other one is one of the two free patterns for this month, which will be posted in very soon over at Georgia's Online Tatting Class.

I must thank my lucky stars! I am over the moon with my latest win - a signed copy of Jon's latest book to be launched. If you haven't heard about her new book, take a peek of it at her blog. Can't wait to see all the goodies inside the book!

A Lucky Win and Winners to My Blog Giveaway

A most lucky win of a blog giveaway - a dichroic pendant hand-made by RWillisGlassArtist. I have been eyeing such dichroic glass pendants for sometime. I love this orangy-red tone, just nice to go with my many earth-coloured clothes. The photos just don't do enough justice to the pendant. Check out Rhonda's etsy store for more of her colourful dichroic jewellery!

And the winners to my blog giveaways ...

Randi and Victats! Congratulations!

Please send me your snail mail and I'll get the threads and stuff on your way.

Can you believe it? Another 4 resignations! This tatted name is for Lai Meng. Her last working day is tomorrow. And I don't know why the photo just couldn't load properly today.

Scrapbooking Birthday Party, Bee's Special Tatted Clip, ATC on Parade

Kristine attended her classmate, Charmaine's birthday party at Laine's Papeterie in Wheelock Place last Sunday. The girls were all so excited to do a scrapbook page on their own, with plenty of guidance from the instructor. The shop here has a pretty cosy room, not so much as a party room, but with good working tables and space to comfortably accommodate up to 10 persons to do scrapbooking. The girls had a good time too dodging the camera while munching on finger foods and cake after completing their scrapbook page.

And finally, the girls proudly showing off their work!

I'm definitely more pleased with this specially-designed paper clip for Bee for her birthday, compared to Rafii's one. Some combination of alphabets simply turned out better than others. Expect more tatted alphabets on paper clip to come. One will be a free pattern for Georgia's Online Tatting Class later this year.

It was a fun evening on Wednesday at Bishan National Library. A number of us came with our ATCs and food for pot luck. We makan first, and spent a good bit of time admiring all our works, then had to work fast to put up the exhibition before we were chased out of the library at closing time! Do visit the exhibition "ATC On Parade" if you can. It will be on till 13 Aug 09, and we'll be there on 13 Aug evening for the usual trading session.

My ATCs on exhibit,

5 embellished with tatted motifs, 1 Zentangle-style butterfly,

1 paper-embroidered bear, 1 crocheted angel, 1 paper-cutting rooster.

The first 5 ATCs done by Joey, and the last 4 done by Kristine.
Among the careds are a paper-cutting bunny, paper-embroidered flower, irish folded flower, origami cranes, finger-printed shuttle, paper-pricked flower and bees.

Admiring everyone's ATCs before putting them up (photo by Moses - our organiser)

Another Tatted Gift, Crafting and ATC Sessions

Hopefully, this is the last resignation for the months to come. These are tatted for Rafii. The alphabets are Teri Dusenbury's design, while I came up with the paper clip design.

I was very active in my previous company, organising social activities and craft sessions for the recreation club, as I enjoy learning new crafts or simply to do some projects in a group. 6 years have passed since I join my present company, without such recreational crafting sessions. I'm simply overjoyed when I found a group that meets monthly to do crafts - the KBCC - Knotty Bicsie Crafting Club. I have since joined them for 2 sessions, and my children enjoy tagging along too. Last month, we did watercolour painting, and last weekend, we did scrapbooking (more photos). Not that you will master the skills and techniques within 2 to 3 hours time span, but it's a great exposure and fun getting together in a group. Besides, our host, Betsy, arranged such delicious snacks for us. Thank you, Betsy!

"My Family" (above) was done by Joey.

And this bottom one was done by me during the scrapbooking session.

The other group I now join is doing and trading ATCs. Yep! Found a local group which meet and trade ATCs monthly. In the last session, we met and tried paper piercing on ATC. Not something new to me, but my Kristine did it for the first time, and she really concentrate hard to finish a piece (the middle one on the bottom row)!

Mine was on the extreme left on the 2nd row from the bottom. I subsequently did another one and added tatted flowers to the bear and cut a bird to sit on the bear's head.

The tatted heart on bottom right was tatted by Dorcas for me in a tatting exchange. I mounted it on a co-ordinating card, ribbon and all. Look real sweet!

And I must show these 3 ATCs which I traded. The left one has real plant parts glued on, the middle one is pen drawing, Zentangle-style, and the right one has sequins sewn onto fabric.

The group will be holding an exhibition, ATC Parade, at Bishan Library from 6th to 13th Aug 2009. My 2 girls and myself are participating. We'll be there on 8 Aug and 13 Aug with the others! Looking forward to it, it'll be fun to see what everyone's doing!

Last but not least, I will be drawing 2 winners on 9 Aug for my blog giveaway. You are still not too late to participate if you haven't, just leave a comment in my previous post.