Bookmark Exchange and Father's Day Presents

The bookmark exchange from the NeedlesnCrafts group came in from Paul Lionel (Malaysia).

Paul crocheted book thongs for me. They can stretch and fit deep into the spine.  The green one is a sprout that sprouts out of the book. The hand-drawn sakura flowers postcard is also intended as a bookmark!

My girl, Joey, just learned to crochet after I showed her some basic stitches.  After just a few small practice pieces, she crocheted this round motif for Kristine who mounted it on a 20 cm diameter ring. Kristine just love dream catchers.

Joey's next project was this crocheted monkey. She did everything herself without any guidance. Not bad for a beginner, right?  Her handmade Father's Day gift.  He is 15 cm tall.

Kristine went into baking mode again and baked a red velvet cake for papa.  Don't tell her, but it looked better than it tasted.

June ATC Session @Bishan Library

Time for some crafting at our ATC session. This time, it was a bit of a messy affair with tacky glue and liquid shoe polish.  Using just common household items like aluminium foil, it was not difficult for anyone to create some masterpieces.

I had to prepare some cards beforehand as the glue would take some time to dry.

Once you get the hang of it, it's fast to create a bunch!

My mail art ATCs done with watercolours and marker pens and some parts from envelopes which had travelled across the globe.

Swapped for Selina's and Jessica's ATCs.  Jessica drew the Eiffel Tower in black pen. 

A Gelatine Plate Is Not Meant To Be Eaten

I tried to make my own gelatine plate, after all I have a big bottle of powder gelatine at home.   Well, this is not making jelly to eat. I then used some acrylic paints (gold, silver, pewter and red) and a brayer on the gelatine plate. Don't know what was not quite right, the paints couldn't spread well. And Singapore is so hot that the gelatine actually melted after a while! But, I just used what came out from the prints. Added on some fabric motifs and metallic thread.

These are for Paper_Traders' Pull A Print swap for 3"x5" index cards.  They went to Mel Dunkley (UK) and Linda Edkins (USA), together with the Daily Junk Mails postcard.  Weaved the background for the 2 postcards that went to Mel and Linda, and I cut out the shape of our Singapore island and sponged over with distress inks in the middle of the postcards (that's my additional technique we were supposed to add).    Well, Singapore is a food paradise!

Karla Jackson (USA) and Carol Fosdick (USA) sent their Pull A Print card to me.  I like the colours on Carol's works but it looked unfinished though.

The back of Karla's card is just as sweet as the front! 

The Daily Junk Mails postcards came in from Pam Imhoff's (USA) Every day is Earth Day, and Beckie Holso's (USA) Wanderlust. Both are awesome in their own rights. 

Linda Wyatt (USA) resent me her abstract art postcard for last Sep swap, and this time it arrived fast. 

Acrylic paints on deli paper. Love Linda's abstract art, composition and colours and all! 

What the Children Did Recently

Kristine just love macarons and will go to the extent to bake some all by herself some on a late afternoon. We love the shells without filling!

This is the product of one of Kristine's school project.

Her painted canvas with acrylic.

And what the girls did for me for Mother's Day.

May ATC Session @Bishan Library

It's our monthly ATC session again.  Instead of crafts, we tried lettering or rather fake calligraphy.  Hope we'll see more writings on our ATCs.  I personally think adding words to the works make a card more meaningful.

 

I did 3 cards with daily junk mails.

Wrote this Lucky word during the ATC session.  And I swapped for Selina Yeoh's Splice It Up ATC.  Looked like the girls are hooked on this style of collage, and they are certainly getting quite good at it!

The theme for June swap is Travel.

Mini Books and Tatted Bookmarks for Exchanges

I did a paper bag mini album swap in March with Shallale Figaro.  The mail took a whole month to arrive from Mexico

Shallale used very small brown paper bags of about 2" × 2.5" and bound them together with a ring from a keychain and another metal ring.

I did mine with envelopes instead - folded in half and altered the opening. About 4.5" × 4.5".

Tatted Sem's name on paperclips for his last day  of work in the office in Feb.

Designed another tatted name, this time on a bookmark.  In fact, both bookmarks are newly designed and tatted for Diane Merlock (USA) for the NeedlesnCrafts 2016 Bookmark Exchange.

Di Magical Bloom and Heart You.

Old Ceramics and Pottery Wares

These were the products of one of the numerous workshops I have organised in Club HDB during the 9 years I was working in HDB.  And that was more than 13 years ago.  It was a pottery course held in Tanjong Pagar CC. I couldn't have done them so well without a lot of help/touch-up by the instructor.  I have kept these in my old house for so long that they were almost forgotten, but I just couldn't throw them out still.

Also found these two - a coin bank and the other a drink container.  Too cute to throw.  Need more space!

Collages and April ATC Session @Bishan Library

Paper Traders had an index card (size 3"x 5") swap in March and we were introduced to Adam Hale's Daily Splice, where he take images from London's free magazines out of context and splice them together.  Very interesting.

 

My first 2 pieces sent to Pam Colosimo (Canada) and Debra Claxton (USA) - Biketacular and Timeless Yoga.

Received the swap back from Mel Dunkley and Beckie Holso (Bloom Where You're Planted).

I did more to show the April ATC session. From top left hand corner - another piece of Biketacular, Read A Face, Behind The Look, Wokaventure, Mr Rock Well.

Compass Travel,  Inside Me,  Hooked On,  I Sewed My First Dress.

Everyone attempted during the session to come up with some awesome cards.

Traded for the ATC done by Jessica Chua and Selina Yeoh.

New Workshops

I am never familiar with my sewing machine.  I get quite anxious when using one if you know what I mean, especially if I need to control the speed manually. Can't seem to sew straight.  Although not perfectly straight, I managed to sew up the drawstring pouch pretty fast.

I have worked with clay before but not porcelain.  Honestly, I wouldn't know the difference!

I'm bad in drawing and worse using markers to colour.  But well, nobody was judging!

Embroidery is more of my cup of tea.  I had to finish up sewing at home, but then none finished during the workshop itself either.  I do think I have done a good job embroidering my self portrait.

Heritage walk to Balestier.  I hardly go around Balestier on my own!

Another leather craft workshop.  More theory/talk on leather rather than crafting work.

March ATC Session @Bishan Library

The session gathered to do tea bag folding, a miniature kaleidoscopic origami.

The tea bag folding ATCs I did.

And the paper weaving ATC swapped with Selina.

We'll doing something different for the next ATC session.  We will do collage in a certain style with magazine images and swapping out the cards done during the session.  

February ATC Session @Bishan Library

Valentine's Day follows CNY very closely, so here we're weaving paper hearts that can be used as a basket or pocket or a corner bookmark. They are not difficult to weave but not as simple as they look either.

 

I did quite a few ATCs for Valentine's...

and was quite lucky to be able to swap for Doris' cross-stitched horse shoe. Top 2 ATCs done by Doris Teo, bottom left by Selina Yeoh and the last ATC by Helen Wong. 

We will do teabag folding in our next ATC session on 10 Mar (Thu).  As for the ATC swap, we'll have an open theme but incorporating paper weaving into the ATC, be it as the background or as part of the design.