Stuffs the Girls Made and A New Celestial

Just want to show some stuff the girls made - some for their classmates' birthdays ...

Kristine drew the card ...

... made all the bracelets and hair clips, some for fund-raising ...

messed the whole place with Hama beads!

And I just picked up my new 1.11 carat Celestial ring from Goldheart, which DH upgraded for me from the previous 1.02 diamond!!!

Sewing Sock Creatures and My New Celestial Ring

I was quite surprised to receive this in my letterbox. Almost thought it will never come, but it came - a pen and marker-drawn Peter Pan for the January Art Doll swap from Maureen Blakeley (Canada), sent out by Tanya (Maureen's daughter) as Maureen was not feeling too well.  Thanks, Maureen and Tanya, love the doll!
[Afternote: This was the last doll Maureen was able to do as her strength failed her rapidly after that.  Maureen had a cardiac arrest and passed away in May.  Everyone in the ATC-ArtDoll group will miss her.]

For May ATC session in Bishan Library, we did stamping and paper punches.  I have not used paper punches for a while, certainly not to my liking - it's too much for my hands to bear, I punched just enough to do up a card on the spot (the anemones and butterflies ATC on the left).   

The theme for the month was "Yesterday".  I did paper feather for these chapteks (a common game found in kampong days in the past) - fun to play and fun to make!  I traded for Mdm Au's paper punched-owl, one of my favourite birds.

Haven't joined a library programme for a while, but wait, I did, just that I haven't mentioned them yet here :( But let me talk about this latest session "Sewing Sock Creatures" I attended with Joey yesterday at the Bukit Merah Library.  

Using leg warmers, we cut and we sewed for a straight 2 hours to sew up a rabbit each - mine's the blue/pink/white one, and Joey's the purple/pink/white one.

Back home, Joey continued to sew - all hand-stitched.  Rather cute.  And I must say I couldn't have done much better than her.  Well done, Joey!

 

Kristine arranged her last flower arrangement for the year in school, with chrysanthemums.  Looked like a salad bowl to me!

And I'm most excited by my new diamond ring!!!  DH upgraded/traded in my previous 0.84 carat Celestial ring to this 1.02 carat, colour E, set in white and rose gold band.

 

Holly and Tree - Christmas is Coming!

During the Nov ATC session in Bishan Library earlier on, we were introduced to the book "Ed Emberly's Picture Pie". It is a book for juniors, but such ingenuity! All the pictures are formed using only circles, or using parts of a circle. The top ATC was done during the session, but I added a bit more colours to the background at home.

It has been some months I have not taken part in doll ATC swaps, so I'm back for the Nov swap "Trees, Leaves". I realise I'm hooked on haiku, can't believe I actually came up with 3 in a row (including The Peacocks in the ATCs above)! The haiku I composed may not be fantastic, but I enjoyed creating them. A pair of the boy and girl went to Riitta in Finland.

Tatted little berries for the holly inchies I created for the Nov Mingle. I orginally wanted to tat the hollies too, but they would have to be pretty small to fit into inchies! I still find inchies amazing and challenging as I try to crack my brain hard to squeeze details into the 1 inch square!

It was time to upgrade my Celestial ring (hurray)! Is there anyone who doesn't like diamonds? I love these little stones. This is a dream for me - sure wish these were all mine but each would cost S$10,000 upwards, so I was only trying them and begging the sales person to let me snap a photo. Didn't quite fancy the extreme left one with the thick band, so selection was down to the 4-claw piece on the extreme right, the 5-claw and 6-claw pieces.

Eventually, I decided to go for the one with 5 claws. It's my lucky number, and the biggest and best graded stone among the few too. Thank you, DH!!!!

Christmas is around the corner, ok, not quite yet, but time does fly. Here's one Christmas tree that really tickles me!

Wishing Everyone A Sparkling New Year!!

I have been MIA partly because of the holiday seasons, and preparing the children back to school. But mainly, we moved house, now very close to my mother, cos' DH is posted overseas. Hope we will manage fine.

We never have snow here in Singapore, and I have never see real snow, saved for those artificial ones produced with soap foam and in the ice-skiing/skating rings. But since the Dec theme for the ATC dolls is "Snow Angels", I used some snowing background and cut glittering white wings for each doll. Add a snowflake confetti, they look as fine as they could, just that I do not really know what are snow angels. Or rather, I don't really know the different angels apart! I'm curious how my swap partner will interpret the theme! These first pair went to Lynette McNamara in New Zealand.

I received my very first fabric postcard from Miriam Gogarty of Ireland. It is amazing to know the fabric piece, with a postage stamp at the back, actually made its way here across the vast land and sea.

In return, I sent Miriam my last of the tatted Flying Pig ATC.

There should be more to show next week once we settle down in our new place and into our new routine. Ending off with this photo of my new Celestial diamond ring and wishing everyone a sparking new year!