Kids' Activity Pack

At last we will be able to go on a short vacation after all. Kids are very excited and I definitely am, too. When we found out we can travel, I started thinking again an idea I had for some time now but have never managed to materialize it. Our friends were going on a vacation before us so I thought it was a good opportunity to start with a pack for Owen and Liam to take on their vacation.

Here's a few pictures of what I've managed to put together. You can download the tutorial (PDF) here. This is just a guide on I made our packs so feel free to customize it and share what you've made. This is for personal use only. As this is my first tutorial, please don't hesitate to let me know what improvements or how to simplify this.

The notebooks I added in the pack were extras I had and covered with scrap fabrics left over from other projects. You can find the tutorial here. The road map included in the boys' packs can be downloaded from here.

Add any goodies/toys you have in hand. Most of what I've included in each of the kids' packs are stuff I already had and so it was good to do some de-stashing at the same time. See more pictures here...

I may do more to give as Christmas presents... what do you think?

Birthday 'Cards'

My sister and sister-in-law are having their birthdays in August with only a few days apart and I thought I'd send them something different this year using up some bits of scrapbook stuff I had.

Quite easy and quick to do and the fun bit was getting the kids to draw or write something for their aunts as each one had their own pockets to hold a card and their photos. The pictures are using digital scrap stuff from various sources and background paper from the Vines Paper Pack.

Instructions for the accordion pocket book is found here.

Upcycled Magazines = Matching Cards

So happy that my kids are happy with the matching cards from upcycled magazines. We've brought these with us to restaurants to fill in the time that it takes for our food to get to our table. And we've had a lot of fun with these.

Making these cards have been rather gratifying and now I want to do more crafts for and with my kids! :-)

Cardboard Box Project continued + Upcycled Matching Cards 2

Another installment. I have to do these stuff after I get home from work as that's the only chance I usually have...

Have printed out some more patterns for the 'lawn' of the dolly house. Decided to leave that and paint the spaceship first.

I wasn't sure what type of paint to use so tested it with a layer of Crayola finger paints. Wasn't so nice as it was rather thin. I let it stand to dry a bit.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I took the matching card project out. This time I decided to use the mod podge with glossy finish to test the result. I painted this on top of the pictures that I'd already affixed the night before to the chipboard. Also, I let this coat dry for an hour.

Went searching for other blue paints and was fortunate to find a new tube of blue paint that the kids got for their birthday last year. This had a better result giving a more opaque look.

Going back to my matching cards, I prepared to cut up the pieces. Because the chipboards are really thick, I found that after cutting up the pieces, the edges seem to have this slightly raised edges which I didn't like very much so used the soft edge of the cutter to flatten this and decided to add another layer of mod podge to seal it off. Let these dry overnight.

Finishing off the spaceship, I added a coat of mod podge just to seal off the paint.



The next morning, I was quite happy with the results of the matching cards. Still undecided whether I should had patterned paper on the back side of the cards or leave them as is. I might take my bottle mod podge and do something later on... The spaceship still needs some detailing... need to add the knobs, headlights, etc.



The great thing is both my kids were excited with these new toys. My son was happy to see some colours on his spaceship after seeing it sitting there on the side for some time without paint. I also felt this gratifying feeling that I've made and finished something.

Cardboard Box Project continued + Upcycled Matching Cards

This is a continuation of what we did a couple weekends ago.

Tonight, I had this sudden need to do something about a lot of unfinished projects. So decided to tackle the dolly house.

Printed 3 sheets of wood patterns on an A3 sheet at the office. These wood pattern is what I used to cover the entire body of the house. I cut these A3 sheets with the size of the widest side first. I 'mod-podged' it all over with a brush and affixed the patterned sheets all over. In order not to get too much warping, I did the 2 widest sides first and while waiting for these to dry, did some knitting. After about 30 minutes, I tested the 2 sides and seem dry so did the same on the 2 narrow sides of the house. And did some more knitting.

I was getting into this whole 'mod-podge' thing (it's the first time I've used this), I decided to put down my knitting and do something about another unfinished project. This is something I started last weekend. This is inspired by a craft I read about on 'Designing Moms' blog. Instead of making dominoes, I thought of creating some matching cards game. So decided to cut out bits of pictures out of my kids magazines which they don't seem to read anymore.


Found some old thick chipboards at the office and decided to use these instead of wood blocks. So painted mod podge in increments the size of the pictures and also painted mod podge on the back of the pictures.

After all had been done, took up my knitting again and waited for the 2 boards to dry a bit. By this time, it was 2:30am and decided that it was time to pack up and tidy up.

Cardboard Box Projects

Ever since we got this book 'Too Many Toys', my kid has been asking me to make him a spaceship just like the one he saw in the book. He said it had to have some knobs, steering wheel, wings, and 'piang' thingy (which translates to something like those blasters or space toy guns).

And my daughter also wanted a dolly house since his brother was getting something made...

So this weekend, we finally managed to get down to collecting all the materials we would need. Got some cardboard boxes from the office, collected some bottle and milk caps to use as knobs as well as the tubes from used aluminum foil rolls.

I think the kids had a lot of fun helping to hold the boxes while me and Simon did some cutting. They also enjoyed making some mess with the debris we created... Unfortunately, we couldn't finish these in that afternoon. I need to continue adding some paint and details later.

I also need to use fasteners to attach the knobs. Strangely, we cannot find any fasteners at any stationery or school supplies shops in Shanghai! We went to several places and we were even told to go to the hardware store by one clerk at one big shop.

All in all, it was a good afternoon of crafting.