聖誕節，很喜樂、很平安！

今年的聖誕美勞：

（一）安安和樂樂的手印聖誕花環：

利用綠色薄卡片，描上安安和樂樂的手掌，剪下，黏在事先剪好的圓形卡片上。用紅色glitter foam sheet sticker剪出圓形，貼上。最後，再黏上用金色彩帶綁出的蝴蝶結，就完工！


（二）聖誕布鞋：

在BATA鞋店買了一雙白色布鞋給安安。


先練習所想要的設計。


小心翼翼地上色。


一雙具有個人特色的聖誕布鞋誕生了！


這是我的“作品” ：）


（三）聖誕吊飾：

先在白色卡片上畫雪人的外型。


剪下雪人，貼上繩子。


再將雪人對折，黏好。


用銀色的BodyArt Paint塗滿雪人。


乾後，黏上彩帶，畫上眼睛鼻子嘴巴。


我們一共製作了七十個雪人，也許不是很精緻，可是卻是安安的一番心意，希望收到祝福的朋友們會喜歡 :)


祝大家，聖誕節，很喜樂、很平安！

J's Unicorn and Princess Party

This year, we decided to go back to the UK for two weeks during half term. It turned out to be very lovely as J got to celebrate her 7th birthday with the grandparents, aunties, uncles, and her cousins. We had a wonderful time in London, Chatsworth, Carlisle, Cotswold and Oxford. It was a very special holiday :)

Almost as soon as we got back, besides battling with jet-lag, we had to start all the preparations. Luckily, we managed to send out the invitation cards, ordered the balloons and bought most of the bits and pieces for the party before we left to the UK.

J wanted a Lion King party initially. However, after taking into consideration that not all the girls in her class will enjoy it, we decided to have a Unicorn and Princess Party, a very safe theme and definitely popular among the girls :)

This is the invitation card that Jemima made:



She drew the picture, we scanned it, cut it out, glued it on the white card and finished off with some sparkly stickers.



We invited all the girls from her class so she had only 10 cards to make and write and 10 envelopes to write the address on. Phew!



I made this giant board when we first moved to SG, using the cardboard from Santa Fe the mover. This turned out to be brilliant as I can use it over and over again (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!) ... The other side of the board is for Tabitha :)

We ordered different shades of pink helium balloons to decorate the house and put around the giant board to create the atmosphere.



J wanted a big painting of unicorn. I told her, she had to paint it herself. The day after we got home from the UK, we rushed to Bras Basah Complex to buy a giant canvas. First, we poured the paints onto the canvas so that J can covered the canvas up with different shades of pink, white, blue and purple. While waiting for it to dry, J drew a big unicorn on another piece of paper. She worked very hard to "draw" the unicorn with different mediums (different types of paint, marker pens, glitter foam with adhesive back, glitter glue etc) Once the unicorn dried, I tied a silver ribbon onto the tail and stuck the unicorn onto the dried canvas using blue tag.



This is the first time we bought a pinata. We bought different type of fillings (pretty hair clips, different types of unicorn foam stickers, erasers, paper clips, organic lollipops and gummies) to fill up the pinata.



We ordered an unicorn cake from our friend Levy as we know that we won't have enough time and energy to do the baking. J loved this cake very much and played with the unicorn toy after the party :)

http://fantasycookies.multiply.com/



I like using fresh flowers to decorate the house :)



Besides using balloons and fresh flowers to decorate the house, I also used pink and purple crepe papers and some cut out paper unicorns to make the party more fun.




We made an unicorn head piece and a badge.



For activities, I bought this unicorn canvas for each of the girls to colour in during the party. They took the canvas home afterwards (and the paint and brushes too) besides the party bag and balloons.



We had pin the horn on the unicorn game, pass the unicorn game, unicorn hand painting, musical statue and wonderful story telling by David. We ordered some lovely unicorn stickers and notepads online as presents for the games.

The girls had a good time I think and J received generous birthday money and presents from her friends. It was a lovely afternoon.

Now, once the thank you letters are sent out, it's time to get ready for Christmas!!

兔年平安、喜樂 Happy Chinese New Year

很幸運，家人和朋友，一直都在以自己的方式，給我們祝福、支持和鼓勵。不管是愛心餅乾、溫柔擁抱、偶來短訊、暖胃飯菜、精緻糕點、耐心聆聽、充當司機、美麗燈籠、布制手工、慰問郵件、好書分享、可愛玩具、漂亮服飾、佳節賀卡（不分先後）等等等等...... 我們都好感激、很感動....

誠心地祝福大家，新年平安、喜樂！

p/s: 今年的賀卡，很多朋友都會在新年後才會收到，很抱歉哦！沒辦法，時間和精力有限.... 兔子是安費了好些心思畫的，先練習寫兔字，後用鉛筆試描了幾次，再以粗頭墨水筆畫了好幾張.....雖然很簡單，可是對一個六歲的孩子而言（中文底子又不是很強）我為她感到自豪！

To our dear friends and families,

Thank you so much for your support for all these years... Thank you for all your kind gestures and generosities. We are very lucky to have you as our friends, families and neighbours!

We would like to wish you and your family, Happy Chinese New Year! Take care!!

Love,
D, WK, J and T

姊妹合制聖誕裝飾

第一次嘗試讓安和樂合制簡單的聖誕裝飾。

首先讓樂負責“打底”。家裡只有綠色的易洗漆（Washable paint)，擠點在畫紙上，讓樂隨意亂抹。不過，大多數的顏料，都讓她抹在身上、頭上、地上... 哇，一塌糊塗！ :)


顏料乾後，讓安在紙背後畫上星星，剪下；再將閃光膠 (Glitter glue) 塗抹在星星上。乘閃光膠未乾時，黏上小亮片做點綴。全乾後，將星星貼在彩色閃卡上，一來可以讓星星比較硬／耐，二來讓星星後面也是閃閃發亮，比較美觀。家裡只有紫紅色閃卡，所以選擇了配對的紫紅色閃光膠和以紫紅色為主的小亮片。 將星星再次剪下，打洞。最後，串上紫紅色的金屬線 (Sandwich bag sealer) 呈環狀。



完工！小小的星星裝飾，已經寄了兩個給在英國的爺爺奶奶作紀念。希望大雪不會耽擱了郵遞服務哦！


愛心小提示：讓小小孩玩顏料之前，最好是讓孩子打赤膊上陣，除非你不介意很麻煩的事後清理工作 :)

聖誕安樂！

Our very own Advent Calendar

Opening up the little windows on the advent calendar, is one of the highlights for J in the month of Dec! In fact, it is one of the most exciting ways for our family to count down to Christmas.

For the past few years, we have lit up advent candles and bought different type of religious advent calendar. It was such a delight to see J's happy face in anticipation of Christmas. It was also a good way to talk to J about the true spirit of Christmas based on the lovely pictures hidden behind those little windows.

This year, we decided to make our very own version of advent calendar. There are many ways in making one. Due to time constraint (and my limited energy...), we chose the easiest design...

First, we got J to cut out little green squares, and wrote 1 to 24 on it. Then, she glued those green squares on red envelopes.



D prepared the "contents" of the red envelopes. There were bible versus, the story of Christmas, different lovely pictures and some fun activities (e.g. going to Christmas Fair, visiting Christmas Band Fiesta, making gingerbreadman house with daddy, etc). And, of course, little treats (oh yes, how can we forget the candy canes!) for Saturday and Sunday, J's sweety days! :)



After we put those "contents" in the red envelopes (leave the special treats till last minute in case they are visited by ants first), it's time to put up the "Advent Calendar". We found a little space just perfect for it... and got J to draw a big star and cut it out...




Here is our very own Advent Tree! Happy Christmas!!

Tis the season to be jolly!

At the beginning of Nov, J and I started our annual Christmas card making regime. Unlike previous years where we had a lot of time to do it together, this year, we have T... who is always curious and a real handful!!! I have to make sure that T takes her nap at the right time so that J and I can have undisturbed craft session together :)

This year, we decided to join the Cards Swap program organized by the Kidscraftweekly. If you are interested, take a look at the following link:

http://www.kidscraftweekly.com/card_swap_faq.html




Here are some of the finished "products" all handmade by J, with love :)

中秋很平安

從安一歲起，每年的中秋，我和外子都準備一些適合她年齡的應節手工、遊戲、故事、節目等。

今年，我們在星期六晚上邀請安的朋友及家長來我們家吃團圓飯，然後一起參加咱們社區所舉辦的提燈遊行。此外，我也在中秋前夕的下午（即是昨天啦），辦了個小小的聚會。我們邀請了一些小朋友一同來吃月餅柚子，做簡單的燈籠美勞，玩遊戲等。其中，我也準備了一個有關嫦娥奔月的卡片玩偶表演。


小朋友們很喜歡那十個太陽，尤其是貝比小太陽 :)


我將故事簡化，由那老頭兒給后羿兩顆小藥丸。月亮上的“黑點”就是為了拯救人民而將兩顆小藥丸吞進肚子里然後身體變得輕飄飄的嫦娥啦！

這個故事的寓意是：不可以隨便吃藥！

再次祝各界，中秋很平安！

中秋很快樂

趁著樂午睡，我和安才有機會在不受打擾之下，一同製作花燈。

材料：利苑好吃得不得了的低糖雙黃白蓮蓉月餅，的餅盒 :)





將兩個塑膠餅盒（裡面裝月餅的那個，不是外面的包裝餅盒）合併，讓安用膠紙黏起。當然，之前得先將其中一個餅盒剪開四個大洞。用布制花和花紙裝飾後，再把四個 tea lights 用 blu-tack 固定在四個洞洞里，就大功告成啦！很簡單！

這是家母親手為安製作的小豬環保花燈，厲害吧？！




祝眾友們，中秋很快樂！

Trashion Parade

It was Environment Week at J's school two weeks ago. Her year group had "Trashion Parade" and the children were encouraged to make clothing or accessories with recycled materials.

I asked J what would she like to dress up as. She said, she wanted to be a pony. I said, hmm.. that's probably a bit challenging. How about dress up as a farmer? She replied that she preferred to be a farmer's daughter...

So J and I made these together... while we did these, T was lying quietly on the floor next to us, watching...






A hat for the farmer... opps, the farmer's daughter.



She wanted to wear an apron... so perhaps an useless nappy plastic bag is a better material than a useful bin bag?



and a boot. This is actually J's idea... it's made out of her broken school shoes which I have thrown away into our recycled bin, and with some packaging cards.

It took us about a week (about 15mins to 30mins every afternoon) to finish the above. It's quite challenging to do crafts with J nowadays as I have to looking after T at the same time... I just have to be more patient and plan in advance :)