Backlog Posts Teaser!!!

Just like that, six months passed.  Life happened, literally, as we welcomed Baby #2 in August (plus I went back to teaching at a new school).

The blog took a backseat and party paperminties posts were shelved.

With the recent party paperminties inquiries, the nagging urge to post the paperminties-decorated parties surfaced.

Please watch out for the delayed posts as we will post them soon!


Teaser photos of what's in store.

Halloween in August.

Shabby Chic Tea Party.

Poopoo Party (yep, you read that right!).

Homemade Toy - Cereal Box Marble Run

This project was inspired by a blog post by Made by Joel.  I saw this blog post three years ago and thought it was great fun!  My daughter was still too young then to be playing with small marbles and I wasn't sure if she'd sneak a marble into her mouth while playing (choking hazard!), so this  idea was shelved for later.

Fast forward to five days ago...we were at the supermarket and little daughter asked me to buy her another baby doll or Barbie.  But since both her baby doll and Barbie collections are bursting at the seams, I tried to negotiate.  We made a round of the toy section and school supplies section and stumbled upon these marbles!  A mere P 20.00 (that's about half a US dollar) for about 50 pieces!!!  And when she saw it, she burst out in excitement, "Marbles!"  Yay for me!

To my surprise, the marbles were a great hit!  Not only with her but with her cousins.  They played with the marbles the night we bought them...and the next day...and the next.  There were marbles all over the house - on rugs, corners, behind the couch, by the dining table.  It was fun to watch them enjoying and experimenting with the marbles!  They rolled them down the hallway, flicked them and rolled them down a makeshift slide that they made out of our living room cushion.

Then I remembered Made by Joel's Cereal Box Marble Run!  I made them a couple of times for the boys at school and wondered how the girls would like it.  I saved two cereal boxes and made this marble run version in about 10 minutes.  I used masking tape to adhere the cardboard cutouts to the wall under the stairs.

Watch them go!

Weeee!!!

I followed Made by Joel's tutorial and left a little ledge at the bottom to keep the marbles from rolling out of the box.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they loved it more than I expected!  One afternoon, my daughter spent hours (yes, hours!) playing with this marble run.

Made by Joel has a detailed tutorial on how to make one.  If you try it out, we hope you have as much fun with it as we have! : )

Homemade Montessori - Cards and Counters

This is one of the simpler Montessori DIYs I've made. I made this about a year ago.  Like the Felt Moveable Alphabet, this was to supplement my daughter's lessons at school.

When I first encountered this Montessori manipulative, I remembered how we were first taught 'numbers and counting' in the traditional school I attended back in the day - learning mostly from textbooks and hardly working on anything concrete or tangible (which would have made me learn faster and more effectively). I have since appreciated how this material is tactile, that it not only helps children recognize numbers, their sequencing and their corresponding quantities but it also introduces "odd" and "even" numbers.

These are the Montessori numbers and counters we use at the preschool where I used to work.  Photo courtesy of absorbentminds.co.uk

I have been on the lookout for shops selling Montessori materials, keeping an eye out for the red 'numbers and counters,' but haven't encountered any so I decided to make my own.

These are the materials I sourced for this project:
1. Blank flash cards - a supermarket find.  You may also use index cards.
2. Green marker- to match the glass stones.
3. Green glass stones which have flat undersides - I found these in Divisoria.  (I saw some glass stones in SM but the undersides were not flat).  Other DIY moms have used bottle caps, acorns, pine cones and even Teddy Grahams!  So you can be creative! 
4. Plastic container for the glass stones.


I use the cards for practicing sequencing.

And the number cards and counters (glass stones) for learning corresponding number quantities.

For the cards, I just wrote the numbers on the cards and drew uneven circles to resemble the glass stones.

It is important to put the exact number of counters or in this case, glass stones for numbers 1 to 10 (55 pieces) to serve as a self-check or control of error.

At times, my daughter would rather count the glass stones without the cards which also makes for good counting practice so I don't mind.

Other times, the glass stones are used for "cooking" in the Homemade Toy Kitchen (along with beans and shells) or used as "treasure" so we are almost out on glass stones.  Haha!  Time to replenish.

If you want to learn more about using this material, this post is a step-by-step tutorial on how to best use it.  You may also check out  this post to see how Lisa Nolan, a Montessori mom, uses this material with her child.

Painting Tissue Roll Owls

The hoarder in me started collecting tissue paper rolls months back for crafts with the little ones or a DIY project for the home.  It wasn't till today that painting them tickled our fancy!

I saw these cute tissue roll owls on pinterest  and thought it best to get messy and paint the tissue rolls instead (I later found out that one of the little ones had already done something similar during summer school!  Oh well! :)).

So what started out looking like this:

...was transformed into this for some crayon-resist art.

My daughter wanted to prepare some herself too for the cousins.

Then we moved outdoors for some messy painting fun!

These are some "BEFORE" shots.

I only put primary paint colors so they practice making secondary colors in the process.  I love it when they say, "Look, I made green!" or "Look, I made purple!"

And some "AFTER" shots.

!!!

 Some action shots while they were hard at work.

Quite fun so I painted some tissue roll owls myself!

Here are some of our tissue roll owls ( I think we painted nine it total).

I painted the first two.  Didn't the little ones do a better job?!

This is another easy peasy, fun craft activity that every kid (and kid-at-heart) will enjoy!

Try it yourself! = )

Save a Tissue Roll, Save the World

If you watched the now defunct TV series "Heroes," you'd know where the quirky blog post title came from!

I'm all for reducing, reusing, recycling and upcycling so this was one project I couldn't wait to get my hands on!  

Dear hubby left these giant tissue rolls for me one morning (he brought them home from the office) and I spotted them sitting on the desk.  I instantly knew they were for me!  I was giddy excited and smiled from ear to ear!  Such DIY project potential in these tissue rolls (Yes, I may be the only wife who gets strangely excited when her husband surprises her with tissue rolls).  Well, they really had me at "hello."  This meant another DIY project/challenge for me! 

Since these are gigantic tissue rolls, they aren't the flimsy kinds.  They're thicker and sturdier.  One look at it and I knew they were perfect for corralling items; perfect as pencil or pen holders.  All I needed to do was decorate it and glue a firm base to hold whatever items I decide to place in them.

So first, I washi-taped the first roll.  I'm a fan of all things chevron-print now (see pinterest board on Lovin' Chevron!)...but honestly, I think it turned out less than perfect.  Something about the gaps in the washi didn't do it for me (I think for chevron-print to work, there should be equal stripe widths).  It took me more than an hour to painstakingly achieve chevron but ummm, I'm not exactly satisfied with the result.  Could have been better.

I was happier about the design of my second tissue roll.  I wrapped it in Ellen Krans scrapbooking paper (from a set given to me by my sister from her US trip).  It's a school-themed print which I love since it's so me!  And it only took about five short minutes to do!  Now, that's my kind of DIY project!

What do you think?!

Next, I used the tissue rolls to trace circles on foam sheets to use as the base and cut them up. 

Then, I adhered them to the bottom of the tissue rolls with a glue gun.

Tada!  Tissue rolls with a foam base!

And the finished product - giant tissue rolls turned cutesy pencil holders.

That's it.  Easy peasy DIY project.

I wouldn't mind doing more of these in the future.  Maybe try to achieve a better chevron-printed one.

I enjoin you to do the same if you can get a hold of giant tissue rolls!  Let's save the world one giant tissue roll at a time! = )

Additional Note Card Craft Kits in my Etsy Shop

I was inspired to make these additional Note Card Craft Kits to post in my Etsy Shop.  The shop just feels so empty so it's great that I'm slowly able to fill it with new items.

Here's what I wrote to describe these crafts kits:

This paperminty Note Card Craft Kit with these dainty Laura Ashley scrapbooking papers is a fun gift as a Mother's Day present or a gift for a friend or loved one!

It could be a gift for yourself, too!

This Craft Kit includes:
15 folded, blank notecards in card stock (4"x5" each)
15 plain envelopes (size 5.5")
10 printed Laura Ashley scrapbooking papers (3.5"x4.5" each), acid and lignin free
5 plain scrapbooking papers (3.5"x4.5" each)
20 small handmade flower cutouts
20 big handmade flower cutouts

Contents are tied together with pretty, gold string and enclosed in a transparent acetate box.

With this Note Card Craft Kit, you can create and design your own note cards! There are endless design possibilities.

It comes with a promise of endless hours of crafting fun!

Convo me or email me through joydb_2013@yahoo.com.ph
for additional information.

Here are two designs you can make with this craft kit:

The papers are actually pretty enough as they are so simple details will be enough.  For the card on the left, I just added a stripy strip of paper at the bottom and voila, a pretty card!