DIY Bob Hairstyle

Notice something different in Little One's hair?

Little One requested to have her haircut on eve of Chinese New Year. She had requested for a haircut a couple of times prior to this. I had thought she was not serious since she love being Elsa so much. How could it be possible that she wants her hair short? Hence, I had put it off. This time, she requested once again. I warned once again that if her hair is short, it is not possible that she could have plait like Elsa. Again, she nodded her head as per the last few times. I am sure this time she is determined. She even give me instructions how to cut it.

That was exactly how I did it. I tied her hair towards the nape of her neck and slide the elastic one inch below her nape and I snip off her hair from slightly above the elastic band. 

The result was a little lopsided with her right side longer than her left. I did a pretty quick trim but Little One was worried I would cut too short and she would become botak (bold)! 

To pacify her, I had to reassure that I was not cutting too short but she would have to cooperate with me. I also showed her a mirror for her to see her own reflection.

And the below is the end result.

This, I would be keeping as souvenir. The day she entrusted me to cut off her long hair.

Will I be doing this again? Yes, if I have the opportunity again. The next challenge for me, I bet, is to maintain that hair style.

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Chinese Paper Cutting

Chinese New Year is approaching soon! I am doing Chinese paper cutting to decorate my home. Entrances decorated with paper cut outs are supposed to bring good luck. The particular cut out above is a Chinese Word 春 (Spring) and a bat is incorporated as part of the design. Bat is a phonogram of good fortune.

There are 2 types of paper cutting, one is by cutting with scissors, the other is the cutting with the use of penknife. Penknife is usually used for very intricate designs.

I have not tried using pen knife yet but scissors cutting is simple enough to complete a few within 2 hours.

Material required:

Red paper

A pair of sharp scissors

stapler or blu tack (optional)

template (Optional if you could draw well, you can draw on the reversed side of the paper directly.)

Materials

If you are using template, it is relatively easy. Just a few tips to guide you along.

1. As the design with I am cutting are all symmetrical, Just be sure that you align the template to the edge of the folded part of the red paper. Otherwise, you would get 2 pieces of the same template.

2. Staple the template together with the folded red paper. Be sure not to staple on the design itself, otherwise there would be holes on the cut out design. Just remember to cut out the area with the staples last, so that your template is secure throughout the cutting. If you are using blu-tack, the same thing applies.

 3. To cut straight lines, try to minimise arm movement by keeping the arm holding the scissors close to your body, move the paper with the other hand instead.

4. To cut holes within the deigns, you have to snip a small line in the hole. Make sure that the line is within the hole by checking the both edges of your scissors before you snip.

5. Be creative!

This was the set that I completed while attending a library programme.

Have fun!

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DIY Hair Clips

3 weeks ago, Little One and I made these hair clips. This was part of the hair accessory package which I bought a year ago. 

Materials required:

• Plain prong hair clips
• Ribbon (enough to cover both the inner part and outer part of metal hair clips) 
• desired appliqué (the package we bought comes with 2 flower appliqué and 2 fabric shankless button.)
• UHU glue.

Pardon the little hand and the  ribbon. Little One loves to photobomb.

Steps:

1. Secure the button on the plain flower appliqué using UHU glue.  Note this button is a shankless button so that it can be pasted on. If your button has metal shank, you can remove with a cutter or a pair of pliers. If you are not sticking buttons on appliqué, you may omit this step.

2. Glue the ribbon from inside the clip covering the outer part and then back in again. See below 2 photos for illustrations. I did 2 different type of lining. It would be easy to glue the ribbon than on the hairclip.

Secured button and gluing of  ribbon to hair clips

2 types of lining (I notice store bought hair clips are lined as per the one on the left, I did the one of the right because the ribbon that was provided was not long enough to line the inside of the clip) 

3. Attaching the appliqués onto the lined hair clips.

Ready for attachment!

Attaching the glue onto the ribbon. Unintentionally, Little One is telling you the glue cost S$1.30 .

Little One decided where exactly to paste the appliqué.

Done. Personally designed by Little One. 

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DIY your own hair band, Decorating a hair band

I bought this craft kit last year. It consist of a hair band set, a pair of hair tie set , a pair of hair clip set and a pair of ready made simple clips. It cost me $16. Finally, we find time and decided to make them together. We started with the hair band. This is the final outcome. Little One helped mainly with the pasting of button and the flower appliqué. She also decides on the positioning of the appliqué on the hair band. 

Materials required:

• Ribbon (Depending, for more info point 2 see below)
• Plain hair band
• Double sided tape (the kit I bought comes with secured double side tape at the top as well as around the 2 ends)
• desired appliqué (the package we bought comes with 3 flower appliqué and a fabric button.)
• UHU glue.

The craft kit we bought. A set of instructions were given to help us make the hair accessories.

Steps:

1. Secure the button on the plain flower appliqué using UHU glue.  Note this button is a shankless button so that it can be pasted on. If your button has metal shank, you can remove with a cutter or a pair of pliers. If you are not sticking buttons on appliqué, you may omit this step.

Little One sticking the button on the appliqué.

2. Prepare your ribbon. Depending on the design you are making with the ribbon on the hair band. You can wrap around like I did as per below. This would use about 2.5x the length of the hair band. To be exact, measure by wrapping around the band with no gaps in between and leaving enough ribbons for securing later.
If you do not want to wrap, you only need ribbon slightly longer than the hair band. In that case, it is best to use a ribbon that is about the same width as your band.

For both cases, it is recommended to leave enough ribbons for securing later.

Step 3 to 5

3. Stick the double sided tape starting from one of the inner end of the band to the outer side  then to the other end, complete by sticking all the way to the inner side of other side.

4. Slowly peel of the paper of the double sided tape and stick your ribbon on starting from the inside of the band. I find it easier to stick the ribbon on by peeling the paper off bit by bit.
If you are doing twirls, then wrap the ribbon round the band and make sure there is no gap in between. Using double side tape, it would be easier to correct your errors. Remember to leave enough ribbons at both ends.

5. Glue sealed the both ends of the ribbons. Notice I did different ways in my photo above. I was testing whether fraying would occur. On the left, I simply glued the ribbon on. On the right, I glued and folded the ribbon once  before gluing on the band. My test result is the ribbon did not fray when I folded but the one which I did not fold had slight fraying after wearing a couple of times.

6. Glue on your desired appliqué. Little One helped with this and it did get a little messy.

7. Leave overnight before wearing.

Ta-dah! Final look!

For alternate hair band ideas, visit A Happy Mum. She did with brads!

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Making your own scratch art

Remember the scratch art which we did some time ago? This time we are making our own scratch art and it is simple to do. All you need is just crayons. Yes, JUST crayons.

Colour the whole piece of paper with crayon. Just don't use black. After that, use black crayon to colour the whole sheet black. And you will have a piece of scratch art to do. 

Little One's artwork

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Threading Jewellery Beads

We are enjoying more and more sessions of threading recently.We had such tremendous fun that we are finishing the beads up soon! 

We got these beads from both Daiso and Pasar Malam. Both sets comes with threads. We tried making bracelets from both sets. The thread from Daiso is much thinner and is not stretchable. Hence, the first bracelet we made fell into pieces when we tried stretching it. It is better to use it to make long necklaces, bag accessories and pencil case accessories. The set we bought from Pasar Malam contains stretchable thread and it is very suitable for making bracelets, 

Threading is not just fun, it is good for motor skills development and pattern sequencing. Best of all, you can display what you created! For my case, cheap accessories for Little One. :P

Report Card:-

Suitable Age Group:- 4 and above.
Difficulty level: 1/5 (Level 1 being no or little help is required, Level 5 being very difficult)
Safety level : 5/5 (Level 1 being very unsafe, Level 5 being very safe, Beads are not suitable for young toddler. Supervision is required if you intend to let young children to play with them  )
Messiness: 3/5 (When spillage occurs, otherwise no mess at all)
Fun Level : 5/5

Her verdict?

This is fun! I can be pretty like a princess!

Look at her creation!, Does it look like a chain of gummy bears?

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We are Sewing again

I do not know why but when I saw the princess sewing kit which was suitable for 5+ years old, I could not help but buy it. That was 1 year ago and we only started sewing 10 months ago. What I like about this kit is that it has a safety needle (Tapestry needle) and hence as a parent, one does not need to worry about the child getting pricked by a sharp sewing needle while they attempt sewing. 

The sewing kit

However, I must admit teaching the child to sew is not an easy task. Little One could not understand the needle has to go through one hole and then come back through the adjacent hole from the other side (we were doing running stitches). Little One often sew through the same hole or a few holes down the row. Sometimes, she sewed slip stitches instead. Sometimes, she did not attempt to pull the yarn all the way through the hole before attempting another stitch. Sometimes, she sewed through only 1 piece of felt instead of 2.  Hence, I ended up having to undo her work and let her try again and again.

Her progress after 1 hour of sewing. The eyes and mouth done by me as demonstration. I think the "W"s for the crown are super hard for her to sew.

Another hour of work before we call it a day. This time it is a lot more progress. Notice she pull the yarn real tight!

We continued sewing on and off the following months. Little One was not truly interested in sewing, partly because I kept pointing out her faults. She gave up after some time. It was not until she saw me sewing little stuffs such as flowers and mini stuff toys than she picked up the interest again. That was when she started to request over and over again that she wants to sew again. We even did a test sewing with sharp needle on cards.

So, we start sewing again. When the body of the princess is almost stitched up, we started to stuff the doll. I demonstrated how to do stuffing. This is the fun part and Little One truly enjoy doing this herself!

Put in the stuffing

Push the stuffing in

Using a pencil (crayon in our case) to pushing the stuffing into the 4 limbs

Seal up the head by running stitches

Ta-dah! Finally done in 10 months time! Now she has a new soft toy to play with. I am proud to say she completed 75% of the doll + dress .

Tips on teaching a young kid to sew:

1. Patience, patience and more patience

Teaching children this young is not an easy task. Loads of patience is needed as you guide them along. They would make the same mistakes repeatedly. 

2. Let them make mistakes

Making mistakes is the process of learning

3. Do not give up

Probably they would give up because it may be tedious/difficult for them but you do not give up on them. Sew in front of them, rekindle their interest. They would be amazed with your work to be willing to try again.

4. Get them something cute to sew with

Probably this should be tip no. 1. Cute stuff tends to draw their attention and hence easier to ask them to complete the task.

Report Card:-

Suitable Age Group:- 5 and above.
Difficulty level: 3/5 (Level 1 being no or little help is required, Level 5 being very difficult)
Safety level : 5/5 (Level 1 being very unsafe, Level 5 being very safe.  )
Messiness: No mess
Fun Level : 4/5 (3 for Sewing and 1 more bonus point for stuffing .)

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image-in-ing

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Simple Ink Transfer

This is an interesting workshop by Mr Ray Chua which I had attended a couple of months ago. Transferring your digital images to create images like this. I apologise for this pretty small image.
All we need is an inkjet or a bubble-jet printer, waxed based paper, roller, sharp cutter and receiving medium such as matte paper (190g)

After printing the desired image on waxed paper, put it on top of the matte paper and roll on top of it with a roller. Press the roller hard and be careful not to move the papers at all.

After rolling, cut the end product with a cutter. Final product is the one at the bottom.

I have found some other ways of doing ink transfer but this, in my opinion, is the easiest way to do.


Tips: 

1.Rotate your image horizontally using your computer so that when it is transferred, it will be in the right orientation, especially so, if your image contains words.
2. Use Photoshop to make your image more vibrant, the transferred picture is usually not that bright. (Compare the differences in the above picture
 Top: printed directly on the matte paper, bottom : transferred from the waxed based paper )

Attached a video from You tube which showed similar way of transferring to a paper bag using used sticker label sheet.



With the simple technique, I think it would be a good idea test on different receiving medium such as to create pictures of your children on goodie bags, to create cards, scrapbook ideas, even just to frame it up as a portrait for your home.

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Making of a Yoyo button Hair Accessory

Little One has a dream. She loves being a princess. To her, princess has long beautiful, wear pretty dresses and wears nice shoes and accessories. It is not surprising that Little One would sometimes go wild when we went window shopping. She would go, "I want to have this, this and that... " 

We do not buy her everything, we would only buy what is needed. I admit we do occasionally indulge in some luxuries. For hair accessory, I would make some for her when I find the time.

This is one of which I had made for her, a Yoyo Button Hair Accessory. 

What you need:

Compass/ anything with a circular base of at least 4.5 to 5 times the diameter of your button

A button (I use 22mm Daiso Covered button)

Sewing thread (similar colour as your cloth or button)

Sewing needle

Elastic cord (I don't know whether this is the correct name)

Old clothes (recycling)

Pen

Steps:

1. Trace a circle of diameter about 4.5 to 5 times that of the button on the cloth with a pen. In this case, I could not get any stuff of 99mm. So I decided to make do with a 95mm (d) case and use that to trace.

If you do not have any thing suitable to trace, you can try drawing with a compass.

2. Sew running stitches around the edges.

3.. Tighten by pulling the thread tight into a "bun like" shape as demonstrated below.

4. Continue to sew the covered button (Little One made this) to attach to the "bun". Sew at least 5 stitches to firming attach the button to the "bun".

5. Cut the elastic cord to a desired length and tie a knot. Then, sew onto the other side of the "bun".

It's done!

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This post is part of the "Care for the Earth" series

• Care for the Earth (introduction)
• Our Green Library and Recommended Green Books. 
• Muse
• Making a Pinhole Camera (Craft)
• DIY card holder (Craft)
• "Lungs of the World" in Singapore
• Making a Yoyo Button Hair Accessory (Craft)
• A different birthday- a more down-to-Earth approach
• Celebrating Earth Day 

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