DIY Ang Pow Packet

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Posted by Merryn | Posted in Chinese New Year, Festive Crafts, Paper Crafts, Print Art | Posted on 30-01-2012 | 19,436 views

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I was a pre-school teacher when I was expecting my little artist Ethan. It was always my intention to continue teaching and remain in the working force. All that changed the moment I laid hand on my baby in the Operating Theatre. I submitted my resignation and vowed to be the best mother a mom can be to my son. I live with this mantra in my head – “A parent is a child’s first teacher”.

My love for art and crafts helps create that special bond between Ethan and I. We started crafting together when he was 12 months old and it helps in his motor and fine skills development tremendously. Initially we’ll hang up his masterpieces in the Art Room in the house. Overtime, we ran out of walls.

That is when crafty-crafted.com was born; to immortalize his artwork and also to share our ideas with other mommies out there. That was 3 years ago.

A week ago, we finally got ourselves a colour printer. We chose a HP colour inkjet printerI need not limit his creativity to only water paint and crayons anymore. He can now print out stuffs that he created online.

For a start, with the Chinese New Year around the corner Ethan did his first printing craftwork.

Personalised Ang Pow Packet

He personalised his very own red packets to be given to his grandparents. Let’s have a look at how he does it 😀


A+ #1 – First, choose a picture of the person you are giving the Ang Pow to. This is easily done by stalking their Facebook account 😛 I helped Ethan to get the pictures of my nieces from my sisters’ FB account and saved them in my PC.

A+ #2 – Ethan chose the pictures that he likes best and starts printing. Mind you, he did it all by himself as shown in the video at the end of this post!

A+ #3 – Quickly and silently, our new HP printer did the job. Excellent!

A+ #4 – Take an old Ang Pow packet and tear it open to be used as a template. Trace the outline according to the template.

A+ #5 – The personalised Ang Pow is slowly taking shape.

A+ #6 – Cut accordingly. Please assist your child if he has yet to master the art of cutting with a pair of scissors.

A+ #7 – The personalised Ang Pow cut out.

A+ #8 – Fold accordingly and paste.

A+ #9 – The personalised Ang Pow is done!

A+ #10 – Ethan personalised Ang Pows for all his cousin sisters and even did some of himself to be given to his grandparents 😀

Lovely isn’t it? We are highly impressed with the printout. It looked so natural and beautiful, we are definitely going to do more print art in the future!

I am an A+ mom and so can you!

Watch the video of Ethan printing his very own personalized Ang Pow.

Fridge Magnet : Dragon

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Posted by Merryn | Posted in Animal Crafts, Chinese New Year, Festive Crafts, Fridge Magnets | Posted on 16-01-2012 | 27,926 views

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Let’s make a Dragon art today 🙂

Dragon fridge magnet. 

Super simple and a fun craft to make. Print out a dragon head and a tail. I got the dragon head and tail template from here.

Paint them and cut when dry.

Cut a strip of paper and paste three magnets along it. Paste the strip of paper to the Dragon’s head and tail and the fridge magnet is done 😀

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

If you are looking for more simple DIY Chinese New Year decor, click here for lots and lots of Ang Pow decor tutorial.

Z for Zebra

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Posted by Merryn | Posted in Alphabets, Animal Crafts, Teaching Aid, Zebra | Posted on 06-01-2012 | 10,983 views

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I remembered my niece once shared with us a naughty little joke.

She asked, “What animal is very hamsup (cheeky)?”
Me: The LEMUR (King Julian) in Madagascar!
Hazel: WRONG!
Me: Then what?
Hazel: ZEBRA!  Coz zebra will un-ZIP and show off its BRA!

 

LoL! Cheeky little girl she was…

Today, let’s not be cheeky and make a zebra as a teaching aid instead. This is great to be used when introducing ABCs to the little one. I was in one of the localkindy around when I saw this on their Art Board so here we are reproducing the art work 🙂

I prepared a Z template and get the kids to use it to draw the outline.

Cut out the Z

Paint stripes on the letter Z

Paint a strip of paper black, let dry and cut little strips as the mane.

Paste the mane onto the Z, add ears and eyes and the ZEBRA is done! 🙂