Japanese Paper Doll with Kids

I found a pack of pretty Japanese paper from Daiso while I was spring cleaning the boys' study room. Through this spring cleaning, I realised they have lots of construction paper, origami paper, coloured paper of all sorts that is more than enough to last them a lifetime. I'm the guilty one, of course. I often can't resist purchasing craft supplies and thought we should always keep a good supply for our crafts. However, I didn't know the daily crafts and activities we used to do is not possible once they enter formal school. The mornings before school were spent on school related work and revision. Any time that's left is their precious free time. I'm usually beat after I go through their work with them too.

Rewind... back to the Japanese paper. I don't know what to do with these beautiful paper and googled for "Japanese Paper Craft". Images of pretty Japanese paper dolls were all over the screen. I wasn't sure if my boys will be interested to do that with me as they are at this "Eeee... it's so girl girl..." stage. So, I decided to give it a try myself. To my surprise, the boys were excited to see the paper and wanted to have a part.

I found a few website that gives a good tutorial and I followed the one on Omiyage. Being bad at following instructions, I didn't cut out the measurements as indicated in the tutorial. I just estimated the size and thickness and went with what I thought is ok. And it was easy!

The boys chose the paper they want to use for the collar, the dress, the band, etc. They were the designer while I'm the "seamstress", doing the cutting and folding. We have one thing in common, we love pretty clothes.

We came to the head part and though most of the pictures we saw had no facial features, they wanted to draw. Y even wanted to draw the hair. So these are the 2 versions. I was laughing at K's potato nose (we started reading Pippi Longstocking.. lol) on his doll. Y wanted it to be a puppet and we attached a straw behind it and they had fun playing with it. I agree with them that it's nicer to have facial features and made another 2 myself.

Here's some basic steps to making your own Japanese paper doll. There are lots of detailed tutorial online like the one at Omiyage.

I really liked how these dolls turn out. And I liked that my boys love them too. They can be bookmarks, stick a magnet piece to the back and turn it into a magnet or attach a stick or straw like my boys to have a puppet. I think they make great gifts too.

Cardboard Car

Both my boys were down with HFMD last week. But I'm happy that other than the few dreadful days of very bad ulcers that's affecting meal times for K, we had been busy creating and learning. It's been a while since we did so many activities. Our no school mornings are spent creating and playing. The activities were all child directed and I became their slaves.

On this day...

K: Mummy, let's build a cardboard car.
Me: (thought bubble: "Let's"?? You mean "me" Nooooo....) Let's do some other things, how about watching the Cars movie? (wrong move)
K: I want to build Lightning Mcqueen! Ka Chow!
Y: I want to build The King!
Me: (thought bubble: Ok, we have cardboards... maybe it's not that difficult to do afterall) Alright, let's see what we need.

Their persistence paid off and once I got my butt off from the sofa, we were on the roll.

What You Need:
Carton Box
Paint
Brushes
Pen Knife
Markers
White Paper
Construction Paper

I got 2 carton boxes and cut off 3 sides of the flap for the top, leaving one side for the car front. All 4 flaps at the bottom are removed.

   Cut a small rectangle at the sides as a handle for the kid to hold.

Then it's time to get the rascals to work.

I printed out the car number 43 for The King and got the graphic online for Lightning Mcqueen. Cut them out and paste it at the side.

My "designers" had a hard time deciding on the design of their car wheels. They had an even harder time trying to express what they want to me. But we sorted it out in the end and I thought they looked good. I kept the cardboard pieces that I cut out earlier for the wheels. Cut the circles and parts out of construction paper and the boys were responsible for putting them together.

For the front of the car, I cut a piece of White paper to paste over to draw the eyes. Y wanted a "serious" look. He drew a dinosaur (looked nothing like one) for the Dinoco sign and we found a Rusteze stickers for Lightning Mcqueen. I drew the eyes and mouth for Y while K drew everything on his own.

The boys were so happy with their cars and they wanted to bring to school as their Chinese learning theme is Cars. K asked his teacher for permission to bring to school. She agreed and so I let them drive to school today.

Glittery Bottles

Y was in the middle of a meltdown when I carried him to my study room and while he was struggling, he hit the mouse and this page appeared on my screen.

It was god sent.

Me: hey, look at this, let’s make a glitter bottle!
Y: Glitter bottle?

starts to wipe his tears and slowly calming down.

Y: Mummy… what’s a glitter bottle?
Me: Oh! Hrm… It’s a bottle… with glitter! Let’s get some glitter!

As I rummage through my craft shelf, ops…. no glitter. I think we have used it all up during our last messy painting session. 

Me: Oh… we have run out of glitter.
Y: I want glitter bottle.
Me: There’s no more glitter, let’s do other activities…
Y (starting to cry again): I WANT GLITTER BOTTLE!!!!

BIG OPS.

Me: Oh I know! It’s not going to be a glitter bottle, it’s a glittery bottle!
Y: I want a glittery bottle.

Great.. So I went round the house to look for something for our glittery bottle and thankfully he waited patiently. Here’s what I found. 



What You Need:
Glittery paper/ribbons cut into small pieces
Empty bottles (I used mineral water bottle)
Beads
Paint
Water
Oil
Masking Tape/Duct Tape (to tape the bottle cap)

Method:
Just pour everything in and add water and oil. The water and oil ratio can vary. I find that 1/3 water and 2/3 oil is great. So you get the lava lamp effect. Don’t let your kids mix too much paint. The boys wanted so many colors and we just got ugly brown bottles. 

Luckily I remember I have some shimmering ribbons for the bottle. This add a nice effect to the bottle.

They can practice their pouring for fine motor skills too.

Y, exploring his glitter bottle. He wanted to make more but we don't have any more empty plastic bottle.

Pegs Match Game

Completed these in 5 mins to get my twins up the high chair for lunch, all with available materials on my dining table. I just gave myself away. Now you can imagine the kind of junk and clutter I have on my dining table!

Things You Need:

• Index Cards or any card stock
• Wooden Clothes Pegs
• 2 sets of stickers

Methods:
Just paste 1 set of stickers on the card and the other set on the pegs. Tata!

Kept them occupied for a while and we had a cooperative meal.

Homemade Toys: Gone Fishing

What You Need:
Some papers or you can use your child’s masterpieces
Magnets
String/Ribbon
Stick (I used disposable chopsticks)
Scissors
Markers (to draw the sea animals)
Paper Clips (to attach to the sea animals)

Method:
Draw the sea animals on your children’s artwork or paper.

Cut out the shape of the sea animals with a scissors. Attach the magnet to the string/ribbon and tie the other end of the ribbon to the stick. Also clip the paper clips to the sea animals you have. Tata! You are ready to go fishing.

Pretend Play

As the boys reached 2.5 years old, pretend play is what they do all day. These are times when I truly appreciate them being twins as pretend play is so much more fun with a mate.

They referred to our book bin as the library and "drove" their buses to it. I helped them set up an "electronic" borrowing station similar to our library.

How did my laundry basket become a supermarket trolley?

Photo Shapes Puzzle

I was inspired by Pink and Green Mama with her Homemade Christmas Gift. I used this Shapes Photo Puzzle to lure my sleep fighting 2 years old in to the bedroom for their naptime. It's hard to get them in the bathroom and it's harder to get them in the bedroom as they know it's going to be sleep after books. So, again, I had to crack my brain to think of ways to lure them in. This was really easy and I finished it when they were in school.

I did it a bit differently. It was not meant to be a gift and I want to be able to use the puzzle again. So, I laminated the photos. I did the first version just using paper though.

What You Need:
A Shape Puzzle
Photos of family members
Laminator (optional, just print on card stock if you don't have one)

Method:

1. Find portraits of family members.
2. Resize accordingly and print them.
3. Laminate.
4. Use the shapes to trace the photos for the puzzle holes.
5. Cut 
6. Put them in the puzzle and cover with the inset.

I played Peeka-Boo with them with the puzzle and they were so surprised to see photos of family members in them! They were thrilled! And we had a lot of fun. Here are variations to add some learning elements to this.

• Play Memory Games 

- After showing them a round of the photos, I put all the insets back and ask them who is behind each shape. They got them all correct!

• Photo Hunt

- I asked them where is Papa and they are supposed to pick up the inset to reveal the photo under it.

• Put the photos back

- This was by accident and they were giggling so much over it. One of the photos fell out and they were laughing and shouting "Mummy fall out!" and they went on to make all the other people "fall". To make it "educational", I made them tell me what shape the family member fell from. And after taking them all out, I asked that they put them back to the respective shapes and name them. So, it's "Popo in an oval" and "Kor Kor in a square", etc.

What I like about not sticking the photos on the puzzles is that I can always change them and change the sequence for more memory games and keep the interest high.

Homemade Toys - Car Ramp

I hope I'm not boring you guys with all the cars related activities. I don't have much choice because my boys simply love cars and all things related to transportation.

My husband said we should look out for car ramp toys for the boys to play with. I checked out some and I thought they are pretty expensive. We could probably get one for them since their birthday is just around the corner but I thought why don't we built one ourselves?! So, on rainy afternoon with 2 boys that are dying of boredom, we built a simple ramp out of kitchen towel rolls and masking tape. It was flimsy and it didn't last for more than an hour. The next day, we improvised and built this.

I'm not creative nor artsy but I hope to share with my boys that we can create our playthings. Just like during my parents' time when toys are considered a luxury and they created their playthings with leaves and twigs. It's something that city kids don't get a chance to, including myself when I was a kid. To "de-urbanized" is really hard for us in a small city like Singapore. 

What You Need:
Cardboards
Box
Masking Tape
Toy Trees
Markers
Newspaper

Method:
(1) I filled the empty box with some newspaper for some weight. You might not need to do this but I had to because the boys like to sit on the box.

(2) I folded the cardboard for the "wall".

(3) Tape the cardboard ramp to the box.

(4) Make some road drawings on the box, put some deco like toy trees, etc.

(5) Get your cars out for some fun!

Pardon my drawing on the box. I can't draw. The boys always have very challenging drawing requests and I just have to tell them Mummy doesn't really know how to draw that but I can try. They make me very happy when they tell me what I am drawing when I can't even recognize it myself. And these days, when I'm stumped with another challenging drawing request, they boys say "Mummy try" while I'm struggling to draw something that I don't even have an idea of how to start.