//Handmade// Our First Co-Creation!

This is the first painting to have our three signatures on it! The painting itself is nothing extraordinary, but the process of creating something wiht the kids was what's precious about this project.

We discussed the theme of the painting - something 'cute' and incorporates our love for plants and birds. After transferring the sketch onto the canvas, I cut out a bunch of stencils and painted the base of the canvas.

Filling a stencil may seem a bit mindless, but as the stencils were cut from cereal boxes, they didn't lay all that flat on the canvas. I had to really stress to the kids on stroke direction in order to not have the paint bleed under the stencil. Also, I used our recent favorite picture book as an example to show them how mixing lighter and darker shades on one object will make it appear to have more dimension. They had fun experimenting with mixing different shades, and Kai-Yu even said "wow the vases look so real!" Such a flatterer.

There were also some parts of the painting that was not done through the stencils. But the real challenge, I felt, was marking down that signature! Stroke pressure, letter sizes and spacing were still a bit diffcult for them. We'll need to practice more!

The kiddos were quite pleased with the finished proejct! And I overcame my fear for drilling, successfully mounted hooks and wire on the canvas and nailed it on the wall! I know this is nothing to be proud of, but I feel very accomplished.

We decided to hang the painting on the living room wall across from the fireplace. We currently only have a side table from IKEA and a decorative lamp from Urban Barn. Now there's a painting on the wall, we can shift our focal point upwards to avoid constantly noticing the modem and wire clutter underneath the side table.

If you think we're all done here and about to recycle all the stencils, then you don't really know us. How could I not make use of the positive space of the stencils?  Now these colored vases and the bird that's got lots of questions made the space in front of my desk so much more fun and interesting to look at!

//Playtime// The Chestnut Project

Since we spent all that effort on collecting these chestnuts (well, not THAT much effort really..., it was the most easy harvest possible), and found them too bitter and unedible, we decided to create something with them to showcase these nuts' natural loveliness.

We went with the most simple and straight-forward subject - a "beaded" necklace. In order to make a necklace, drilling a hole in the chestnut was therefore unavoidable. I am pretty much a "power-tool-phobic", can't stand having a drill in my hand. But what choice did I have? A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do. These nuts were in fact quite hard! After finding the best way to grip the chestnuts and the right angle to put the drill in, it was not so fightening after all. A phobia conquered! Hooray!

Next, the easy peasy beading. We pulled out our big jar of cheap shiny plastic beads to go with the chestnuts, and the necklace did end up looking quite convincing!

We all agreed that the necklace looks like something a polynesian would wear. The kids of course didn't put it this way, they said "the guy that dances hula hula". Right to the point they were. Kai-Chi found herself looking pretty amusing having the necklace crowning her head, and couldn't stop laughing.

When we finished making the necklace, it was night time already. I took a couple more photos in daylight to showcase the project better. A simple yet fun experience for us all, and most excitingly, I am down to 5/6 of my chestnut harvest!

//Playtime// the Chestnut Harvest

While autumn chestnuts may be a very common thing in North America, being our first season to encounter them, we are very excited and got a bit carried away with the chestnut collection this past weekend. Look at the big tin full of chestnuts! Aren't we well stocked for winter..., wait, that's a squirrel thing. Not to worry furry little ones, there are still plenty on the ground.

I've been admiring these huge trees since we got here last year, the branches so vast and leaves so thick. These photos were taken in May when the trees were blossoming. Of course I had no idea at that time that they were chestnut trees.

Actually I have noticed these prickly skins and nuts on the ground last fall, but I didn't pay attention to where they came from, and treated the occasionally found few nuts like treasure, put the half dozen or so chestnuts in a jar as part of our nature collection. This year we moved to right across from these gigantic trees, it would be really silly of us to not figure out where the nuts are grown.

The nuts may not be noticeable at first glace, but once we noticed one, we could spot countless others on the tree. Now as we enter the full harvest season, we not only see the sea of chestnuts lying on the ground, often we can spot one dropping down. Luckily none of us have been hit by one of these sharp things on the head! However I did hear a few loud bangs as the nuts hit the parked cars sometimes. Hope it didn't leave a dent!

The outer skin of the chestnut would slit lengthways when it matures, and when it drops the nut inside would bump out. The few that didn't open all the way can be easily peeled (with a few ouches on the fingertips) and the nut will come right out as well.

Those that landed in the park were all whole and well, but the ones that got on the streets weren't so lucky! Look at this crushed-nut party! It isn't exactly "nasty" but still makes me feel a little bit sad, seeing the pretty little things all got run over by cars.

As for our little harvest, we were only going to pick a few to add to our collection for display, but the other day I read this "'tis the season for roasted chestnuts" status update from a friend on Facebook, then it suddenly occured to me, why don't we roast these too? Hence the little hands got a lot more busier.

There were just way too many chestnuts, we quickly filled our hands. Luckily we stopped by a charity flea market earlier that day and got these flower pots, but they overflowed in seconds too!

So then out came the big tin pot we bought, and how easily we filled that up too. The thing with collecting chestnuts was that once we started, it was hard to stop! Because when we thought we have pretty much picked what we liked from this little patch of ground, stood up to take a breath, look down again and we would see there are still so many! Finally we pulled ourselves away from the park with a harvest that the kids could barely carry.

Most chestnuts have one nut inside the prickly skin, but some have multi nuts. We loved the twin nut we found! Gotta bring this one home with the skin attached.

Look at this huge collection! I feel so happy and content by just putting my hands into them and play around with the nuts. I guess this is the true feeling of a good harvest. I'm going to save a bunch as my "pressure relief gadget"! Fiddling with the nuts and listen to the gentle rumble as they get stirred is so soothing.

Finally, after our way overload harvest, we are ready to roast a test batch. I followed a recipe found online: wash the chestnuts and make one slit with a knife, the slit has to be deep enough so you can just see the inside of the chestnut. Put the chestnuts into cold water, bring the water to just before full boil, remove the chestnut from the water, put them on a pan and bake in 425 degrees for 15 miuntes.

As the chestnuts were roasting, we could see the slits opening up, and thick and fragrant serum running out from the nuts, looking absolutely yummy. I also learned that the slit on the chestnut had to be long enough though, as one of the chestnut bursted in the oven due to the opening being too small, one corner of the oven got covered in chestnut dust!

Don't they look delicious? I can smell the chestnut fragrance just by looking at the picture! We really had to hold our temptation to pop these right into our mouths and let it cool a bit.

I peeled the chestnuts open, and although they didn't pop right out as a whole as did in the tutorial, the dense and creamy texture still looked every bit delightful.

Now, the moment of truth. Kai-Chi's expression tells the ending of the story very well. Even though she acted this out afterwards, she did a great job re-portraying the moment!

These chestnuts are BITTER! And not just any bitter, it was a kind of bitterness I have never experienced. I ate a little bit first, and found it quite bitter, and thought it was just a bad nut thing, and tried a couple more. And the three tiny bites was all it took to let me know for sure that these are not for human consumption. So profound and literally spearing, I had a headache after those tiny bits exploded in my mouth with bitterness! Thankfully I baked some brownies the day before, I shuffled a huge piece into my mouth, along with a big scoop of ice cream and some chocolate candies, and only then did I feel not so aweful. The kids were experimental enough to try a even tinier bit before my big realization, and of course got frowny faces. Thank god they didn't eat as much as I did, or I would run out of sugar in my house in no time! I got a cut on my figer while slitting the nuts, a burn on my wrist while roasting them, for what?

Lesson learned: do not take someone else's food! Ok, I will put most of the chestnuts back on the grass, but I will also use my hands, instead of my mouth, to create something with these lovely gems, because they're just really pretty. So until the next chestnut craft post then!

//Townhouse Accessorization// Touching Up the Dining Room with Colors

The dining room is my favorite part in this townhouse right now.  The awning window brings in so much light, and although it's a rather busy street out there, thanks to the thick cherry blossom trees, we are separated from the hustle and bustle just enough.

Before we got this townhouse, I walked by here quite often, and was amazed by the luscious cherry blossoms this past spring. Little did I know, a few months later I would be living in one of these structures generously surrounded by the beautiful trees. Once again I am so grateful to be able to live here, and really appreciate all the wonders nature brings to us.

I wanted to add an artwork to our dining room wall, and hence spent quite some time browsing for inspirations. Basically I know that I want something geometric, bold and abstract, but didn't have a concrete plan. Then I came across this image one day, and knew right away this was what I would paint! Simple yet powerful, the image leaves room for imagination. Perfect!

Transferring the image from the screen onto the canvas wasn't rocket science, although in order to get the right size and proportion, I did have to redo it.

After I had the composition laid out, the rest of the project was almost pure mechanical. Simply use painter's tape to block the same colored areas, color with acrylic paint, let dry and move on to the next. However as the image had some rather sharp corners, trimming the tape to fit these fine edges required the most work. Also, the reds had a far less coverage than the blues, so I had to work the red areas several times to achieve the desired coverage. The blues were so simple! One coat of paint and voila! So neat and saturated. Wonder if this difference is an acrylic paint thing or a cheap paint thing? :P

The left image shows an almost-done painting. The paint did bleed through the painter's tape a little, so I had to do a little touch up of white paint along the outer edges of the colored part.

The finished painting does produce a feeling of dimension and depth, I'm quite happy with the result. Big thanks to the master minds in cyber space that are willing to shaire their genius!

After the painting was hung on the wall, I found that it did match the dining room rather well. When I picked the dining room furniture, I was very conservative and stayed with subtle colors, as I was afraid that anything too bold or colorful may go out of style our I may get tired of it soon. However, I wanted to be a bit more risky with the accessories, since they are smaller and of course less pricy.

Our all-IKEA dining room started out all calm and neutral, and now with the bursts of colors suddenly there's a lot more life to the space. And since the painting has the red&blue tone, I extended it with a brighter twist by adding the magenta seat cushions and turqoise place mats.

The dining room faces south, so whenever it's sunny there's direct sun light in the room. Having these warm rays right in the house is one of the biggest factors that drew me into this place. The hues of the room is quite dramatically different with or without sunlight. Although here on the West Coast we can't ask for too much sun besides the summer, it's just wonderful to be able to expect the brightness in the room whenever it is sunny. The natural light brings me so much joy.

The day before I took the photos, I stopped by my previous rented residence and said hi to the nice Germany old lady who lived next door. She was so kind to us all last year, and that day she asked me to pick the apples from the tree in the front yard. She said that a black bear was getting into them and both her and the new tenants in my previous home spotted the bear. Although sighting a bear sounded pretty cool, I thought staying safe may just be cooler. I was very content with our little harvest.

As the last bit of autumn sunlight hit the colorful dining table, I feel ready to add more colors into our home.

//Handmade// Simple Wall Decor with Elements from Nature

Having a home that I can decorate from scratch has always been one of my dreams. I have been fortunate enough to have a place to live and acquired a lot of hand-me-down furniture for the past 10 years of my married life. While it's great not having to spend a fortune on the house and home funishings, our previous home just lacked a sense of style and looked like pieces thrown in together to make the place liveable.

At our new home in North Vancouver, I am able to start fresh. Yes this means digging into our savings but the process of piecing everything together for this townhouse has been quite an amazing ride too.

For this post I would like to share an artwork that is so simple yet has such an impact, brings life to an otherwise very plain wall. 

I found this via pinterest, and knew right away that this was something I will make. The original source was in Russian, but I think the pictures pretty much explained everything. I started with 4 blank canvases, hung them on the wall first to see how I will organize the colors and lay out my objects.

Besides the canvases, I also needed some paint, a bottle of spray paint (I used gold as in the source) and some found leaves/sticks/flowers.

I prepped the canvases with acrylic paint. It's been a long time after art school that I messed around with actual paint, let alone a piece of canvas. (I was in communication design so pretty much had my nose glued to the computer after freshman year) I used the cheap paint from Michaels and it worked fine. One thing I discovered was that the hues from the red color family do not have the same saturation/coverage as the cold colors, so for instance the magenta needed more coats and more colors mixed in to have the canvas covered completely, whereas the blues only needed a simple coat. My favorite mix was the grass green color, as when I saw that the essentially rather pretty grass green out of the tube had very weak coverage, I mixed in a bunch of different greens/blue/yellow to make it work. Gotta thank my color theory teacher!

Then there was the fun part of collecting leaves/ferns/flowers for the actual composition. This is the one part of the project where and 'artistic eye' was needed, and also having to keep in mind to find objects that had an interesting enough shape as well as a flat enough surface so when it got spray painted the silhouette would be clear enough. Speaking of spray paint, which many home craft makers are masters at, it was almost a bit intimidating as I have nevery really used it before.

The distance of the spray paint can to the canvas was the key. If sprayed it too close the fragile leaves would be blown away from the canvas, but if sprayed too far then it's very hard to saturate the canvas with spray paint.

I failed my grass green canvas, twice, actually, as the first time I picked an obejet that didn't have enough of a flat surface so the shape couldn't show, and the second time I held the paint too close to the canvas and messed up the composition. Talk about learning from mistakes!

The finised products, however, was fairly satisfactory. The metellic paint reflects the abundant light coming from the big bedroom window, and add a bit of lux to our room.

The dandellion piece is my favorite one. The stems were so fine that I was really afraid that they won't show after I spray-painted them, but to my delight it showed just enough so I could see its shape, yet the fuzziness around the edges adds dimension and depth. And the same thing happened with the pine branch too.

The fern turned out nicely too, and my third attempt on the green one finally had an acceptable appearance.

Now, with all the lovely pieces in place, (yes, loving my lamp and waiting-a-photo-to-be-chosen-to-put-in picture frame acquired from Home Sense) I finally have a bedroom that I feel like spending time in.

Huge thumbs up to the craft makers out there bringing so much inspiration and ideas to me!