//Handmade// Potato-Stamping Our Way into Christmas

Canadians have their Thanksgiving done way back in mid-October. So essentially after Halloween it's all about Christmas! Almost two full month of holiday preparation seems a bit overwhelming, but when all the shops and malls are all decked-out in red and green, we can not but feel a bit pressed to get started too!

This will be the first Christmas at our new home, and I really want it to be able to leave us with a very special memory. Everytime we have a themed project, I will scan through our entire house to see what mateirals are lying around and can be utilized. For the time being I have my eyes on the newsprint paper that came in the IKEA furniture boxes that were used to wrap the wood boards. They were pretty clean and wrinkle/tear free, so I saved them. Along with the 15lb bag of sale potatoes from the supermarket, I knew we were off to some stamping work!

I should look up who invented the whole potato stamp thing. It's really a simple craft that can let adults and children enjoy. It's easy to carve and strong enough to hold its shape, and very absorbent. Lots of fun to work with!

Prior to getting all Christmas-y, I stamped a picture for my good friend's birthday. Simply repeating the squares in opposite directions created a very organic and textured pattern. 

I actually made a mistake when working with the pattern, can you spot it? 

The birthday poster was done while the kids were at school. When they got home, we were ready to stamp the Christmas motifs! Acrylic/Ink pads on newsprint isn't exactly the most exquisite mix of materials, but we can still create the visual effect while having fun and being very economical.

Even the used stamps put together look so decorative! Too bad these cut/inked potatoes can't really last sitting on the counter.

These long Christmas posters replaced the previous Halloween-themed one and turned our home into holiday mode!

And of course I wasn't about to throw the excess printed paper away. I cut out some areas and glued them onto cereal boxes, and immediately they turned into lovely decorative cards.

Salvaging the last bit - a cheap Ikea frame can do wonders!

So the holiday craft craze has begun. Now I think it's good that we get two months, otherwise we need to call out to Santa's elfs for help!

//Townhouse Accessorization// Finally, a Photo Gallery

I've always longed for having a photo gallery in my home. Those thoughtfully curated galleries found in books, restaurants, friends' houses are all so inspiring, and really says to who ever sees it who you are. I finally got the chance to work on my very first photo gallery, so excited! 

The corner leading to the staircase is the best place to make this display. In order to get started, I brought back from Taiwan our first studio shot family portrait to North Vancouver, and found a frame that fit it. (Oddly it wasn't that easy! This studio printed photo was not a standard size, and I really didn't want to cut it.) And then I found this frame combo from Bed Bath&Beyond that had a good combination of 8 frames. This saved me a lot of trouble finding and deciding on different frames (and money of course!) The combo and the frame for our first family portrait were all in black and white, which will work well together and match our wall and floor color. 

Before I started picking out photos and mounting those frames, I hung the family portrait up. Every time I walked by it, its loneliness reminded me to hurry up and get on with the project!

Then it came the fun part of actually selecting the photos for printing. I only had photos from our past year in Canada to choose from, as all the digital data was still in Taiwan. Even so it took me hours and hours to go through every folder, and get caught in mesmerising myself in the memories of each picture in the mean time.

Every photo gallery has its own message and style. For me, I wanted it to be about 'family' and 'people'. The photos had to be people-themed, included all the close ones in our family, and the faces had to be clear/fairly-exposed/well-focused. Also, since it's a selection from our past year in Canada, I wanted to pick pictures that showcased the seasons and natural beauty of the land. When it came to the final cut, I also had to consider being 'fair' to the twins and that they appear in equal number of pictures. And of course  I wanted to include a picture of me and hubby to showcase everyone that even though we are not living together at the moment, we are very much together!

So, only 9 photos took me countless hours to select.

When picking out the photos, there was another important factor to consider, which was the frames' given sizes and their landscape/portrait orientation. In order to make my first photo gallery a success and avoid printing out the wrong pictures/spend unnecessary money, I even made a sketch of the gallery. This drawing may not mean a thing to anyone, but I am very much moved by it! Not saying that the gallery is a master piece, but it is made with my heart and soul. (Had a good laugh showing hubby the drawing over Skype and asking him which pictures are referred.)

Since I spent so much effort on selecting the photos, I thought I'd share the runner-ups that didn't make the final cut! Just looking at the sea of photos makes me want to pat myself on the back, I really worked hard on capturing every moment of our life here, with a little point and shoot camera too!

After a big round of hammering, we're done! I could have done a little better with the measurements, but the result is satisfactory. After all, I am much more competent at maneuvering a vacuum or pencil than a hammer!

To compliment the gallery, I added this Hoot Stool to make the look more complete. 

I am a little hesitant at showing our entire living room at this point, but a picture taken at a wider angle will better showcase how the gallery plays in the space.

Happy twins and cheery photo gallery. Mission completed!

//Living// 2012 Halloween!

 Being their second Halloween here in Canada, the kids now have a very clear idea of what to expect. In fact they've been looking forward to Halloween right after the one last year! I was answering them "How long till Halloween? Well, 11 months." That's how much anticipation there was.

This photo was taken at the school's annual Halloween Howl. Elementary kids don't really do "dances", so this once a year night out and dress up event at the school really gets everyone to make their best effort.

We began our Halloween-making on a weekend in early October. We started by doing a cut-and-paste piece for the little window besides our front door. I knew when we moved in that I won't make a custom blind for that window, that was where we would be making our seasonal creations! The little piece looked cute from the outside, and with the lights casting in, looked pretty neat from the inside too!

Of course we won't skip making a LEGO decoration piece. See those spooky eyes peeking from behind? 

Then of course there was the pumpkin patch. We did the famous Richmond pumpkin patch last year, and that was good enough for me. Essentially it was the pumpking that mattered, I wasn't about to fight in the mud with the weather being even wetter than last year. Got our pumpkin picked in 3 minutes in West Vancouver! Although it wasn't until the day before Halloween I realized that we didn't even carve them! Well I've made quite an effort at this year's Halloween too, so I think we're good with leaving them uncarved and sitting on the porch looking orangy and autumn-y. 

What's Halloween without a costume? Kai-Chi's got her Cinderella dress since she was about 2, and finally this year she can fit into them without appearing like she's in a large bag, so that's that. We had a much longer discussion with Kai-Yu about what he could be.

We didn't like any of the cheap costumes at the stores and I sure wasn't going to spend a fortune on something that was probably going to be worn only once. So I quickly scanned through the house to see what material we could possibly utilize to make his costume, and BINGO! "Kai-Yu, how would you like to be a robot?" "Certainly!" Out with the IKEA dining chair boxes I saved, and on with our robot-making project.

After cutting the box in half and carving some holes in them, the costume was basically done. The painting and decorating was a piece of cake. Oh how I love making something so simple yet creates a great effect!

The robot looks so funny! But our son is the fun guy to everyone, so he really enjoyed being in the costume! And he's always in character when he's in it. Can't get anything from him except  some "beep's" and "boink's".

Definitely the most eye-catching costume at school this year, he really deserved this trophy. The first one he's ever got too!

 Of course our little princess played her part so well too. All her natural grace and ballet training came into place. Such a precious little darling!

At the after school Tae Kwon Do class, everyone was allowed to wear their costume. Kai-Yu was a little upset because he knew he couldn't really kick and punch as a robot, so I whipped out my face painting crayons and transformed him into a zombie in 3 minutes. Then he was very much a zombie doing TKD. What a cute kid.

Whatever we did to decorate our house was nothing compare to some very devoted Halloweeners and their homes. I was not about to put creepy ghost figures and skeletons at my door step, but I did find these whimsical wall decals at the Chinese supermarket. These are probably generic Halloween stuff, but they looked so oriental, like the window paper art we do for Chinese New Year! I doubt they picked it out because they found it looking oriental, but it worked perfect!

Can't conclude a Halloween without trick-or-treating. The rain was definitely not in our favor, but luckily we've moved to a neighborhood consists of townhouses, so we scored what we needed in less than 20 minutes! The kids were very content with a small bag of goodies.

Halloween sure is something that gets the parents to work like crazy. I can just hear them asking me in a couple of days, "Mom, how long 'til the next Halloween?"

//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!