Holiday DIY Projects - Art&Crafts

There're so many creative things you can do with children, and the list is never exhaustive. We did a lot of projects together this school holidays, mostly with resources from our backyard. There's not much grass left on our garden, more like a weed jungle! We even started a project to identify the names of the weeds. The weeds also have their roles in the eco-system, so perhaps we should accept them as part of our garden plants? 

A few weeks before Christmas, the pine cones from our neighbour's tree started to fall in dozens every day. It has a very unique durian-like structure and we still didn't know the specie name yet! We've so much fun collecting them, in hundreds and hundreds....

...until we must think of something to do with them....

We put a hook on each of these cones and the boys made their imaginary creatures with them.

...like owls...

caterpillars, porcupine, bees, UFOs, monsters, etc etc

... we hung some of the cones on the Christmas tree...

Baby Jesus is born....

A friend was so kind to give the boys a few dozens of Sharpies pens. So, we took out the blank mugs and the boys drew Panda faces on them. The mugs were baked at very high temperature in the oven so that the colours would stay.

...we have lotsa origami papers, so it's time to use them!!

Dinosaurs, insects, birds, etc....

So we packed all of these things into our Christmas gift sets for our friends - we made 20 sets in total. Credits to the boys cos they worked really, really hard... especially the day before the deadline.

Life Cycle of the Army Green Moth

Another favourite project from our backyard is catching insects. We're very fortunate to stumble upon tis caterpillars again. They love the fragrant Jasmine leaves, and they will eat and eat until they can eat no more. They literally eat till they drop. We caught one of them this round and saw the 'metamorphosis'. 

Not far from our Jasmine shrubs, there's another one of their favourite hangout - the frangipani tree!

We've expected a butterfly or common moth, but when it came out, we saw a hawk-moth - shape of a sphinx and in army green colour!

We let it go...and it 'transforms' into a Super Hero to save the world thereafter!

Goodbye 2013 - Brandon's overview of what we did this year.

A DIY project does not need to be so sophisticated. Sometimes, I couldn't help but criticise their efforts, which made them frustrated. It's easy to send them to art & craft classes, but the process is so different. At home, we made use of things we already have, and one thing will lead to another - it's always very spontaneous and rewarding.

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