clay play

My little one came ricocheting up the aisle of the art store with a colorful box tucked under his arm and one of those smiles that lets me know I'm probably about to buy something. The box turned out to be a set of Sculpey polymer clay and his smile was right ~ we bought it and brought it home to play.

He made these little finger friendlies and I made some flowers and random shapes and attached magnets to them. (I won't share them yet as I plan to send some in mail art packages to friends.)

It's always fun spending creative time with kids as they let their imaginations go and don't hold back. His unchecked enthusiasm encouraged me to do the same!

wedding {handmade details}

My sister's wedding was a small and sweet affair in the garden with many people contributing their talents to make it personal, pretty and (in some cases) delicious!

Our friend Cooper took the photos and another friend made the bouquets...

My mum made the vases and several family members and friends helped arrange and hang decorative bouquets ~ these flowers came from another friend's garden...

(The wine cork is the pull handle to open the gate.)

My mum also made 100 cups for guests to drink from and take home as favors. The "P & T heart" stamp was carved by my step-dad.

The sketch I made when they got engaged marked the entrance so guests would know they arrived at the right place. We also put a fancier version in a large photo frame with plenty of mat surrounding where they could sign in ~like a guest book~ with a special message to the couple.

I folded many origami cranes to decorate the tables and pamphlet-stitched the wedding program that I designed for the happy couple. I printed it on a beautiful, slightly metallic paper that doesn't quite show in the photo.

Our friend Terry not only cooked almost all the amazing food, but she also made the cake bites. These are the bride & groom bites that graced the top of the tower.

I don't have any pictures of the handmade washi paper pennants I made that hung about to lend a festive air. But there this shot of some of the photos that we hung about showing the couple in their younger years. These were a nice way to share some history and also sparked some fun conversations.

It was a beautiful and very happy wedding day! It was heartwarming to see all the people that cared so much and gave so much of their time and handmade contributions to make it perfect.

mother's day

Visited my mom on Mother's Day and brought her a big hydrangea for her garden. I gave her one last year and it has totally thrived for her, whereas the one in my yard is barely hanging on. There are still things I can learn from her. ^_^

Her garden is getting all dressed up for my sister's wedding, so we all showed up with ideas for the decorations and tried out tablecloths, runners, flower arrangements, etc.

My mom has made a number of little basket vases so we cut some roses from the yard and trimmed some greenery from another bush to give ourselves an idea of how the table bouquets could look. My sister was happy.

 

As you can see, there are also some origami cranes in the arrangement. They are symbols of good fortune so many Japanese American weddings feature cranes in the decor. I've been folding so many for Japan Relief (Intuit is now paying $1 each to Japan's recovery through the month of May!) and now I'm also trying to fold 1,000 cranes for the wedding. Soon my right thumbnail may have a little indention from scoring the paper folds ~ I hope not!

The wedding is a relatively cozy affair but there's still so much to do! I've laid out a basic design for the wedding program, which will probably be a simply bound little booklet with a washi paper cover and some embossed flowers inside. I don't know how to letterpress yet, so this will have to be printed on the regular ole printer ~ too bad ~ but it can still be cute.

I'm also responsible for the guest sign-in frame or book. The couple liked the quick sketch I made of them when they announced their engagement, so it may feature a more polished and colorful version. It's a little casual in look, but since it's a garden wedding it seems OK...

My mother has been really amazing ~ she made all the basket vases plus 100 clay wine cups for the guests to use and take home as favors. They're all glazed in white and have a little stamp on them that she carved to look like a heart, but if you look closely you see it is also a P and T for the couple's initials. Very sweet! My mom is awesome.

♥✿❀♡

As a mother myself, I received a beautiful orchid, a T-shirt with Naruto and Sasuke characters hand-drawn on the sleeve, two little clay bunnies with a clay bush for them to hop around, a rainbow colored ribbon and a song played on the guitar for me that was invented on the spot and had lines like, "Mom! Is the best in the whole wide world!!" and wasn't too hard to listen to. :)

❀♡♥✿❀♡♥✿

 

clay bunnies

Mama Bunny

 Yesterday we had lunch and a nice family afternoon at my mom's house. The last time we visited she was working in her pottery studio and helped my son and I make clay bunnies for our garden. Today we saw that they had gone through their first firing and are turning out to be pretty cute!

After the first firing, we have the choice of using acrylic paint on them (like I did with this chicken) or glazing them and putting them through a second firing in the kiln. Since the bunnies were originally my son's idea I let him decide and he picked glaze. So we're going to glaze them white, which means we have to wait a little bit longer to take them home ~ probably in a couple of weeks.

There are three bunnies and the mama is hollow so the babies can hide under her like this.

I think they'll be very charming when they're fully finished. Don't you?

Update: We visited my mum today and picked up the clay bunnies. Here's how they turned out!

1000 Birds

We have over 300 cranes folded so far. About 700 to go!

 I taught the students to make origami cranes yesterday and they have been folding away with such sweet dedication. A little girl about 11 years old came to get a bunch of origami paper from me since she is leaving on a short vacation and wants to fold while she's away. Another little boy who is only 6 shows up morning and afternoon to drop off a few more rough little cranes he's designed from scratch paper in his classroom. There is a steady stream every lunch and break time of colorful cranes landing on my desk.

We are trying to fold 1,000 paper cranes to send to Students Rebuild because each crane received will result in $2.00 donated to Japan rebuilding. The most exciting part is that they have just announced a deadline, so we are going to be racing to fold 1,000! The kids are very cute, excitedly spreading the word to each other and making plans on how we're going to make the goal. We have to complete 1,000 sooner than we thought!

* ** *** ** *

I have recently been following a generous and talented ceramicist on twitter, Makiko Hastings, who is making 1,000 birds for Japan. These ceramic birds she is selling are so cute and can be used as chopstick rests, too!

Japan had another 7.4 earthquake today and there is another tsunami warning.

Every little bird helps! Please help Japan.

cluck cluck!

 

Here is my contribution to Jannie Ho's Chicken Week! She's made of clay, single-fired and painted with acrylics.

As you can see, she's laid a little yellow egg. (What do you expect from a yellow chicken?)

The two of us follow Jannie (aka Chicken Girl) on twitter @JannieHo and loved her chicken-themed Sketchbook Project comic "If You Lived Here". 

Cluck! Cluck!