Lucky Red Envelopes

Happy Chinese New Year! And for those of you that are not Chinese, Happy Lunar New Year!

I have very fond memories of my childhood Chinese New Years - most of which involve receiving a hong bao - or red envelope. These would be given to me by my parents, relatives, or family friends.  Hong baos are gifts presented at social and family gatherings such as weddings or on holidays such as the Chinese New Year. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits.
I had such a collection of hong baos that as I got older, if my parents would forget to give me one, I would just give them one of my empties and they'd fill it!  I think they liked how prepared I was!

Now that I have kids, they are now receiving hong baos.  A group of my cousins came to the US last year, from Taiwan. They were visiting and it was the first time they had ever met the boys.  Upon meeting the boys, each boy was gifted about six hong baos.  I guess I forgot to mention what is in these hong baos that make them so special....they're filled with money!

I have yet to give my kids a hong bao because they haven't really celebrated Chinese New Year - that hasn't stopped other people from giving them hong baos. This year, now that they're really into learning and understanding new things, I will be gifting them with a hong bao.  In fact, we're having a group of their friends over for a playdate the day after Chinese New Year and I decided to make a Chinese New Year dinner for the kids and parents. It's also a little experiment, for me, on whether or not I would like to go forth and have bigger Chinese New Year parties for a larger group of people.  But I digress.

In my history of receiving hong baos, I have not received any hong bao that has made me stop and say, 'Wow - that's a really cool looking hong bao.'  They're all very generic or they have something embossed in gold that I don't quite care about or there is something cheesy about it.  Take a look at these hong baos out on the market today:

Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty are cool but I haven't
seen those at any of the Asian grocery stores by me!

ANYWAY, I decided that I was going to make hong baos for all the kids coming to play on Saturday. I was thinking to modernize the hong bao while still keeping up with the red and gold tradition.
Here were my materials:
Red Envelope template (click here)
3D dotted card stock from Michael's
Double sided tape
Glue stick
Scissors (of course)
Gold Paint marker (by Sharpie)
It's so simple - just print out the envelope template, cut it out.
Then cut the card stock using the template.
Fold the larger sides towards each other - I used double sided tape to hold them together.
Then take one of the small tabs, put glue on it and fold it up.
Leave the other small tab open but fold it over to close the envelope.

The 'baby' hong bao in the bottom left is for a baby
coming over - wouldn't want to leave him out!

Because it's the year of the horse, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out a horse onto Gold foil paper.  I then glued the horse onto the front and wrote, 'Xing Nian Kuai Le' in Chinese - Happy New Year!
I plan on filling them with chocolate coins for the kids.

The first envelope I made came out really nice too - I cut out a template for double happiness and used a craft knife to cut the double happiness symbol out of the gold foil paper.  Unfortunately, I was told that double happiness is more for wedding hong baos - not for Chinese New Year hong baos.  So here's my extra!

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Costumes of Halloweens Past

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I am now a fan of Halloween and ever since having my boys, I try to make it as fun as possible for all of us.  This, of course, includes costumes!

When my boys were born, I wanted to dress them up in twins/couples costumes for as long as possible.  I thought it would be fun.
Sadly, when they were three, they started coming up with ideas of their own - despite my strong persuasions to try and dress them as 'Wreck-It-Ralph' and 'Fix-It-Felix.' No...Matty wanted to be Spider Man because he had just started learning about Super Heroes...and Liam wanted to be an ICE CREAM CONE!  That kid! Even when he surprises me with his answers, Liam knows the way to my heart - it was challenging and rewarding to make his ice cream cone costume.

So I thought I'd revisit and cherish, for one more moment, all the costumes (there are only four in this blog, five in their lifetime) from their Halloween pasts that were either homemade or semi-homemade.  Being a full-time working Mom, you can imagine that I don't have a lot of time to spend on homemade costumes but I do my best and find workarounds to make it look great.

So impressed with Mommy's skills!

Age: 5 Months
Costume: Bacon and Eggs
Method: All homemade - made out of felt; no patterns






Age: 17 Months

Such a cutie!

Costume: Dr. Seuss's Thing 1 and Thing 2
Method: Semi-homemade.  Turtlenecks from Children's Place, Fleece pants from Old Navy.  Hats from Baby Gap with blue boa 'hair' from Jo-Ann Fabrics. Thing 1 and Thing 2 labels made out of felt and ironed on to the front of the turtleneck.

Did not LOVE the wig.

Age: 2 Years, 5 Months
Costume: Package of Twinkies
Method: Semi-homemade by my super, craft pal, Kassinda.  She used her Silhouette CAMEO to get the Twinkies label onto heat transfer/iron on material.

Disco Dancing Spider Man

Age: 3 Years, 5 Months
Costume: Spider Man and Ice Cream Cone
Method: Spider Man was store-bought.  Ice Cream Cone was semi-homemade.
The 'cone' pants are todder girl plaid pants from Gap Kids.  The 'whip cream hat with crochet cherry on top is from Etsy.  The ice cream is made out of felt with pillow stuffing to make it more 3D.  The sprinkles are made out of wooden dowels from Home Depot - cut at Home Depot and then painted at home; then glued onto the costume.

The cutest ice cream cone!

Age: 4 Years, 5 Months
Costume: Iron Man and Hot Air Balloon
Method: Iron Man was store-bought.  Hot Air Balloon - see my previous post!

Even though I kind of shudder when Liam tells me his Halloween costume of choice, I secretly enjoy the way he challenges me.

I Want To Be...a Hot Air Balloon!

"I want to be...a hot air balloon." - Liam, age 4.
These were the words uttered to me when I asked my son what he wanted to be for Halloween.

Admittedly, Halloween was not one of my favorite seasons growing up.  I have fond memories of being five, dressing up like Strawberry Shortcake and going trick-or-treating.  But that's about it.  I always had trouble coming up with creative costumes.  I also don't think my Mom was especially fond of shelling out money for something I was only going to wear once.  C'mon -we're a Chinese family - think practical!  You're also talking about a household that gave out the 'nasty' candy because they were the only ones left on the shelves at the local Pathmark.  Needless to say, we were not a Halloween kind of family, growing up.

Now that I have two kids and I have my own home, I am gaga about Halloween - but not the scary kind...the cute, happy, pumpkin patch kind of Halloween.  You could say that I'm a big fan of all the fourth quarter holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas). But it wasn't until I had kids that I really got into Halloween.  Example - I had a business trip in August, 2011, to Texas.  After work, I stopped at a local HomeGoods just to kill some time.  All the Halloween decorations were out and I saw these AMAZING ghosts.  They were glittery and big and just fabulous! The moment I saw them, I started thinking of ways to smuggle them onto the plane for the ride back to DC.  Unfortunately, practicality and sane logic won out...there was no way I could pull it off. I had no time to get to a FedEx store before leaving and I would not be getting them on a plane without purchasing another ticket.  The moment I got back to DC, I started trolling my local HomeGoods stores for the same glittery ghosts.  It wasn't until a trip to the fourth store did I actually find them (Thank you, Fair Lakes HomeGoods!).  They have become one of my favorite Halloween decorations to date.

Great additions to our family!

So now that I am a Mother, I want to make the most of Halloween with my kids.  I made myself a promise that when my kids were born, I would put them in couple/twin costumes until they could make up their own mind...unfortunately, that came a lot sooner (age 3) than I expected. I also wanted to be a hands-on Mom and try to make their costumes as homemade as I could (more stories on that later).
Knowing that my one child is slightly obsessed with Super Heroes, I figured he would make his way through the Marvel Universe of costumes, after being Spider Man last year.  And when I asked Matty, I was right - he wanted to be Iron Man.  When I got to my second child and asked Liam what he wanted to be for Halloween, he looked at me with a wry smile and said, "I want to be a hot air balloon."  I looked back at him to see if he might be joking but he wasn't.  (SIDE BAR: I start asking the boys about their costume ideas in August because after Liam told me he wanted to be an ice cream cone last year (and yes, I did make the costume for him), I figured, I needed to give myself a cushion.)

Inspiration

A hot air balloon...a HOT AIR BALLOON! I needed about a week to let it sink in - and then every week thereafter, I kept asking Liam what he wanted to be for Halloween just to see if he would waver in his answer.  He didn't. So onto the Internet I went to look for ideas and there are some REAL doozies out there  - like WAY out of my crafting league! I finally found this picture with a tutorial and went with it. From the looks of it and the instructions, it didn't look very complicated.



Here were my materials:

• 36" latex balloon
• 4 spools of Grosgrain ribbon - thin (color, your choice) from Michael's
• 1 spool of thicker ribbon (no wires) to use as shoulder straps/harnesses
• Basket from Michael's (look for one where the bottom wouldn't be difficult to remove
• 2 brown paper lunch bags (I just saved the ones I got from Whole Foods)
• Twine
• 1 Helium Tank (from party store)
• I Mini plaque/chalk board and chalk or paint
• Staple Gun
• Tape
• Patience
• Aviator type hat - I actually ordered a crochet one from Etsy

Liam, the Boy Genius!

Basically, I found a great basket from Michael's.  I knocked out the bottom of the basket, removed any jutting nails and stapled a ribbon border along the bottom to serve as extra 'padding' against Liam's legs.

I had Liam stand with the basket around him so I could measure out how much ribbon I would need for his shoulder straps. After cutting out the appropriate amount of ribbon, I sewed in the straps and included a safety pin in the back so when he had the final costume on, I could safety pin the two ribbons in the back (an extra precaution so it wouldn't slip from his shoulders).  

The hardest part was measuring out the balloon and thinner, grosgrain ribbons.  When I asked the party store lady how many 36" balloons the helium tank could blow up (so I could gauge how many mistakes I could make), her answer was '1 1/2 MAYBE.'  Oh boy. That meant no mistakes.  So after doing some trial and error measurements with a mouth blown balloon (that sounds dirty), I knew nothing would work until I had a real helium balloon, which couldn't happen until Halloween.  

Leading up to Halloween, I painted the wooden plaque and made it into a sign that read: 'Hot Air Balloon Rides - 5 cents.' I also got the 'sandbags' ready with the brown paper lunch bags and twine- just stuffed them with some scrap paper to make them look puffed up. 

Also, in the meantime, I had Liam step into his basket again, with the shoulder straps this time, and I measured out the grosgrain ribbon, from the corners of the basket, to where the bottom of the balloon would be.  I woke up extra early on Halloween morning to blow up one of the 36" latex balloons with helium, and started taping grosgrain ribbons around it to really give it that 'hot air balloon' feel. I secured the helium balloon with the grosgrain ribbons from the corners of his basket and voila - we had a hot air balloon.

The look on Liam's face was priceless - he loved it! 

We got lots of compliments on the costume, both at school and during trick-or-treating.  This was definitely a labor of love and I think Liam is going to keep this Momma on her toes for many more Halloweens to come!

Bring it on, Liam!

Holiday String Art

When I browse through Pinterest, I'm always looking for ideas - whether it be home improvement projects, craft projects or good recipes.
In the Craft Club I belong to, we rotate the hosting duties each year - I love Christmas so I always tend to host the holiday craft.  (In fact, I told the other Craf-tastic Mommas to just retire my name on the calendar for the winter holiday craft...I love it!)
In years past, I've tried to make the craft very holiday specific but this past holiday craft club, I was stuck. After looking through endless pins of holiday crafts, I had no idea what to do!
SIDEBAR: Some considerations if you're thinking about hosting a craft club and selecting a craft - try not to make it too challenging.  You're only there for a few hours - not a whole weekend!  If there's prep work that can be done ahead of time, by the hostess, in order to move things along on the actual night of crafting, it's a do-able craft. A good rule of thumb would be for the hostess to make the craft ahead of time to gauge timing.  And don't forget to feed your guests - crafting can be labor intensive!  END SIDEBAR.

I finally settled on doing string art for our holiday craft.
I had pinned this picture awhile ago as something I would like to tackle one day:

I had also seen some other string art ideas -a heart for Valentine's Day and a star for Christmas.

So I decided to take this string art idea and gear it towards Christmas - so I made a Christmas tree!

Mine (l), my sister's (r)

It was pretty simple, actually.
Here were my materials:

• 2 x 2 piece of wood (see pic for thickness) from Home Depot

Shop Speak: I used wood with three big rows and two thin rows.

• Pack of 1" Wire Nails (see pic)
• Strands of thread in your applicable color(s) - I got the 25m packs -->
• Your art template - cut out
• A hammer
• Paint (for the wood)
• Sandpaper (to sand the wood edges)
• Tape
• Patience

Here is the great thing about Home Depot.  When I went to get wood for my personal craft, I found the perfect size and already cut up, 2x2.  When I went back a few weeks later to get wood for the other Craf-tastic Mommas, they had different wood in the 2x2 slots - it wasn't the same thickness (like the picture above).  They did, however, have the same thickness in the 4x2 slots - so what did I do?  I pulled those 4x2 suckers out and asked the nice gentleman to cut them up for me - into 2x2 squares.  They do it - for free!
One of the Craf-tastic Mommas actually wanted to do the 'dream' string art, shown above - so I had the nice gentleman cut the wood to fit the dream template.  Awesome!

After bringing home the wood, sand it and paint it.  TIP: If you don't have paint or have a specific color you want to get, just purchase one of those 'sample size' paints from Home Depot so you're not breaking the bank.
Place your art where you want it on the piece of wood, tape it down and start nailing along the perimeter - in one inch spaces.
Take out your paper template (if you're not planning on using it again, just rip it), and start stringing!

Here is where the PATIENCE comes in.  If you purchase the same type of string (25 m), be careful while you string because it will get tangled...unless you're 1) super patient and uncoil the whole strand before you start stringing OR 2) if you just constantly check it while stringing to prevent tangling.  I did neither, by the way.
While stringing, I also wrapped the string once around the nail head, instead of just going around and onto the next nail. I felt more secure knowing it was getting a good wrap around.
It's okay to hit up the same nail two times...even three times.  It will look great!

After you're done stringing, just snip off all the ends, from where you started, restarted and then restarted again! Step back and look at what beautiful art you just created!
Here are some of the results from my Craf-tastic Momma friends.

TIP: If you find a template or graphic you'd like to string, just copy it, save it to a thumb drive and bring it to Kinko's - they'll resize it for you and print it on their jumbo printers!

I took my tree one step further by gluing some itty-bitty clothespins onto the board and attached some to the actual string of the tree so I could pin up all the wonderful photo cards we get for the holidays!

With mini clothespins

With photo cards

This was fun to do (I was stringing while watching TV) and very customizable! Enjoy!

Happy New Year, Crafty Friends!

Happy 2014 to Crafty and Non-Crafty Mommas alike!
I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season.  I personally would still like to be in bed, with the kids shipped off to school and the hubby at work...but it's a new day in the new year and as my work Executives like to say, 'Let's look ahead.'
I have found that I do not have any concrete resolutions this year.  Instead, I have some goals.

One of my goals for the new year is to make homemade soup dumplings...like the kind that you would find at Joe's Shanghai in NYC's Chinatown.  It's one of the things I miss most about living in the NY Tri-state area. I was roaming around on Pinterest for some recipes but mostly found pictures upon pictures that only made me salivate.  I did manage to find a recipe that didn't look too horribly difficult so I pinned it and will give it a go some time in 2014.

A second goal is to recreate this mantle scarf I found in one of the multitude of holiday catalogs that graced our mailbox.  It's so pretty but all fireplace mantels cannot be created equal.  So I worry about extra length, proportions, etc. And it doesn't look horribly difficult to make.  So I'll be embarking on this adventure with one of my fellow Crafty Mommas - watch out...the sewing machines will have to be broken out!

Finally, now that my boys are starting to read, it's probably time that we get them a library card. Not only can they discover the wonders of our local library, but they can learn the responsibilities (and penalties) of borrowing and returning books.  I found this cute library bag on Pinterest and can see that this will require the uses of my newly acquired CAMEO Silhouette!

Of course there will be many other crafty, and not so crafty, endeavors in the new year.  For example, I am filled with anticipation of what my younger twin will surprise me with as his Halloween costume wish.  He asked to be a hot air balloon for 2013 and not only did it turn out really well (if I do say so myself), I found that I liked being challenged into making such an 'uncommon' costume request.  (I'll have a post about how I made it, soon!)

So what crafty projects will you be doing in the new year?
Whatever your plans are, here's to hoping they are CRAF-TASTIC!
Happy 2014!