13 February 2009

Buttons, buttons


We celebrated Valentine's Day at school today. The children were all excited for the special day. I think they were as excited to give out the goodies they'd brought as they were to receive. It was nice to see that. They really were delighted to go around and pass out their little cards, placing each one into someone else's bag.


For my part, I came up with what I wanted to make for the kiddos just 2 days ago... Not the best plan given the rest of my schedule for the week. T very graciously helped me when I was still not done in the wee hours last night, buttoning and snipping loose threads.

The idea came with a bit of an ulterior motive. Few of the children in my class are able to button up their own pants after using the bathroom. I wanted a goodie for them that didn't involve food, and while playdough was going to be it, I decided that was a bit lame, and I'd have to buy some kind of cute containers anyway. So the fact that these Tic Tac Toe boards are totally buttony (including the button closure on the pouch), is really my way of getting them to learn how to button. Hopefully, it's a cute and fun enough way and maybe they'll just enjoy putting them on and taking them off. Since it's usually a 2 player game, it has the added (potential) bonus of getting them some quality time with someone, too.

09 February 2009

Big Apple


We spent a long weekend up in NYC for T to compete in a Moot Court. The weather was great, considering it's early February. It was a little chilly on Friday, but much nicer than our last visit when it rained (poured) and T bought a faulty umbrella. [Longish funny story, email or comment if you're interested.] I was not allowed to attend the Moot Court proceedings, so I had quite a bit of time to myself. Though I'd had my doubts about our travel and hotel arrangements, things turned out reasonably. Our bus was about an hour late leaving DC, which left us standing in the cold, but such things happen I suppose. The hotel made up for it; the Sheraton Manhattan. It's on the very edge of Times Square as you'd picture it in your head. The rooms were a decent size, check in was painless and prompt and best of all, it was clean; no mildewy bathrooms (like at the W we stayed in last trip)!

While T was away, I pounded the pavement around the hotel. I probably walked a good 5 miles, we suspect. I think I saw everything on Madison, Lex, 5th and Ave. of the Americas, plus a lot of the in between streets from 41st all the way up to 68th. I plotted a course to hit Japanese book stores (searching for crafting books) and Japanese groceries which are quite plentiful actually. It was very fun to see all the "real" Japanese goodies as compared to the primarily Korean and Chinese stuff around DC.

I ended up spending a lot on crafting books, as is to be expected. I found a really cool one for Mom with charts for all kinds of different, very intricate and complicated looking knitted patterns. I also found a "find the differences" book for Sneetch which is comprised of pretty difficult pictures in all kinds of illustration styles. I ended up getting 5 for myself. I will get some pictures when my camera is recharged. I think my favourite is one called Make a Box which comes with a CD of .eps files so you can put your own designs and logo on all sorts of printable packaging templates! I have dreams of making something supercute for the babies, since Valentine's Day is upon us. I'll get photos of that too, if it happens.

Sorry about the blurry photo, my camera seems to dislike me more and more each day. T and I have been contemplating splurging on a nice SLR (I still don't know what that means, and haven't had a chance to research it properly). The idea is that if we had a good camera, we would take more photos. At all the craft fairs we go to, we both see photos and other 2D art we like all the time. But, one of us (ok, me) always points out that we could make it ourselves and it wouldn't cost $x00000.00. So, we don't buy the art, but we also don't make the art and our walls are still bare.


Speaking of art, I come to the only other photo I took that came out well; a giant statue of Miffy. She was standing with some other notable kawaii friends; Hello Kitty, Pochacco, Keroppi, amongst a group of skateboarders doing tricks on their pedestals. An interesting joining of cultures.