Birthday Souvenirs

December last year, my mother saw the notepad-penholder combo in my stash of goodies I'm selling. She just exclaimed, "I want these for Seya's souvenirs!" So, she asked me how much my budget should be sans labor, because a) she's my mother and b) she always volunteered to wash my dishes whenever she comes over. I thought it was a nice trade-off. One of my nieces turned 7 years old yesterday and these were her giveaways at her party today.

I made a slight modification to the notepad design because the flowers that were originally there I made by hand. And I absolutely have no more time to do them over 50 times for these. I thought she'd understand. The non-labor element's quite a good bargaining chip. :)

Oh, the pencils were not included. That's totally her idea and purchase. I just included them in the wrapping.



July Update


Hello everyone! This is not good. This once a month update is almost close to nil but it's such a busy last few weeks but yes, I'm doing good.

The repairs and maintenance activities at the school are almost done. Has to be because school opens on August 5th. The supply room is finally organized and waiting for new supplies to come in as ordered. The Art Room is finally taking shape. The library shelves have been delivered yesterday so probably the librarian is finally organizing the books delivered the last couple of weeks. I might post some before and after pics later on. I hope nobody expects some Nate Berkus makeovers here. We just purged, cleaned and reorganized furniture around.

The papercrafting business is doing really well also. I'm very thankful to have the time to do them despite other things. Other things being other projects outside of the usual things I do and the domestic day-to-day stuff nobody can really escape from.

Ah! And there's something else I want to talk about. I am an architect and was very active professionally until about six years ago and shifted to what I do now. The reason I left the practice is another story altogether but what I want to say is, I was hired by an architectural firm to revise, rewrite and design their company profile. Yay!! They got me because I'm an architect, I know the business so I know what I'm going to write about.

I'm so very excited about this most recent project because as much as I love papercrafting, I also love writing. And I've been craving to write something in a more professional capacity. So, when they called one day and asked if I could, I grabbed the chance. They also put forward a couple more projects for later this year: a brochure for their spa and training center, and souvenirs for their daughter's 18th birthday in December. I'm very, very thankful for this.

2010 has been very, very good to me and my husband, most especially to him. It's been awesomely fantastic so far. I can't thank God enough for such beautiful year so far.

Ms. Ilyn is a licensed architect who decided that teaching arts and crafts, or making them, is way more fulfilling than dealing with contract documents, estimates and technical specifications. She taught Architectural Drafting and Painting to High School Students for five years, and Arts for Pre-K to Grade 3 Pupils for three years. Now, she's back to dealing with the nitty gritty of architecture, but the meditative aspect of papercrafting remains unchanged.

Please email us at: info.paperbasket@gmail.com