Hello 2011!

Happy New Year everyone!!

Here is the title for Gerry's Rizal story which he asked me to do. He wanted the whole thing in freehand but of course, for the base pencil, I had to measure and use templates. The inking part is in freehand, though. Here's the finished pencil layout:

I didn't want to do it again in case I made a mistake with ink so I decided to scan it and print the lines in blue. Here's a partial inked part. Not much of it, actually. hehe. You'll see the finish product on his final inked and colored cover this January.

On to paper crafting! Two calendars I did for a couple of very, very good friends. You know who you are. Now you know what you're getting. :)



The calendar which I did myself, has a blank space at the bottom of each page/month to put tiny designs on. Here, I used paper strips. ribbons, stickers and a blank piece of cream paper where my friends can write important dates such as birthdays, et cetera. The pages, along with a cardstock stand, were bound together using wire comb binder.

If any of you would like a digital copy of the blank calendar, please leave a comment with your email address. I don't know how to make PDF file that I can link here, so I'll just send you the image files.


Be safe tonight everyone!

Merry Christmas!

That was just something I was inspired to do only a couple of days ago. I visited my mother and noticed her curtains. I love the burlap bag thing going on. Actually, she said it was for upholstery but she decided to just make curtains from this bolt of fabric my brother bought quite awhile ago. So, I asked for scraps and made these things for tree ornaments. I'm not yet done, as you can see. I know it's late but I still have years to come to hang them. I decided to make one for each family member on both Gerry's and my side. :)

The following are photos of a few pages I took of the souvenir magazine I was talking about. It's 12 days late posting but hey! I am rather proud of this, to be honest. It's my first time to do a "magazine" which was actually based on Candy magazine (it's our young lady's choice of mag)... and it comes complete with table of contents and an publisher/editor's info box! The cover title and all the title fonts inside are mine. And isn't she pretty? :)



On a more different note, our dining seats are just old and manky, and this one in particular was burnt by a flat iron. And I wasn't the one who burnt it, by the way. I've been meaning to change the upholstery years ago but I was such a coward to wade through the madness that is Divisoria. And then I finally could so I bought 4 yards of fabric weeks ago and replaced the old ones. I still have quite a length after finishing 6 seats so I gave the rest to my mother who was inspired to change the seats of her old, manky dining chairs as well.

Side note: What's going on in Photobucket? I can't upload these photos! Is there a monthly limit to how much MB I can use that I didn't read about? The reason I don't like to upload through blogger is this. If you notice, they are smaller than my previous photos.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone!! Cheers!!

An Invitation and a Christmas Production

Hoooookaaay..... Merry Christmas everyone!! In advance... because I feel so free right now. Free from deadlines. No work until after New Year, I told myself. Well, aside from the teaching thing. Then again, that's not really work... and the other things I do are not exactly work because they're all fun to make!! The second half of November and the first week of December had been really, really busy. So, I'll just fire away.

First is the invitation I did. This is how it came out, and I did 150 of these which I delivered two weeks ago. The theme is movies so this is what came about. The envelope is a clapper and the invitation itself are oversized movie tickets. I just wrapped it around with a burgundy ribbon. The father asked, "Why do you have to put ribbon around it?" He's hysterical, good thing for him, he's a very good friend.

If you're reading my tweets, you would have read me talking about the train. The train made from corrugated boards. Well here it is. These are the before pictures:


And this was this was taken earlier during the performance.

This supposedly was a dungeon wall where Izzy, Rosie and the Broken Toys were kept by the Abominable Snowman. This was made from newspaper, tissue paper, glue and paint. Thank you Neil Buchanan and Art Attack for teaching me to use these four materials to do just about anything!! And these two were my very able and very giggly assistants, Zara and Edjee. They're amazing! It's easy to meet deadlines with these two.

This was the set for T'was the Night Before Christmas. I wish I could have gotten a better photo because, modesty aside, it turned out so well in person. The stars hanging were made by the kids, pre-kinder to fourth grade. I promised them I'll hang them so I did with the help of Mang Eli. You have to keep your promises to kids!! If you can't, don't promise anything at all.

A closer take with the lights on. For before photos, please check out previous entries.

The three of us after the show.

These are my co-teachers with my assistants. From the left, Grace (prek/k homeroom teacher), Anna (3rd/4th grade teacher), Weng (Music Teacher/Music Director for the show. She's amazing! You just have to help her out to achieve what we're able to do tonight.), Edjee, Maya (Administrative Coordinator), Zara, Maan (Teacher Assistant) and me. Steve (1st & 2nd grade teacher) and Mark (PE teacher) were a bit shy to face the camera.

And us again. :)

It was so much fun, I tell you. Better than last year's in terms of children's performances and the general vibe and as if everything just comes together by Divine Intervention, like Anna mentioned after the show.

I also mentioned something about a magazine. Well, I'll pick them up on Friday and I'll post something about that on Sunday.

Well, I think I'll sleep now... finally. :)

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