If you're trying to contact me via Paper Basket's email address, I'm so sorry but Gmail is acting up right now and I can't access my account there. Please use ilynflorese(at)yahoo(dot)com for the meantime. Thanks.
Alternative Email Address
Open House... Craft Party... Selling
Here are the photos from yesterday's open house. Only a few came but I was happy with the turnout especially after my friends ordered goods for their Christmas gifts. :)
Frame tags as Christmas Tree Ornament
Maze Books
6x6 Mini-Album
Post-It Note Holders
Various Blank Cards
With my friends: Jo-Ann, Mom, Chris, Ela and Jed
Christmas Cards
Arlan and May came to visit
Movits, Nhelds and Tita Meng looking at some of the stuff
Zara helping out
Thank you so much to everyone who came. There will be another open house in early December. I'll announce the date later! See you there!
And special thanks to my in-laws who allowed us to use their house for this occasion. Thank you so, so much for helping me, Mom, Dad.
Those -Ber Months...
These are the recent projects I did:
A birthday album for my dear cousin. It was her 7th birthday last January 25. I took many of the photos here, and as you can see on the second photo, I didn't have any difficulty with that one. They posed themselves!
These are minibooks and cards for classmates who helped and contributed their time and resources to make our reunion held on August 3, 2008 a success:
This is for a client she gave as a gift:
These are for my friend, Ela, who asked me to make these huge boxes for organizing stuff on top of her closet. There's a smaller box for what-nots on her table, 2 pencil holders and a notepad. The red pencil holder is to match another notepad I did for her earlier.
How do you pronounce Mi-Teintes?
Canson Mi-Teintes has always been a staple in my drawing classes back in college up until now in my various projects. The sad thing about it is, college is many, many eclipses ago and I still don't know how to pronounce it correctly. I googled it this afternoon and found a forum discussing this.
And the poster, Kate Mc, said that it's pronounced as:Me Taunt, with a tiny 'uh' after the final t. Sandge, you need the final "t" sound because of the "-es" on the end. In French, Mi-teintes means
"half tints or half shades".
Ok, I'll use that until someone else says otherwise. :)
I met President Cory!
It's the 25th death anniversary of Sen. Ninoy Aquino. The lunch after the Mass was in a gated community and when we got to the house, we saw bodyguards and security people. By the time we got to the door (we're the first of the artists who arrived), we saw senators, congressmen and former cabinet secretaries. And Noynoy was greeting people by the front door, invited us inside though he doesn't know us. We panicked. But we got in and at the foyer (they have a huge foyer with garden), we called Gerry's contact there, Jiggy, who's Cory's eldest grandson. It was sort of embarassing because it's like gatecrashing at a private party for family and friends, because that's who are inside.
The reason Gerry was invited, along with other artists, was because he contributed to a book, a tribute to both Ninoy and Cory by their grandson. It was a collection of 25 artworks and 25 essays. Me, I tagged along because I wanted to meet Cory. I even made a card for her thanking her for being an inspiration. I told her that her quiet strength, courage and spirituality made a great impression on me as a teenager. I was sitting beside a very nice lady who I later learned is the wife of a former Education Secretary under Cory. She and her friends regaled us with their stories about protecting the ballots during the 1986 Snap Election when they thought they really won't survive that year. She even got my number in case she'd want to have something done in terms of invitations or albums and what-not. She interviewed me when it should be the other way around. These people are nice!
This was the card I made for her:
Then people started to leave. Jiggy told us that he'll introduce us to his grandma before we leave. Each one of us had our photo taken with her. She's directing the photo shoot, it's funny.
"No flash? You? Why don't you want your photo taken with me? No camera? This one is good, c'mon?" Then she went out. We thought, she left for real.
The artists started having each one sign their books. Then Cory came back alone and sat on the table where Gerry and I was sitting. She told us a cellphone anecdote that's really funny. hehe. We talked about comics. She told Gerry and I that she asked Jiggy where did you meet these artists? Justin told her, because of comics. She said these in Tagalog, "but you're old enough for comics!" And he said, "Lola, comics now are different." And she told us, almost apologetically, "Well, I went to the States at 14, I only knew of Archie."
I can't do that... what you did!" She told Gerry, referring to the likenesses of Ninoy in the book that the artists did. So I said, but you're also painting.
"Yes, I do but that's different. No matter how hard I copy what's in front of me, I really can't." Then I said, "but that's your interpretation."
"Not even an interpretation." And she's laughing.
She told us that she gave away her paintings as gifts and told the recipients not to sell them. "Maybe when I'm dead!" She laughed.
Then we asked for one last group photo, and she said, "That's too much!" But she's smiling. She's probably tired already but she still accommodated us.
What's great about the meeting was, she's exactly the person I thought and imagined her to be for more than 20 years and that's just awesome!
For more photos, visit my husband's blog here: http://gerry.alanguilan.com/
Lapbooks
I just learned what this is all about a couple of days ago when I stumbled upon a channel on YouTube about a child explaining her project. And I thought, what a great idea for kids to retain what they learned! Reminds me of those interactive 'albums' or projects I submitted for my Araling Panlipunan subject way back, way back in elementary school days. It is essentially a combination of scrapbooking and learning. Those booklets, flap books, accordion (why do people insist that it's spelled 'accordian'?), shape books, coloring and writing worksheets, pictures, cutouts, graphs, diagrams, vocabulary, stories in a curiously folded file folder... very, very interesting.
After watching the video, I Googled lapbooking, and found that it's almost always associated with homeschooling. In my understanding, it's a way of consolidating the things a child learned in a creative manner, making it more interesting for them. It's like scrapbooking the things they know of a particular topic. Isn't that interesting?
I already made a couple for my niece and I'm still making more which we're going to work on next week as part of her review in getting to primary school. Honestly, this perplexes me. Reviewing to get to Grade One? Seriously! But she needs it and what a better way to do it than with crafts. She loooooooooves crafts. She's going to love these. I'll post them when she's finished with them.
I'm very excited!
Oh, and I learned about the foodie fold terminologies: hamburger fold, hot dog fold and taco fold. hehe. Love it!
2008 High School Class Reunion
Students of Canossa College High School Class 1988 (San Pablo City, Philippines), you are all invited to join us to celebrate, have fun and remember on the 3rd of August 2008 as we celebrate our 20th year.
For details, please contact any of the following:
- Rods Florese at ilynflorese(at)yahoo(dot)com;
- Che-che Gajitos at cgajitos(at)yahoo(dot)com; or
- Lorna Aporto at laa_112(at)yahoo(dot)com
Or visit our message board at: http://canossabatch88.proboards52.com/
See you there!!!
logo design: Ilyn Floresetag line: Lorna Aporto
Oh, Valentine!
A friend of mine saw the 'extended' origami album I posted awhile back and wanted me to do something for his wife for Valentine's Day, "para sweet", he said. I really enjoyed doing this because it is my second time doing something red. I found out that it takes practice, at least for me, to get used to working with a particular color. The first were greens, then pinks and now, reds. I wonder what my next color to get used to would be?
Cards and Key Chain Albums
Vintage Cards
Well, make that vintage-looking cards. I tried doing these trio of cards because I enjoyed doing vintage collage after my friend, Chris Palmer, introduced me to it. And because I never did well with collage back in high school, this is exciting to me. Oh, and the materials? Well, they're still from the bag-full of ephemera from Chris' stash. It's on 4" x 4" chipboard and on the back is a blank tag for message.
Key Chain Albums
I was inspired by, first, the key chains I saw and bought from Divisoria with no project in mind. And then, I saw Tricia Morris' project on TV Weekly on Stampbord Mini-Albums. Now, I don't have access to Stampbord and I'm not a rubber stamper. Well, not yet anyway. So, I used 2" x 2" Master Board (yes, that one we do watercolor paintings on for our plates back in college) for covers; wrapped with scrapbook papers and the accordion interior was done using Canson's Mi-Tientes big-cut papers.
December Projects
Last month, a friend of mine asked me to make her an origami album but requested that it be longer so we can include a lot of photos. The look on my friend's face was enough for me to be proud of what I did. And from what I heard, the friend appreciated it very, very much. I'm glad. 
Also last month, I went to Christmas party and this is my gift... well, it was a belated Christmas exchange gift, gift-giving that I know nothing about when I attended the party last month. And so when I picked her name, I told her I'll just give it to her next time. This is what I came up with and gave it to her yesterday. I hope she uses them.
I will be making another scrapbook for my cousin who celebrated her 7th birthday last Sunday. As with her sister's, I will make the album myself. My little cousin asked her mother to tell my aunt to tell my mother to tell me (whew!) that she would love a scrapbook like the one I did for her sister. I guess, she's a little bit shy telling me what she really wants. :)
Craft Party of Three
Last Tuesday, my cousin and two nieces decided to have a Craft Party and they gladly volunteered my home to do it. The aftermath includes an unrecognizable dining table, typhoon-like mess, empty containers of embellishments and happy faces. They did origami, paper bag, paper flowers and paper baskets (hey!) which I helped them with--or the other way around.
Here they are!!
Till next time, my little dears!!
Oh! And the teaching gig I have with the primary school where I taught for five weeks? I was asked to do it again till the end of the school year in May. This would be fun!!
Where Was I Last December?
That's right, I saw Taylor Hicks in concert here in the Philippines. Enjoyed it immensely.
