Ok... Happy New Year! I know, I know! But the papercrafting business thing went so well last holiday season that I completely forgot I have a blog. I hope to do something about that this 2009... update, update, update and post more photos!
Anyway, last Saturday, I stayed up very late to find out who the next Doctor would be, and I must say I'm willing to wait and see. If Steven Moffat chose him, he must be really good. But yeah, I'm still mourning over the fact that I won't see David Tennant next year anymore as the Doctor. And it breaks my heart. Oh, grief!
New Year, New Resolve
Alternative Email Address
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.
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!
