In Love with Chairs

For a family of 3, we seriously have a lot of chairs in the house.

Our L-shaped sofa can seat maybe 7, we have an orange cleopatra chair and a green arm chair with a foot stool.

I have a striped round ottoman, a swivel chair (which I still have to refurbish), my work desk chair, and dining chairs of course. Then for Jared's room, we had a daybed made. He also has his own study chair, and a plastic monobloc I spray painted.

Okay, so what is this fascination with chairs?

Hmm, I don't know.

Maybe, being small, it makes them easy to handle, and easy to refurbish. It makes me feel like a handywoman, it fulfills my need to create (or mess things up, depending on how you look at it).
But it has a purpose: for seating, or as an accent, or a holder for things.

Recently, on a thrifting trip, I salvaged these 3 rusting chairs for P50 each (or about a $1.30)

With some patience, a good arm for scrubbing away the rust, a spray paint to transform them, I wish to turn the to something like this.

source

And this chair (which has been stripped like this for close to a year already)

To this

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Now, if only I have 4 day weekends. =)

My Own Handyman

At 4 years old, one of my young son's greatest wish is to be a true blue handyman.

He looks up to Mang Edgar as he tinkers and fixes things around our house. He follows him everywhere! He wants his own drill, screw driver and hammer: not toys but the real kind.

As I was reupholstering our dining chairs again, the boy insisted now on following me. So I let him.

Watching him like this made me laugh. Funny little boy.

Wiggle, wiggle like a worm to get under the chair. His tummy almost gets in the way. Haha.



Get the screw driver

Hmmm, what did mommy do to this chair? Messy chair bottom, right? I did not nother to trim or hide the cloth edges properly since I thought nobody would look at the bottom, anyway. Wrong!

Eraser Painting

Saturday is officially our arts and crafts day. I usually come prepared with materials from my stash, and interesting activities we can do, mostly from Pinterest.

This is another pinterest inspired craft.

I was feeling particularly lazy but can I resist the "pyease mom, arts n crafts" look from my boy?  Of course... not. =)

I hurriedly open my pink and yellow filing cabinets (more on that on future posts) and it yielded a canvas, some paint and a pencil, the 3 things we need for this craft.

Show him once what to do, and let him fill the canvass with paint. Dot, dot, dot he goes with the eraser. Will also work well with stamp pads instead of paint.

This is my work area at home, which I have yet to photograph properly and blog here.

He was quiet and occupied for about 15 minutes. Enough time for mommy to check quickly check FB and Pinterest.

I should start displaying his artwork in his room one of these days. The collection is growing.

Haircut at the Neighborhood Barbershop

I blogged about how expensive (but really just equivalent to their skill both in hair cutting, patience and negotiation) haircuts are at kiddie salons and long for the day when Jared can go to the neighborhood barber.

The pictures below are probably taken at his 3rd or 4th time at the barber. He didn't cry, but cringes at the sight, sound and feel of the shaver. There was one time he went with just his dad, and the dad said a single, fat tear rolled down his cheek. My baby was scared, but was putting up a brave front.

Growing up, indeed.

Pizza Deliciozo

Not minding the rain (torrents) last weekend, we still went to pick up stuff we need at the grocery. It's for one of our projects on that rainy Sunday afternoon.

First up: Home made pizza

 
Ooops, caught on cam! He gobbled fistfuls of cheese so for only 4 pizza doughs, the block of cheese was almost wiped out.

Decorate with the ham slices. We'll go meatless next time.

Bake in a preheated oven until crust is crispy.

Science Experiment #3: Liquid to Solid

I can't believe Kinder can be so complicated! They will be studying about states of matter and I gotta think of more practical, and fun ways to explain.

Here is the first one: from liquid to solid. What can be easier than jello?

For this lesson, we just need water, a pack of Mr. Gulaman, cute molds and a small saucepan.

Put water and empty the content of the pack in your saucepan. Then stir, stir, stir.

It smelled nicely of buco pandan.

Pour into molds and refrigerate.

After an hour, we have our jello in solid state.

Yum!

First Day Baon

Before the school opening loses its high, let me post his first day baon. And yes, I forgot to take pictures of him at school. Hayy, I can't ever rewind that first day in Kinder 1 moment, but to cheer me up, I can have a First day in the Big School pic next year.

I improvised with these heart-shaped sandwiches filled with cheez whiz. I am getting proper cookie cutters at Daiso soon.

But two sandwiches will not fill up a big, hungry tummy. Must add cookies (store bought this time)

Then, wrap in a colorful and made-with-love brown bag.

A Weekend LRT Ride

Not his first time, but really, in the eyes of a child, each experience is a first. =)

One Saturday, on a scheduled hospital visit, we rode the LRT to Bambang station.

Random poses here and there while waiting for the choo-choo train.

Regaled the passengers of his never-ending questions and tall tales (oh, wow the building will kajung--whatever that means. hehe)

And even with seats available, he refused to seat and instead had a grand time holding to the rail.

Til next ride!

Welcome, July! Hello, Picasso!

The first of July had us on house arrest, the daddy is down with cough for the past two weeks and had been advised to rest.

My itchy feet have to be kept in check and we were bored for a while. That is until we started our Sunday Arts and Crafts day!

Really, this weekend planning of activities take up some time because our boy likes having activities one after the other. Of course, I would not deny him that as long as my energy and my stash of supplies permit.

With our big canvass, some paint, my new paintbrushes and a roll of kraft paper in place, we got down to business.

Before I handed him the canvass, I made the letters E-A-T using masking tape. So the little boy just had to splash and play with paint.

And paint he did...

It was also my filing day at home so excuse the mess in the background.

Note to self: buy big tubs of paint. This yellow tub was out in no time and we used blue and green instead. Hmm, off the plan as I wanted this to go up our dining room wall (need something in yellow).

I have to find my digicam. My phonecam pics are getting worse.

The masterpiece.

Then, with the tip of a knife, slowly pell off the masking tape. Make sure you do this while the paint is still wet, for more crisp lines.

And we have a masterpiece!