Happy Earth Day!

I know that this post is a bit late in coming, but everyday is earth day, is it not?

We celebrated Earth day by putting the finishing touches on our fairy garden

 And making a little tree house where the fairies could shelter in

 ofcourse, the fairies are free to move around

 And when darkness settles upon the world, they come out and party around their bonfires

 laughing and dancing through the night

 In the mornings, you cant see them anymore,

But if you look carefully, you can see them peeking out from behind their hiding spots

And of course, we are entering the fairy garden contest

A fashion designer in the making: The maker mindset

Since Anjali has seen me use the sewing machine a lot, she has been asking me whether she could use it. I have been hesitant, for many reasons, but given her increased responsibility in things like carnival organization and DIY.org pages, decided to let her have a go.

 Since it was her first sewing project, i decided to let her have the rein of the project, only stepping in to advice when there were serious design flaws. So when the project transformed from a quilt to a top, I kind of rolled with it.

 Here she is measuring out the straps of the dress

Finally, the dress became a very sweet midriff showing top (which she possibly wont be allowed to wear if she were 10 years older, but as it stands, it was really beautiful and well suited to the weather)

 We explored a lot of fastenings before settling onto this one.

fairy garden on a cardboard sheet

 We made a fairy garden, with egg shell houses

 seashell linings

cloth and stick teepee, a little woven doormat, a swing on a branch

Happy Earth Day! keep it clean for the fairies. Garden is still work in progress.

The best birthday party in the world

Anjali's Coats eye is improving! I have been sitting on that bit of news for a week or two without putting it on the blog, because I have been busy elsewhere. But on the last followup with the doctor, she is happy that Anjali is showing some real improvement.

Her retinal swelling has gone down visibly and most of the fluid is gone. We are hoping that this continues. If it does, then the doctor will be able to do laser treatments as an outpatient without putting Anjali under general anasthesia. This implies no GA, no fasting for many hours before treatment, no praying and worrying that she shouldn't catch a fever, no swelling post treatment, no throwing up of food, and most important, for Anjali, no eyedrops for a week. She can even go to school the next day.

So all of us are keeping our fingers crossed and praying really hard that her swelling and fluid should stay under control. Laser is, I think, for Anjali somewhat uncomfortable, but the doctor is very nice. Anjali claims that she gets a headache which lasts a few minutes after treatment. We need to see what we can do about it.

Anyway, since the kid was very nervous about the outpatient laser, I asked her what she would like as a reward (each of the adults in the waiting room granted her a wish). She asked from me the best birthday party in the world. And here is the story.

We began preparations early, and after the carnival, the girls are confident enough to make their own preparations. The character of the party evolved over time, and here are some snapshots

Anjali made a little collage where her guests should sign their names upon arrival.

The guest list, separated by families. Notice how the names are spelt

A bunch of decorated envelopes, with nothing inside them, which the girls made as gifts for the friends who came

Activities: Since Anjali wanted a fairy party, we had fairy activities: Hanger fairy wings and a lot of shiny stuff, straws etc to make fairy wands

The mode with the beautiful princess dress. Am i glad that I made this dress!!

Now this creature in the middle of the floor didnt want to stand up to pose. But I want to draw your attention to her skirt which she designed herself and made with the help of Anjali.

She wanted a dress for Anjali's birthay and I offered to make her one. But she kept changing her mind about the kind of dress that she wanted. And then she saw a plastic skirt in one of the craft books that she had gotten from the library. She wanted a plastic fairy skirt for her birthday.

I helped her to cut up the skirt and Anjali glued leaves on the bottom with double tape. It rustled a lot as she walked but was a nice talking point. I think she was pretty proud of it too as she wore it to Anjali's school birthday as well.

Some random shots from the party:

Kids working on their wings

Swapna

There were only two boys invited (owing to the fairy theme, we limited our boy headcount to only those boys whose sisters were invited). The boys didnt make wings anyway, husband entertained them by making bows and swords and such stuff

You can see Sophia's shopping bag skirt more clearly here

At around 6.15 I got the kids to stop working on thier wings and get cooking, as there was no food to eat otherwise. They made their own pizza and frosted their own cupcakes

Godmother poked her nose in at some point during the day.

Anjali's birthday

Six years.

Happy birthday Anjali

Budding dress designer

Budding cake designer

Princess wannabee

And wonderful daughter.

Anjali's birthday dress

Designed by Anjali and made by yours truly

A closeup of the dress: A 4 panelled skirt and sleeveless top. Satin encased elastic sleeves, Handmade fabric flower at the center.

An actual zipper at the back

And it falls nicely when you model it.

I am really proud of this creation, and also thanks to Anjali who encourages me to push my experimental side. 

Simple toys and child empowerment

There are toys and there are toys. One day, husband was fixing his bike and we got hold of the tyre. The kids had an awesome time rolling it around the house, lobby and playground.

A different art experience: I went through a phase of fused plastic crafts. I made a shopping bag for the home, and one for Anjali to take to Ballet. She decorated it with permanent markers.

Another day, I drew up a rainbow on the floor and the girls had to find things around the house to fill up the colors, after which they would get access to the pot at the end of the rainbow

Anjali has been knitting continuously since last weekend. This thing is a knitting nancy made with a toilet roll and a bunch of icecream sticks. The current size of the knitting is about three times as long as the one in the photo and it trails on the floor when she walks around with it

Ms Wee has asked Anjali to give a sharing session tomorrow about her carnival. Here she is working on designing a poster for it.

The completed poster. Her homework for the afternoon is to work with Sophia and come up with the script. The scrap on the left is the community weaving that all the kids did together.