Saturday night: Fun with handicrafts

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer

======

Borrowing Helen Keller's words:

It is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks, like having "Fun with handicrafts" as if they were great and noble!

With such a small task repeated many times, and hopefully "practice makes perfect" I may turn the small tasks into a great and noble one!


Dexterine Ho Soo Miang

======

For over two years, Saturday evening gathering at my mum's apartment around 8.00 pm to 9.30pm has been "Fun with Handicrafts" night for my junior relatives!

 

Art and craft is rather addictive for kids! When they have completed one piece of craft work, the next minute they will ask for new ones to do!

If I am out for dinner or attending talks/events on Saturday night, they will be very disappointed and other stand-by commercial DIY kits may be used to keep them occupied. Yet, they prefer *"Er Yi Po"* Dexterine's creative ways of teaching! Learning from the Mastermind, according to them, is more fun and easy!

Note: "Er Yi Po" is "Second great-aunt" in English" pronounced in Mandarin.

Most of them are just pre-schoolers, and they enjoy paper cut-out, heart-shape pop-up, 3D works, origami and many other kinds of paper craft I teach in Schools and Libraries!

To them, cutting is interesting, drawing is challenging and pasting is difficult!

Yet, they amaze their parents by how creative they can be!

I enjoy the time spent with them, and it is their love of art and craft that unveils their creativity in many other fields! They learn to look at things in detail, and see things in their own way which is different from other kids! I am glad that I am a candle to brighten their path in their quest for creativity!

Many family members do not see the value of art and craft until they see how kids transform themselves through innovative art and craft done at home! Their creativity move their ideas and love in craft work beyond the art zone and their attention span and quest for learning is extended very much beyond kids of the same age!

The Golden Snake year in 2013 will be another great year for their quest in "Art and Craft!"

Dexterine Ho Soo Miang

If-others-need-me ... Gift Wrapping and Card Making etc ...

Lately, I suddenly received a numbers of enquiry on Gift Wrapping and Card Making Workshop. 

If the request is for a half day  (pm or am) course, I will usually propose a 3 to 3.5 hours crash course on Gift Wrapping as Christmas is in the seasons. 

If the organization is able to set aside 3 days for staff training, I would think that a combined "Gift Wrapping and Card Making Workshop" should be beneficial to participants, especially the staff at the retail outlets who are required to do gift wrapping for customers.  Yet, time is a big short for most to plan courses and workshop last minutes.

As the demand on courses and workshop I offer via INNO HANDS-ON, vary from one organisation to another, I think if they are short of time, a new 10 hours course which combine Gift Wrapping ideas with 3D and pop up card should be able to meet their needs without long hours of commitment.

Currently I am working on course outline for a few organisations, and after fulfilling their requirement, I will re-organize my thought an create some comprehensive course on Gift Wrapping and Card Making which takes only 10 hours, instead of 3 full day training workshop.

Once I have course outline done to answer to general enquiry, I will post it on http://innoworkshop.blogspot.sg/

The 10 hours Gift Wrapping and Card Making Course can be 1.5 days or  3 half days i.e., 3.5 hours + 3.5 hours + 3 hours.  It maybe held on week days or Saturday/Sunday.

I have conducted a 3 days course on Gift Wrapping and Card Making Course, just need some time to compress it.

As my commitment at LAS/WSQ and other training assignment keep me busy some months, I just treat my INNO HANDS-ON business as an extension of my personal hobby.

Hence, even I am doing course planning without actually conducting them in some cases, is still an enjoyable process.  The process fulfils my joys in learning new ideas up to the level of being a trainer. 

I am would said it is enjoyable to be able to do things this way!  I am sure readers who enjoy art and craft work would understand the approach I took : "If-others-need-me" ... , and that is why, many friends I have who are great in their art and craft skills are not interested to commercialized them.

I am having IINNO HANDS-ON as a business to pursue my hobby. I do it the way most of my librarian friends would do in their work: "If-others-need-me ..."  I will create something interesting for them to share the joys of my knowledge and impart the skills of art and craft.

I do not like to repeat ideas all the time, unless clients insist. 

Hence, you may look at http://handicraftsguide.blogspot.sg/ of which I collected many workable ideas for future exploration and workshop.

Yet to adapt the ideas from youtube to a course for local groups, I need to look at materials used, logistic and other training setting...  It becomes an administrative tasks and it is very demanding on my time and energy.   

Presently, I just use the approach of "If-other-need-me in these kind of courses, I will make it happen at your request."

Having this approach, the world of art and craft I teach and library courses I conduct will be expanded and become bigger or endless and life will not be boring even I commercialized them.

I will post more course outline on my blog: http://innoworkshop.blogspot.sg/ next year!

Cheers!

Dexterine Ho Soo Miang