3D Pen

There was a time when little miss Haana would build anything under the sun, armed with her glue gun, a cardboard box and wooden sticks! She built tons of projects with those 3 basic ingredients. Several glue guns have been eagerly sacrificed at the altar of her projects and ingenious engineering. Some projects worked, some did not. But there was never a dearth of ideas with little miss Haana. 

Lately, though, a new player has entered the arena. The glue gun has been put away even! Welcome 3D pen! 

The moment it came, she's disappeared into her world of craft projects. She made herself a pair of dangling earrings first. Then a pencil box made out of filaments. Yesterday she made me a tray with 2 compartments to keep soap next to the kitchen sink. My usual soap tray has seen better days. Some of the design on it recently came off, and no matter how many times we've got glued the little bits on it, they just don't stick. So little miss Haana decided to make a new one for mumma! She made the tray sides with her 3D pen filaments. But for the bottom she used a stiff paper! I told her that just wouldn't do. I can't keep paper next to the sink, there's too much water around the sink. She was disappointed. 

But today I was looking at the test she made, and I thought it was so super cool. Not as cool and smart as my little miss Haana, but that's to be expected. She's the only one!

❤

Soap dish miss Haana made:

Fountain

The talented little miss Haana makes new art and craft everyday. 

This day she made a fountain. Water flowing through a 3 tiered structure made of sea shells, falling down into a pool surrounded with stones. She made it all with hot glue and backyard stones. 

Good job little miss Haana and full marks for creativity and engineering.

O Wise One

Little miss Haana is very fond of arts and crafts. She uses her creativity to come up with new craft ideas; she dreams up, then builds, sticks, decorates, glues and paints.

For her paintings, little miss Haana has been borrowing my acrylic paints. They are very good quality artist grade paints. I got her a pack of her own brushes and set of small canvases. Recently, she decided to paint on a long canvas she found had been hiding in the upstairs closet for a while. It was 12x36 inches. I warned her, it will take a long time for her to paint it all, and she may lose interest mid way. She insisted she wanted to paint it. I relented.

It took her a couple weeks to finish her painting, but she did! She made 2 tall trees, on green green grass, with a little girl smiling, and a little boy climbing. The painting came out wonderful, and I am so proud of her! I put the painting up on the wall.

However, a week or so later, her table-top easle, the paints, the brushes, the palette, the water cup, all the things she set up for her painting, were still out there, waiting to be wrapped up and put away. And not for the want of being reminded.

I finally lost it one day. And i told her all her brushes are ruined, I'll not buy her new ones, and unless she learns to take care of her art things, she doesn't deserve to have them. This led to her crying, saying, "You never support me..". I got mad-der. I told her I let her have my paints which were so expensive. She made some snarky remark at that. Which made me angrier still. And then more crying. I lectured for a little bit more, before both of us got silent into our own bubbles, both unhappy.

What I didn't expect is, little miss Haana came around after about 5 mintues till both of us had cooled off. She first coolly circled around the area where i was. I didn't react. Then she came back, took me by my hand and took me to the couch, and said "Mumma, I love you.  But when you keep on scolding me it makes me really upset". I didn't really expect her to be so wise as to come around and talk to me like that! I had already melted in my heart when she took me by my hand.  I hugged her, and said "I love you sweet baby. But when you don't listen to me or retort at what I'm saying it just gets me angry. Can you just say -ok mumma, next time?". She said fine. More hugs and kisses and we were all made up. Meanwhile i was wondering how wise she proved herself out to be!

Little Miss Haana's Tall Trees Painting

Fathers Day

Little Miss Haana had been working on her craft project for several days. She'd gotten a box full of popsicles sticks and had been working away with her glue gun.

It was father's day. And little miss Haana was busy working on building all kinds of shapes and designs and crafts with her popsicle sticks. She stuck the sticks together and then colored the sticks, stuck pompoms or covered them with yarn.

In the last few days she had made:
A treasure box with a lid.  A green colored Christmas tree with a small gift box underneath it. A freestanding fan shaped, colorful craft that could be used as a magazine holder.
And then there was this small cage styled to be a little backpack. Or maybe a bigger treasure box!

All these items were the father's day gifts. I was told we would be making chocolate cake in the morning. Since I am doing low carb diet these days, I figured low carb chocolate and strawberry muffins would make a worthy alternate choice. So, early on the sunday morning, miss haana and i got to work. She helped with the mixing and sifting and cutting off the strawberries for the muffins. Then when we got to the baking, little miss Haana got back on her little brown chair with her glue gun and pompoms finishing up the last of her craft projects.

Once the muffins are done, we took them out. We figured we needed 7 muffins with 1 candle each for the 7 years of fatherhood! We sang the happy father's day song, blew the candles and got to the eating-fresh- muffins part!

Later that day we took the 7 year old father to brunch with live music and drinks. It was a good father's day!

Shopping

This is why i don't shop much.

My usual perfume was about finished, so I had to run by the store to grab a new one. I asked little Miss Haana to come with me. She agreed but with demands. I had to get her some glue and craft sticks. This is not the first I had heard of these things, so I agreed.

I made the first stop at a small convenience store, thinking they'll have small craft supplies. I found us some glue. Little Miss Haana ambled in nearby aisles asking me to take more colors (No, you already have too many), or a velvet coloring book (No, we already had one just like that, earlier), or sunglasses (No, you already have these ones) or a kitkat (simply, no). I paid for the glue and we hurried out.

Next pit stop was the store where i get my organic perfume. Little Miss Haana and i made our way to the aisle with a section for the perfumes. I started testing some thinking i may be ready for a change. Little Miss Haana began opening tester bottles, spritzing some perfume mist or rolling some roll-on sticks, on left arm, then right, then both hands, then both wrists. Maybe even the arm pit! By now i could barely smell anything at all!! Now, little Miss Haana was holding 3-4 different perfume bottles in her hand,  "These are for me", she declared. "Gugu, we can't take so many. I'm going to take 1 between the two of us". After more negotiation, she now had 2 separate sized bottles. "Ok, we'll take one of each kind". I looked at her exasperated. When had we ever decided she gets to wear perfumes? We hadn't😋. "I'll take 1, that's it". Now, she wanted to take this one perfume that didn't smell great at all, but had unicorns on the bottle. I somehow got her to choose a different one that i liked, and we hurried out of the store. By this time it was hard to tell if it was the right choice or not, cause I could hardly smell anything at all in the medly of all the perfumes we had sprayed. When we sat back in the car, little Miss Haana told me this was her perfume and only she would use it. I laughed at her!

We headed next to Michael's to get the craft sticks. These are the sticks that are inside popsicles. On the way, i kept suggesting we should just get lots of popsicle and eat them all and save their sticks for crafts. She was not so sure about my capacity of popsicle eating. At Michaels, we both ambled through the store- me browsing through all the Easter decor and activities while Miss Haana was throwing about a hula hoop that had just found a new perspective buyer. We headed out eventually with the craft sticks and hula hoop.

Back home, little Miss Haana immediately acted very mysterious and quiet. My perfume had been taken over and hidden at a safe place. Safe from Mumma's prying eyes or hands. It was gone! Now I'm not laughing at her anymore😊

So, this is why i don't shop much anymore😊

Bookstore Visit

Last week we went to a big, big bookstore. Miss Haana and I had been to a nearby bookstore too many times and we were ready for something new. It was a beautiful day and we had great drive in the convertible. But it was only when we stepped inside the bookstore that the real fun unleashed!

Once inside, we headed straight to the kids' section. There were aisles upon aisles of books.. Picture books, board books, craft books, sticker books, awarded books, best illustrated books.. Baskets full of stuffed toys, activity sets, carts full of more books! They had a small house with teeny-tiny table and 4 small chairs for the little readers. There was a ramp for little readers to take their cart up  to the other aisles that were a few steps up. A couple kids were running their carts up and down the ramp. 

Initially Miss Haana went straight into the small little house and seated herself on the little bitty chairs. She sifted through the books on the table, pointed out pictures to the other kids; while I looked for Curious George and Dora and Arthur books. 

Soon a handful of crazy kids were running up and down the ramp with a cart. Giggling crazy! One of them kids was mine! 

Meanwhile I ran to the sticker aisle! Oh my! What a treasure trove! There were books upon books of all kinds of stickers!  Is this all real, I wondered! 

There were more wonderful aisles of art work, reading, numbers, crafts and best of all.. Sparkles! 

However, the clock beckoned- it was time for us to get going. And I had to leave some books and activities behind for a second visit after all. So with s heavy heart we headed to the checkout counter. But already scheming to come back another day. This was way too much fun!