Artsy Fartsy Round Up: May and June

I know I've been posting a lot of travel and apartment-related entries lately, and I've forgotten to blog about my arts and crafts projects. I HAVE been practicing, just not writing a lot about it. Thanks to Instagram, I have proof that I have been working on creative projects.

Here's A quick round up of my artsy fartsy pursuits these past couple of months!
(Top to bottom, Left to right)

1. Stenciled my corkboard using white acrylic paint and oslo paper. It's so much easier to stencil than paint the triangles individually. (I am obsessed with them lately).

2. Lyric calligraphy for my friend who wants to use it for her tattoo. Excited to see the final outcome on actual skin! #pressure

3. Watercolored lettering on the planner's June calendar for Independence Day. Super inspired by Gang Badoy Capati's statement during that day:

"Remember: the Philippines is not its government. The Philippines is a billion other things. The ice cream guy and the cop who dances, the banana shake by the beach, and the portable lechon from an airport, the sunsets from any point, and all the mountains & smiles, and the kite surfing air space, the surf, the skateboard's sound against the midnight park, the Philippines is its music, its poets, its dancers, and more and more and more.#independenceday #philippines"

4. Watercolored portrait. Practicing my washes and painting peonies and trying to be deliberate with my techniques in watercolor.

5. Dove rubberstamp at the Bright Minds Studio! Taught my cousin how to carve stamps. She made a bamboo pattern for herself.

6. Mushroom rubberstamp which is a personal project and a new addition to my collection! Next to watercolor, this is really my favorite artsy fartsy activity.

7. Ink and graphite portrait. Trying to go back to basics with making portraits and going minimalist with black and gold details. I may have been influenced by my neutral and safe choices at the apartment, so I am practicing restraint with my illustrations also.

8. Paper flower bouquet which came in handy as decor when I still didn't have plants at the condo. They're pretty and they never wilt!

9. Monogram rubberstamp for a friend's wedding! My college batchmate Cza is getting married this August and asked me to recreate their monogram on a rubberstamp. They want to use it for giveaways for their wedding. Of course, I was totally up for the challenge! So glad they liked it!

What have you been up to lately? :)

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Bright Minds Ph X Fayeshka

A new creative space for kids and adults just opened this March in Taguig and I'm really excited to share this collaboration with you. See, I've been doing regular art sessions with my niece and cousins, teaching them some calligraphy, rubber stamping and watercolor techniques at cafes around BF, and so when my good friend Felice called me one morning and asked if I was willing to teach kids arts and crafts, I instantly said yes.

Bright Minds is the brainchild of Felice's sister, Chrissie Capicoy who is a dentist by profession. She noticed that a number of her patients have cleft lips and cleft palates, so she came up with the idea to also offer Speech Therapy to children. Aside from helping kids reach their full potential with language and communication, they also offer crafts sessions to open their minds to the creative process and simply have fun with art. With the current trend of children simply relying on gadgets and technology to pass the time, Bright Minds also aims to reintroduce the youth to the handcrafting movement. 

Bright Minds creative space

The Bright Minds Team consists of certified speech language pathologists and artists with backgrounds in fashion, fine arts and language. Bright Minds also offers French and Spanish classes and tied up with The Alliance Française de Manille and Instituto Cervantes respectively.  

Kids hard at work on their rubber stamps

I am very honored to be a part of this team of creative individuals who teach and encourage kids be more creative. For the past several weeks since Bright Minds has opened, I've been teaching rubber stamping techniques and basic drawing to kids every Saturday and it's been a really amazing and rewarding experience. We are also offering other craft projects such as silk screening, paper flowers and garland making, watercolor techniques as well as ceramic painting!

Ashley and her flower and bee stamp

Marjorie, proud of her name stamp (and by gosh, what detail!)

Bright Minds Speech Clinic and Creative Center is located at:

Unit 201 McKinley Park Residences
31st St. corner 3rd Ave.,
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
brightmindsph@gmail.com
Tel: +63 2 625-4748
Mobile: +63 916 547 6870

For more information about Bright Minds Speech Clinic and Creative Center, visit their official website

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Project Condo: A Dining Set, Paper Flowers and Table Styling

Month of April has brought some great progress to my living conditions at the condo. In my last Project Condo post, I was sharing some of the things I learned during my first couple of weeks at my unit. I ended up not buying the furniture that I enumerated in this post because of budget constraints, and so I took a different approach to purchasing big functional pieces and decorating my home. 

I recently bought a sturdy 2-seater dining set made of malaysian rubber wood and it has been my place for work and eating. I love that it's made of dark wood, although I am contemplating on having it painted in white. The table is square, sized 30x30 inches and I've been looking for one exactly like it. I knew my space could not afford fitting a bigger table, so I jumped at the opportunity to buy this set.  I still plan to add a couple of eames-inspired DSW chairs so that I can use them as accent chairs to this rather dull set up, but I tried to look for them at Mandaue foam, Dimensione and Dwell and they were out of stock. Oh well, in time. :)

Lately, I've been channeling some of my creative juices with styling my new dining area. I chanced upon a utility scale placemat from the Bleach Store in Greenbelt 5 and bought it immediately. Then made a bunch of paper flowers to add some color and softness to the table. Since I haven't done my plant/flower shopping from my mother's garden yet, I made these paper flowers using yellow, black and white crepe paper. 

Because of the placemat, the table had a sort of industrial vibe to it and the grey background and yellow flowers juxtapose themselves against the dark wood. 

With the end of April came in the start of a brand new month, and I suddenly felt tired of the table setting above. It seemed too dark and too warm, so I made another bunch of flowers with greens, violets and blues. For the blue flower, I used white crepe paper and colored its edges with watercolor. Oh the thrill of the blue bleeding into white sent my heart giggling! I changed my gray placemat with a white and black kitchen towel which served the same placemat purpose on my table and it gave a sort of shabby chic feel to the whole setting.

What do you think about these two themes? Are you into the whole industrial movement, or are you more of a shabby chic kind? :)

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Craft Loot, Hooray!

One of the first things that I did when I arrived in the U.S. is get myself more calligraphy and crafting tools. While the handcrafting movement in Manila is starting to grow thanks to her, her, her, and her, the tools needed to get into the movement isn't as available as we would've liked. 

I took advantage of this onshore assignment in buying stuff that I wanted to buy but couldn't find in Manila. The first thing that I had intended to buy was a Speedball Linoleum Cutter. I have the woodcutter version which I was able to buy at National Bookstore for 150 pesos. It was a decent set, but when I tried out Mansy's Speedball cutter during our Crafternoon Session, there was a huge difference specially when I wanted to carve out finer details on my stamp. 

I got some Hunt 99s and 101s as well as Windsor and Newton Calligraphy inks from my uncle when they visited Manila. I hoarded on nibs coz I know they're not sold in Manila except in Scribe Writing Essentials in Eastwood. I wanted to try more nibs, I also ordered Esterbrooks and Nikko Gs from Paper Ink Arts! 

Here's a couple of things that I came up with using my crafting purchases:

Flower stamps that I made using my Speedball cutter. The stamp ink brand is Inkadinkado. Weather is quite dreary these days so I made this. I can't wait for spring!

A patterned stamp that I did while experimenting on my Inkadinkado stamp colors. 

The best thing about it is that I get to only use my per diem for my purchases, and shipping is free when you buy a certain number of products and reach a certain amount. Work has been taking up too much of my time this past month, but with things stabilizing in my I.T. life, I have more time to work on my calligraphy and watercolor. I guess wherever I go, even if I am miles away from home, I will always end up doing something creative. 

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My Very First Crafternoon Session!

This is part 2 of my "going-out-of-the-comfort-zone weekend". After last Saturday's solo gig at Boho Sarapsody Bistro,  I finally attended Mansy and Alessa's Rubber Stamping Crafternoon Session at Fully Booked yesterday!

I've been stalking a fan of Alessa and Mansy's work for quite a while now and I was really looking forward to learn from them in this session. The venue was almost packed when I arrived, and the participants seemed like they knew each other already. It was like going to school for the first time. You enter a room not knowing crap about anyone and then you start going with your intuition in identifying who seems to be the least intimidating set of people in the room and sit next to them. I ended up sitting with Melay, Tatin and Espie. The three girls at my table know each other (Melay and Espie are sisters and Melay and Tatin are friends), but I didn't feel left out coz they were so nice.

When I registered at the venue, they gave me a kit which included carving tools, rubber blocks, a sponge that could substitute as a stamp pad, sheets of paper and a cutter. These are the basic things that you need to start your rubber homicide.

Clockwise from Top Left: (1) Stamped Cards we shared to our new crafting mates! (2) The Rubber Stamp Carving Kit that was included in the workshop (3) Support The Hand Makers by Mansy (4) My new crafting mates Espie, Mela and Tatin

Mansy gave a bit of trivia about rubber sole carving during the second World War. Apparently, prisoners at the concentration camps carved the soles of their shoes to make art. It's amazing to think that even at a time of hopelessness and fear, people still managed to stay creative. 

In the middle of the carving festivities, we were asked to introduce ourselves one by one--what we do for a living and our art background. Ladies from different occupations and industries were there to attend the workshop and it was awesome to find out that there are I.T. Consultants like me who were also eager to pursue a more creative life. I told the class I'm a Systems Analyst, and my art background is that I draw/doodle and that I play music. To be honest, I get sucked into all sorts of  things--running, frisbee, lomography, writing--and my mom describes me as "ang batang maraming gustong gawin". But if you ask me what are my true passions, I can really say with conviction that it's visual arts and singing. 

When Alessa shared her thoughts about stamping, I could tell she's so passionate about it. She's a graphic designer and a restaurateur by profession.  She's been teaching and organizing crafting workshops since she was seventeen (GOOD LORD, ANONG GINAGAWA KO WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN?!) and I admire her passion and courage to really pursue what she wanted to do. I'm amazed how she can balance creativity with business. Ang galing!

Mansy and Alessa sharing their carving process and techniques

Intricate print made by Mansy. I want to make a large scale print like that! (Ambitious ako, bakit ba? Haha)

More cards prepared by the crafting class

For my pattern, I made a flower stamp inspired by the previous watercolor painting that I did last month. I wanted to make a stamp out of it, but apparently it's more difficult than I had expected so I made it more simple. I think it turned out well. 

My pattern inspiration

My actual stamp!

The next stamp that I carved was less inspired and more spontaneous. Since I realized mahirap pala mag carve with curves, I opted for a pattern with straight lines. I love this one coz I can make it look more seamless than the flower stamp. 

Christmas theme ang peg! 

I'm planning to make tons of these to give to my cousin from NY coz she loves handmade stuff too!

Next in my creativity bucket list is to attend Fozzy's Calligraphy Class. She attended the same stamping crafternoon session last Sunday but I didn't get a chance to say hi and have a chat with her. We were talking about it on instagram the other day, and we both wished we had time to exchange a few hellos. But then again, even if the crafting community is already growing, I'm sure we're bound to attend similar workshops in the future! It's still a small world, after all.

You can check out and sign up for more crafternoon sessions with Alessa and Mansy! Check out their blogs here and here!

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Call This Rubber Stamping Advanced Studies

Next week, I'll be joining the Rubber Stamping Crafternoon Session at Fully Booked with Alessa Lanot. I signed up last month and got a slot and I've been looking forward to February 10 ever since. It says in Alessa's blog that materials will be provided, but I just couldn't help myself with my excitement and bought my own materials at National Bookstore anyway. I bought a cutting mat, wood carving tools, erasers and stamp pad last week just to get a feel of what it's like to carve erasers for my custom stamps. Call me an eager beaver student, pero excited talaga ako eh! I'm just doing my advanced studies for my rubber stamping class!

Noobie tools for a noobie crafter, but I am giddy with happiness after making these stamps!

My very first DIY stamp was that yellow one. I tried to make a branch with leaves, but I didn't apply a  cutting technique that I learned later on, so the edges were very coarse and less refined. For smoother edges,  it's good to use an exacto knife/cutter and trace the edges of the stamp template for easier carving later on. 

My "kinayod ng manok" first attempt

Second try, a tulip and a chevron pattern

I have yet to learn the stamping technique to make it look seamless and continuous. It takes practice to carve a stamp, but it requires an equal amount of practice for using it too.

Even if I have one foot inside the door of the DIY rubberstamping world, I'm still excited to learn from the experts and my fellow classmates at the workshop. Maybe I can make a star stamp like the one that students get in pre-school for a job well done. I've been doing my homework, after all. :)

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