Etsy Craft Party 2013: Cebu, Philippines

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I’m very excited to host the first ever Etsy Craft Party in Cebu.

Etsy Craft Party is a one-day global celebration of meeting and making. It’s about sharing your passion for craft, art, and design with your community.

It’s a simultaneous event happening on the 20th of June worldwide.

I’ve been trying to get involved in this since last year but nobody seemed to be interested. This year, Cebu will definitely be part of this global event.

The theme is on Craft for Community. Some of the participants have expressed making paper crafts like bookmarks which shall be donated to a book club in Cebu. After which, we will then make other projects and learn new crafts. We can also do craft/project swapping. If you have suggestions or suggest a venue, please send us a message.

More details will be posted in the next few days. Tentative date for the Party is June 20 at 5PM. If you prefer June 22, please email us at marrylallwrite@yahoo.com or leave a message in our facebook page MarrylsArtsandCrafts for any suggestions.

A minimum fee will be charged at the door to cover event expenses and food.

If we can get 25 people to register ASAP, we might get a box of craft supplies from ETSY. So please register NOW! Click here.

See you there!

 

Mary’s Crystal Green Wedding Cord

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This wedding cord is not my usual order-pay-make-ship kind of wedding cord. It has a story. This was my first crystal green wedding cord that I made a few months back for a client from Canada. It took quite longer to finish this than I had anticipated. The crystals and other materials I had in mind were not readily available and I had to wait for it to be delivered to Cebu.

That and some family emergencies (God or the universe surely has his way of surprising us this year!) got this project on hold. I was very fortunate to have a very patient client who had foresight and ordered this months ahead of her wedding date. Thank you Mary for making me part of your special day.

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I used good quality rondelles and teardrop crystals. It took me a while to find just the perfect beads and accents. If I used acrylics and just any green accents, I’d have finished this in a day or two but I will never be satisfied + I wouldn’t dare ship it to Canada. No way!

Here’s the thing: I make these wedding essentials first not to make money, but the opportunity to do what I love and that is creating and making something lovely – handmade. The money is icing on the cake. Also, I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of my client’s special day and that in itself is a gift.

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For weeks I hunted for green embellishments. I finally found a leather embellishment and some green, gold/light brown accents that I thought were perfect.

And because my client from Canada was very patient and kind, I thought it’d be just right to give her a discount and I did.  At the end of the day, it’s still the opportunity to be part of someone else’s special day and the opportunity to be creative. It’s a gift.

p.s. Thanks Mary for letting me do your wedding cord. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making them. Congratulations and best wishes. Please send me pictures of your big day.

Crab Fried Rice

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The husband has been bugging me to make Crab Fried Rice and I thought I’ll share with you my quick and easy recipe.

You will need:

  • 1 1/2 cup day-old cooked rice
  • 1 cup cooked crab meat
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tbsp Fish sauce or Patismansi (fish sauce with Philippine Lemon)
  • 1-2 cloves of chopped garlic
  • 1/4 cup chopped spring onions & carrots (optional)
  • pepper to taste
  • canola or olive oil

Use rice that’s been cooked ahead instead of newly cooked steaming hot rice from the rice cooker which will yield a mushy fried rice. The drier rice will yield a fluffy fried rice.

Most crab meat from the grocery are pre-cooked but taste it to determine how much fish sauce you will need later. Using a very hot wok or pan, pour oil and sauté the garlic and crab meat quickly. Right before I add in the rice, quickly stir in the carrots, half of the fish sauce and pepper  for a few seconds. If you’re in the Philippines or have a Filipino or oriental store nearby, try to find Patismansi. It has a better taste than ordinary fish sauce.

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Add in the rice and stir. Make room at the side of the wok to scramble the egg (chefs do it in the middle of the wok. I can’t seem to do that trick + I’m not a chef , tee hee!).  Add a drizzle of oil and crack the egg. Scramble the egg and slowly incorporate the egg to the fried rice. Work your way from the outside and gradually stir in some rice. The first time I did this, I incorporated the egg altogether with the rice even if it was not well scrambled. It was a disaster! If you don’t feel comfortable doing this trick, you can always scramble the egg separately and add it in the fried rice.

Add the remaining fish sauce and season with pepper to taste.  Turn off heat and stir in the green onions. You may garnish with a few more spring onions or cilantro leaves.

Super quick and easy Crab Fried Rice.

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Last-Minute DIY Projects

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After a series of seven days of workshops, we capped off the orientation for the new hires with a really cool activity. It was a birthday party-inspired Culminating activity. Instead of the usual and very formal (and boring) activities to formally welcome them, we thought of doing this instead. However, we only had a couple of hours to set up and half a day to plan. What can you do with half a day of prep? Scramble ;-)

I’ve been notorious for doing last-minute DIYs lately. I seem to find myself in situations that require me to be resourceful and efficient.

I thought of making some really easy DIY projects for this birthday party-themed activity:

1. Lollipop Topiary

2. Candy Tower

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Since it was children’s party-inspired, we had candies, lollipops, cupcakes, etc. We used baking cups and filled it with lots of candies and arranged it on the Candy Tower. The Candy Tower was a very easy project and since it was made on the 11th hour, I had no choice but to use whatever was available in my craft supplies. I only had gift wrapping paper to cover the sides and bottom. Couldn’t even find my pinking shears so I just made crude scallops on the edges. But I think it came out pretty.

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I had a lot of birthday party decorations sitting in my tiny craft room. This was strawberry shortcake and Dora themed-decorations that I bought from Party City in Baltimore. I kept them and was put to good use yesterday.

Our team did a really great job preparing everything from the AVP to the food, loots, decorations and our most awesome dance number (wink *wink).

The Paper Pompoms were very last-minute but tied everything together for the theme.

A birthday party won’t be complete without loot bags. It was a simple Dora paper bag that we cut to look like t-shirts and we had the participant’s faces on to a superhero caricature of themselves. How cool is that?

Who says office workshops and culminating activities have to be so boring?

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