Bottle Craft 23.12.17

This month's members' Activity being so close to Christmas, we decided to do something in keeping with the spirit of the season and had a small workshop on how to turn old bottles and jam jars into pretty desk caddies. 

Our activity began at 9.30 as usual, but because of the inclement weather there was only a small turn out for the event. Everyone had fun, however, discovering the most easily available materials to re-cycle with their old bottles.

From old jam jars to scraps of old curtain fabric and bits of left-over parcel string, the members were shown how to cover the jars and bottles with string or old non-slip matting to create a suitable surface for painting or gluing things.

The bottles and jars were decorated with old curtain fabric scraps that had been cut into leaf and petal shapes and bits of old tinsel or string ends.

Something New for 2018!

With the new year just around the corner, we're always trying out new products for our Garden Shop and one of our latest ideas is hand-painted aprons! We're also looking into regular-sized tea towels as well as smaller ones and table napkins which can be framed and hung up just like regular hand-printed pictures or paintings.

Here's a look at one of the aprons we tried painting! 

We also have the following types of art and craft classes for kids and adults  at our Outreach Office every Saturday from 1pm to 4pm -

Printing With Fresh Leaves (on fabric products)

Simple Freeform Chinese Painting (on fabric products)

If you're interested, give us a call or email us for an appointment.

ESOL Nature Walk

We had a group of lovely Years 2, 3 and 4 kids come over on Wednesday for a Garden Walk. The Walk was conducted by our Treasurer, Mr Tajul Arosh Baroky, who took the kids via the bamboo garden route from our Outreach office. 

Arriving promptly at 9.30am, the kids assembled in our office garden and quickly went off on their walk in single file. The focus of their morning's adventure was learning about the ecology of the trees and plants in the Gardens as well as the creatures that live in them. 

Walking under the bamboo was an interesting experience for the kids, expecially when they found out bamboo was a kind of grass and not a tree.

 

Unfortunately, the back route to the Gardens was closed for maintenance work so the route had to be changed to include a meander through the formal garden before heading up towards the lily pond. There were few monkeys to be seen while walking along the road but once the kids reached the pond, there were monkeys waiting to entertain them! 

Hard to say who entertained whom, actually, as the curious monkeys seemed equally fascinated by the children.

It was just a short 90-minute walk as the kids were too young to attempt a longer excursion but the kids learned a lot about things like how even cutting down a single tree affects all the creatures that live in it, from the ants and insects under and around the roots to those that make their homes up in its topmost branches. 

We're really looking forward to seeing the ESOL boys and girls again next holiday as they asked intelligent questions about the things they were shown in the field.