things-a-week 10, 11, and 12

My thing-a-week posts have been backlogged, but that doesn't mean I haven't been making things.

In January, I told Lance that some of my buildings come from the doodles I make to stay alert through sermons. For Week 10, I turned one of those doodles into a building, Elephant House:

This could be a building in a zoo, a hillside church, or a home somewhere rocky and dry, like Socotra with its funny trees, scrubby undergrowth, and pale rocks, or Joshua Tree National Park. The building might or might not actually be purple, but the windows would be made with blue and green colored glass.

For Week 11, I learned to make bracelets with macrame, and I used pieces of ribbon I'd had lying around. They came from the packaging of PR stuff sent to the office, and I guess PR people have a thing for gold and purple. The fish bead is from a Gensan school supply store with a bin of assorted beads; they're all mixed together and go for P40 a cup. I also tried weaving a simple strap bracelet out of white string, some of it dyed blue.

The blue and orange bracelet is not entirely my own handiwork, by the way. Emily (Shi Yu), a volunteer teacher from China and one of Cris's colleagues, made the double coin knot in the center; I just did the macrame on the sides to see how it would look.

For Week 12, this week, I decided to go back to making birthday cards for people at the office. One of the writers, Gianna, is 23 now. This simple popup card is inspired by the time I witnessed her drive on EDSA for the first time ever, and in the middle of Friday night rush hour, too.