Jan-chan’s Tidbits

A few weeks ago I went to visit Science World – Telus World of Science for their Lego Transportation Exhibit. I haven’t been to Science World since 2001 so I was very excited about this visit. I don’t think I can describe the lego exhibit better than photos so here are some of the ones I took:

Titanic

Display of sea transportation vehicles

Emergency some where? Why are there so many police cars?

This display took 500 hours to make.

Al examining the lego "painting".

Space shuttle that's taller than me...

We also visited other exhibits. Here are some fun shots of us being little kids:

Al looked a little too happy while being chomped on...

My weight in the animal scale...

Here's me attacking this giant burger!

You can see more photos from the lego exhibit in my Picasa Album (warning…there is a lot of photos there).

The second clay project course I took last month was making the Chinese Sweets Shop (茶果店). It was really fun making Chinese sweets which I had when I was a kid such as glutinous rice ball (糯米糍), “Put Chai Ko” (砵仔糕), white sugar sponge cake (白糖糕), black sesame roll (芝麻卷), banana cake/roll (香蕉糕), etc. I have no idea what  some of them are called in English.

The completed sweets shop (front view).

The back view. A better look at the bucket of tofu pudding.

For close up shots of the individual sweets and a description of what they are, visit my Picasa Album.

I glued down most of the items onto the stand so I can transport it around but left the trays “glue-free” so people can take them out for a closer look. As a foodie I really liked making the food stands but have decided to concentrate on learning flowers first as I can make those as gifts. I’ll probably continue with the food stands series after I finish up with the flowers classes.

Last month I took two clay project class, the first one is making lily of the valley (鈴蘭). It’s my first time making flowers and I find it much harder than making the food stands as more precision is needed.

Lily of the Valley made with clay.

Close up of an open flower.

Close up on the leafs.

For more pictures on this project visit my Picasa Album.

The flowers all together took about 6 hours and the leafs took about 2 hours. The leafs were pretty fun to make as we use a pasta machine to flatten out the dough, then use a leaf shape cutter for the shape and use a mold to create the pattern. The hardest part for me was creating the waves for the leafs. Also I wish I had bought a better pot for the project. The pot I’m currently using has too narrow of an opening so the flower seemed bunched up. Maybe later on I’ll switch it to one with a wider opening so it’s more lose and feel less bushy.

I’m taking another flower course this month. Hopefully it’ll turn out better than this one.