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  • Alex Nguyen Portraits - The Blog
  • Alex Nguyen Portraits - The Blog
  • Alex Nguyen Portraits - The Blog

{Happy Birthday!} Seattle Area Child Photographer

May 4th, 2013

My oldest son had a birthday recently. How did that happen? I swear, it wasn’t that long ago when I was answering the phone, overdue by almost a week, telling people “no, the baby’s not here yet. STOP CALLING.” Now I look at him, all big smiles and attitude, and think, where did that time [...]
 

My oldest son had a birthday recently. How did that happen? I swear, it wasn’t that long ago when I was answering the phone, overdue by almost a week, telling people “no, the baby’s not here yet. STOP CALLING.” Now I look at him, all big smiles and attitude, and think, where did that time go? Last year for his birthday, partly because we were overwhelmed with just the amount of stuff that we have in our small house, and partly because we know that our oldest is very empathetic and caring, we introduced him to charity giving. So instead of birthday gifts, he decided to ask people to donate to The Starlight Foundation (which helps sick kids in hospitals) instead. We were very proud of him!

This year, of his own accord, he asked to pick another charity to donate to for his birthday. We picked clean water, since I come from a third world country where clean water from the tap is not easily accessible. Of course, he also asked for a birthday party with his friends, but in lieu of presents, he asks everyone to donate $8 (because he is turning EIGHT!) to help him reach his goal. So please, visit the Charity Water donation page, and if you feel inclined, please donate and help him out for his birthday wish. :)

Charity: WATER – Because everyone deserves clean water.

 

Happiest of birthdays, my sweet boy!

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{Cornstarch Painting} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

May 16th, 2013

If you’ve visited my blog  before, you should know that my boys love art, especially painting. Buying paint all the time for projects can get pricey, so when I saw this easy way to make my own paint from just stuff I had at home, I was all over it. It takes cornstarch, water, and [...]
 

If you’ve visited my blog  before, you should know that my boys love art, especially painting. Buying paint all the time for projects can get pricey, so when I saw this easy way to make my own paint from just stuff I had at home, I was all over it. It takes cornstarch, water, and food coloring to make your own paint. You have to play with the ratio of cornstarch to water. I think our ratio was one tablespoon of cornstarch to one cup of water. I started with one tablespoon of cornstarch and added in water until it got to a watercolor-paint like consistency. If you want a thicker consistency like tempura paint, I would go with 1/2 or 2/3 cup of water. Then, since it was a beautiful day, I set the boys up outside with butcher paper laid out on the driveway, and let them go to town. They had sooooo much fun. I was pleasantly surprised at how bright the colors in the cornstarch paint turned out. In the end, the boys ended up mixing all the colors together to a muddy brown, ditched the paint brushes, and painted with their hands and feet.  Overall, it was fun, messy, creative, and colorful. We hung up the finished painting in the garaged and labeled it “Our World”.

What You’ll Need:

  • cornstarch (arrowroot powder may work as well, but I haven’t tested it)
  • water
  • food coloring
  • paintbrushes
  • some sort of cup to hold it
  • **optional** muffin tin or other holder to hold it for transport

Again, our ratio was 1 tablespoon cornstarch : 1 cup water. You can play with the ratio to the consistency you desire.

 

We mixed our cornstarch paint in cups, then I put the cups in a muffin tin for easier transport. Look at the colors!

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I was amazed at how vivid the colors showed up once the boys started painting. Look at the tasty watermelons.

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Of course, then they started to experiment with painting with their hands as well.

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It made for great sensory play!

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It was a warm weekend, so perfect for some outdoor painting. I laid out a big roll of butcher paper outside for them to paint. I also stripped them down for easier clean up afterwards. They were totally into the process.

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My oldest just started dipping his hands into the cup for full immersion. I think he was starting to channel his inner Jackson Pollack.

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Then, they both got into the full body, painting action. Overall, it was an easy, cheap (!), and fun way to paint! Happy painting!

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{Tulip Town 2013} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

May 10th, 2013

Every year, we take a trip up to Skagit Valley to visit the tulips. You can check out our trips in 2010 and 2012 and see how much the boys changed (and how little their love of mud puddles have not changed This year the weather has been perfect, so I bundled the boys up [...]
 

Every year, we take a trip up to Skagit Valley to visit the tulips. You can check out our trips in 2010 and 2012 and see how much the boys changed (and how little their love of mud puddles have not changed :) This year the weather has been perfect, so I bundled the boys up and we went for a day trip. I love going to the tulips because it reminds me of when I was pregnant with my oldest, and waiting, and watching the flowers bloom as I waited for my little guy to appear. Plus, they are just beautiful, and we have FIELDS and FIELDS of them here in Washington. If you haven’t made the trip to visit the festival, it runs through the entire month of April (depending on bloom), and it’s awesome!

 

No, this isn’t Holland. It’s Mt. Vernon, WA, U.S.A. :)

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Welcome to Tulip Town! My oldest had to jump in order to be tall enough to be in the picture on the left.

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I spy with my little eye, a hidden preschooler.

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We visit the tulip festival every year, since it occurs around my oldest’s birthday. Look at how much he has grown! :sniff:

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Stand by the tulips and pose, boys. This is the best that I could get.

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Mainly, they were way more interested in the mud, and mud puddles, than the tulip flowers.

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I wonder what made these kid size boot prints…

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If only there was some clue to tell me.

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Splish splash, some one took a mud bath.

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If you are local and haven’t been up here, go! It’s so beautiful, and the festival runs the entire month of April.

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Pretty, pretty tulips!

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Up close and personal with a tulip.

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Sometimes, you just gotta let them lecture you, and try not to laugh at the expressions on their sweet faces.

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Happy, happy kiddo.

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I let my oldest have my camera, and he took this shot! Proud mama right here, such a nice capture!

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My youngest thought he was so sneaky making faces while we were taking pictures.

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My favorite picture all day. I usually only get serious looks from him, I was so glad to be able to capture a real smile for once.

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If you look closely, my oldest is holding up his little brother in order to make him tall enough to fit in the face hole for the picture. Awww……

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They even had face painting inside the barn!

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At the end of the day though, it was mostly two little boys doing this.

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And this.

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{Wordless Wednesday} Seattle Area Child Photographer

May 7th, 2013

        This post is shared with: The Jenny Evolution
 

 

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{Musical Painting} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

May 5th, 2013

Something that seems to be put on the backburner in education these days is emphasis on the arts and music. I read this awesome article about the principal who placed art teachers back in his school and thought yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! I wish more schools operated that way. I’m always looking for [...]
 

Something that seems to be put on the backburner in education these days is emphasis on the arts and music. I read this awesome article about the principal who placed art teachers back in his school and thought yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! I wish more schools operated that way. I’m always looking for activities which combine my preschooler’s need for sensory input, along with anything that encourages art or music. When I found this activity on Pinterest for musical painting, I thought it was the GREATEST THING EVER. It was relatively simple, incorporated sensory inputs through sound and touch, let my preschooler paint, and the supplies were minimal. It went better than I expected! My preschooler is obsessed with the sound of jingle bells, and he loved stroking the fuzziness of the pipe cleaners as well. He spent quite a bit of time mixing paints, and listening to the jingle bells, before he painted his picture. (as a bonus lesson, I just set out the three primary colors for him, and had him mix the rest of the colors he wanted to use. He really enjoyed the color mixing!)

I would consider this a success, and will totally pull this project out again another day!

What You’ll Need:

  • paintbrushes
  • pipe cleaners
  • bells

The supplies.

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Thread the bell onto the pipe cleaner. I did three bells on each pipe cleaner per paint brush.

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Then, wrap the pipe cleaner around the top of the paint brush. You’re done!

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Then, let your kid paint. My preschooler loved hearing the bells jingle as he mixed the paints. He spent a good twenty minutes just mixing paints to hear the jingle sounds before actually painting. I started with just primary colors (blue, red, yellow) and had him make the rest for his art through color mixing.

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Painting and making music.

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He would stop every so often to feel the fuzziness of the pipe cleaner as well. So many sensory sensations!

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The aftermath. Totally worth it, this activity occupied him for about 45 minutes.

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Ta-dah! The finished painting, it’s a dad and a kid walking in the sunshine. :) Go forth now, and do your own musical painting today!

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{Wordless Wednesday} Seattle Area Child Photographer

May 1st, 2013

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{Origami Flowers and Kusudama Balls} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

April 30th, 2013

Something my boys and I like to do is fold paper. Not even fancy paper folding like origami, just regular folds on paper. It’s calming, it we get to talk about math properties like shapes (how many triangles can we fold from a square?); fractions (how many times can we fold a piece of paper [...]
 

Something my boys and I like to do is fold paper. Not even fancy paper folding like origami, just regular folds on paper. It’s calming, it we get to talk about math properties like shapes (how many triangles can we fold from a square?); fractions (how many times can we fold a piece of paper like a fan?); symmetry (unfold the paper, does it look the same on both sides?). That’s not to say, we don’t enjoy our fancy origami as well! :)

Mother’s Day in the States is coming up in a couple of weeks, and the boys and I wanted to make something to give to my mom (their Ba Ngoai). She loves flowers, but I wanted to give her something a little more permanent than just a bouquet of cut flowers. I came across kusudama balls a couple of years ago and thought this would be a great project for us to make to give to her. The folding is simple enough for the boys to do, and since there is a LOT of folding involved to make the finished project, it would be something from all of us. You can just make the paper flowers as well, they are also quite beautiful by themselves. The entire tutorial is detailed below in the post.

What You’ll Need (for the Kusudama Ball): 

  • 60 squares of paper (I use 3″ x 3″, simply because it was easy to cut out 4 of them from a 12″x12″ piece of scrapbook paper)
  • **NOTE** this 60 squares is for the 5 petal flower version. if you want 6 petals, plan accordingly with 72 pieces of paper
  • craft glue or glue dots (if you’re working with kids, I highly recommend glue dots)
  • clothes pins (if you are working with craft glue, to hold the petals closed while gluing)
  • string, twine, ribbon, etc. to hold up the finished ball
  • **optional** beads, bells, trinket for bottom of ball

 

Here is a completed, five petal flower made of paper. Isn’t it so pretty? The boys actually helped make all the petals for me.

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The tutorial is in two parts, the blue and the green. The previous/start is in blue, and the explaining fold is in green.

 

First, you’re going to fold your square paper diagonally in half, to make a triangle.

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Keep the triangle base at the bottom. Then, from the middle, fold the outside right and left points up (to make a diamond shape).

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Then, take the right and left points you just folded up, and fold it halfway out. (see my dotted line and arrow?) You make little wings, basically.

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Next, open and flatten, or squash out your wings. I included a picture of what it looks like from the other side.

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There are two variations on this next part.

 

Next, take the little flap and fold it down even with the edge. You can either (LEFT SIDE OF PICTURE) fold it outside. This will show the contrasting color and produce 3 petals on the inside. You can also (RIGHT SIDE OF PICTURE/BIG PICTURE) fold it inside. This will not show the contrasting color and produce 1 petal on the inside. 

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Then, fold the inside wings together, curve to make the petal, and glue. The easiest with kids is to stick a glue dot on it, but you can also use glue and clothespins to hold it shut.

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Here are the differences in the petal variations.

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The finished flowers! If you want alternating petal colors, you’re going to need six petals on your flower (see flower on right). Otherwise, five petals are fine (see flower on left).

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These are really easy to make. Here are some made from scrapbook paper done by my preschooler and older son. I did the gluing of the petals together, while they folded the petals. You can see the petals aren’t quite symmetrical, but it’s still beautiful.

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So pretty!

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To make the kusudama ball, you’ll need 12 flowers total, six for each side.

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To hang the ball, I used twine. I put wooden beads at the bottom of it to make it look pretty.

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The underside of half of the ball, with the twine glued into place.

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Then, glue both sides together. Ta-dah! I think it looks like a happy, flowery, sun. The boys are VERY excited to give it to Ba Ngoai!

Happy Crafting!

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Looking for other great Mother’s Day ideas, or have your own? Submit them at NerdWallet.com and their Mother’s Day contest!

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{May Day Baskets} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

April 24th, 2013

April showers bring May flowers, as the old adage goes. I love getting flowers, and a tradition I also love is giving flowers on May Day (the first of May). Last year the boys and I made these cute paper cones as baskets, and left them for our neighbors. They loved the craft AND the [...]
 

April showers bring May flowers, as the old adage goes. I love getting flowers, and a tradition I also love is giving flowers on May Day (the first of May). Last year the boys and I made these cute paper cones as baskets, and left them for our neighbors. They loved the craft AND the giving, and are already asking to do it again. It is a simple little thing, but my boys got a huge kick out of leaving the little baskets for all of our neighbors and friends. Try your hand at making your own May Day baskets, and filling them with flowers, whether it be flowers from your garden, or painted flowers your child made, or hand crafted flowers. The gesture will be much appreciated!

 

We started off with some pretty cardstock. You can probably use scrapbook paper, but I wanted something a little sturdier for my paper cones.

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I measured a semi-circle with a compass (or, you can just eyeball it), and had my boys cut it. Then, we glued it. I used the clothespins to hold it shut as the glue dried. This year, I think we may use glue dots.

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From the leftover cardstock paper, we made tags for our paper cones that said “Happy May Day!”

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Yes, these lilacs are from my yard. :)

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I punched holes in the side of the cone and threaded ribbon and the tags through,  in order to hold up the cones.

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Knock, knock!

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Happy May Day! Wouldn’t finding this on your door bring a smile to your face? 

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{Wordless Wednesday} Seattle Area Child Photographer

April 24th, 2013

                     
 

 

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{Bridge Building, 101} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

April 20th, 2013

Both boys are on spring break this week from preschool and elementary school respectively. Now, spring break around here is hit or miss weather wise, usually more of a miss. I came across this project idea for  building a bridge from Science Sparks (a new monthly link up they have called Challenge and Discover) and [...]
 

Both boys are on spring break this week from preschool and elementary school respectively. Now, spring break around here is hit or miss weather wise, usually more of a miss. I came across this project idea for  building a bridge from Science Sparks (a new monthly link up they have called Challenge and Discover) and thought, what a GREAT project! The boys took to it quite enthusiastically, and it took up most of a morning. It definitely was one of the best science projects we’ve done. Not only did we get to draw out what we thought our bridge would look like, we got to build it out of newspaper (!!), measure and look at numbers, have a failed experiment, rethink our project, and then have a successful bridge. WOO HOO!

The guidelines to the project were: A) The bridge had to hold at least one kilogram (1kg=2.2lb) and B) the bridge had to be made out of one object in the recycle bin. Here is what we did for our project.

We used newspaper and scotch tape.

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Here is the draft that my oldest drew for what he thought the bridge would look like. I would like you to note the star shape under the bridge!

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For my preschooler, I printed out different bridges and had him circle ones he liked.

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Next, we rolled up the newspaper in order to make it sturdier, like sticks. We rolled up half sheets, then cut them in half again for the bridge supports. For the main bridge, we rolled up a whole sheet for the bridge decking.

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Our supports. I helped with this phase, I think we rolled up 12 pieces of newspaper to make 24 supports.

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The boys figuring out how to attach them together.

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My oldest went back to his drawing and decided the star design was the strongest. He went to town with the tape.

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Cutting to level the supports.

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The bridge decking, and all the leg supports.

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The preschooler was Captain Tape Giver Person

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He also measured the length and width of the bridge.

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The bridge was 32 inches long, and 6 inches wide.

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My oldest then went to taping the star shaped supports to the bridge deck.

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The bridge is finished! We did have some problems with leveling (my husband later surmised it may have been sturdier on carpet, or another more giving surface than hardwood).

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First test: EPIC FAIL!

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We decided that scotch tape was not strong enough, so we went back and reinforced the supports with duct tape. SUCCESS!

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Overall, this was a super fun and exciting project. My oldest did most of this, from drawing the bridge, to figuring out how to make it from the supports, to being sad about it not working, to suggesting the duct tape. We even made a video where he explains everything, if you want to watch. Thank you again, Science Sparks, for hosting this great event! We look forward to what’s in store for next month!

 

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