DIY Week 1: Midway Valentines

I have been involved in the church's youth group IMPACT for three years. Although the first two years I was a slacker, I came back strong and spirited, ready to work with my leaders to improve the group. My goal is to spread influence and bring more art into the children's ministry as well as for IMPACT.

Art. Art is what spreads ideas and pretty much shapes us into what we are. For my DIY project, I will be using art to express and tell stories to the people around. Every art project has the purpose of reflecting on the Bible and its stories and ideas.  It will vary from decorating, posters, and a mural in the children's ministry room.

Throughout the process, my mentors will be my mom and some of my leaders, which are Lanny, Richard, and TT. My backup team members also include Pinkie and my brother.

DIY Week 1: Midway Valentines

Plan:

**This blog post was started last Friday, February15, 2013 and finished Friday, February 22, 2013
Tonight around 6-8, I'm going to meet up with my friend Pinkie to begin decorating for our Midway Valentines event. Basically our job is to glam up the high school room, which is Thanksgiving themed, in orange and brown, into a whole new Valentines paradise. It's going to be hard since this room is one of the biggest rooms at our church, but if we work hard, then we can do it.

For our Valentines Day decorations, the budget is a solid $50. Our supplies include balloons, streamers, rose petals, table cloths, fake flowers, 1 roll of tape, ribbons, yarn, paint, markers, scissors, construction paper, and a hole puncher. (Note: The supply list may increase due to last minute adjustments and ideas)

Our colored theme will be the obvious pink, white, and red. The overall theme for this event is about God's love, so we'll be making posters that are going to be hanging throughout the room with quotes and bible verses having to do with God's love in our daily lives. Along with the posters, we'll be making a balloon arc, a cherry blossom tree, and we'll have streamers coming down from the doors on the sides and ceiling. (Note: Some of these ideas may change because there's a Viet school class that takes place on Saturday morning and our party is from 1-7. We do not want to risk having our hard work destroyed by some kids that are "hyper and pumped" for their Vietnamese class.)

Whatever that we don't finish we will continue the next morning. I'm sure that we'll be making our balloon arc and taping up whatever decorations that we didn't get to for the night.

Results:

The results for the DIY turned out better than I had expected. First of all, we only spent $13 for our decorations, since we bought our supplies from the Dollar Store and Richard came in with some decorations that he took down from his classroom. I'm very glad that we were able to save money and have a turnout that was much better than I had hoped for and planned for.

Friday's results: On Friday my friend Pinkie and I met up at 6pm to start decorating. We spread out supplies across the floor and began writing quotes on hearts, putting up some streamers, making flowers and cherry tree. During that time, Pinkie and I were working up to 7pm, when we were interrupted by the TLC, I don't know what that stands for but the group consists of the Vietnamese speaking youth. (IMPACT is for the english high ministry). We completed our task for the night with only balloon blowing, a cherry blossom tree, and some hearts to work on. Honestly, we did a pretty good job despite being distracted and a bit annoyed by the other group. (* I only took two pictures that night because there were too many people all over the place and I had only wanted a picture of my decorations.)

Saturday's results: After spending the rest of my Friday night finishing up on the last decorations, I arrived at church at 10am to tell the Vietnamese school principal to tell the students not to mess with out  decorations, blah blah blah. While waiting for my friend Jenny to arrive, I spent my time cutting out about 80 strings, all at an arm's length for the balloons. When she arrived, we took advantage of the Viet school's break-time to tape the last decorations around. 

When Tommy and Loc arrived, they took out the helium tank from the shed and we began blowing up our balloons, which reminded me of the movie UP, except the balloons were all in pink and red.  I did the best I can with the balloon arch.We finished everything around 1:30, so we started the party a bit late, but the decorations were done and amazing.

Photos:

Before: 

Materials:

After: 

Tet 2013

As an Asian American, one of the many things I look forward to is Chinese/Lunar New Years. Along with lucky money, dressing up in the traditional Vietnamese dress, an ao dai, and playing around with firecrackers, comes the tet festival at Bolsa Grande.

On Saturday, February 9, I arrived at the tet festival around 8:30 to volunteer with a club. As a tradition in my family, I only go to the tet festival on Saturdays, whether it be with family or with friends. After meeting up with other volunteers, we set off asking for donations for those with bone marrow cancer, since "leukemia" didn't have seem to have as much as an effect on people as the word "cancer" did. I remember a businessman who was working for the New York Company that I asked for donations from. He looked at me and told me that the word "cancer" was very effective and told me he had a "dollar bill" for me. Well, that "dollar bill" turned out to be $20 and he gave me a bag to carry my stuff as well. Made my day. After three hours of walking around and doing my job (little breaks included spinning wheels at some booths for fun), my friends and I finally took a lunch break and that ended my shift. 

Some of my highlights that afternoon included watching the lion dance. I've always loved the lion dances. Maybe one day I'll be able to participate in one. Just got to sign up for a class, work hard and there I go. Another highlight of my day included reuniting with a younger friend, Victoria. It had been four long years since I had last seen her, and now she's all grown up and a freshman! Seeing Victoria almost brought tears to my eyes, especially after I noticed that her eyes were filled with tears. Talk about a memorable tet festival! During the time in between, I had fun taking pictures with the Wells Fargo photobooth, Toyota, and AT&T, although the AT&T booth had a huge problem with connecting their printers to the server. Oh well, most of the people came to the AT&T booth for those texting gloves anyways.

When evening hit, I said goodbye to my school friends and met up with my church friends. It was so nice to be able to spend the day with the people I love. Actually, by the time I was with my church friends, my legs were barely keeping me up. I was so sore and in such pain from all the walking around earlier that day. However, the pain drifted away temporarily whenever I got distracted or concentrated on watching my friends play games. Talking about games, I spend about $30 on games, and lost. Man, if only I made that one shot into the bucket, I would have won a giant pillow pet that I would surprise my brother with. (My parents and my brother were at the tet fest for about four hours that day, however I never managed to run into them.) But usually carnival games are rigged so one of my goals before the next festival or fair I attend is to figure out how each game is rigged. When I got home later that night, my brother surprised me with a cute kangaroo that he had won from one of the booths. What a sweetheart! <3

Sunday morning, I woke up around 6:30, surprisingly full of energy. The only downside to Sunday morning was realizing that I had no pants for my ao dai, so I decided to wear a simple dress instead. After showering and changing into classy and clean clothes, my family and I gathered around and wished each other our Chinese New Years wishes and then the lucky money went around. I love getting my li xi! When I arrived I church, I joined up with my fellow friends on the welcoming team and we served our usual morning Starbucks coffee and the Donuttery donuts. After service and games, I went home and crashed since the lack of sleep finally caught on with me. But overall I had a wonderful day, watching the firecrackers boom and burst and hearing the sounds of the younger kids laughing in delight.

Tet will always be one of my favorite holidays. It's when the Vietnamese culture really pops out to the world.  Tet 2013 will forever hold a place in my heart. <3