You could call it serendipity.
Ever since I have made a deliberate attempt to stop mindlessly surfing Facebook, I have missed out many posts and status updates by friends and people I follow. But some three weeks ago, I chanced upon my friend, Pat, posting about several workshops Temasek Polytechnic was planning to run in conjunction with this year’s Singapore Design Week. They were running workshops on book-binding, calligraphy, leather tooling and print making with linocuts, during the 1st 2 days of the March school holidays – for FREE!
I had previously attended a leather book binding workshop with Esther, as a birthday present, with Maketh Project and we had enjoyed it very much. But because we were working with leather, it was expensive! Plus it wasn’t easy or cheap to get hold of leather pieces in order to replicate it. So when I saw that TP was offering a FREE book binding workshop, I quickly signed us up for it as there were very limited places available.
Our other interest was in brush lettering (the new rave in town!) and calligraphy. I had already signed us up for a workshop with Naiise in April and I thought this session with TP would be a nice introduction.
Just a heads up. If you or any of your friends are keen to sign up for any Naiise workshops, use this link and you will get a $10 discount on the first order above $85! (Applicable on everything storewide except furniture.)
And so, 14th March (Monday), saw us both at the National Library Plaza working on our books and handwriting! It was a fun afternoon but very tiring as the workshops ran 2 hours each, back to back! And it got rather dark towards the later part of the afternoon which meant that I had to strain my eyes a fair bit. By the way, one of the annoying things about growing old is that doing craft work is a huge challenge coz I can’t see!!! Even with transitions lens I still have to take off and put on my spectacles just to see what I am doing!
The teachers and students were very patient with us and we learnt a lot in that short space of time. So glad we were able to attend the workshops. Oh! And we took home everything we made! And were blessed with a FREE brush lettering pen!
Now that I know how to do basic book binding, the possibilities are endless! Personalised notebooks, anyone? If only my handwriting skills can be improved on!
Thank you Temasek Poly for reaching out to the community!