Balanga’s Dragon Eggs.
(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
Himamaylan, a city with a population of no more than 500,000 since 2015, situated on the western seaside of Negros Occidental.
A national road cuts across it, and north-bound, is Mount Kanlaon, the highest peak in Western Visayas.
Approximately 50 kilometers away from the active volcano is a house with a spectacular view of the slopes.
For someone born and raised in the outskirts of Himamaylan, 19-year-old Danielle Balanga said the mountain reminded her of the fantasy world created by renowned writer J.R.R Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings.
The windows of their house, with a “scenic and panoramic” view of Kanlaon, she said, gave her a sneak peek of the world outside, just waiting for her to be conquered.
Back then, internet access was expensive and so Danielle spent most of her childhood taking a piqued interest on the toys she collected, said Danielle who is now a fast rising crafts and toys maker.
In high school, only a few of her classmates could relate to her interests, she said.
“For most of them, I was weird. Instead of pouring my energies into socializing, I began to channel them on learning how to bake, and create stuff. And eventually, from there, I began creating costumes for me and for my relatives,” said Danielle.
In 2013, Danielle moved to Cebu City to pursue her college education. It was here where she began to develop a talent on creating handmade crafts and toys for children and grown-ups.
“Lord of the Rings was just one of the many inspirations I drew from. It (interest in toy-making and craftsmaking) all started actually when I learned and loved to doodle and draw randomly on the backs of my notebooks in elementary,” Danielle added.
She discovered “the diversity of people” when she started to live in Cebu City and joined interest-based organizations both in and out of the University of the Philippines College Cebu (UPCC) during her freshmen year.
The third child of a schoolteacher and a military officer, Danielle soon started to explore the toy-making and craftsmaking industries around Metro Cebu.
“That was when I learned to love life here in Cebu City. I found out that there’s actually a group of people who have the same interests as me, who actually understands me and accepts me, and became my friends,” she narrated to Cebu Daily News.
“Dragon” Eggs
The idea of creating toys and hand-made crafts occurred to her one rainy September in 2014 when the nuts of mahogany trees inside the UPCC campus in Barangay Lahug started to fall on the ground.
Balanga, in a Star Wars costume she created.
(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
The shape of the mahogany nuts reminded Danielle of dragon eggs that she decided to bring one to her home in Barangay Apas to illustrate the outlines of dragon egg’s scales on it.
“You see, dragon eggs portrayed on popular culture have scales on them. But before I drew outlines on the nut’s outer shell, I let them dry under the sun for 2 days,” Danielle explained.
While drying the nuts of mahogany trees, she bought a super glue, chipboard and several bottles of spray paint to help create the scales.
The chipboard-made scales were shaped like raindrops, dipped into a small bucket of white base paint, and after a few minutes of drying them, were sprayed with a round of colored paint.
“Word on those dragon-eggs spread out of school after several of my professors began to purchase them, and soon I found myself harvesting mahogany nuts to create and sell dragon eggs to a few prominent individuals in Cebu, and (as interior decorations) for the homes of families I barely know, and for several private establishments!” she exclaimed.
Each dragon egg costs around P80 to P100, depending on the size and intricacy of the details.
The warm response to her dragon eggs led Danielle to create more crafts and toys such as replicas of swords, shields, wands, and miniature hand-made action figures.
By 2015, she started to sell more of them online through her virtual shop named “Oddment Tweak” as Danielle believes that crafts and toys are still “in the trend” inspite of the growing technology.
Geek conventions in Cebu such as Otakufest and ArchCon provide her with bigger markets in selling her handmade creations.
But more than creating and earning, Danielle said that being able to create toys for her younger siblings back home is what really makes her happy.
“Every Holiday season, they get excited when I get home and give them what I actually made for them during my stay here,” said Danielle, adding that toys are symbolic because they signify the joy of giving during Christmas.
Soon, Danielle began to create toys not only for her younger siblings but also for their friends.
To Danielle, “toys don’t necessarily mean that they’re just for little children only. They somehow just bring back the child in us, and what better time to do it than the Holidays.”