SINGAPORE - While others were grappling with the circuit breaker last year, Ms Deepti Chadda, founder of do-it-yourself (DIY) arts and crafts store Big Blue Trunk, was more interested in "circuit maker".

Together with her husband and four-year-old daughter, she turned the two-month stay-home period into "family DIY time" and worked on upcycling her daughter Maya's step stool, experimenting with shibori - a Japanese tie-dyeing technique - and making paper puppets.