Craft x Chill

2 weekends back, I met up with my dear friend, XZZ, for our own crafting session. She got this macaron coin case kit, and she needed a bit of help with the Japanese instructions and some of the hand-sewing techniques.

We tried this 'pay-on-demand' cafe called Coffeemin where you pay by the hour ($6 for the first hour, $1 every 10 minutes after, capped at $30) and you can do whatever you want as long as you don't create chaos. There are also free-flow drinks and cookies as well as a variety of facilities.

Overall, it's a nice place, though I won't call it a place conducive for "zen" time during the weekends. Not when you have groups of excited teens playing card games.

They have nice utensils.

Cute cushion! (It's quite a cozy place, really)

Let's start crafting!

Here's the completed macaron coin case!

The inside. With room for a single coin.

Craft Updates!

Had been busy for the past couple of weeks with some craft stuffs, mainly gifts for friends.

Firstly, I was back to clay crafting for a bit. I suddenly had the idea to put up a Christmas tree decorated with clay cookies, sweets and pastries by the end of this year. And so, I made a resolution to make a few clay pieces every month, and hence a new series "The Christmas Tree Patisserie". But I would like to give you a preview to this new series by showing you some of the clay pieces I have made so far.

A few of them have already been packed into a gift box for a friend. I also made her a "JGL" cookie pin which I didn't manage to snap a photo of... Thought it's funny. =P

Next, I've also been busy knitting a mini scarf (for a soft toy polar bear) which is reversible. This was my first try at double knitting, and I must admit I didn't really do a good job at it. I would try the invisible cast-on and bind-off the next time. And yes, I would definitely try again as I love it that it's reversible and the piece does not curl on itself!

The letter A is a cross-stitch pattern that I found on the internet while the random triangles were designed by me.

I also made the turquoise stone brooch from polymer clay to pin the scarf together.

Now that's one cozy polar bear.. Which will eventually be gifted to another friend. =)

Last Minute Gifts #2 - Matryoshka Plates

A really simple project and you can go wild on the Russian Doll design. But allow up to a day or 2 to complete the whole project and you do need to get some craft pens meant for porcelain/glass/ceramics. What I have are the Marabu Porcelain Painter pens:

The materials that you need are the following:

1. Blank Russian doll template. Download
2. Porcelain plates. (Clean them first with some methylated spirit)
3. Soft 2B pencil
4. Tracing paper cut to size
5. Porcelain painter pens

First, download and print out the blank Russian Doll template. Fill in the empty parts with designs that you like. If you are doing this for the first time, I suggest going with a relatively simple design.

I should have tone down my design a little as my pen nib is too thick! Next trace out the design onto the tracing paper. After tracing, flip the tracing paper, and go over the design again:

Place the traced paper on your porcelain plate and secure it to the plate with sticky tape.

Pressing your pencil down firmly on the tracing paper, go over the design once more to transfer the pencil mark to the plate.

The fun part now. Following the transferred markings on the plate, go over your design with the porcelain painter pens. A little tip: If you have messed up, quickly clean the messed up area with a Q-tip. If the paint is already drying, dip a clean Q-tip into a little methylated spirit/nail varnish remover, and carefully clean up the messed up area.

As you can see, the pen nib for my reddish-brown painter pen is too thick for the design. Once you have completed your drawing, follow the manufacturer's instructions in fixing the paint onto the plate. Once fixed, voila, you have a customized Matryoshka porcelain plate ready to giveaway!

If you are confident enough, you can transferred just the empty Russian Doll template to the plate and fill your design in directly, just like I did for the blue Matryoshka doll. My blue painter pen has a thinner nib, so the doll turned out much better. =)

I also did another design for this porcelain tart plate.

The doily lace design and lacy letter "R" were all done free-handed.

Have fun and be creative!

Last Minute Gifts #1 - Basic Chou Chou

In my opinion, chou chou (scrunchie) is a good way to show off fabric with interesting prints like Nani Iro fabrics or expensive high-end fabric like Liberty Tana Lawn cottons. Chou chous have made quite a comeback in Japan and one can easily find the use of chou chous in hair arrangement magazines and books like this, this and this. Unexpectedly cute, isn't it? I think custom-made chou chous make great gifts for girls of all ages with long hair. =)

For this tutorial, I'm going to use hand-sewing. Feel free to use a sewing machine if you have one. The materials and tools we need are the following:

1. Fabric - 40cm(width) by 10cm(height). For a puffier chou chou, increase the width. For a taller chou chou, increase the height.

2. 1cm wide elastic tape - 20cm long

3. Bodkin elastic tape needle (you can also use safety pin)

4. Thread and needle

Note: Do adjust the size of fabric and length of elastic for the size of chou chou that you want to make. The figures I gave for this tutorial are for a normal sized chou chou.


First, on the wrong side of the fabric, draw a 1cm seam allowance along one of the width-wise edges and along one of the height-wise edges:

Next, with the right sides of the fabric facing each other, fold the fabric in half:

Sew the height-wise seam with running stitches (make each stitch about 3mm wide):

Open up the seam and iron it flat:

The next step is the trickiest part of the whole tutorial. As chou chou has a donut shape, using the normal way of folding the now cylindrical-shaped fabric in half with right sides facing and leaving an opening to turn everything inside out after sewing length-wise is not going to work. You will realize at a point that the fabric will not turn inside out fully and one portion will still be stuck within the donut. ><

There are 2 ways to overcome this:
A) Fold the cylindrical-shaped fabric in half length-wise with the wrong sides facing (you will only see the right side. Then, iron a 1cm wide fold (hem) on both edges, and top stitch around, leaving a 1.5 inch wide opening to insert the elastic tape. Secure the ends of the elastic tape together, and top stitch the opening closed.

B) A special way of folding the cylindrical-shaped fabric while still having the right-sides facing, then sewing around the edge with running stitches leaving a 1.5 inch opening. Turn the fabric inside out through the opening, then insert the elastic tape and secure the ends of the elastic tape together. Close the opening by sewing blind stitches.

I chose option B for this tutorial as I think option A does not look as professional with top-stitching by hand. I also think it's a good skill to learn when sewing donut-shaped pieces. But as I've said, this part is quite tricky and it's kinda difficult to explain just in words, so I've recorded this step and the rest of the steps down as a video clip.. Hope that this video is comprehensible enough.....

I seem to have truncated the end part a bit. After sewing the opening with blind stitches, remember to secure the thread with a (french) knot before cutting the thread off. Voila! You have just finished a chou chou~~

Last Minute Gifts

I'll be starting another series of tutorials for the upcoming holiday season! I'll be basically focusing on simple projects which do not require a sewing machine and they can be done within a day. Do stay tuned!

毎朝のスタンプ#7

Hi all, this is the last day for this week's "毎朝のスタンプ"'s special. Since this is the final stamp, I've done something a little different.

It's a little experiment to create customized fabric by stamping. Illustration courtesy of Ezaline. (We're planning something. Hope it'll work out!)

毎朝のスタンプ#6

This is for Saturday. A chrysanthemum. =) Think I put too much ink at the top of the stem...

毎朝のスタンプ#5

This is supposed to be for Friday!! >< Usa-chan~~

毎朝のスタンプ#4

It's kinda too late to be the morning, yar? ... =X



My illustration is based on a vase of carnations I have right now in my living room! Haha..

毎朝のスタンプ#3

It can't decide to be a gift or an emergency sign... Haha

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毎朝のスタンプ#2

I'm in the mood for bows!

And here's a real one for ya.. Totally hand-sewn with love.

毎朝のスタンプ#1

If possible, I'll try to carve a simple rubber stamp every morning this week. Stamp for today!




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Grumpy Matryoshka..

Maybe I need more stable hands... Or maybe I should have started with something bigger that's easier to carve...

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Work in progress

Currently working on this:

O' Crafty Day #13 - DIY Christmas Wreath Tutorial

Materials:
1 medium-sized donut-shaped styrofoam
1 ball of pinkish brown yarn
1 ball of light brown yarn
1 piece of red felt
1 piece of green glitter felt
1 piece of white felt
1 packet of 12mm glitter pom poms in red (I bought the 30-piece packet)

Tools:
Scissors
Pinking scissors
White glue

Directions:
1. I first wrapped the pinkish brown yarn round the styrofoam, trying to keep 2 strands of yarn reasonably close. It's okay if there're some empty spaces on the first pass, as you can try to cover them on the second pass of wrapping. My ball of yarn allowed me to do 2 passes of wrapping.

2. I then wrapped the light brown ball of yarn round the foam, this time trying to cover any leftover spaces and leaving a bit of gap between every few strands of yarn. I did only 1 pass of wrapping for this ball of yarn.

3. After which, I did some felt roses of different sizes in red and white. I'd followed the instructions from this youtube video.

4. Next, I cut out some leaves from the green glitter felt with pinking scissors.

5. I then arranged the flowers, leaves and pom poms and glued them to the yarn-wrapped foam with white glue.


I'm now waiting for the glue to dry before using 3M reusable double-sided tape to attach it to my door. =)

WIP - X'mas Wreath

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DIY decoration for my mini X'ma tree

Got this plant from Cold Storage recently. Have no idea what this plant is but it looks like a mini X'mas tree! Got some cheap materials from Daiso to make some cute decoration for it.. ^.^


Materials:
String of blue seed beads -> circling round the "tree"
pastel color beads -> the baubles
cord with some kind of foil effect -> ribbons
crochet string -> hang the baubles and ribbons

DIY framing on stretched canvas with fabric

This project is a first for me, hence the bit of shoddiness in the end product. (I pretty much winged it without any examples or instructions)

The amazing paper cutting was from Papercutdiecut. I mounted the paper cutting on a red embossed card stock (which was fiddly coz the paper cutting was so delicate!), then encased it in a self-laminating sheet. After which, I pasted the laminated paper cutting onto the stretched canvas.

The framing part was kind of a challenge. My idea was to incorporate fabric in the framing. I ended up using the technique for creating inset fabric cutting to form the frame. Instead of interfacing, I used batting to create a slight puff in the frame.

Then, I attached the frame to the canvas with some iron-on adhesive tape for fabric, and used a stapler gun to staple the loose ends of the fabric to the back of the canvas frame. And voila! Oh, I had also crocheted a flower, used some lace and button to make a brooch to pin onto the frame.

Cleaning up... And my new DIY twin lens camera

Deleted my recent ramblings from this blog.. Going to set up a "dedicated" blog for those stuffs instead.. hehe..

Anyway, I've just finished assembling my (DIY kit from Otona no kagaku magazine vol 25) Gakken Twin Lens Reflexive Camera. Some photos to share:

The Kit

Finished camera

Side view of the camera

Looking at my windows via the view-finder

Looking at my plants via the view-finder

A petite twin lens camera

抱病上场

Yes, I still made it to the PMC silver clay workshop despite the mild dizziness and drowsiness (due to medication). Here's what I'd made:

Order in Chaos

I dare say this pendant is very me! Haha... My style is simple chic and cool.

Nyanko-chan

Nyanko-chan wasn't in my plan as I thought I might not have enough clay for Order in Chaos.. Since I'd extra clay, I decided to make a cat.. It's kinda sad that one part of the tail broke off from Nyanko-chan when I dropped the fired pendant on the floor. Guess I didn't put enough clay over that weak spot before firing... Had to use glue to fix it instead... ><''

My colleague made this beautiful piece:

Considering this was our first attempt at making accessories from silver clay (it wasn't easy molding the clay as it dried up easily), the end results were quite good (except for that broken tail)!