O' Crafty Day #19: DIY Keys Holder/Ring

And I thought I would be doing up the post on shibori dyeing first.. But....

The keys ring that I have for a few years (gifted by a good friend) finally broke apart while I was opening my door, and I almost lost a few keys in the process. Instead of buying a new one, I decided to make my own.

I used a 19mm book ring as the core and hand-shaped some yellow polymer clay around one side of the book ring. I sculpted a cat-like figure. :) I did use a little Fimo liquid deko gel where the clay touches the metal ring.

The clay is then baked together with the metal book ring at the manufacturer's recommended temperature and timing. Once cured, I let the clay cool down to room temperature before doing some light sanding using a 320 grit wet/dry sand paper.

I then mixed up some acrylic colors and painted the details on my clay. Once the paint was dried, I did 3 coats of varnish and let dry overnight.

And while I was at it, I made a few more with more minimalist mod designs. They are still WIPs though.

O' Crafty Day #18 - Ang Pow Gems

Have been making ang pow gems to adorn my door and one of my FB subscribers has requested for this tutorial!

I just learnt that some superstitious folks will be very unhappy if you have these up as Chinese New Year decoration... Not very sure the reason why, but I guess those sharp points are the main culprits! However, if your family and friends are not superstitious, go ahead (like me!) and make tons of these for your CNY decoration this year! If not, you can always wait until after the CNY period and make these precious out of other sorts of fancy paper!

I had originally used the triangle score guide tool by We R Memory Keepers to make my life easier since I already have their Trim and Score board. However, that doesn't mean you can't make one without the tools.

Materials that you need:

Note: All measurements are in inches, which will be denoted by "

- Base Template + Pattern Sheet Download (Please print the pdf at 100%, no scaling.)
- Ang Pows (The longer ones) / Thick papers or cardstock at least 6" x 6"
- Scissors
- Scoring tool (Optional but good to have, a plastic ruler will do the trick too!)
- Pencil / Pen
- Ruler
- Adhesive (I'm using a tape runner since it's faster)
- Washi tape / Masking tape (Optional but good to have)

These gems are all made up of the same basic module - equilateral triangles. So our objective here is to score/draw the base equilateral triangles repeats before tracing out the pattern for the gem you want to make.

For this tutorial, we will be making gems from a repeat of 1" big triangles. Once you get the idea, feel free to make different-sized gems by varying the triangle size. (As this template is catered for Ang Pow packets, the largest size you can go for the triangle is 1.5")

Okay, let's starting digging some gems and head on over to my tutorial!


For peeps hailing from GuideCentral,

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Cut your Ang Pow packet  into a 6" x 6" square. Make sure to have the uncut long folded edge positioned at the center of the square.

The easiest way to do this with scissors is to draw a parallel line 3" away from one of the long edge and cut along that line. Then draw another parallel line 6" from the bottom of the Ang Pow, and cut along that line. It doesn't matter if your Ang Pow has a closure slit on it. Then, just cut along the bottom fold, and you'll have a 6" x 6" square with a center fold!

If you are using normal thick papers / cardstock, just trim them down to the right size.

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Just because we can! Cut out as many 6" x 6" squares as you need. :)

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Making sure the base template is the right side up (the numbers should not be upside down), place the ang pow square at the top left hand corner and align the center fold at the 3" mark. (refer to the photo above). If you are quite precise with your cutting, the corner of the ang pow square should fall nicely with the corner of the template.

At this point of time, if you have washi tape / masking tape on hand, I suggest taping the ang pow square down to the template with a couple small pieces of the tapes.

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Place your ruler along the vertical line at every inch, and score/draw a line. You should have 5 vertical lines.

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Align and orientate the ang pow square with the tilted square template as shown in the photo.

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Again, score at every 1" interval.

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You now have a nice repeat of diamonds. Orientate your piece of square such that you are looking at a series of fat diamonds (refer to photo). Place your ruler along the points of a column of diamonds (please refer to photo again), and score/draw.

Once you are done, you will be left with a piece of Ang Pow square filled with 1" big equilateral triangles!

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All you need to do now is to decide, from the pattern sheet, the gem you want to make and copy the pattern onto the Ang Pow square. Do make sure the orientation of the triangles on the Ang Pow square correspond to the orientation of the triangles in the pattern sheet first!

The example I have here will make an octahedron gem!

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Time to cut out your pattern~

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To make the next few steps easier, let's pre-fold all the scored/drawn lines.

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Apply adhesive on all the small tabs.

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The assembling part can get a bit confusing. But the rule of thumb here is to find out all the tabs that have an adjacent non-tab edge, and stick them together.

For example, in the case of my octahedron gem, there are 4 tabs that have an adjacent non-tab edge.

Once you have the first few tabs adhered, the gem should start taking shape and the rest should be pretty easy!

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And you're done! The bottom is a hexahedron made from a sheet of designer paper with a 1.5" triangle module. Have fun!

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In one of my earlier blog posts, a fellow crafter requested for a tutorial on folding techniques for shibori dyeing. That is currently in my pipeline, so do look out for that post!

O' Crafty Day #17 - The Chalkboard that Holds Magnets!

Are you ready for another (long-awaited if you don't count Daiso Maniac) craft tutorial? I know I am ready to share this relatively simple project with you.

I'm sure most of us crafters/DIY-ers have gone through the chalkboard phase (it's been really rad this past year and it still is) and I guess most of you already have the know-how in making any surface a chalkboard. But what about this?

Magnetized chalk and clip with the help of tiny super magnets from Daiso!

A mini chalkboard that actually holds magnets? If you're interested in how I made it, read on!

So, the materials that I used are:

- Martha Stewart's Magnetic Paint
- Martha Stewart's Chalkboard Paint in brown
- Canvas board 12" x 16"
- Make up sponges from daiso
- Chopsticks
- A large plastic bag/sheet to protect my work area

I started with painting 4 coats of magnetic paint. But before each painting, I mixed the paint thoroughly with my chopsticks (I guess that's to evenly distribute the magnetic component). The paint's quite goopy, so the mixing took quite a while.

Using the same pair of chopsticks, I drizzled a generous amount of paint on the canvas and swiped the paint across the board with the make up sponge. To cover the whole board, I drizzled and swiped a couple of times. Each coat was let dry for 1 hour before the next coat.

My third coat of magnetic paint

After the last coat of magnetic paint, I let the paint set for 24 hours. After setting the magnetic paint, I proceeded with painting 3 coats of chalkboard paint. Like the magnetic paint, the chalkboard paint needed to be let dry 1 hour in between coats.

After the last coat, l waited another day before conditioning the board for chalk use. To condition the board, I rubbed the side of my chalk over the entire board.

That's a little crazy... I did wipe down the chalk powder a bit.. And voila! My own magnetic chalkboard!

A little note though.. The board works better with strong magnets.

O' Crafty Day #16 - Gift card holder with Faux Chalkboard effect

I got an Ikea gift card as a Christmas gift for a friend, but oh boy, is the original yellow gift card holder kind of an eye sore... And so I decided to create a new gift card holder for it, finished with a faux chalkboard effect!

Materials used:

1) Teresa Collins Fabrication 8 x 8 cardstock papers (I used 1 main floral paper and 1 dark colored paper)
2) Versamark pen
3) Ranger embossing powder (Seafoam white)
4) Small floral cabochon
5) Mini glue dots
6) Tombow glue tape
7) Gift card

Tools used:

1) EK Success Paper Shapers Corner Adorner Card Creators Punch (Basketweave)

2) EK Success Paper Shapers Corner Adorner Rounder Punch Small
3) Bone folder
4) Heat gun


Instructions:
1) First you need to measure your gift card. Mine is 3³⁄₈" x 2¹⁄₈", with a credit card-like thickness. I ended up cutting out my main floral piece of cardstock at 4" x 5¹⁄₂".

I used both the front side of the dark colored paper as well as its reverse side. The dark colored side piece measured 1" x 3¹⁄₂" and the reverse side measured 3¹⁄₂" x 2¹⁄₄". The dark colored piece would eventually be the fake chalkboard background and the reverse side would be for the written greetings pasted inside the card.

2) Holding the main floral piece in a portrait manner, punch out the bottom 2 corners with the paper shaper basketweave corner card creator punch.

This is the reverse side of my floral paper. =) This would also be the inside of the holder!

These would be the slots for the gift card.


3) I also rounded the 4 corners of the floral piece with my paper shaper corner rounder punch to soften the look.

4) I, then, folded the card in half, making sure the 2 slots are at the bottom. I used a bone folder to make the fold crisp and neat.

5) Next, taking the dark colored piece of paper, I rounded the 2 corners of one of the short ends. Then, I used the smaller nib of the Versamark pen and wrote my sentiment. Versamark ink, as you know, only slightly darkens the paper beneath and if you look at it straight on, it is going to appear invisible. To make writing easier, be sure to adjust your lighting so that the light hits the paper at an angle and tilt your head a little so that you can see what you are writing.

After which, I heat embossed the sentiment with my white embossing powder. This creates a faux chalk writing effect.

6) Using a couple of mini glue dots, I attached the floral cabochon to the black sentiment piece. Then, I adhered this piece to my main floral card front with some Tombow glue tape.

7) For the final piece of cardstock, I first rounded the four corners...

8) ... And wrote my greetings first.

9) I then adhered this piece to the inside, top half of the holder.

And there you have it! A new and personalized gift card holder! Yay!

O' Crafty Day #15 -Valentine's Day Special

Here's a really simple accessory to adorn your valentine's day outfit! This brooch is fundamentally made from fabric yoyos. I've used the large-size yoyo maker from Clover, which did a really good job at creating neat gathered edges in the yoyos rather quickly. However, it doesn't mean you can't make them without one. Here's a youtube video that I've found which teaches you how to make yoyos without a yoyo maker:

We need to first make 3 yoyos, and sew some beads to the gathered opening of each yoyo.

Plan how you want the yoyos to be placed in the brooch, and sew them together using hidden stitches.

For me, I sewed on some lace ribbon strips to add some finesse. I had the strips slightly longer than I needed so that I could hide the ends neatly in the backing.

Next, to do the backing for the brooch pin, I traced the outline of the brooch shape onto a piece of felt, and cut the felt shape about 3 to 5mm smaller all around. Then, decide which part of the brooch to be the top portion and which part to be the bottom portion. With the back of the brooch facing you, orientate the piece with the top portion pointing up and bottom portion pointing down. You'll start sewing from the right edge which is midpoint between the top and bottom, then using whip + hidden stitches, sew anti-clockwise until you reach the midpoint of the left edge. (If you want to glue your brooch pin, you can skip this step and sew all around. Then hot glue your pin to the felt.)

Make sure you have the thread coming out from the yoyo and under the felt piece.

Tie a knot and snip the thread near the knot.

If you (like me) prefer to attach the brooch pin by sewing, this is the time to do so. Plan on where you want to place your pin.

Holding just the felt piece, sew the pin to the felt.

And voila! Happy Valentine's Day! ^.^

O' Crafty Day #14 - Ang Pow Lotus Flower Lantern

It's the time to decorate our house with Chinese New Year decoration again! This year, I'm going for a more minimalist/artistic look for the lanterns. Frankly speaking, I'm not really into "traditional" chinese ang pow lanterns that are sold/taught at our local craftstores. Also, I wanted to try something different from the usual ball lantern. Hence, this lotus flower lantern that I've come up with. It has a simple shape with a slight Japanese flair to it.


The Materials:

1) 12 x Long Ang Pows (Long ang pows are preferred)
2) 12 x Trimmed Ang Pows ( Try to keep the proportion the same as the original angpow)
3) Entire skein of red embroidery thread
4) Stapler (Preferably smaller sized ones)
5) Bells/Beads (more than 10mm in diameter preferred)
6) Scissors
8)(LOL!! I've totally no idea why I skipped 7!) White glue/hot glue gun/super glue


We need to first create a module from each of the ang pows (including the trimmed ang pows) Below is a video of how I make a single module:

How to fold a single module

You now should have 24 modules, 12 big ones and 12 small ones. What we want to end up with are 2 big lotus flowers and 2 small lotus flowers. Each big lotus flower requires 6 big modules; and each small lotus flower needs 6 small modules. In the following 2 videos, I'll teach you how to join the modules to form one lotus flower (both big and small versions use the same method of joining).

How to join the modules (Part 1)

How to join the modules (Part 2)

If you are using white glue, you would need to wait for the glue to dry overnight before continuing to the next step.


In the next step, you would need to glue a small lotus flower onto a big lotus flower. I've forgotten to take a photo of this step, so pardon me for using this simple drawing to illustrate the step:

Basically u need to stack the small lotus flower on the big lotus flower.If you invert the small lotus flower, you can see an inner hexagon. Apply glue to the rim of the hexagon like so:

Stack and stick the small lotus flower to the big lotus flower. Do the same for the other set of lotus flowers. At the end of this step, you'll have two 2-layered lotus flowers.


Next we're going to make a tassel for the lantern. The following 2 videos will show you how to do so:

How to make a tassel (Part 1)



How to make a tassel (Part 2)


I realised I only wrap the thread once around my fingers.. It doesn't matter if it's once or twice, so long as the thread is secured.


Next, we'll be attaching bells/beads to the tassel.

(1) About 3cm away from the top of the tassel, tie a knot at the handle thread.
(2) Take one end of the handle thread and thread it through a bell/bead.
(3) Tie square knot to secure the bell/bead.
(4) Invert one of your 2-layer lotus flowers, and lay the handle thread in the middle of one of the ang pows. Make sure the top of the tassel is outside the flower, while the bell/bead is inside. Tie another bell near the top of the ang pow on the direct opposite side. (This bell can be inside or outside of the lantern)

Apply glue to the bottom bell and the ang pow that it's on:

Let the glue dry a bit before gluing the two 2-layered lotus flowers together. Find the inner hexagons in both lotus flowers and apply glue to the rim of the hexagons. Take the lotus flower WITHOUT the tassel and place it on top of the other lotus flower like so:

Press the top flower down and hold it for a while till the glue has started to bond the 2 flowers together. If you've used white glue, let it dry for a few hours or overnight.

Once the glue is fully dried, tie the ends of the handle thread together like so:

And voila! You have yourself a lotus flower lantern made entirely from Ang Pows.

Optional:
To allow the lantern to hang even more beautifully (aka, the flower side facing front), separate the handle thread and glue each strand to the nearest petal like so: