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 #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!

Quickie Projects: DIY deco stickers for mobile devices

Hi, crafters! I'm still in the midst of finishing up the postcards, but so far so good.

Here's a really quick and simple tutorial to dress up your mobile devices. I'm not really using a mobile phone for this tutorial but this technique can easily be tweaked for whichever gadgets you fancy!

Eh-hem.. I know.. This doesn't look like any known mobile phones.. And well, it isn't. Anyone who uses DBS/POSB i-banking will be familiar with this new token device. I was quite appalled by the size and (cough) ugliness when I received it in my mailbox. And frankly speaking, I don't think anyone would want to use the stickers provided by the bank.

Anyways, I'm now loving my token with that sweet illustration of the steampunk-ish hot air balloon. (Too bad I can't do anything much about the front of the device =| )

Materials and Tools:

Love my scrapbooking paper?

- Your favorite scrapbooking paper or any paper you fancy

- Scratch cardstock or cardboard

- Any kind of sticker sheet. I'm using Sticki Sheets by Bostik which has a pretty strong adhesive.

- Cellotape or self-laminating film (try to get the thin kind) that is big enough to cover the shape of the sticker you are going to create

- Scissors

Directions

1) Draw out a template of the sticker shape that you are going to create onto the scratch cardstock / cardboard. For mine, I pasted one of the stickers onto a cardstock. Cut out the template.

 

I don't fancy this sticker..

2) Place the template over the desired area of your scrapbooking paper (or any paper that you fancy) and trace over the shape. Cut the shape out.

 

3) Laminate the cut paper using cellotape or the self-laminating film. If you're using cellotape like me, cut out a length of cellotape that is more than twice the height of your paper. Paste the paper on one end of the tape,  then fold the tape such that it encases the paper inside like so.

 

4) Trim away the excess cellotape or laminating film.

 

Glossy!

5) Get ready your sticker sheet. If you are using Sticki Sheet from Bostik, cut the sticker sheet to size to minimize wastage.

 

6) Follow the manufacturer's instructions to make your sticker. For Sticki Sheet users, you simply peel off the white paper backing and paste your patterned paper onto the sticky plastic.Try to put some force while pasting.

 

7) Paste your sticker onto the device.. Or anything that you want to decorate! Have fun and be creative!

Kracie Happy Kitchen Soft Cookie - Tutorial

Gomen, gomen. Sorry for taking a little too long in coming up with this tutorial. Anyway, here goes.. This is what you will get after opening the box:

A nicely designed package. =) The bag says "Cookie Sheet" and you can put your finished cookies on the doily plate print. ( Yes, the instructions actually tells you to cut the bag neatly... =P )

You'll find the following contents in the bag:

A plastic tray, 5 packets of ingredients, 1 spatula and 2 mini piping bags.

Split the plastic tray into 3 different portions by cutting along the grooves:

The triangular portion is a mini measuring spoon for your water/milk; the tray with 2 deep containers is for mixing ingredients; the tray with 2 cute designs is the cookie molding.

Lets get familiar with the packets of ingredients:

The orange packet on the left contains plain cookie mixture while the chocolate packet on the right contains chocolate cookie mixture.

The pink packet on the left contains pink icing powder while the blue packet on the right contains blue icing powder.

Sugar balls decoration! They are yummy. =P

You'll need water to make the cookie dough and icing, so do have that ready. According to the box, if you use milk to make the cookie dough, your cookies will turn out more delicious. And so, I prepared some milk too:

Now, lets prepare the plain cookie dough. Open the orange packet like so:

Using the tray with the 2 deep containers, pour 2/3 of the powder into the bigger container. Then, measure 1 mini cup of milk (or water) and pour that into the bigger container too:

Mix them with the spatula...

Until you have this consistency:

Pour in the rest of the powder from the orange packet and continue mixing:

At this stage, you might find it hard to mix and be tempted to add more water. Please DON'T do that. Just take your time and eventually you'll get a mini cookie dough like this:

Split the dough into 3 equal portions and roll each of them into a ball:

Repeat the steps for the chocolate cookie mixture:

You'll end up with 3 plain cookie dough balls and 3 chocolate dough balls.

Next, take a cookie dough ball and press it down on one of the shapes in the cookie molding. I used the spatula to press it down, but you can use your fingers too:

Repeat with another dough ball on the other shape and you'll get something like so:

Then, microwave them on "HIGH" for 4 to 5 minutes. Peel the cookies off the tray:

Repeat the same process for the rest of the dough balls and you'll get 6 cookies altogether:

The next part is decorating the cookies. First we need to making the icing cream. Open the pink packet:

Take the tray with the 2 deep containers again and pour the whole content into the smaller container. Measure 2 mini cups of water and pour that into the icing powder. Mix them well:

I forgot to take photo of this step but using the spatula, scoop out the cream and put it into 1 of the piping bags. Try to keep the cream in one corner of the bag. Once you have scooped out most of the cream, twist the top of the piping bag such that all of the cream is nicely packed in the corner. Take a scissors and snip a bit of the corner off such that the cream can flow out in a thin line. Start drawing on the cookies with it.

Once you're done, clean the tray and repeat with the blue icing powder. At the same time, decorate the cookies with the sugar balls provided. Have fun!