Month: May 2010

Hydrangea

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Have been think­ing about refash­ion­ing an old shirt for a while. And also try­ing to make those love­ly fab­ric flow­ers that I’ve seen on t‑shirts at H&M. And so I did on my day off yes­ter­day :D

I cut off the sleeves, as well as the col­lar, and then zigzaged around all the raw edges on the sewing machine. It kind of cre­ates a ruffly effect.

I chose to use the zigzag stitch main­ly because I don’t sew a lot and I don’t know how to machine-sew t‑shirt mate­r­i­al with­out stretch­ing it out of shape (I think I have to change the foot, but I don’t know if I have the right foot. I ought to find out some­times…). So I don’t both­er keep­ing it in shape and stretch out the edges even more with the zigzag stitch.

And then I cut up the sleeves, and fol­lowed this tuto­r­i­al for mak­ing a fab­ric flower col­lar. Here I am cut­ting out flower shapes by hand again, but just free-hand­ed this time, since the pieces will be bunched up anyway.

And again, the sad pile of cast-offs…

Bunch­ing up…

… and stitch­ing on…

And then it was done!

The neck­line end­ed up being rather low… but oth­er than that I’m hap­py with it :D It remind­ed me of hydrangeas. It’s nice to have a sleeve­less top for the upcom­ing hot and dry sum­mer… actu­al­ly, the heat is already upon us :S

I also thought it would look nice with a high-waist­ed puffy skirt (par­don my make-shift ter­mi­nolo­gies here, I’m not very famil­iar with the fash­ion world), like this miniskirt I saw on Craftzine the oth­er day by Tina Sparkles. It’s a free tuto­r­i­al too! So that would be anoth­er project. Except I would prob­a­bly make it a bit longer so I won’t have to wear leg­gings because it’s so warm out­side… I also came across Tina Sparkles’ new book, Lit­tle Green Dress. It looks so incred­i­ble and it’s on my wish list amongst oth­er craft books I want to get :D

Hope your week­end is great!

it’s never too late to celebrate Mother’s Day!

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And nev­er too ear­ly neither.

Some­how I thought Moth­er’s Day was the first Sun­day of May, which was May 2nd. It was also close to my mom’s birth­day, so I made her chest­nut and napa cab­bage to cel­e­brate :D

While we were hav­ing din­ner that week­end Mike told me that Moth­er’s Day was not on May 2nd, it was on May 9th.

I felt a bit dumb. But no mat­ter. We could­n’t have gone to my par­ents’ to cel­e­brate Moth­er’s Day on May 9th any­ways. And we also could­n’t cel­e­brate Moth­er’s Day with Mike’s mom on Moth­er’s Day. But! We were able to get togeth­er 2 weeks lat­er. And dur­ing those two weeks, I worked on a secret present for my mother-in-law…

This! :D

Yet anoth­er bril­liant tuto­r­i­al on one of my favourite blogs, Ruf­fles and Stuff (I don’t think there’s any­thing I don’t like on that blog!), this is a fam­i­ly tree brooch. Usu­al­ly a fam­i­ly tree brooch has every fam­i­ly mem­ber’s birth stone on it, but in this fam­i­ly too many birth stones are alike, I thought it would be fun to use beads of every­one’s favourite colours. I even found a black one that’s translu­cent. I have only ever seen opaque black beads, but trusty Arton Beads nev­er fails to amaze me.

So, any­ways. It is nev­er too ear­ly or too late to cel­e­brate Moth­er’s Day. In fact, we could cel­e­brate moth­ers everyday!

A hobbit trail

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We went for long walks in a dif­fer­ent parts of the city this past week­end, in the woods and there was a creek and it was a bit hilly. Remind­ed me of the hob­bits. And Mike always car­ries a small com­pass in his pock­et so we don’t get lost.

And mush­rooms! I’ve nev­er seen such huge mush­rooms grow­ing in the out­doors before! Eleven­sies, anyone?

Kind of cool to look at. It’s like the bugs decid­ed to cel­e­brate Hal­loween ear­ly and put thick cob­webs all over the bush. Or like a cater­pil­lar apart­ment, because all the cater­pil­lars live in dif­fer­ent parts of the bush wrapped in the cobwebs.

And this bloom­ing pink tree was a real treat.

I real­ly appre­ci­ate these parts of the city where one could pre­tend to be a hob­bit and look for mush­rooms and iden­ti­fy dif­fer­ent trees by their leaves and lis­ten to the bub­bling creek. Hope your week­end was great!

A cuff named Rosie

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Plunged into a craft project on Thurs­day night. It came from the rose cuff bracelet tuto­r­i­al on Ruf­fles and Stuff! It’s one of my most favourite blogs to read, and it’s got amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­phy and many won­der­ful projects. And the rose cuff is just a bril­liant idea and it’s very pret­ty… I’m plan­ning to wear it to my sis­ter’s grad­u­a­tion in a few weeks :D

The cuff is made with felt, petals from fab­ric flow­ers and pearly beads. I did­n’t have fab­ric flow­ers with the right size of petals, but I had a bunch of fab­ric ros­es that Mike found lying in the mid­dle of a street some years ago (he brought it home because he thought I could use it in a craft or some­thing, and he was RIGHT! :D). So! I made a tem­plate with card­board, cut off a bunch of petals, and cut out a flower shape from each petal.

I also cut some small­er flower shapes for the top lay­ers of petals. It took a looooong time. I must have had over 80 petals at the end. And on the petals there were these fake dew drops. For­tu­nate­ly they weren’t too dif­fi­cult to get rid of. This one has some seri­ous dew drops going on here…

And the sad pile of cast-offs…

Instead of using Vel­cro, I sewed on some mend­ing tape to attach mag­nets for clo­sure. (And the petals all lined up, ready for action!)

The tuto­r­i­al sug­gest­ed using glue gun to attach the flow­ers, which would make a stress-free and quick process, but I left my glue gun at work :( So, a nee­dle pulling thread…

And here we have it, a cuff named Rosie :D

I’d like the petals to curl up more towards the cen­tre, right now they look a bit flat… but I think I’m pret­ty hap­py with it, espe­cial­ly the bit of pink com­ing through.

Smile and wave…

Karate chop!

Uh, that was kind of ran­dom… but yes! it was real­ly fun mak­ing the rose cuff. I real­ly need­ed some­thing to keep my hands busy and my mind calm this week, so I’m rather thank­ful :) The orig­i­nal project was designed as a Moth­er’s Day present, but I don’t think my mom would like to wear some­thing like that. Rather, I’m think­ing about mak­ing one for my 4 year-old cousin for Christ­mas, she likes flow­ery things, I think. (And no, it is nev­er too ear­ly to think about Christ­mas presents.)

Have a won­der­ful week­end! :D

Happy Together :D

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Meet Nigiri and Wasabi…

… and Piña Colada!

Hap­py Togeth­er :D

They were wed­ding presents I made for friends this spring. I can now final­ly post pic­tures of them after they have been giv­en away. They’re all fridge mag­nets. I’ve jot­ted down the pat­tern for Piña Cola­da, and will post that soon!

Wasabi and coconut were actu­al­ly inspired by Restau­rant City. It’s a Play­fish game, and I think it’s got the cutest graph­ics, espe­cial­ly the food items!

So here’s the wasabi ingre­di­ent on RC and Wasabi…

… and here’s the coconut ingre­di­ent on RC and Coconu!

By the way, I always thought coconut in Span­ish is “cola­da”, as in “Piña Cola­da”, you know? But it’s not! Coconut in Span­ish, accord­ing to Google Trans­la­tor, is “coconu”! “Cola­da” actu­al­ly means “strained”. Sil­ly me.

And on a side note, despite hav­ing a busier-than-usu­al week I’ve actu­al­ly kept to my blog­ging sched­ule, and also fin­ished a craft for myself! I’m pret­ty hap­py about that. I’ll write and post pic­tures about it lat­er, but for now I’ll show you the mess I made…

Hap­py Friday!

Operation Necklace!

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I was going to wear a black t‑shirt to a wed­ding. With a nice flow­ery skirt. A friend sug­gest­ed acces­soriz­ing the t‑shirt so it looks more dressed-up.

“Like with a long neck­lace or some­thing, you know?” said friend.

So I remem­bered that I had this long chain I bought for a project in 3rd year. And I have beads that seemed to go well with the colours of my flow­ery skirt and my pink shoes. So! Jump­ing quick­ly into action, I…

… took apart some of the links…

… and replaced them with bead­ed links made with jew­el­ry wire…

hmmm.

I was kind of under­whelmed by the fin­ished prod­uct. Some­thing was miss­ing. Or it was an awk­ward length. I was­n’t sure. More need­ed to be done. So I added to it the rest of the chain. It was quite a relax­ing project while watch­ing back-to-back episodes of Say Yes to the Dress on a Fri­day afternoon…

And final­ly, it was done! All 40 inch­es of it! I tried to wear it like this…

… but I was­n’t too impressed. I guess it looked OK…

And then I tried it like this…

I think this is the win­ning look here! (I also real­ly like how this pic­ture turned out, with the “vivid” mode on my cam­era and the sta­t­ic in my hair  :P)

But then I thought it looked a bit odd with the neck­line of the t‑shirt…

So this is the way I end­ed up wear­ing it to the wedding…

I real­ly liked the large green beads.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly I for­got to take pic­tures of me with the neck­lace and the skirt and the pink shoes that day. They did go well togeth­er, I think. But I’m plan­ning to wear both the skirt and the neck­lace again to anoth­er wed­ding in the fall (but not the shoes; they killed my feet) so I’ll remem­ber to take some pic­tures then! :D

I don’t like going shop­ping very much, main­ly because my feet get tired eas­i­ly and so I don’t like to walk for a very long time check­ing out every store that kind of thing. And so when I find a dressy out­fit that works I tend to wear it again and again to oth­er dressy occa­sions. With some vari­a­tions, of course. And I fig­ure, espe­cial­ly at a wed­ding, nobody will notice that that bon­homme is wear­ing the same skirt she wore 3 months ago any­way because every­one will be look­ing at the bride :)

So, any­ways, Oper­a­tion Neck­lace was a suc­cess! And fun time spent with old friends and see­ing a dear friend mar­ry­ing his true love are price­less :D

Have a love­ly Tuesday!

Favourite-things Sunday!

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Acorns! ♥

I love acorns. They just look so cute with their caps.

The only thing more cute would prob­a­bly be small cakes shaped like acorns, made with this acorn cake pan I saw on The Kitchn. And the pan itself is shaped like an acorn!

$36 at Williams-Sono­ma… yikes.

So! For a much more afford­able (and equal­ly, if not more cute!) ver­sion of acorn treats, check out this Acorn Love recipe from Lip­stick and Laun­dry! :D

They’re made with Her­shey’s Kiss­es and mini Nil­la wafers! Isn’t that such a bril­liant idea? I’m total­ly mak­ing these for Thanks­giv­ing family/friends get-togeth­ers this year :D

And recent­ly I’ve come across these mag­i­cal acorns at Lil Fish Stu­dios.

They’re just the coolest things — the nat­ur­al acorn caps are paint­ed with met­al paint, which means that they will con­tin­u­ous­ly rust and change colours! It would be such a cool process to watch. And the felt­ed wool is so colour­ful and warm and lush. I love felt.

On a side note, while search­ing for the actu­al link for the acorns with met­al caps, I stum­bled upon an acorn tuto­r­i­al, also by Lil Fish Studio.

Mush­rooms! Also my favourite things, and made with acorn caps! Have got to make myself some of those some­times… I think they would look so sweet in a mason jar ter­rar­i­um. Sum­mer­time is the best time for long walks in the park and to col­lect things like acorn caps and twigs :D

And of course, can­not for­get about this amigu­ru­mi acorn I saw a while ago from Plan­et June.

With remov­able caps! How awe­some is that? It’s a free pat­tern too! I was so excit­ed when I first saw it and made one imme­di­ate­ly… that was almost 2 years ago. I want­ed to make an acorn that’s sim­i­lar in size to an actu­al acorn, so I used the pat­tern as a guide for the gen­er­al struc­ture of it but made it much small­er with few­er stitch­es around. I also did­n’t have brown yarn and round beads for eyes at the time so the acorn is yel­low and his eyes are made of french knots…

I think the bumpy cro­chet tex­ture is quite per­fect for an acorn cap. And I thought it would make such a love­ly fuzzy acorn if I cro­chet the cap and nee­dle-felt the rest. I’m sure it’s been done before, but I had been want­i­ng to try that myself for a long time and final­ly I got around to it a cou­ple of nights ago…

I quite like it :) But maybe I will try a thin­ner yarn and small hook next time. And maybe use tan for the cap instead of brown?

And final­ly, accord­ing to Wikipedia:

“Acorns appear only on adult trees, and thus are often a sym­bol of patience and the fruition of long, hard labor.”

Patience, that’s some­thing I need right now.

And I think just the fact that a mighty oak is grown from a small, sin­gle acorn is a mir­a­cle in itself.

That reminds me of a quote by David Icke — def­i­nite­ly skep­ti­cal about his views but this quote is one of my favourites:

Today’s mighty oak is just yes­ter­day’s nut that held its ground.

Have a love­ly week!

Point & Shoot Wed… Thursday ^_^;

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This is a day late… I have a feel­ing I won’t be able to keep to this blog­ging sched­ule very well… it’s been a busy week and I’m antic­i­pat­ing a busier-than-usu­al week ahead, so I prob­a­bly won’t be able to spend as much time craft­ing and post­ing as I like in the next lit­tle while… oh well.

So, any­way, there is a lilac tree (I think it’s a lilac tree… wish I were more knowl­edge­able about trees…) grow­ing out­side of our church. And the wall is start­ing to be slow­ly blan­ket­ed by vines…

This is for all of my loved ones who like purple :)

Have a won­der­ful weekend!

Practice freedom

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{Step 1} Place sheet of paper on table.

{Step 2} Rip a sheet of tis­sue paper into bits.

{Step 3} Hold bits of tis­sue paper in closed palms, raise palms above paper.

{Step 4} Close eyes. Open palms and release tis­sue papers.

{Step 5} Brush over bits of tis­sue paper on the sheet of paper with dilut­ed PVA glue exact­ly where they land­ed. Do this as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and mechan­i­cal­ly if nec­es­sary to avoid giv­ing in to the urge to “fix” the “com­po­si­tion” of the “pic­ture”.

I once heard a quote, its ori­gin I’ve forgotten:

“The oppo­site of hope­less­ness is not hope; it’s imag­i­na­tion. Imag­in­ing that things can be different.”

I imag­ine the same goes for freedom.

For me, it is main­ly free­dom from fear.

Many peo­ple have asked me, and I’ve also asked myself many times, that whether mak­ing art makes a dif­fer­ence. Just because you can make a pic­ture with tis­sue papers fly­ing freely about does­n’t mean that you can actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence the free­dom that you want in real life, right? Well. I can tell you that I have def­i­nite­ly seen mak­ing art make a dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s lives, includ­ing my own. I would also say that if we don’t even both­er to imag­ine, to make a ten­ta­tive ges­ture, to take a stance against what­ev­er that took away our free­dom — even just prac­tic­ing on paper, then how on earth do we sup­pose we can expe­ri­ence free­dom in “real life”, what­ev­er real life means?

I’m not upset with any­one, real­ly, oth­er than the inse­cure chat­ters in my head that kept attack­ing my faith and con­fi­dence for the past two weeks. So I guess these are lit­tle steps I take to reas­sure myself. To regain my com­po­sure. To keep going. And it does make a difference.

So, any­ways, on a lighter note, we have been cel­e­brat­ing Marshie win­ning the Instructable Crit­ter Con­test with cream cheese frost­ing on Ritz crack­ers :D I saw this idea on MADE and thought I must try! We have a jar of cream cheese frost­ing in our fridge from when I was try­ing to make cup­cakes sev­er­al months ago, and Mike went out and got Ritz crack­ers after he heard me talk about it (he’s the bestest!). It’s actu­al­ly quite good! Reminds me of the lemon cream bis­cuits I real­ly liked when I was a kid (there are dif­fer­ent fun flavours! Scroll down to the “cream sand­wich bis­cuits” sec­tion!). I love cream cheese frosting…

May your day be filled with peace.