A week in montage

1. Nap­kin origa­mi, fam­i­ly gath­er­ing at restau­rant :D

2. Storm approaching!

3. Red bean pud­ding cake, among oth­er glo­ri­ous dim sum food

4. Received roy­al mail! awe­some :D I ordered a used book through Ama­zon and it was shipped from the UK!

5. We tried mak­ing sea glass jel­lo with this recipe, but for­got to dis­solve gelatin before adding con­densed milk, so the gelatin was all clump­ing and I thought I could sal­vage it by beat­ing it with an elec­tric mix­er… any­way. It tast­ed excel­lent, just a bit foamy at the top and the jel­lo pieces all bro­ken into bits at the bot­tom… per­haps we could call it sea foam jel­lo instead :P

6. Sight­ed! White berries! A bit like snow on the bush­es. I wish I know what they’re called…

Favourite things of the week!

Hope you’ve had a fab­u­lous long week­end! Did­n’t write for sev­er­al days because I have been away, but I’ve also been sav­ing these links to share! :D

I saw this quite a while ago — anoth­er bril­liant, bril­liant way to make small gift bags by How About Orange! From envelops! And also pret­ty tape! Per­fect for Christ­mas cook­ies, I think. Or those cook­ie mold orna­ments I was mak­ing! :D

Spot­ted anoth­er paper-fold­ing project recent­ly via Whip uppaper crane cup­cake top­pers! Would go well with green tea cup­cakes, I imag­ine. This looks like a promis­ing recipe…

And a real­ly neat activ­i­ty I saw today via The Crafty Crow, Com­bin­ing music-mak­ing, song-writ­ing, and water­colour! :D Read the post on Net­tle’s Notes to see how it works, it’s real­ly cool.

I stum­bled upon these fab­ric flow­ers on Sim­ply Vin­tage­girl a while ago — look how pret­ty!!! Real­ly want to try mak­ing them, but kind of weary about the flame part for the petals… the tuto­r­i­al has real­ly clear instruc­tions though! So maybe if I come across some syn­thet­ic silk one day I’ll give them a try…

Aaaand last but not least (though the tini­est), saw these can­dy corn *squeal* by Danielle­o­ra­ma on Tiny Plush Tues­day! They remind me that fall is quick­ly approach­ing and that makes me so very hap­py :D (Yes, I’m one of those odd species that aren’t too fond of sum­mer) I’m also feel­ing rather inspired to start cro­chet­ing a can­dy corn :D

Hap­py day!

 

 

 

The making of a motivational mini-wheat

Accord­ing to our Hoops and Yoyo cal­en­dar, Sep­tem­ber is break­fast month! It is also back-to-school / end-of-vaca­tion month! So! Mr. Mini-Wheat is here to help stick moti­va­tion­al mes­sages on the fridge.

It is, as you might be able to tell, inspired by the talk­ing frost­ed Mini-Wheats. I’m not a big fan of Mini-Wheat myself (a bit too fibery for me), but I’m extra fond of these talk­ing Mini-Wheats because they remind me of the com­ic strips Mike used to draw.

I made a reg­u­lar sug­ary one and a straw­ber­ry one :D It would be fun to also make the brown sug­ar one and the new blue­ber­ry muf­fin flavour.

Here’s what I used:

Heavy duty jute twine (I would like to use a thin­ner twine, but that was all I could find at the dol­lar store).

6mm and 5mm hooks.

A small square of white felt, and dou­ble lay­er of a bit of pink fab­ric cut from a retired t‑shirt (because I did­n’t have pink felt).

Sewing thread in black, white, and pink.

Sewing nee­dles.

Two mag­nets.

And here’s what I did:

Twine is very stiff and knots can become undone eas­i­ly, leav­ing a longish tail in the begin­ning pre­vents the piece from com­ing apart. Also, I cro­cheted rather loose­ly through­out because the stitch­es are more tight when doing rows of slip stitch­es and, on top of that, twine does­n’t stretch.

Leav­ing a tail about 4″ long, ch 6.

Row 1: ch 1, sl st in each ch across through back loops only, ch 1, turn.

Row 2–4: sl st in each sl st across through back loops only, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: sl st in each sl st across through back loops only. Leav­ing a tail about 12″ long for sewing, fas­ten off.

Now I have a rec­tan­gle. It will be fold­ed in half and the short sides sewn together.

cro­chet complete!

Then I cut out small pieces of the white and pink fab­ric and embroi­dered faces on them with black thread.

hel­lo, world!

I then sewed the frost­ing faces onto the cro­cheted pieces before fold­ing the pieces in half and sewing the side edges together.

fibery wheat…

I actu­al­ly did­n’t quite “sew” the edges togeth­er. Because I did­n’t have a nee­dle with a big enough eye, I used the small­er cro­chet hook to thread the tail through the loops down the edges.

I only “sewed” one side togeth­er, leav­ing the top and bot­tom seams open. I weaved all the loose ends into the top and bot­tom openings.

And then I attached a mag­net on the back. And here they are, on the fridge! (They’re about 1″ tall.)

And a moti­va­tion­al mes­sage wait­ing to be found…

Hap­py Sep­tem­ber, everyone!

Tourist for a day, with haiku’s.

A cou­ple of days ago I trav­elled to a part of the city that I don’t vis­it very often to hang out with a friend.

Look! Rice noo­dle rolls,
hand rolled and sprin­kled with shrimps.
Peanut sauce drizzles!

Hel­lo there, koi fish.
Swim­ming amongst the pennies
in the neon lights.

Oh, what love­ly street!
Side­walks lined with sum­mer blooms
and not a raincloud!

“When in doubt,” she says,
over tea and maple fudge,
“pinkie out, my friend.”

Beam­ing white flowers,
unfazed by hot sun, standing
head high and chin up.

Not as brave, we two!
Sought refuge in cool lounge
and choco­late bloom.

For my beloved,
a deli­cious souvenir -
green tea KitKat bar!

Jour­ney home melted
green tea sug­ary wafer.
Tasty nonetheless!

Cheers! :D