What do you do when there's nothing to do?

SCARE UP SOME FELT! (sing it like the Happy Monster Band do in Disney Junior)

As promise, this post is about the up-cycling I did for Shahrin's 'new schoolbag' (which should have been completely unnecessary if only I can remember where I stored his old schoolbag...)

Anyhoo..just 3 days to go before school started last week on 4th Jan (why did the Ministry of Education allowed the first day of school to start in the middle of the week anyway? duuhh) and I suddenly remembered that I had Shahrin's old schoolbag stored away. Mind you, even when I have limited spaces to 'store' stuff, I've actually managed to misplace so many things over the years. Signs of my mind getting older and feebler (if that's even a word...) With 2 more days to go and I still couldn't find his bag, I asked Ahmad to buy him a new one with the instruction to not buy something expensive, yet, since we can splurge later next year when he goes to primary school (gasp!!!! my 1st born is almost 7???). Here is what Ahmad came up with:

Plain RM2.00 2nd-hand bag that Ahmad bought at the night market.

It's actually an Allianz bag.

I made this name tag for Shahrin to cover the original logo.
I used 2 sheets of felt; one blue for the letters and a grey sheet for the back piece.

This was done the day before school started which was on Wednesday of last week. I've also made something else out of felt, to put on the front of the bag since it looked too plain. I'm trying to make a felt applique, but it is a bit complicated, plus our little family's current health condition made it impossible to finish it on time. 

This is a downloaded picture, curtsy of Mr. Google that
I printed on a piece of paper as a  template.

This is the half-finished felt version.
A Thomas felt-applique.

They look 'almost' the same, right? 

It's taking way too long to finish up the details. If only I can zoom in closer on these pictures, I can show you just how horrible my stitches are. I'm thinking of buying one of those bigger-sized cross-stitch needle with embroidery floss or something for the lines along Thomas, to make them pop-up more. Regular needle and thread is taking too long plus the thread do not show to much on felt. 

Well, hopefully I can show the end result soon. Till then, toodles. 

Upcycled black tank top: Cute tote.

As usual, I'm not trying to present a tutorial but just showing what I did with this tank top.
This is another simple upcycle project to turn something I can't use into something I love.

The tank top in its original condition sans the bra straps that
I've taken out before taking this picture.

 The finished project!

Doesn't it look pretty? It took me only half a day* to turn the tank top into this tote.

Unfortunately, I don't have a handy strap to go with it. Luckily, I found the black

luggage straps among my trash stash and decided to use it with this tote.

 Basically, all I did was sew in the polka dotted gross grain ribbon across the top part of the tank top and downwards through its center. I bought the ribbon from Cintahati Craft along with some felt, more ribbons, a magnetic sheet and buttons that I have yet to use. *sigh* Next, I sewed close the bottom part of the tank top and sewed the corners into smallish triangles.  

Up close and personal.

Remember that fabric flower from my previous post? I made felt leaves to go along with it. 

I know I made more than 1 flower but when I tried putting on all 3 of them on the tote, they looked so crowded. That's why I only sewed on 1 flower here as embellishment. 

Oh, btw, do you notice the buttons along the top part? I saw Shahrin playing with them and putting them onto the ribbon just like that while I was still deciding on what to do with the tote. His inspirational idea made him really proud when I showed him what I did, hehe. 

On a totally unrelated note, can't wait for Thursday to come. I have a date with baby in my tummy!!! Maybe I'll use this new tote for my next visit to the doctor. Mmmm can't wait to see baby. hehehe..

* half a day to sew and finish up the tote but 3 days to find the right handle/straps for it. Actually, I haven't decided if I want it to be a cross-body bag or just a tote, if you notice the 2nd and 3rd picture. 

What do you think? 

Fabric flowers inspired.

I found some fabric scrap in Ahmad's bundle of 2nd-hand shirts. And since I had more time on my hand with Shahrin not around, I was inspired to make some fabric flowers. For a detailed tutorial, please visit Creation Corner.

 I started by making 5 fabric circles. I know that in the tutorial she used 6 

but I liked it better with just 5 'petals'.

 Following the instructions, I folded one circle into half.

 Then, folded it half again.

 I skipped showing the threading part but basically what I did was the same as in the tutorial.

Here's the finished flowers. The top one has 6 petals and the bottom only has 5. 

I liked 5 petals better so I made 2 more '5-petal flowers' using the same scrap of fabric.

 These flowers are used in another project which will be revealed soon

 (since Shahrin is already back home & I have my hands full now heheh).

I was bored so I made these felt flowers.

The Three Flowers.

I made these out of felt that I bought a looooooooong time ago but didn't have time to do anything with them, until recently. These two at the bottom were just circles in decreasing diameters, stacked one on top of the other. The bigger yellow one was easy to make since I just fold them in half 3 times to make those slits. The smaller one was harder since I had to make square cuts to achieve that effect. I was just fooling around when I decided to make the square cuts but I liked how they looked the first time I did them, so why not make more, right? Hehe. To bind them all together, I just used buttons. I wanted to put 2 leaves at the back but I don't have green felt, so at the moment, they are KIVed till later (or never from the look of things these days *sigh*)

Deformed felt flower?

 This yellow and orange 'flower-like' felt creation was actually meant to be something else but it didn't work out the way I wanted it. I had to improvise and in the end, I turned it into a stuffed flower with a yellow patch, for added effect. I had an extra button, so that went on too. Since it didn't look like a flower, I decided to make it a fridge-magnet. I had a sheet of A4 magnet from the same purchase I made a long time ago and I decided to use it.

This is how it looks like at the back, with the magnet.

Here it is with its FM buddy, on my fridge.

That's all the creative energy I have for now. Till it strikes again.

Part 2: Felt craft starter kit.

As promised, here's the second part of my Crafting Craze.
I've been wanting to do some sewing/crafting since forever. I know I love to sew, I just don't have the time and the machine to do that. Excuses much? Maybe. Or maybe because I don't want to be criticize by my mom since I'm supposedly the 'brilliant' one in my family and sewing/crafting would be a 'waste of my brilliance'.
I don't know. 
Plus, I'm not original. I love checking out other people's crafts and try to match their creation because I can't come up with an original idea of my own.

Anyway, I was checking out some handmade-blogshops and stumbled onto a felt craft blogshop. They offer starter kits at RM 60 which includes:

Different colored felts, a marker, another marker, glue and a tweezers.

This is the crafting 'module'. In it, the blogger showed how to make felt key-chains, hand-phone straps.

Some cute buttons, needles, treads, scissors, key-chains, bells, hand-phone straps.

All of the above items were sent over via PosLaju in this file.

I'm having some fun making stuff with this starter kit. It also can just in time for Teacher's Day. So, I had time to make 2 hand-phone straps for Shahrin's pre-school teachers. Though I have to admit that before we got to his school and gave the HP straps to the teachers, I was feeling very proud of myself. 1- because I actually made the gifts myself and 2- I remembered to bring something as appreciation to the teachers.
But, when we got there and I saw all the other gifts/presents other parents had brought over, my pride burst. *POP*
Well, beggars can't be complainers. I seriously couldn't afford the other presents. Hopefully the teachers know that it's the thought that counts, right?

Well, the last part is going to be fun. I can't wait for tomorrow night, heh. 

Part 1: Upcycled T-shirts. (Crafting craze!)

Well, now that I've finished proofreading the thesis my 'client' gave me, I would be able to post about some of my crafting projects. The Crafting Craze will be done in 3 parts; Part 1, upcycled t-shirts, Part 2, felt crafts' starter kit and Part 3 is the actual craft I made myself for my son's preschool teacher. Oooouuuu..can't wait to tell you guys all about them but I have to be smart & divide the news in parts to make sure that I would have more posts for the next few days. Hahahah....

Ahem..

Anyway, regarding the upcycled t-shirt, I found 2 lovely t-shirts that if I were skinny, I would've worn them every single day. I love the texture, color and the stripes on the t-shirts but they were too small for me. Plus, I can't wear horizontal stripes, they would make me look even bigger, right? Basic fashion rule.

Ahmad said I could have them (they were in our bundle stash) so I decided that if I can't wear them, I might as well do something else with them.

Blue shirt with dark blue stripes, wide round-neck collar. Love it!

Brownish shirt with a collar.

So, I took out my scissors and began to hack away at the sleeves and some of the bottom part of the T-shirts. Again, I'm not doing a tutorial here, just telling you guys what I did with these lovely shirts that I can't wear (buhuhu...). I used the long sleeves of the blue one to make a long strap and I kept the bigger bottom portion of the shirt for another project. Since the brown shirt has short sleeves, I had to cut strips out of the bottom part to make the straps. Then, I turned them inside out and sewed down starting from the opened sleeves area till the bottom. I sewed the bottom part too and made 2 triangle shapes at both ends. Not really sure what they are called among tailors/seamstresses, though. So, have you figured out what they have turned into yet? 

Yes! I made sling-bags out of them! Aren't they cute? I especially LOVE the blue bag, with its round-neck as the opening and the clean stripes. I can't wait to use them. This had to be the easiest project ever. Maybe next time I rummage through Ahmad's bundle stash, I'd find more shirts to be turned into bags. Yay! :D

Reusing empty plastic container.

Morning folks!

The Earth Hour Campaign has come and go with little support from my family. *sigh*
The boys freaked out when I turned off all the lights, so we kept the TV & my lappy on so that the house wasn't in complete darkness. Candles were not an option with these 2, they would burn the house down if I so much as blink my eyes, hehe. (You know that I'm only exaggerating, right? )Even then, not 5 minutes into the campaign, my Ahmad turned the lights back on because HE couldn't stand being in the dark either.
*more sigh*

So, that was that. The lights came back on, the TV kept on blaring, lappy on, fans on, like the campaign was never in place at all. *huh* Maybe we'll do better next year.

Fortunately, the campaign wasn't just about turning off the lights for one hour, in one day, once a year. It is an on-going campaign all year round, to get the world community to rally together in our fight against the destruction of earth. Every little thing we do, counts in a big way.

As for me, what I have figured out for doing my part to help save earth is by applying the 3R; Reuse, Reduce, Recycle in my daily routine. This movement is not just about any specific organization or government body, it encompasses the whole human community, those who cares about the world we live in. You can go here and here too, for more info.

I figured that since I don't have financial resources to help with this movement, I could just apply the 3R this way: by reusing empty plastic containers for storage around the house.

These are Ahmad's 'man-stuff'; nails, screws, bits and pieces.

The bigger nuts and bolts are in this peanut butter container.

Big nails, small nails, you name it, they're in these plastic jars.

Stack-able, for easy storage :D

Then, there are also my own stuff, in the kitchen. I used more empty plastic containers as storage for my sugar, Nescafe 3-in-1 and Shahrin's formula.

Coffee (Nescafe) powder.

3-in-1

Shahrin's formula

It is both easy and money-saving to reuse what you already have at hand. Sure, they are not as pretty as porcelain containers or Mason jars but, I think as long as they are functional, they are good enough for me. Although I am seriously thinking of putting on a coat of white poster paint or other paints to make them look even better. If I do get to doing that, I'll be sure to post it here. 

Apart from these, I've already posted other crafts I made out of my trash. Check out my Crafting Amateur label for more info. :D

Art Attact; Bubble Windmill

At around 7pm yesterday evening, we sat down and watched an educational segment on Astro TVIQ. I'm not sure what that segment was called but it featured a girl who made a Bubble Windmill out of milk cartoons and cardboard boxes. She was stressing about recycling rubbish to make fun things.

Now, you know that I have my stash of trash, right? I've written about them here. Since last night, Shahrin had kept going on and on about wanting to make a bubble windmill too. So, this morning, after being pestered about it for the zillionth time, I gave up. I told him, "All right, we'll make one for you and Adik (Nazrin)".

I took out my stash and luckily, I have just about everything that I would need to make A Bubble Windmill!

My stash: milk cartoons, a cardboard box, a Styrofoam thingy, wooden skewers and some glue (not in the picture).

 Mind you, this is not a tutorial, I'm just writing down my own way of doing this. I skipped some part from last night's show, since I was pressed for time and the boys were too 'helpful' with the scissors. Couldn't take the chance to take it slow and make everything pretty and decorative, hehe.

Poke one wooden skewer through the top section of a milk cartoon.

Cut another milk cartoon in half, this would be the container to hold the bubble mixture; some dish-washing liquid and water

My 'Handy Helpers' busy at work assembling the windmill.

I've cut some cardboard into rectangles to make the blades for the windmill, Shahrin helped me attach them on to the square Styrofoam.

Nazrin was really focused on the job!

The finished art.

The blades were cut-up cardboard, poked through with more wooden skewers and inserted into the square Styrofoam, the blades were set at an angle so that they can catch the wind. We placed a fan on the table to test the windmill. In this picture, you can't see the 4 wire loops I made. The wind was supposed to turn the blades as well as make bubbles by making the wires pass through the bubbly solution underneath the windmill.
 

Here is the windmill in action.

This new 'recycled toy' lasted for about 10 minutes, then everything fell apart. Heh. The soapy solution made the blades soggy and one by one they fell off. As I was in a hurry to finish tidying up the house and make breakfast, the project is a KIV for now. I managed to distract him with something else, but if I know my son, he'd usually forget something if that something has already been given/bought/done. I think I'm saved for now. For what it's worth, we did have fun watching the Windmill turn for the 10 minutes of its life. Heh.

I joined the Sassy Sites blog-hop party!

Unique pen holder.

Here, I have a few more of my stash of trash. The tissue box had a nice flowery motif going on and I couldn't throw it out. It looked so pretty and I keep thinking of how or what am I supposed to do with it. I wanted to keep the flower motif but the brand name is so huge, I got stuck on how to cover it up and yet still showcase the flowers.

(In this picture; the infamous tissue box, the magnet strip and a name card holder)

Then, there's the strip of magnet that I ripped off from my son's broken magnetic doodle board. It wasn't as nice looking as this one:

but it has served its purpose well. I kept the plastic cover with the intention of having another trash to treasure project. But that's for another day.

So, I have been having some trouble with my pens. They keep disappearing and they are never where I put them, when I need them. I even wrote about them here. My kids kept taking my pens and never putting them back, plus most of them got busted by the brutality of Nazrin's writing skills. *sigh*

Anyway, I've been thinking that I should have a memo/note spot on my fridge, you know, for To Do Lists, Shopping List or the occasional love note to Ahmad (yeah, right! :D). And I have just the right trash to make a one of a kind pen holder. This is not a tutorial, so I'm just going to show you what I've done, with a little description.

TADAA!!!

What I did was I incorporated the flower pattern from the tissue box into my 'design'. I cut out 2 flowers (1 big and 1 small) from the top part of the box, just in case I come up with a new idea for it, then I can still use it. I colored the bigger piece blue since yellow on yellow didn't pop out. I glued a small piece of the magnet strip to the back of the holder and the flowers on top. Slide in a pen at the plastic strip and I was done.

Here it is on my fridge, the cute note was from Tricia-Rennea's free printables.

A close-up of my unique pen holder.
Now I can be sure that this pen at least, will stick to where I've put it, on my fridge.

Art Attact; The Too Cute Desktop Calender.

So, as I have said, I'm a closet hoarder. I tend to keep all the boxes, plastic containers and other bits and pieces. The intention behind hoarding such items is mostly cosmetic; the box looks cute, its glossy and sturdy, its big (might need it for packing presents or something), I like the design, you know, stuff like that. Plus, the amateur crafter in me sees the possibilities behind each hoarded item. Therefore, today, I am presenting my latest 'Art Attact', created from my stash of trash, The Too Cute Desktop Calender!!!

Items:

One Koko Krunch box

A 2011 calender from Kreko magazine
(a cartoon mag filled with Japanese cartoons)

Here they are together.

I opened up the box and flipped it over.
With the help from my 'Handy Helpers' (notice Nazrin's cameo appearance? heh),
I folded and glued the box back together to form a tent.

The next steps are mostly self-explanatory. Basically, I glued the calender to the top
part of the tent I've made from the box. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the length of the calender, so I had a bit more box sticking out. Rather than cut that part out, I decided to embellish it with a note holder and a flowery design at the bottom.

I made this note holder from the leftover box and Shahrin helped stick the butterflies
on it to make it look cuter. I asked Ahmad to write down 'Notes' at the top
since his handwriting looks better than mine.

I used these paint markers and the stencil to decorate the bottom part.

When I first looked at them, without the borders (notice the alternate flowers
with borders?), they looked kind of bland, so I bordered every other flower,
to enhance their appearance a bit. Nicer this way, right?

Now don't forget the 3D-effect bunny! I glued an accordion piece of paper behind her
to get this effect. Doesn't she look cute? She's from Paper Glitter's
free printables from the To Do List. I threw away the used list part but
couldn't find it in my heart to throw the images away, they
(this bunny, 3 apples and a Japanese doll) are TOO CUTE!
Luckily, I finally have a home for this bunny to live in, heh.

And here's the finished product. Isn't it Too Cute?

Here it is, on my newly organized table top. When I took this picture this morning,
everything was nice and organized, not 20 minutes after,
'everything' had gone everywhere. *sigh*

In the above picture, I hid all of my paper clutter. Now, if only I have one of this to
organize them, then everything would be puurrr-fect!
Desk-top wise, that is.


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