Cushion Covers for Mum

The last time that mum changed the cloth cover of the dining room chairs was years and years ago.  So off she went, looking for nice fabric to change them.  She managed to get some lovely dark and light brown fabric that was quite thick, yet had that satin finish on it.... nice =)

But before she had the time to tear out the old cloth covers from the dining room chairs, the dining table broke!!  When that happened, Chinese New Year was just around the corner, so started the frantic search for a new dining table.  They eventuallly found one, and it came as set with 6 dining room chairs.  These chairs had seperate cushions and the covers for these supposedly cost $50+ each??!!  No way we're paying that much for cushion covers!

So I grabbed the fabric that was previously bought, and turned them into a set of cushion covers with invisible zippers for the new chairs.  Take a look:

DIY Terrarium

I was going to get a newly renovated office space and thought that it would be good to have some greenery at my cubicle.  With dry air-conditioned air, and periods when I could be away from office for days, I wanted something that would not require much care and could still survive.  Thus, the idea of having a terrarium popped up.

Trusty Google brought up many pretty terrariums, some were even for sale locally.  I was really tempted to buy a cute little Angry Bird Terrarium, but decided against it because of the cost.  So I got down to sourcing for cheap materials for my DIY terrarium.  Here's the breakdown of the cost:

used glass bottles: free
small stones for drainage: S$2
small blue gravel for decoration: S$2
soil: S$2
activated charcoal: $2.5
plastic netting to separate soil from drainage stones: S$2
plant: S$4

After completing the 2 terrariums above, I still had half a pack of blue gravel, more than 2/3 pack of soil, 1 small pack of activated charcoal, 2 and a half pieces of plastic netting, 3/4 of the potted plant enjoying the sun outdoors.  Hmmmm..... I should start looking for a bigger, prettier glass container to make more terrariums ;)

Drawstring Pouch for Sunglasses

Just before we went on a family trip to Gold Coast, Australia, we bought a cool pair of sunglasses for the little one.  It didn't come with a casing and I didn't want those sunglasses being scratched by other stuff in his bag, so I let the little one choose a fabric he liked from the cute Japanese fabric that I bought from Chinatown.  He chose the bright red one with cute little rabbits on it!  With a quick snip of the scissors, some quick sewing, add in a bright yellow cord, and here it is - a cute little drawstring pouch for his sunglasses!  The bright red makes it really easy to find among other things in his bag =)



Sunglasses on cute rabbit drawstring pouch




Sunglasses inside cute rabbit drawstring pouch



Hair Accessories

I haven't had a hair cut for months and my hair is almost long enough for a full ponytail.  Popped into a hair accessories shop today and saw some nice hair clips with layers and layers of fabric made to look like a flower.  Nice!!  I like it that the fabric flower almost totally disguises the boring plastic clip but woah...... it cost more than $20!  A similar basic plastic clip which would serve the same purpose cost about $3.  Hmmmmm...... I wonder if I could DIY something.....

DIY Shorts

Ever since I left Secondary school, I've never attempted to sew any clothes for myself.  As an experiment, I decided to sew a pair of shorts for myself.  I used an old pair of shorts as a template for the front and back panels and here's my new DIY pair of shorts!!

Cute Japanese Fabric

It's been some time since I last went to Chinatown for fabric shopping.  Remember the Tokai Senko Japanese fabric that I made into cushion covers and little pouches?  Or the kimono cloth from which I made a little drawstring pouch as a birthday present?  Well, since I was going to meet my friend for a belated birthday lunch, I chose a restaurant in the Chinatown area so that we could go shopping after that.  It's not the kind of shopping that my friend was used to but she went along with it since it was my birthday.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just wanted to browse and see what the many little shops had to offer.  Unexpectedly, we found shops selling rather unique looking bags.  And surprise surprise, we found some clothing shops that had rather nice clothes at rather reasonable prices! *friend happily goes in and out of changing room* 

We were just about to enter a strange looking clothing store when my friend's boyfriend called to check if she was spending money shopping.  He must have had a very good radar, because that store was the killer!  Lovely handmade clothes designed by the store owner were made with Japanese fabric and were really unique!!  *more going in and out of changing room* =p

I managed to resist buying any clothes that day, but..........  I just couldn't resist these cute Japanese fabric!!!  Aren't the rabbits, owls and little girls cute????

Calligraphy + embroidery

Many many years back, I learnt calligraphy in school.  Each lesson was spent drawing guidelines in pencil, using the calligraphy pen to write poems, and drawing a decorative border around the words.  At around the same time, I was introduced to embroidery.  We sewed lots of different stitches and were graded on the neatness of our work.

Fast forward many years later -- Here I am, combining calligraphy and embroidery late at night.  The little one has started school and to avoid any confusion, I started sewing his name on his uniforms.  After about an hour, neat stitches of his name in cursive script can now be seen on 2 sets of uniforms.

It's always good to learn more things.  We'll never know when we'll need these skills at some point in life...