Owl Skirt

This is a long overdue post about a skirt that I made for myself more than a year ago.  I hardly sew clothes for myself (other than this DIY shorts) for fear that it'll end up horrible looking and I'd have to throw it out.... what a waste of time, effort AND fabric!

Of course, I visited my best friend, Google, and visited numerous sites in search of something do-able, a skirt maybe?  My favourite was "The Circle Skirt Tutorial" by MADE.  Clear tutorial, GORGEOUS photos of skirts!  Pity I didn't have enough fabric to make a circle skirt, so I adapted and just used a rectangular piece of cloth and attached it to a 2-inch thick black elastic.  I also added pockets as I always seem to have something to carry around..... tissue paper, mobile phone etc... So here it is:

DIY Owl Skirt

Pockets added to skirt

Didn't turn out too bad, right?  Well..... as I was sewing the owl cloth to the elastic band, I was struggling so badly with it.... In the process, I think I overstretched the elastic and the skirt ended up way too big.  See.... what did I tell you about wasting time effort and fabric?

So this skirt was hanging in my wardrobe for months and months until one fine day, it fitted me perfectly!  I was preggy and this once-too-big waistband fitted under my belly just right!  Phew... luckily I didn't throw it out.

Stegosaurus' Friend

Right after the craft party, I showed my little one the Stegosaurus that I made and also the packs of corrugated paper in the goodie bag that I got.  He was thrilled and wanted to make more stuff.  At first he wanted to make animals that were shown on the packaging but he eventually settled on his all-time favourite -- a dinosaur!

For a more kid-friendly project, we used white glue instead of a hot glue gun.  As the white glue dried so slowly, we had to leave all the parts aside to dry before we could do anything else.

Waiting for the white glue to dry...

After about half a day, the white glue was finally dry and we could proceed to assemble the pieces.  The hot glue gun was used this time as everything just kept falling apart when white glue was used.  And, ta-daa..... a dinosaur friend for Stegosaurus -- a Triceratops!

Triceratops

Now, both Stegosaurus and Triceratops live in their own little world  :)

Stegosaurus & Triceratops

My First Craft Party

Last Saturday, I attended my first ever Craft Party that was hosted by Katrina Alana, Kokoru Corrugated Paper and Crafty Singapore.  FUN FUN FUN!!!  This was no easy feat as the party was to last for 2 hours!  What about my 2 little fellows??  Luckily, hubby took both of them to a nearby mall while I enjoyed my craft party totally uninterrupted, a very rare treat!

As this was my first craft party, I didn't quite know what to expect.  I did bring some business cards along but didn't give any out as I was busy helping to set-up the place at the start, and was rushing off at the end.  There was lots of corrugated paper to go around and there were many glue guns provided.  And of course there was food and drinks... I love the little cupcakes with dainty flowers piped on them.

Corrugated paper provided by Kokoru

Katrina had also prepared some templates to create cute gnomes, owls, mushrooms and other cute stuff just in case anyone wanted to make her cute creations.  Throwing all caution into the air, I decided to just create something new -- a dinosaur!  Here's my first little critter:

Paper craft stegosaurus

Trying to replicate a more complete scene like Katrina's, I made a simple scene to put the little stegosaurus in:

Dinosaur Scene

Seeing my little stegosaurus, someone asked if I had a son.  Hahaha... YES!  All Mummies know that boys go crazy over dinosaurs at some point in their lives I suppose ;)

So that's my little adventure in crafty-land and I TOTALLY ENJOYED IT!!!!  This paper craft is quite addictive and I can't wait to make more stuff from the corrugated paper that was included in our goodie bags :)

Update: Here's a friend for little Stegosaurus =)

Mid-Autumn Festival 2013

Today is the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar -- time to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). Even though we do not have any harvest to celebrate in our urban home, this is still a time to bring out lanterns and to eat mooncakes (Yummy!).  My little one had a celebration in school and had to make lanterns for a friendly competition.  Here's our lantern:

Lantern

This lantern is actually a blown up version of a spinner toy made using modular origami.  By using larger pieces of magazine paper, it came up to a good size for carrying around.  Instead of using candles to light up the lantern, I made a little holder and placed a LED torchlight inside.  This makes for a very safe lantern, especially for young kids.

LED Torch Lantern

Did you make any lanterns this year?  Or have you managed to buy any ultra cute ones?  Share your lanterns on our Facebook Page!

Custom Owl Pillow Cases and Cushion Covers

All the way back in 2011, I sewed cushion covers for M.  Just like the previous instances (see here and here), M provided me with the material once again to make pillow cases this time round.  The material was a comforter cover that was purchased from Ikea and it had such ADORABLE OWLS on it, that I just had to work on it almost immediately after I got my hands on it.

Here are the pillow cases:

Owl Pillow Case

Owl Pillow Case

There was still quite a lot of fabric leftover after making 4 pillow cases, so I went on to make cushion covers:

Owl Cushion Covers

Within a few days, these were sent to M and she was nice enough to send me this photo:

Owls, owls, and more owls

Isn't that an amazing overdose of owls???  And look, she even included my 3 handmade owls (read more about them here and here) in the photo :)

Pink Screen Syndrome

I've been holding off blogging for some time.... my computer is down with Pink Screen Syndrome :'(  It starts off with a pinkish screen on startup and all colours are way off.  I can't tell my oranges from my greens and there's no way I can edit my photos this way!  After letting it rest for many days, I turned it on again today with all fingers (and toes) crossed that it would recover, but no such luck...  I guess it's time for a new computer

Lovely Fabric

Another piece of clothing that I bought because of the design on the fabric.  Remember the previous one that I bought?  Hmmm.... am I subconsciously planning on upcycling these when I stop wearing them? ;)