Just a quick one

Sometimes all one needs is a super quick project to lift up one’s mood. Nothing complicated, just the papercraft project in one of Daphne’s Diary magazines: tear out the perforated piece from the page, fold & glue to create the paper lantern. Just before sealing the last flap, I added an electric candle. A little lamp to light the way.

I’ve bought some cute cat figurines online some time ago, and a wood slice serves as an attractive base for the comic gesture. An “oh no!” moment to decorate a table corner.

When writing the post I got the urge to use the cat figurines in the series for the same purpose. There are 3 different coloured cats, in 3 different poses, for the set. Leaving out the orange tabby figurines (I have some other ideas for them) I mass-produced the “oh no!” displays. Some of the wood slices edges were flaking off, so I added lace trims. Now I just need to decide what to do with all these !!!

Electric Candle Holders

I saw this Instagram post and was inspired to make my own candle holder. But instead of using glass jars, I made use of empty cotton bud plastic containers. The widest burlap ribbons in my stash are still not wide enough to cover the entire height of the containers, so I overlapped one of the ribbons to achieve a fuller coverage.

As Christmas is just around the corner, I decided to add the washi tape from IKEA VINTER 2016. (don’t ask me why I hoard supplies for 5 whole years for a festival I don’t even celebrate!) Perhaps I should have stuck the pale washi tape on white paper/ribbon before sticking on the container, so that it looks better in daylight. But then, I had some silly idea on how such a move would make that section opaque and obscure the light shining through.

As the containers are plastic I cannot put real candles in them, so I used my electric candles instead. After the batteries are exhausted I’ll probably use the decorated containers as vases for crepe flowers (if I ever get to finish making them!). Or I’ll just remove the Christmassy washi tape and re-decorate with another ribbon/tape for a new look!

Pretty Pale Flip Albums

I met up with some old friends last week, and it was only when we were planning where to dine did I realise that I had made some scrapbook albums for them, but these were started 2 years ago before the Covid-19 pandemic!!!! And I had yet to complete the album covers! (Apparently I had put the project aside for when I would have the energy to dig out my store-bought Prima Marketing flowers from the bottom of the stash cupboard to adorn the album covers, but procrastination had reared its ugly head and I subsequently forgot all about the project!)

So I had spent the days before the gathering rushing to complete the albums. And it was a trifle demoralising because I didn’t like what I had created 2 years ago anymore, but I didn’t have the time to make a totally new set of albums. Not to mention the waste of all the materials that were already involved. I had to continue along the same lines and hope that the final result would turn out to be acceptable.

I had decided to use the Prima Marketing Pretty Pale papers because the Journaling Cards contain very inspiring quotations. These 3 friends of mine have been with me for more than 28 years and even though we’ve grown apart after we started working & gotten married & became busy with our own families, we still make it a point to meet up during birthdays to celebrate and keep in touch. Thus I wanted the positive words to document the photographs taken over the past few gatherings.

It was meant to be a quick & easy project. Since the 6×6 paper pad contains 5 sheets each of 6 different paper designs, and I wanted to make four 6×6 tag flip albums, I simply used one sheet of every paper design for each album. This quickly creates the base for four 6-page albums. All I had to do was to make sure there are no repetitions in the way the patterned papers are ordered. Then it’s a matter of punching the holes and adding reinforcement rings created from the same papers.

I chose to put the photographs on one side of the papers (not depicted here) and to decorate the reverse sides with the 3×4 and 4×6 Journaling Cards. This was simply done by tearing the Cards into size where necessary. The resulting strips were used to further decorate the pages. The only other embellishments I added were the Pretty Pale Tickets and some washi tape from Daiso. As there were 15 different designs for the Journaling Cards, I could distribute these out among the 4 albums such that there was no repetition.

For some reason I had not used foam pads at all, so the pages look rather flat. On hindsight the Daiso washi tapes did not really match the colour scheme well, but after 2 years I could no longer remove the tapes without damaging the papers, so I just let things be.

For the last tag of the albums, I had created empty pockets, so that my friends can add future photographs without having to decorate the pages. This time round, I included extra 3×4 Journaling Cards for writing. I also added more embellishments: coloured paper clips from Typo decorated with the Prima Tickets to form little flags. These would also allow additional photographs to be clipped securely to the album.

Decorating the album covers two whole years after I started the project, I had to follow along the same style & colour scheme for consistency, using the same set of Journaling Cards and washi tapes for embellishment. This time round, however, I raised the Cards on cardboard and the Prima Flowers do add more dimension.

On the steel ring binders I tied ribbons of various colours alternated with different types of strings for added variety. Lastly, I added charms and leather tassels to complete the look.

I’m not completely pleased with these albums, but fortunately my friends were pleased with the unexpected gifts, even if I had to ask them for the dates & places of the past gatherings to complete the journaling! (Thank goodness one of the ladies kept a detailed digital record!) In future, I must complete my projects and not let things slide again!!!!!

Upcycling Materials for Gift Wrapping

It’s the season for gifting, and while I don’t celebrate Christmas myself, it’s sometimes necessary to prepare some simple presents for gift exchange when I meet up with friends. Inspired by a post from Somerset Place, I decided to make use of some old magazine pages to gift wrap a small book.

In an effort to reduce space, I often tear out relevant pages of craft magazines to file & keep, and send the remaining pages to the recycling bin. This is especially since I often buy British craft magazines for their enclosed craft kits, so I sometimes find the rest of the magazine not interesting or relevant to me.

For gift wrapping, I find magazine pages with a lot of words or large pictures more suitable, as the print would cover a large portion of the wrapped item, and less work would be required to pretty up the final gift. Here, I chose pages from an article from the Papercraft Essentials magazine – I love the cards featured but since I don’t do die cutting I didn’t bother to keep the article.

To make the paper large enough for gift wrapping, I followed the blog post’s instructions to join up the pages with washi tape. I chose tape of a matching colour scheme (I find this easier to work with than using tape of a contrasting colour scheme). I sometimes buy washi tape of pretty scenes but have trouble using them up for my usual craft projects, so this looks like a good way to use up such tapes. This particular one is by a local artist Ah Guo, well known for his illustrations of old Singapore.

I used the washi tape in place of scotch tape when wrapping the book, so that the little patches of tape peeping out here and there would add interest to the final item. To complete the look, I added some waste twine, and making use of the washi tape design, created a simple tag. I must say that the final result is prettier than I expected: I MUST remember this technique for future gift wrapping!!!!!

I’m gifting the Starbucks Colour Changing Hot Cups to some of my friends this year – I have been enjoying my morning cuppa in different beautiful mugs on some mornings and wanted to share this little AM treat. The colour changes for the large plastic cups may not be very obvious, but I find any pop of colour welcome in these gloomy times.

For one of the mugs, I decided to make use of the packaging filler materials that came in my L’Occitane delivery boxes. The bright yellow tissue paper is so very signature of the brand, but what I find more intriguing is the honeycomb cushioning kraft paper. I have been using the interesting texture in some of my art journaling, and this time I decided to make use of the large remaining sheet to wrap up the tall mug. Some leftover twine are used to attach a tag (the only new item) to complete the final presentation.

Last but not least, another source for gift wrapping materials would be my own craft stash!!! I always enjoy shopping and tend to hoard lovely materials “for another day”, but this not only creates a severe space crunch at home but also, I hate to admit it, not exactly an environmentally friendly gesture either.

This time, thanks to the effort to put less pressure on my wallet, my brain remembered the Flow Books for Paper Lovers that I started purchasing from several years ago. They usually publish one such book once a year, filled with paper goodies for crafting, writing, gift wrapping etc, and I stopped purchasing from 2 years ago after I realised I’m no longer so into the whimsical simple style anymore. This means I still have 4 hardly used books that have been sitting in my cupboard for as long as 6 years!!

I pulled out one book at random and the wrapping papers included are just the right size for the Starbucks cups. To wrap, I simply place the cups diagonally across the rectangular papers, roll up like a cone, trim off the excess paper at the bottom and tape so that it can stand upright, then scrunch up the papers at the top and tie up with some waste twine. I have a bag of used ribbons/twine salvaged over the years from other people’s gift wrapped presents for me, and these often come in useful.

The good thing about the Flow Books are that the paper goodies come in matching sets of tags, envelopes, writing papers, or stickers etc. So it’s a simple matter of selecting suitable tags and stickers to adorn the final wrapped items.