2015 Ornament Swap

Christmas is my favorite favorite holiday. I love having holiday traditions. This year, I rounded up a bunch of friends for my annual handmade ornament swap. The friends who participated were mostly from Alex. I invited everyone over to my place for a Christmas pizza party. This batch is very impressive! Everyone is setting the bar higher each year.

Top row: candy cane, snowflake, and Christmas tree made of cracked marbles
Middle Row: angel, taco, and meowlet kitty
Bottom Row: paper pine cone, stained glass penguin, and Krampus 

 All the ornament swag before we busted them all open. There was such pretty packaging and gift wrapping!

Re-cap: Fort Lee Arts & Music Festival

My friend, Liz, and I participated in a local arts and music festival over the weekend. It was bright and sunny, perfect for a day of strolling, eating street fair food, and listening to live music. Neither of us has had a craft booth before so I figured this was a good opportunity to get our feet wet.

[Liz's advertising poster for the Fort Lee Arts & Music Festival.]

Interestingly, people bought most of my old crafts and my newer creations were barely touched! I ended up earning enough money for gas.

2014 Ornament Swap

My co-workers are so creative! Here are this year's holiday ornament swap ornaments. I saved some room on my tree for these new guys. It's hard to choose which ornaments to put on my tree as my collection is growing bigger each year!

Peppermint Christmas Tree Garland

After I made all my glittery hot air balloon ornaments, I had a LOT of scraps left behind. 
It would've been a waste to just throw them away. So I used a big hole puncher and punched out some circles.

Then, I sewed them together side by side to make a lovely peppermint garland for my tree.

Hot Air Balloon Ornament

I found this tutorial online to make paper hot air balloons. I used glittery paper to give them a holiday sparkle. They were relatively easy to make. The only hard part was cutting out the pieces. The tutorial video shows a fancy paper cutting machine. My paper cutting machine consisted of an X-acto blade and a rather sore index finger.

Snowflake Stamp Gift Wrap

I had received a package the other day. The box was stuffed with kraft paper to protect the contents. Instead of throwing the kraft paper out, I decided to reuse it and make some pretty holiday gift wrap! I bought this snowflake stamp at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse during my last trip to San Francisco. It's one of my favorite spots to visit if I'm in the Bay Area. 

I also got to find gems like these to decorate my holiday cards:

I learned Christmas seals were bought as an extra charitable stamp for the holidays in order to raise money for tuberculosis and lung disease.

Starbucks drink & barista costume for Amelie & Faith

This year, Amelie and her cousin, Faith, had a rather interesting idea for their Halloween costumes.

Amelie wanted to be a Starbucks drink.
Faith wanted to be a barista.

I was able to make a cup with white felt. 

To add some structure for the rim, I used 1/4" PVC tubing I bought from Home Depot.

Believe me, I wasn't the only one looking for costume ingredients that day.

I saw a lotta dads with their kids on the search for bits and pieces to make costumes.

I used iron on transfer paper to make the logos.

I even misspelled Amelie's name as many baristas tend to do!

For the hat, I used three yards of white tulle sewed onto a felt helmet type hat.

The straw is made with a cardboard tube from wrapping paper covered with green construction paper.

It is secured in place with a lot of hot glue.

Faith's barista costume was easy peasy!

I bought a green visor and apron on Amazon.com for under $10.

Again, I used iron on transfer paper to make the logos.

They look ready for their school's Halloween party, right?

I'll be spending this Halloween giving out candy to the kids in my building. 

I've never done it before! 

So I prepared and bought a big big bag of candy and proceeded to sort the poisonous from the nonpoisonous.

("Poisonous" = for Gina to consume) 

H A P P Y  H A L L O W E E N !

Ornament Swap 2013

This year, I organized an ornament swap amongst some friends. I've swapped with strangers via Swap-Bot before but I found half the ornaments I received turn out to be disappointing. I figured if I hand picked participants, I'd increase the chances of receiving all nice ornaments and a broader variety. Looks like I was right! I received all lovely ornaments in the mail this year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

^_____________^

iPad Yule log.

The office was closed early yesterday around noon for our holiday break. I spent the morning making a fireplace to make an iPad Yule log for a holiday party. Did a Google search on "Christmas fireplace" and this image popped up. I re-sized it to fit my iPad, printed, laminated it onto some chipboard for some structure and taped it onto my iPad. I folded some origami Christmas stockings with guests' names and decorated the mantel. Found a great three hour video of a fireplace on Youtube and voilá! Yule log for an urban apartment that has no chimney.

Wedding Box for Helen

This is the photo Helen texted me last month:

"How do I paint it now... Tips pls," she said.

"OK. I'm coming over," I said.
Helen wanted to make a nice box to collect cards and gifts in for her upcoming wedding.

We bought some extra supplies.

Once I got back from London, I spent a night putting it together.

I lined the inside of the box with fancy glittery paper from The Paper Source.

It matched the color palette of Helen's wedding.

I get nervous at the thought of working with brides.

I understand planning a wedding is stressful.

So it was nice when Helen gave me her trust and let me simply work.

CONGRATS HELEN & ARNOLD!

 (Photographed by Albert Cheung Photography)

Harry Potter Ring Bearer Book for Helen

 Helen had requested a special gift from me for her bridal shower gift.

She needed a ring bearer pillow. In lieu of a pillow, I put together a

ring bearer book instead since she is a language arts teacher.

"What's Helen's favorite book?" I asked her fiance.

I expected something along the lines of "Pride and Prejudice" or "Wuthering Heights". 

"Helen really likes the Harry Potter series," he answered.

Dammit.

"Okay, which book?" I asked, not that it would make a difference.

"Her favorite is the first one," he said.

Michael's had storage boxes in the shapes of books on sale.

I resized, printed and laminated the cover onto the box. Then made

a satin pillow for the ring inside to rest upon.

Out of all the things I made for Helen's wedding, this was the clearly the crowd favorite. 

 (Photographed by Albert Cheung Photography)

(Photographed by Albert Cheung Photography)

bird haus

I noticed birds scoping out the ledge of my window at work. Guess they were looking for some prime real estate to build a home. Thought I'd help them out by making them a house worthy of Robin Leach.

I'm told the size of the hole would determine what kind of bird would make a nest in it. I hope the opening isn't too small. Housing market is tough nowadays...

Calcium lollipop bouquet.

 [Calcium lollipop bouquet]  

I decided to make Valentines for some girlfriends this year. As a chick, it's important to make sure to take extra calcium. I found these yummy calcium lollipops at the Korean market:

  Here's how I made them:

Wrap the lollipops in tissue paper. I had bought cute twist tie bows in Korea a couple years ago. Was glad to finally have an excuse to use them!

 

Happy Valentine's Day! 

origami star ornament.

 

I made another type of ornament! What can I say? Am pretty excited about the holidays! My boss gave away some origami star kits. This was a great way to use them. 

 

I used this entire packet and filled a clear plastic ornament I bought from Michael's for 99 cents. So cheap! 

 

Tie a sparkly ribbon and sprinkle in some powdered glitter. Voilà! Pretty origami star ornaments for holiday wishes!

Sailor Moon Costume for Amelie

"Moooooooon prismmmmmm powerrrrrrr~!!!!!"

A few months ago, I asked my cousin, Amelie, what she wanted to be for Halloween this year.
"Girls Generation!" she answered.
"No," I said.
"Draculaura!"
"Try again."
I preferred if she wasn't something so mainstream when there's opportunity to be original and creative. Making costumes is much more inexpensive than buying one from the store. I convinced Amelie to dress up as Sailor Moon. After shopping for some inexpensive supplies, I got crackin' while Amelie did some research by watching episodes of Sailor Moon on her iTouch. I'm pretty proud of the results!