Travel Scrapbooking

So I've been home for about two weeks now, and the other day I was feeling especially restless so I decided to do some scrapbooking to keep myself occupied. It's not really scrapbooking, to be exact. It's more straightforward and takes much less artistic skill. Basically you just throw everything you collected throughout your trip into a file and ta-da~ it's done. 

So these are some of the contents of my file for my recent trip to east Africa. It was quite a hassle lugging all these random "junk" along, like ticket stubs and all, seeing as we were backpacking and moving from place to place in our last month of travel, but I have always been such a hoarder and I don't regret it at all. Looking at every single item reminds me of something that happened on my journey (': 

The most precious of these have got to be my children's drawings and letters. We did so many art classes with them in school and we had stacks and stacks of drawings lying around our village house. Towards the end when we had to leave I couldn't bring everything with me, so the best I could do was to sieve through and pick a few of my favourites to keep as mementos. As we prepared to say our farewells in the final weeks, the children also started writing letters to us, saying they loved us or giving us their (parents') phone numbers so we could call them. One girl wrote a letter requesting to come along with me, because she also has a love for adventure and it just melted my heart. 

Materials needed:

- An A4 file, or whatever size you prefer

- Clear file pockets in varying sizes (e.g. A4, B5, etc.)

- Clear cardholders / postcard holders (these are also file pockets, but are specially for holding name cards, baseball cards, postcards, etc.)

- Paper clips (optional)

That's it. Then you set about slotting things into whichever pocket they can fit into. For example, ticket stubs, name cards, receipts etc. tend to go into baseball card or name card pockets. Some maps can fit into A4-sized file pockets, or I will fold them strategically to show my favourite place on the map before slotting it into an A4 file pocket. B5 file pockets tend to be really useful for small, odd-shaped things. Things that can't fit into any file pocket can be paper-clipped to the outside of a pocket.

On my recent trip to Japan, I found packs of these adhesive double-sided A4 photo pages (see above picture, left) at Daiso, the Japanese version of a dollar store. These fit perfectly into an A4 file and are really useful for displaying banknotes and photos. Previously I'd used clear postcard pockets for photos, which work as well, except that the orientation of the pockets tends to be portrait rather than landscape.

If you get plain files like that you can decorate the outside of it or label it, however you like. For the three plain coloured files I bought chipboard/felt alphabet stickers from craft shops and labelled them according to the year and country. My latest file for my trip to east Africa is the file with stripes, and for that I cut out an travel inspirational quote from a travel magazine and stuck it on the front. 

Right now I have five files, starting from 2010, although not all my trips have been scrapfiled yet...I still have four trips to document!

Chibi Cats (Continued)

After a long hiatus, I'm finally back from my travels! It's been an amazing experience going around east Africa for 4 months, and then thereafter to Japan for two weeks to refresh myself and catch up with an old friend. And now I'm back for good (or rather, for the time being) and I've decided to start selling these chibi cats on my etsyshop. 

I first began selling these chibi cat keyrings in the cat cafe where I worked part-time for a few months, and in the time that I was gone, my mum took over for me. 9 months on I must say I'm glad to see that sales has done so well, and I thought I would try selling them online as well.

For those who have visited the Cat Cafe Neko no Niwa before (and those who haven't really should!), this series of chibi cats are actually inspired by the cafe cats themselves, and so I've given them the names of the cafe cats. I've tried my best to make them into the likenesses of the cafe cats, and I must admit that some are more successful than the others. Still! All of them are cute, no? (=^・ェ・^=)ノ

For those who've read my previous post and seen the initial photos of my chibi cats, you'll realise that these ones look slightly different. For one they've been "simplified" to make them more uniform, and cuter imo. This newer version of chibi cat has a triangular button nose and no mouth, and there is now a wider color range for bow ties and eye colors!

We decided to give cotton candy-coloured chibi cats a try and surprisingly there's been a pretty good response! Initially I had doubts as to whether they would sell, seeing as they do not look like "real" cats. But the pastel colours make the chibi cats look like really sweet creatures and I guess it appeals to certain people (: 

These are all available now in my shop on etsy, so do check them out if you're interested! (=^・ェ・^=)ノ

Graduation Teddy

Happy graduation to all ye fresh grads! It's graduation season now back in Singapore, and so I'm blogging about this now even though I made this graduation teddy a couple months back in May, before I left for Africa. 

So I adapted the pattern of the Valentine Teddy by All About Ami and made it into a graduation teddy for J. Stephanie (of All About Ami) has another pattern that she created specifically as a Graduation Teddy, but I decided I preferred the look of the Valentine Teddy and so adapted it. Such an adorable teddy! All credits to her for creating such a cute bear.

I had a hard time deciding between a black bowtie or a red one, but ended up going with the black because it seemed more formal (black tie geddit haha). I think a red one would have looked cute too.

As for the mortarboard, instead of crocheting it, I made it with felt and cardboard.

How to make the mortarboard:
2 square pieces of black felt (about 5.5cm x 5.5 cm)
1 square piece of cardboard (about 5cm x 5cm)
1 rectangular strip of black felt (about 8-9cm)
1 rectangular strip of cardboard (slightly smaller than the felt piece)
1 round piece of black felt (about 1cm in diameter)
1 round piece of cardboard (slightly smaller than the felt piece)

Basically I stuck the two square pieces of black felt and the square piece of cardboard together using glue, with the cardboard piece in the middle and sewed the sides together using the blanket stitch. The circular headpiece is made by glueing the rectangular strip of black felt and its corresponding cardboard piece then sewing the ends together to make it circular. Then I glued it to the square board piece. The tassel was made from embroidery thread, with help from All About Ami's tutorial here. Finally at the top I attached the round piece of black felt (with its corresponding smaller cardboard piece) to the square board, with the ends of the tassel in between. Then I glued completed mortarboard piece to the teddy's head.

Had such a fun time making this teddy, I hope J liked it. Didn't think he would appreciate a bouquet of flowers...

Also made a simple card using card stock and black paper. Got inspiration from Googling mortarboard vector images and this was what I came up with. 

Chibi Cats

For sale at a special price at Cat Cafe Neko no Niwa :3

I've been working part-time at the newly-opened cat cafe in town, Cat Cafe Neko no Niwa, earning some extra cash while waiting impatiently for my gap year travels to begin. It's so fun working in cat heaven, what with all the cute antics the cats get up to and getting to really know the cats' personalities. So I got inspired and decided to crochet chibi versions of the cats in the cafe and it's been very well-received, far exceeding my expectations. (Note: the dream catchers are not by me but by a talented colleague)

Initial versions of the cats

A comparison - looks quite a bit like Monkey doesn't it? (^_^) Monkey is one of the 13 adorable cats at the Cat Cafe Neko no Niwa

A lovely law school senior contacted me on Instagram and ordered two chibi cat keychains, in white and brown. This was a shot taken by her after she received it :3

Maneki neko (招き猫) is literally translated as beckoning cat (or 招财猫 in Chinese) and is a symbol of wealth and good fortune. You'll tend to spot one sitting at the cashier counter of shops and restaurants, in Singapore at least.

Also made some maneki neko keychains for sale during during the Lunar New Year. I must say that I got my inspiration from the free amigurumi pattern by Nimoe, Onni the Beckoning Cat. However I decided to create my own, 'cause I wanted it to be chibi (with a bigger head) like my chibi cats series, so this was how it turned out.

Maneki neko v2 - baby fortune cat

A childhood friend I hadn't spoken to in years contacted me on Instagram to order a maneki neko keychain, and after some chatting she said that she liked the shape of the chibi cat, but wanted a fortune cat. So I told her I could combine the two and make a chibi fortune cat. And this was how it turned out. I liked it so much I made another one for myself~

Wishing everyone a good year ahead~

Valentine's ♡

Decided to bake some jam sandwich cookies as a last minute sorta thing, 'cause I don't really think V'day is such a big thing anymore, if it ever was. My firm belief is that everyday should be v'day if you love a person and you don't need to show your love only on a special day. Still, baking is always fun; don't really need an occasion for it.

Pre-baking - I think my dough rolling skills need much improvement

Out from the oven - added strawberry and apricot jam as filling

The cookies turned out quite well, although we didn't really eat them in the end, 'cause we were so stuffed from our lovely dinner. I gobbled them down the next day, oops.

A really pretty handmade card from the boyfriend ♥

And J made me a really pretty card; I must say he is getting better and better at scrapbooking/making cards. He always makes the cards he gives me 'cause he knows I love handmade stuff and I really appreciate the effort :') And he bought me the ♥-shaped Starbucks card~ ('cause I told him he had to), and gave me a lovely frame with pictures of us for me to bring along on my travels, such a darling.

And after that we went home and snuggled down to watch Sherlock. My kind of Friday night date ♥

Cardboard Cat House

Haven't been updating in a while, but I've been making lots of things and crafting my time away since bar exams ended, so I'll be posting quite a bit on the different craft projects.

So one day I decided to search for "cardboard cat house" on Pinterest, and oh.my.god. so many amazing houses came out and I spent an entire afternoon marveling over them and deciding how my cat's house would look like.

The final product:

A double-storey floral cardboard house complete with a fake picket fence

So Dad came home with a couple of new cardboard boxes one day because he knew I wanted them :') Mum and I got to work designing the cat house, from figuring out which boxes to use, to how to make it two-storey, to reinforcing the floorboard for the upper level, and where to place the door and windows etc. For those who are interested, Martha Stewart actually has instructions and templates for the door and windows, which I printed, but they were too small for my liking (and my cat) so I ended up drawing my own freehand.

In the meantime, Miki hides in one of the other boxes. It's like cats have this obsessive-compulsive need to sit in every single box they see.

Miki on paw to survey the construction of her house

Ended up drawing and cutting the doorway freehand because the Martha Stewart templates were too small

Before wallpapering it and adding the roof and chimney

Side view - I decided on small windows 'cause my cat likes it dark and she loves sticking her paw out

We dressed it up for Christmas because it's Miki's Christmas present

She takes naps in there (yes, on bubblewrap)

Or just sits in there and watches us

Some of the DIY cat houses are really elaborate but these are the houses that really inspired me (they are simple and sooo pretty!):

From fancyseeingyouhere.com - really love the colorful scalloped roof

From theincoherentellipsis - similar in that I also used wallpaper to cover up the cardboard and make it look fancier

Milk carton cat house - love how it's so simple 

Cardboard pyramid - love the shapes and pattern