Upcycle Living

The year of the snake. What else would you do for a company new year dinner? The snake theme obviously! The cheapskate that I am, there's no way I will go out and buy anything new just for the glory of one evening. I found this old baby blue Ikea fleece blanket that I couldn't part with and an old, rather flattened pillow which I have no idea what to do with; and I decided to make a stuffed snake with it. The process was really simple: mark two identical shapes of a snake on it with a 2B pencil, cut around them with 1-cm space allowance.  Stack the 2 shapes together, place a red ribbon of 4" length on where the mouth is (as the tongue) and stitch along the marked line, leaving about 4" of opening.  Fill it up with the old pillow stuffing, bit by bit. Then stitch up the opening.  As for the patterns on the snake, they were some lace trimming from my craft box. The eyes were buttons from my sister's dress (buttons that she hated and removed so I saved ...

Thanks to Aeon Supermarkets (previously known as Jusco) in Kuala Lumpur, we've learned to reuse those netty foam fruit wrappers as bottle protectors when we buy wine. It's really simple - just pull it over the wine bottle and that's it. It prevent any glass bottles from knocking on each other or on other hard/glass objects in the shopping bag. Very useful tip. And I'm really impressed with Aeon that they actually saved and reused thousands of those fruit wrappers that are otherwise disposed of, at the same time educating their customers. But we don't have to stop just there do we? I have kept quite a few of those wrappers from my shopping trips to Aeon, just to reuse them again and again. And today I've just figured out another possible function for these little darlings. Here's a picture of my suitcase, with the trolley handle extension next to the base of the case. It looks as if it could be broken with just any force from the back. So I took 4 foam fruit ...

When I made the Mini Cardboard Tabletop Christmas Tree , I thought I was going to settle for just that. After all, we are packing up for the move; it's going to be a sad little Christmas. And as I was taking down all the 3M hooks here and there to leave the landlord a clean wall, these little 3M wonders gave me an idea. Well you see, I've bought stashed away quite a bit of the replacement 3M stickers for more than a year now; and they don't work well after hibernating in a shoebox, in a damp house in a humid country for that long. Now they will have the opportunity to shine (literally) before they announce retirement. So all together, 8 used and reused 3M wire hooks, 8 not-working-so-well 3M removable stickers, 1 good old reliable Christmas wired ribbon, angel lights from 2010 Christmas , an empty wall with a strategically existed wall lamp and power point, and under 10 minutes of my life; made us our simplest Christmas tree to date. It would also fit really w...

This Christmas is going to be a quiet one for us as we are in the midst of moving, so a big(ish) tree like previous years is just impractical. But not having a tree at all would make it even sadder. And the solution is: a tiny, mini, tabletop cardboard Christmas tree!  The making is pretty simple: View larger image in new tab or window 1. Material: some patterned or printed cardboard (old Christmas cards, Christmas merchandise packaging, etc), I cut these from last year's Christmas crackers packaging box. 2. Cut them into equal sizes: 2 per tree. 3. Take 2 and stick them together, back to back using double sided tape. 4. Make sure they are adhered nicely together, trim away any jutting out edges. 5. Cut each piece into 2 equal pieces. 6&7. Using a pencil, trace the outline of a simple pine tree onto each piece with a cut out shape prepared ahead (it can also be just a simple triangle). 8. Place 2 half-tree shapes together and secure with cellotape al...

A friend of mine is volunteering at The Heavenly Gift for Community at Heart , a non-profit organisation, to help raise funds for underprivileged children in Malaysia to grant their little Christmas wishes. The event is held at Tropicana City Mall which is in my area, so I went personally for a little donation and to see if there's anything I can help (keep them accompanied and look helpful as I'm really not a very good salesperson lol). They have a free gift wrapping service counter next to the donation table so I thought I could at least help doing some gift wrapping. Then we realised that people aren't really aware of the free service because there isn't any signage apart from one bunting standee. So I offered to make them some signboards. This one here is for the booth top. Apart from the words being printed from my own home-use black-and-white laser printer, everything is taken from existing material in my craft box: the old textured paper it is...

Forget about what my Christmas tree is going to be this year, here is something I have to share with everyone passionate in reducing material consumption. I was at Jaya One today and was as usual annoyed by their never ending building work going on, making my walk to the supermarket really unpleasant. However, their humble yet refreshing Christmas tree next to the Info Counter has made my day. Open in new tab or window to view larger image. Angel with smiley face drawn on cut out cardboard It is small - under 6', and made out of used egg crates held up by rustic wood! Hanging on the tree are little angels with wings made from fan-fold recycled paper (old magazine pages, used wrapping paper, etc) and halos made from twist tie wires (probably from bread packaging), and smiley faces drawn on cut out cardboard! It is not grand like most of the big shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur or Petaling Jaya, but it doesn't look pathetic like many either. And I think that the ...

It feels almost like yesterday that we made that Christmas Tree from old Christmas cracker case , and just last week that we made the CD Christmas Tree . The thing is, it's only November and I'm already itching for another handmade Christmas tree idea. Time to start scouting around the house for some useful scraps... any suggestion, anyone?