Upcycle Living

Lighting and putting up the colourful lanterns at Mid Autumn Festival is always a fun thing to do. The adults will guard the kids with the candle lighting and the hanging of the lanterns at first; 30 minutes later it is the adults who can't seem to stop playing with fire. The traditional paper lanterns are our favourite but the problem is: it is extremely dangerous because the candles will either fall off halfway burning and burn the lantern up, or even if the candle manage to burn till the end it might still burn a big hole on the bottom of the lantern. So I decided to revive these lanterns by cutting out the burnt bit on the bottom and make a large round opening, cup them over some tealights: and serve as a beautiful centre piece on the coffee table: Now they are a lot safer to handle, and could probably last much longer (and I can reuse them next year!).

Years ago I bought a big bag of blue crystal-like beads and made 2 handbags as gifts for 2 of my friends. I've kept the remaining 1/3 of the beads and never had the time to do anything about it. I dug them out one fine day and decided that I must finish up the beads and put them to good use. After several hours of weaving and dismantling and reassembling, over and over again, I finally made myself a summery handbag that I'm happy with. The beads to make the hook for the loop are from my collection of old and used beads, often cut from old shoes or broken beaded accessories. Some leftovers are from my other beads projects such as bracelet and necklaces . I can fit in it a wallet, a mobile phone, a book, a pair of sunglasses, a hat, a foldable umbrella, a spare canvas shopping bag (just in case), keys, a tube of E45 and a lipstick. So when I don't feel like carrying my big handmade multi-compartment bag , this would come in handy. Sweet! Here is how I started ...

My secondary school (high school) uniform was a bright turquoise pinafore design that everyone hated, saying that it looks like an apron; but guess what - I actually liked it 😊 Without doubt, I love aprons too (including all pinafore design clothing)! However, I have only bought ONE apron ever, which was then updated to slightly different look , and then got really worn off and was disposed of. I've then decided to not buy anymore apron - definitely not in Malaysia - where aprons are either too expensive or too ugly (and still expensive)! Since then I've transformed an old sundress into an almost instantly made apron , and went on to making this new, reversible design apron. The fabrics used here were bought originally for making placemats but then I got really busy for many months that I forgot all about it (or rather, gave up on it). Not until a recent spring cleaning that I found them stacked in a drawer. If I don't do anything with them, they will go to w...

A new addition has just been added to our home for old and forgotten possessions, after having a few tweaks here and there. Meet our new shopping bag: But If I don't tell, I don't believe that anyone would've guessed its previous life, would you? Here's a little hint: the material is rain/water proof, and heat resistant to some extent; and is very light. That's right, it used to be my favourite umbrella which was crippled by the crazy wind in Nottingham during my last visit in June (2017). I always have this strange sentiment towards umbrellas, and I get really attached when I find one with prints that I really love (which is often not easy). Most of the time, when one breaks, it's the metal frame that's gone and the fabric is often still intact. And me being me, I absolutely hate to throw it away knowing that it could become something useful, somehow. Of course, there had been numerous deceased brollies in my life but never knew what to do ...

Since the last mint plant died when I was away for 3 whole weeks, I had to buy a bunch of cut mint (cost about 50p) for some curry. It was quite a big bunch so I've done these: Pluck off all the bottom leaves, leaving the top 2 or 4 leaves, depending on the size (if small leaves, 4; if larger leaves, 2) These stalks are then trimmed from the bottom to about 4" length, and placed into a few glasses of water to root like what I did with the  basil Half the plucked leaves are used for cooking, the rest are dried in a covered colander (for about a week), chopped up and stored for future use The stalks rooted after about 8-10 days, at different paces, which I then planted in the soil. Here's a week later (25 Aug 2017): Obviously, there are some that didn't make it; but there are a certain few strong survivors 😊 The thing with mint is, they are such a hardy plant. Even if there's only 1 stalk growing, it will eventually crawl all over the soil and be...