Upcycle Living

It's been more than 30 years since I last practised my Chinese calligraphy, as well as last owned a Chinese brush or ink! But Lunar New Year is just around the corner and I really want to put up a spring couplet (春联) on the door, just to get into the mood. I've even written a few sets of my own couplets - not from the usual ones that had been published for many years which everyone else is using 😁 There are or course, professional calligraphers at shopping malls to write these on the spot for any paying customers; but as usual, I'm cheap 😜😂! And I still hold on to the idea that - if I can do it myself, I shall try not to pay someone else to do it. So I thought I'd try - with or without the calligraphy tools. I began with the sourcing of the "Four Treasures of Chinese Study" (文房四宝) around town, in all stationers and book stores I can get to by public transport (yes, I don't own a car), but to no avail. Well that's a lie - I did find the brus...

How do you like my Mid Autumn Lantern lamp shade? Since I've converted some paper lanterns into tea light shades , I thought I'd do just 1 more festive decor. Using the same method from the  tea light shades , by cutting out a large opening on the bottom of the largest paper lantern I could find; I simply place it over a table lamp. Obviously, I removed the existing lamp shade and put aside for the moment. Took me less than 10 minutes to get this done, and if I'm careful enough not to rip or tear it upon removal, I could probably reuse it next year.

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!).

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...

All these preparation for Christmas just reminded me of the very first handmade Christmas tree I made back in 1988, when I was still a college student living with 6 other college mates in a rented property. I was staying in the house all by myself as all my friends have gone home for the holiday and I really wanted to have a tree so I decided to make one (that was all that I could afford to do). I made mine out of some used mounting boards but you can try with any big cardboard box. Unfortunately there isn't any photograph taken (there was no digital camera so we had to really be careful not to waste our films on non assignment related stuff) but I've drawn some diagrams to show the process. 1. Cut the board into 4 equal shapes like this: 2. Mark 3 places where you will put support in for the tree (x, y, z points shown below), measure the width and cut 3 circles with radius the same as x, y, and z respectively. Cut a 2mm thick slot into the boards as shown below: Do not cut the...

Where I work on a contract basis, there are always stacks and stacks of A4 and A3 paper being printed everyday. Many of them are error printing, extra copies or unwanted copies. I often collect them and use the non-printed side for sketching and other drafting purposes. And after I have cut off whatever printed on the paper and done whatever needs to be done with it, I will also save up the blank bits of the paper ends if they are big enough to be used as a note pad. But one can only use so many note pads in a day, or month. So this Christmas, I thought I would make good use of some of these paper ends I've been keeping. I made them into snowflake cut-outs, tie them up with some sewing threads and hang them by the window. The size of a snowflake is flexible so I can make use of any corner of a piece of paper end. The wastage from this craft exercise is minimal, as the remains are going to the recycle bin. Once the festive season is over, these snowflakes will also be taken to...