Natalie's Creations

Hello friends, 

Introducing my beloved traveling companion - the made in China suitcase. My mother got this suitcase for me right before I left to go to Antigua for Med school. I used it every time I came home, and left again. It’s always packed with my mom’s Vietnamese food :-). To be honest, maybe my Hubbie was a closer friend to this suitcase because he was flying back and ford to visit me every month and he always took this suitcase (he was never force to bring me food or anything, he just wanted to take this giant suitcase..ah hem) ;-). 

Now, you wanna hear the truth? We didn’t like it!

Why? It’s gigantic and it’s not very good :( The wheels broke after the first few trips. The zipper got stuck many times. And, it couldn’t hold its shape too well (alright, maybe because we stuffed too much Vietnamese food in there, but still…). We had so many memories of dragging this thing across the airports, getting so frustrated. It wouldn’t stand, it wouldn’t roll, it just wouldn’t be…a good suitcase. Not to mention the wheels, because of the heat, they melt into this goo that spread all over the floor :(

Anyways, we still held it near and dear to our hearts but we know it is time to say goodbye. I didn’t want to just throw it out. I wanted to salvage it. 

(Yes, that is red plastic bags that I made into a bow. That’s how I know it’s mine when it comes out of the conveyor bell at the airport). 

So this is what I did…

…and this is what I got. 

Using the materials I got and this tutorial, I drew my own pattern with my own measurement and got to work on my clutch

I used an old sweater that has shrunk way too much as my liner.

I also used some left over fabric from the sweater to make some 3D decorative flowers. I made a tutorial on how to make these flowers here. Check it out if you wanna see how I made them. The tutorial shows you how to make the flowers with ribbons, here I just cut my sweater/fabric into long strips.

I whipped out my hot glue gun to attach the flowers. 

Ta-da!

What’s left is to rock my oversize zipper clutch that costs me na-da. My laptop fits in there too.

You like? :-)

With the move coming up, we went to Ikea 3 times already. We walked around, we bought stuff, we carried stuff, we got pissed off by the people there, we had to come back because what were bought were not in stock…But we kept coming back :-)

Now, this thing, the scarf hanger, I spotted it during one of my rounds in the store :-) and thought I could make one. The time that it takes to make one is worth much much more than the $8 price tag but I can’t help it… Im a DIY-er…I have to DIY :-D

These are the stuff I used: 

- A hanger

- My Stamping up’s Colluzle cutting system

- Can you guess? T-shirt! :-)

- Cardboard

The Colluzle couldn’t cut through the thickness of the cardboard…wah wah 

so used the help of a small kitchen knife. 

I see a ring for the scarf hanger i’m making and a coaster…yay

Keep cutting

Next, I arranged the circles together and the hanger on top

Then, I joined all the circles together using paper tape.

Time to wrap them! I used T-shirt cut out but you can use anything…ribbons, yarns, duck tape (they have the colorful ones and even animal prints, have you seen?)

Watch a TED talk, listen to some podcasts,…wrap the T-shirt scrap round and round

When done…

…attach the circles to the hanger…

…hang scarves

Yay!

Hey guys,

You should check out this awesome blog post @Burdastyle : Celebrate Earth Day by Recycling Those Fabric Scraps! It has all kind of wonderful projects you can try out to celebrate Earth day. There are a few I wanna try myself so we can do them together :) And of course, my Prada dress was featured there wooo hooo! Aren’t you proud of me?

Please show Lindsey at Burdastyle some love for me! Thank you!

Hello friends, 

Happy Monday to you!

I saved some scrap materials from this T- shirt reconstruction inspired by Prada SS2011 striped dress sewing project (yup, that’s me, can’t really throw away anything…yet) and I saw this project right here so i gave it a try.

What I did was, I took the scraps and forcefully sew them together to create a bigger piece of “fabric”, just enough for the pattern. If you saw my how-to video for the dress, you would know that the strips of scrap are not quite straight, so of course I trimmed as much as I could just so after sewing them together, they’d open up to be a flat piece of “fabric”. Don’t forget to press all your seams open.

I followed the instruction, drew the pattern, cut it out and also cut my pieces to sew. I also used the left over T-shirt from the same project for the lining of the bag. 

The instruction was excellent and this is what I ended up with. I added a little loop of the same “fabric” so I can slip my hand through and it will stay snugged at my wrist leaving my hand free. 

This would be my cute little bag that I would grab to go to the grocery store with just a card, a lip gloss and maybe my sunglasses and that’s it. It’s fun and cute, don’t you think?

I know many of you wanted to try making the Prada dress on your own, if you haven’t started yet, just keep in mind you can make this with your scraps too so don’t throw them away just yet! :-)

There you go my friends, an another functional piece for practically…NOTHING! :-)

Yay to the DIY power!

Saw this project and wanted to finish my milk carton real quick :)

They have step by step instruction and even a video. So I stole the template, printed it out…

cut and taped both sides together, then got to work

15 mins later…

I know it says 1 hour but the whole project really doesn’t take that long.

Now, just a few thoughts:

- The milk carton is not easy to cut…it’s thick! So be really patient and watch out for your scissors. Cut slowly. 

-Score all the score lines really really well before you fold otherwise you’ll crumble the carton instead of making nice creases

- Set your carton standing upside down to empty out all the liquid before cutting into it…[I gotta go change my shirt and wipe my table - ‘nough said]

Did you empty out your milk carton yet?

Hey guys,

As promised, this is the 2nd part of this inspiration.

Here is a normal tomato sauce jar.

Took off the label and I hate the way it looked. I was not gonna go run it under warm water and scrape it with a knife because I have done it before and it wasn’t fun. Even after doing that, the glue still lingered around. So, annoying! Do you have a good way to do it? Enlighten me please!

So, what i did was… I slapped a doily on it and tied a piece of ribbon around it. You can see here that it’s not a fix but it’s a solution :-)

My zippers are much happier in a jar than a plastic bag. So yay!

And the jar goes right into my newly made storage box with the rest of my sewing related items.

Here is another example. I just use it without even bothering to decorate it. By husband and I LOVE this jam by the way.

Can you tell I have just started to sew? I don’t even have that many bobbins :-(

Ok, one more, remember these beautiful twine spools sent to me by my good friend Charlene? Read about it here and see other awesome stuff she sent me.

I now have a place to store them. I even put her sticker on the jar.

There you go, there are so many things you can do with these beautiful glass jars. You paid for them, use them again instead of throwing them out.

You can pick and chose the ones with more interesting shapes and decorate them to make candles holders. Look at this beautiful project over at Design Sponge

You can turn them into pen holders, button jars, flower vases, or u can always make your own jam!

Cheers on having more ways to save the planet!

You’ve seen one of these, haven’t you?

I have, and I’ve also tried so hard to shove it into my trash can many times too! But I found some new use for it today. Look!

The kind of egg container that I have opens up into 3 compartments like this. So I cut them out and used them separately.

I used the flat top for my newly inherited vintage threads (more on this soon!)

I can even stack them up because it’s clear so I can see what I have.

for small stuff I have on the counter/nightstand…Now, they can easily be seen and found.

For my nail polish bottles…

The possibilities are endless. I can even put these into a drawer to organize the small, messy stuff laying around in there, eh?

I’m throwing out another egg container. You shouldn’t either. Use them!

Gotta eat more eggs…fast :-)

Happy Sunday!

Got a book that you use a lot? (In my case, it’s a review book that I will be breathing, eating, sleeping next to the for next 10 days)

Does the cover of the book look boring?

You get tired of seeing this book?

Wanna make the book more fun and personal?

If your answers are “Yes” to these questions, keep reading…if not, keep reading anyway :-P

Okie, first thing first, you’ll need:

A book, and a brown paper bag ready to be upcycled :-)

Cut the paper bag into a rectangular sheet of paper enough to cover the book with some 1.5-2in border and cover the book (If you don’t know how to cover the book, let me know and I will make a video tutorial on how to do that)

I actually think the wrinkling lines give the book some personality.

Time to break out your favorite alphabet stamps

and your favorite ink…and stamp away :-)

So what if your book end up having multiple personality disorder? :-D

Hey everyone,

Just wanna share with you a quick DIY project.

I just emptied one of these

It looks like this from the inside so I thought it would be perfect to make a ribbon dispenser our of it…

I was excited but for a sec, but then I thought I might be the only one who needs this…seriously, I think you can buy a decent ribbon dispenser for nothing from a craft store. Oh well, I’m posting this anyway. Maybe one of my readers our there is also leaving in a place where there is no craft store? :-) The thought of reaching even one person who finds this helpful puts a smile on my face!

Using a craft knife, I cut out the center of each ribbon roll

Pack them in the box

Punch some holes on the lid

Thread the ribbons through and it closes on its own.

My ribbons are now covered, protected. I for sure won’t have to chase after my unrolling ribbon roll that just felt off of my table anymore :-)

Happy Saturday night!