Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the amazing Dad's out there!! Here's this year's card for my dad; a classic throwback back in the days accompanied with a neeky font ;)

DIY: A party through the mail

Rainbows make me oh-so-happy, and I'm sure anyone who receives a rainbow through their letterbox (found here) would smile with much more glee! One of my good friends has moved to California and it is a shame I cannot party with her here and now.

To solve this, I decided to pack a party into an envelope and send it to her across to the other side of the world. (Oh, and I had so much fun editing this one! - I love the effect of a spectrum of colours and the glow from the rainbow :))

Every party must need balloons. I shoved a few in a large envelope - some metallic, pearly ones and some with "16" marked  on them.

Party bag games like sliding puzzles are a must too - especially for 16 year olds. sarcasm if you thought i was actually being serious ;) Party blowers and chocolate were happily thrown in... 

I also brought some angel delight - I don't think they're very common on american pudding shelves, I'm not sure on that one; but I'm certain she would appreciate some classic british goods :P I folded an origami heart to package in some love, along with a pink candle for the celebratory mood and the rainbow birthday "card". And here's my party in an envelope, ready to be mailed off!

Happy sweet 16 hun! x

DIY: paper flowers

Do you remember these little pretty things? Well I have finally got together a DIY post for it! They are uber simple to make and look so delicate and dainty. 

I'm thinking of making a bunch for a baptism next week too - it's not very often you get pretty flowers made from paper!

I came across this cute DIY from pinterest, where most of my time goes. I could not bear to pass it without cutting a bit of my own paper! 

Supplies: coloured paper (purple and green here!), scissors, gluestick, green wire.

I guess the pictures are quite self-explanatory, but here's a few steps!

1) cut a 7cm x 21 cm strip from the coloured paper. Split into three sections whilst keeping the piece of paper intact.

2) make tight rolls on each of the three sections.

3) make small equal cuts to make frills.

4) cut a bit of green wire and glue and wrap the frills around it.

5) cut a zig zag shape from green paper and twist around the green wire.

6) tra-da! If you make a bunch of them, you might want to tie a bit of tissue paper and ribbon around it!

What do you think of them? Flower that will never wilt!

Mother's Day

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep 

soundly in them.

 - Victor Hugo

Thank you mum, 

for treating me oh-so-special from day one

for teaching me the right ways

for listening to my whining

for smiling each day when I come home from school

for clearing up the mess after me

for helping me discover the world around me

for guiding my faith

and for your tender loving care.

I love you.

Flowers are a common gift to show your love to your mothers. However, I did not like the idea of getting a bunch of flowers for them to start drooping during the next few weeks, so I decided to make my own flowers this year - using paper, so that these flowers can be kept forever. Hopefully, I'll get to post a tutorial on it soon!

Yesterday, me and my family went up north for a family gathering and of course, for my mum to celebrate mothers day with my grandma. We brought along a box of cute chocolate cupcakes which my mum could't resist upon seeing on the supermarket shelf. And as it seems like my mum has kind of bought her own chocolates,  not to worry! - we had that sorted with a good box of thorntons ;)

DIY: marshmallow snowmen

Firstly, I had already missed out on saying Merry Christmas here, I am sorry. Secondly, double the sorry for not being able to wish everyone a happy new year on time. Thirdly, I have been longing to share with you all a quick Christmas present idea, great for all ages; however, the prep for the big day had me flying off to the moon so I didn't get round to posting it on time.

Nevertheless, I had already sorted out the pictures so consider this an early idea for a fun DIY Chrismtas, 2013!

For Christmas 2013, you will need:
Toothpicks
Marshmallows
Colourful tube icing
Sprinkles and sugar decoration

This is an easy-as-can-be tutorial so the photos should make much sense without me having to write out every step!

And you are good to go! I have made over 50 during Christmas and have handed all of the goodies after carrying a bunch with me everytime I went to another meet-up with friends and family.

I hope you have all had a smashing Christmas and New Year!

DIY: Photo Garland

After the last DIY post I did, I felt a little more encouraged to make another one, realising it wasn't as daunting to take photos at every step of the project. Today, I have decided to introduce a...

An extremely easy project that will satisfy your home! The only tricky part is probably choosing your most memorable photos of the year. I had always wanted to spruce up the christmas tree with a personal touch and so the idea of adding yearly photographs onto it came about. I think not only is it a good visual representation of the year, but also as a reminder of thanksgiving for such joyous moments and the many blessings I have had these 365 days (kinda, just a few weeks to go!). To make this photo garland, you will need:

To print my photographs out, I used picasa and selected "create a collage" from a folder of my chosen black and white photographs. I then used the "grid" format to arrange 12 photos onto one A4 page, a reasonable size for a mini photograph. You can, of course do it however you like! Cut out the photographs and then recount the happy memories of the year....

When you're done, we start making some awesome paperclips!

These easy-as-pie-cute-papeclips are not made by de-structuring a whole paperclip into a heart shape and not being able to actually use them as paperclips again, but are magically bended so that it works as a normal paperclip but with the added cute heart shape too. The steps are as follows:

1) Take a normal paperclip, coloured or non-coloured, it will look just as cute!

2) Like in the photo, make sure the flicky bit of the paperclip is at the top and pointing towards the right. Holding the middle of the bottom wire, flex upwards towards the left.

3) It should come something like this...

4) Flip the paperclip over and you should have something funny-looking like this. Do you vaguely see the outline of the heart shape?! And you're done - simply use and clip by sliding the photo in the slot, just under the "bottom point" of the heart!

Make a whole string of it by attaching each photo onto a long piece of ribbon. 

Just a few more to go! And then wrap it around your Christmas tree for some added memories of the happy year.

p.s. sorry you had to bear with the iphone pictures, camera had no battery!

DIY: a sweet lolly flower

After abandoned the blog for so long, I have decided to spring in some ideas from my colourful cap and stick in some fun and easy tutorials for the blog. And here goes...my first tutorial!

Introducing an extremely sweet lolly flower. Yes, the pun is intentional ;) As I was doing some baking for a party last week and had to wrap up a birthday present too, I came across a stash of sweets with brightly coloured lollipops and mini plump marshmallows. Needless to say, an idea came about to turn these sweet treats into perfect girly gifts!

Method:

Step 1:Gather your fairy dust: A lollipop, matching tissue paper of your choice, green card, sheet of cellophane, green wire, handful of marshmallows and ribbon (not pictured), scissors, pencil and cello-tape

Step 2: Using a pencil, sketch out a simple flower shape and cut out shape for all tissue paper

Step 3: should look something like this depending on your artistic skills!

Step 4: Stack up the tissue paper and poke the lollipop through the centre

Step 5: Tip: you may want to make a small snip to allow the "poke" to be tidier

Step 6: Scrunch the petals upwards to create a bit of dimension

Step 7: Admire your half-completed lolly flower

Step 8: Twist the green wire in half if it is too long but remember to leave some for twisting

Step 9: Wrap the wire around the stick of the lolly

Step 10: Keep wrapping and tidy it around the bottom of the lolly stick

Step 11: Mine looks something like this

Step 12: Cut out a leaf shape from the green card, extending one side of it

Step 13: Using some tape, wrap the extended side around the lolly stick

Step 14: Place down your sheet of cellophane, corner touching the lolly, and place your "stem" on top. Sprinkle on a handful of marshmallows

Step 15: Take the bottom corner and fold to the top

Step 16: Take the sides and wrap towards the middle

Step 17: Tape down and secure. Decorate with a cute ribbon.

Step 18: Get a coffee and admire your sweet gift!

I really do hope you will excuse this first tutorial of mine, I really need to decide what materials I will need before photographing it! But for now, go make your Sweet Lolly Flower(s)! Have fun :)