Archive / Gifting

“A season of feasting… and wasting” – The Straits Times

The headlines in today’s papers caught my attention. The was my exact sentiment as I put away my son’s gift wrapping, the boxes/plastics that the toys are clothes were packaged in and also the left-over Christmas pastries in the pantry. It is really scary reading how much waste (esp. food waste) is generated in this festive period.

Over at our household, we are also trying to cut down the volume of trash that gets dumped in our garbage bins. We try to repair, reuse, recycle as much as we possibly can. One ‘green’ item is my fav re-usable bag: the Ikea Big Blue Bag:

image from ikea.com

We always have a couple of these bags in our car. They are great for carrying grocery, esp. the heavy bottles, or cartons, etc that the normal plastic bags can’t hold anyway. These bags are strong and easy to clean out. Best of all, they are guaranteed for life!

This year, I didn’t spend a single cent on gift wrapping paper either. All my gift items are either packaged in my Midnight craft sandwich baggies (made from recycled paper), tied with baker’s twine or with cute piece of decor tape. For bulkier items, I made gift bags and tried my hand at furoshiki wrapping too.

Handmade drawstring gift bags

1 yard of Ikea fabric, wave-cut, rubber bands at both ends & finished with ribbons

Furoshiki-style fabric gift wrapping

Fabric gift wraps are absolutely wonderful to make and to use. For the furoshiki wrap, I simply folded the fabrics selvedge to selvedge, right sides together, leaving a small gap to turn the wrap around. And I top stitch the square fabric and closed the gap. It was perfect for Baby Elliot’s soft book.

Merry Christmas! 圣诞快乐

Happy holidays, everyone!

It has been a long long time time since I have posted an entry to this blog. BUT I’m gonna make up with some pictures of crafty gifts and some sewing I did since November very shortly.

And as we draw closer to the end of year, it is also time for some crafty reflections. 2009 has really been a fantastic crafting year: I bought more fabrics that I can store in my rooms, bought myself lots of notions and gadgets, attended workshops and completing my quilts (2 of them!). And in this year, Mama G helped to give Midnight Crafts a beautiful skin and with this new identity, I set up shop on Etsy in around May and also created my 1st (and only) Facebook Page.

All 3 platforms give me opportunities to reach out to the crafty community and I have received so much in return with each sale/purchase and also with each ‘fan’ of the page. THANK YOU, everyone! 😀

A very special Thank You goes out to Clara, a sweet local customer who bought some items from my Etsy shop earlier in Nov. And about 2 weeks after the sale, I received a very cool package from Clara.

She made me a personalised notebook and I appreciate all the hardwork that went into creating this beauty: cutting the motif, layering the pieces, setting the eyelets, etc. After a couple of workshops at Made With Love, now I know how scrapbooking is not be sniffed at. Not only you require the creative eye to set everything in their places, you also need to have the right materials and tools to make things happen (just like the tools for putting a quilt together!).

I don’t receive a lot of handmade gifts and this is just something I will treasure for a long time to come. Thank You, Clara, for your thoughtfulness!

It is certainly the most wonderful time of the year!

Mish Mash Moo-ed

The quilt & cot bumper are done, delivered and received by Mama G.

I managed to take some pictures of the QUILT, but not the bumper because I was in a rush to take up a promotion with SpeedPost that saved us SGD$50 for the express door-to-door service.

Front of quilt

Back of Quilt

Quilting details

Waiting for pictures of the how the nursery is dressed with the quilted goodies. Can’t wait for the little one’s arrival too! 😀

Handmade with love

I’m especially heartened to receive emails and convos (through my Etsy shop) in the past few weeks. Some wanted to know where they can get quilting fabrics, supplies, workshops, etc in Singapore. Some people wrote asking for custom crayon wallets and also custom sewing for Teacher’s Day and Children’s Day celebrations.

I’ve also received some requests for custom quilt jobs. Now, making a quilt, a crib sized or full sized one, requires a lot of commitment, resources and attention. The 1st request for a few baby quilts was turned down because I knew I could not commit to that kind of quantity and timeline. But a week back, I received a convo from a nice lady who wanted a special quilt for a special guy friend. I initially said no, but she said that she would be happy with a lap sized, and simple pattern… how could I say NO to such an earnest request? So, I said yes and offered a price which she accepted. And I started hunting for patterns suitable for a guy, pulling out fabrics that are not too ‘girlish’, and in the process I really had fun. ALL because I was thinking how this would be a gift from such a sweet girl to a special friend. Well, since then I have not heard from the lady and it is a little disappointing to say the least. But this has sort of strengthened my resolve that quilting is reserved for special people in MY life. Until I have the bandwidth, skill and stash, then I can consider making quilt for cash.

Label of love

I mentioned I won’t post any pictures of the completed Mish Mash Moo quilt… but I just can’t resist adding this here 😀

WELCOME!

Welcome to my NEW blog :>

Looks pretty, doesn’t it? The new look, the move and the shop set-up all came together rather quickly – almost ‘inspired’, I’d say. It all started when my friend asked if I could whip up a baby quilt for her new baby. Of course I can! Being the generous soul that she is, she wouldn’t accept it for free, but I can’t (and won’t) charge for the quilt either! So, it is ‘butter-trading’ time!

I asked Mama G to help with the blog’s and my Etsy store’s banners design in return for the baby quilt then. She came back with the cutest ideas and there was no turning back. The whole episode turned into a full-blown identity/branding exercise, which took us less than a week to complete: The new domain name, store, avatars, banners, blog page, migration of the blog, etc. This is how far I’ve come since the day of my 1st entry on blogspot.com. And this big move would not have been possible without my tech-guru-hubby and the super-talented Mama G.

THANK YOU! 😀

Well, some renovation dust still lingers – I’m trying my best to clean up the alignment issues that cropped up during the move. But I’m not going to get caught up with the legacy issues… there’s so much more to do, and to talk about!