Masking Tape

Did you know you can use masking tape for sticker transferring?  Here are some pictures showing how easy it is and a cheaper solution.

I also found wider masking tape at B2S, and it's come in real handy. And while we're talking masking tape, check out these from Scotch.  They have them at most B2S.  A cheaper option to washi tape too.

 ***Unfortunately, I'm not sponsored by Scotch and this post are just my random finds.

Thainie DIY: IKEA Besta turned Toy Playhouse

I've been working on a project and it involves IKEA hacks, will be showing the reveal soon but for now I wanted to share this hack that uses the Besta shelf to create a custom toy playhouse for your kids.  It can be easily customized for your girl or boy, who says playhouses/dollhouses are for girls only!!!

 So here's how you do it:

• You'll need
• Shelf
• Double sided tape
• Scrapbook paper
• Paper cutter
• Pencil 

• Get yourself a Besta shelf or any shelf that you want to repurpose
• If there is a back panel, mark the lines that you'll cover with wallpaper/scrapbook paper
• Cut your wallpaper and use the double sided tape to stick to the panel, if your shelf doesn't have a back panel then you can stick to the back of the shelf (hope that makes sense!?)
• Add toys and kids and enjoy!

*** I thought to make one for my son but with jungle themed wallpaper for his dinosaurs but lets see how this one goes.

Thainie Tees: Costumes from T-shirts

Remember my post about t-shirt costumes, well here are some past projects I had promised to share.

From top left to bottom right.

• Nutcraker Soldiers Costume
• Nutcraker Mice Costume
• Crocodile Tee
• Pirate Costume
• Cheerleader Dresses
• Father's Day tee

Thainie Craft: Tree Decorating Cards

We did these cards at school and it was a big hit.  They're great for card giving, gift tags or just a Christmas keepsake.

All you'll need:
 - Craft paper
 - Contact paper (it's just clear sticker plastic that you can find in big poster size and also A4 packets--not sure why it's called paper since it's really sticky plastic??)
 - Embellishments, glitter, sequence...anything that can be neatly pressed over with the contact paper 

Cut out your tree, presents, stars, snowman, etc... and have the kids place them however they like on the paper and when they're finish just place the sticky contact paper over and admire!

 *** If you like those plastic jars, they are absolutely marvelous and a deal!   You can find them at Makro (I got them at the Bangna one/across Mega Bangna) and they are 10 for 80 baht! 

Thainie Craft: Another IKEA Christmas Ornament for the Kids

IKEA is great for getting some inspiration and sometimes I pick something out not even thinking about it and it turns out to be a great Christmas craft like this one.  

Got these heart cardboard ornaments and paired them with cut up cd pieces for a quick, easy and beautiful ornament for the tree!  

Dino Birthday Party Time!

Did I mention December is crazy?  Crazy busy with birthdays and holidays!  

This was also the first year that I was organizing a birthday party for my son.  Since the big (costly) hoopla that was my daughter's first birthday my husband and I both decided that it was much more practical and memorable if the children actually were at an age that they could understand birthdays as well as be excited about who they were going to invite.  So my son was turning 4 and he was ready for his party!   

The theme of course was dinosaurs and we had it at Playtime, which I love since it's not too big but we didn't get a room since the kids spend more time playing then in the room and we just had an area near the cafe for snacks and the birthday cupcakes.

I don't have much pics of the party since I was pretty much occupied entertaining but I did want to share some items that you might want to use.

This was the invitation:
You might not be able to see but at the corner there was a big chomp that I cut out with the Silhouette Cameo.

And then there was the goodie bag:

 Using the same dino artwork, I made stickers for the ziploc bag.  The goodie bag had a bunch of finds from Sampeng.  
  - Light baton/saber (12 for 120 baht)
  - Little Angry Bird bags (5 for 100 baht)
  - IKEA Tolsby frames (49 baht) --- this is my go to goodie bag item that I love and it's always an artwork cut out that you can insert your photo into.  This time it was a dino jungle and I've posted the artwork below for personal use too.  Just use the "Select Trace Area" in the Silhouette program and it will cut the inside. 

 

   - Sweet treats bought bulk from Makro Bangna

 And then there were the birthday cupcakes that were frosted and decorated with chocolate rocks and a little dino to take home too (bought from Pinata in soi 39, 12 for 100 baht).

Hope you thought this was dino-myte!

Thainie Craft: DIY Christmas Frame for Kids

With Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, I'm getting a head start on everything.  Beginning with preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner, we'll be having friends over with their kids and so I wanted to organize a fun but easy craft project for them to work on before or after dinner.  

I had a bunch of sequins and embellishments (from hoarding of course) and thought the children can glue them on to the IKEA NYTTJA (comes in pack of 2 and all colors) frames.  You can also make these goody bag treats too and just organize them in sets for giveaway.

Note:

- Sadly I'm not close at all to any Michael's but all the sequins and embellishments in the photo are all from Sampeng in Chinatown and range from 80 baht to 100 baht for a bag full.  You can also check out B2S and BeTrend, they have some as well, not a whole lot but beats a trip to Sampeng at times!

- I recommend TOA glue or Elmer's since it's easy to use and it really sticks well once you let it dry properly.

Halloween: Pumpkin Costume

 Halloween is approaching and I usually try to finish the children's costumes ahead of time so that I wouldn't be pulling my hair the last week of October.  Fortunately this year, their school had requested more "Halloween" themed costumes and not the usual superhero or princess.  I'm not at all against any of those costumes (or the school) but I can honestly say my children would have never chosen a pumpkin costume if it was up to them.  So luckily they wanted pumpkins!  

What I got (2 plump pumpkin costumes for 3.5 and 5 year old):
- 3 meters of orange fabric (cotton mix)
- 1/2 meter of green fabric (cotton mix)
- 1/2 meter of green felt
- 1/2 meter of black felt
- iron on webbing
- matching threads
- elastic 

I had actually searched the web for a children's pumpkin pattern, which I found and paid $8 (240 baht) but it had printed out about 120 pages and I was lost---this pattern paper fiasco is now being recycled for my kids' artwork.  I'm just not capable of patterns!  Gave up and just took one of my daughter's dresses and put it on the fabric and pretty much drafted my own pattern.   Cut into sections and sewn them together.  I'm sorry this is not going to be a very good tutorial but I can offer the following amazing references to help guide you there as they guided me.

Making your own pattern from clothes you already have
MADE

Sewing dress and lining (applicable to this costume!)
Cool People Sew

For the pumpkin features, first take felt and iron on webbing then trace the eyes, nose and mouth, cut pieces and iron on to the pumpkin.  If you want to, I stitched over the pieces.

Leaves Pattern for felt leaves
Pink Suede Shoe 

*** Print out the leaves the size you want or you can search on the web for any kind of leaves you like and cut out green felt

Note, the lining for the plump pumpkin was a padded quilted fabric (you can get this at Fabric House) and you just sew the same as a lining.  Lastly, fold up bottom at insert elastic.

My daughter had a bit of a diva moment and decided she wanted it to be more dressy (you can take the princess dress away but you can't take the princess out of the kid), so I cut around the existing pattern (copying her dress) and just added the green cotton lining and cut the bottom zig zagged, luckily we had kept a cute black petticoat skirt that belonged to my older daughter and was able to use it under this dress.

Happy sewing!!

Easter Baskets

 Luckily we have been in a strawberry eating frenzy and I was inspired to make Easter baskets like we did in elementary school.  Very easy, cute and perfect for collecting all those chocolate treats from the Easter Bunny tomorrow morning.  

All you need to make these nifty baskets are:

- Strawberry plastic boxes or any box/bowl you have on hand will do just fine.

-  Pipe cleaners, if you don't have them then you can use some rope or any kind of string.

-  Decorations, I got a bunch from Chinatown (hoarder!) and B2S.  Scored these crazy cute dinosaur ones out of the blue too!

- Scissors and  a hole puncher (loving Martha Stewart's Crafts Screw Punch)

And then you're ready to make your baskets with the kiddies!

- First have them braid or twist the pipe cleaners.

- Then fold the green paper and have them cut thin strips out.

- Punch holes on each side of the basket and have them lace in the pipe cleaner and twist shut.

- Add the paper grass filling and decorate!  

 Ready for the Easter Bunny!!

Happy Crafting!!!

Halloween: Hawaiian Hula Costume

My children had Hawaiian Day at their school last week (yes they are in school--very short story but long in so many other parts--but they are loving it) and I wanted to share how I made my daughter's costume just in case you would like to make one for Halloween. 

1) I love these plain tanks and they were so cheap, 90 baht ($3) at Cotton On Mega Bangna.  You will see that I am using these as the foundation of all my costumes this year.  I took brown fabric and used fusible webbing and ironed them on for the coconut bikini top.

2) Then I used some pom pom ribbon for the string of the bikini, you will need to sew all along the back and also the shoulder straps too and just a little right in the middle of the coconuts.  And you're done with your top!

 *** Quick Tip:  I found the lint sticky stick works great when you want to clean up all your thread bits!

3)  Now the bottom part, the skirt I used this wonderful tutorial here and do everything the same but before you put in the elastic, get your scissors and cut strips!  I used 2 layers of different color green fabric so it looks just a bit more grassy!!  

And there you go!  Easy and fun!  Btw the grass skirt gets a bit frazzled if you put it in the washer and dryer but I thought it added a nice effect to the skirt.   As for the lei, I got them at Daiso but cut and strung them on some green yarn.  Made one for my daughter's head piece and one for her neck.  If you like, you can also use the left over petals and decorate the skirt with them.  Aloha!

The Princess Tea Party Birthday

Of course this idea was from Pinterest, I did this the night before her birthday morning.  Only thing different was I hung the balloons outside in the living room since they always get up in the middle of the night so her room door was not going to work

Okay this is going to be the longest post ever since it's about my daughter's recent birthday party.  My now 4 year old daughter wanted to have a princess themed birthday party and so I played with the idea and thought of a Princess Tea Party theme.  This way the girls would be able to be all princessy and enjoy a nice tea party with tea cups and everything.  I secretly was delighted at the idea of throwing one too!  Although, this year I decided to do a more cozy and small party since it would be more controllable enjoyable to do crafts and activities with a small group of girls, 6 little girls to be exact (T's 3 very best girlfriends, her godmother's daughter and her friend).  Luckily, my 2 year old boy went down perfectly for his nap during the party and my 13 year old daughter was home to help!  Lastly, I set a budget of about 5,000 baht ($150+) for the party since I believe you don't have to waste money when you can diy or find it cheaper!

So here's the rundown!

The Invite...

 

First, you have to have an invite!  I found this perfect scroll online and put the details of the party as well as found a cute seal with her initial.

The font I used was Edwardian Script but after checking for the link, I found that you have to pay for it now and so I would recommend going to any free font site like dafont.com and downloading a font style you like from there. 

I then printed the artwork on A4 premium drawing paper and cut the shape out with the Silhouette.  The invites were then put into an envelope and sealed with our family's letter seal to add that royal touch!!! 

Here they are, signed, sealed and ready to be delivered to the lucky princesses:

The Birthday Banner & Streamers...

I used the Silhouette machine and cut her name and the background shapes then used 3M repositioning spray adhesive (the link actually goes to the widely used Krylon one -- in the states-- but I am using 3M since it's the only kind I can find here in Bangkok) to attach them together.  I really recommend this repositioning spray adhesive for any paper craft you are working on.  It's so easy to use, you can spray several pieces at the same time, goes on clear and you can reposition it (it's like the stickiness on the back of post its!).  After all pieces are cut and glued together, I strung them together with ribbon and then attached with some masking tape at the back so that it would position just the right way on the wall. 

The streamers were made of scrap fabric streams that were cut and then tied onto a plain old white string (the string that is used for packages).  Also great project for just decorating a room too and the perfect way to use all those scraps!!! 

The Pom-Poms

I have a confession to make, I'm a tissue paper hoarder--in addition to a hoarder of mostly all craft-related items.  I love my tissue paper collection and I couldn't bear using tons of them on the pom-poms.  And so trusty ol' IKEA came to the rescue!  I bought the colored paper napkin packs and they had the perfect colors for the party.

1) IKEA Fantastisk (don't they name their items so cool?) paper napkins, I also bought the paper plates and cups for the party there too.  

2-3) You take about 6-8 paper napkins and lay them on top of each other and then follow these directions!  But instead of the wire I used a plain rubber band (it was also great since you can stretch the rubber bands onto whatever you are decorating).    

4) Now the tricky part!  You want your pom-poms to be fluffy and airy but they just don't look like that, you have to spread the sheets since each paper napkin is 3-ply.  So carefully spread your napkins apart and fluff!  It's a learning curve but it gets easier! 

And hopefully you will get these:

The Goodie Bags and Activities Goodies...

As mentioned, I was working with a budget, luckily I found some great goodies that were perfect!  

1) The custom made royal invites.

2) All the goodies on show.  Books were from Kinokuniya (100+ baht/book), some princess pencils from The Emporium (they came is a 6 pack), notepads I had hoarded through the years, fruit chews, bracelets (also hoarded, bought them from Sampeng years ago) and a custom skirt I made with my fabric stash.

3) Princess tiaras, these were for the craft activity, I got the idea from here at Lu Bird Baby. 

4) These were also for the craft activity, they were little zipper pouches that the kids would paint in their names with metallic gold or silver acrylic paints.  You can see my tute for the stencils here.

5) This frame was a light bulb moment at IKEA!  It's the Tolsby frame and was 49 baht for each of them.  I used artwork from Lettering Delights and my trusty Silhouette to cut a hole out so that a photo could be inserted, the other side just had a message saying thank you for joining the party.

 All these goodies then went into a paper bag decorated with a doily and their name written on it.

The Activities & Crafts...

A smaller amount of kids turned out to be perfect since each one had the chance to do their own crafts.  In addition to the princess headpiece and zipper pouch, I also had the following:

-  A bracelet kit that I got at the mall (The Emporium) and it was perfect since it came with plastic bangles and gem stickers.  

-  A bunch of plastic beads and elastic to make our own royal jewels (Central B2S).

-  A wand craft made from foam clay, which dries light and airy (Central B2S) and attached to balloon sticks. *** Sadly, this craft turned out to be more of a art piece than a wand.  But the kids had so much fun making them, so did the moms!

-  "Kiss the Frog" (aka pin the tail on the donkey), I took green construction paper and cut out a frog and cut out lips and sprayed the repositioning adhesive spray so that the girls could kiss the frog while blindfolded with these cute panda eye covers I got from Cotton On (Mega Bangna).  It was a hit!  The girls had so much fun and a lot of giggles, their prize were IKEA markers!

-  Well this was a last minute activity craft that my daughter requested.  She wanted a pinata (she calls it a "pee-a-tah") and how could I say no right?  Well I was very lazy to do the whole paper mache pinata and on a budget to buy one and so I MomGyvered it.  Looked around the house and found paper plates, stapled plates together into a shape, covered it with crepe paper and liquid glue.....then thought about what that shape would be...it turned out to be a teapot for the tea party!  The lid, spout and handle were just cut out shapes, again from the Silhouette and decorated with a bit of frayed crepe paper and presto.....PEE-AH-TAH completed!

The Princess Tea Party Decor...

Paper napkin pom-poms, goodies, pee-ah-ta, streamers and everything else was ready to decorate!  I picked up some helium balloons at Pinata Party Place while out that morning picking up the birthday cake.

Threw everything together and it looked like this:

I had bought these adorable little tea cup sets from the 60 baht shop and you can see the IKEA paper cups, plates and napkins.  I also used paper napkins that I ironed out the night before for table mats.  Bought some fresh (well almost fresh day old cheaper flowers at Villa-I didn't need pre-bloom ones)  and each place setting had a place card cut from the Silhouette with each of the princess' name.

For the cake stand, I just took an over-sized cup we had and a plate and use UHU putty to hold it together.  Perfect again for the teacup/tea party theme!

The Princess Birthday Cake...

How cool did this cake turn out?  This 3D cake was ordered from S&P and was 790 baht ($26)!  You need to order about 2-3 days ahead and pick it up yourself but it was so worth it, the kids all loved it!  I then added a small decorative pom-pom, candle and tiny frog!  Can you guess the on-going theme here other than the princess theme?  Yes, Princess Tiana!!!

Last but Not Least...

My birthday princess and her Princess Tiana costume I had made for her. 

  

Well, that's it....  I'm happy to report that the party was a success but will have to decide whether I'm up for another themed party next year!  I hope you enjoyed sharing this special day with me and it will help you with your princess or prince!  Happy crafting!

There's a card for everything!

Do you have tons of membership, loyalty or discounts cards that you have to lug around with you and the moment you don't have it you need it?  Well after filtering and filtering all these cards (on a weekly basis at times), I still had a bunch that I needed to keep in my purse and they definitely were not all going to fit in my wallet.  

And so I came across this wonderful mesh pouch at The Emporium and decided to do a little sewing project and make little compartments for the cards and on the other side was perfect to hold any excess coins.  

You can actually use any size pouch and just sew vertical stitches where you want to separate your cards.  It's easy and quick since the stitches just need to be long enough so that the cards don't wobble to the other sections.   It's so handy and I can sort my cards as well, yes I am an organizational freak....

*** will get back about the brand of the pouch and price....

A card hill!!!!  (Image by Thainie-click to enlarge)

Just simple needle and thread will get your cards organized (Image by Thainie-click to enlarge)

 

Sew Thainie: Wonderful Stuff Toys Holder

 I am such a neat freak, I'm always trying to keep everything organized and I feel horrible that my children have to bare with this!  Well I usually try to go through their toys every now and then to see what they aren't really playing with or which can be donated but we have a bunch of stuff toys that we just can't part with since they each have some kind of sentimental value.  Thanks to A Lemon Squeezy Home, I was able to make this wonderful stuff toys holder/net.  Also thanks to my friend Rach for her generous jersey fabric too!!! 

*** Just be on the look out once you put this up, my daughter has decided it is a great chair/canopy that she wants to lounge on....sorry that I don't have a pic of that.

Easter Craft: Salt Dough Egg Magnet

I wanted an egg painting craft but didn't want to do eggs eggs since I wouldn't know what to do with two dozen boiled eggs.  I also wanted a craft that the kids can take home and keep as a memento.  So I thought of salt dough egg magnets that the kids can paint and I would modpodge and glue a magnet on.  

It was a big hit, not just the kiddies but also the mommies!  Only thing I wished I had used pastel colors but they still look cool!  Best of all, it was really easy to prep.  I used this dough recipe from Busy Bee Kids Crafts but you can also take a look at this old post I did too for more details.  The salt dough recipes are a bit different and I can't really decide yet which one I like but the one from Busy Bee Kids Crafts was easier to dry and bake.  Maybe it's the high salt content?  Well all you do is roll the dough out flat to less than a quarter of an inch thickness and use any oval/circle cookie cutter to cut out and then mould to egg shape.  I used a small glass since my cookie cutters were too big.  Then I let them air dry over night (this also cuz I did them last minute late at night and so I was lazy didn't want to bake them right then) and then in the morning put them in the oven for about 20 minutes at the lowest temp.  It will still need to air dry after painting them since they do soften up again.  Also, we used acrylic paints to paint the eggs, will post a pic of the magnet once finished!

Easter Crafts: Bunny Bags

This year my friends and I all got our kids together for Easter a few days earlier since some of us weren't going to be in town on the day of.  Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the crafts that we did to share them for everyone to enjoy!  

This is a really easy bag craft that you can do with any kind of paper bag and you just need to cut out the bunny ears and the bunny face.  I used scrapbook paper for the ears so that the boys and girls can choose from the different designs and it was precut since I had planned 3 crafts and wanted them each to be short and fun.

You can also add googly eyes and pom poms for the nose too.  Threw in some stickers as well!  I've attached the bunny's face so all you need to do is print and cut!   

Happy Easter crafting!!!

Image from Thainie

Image by Thainie....Click to enlarge and save...

Eggsaster? That's okay, there's always crepe paper...

So many of my friends were attempting this egg yarn craft from Simply Modern Mom for Easter and I thought with the right tute it would be easy peasy right?  I mean it's just yarn, glue and a balloon, how hard is that?  Well as you can see from the picture below, BIG FAT CRAFT FAIL.  It wasn't the tute, the tute was really amazing but I'm going to blame the balloons, they were cheap balloons and the deflated in an hour!  

And so I did this balloon craft from Not Martha and instead of fabric starch (which I couldn't find here and made the mistake of scented fabric starch, the one they spray to iron, well lets just say it only make it smell nice...other than that it was like using water) I used the good old glue and water mix.   They turned out really nice and made a great centerpiece!

Top left image from Simply Modern Mom, other images from Thainie

.....here's the tail

Image from Thainie

Here's the craft in action, the kids all loved picking out the pom poms and gluing them on the bunny.  Tried gluing with a glue stick at first but it didn't really stay well so used white glue instead (Elmer's).

Easter Freebie: Pin the fluff ball on the bunny

Easter's coming and been prepping art projects for the kids and thought I would share this with you all.  You can either use art pom poms or just plain ol cute cotton balls!

Click for the full image to print on A4:

Do the hooky pokey...

Did you ever wonder how they do those vinyl stickers so nicely, especially the ones with cut out letters in them?  I finally got a chance to use the hooky thingy (aka Universal Hook) that I bought to use with my Silhouette machine on a labeling project that I've been also wanting to do for a long time....there's a lot I've been wanting to do for a long time....  Anyhoo, so I thought I would do a short tute on how they do it.

Image from Thainie

 - To begin, cut out your stickers with your cutting machine.

- Take some masking tape and gently apply it on top of your vinyl sticker. You don't want the masking tape to completely cover your label.  Make sure you can still see the top and bottom so that you can align it easily to what you are labeling.

- Position your sticker on and rub the sticker until that sucker sticker is on there for good. 

- Gently peel from top to bottom/side to side, depends on your cut out but always take it slow since you don't want to tear the insides.  

- Now get your hooky thingy and start picking at the letters to peel them off.  Be careful if you're peeling against plastic or anything that can be scratched easily.  

- And there you have it!  Wasn't that easy?

 

Here's some repurposed mayo containers for your cooking necessities...

Image from Thainie

  
IKEA plastic boxes for art supplies labelled...

Image from Thainie

*** I'm thinking you can probably use a toothpick or those dentist thingys?  Will have to try it out and let you know how it goes...

 

Thainie Crafts: Advent Tree

Christmas, my favorite time of year!  And it's even more special when celebrating with your children.  For the past years, we had used a cloth hanging advent calendar with small pockets for treats but with 3 kids now, the small pockets cannot hold a fair amount of treats for each of them.   And so began the search for advent calendar ideas which eventually lead me to spotting this cute little tree at our local Big C.  Using my wonderful Silhouette machine, I made cut out ornaments with the days leading to a big Santa cut out so that I could tape them to tissue wrapped treats.  And the countdown to Christmas begins!

Here's the breakdown for this fun advent tree (forgot to include a 100+ baht star topper from Central Chidlom --- which happens to be the best place for gorgeous Christmas decorations!) :