Time for Craft

I never know they are such a loyal pal until I met her. I didn't know they love us till such an extend that they forget about themselves. My gal, my lifelong lover, Muffin, our beautiful house pet! Here goes a wall deco, from a discarded wooded crate, dedicated to our one and only Muffin! WOof woOf!! A special request from my son, he's been pestering me ever since she came into our family and become an important part of our lifes. It is a very easy craft to try your hands on. You can find any boards around to make this. Just prime it with any coat of left over wall paint or acrylic paint, you can choose the colour you prefer. While letting it to dry, take time to choose a photo that will look great as a silhouette, front or side view. Use a pencil to draft lightly on the board after it dries. Paint it with your desired color. Lastly, the quote. You can either print a copy to do the transfer on the board or just draw it with free hand. For mine, I typed out with the font...

Pyrography (wood burning) means 'fire drawing' in Greek. It is the art of burning images on wood, paper, leather or dried hard gourds that results from the controlled application of a heated object which has advanced throughout the years. Instead of the old ancient way of using a fire stick, I'm using a soldering iron instead. These are two pieces of wood burning projects I did around 15 years ago. It used to be hanged at my dining area framed up as decorations, two pieces of thin plain wooden boards. I started out by sketching/outlining the pictures or theme on the board using a pencil. After all the planning and allocation is done on the board, the fun part begins, the soldering time! By soldering on the board, we are creating permanent burn marks and a large range of tones and shades can be achieved. Various type of tip, the temperature of the soldering iron at the beginning when you turn it on or after prolong usage, and the...

These are two kitchen cabinet doors turned into decorations. As I do not need the doors any more, I coated them with white paints and did two drawings with shades of green acrylic paint to decorate the living room. It turns out great with a flourescent tube shines upon them from beneath. It lifts up the whole area and creates a very soft natural feel to the home.

This is one of the little DIY project with recycled stuffs I did back in the ol' days, sometime in 1997. I collected the wooden blocks and boards from grapes carton. The wood texture was quite smooth and nice, I just feel 'sayang' (in Malay it means 'a pity') not to 'tap' on its potential:> haha! Making use of the woods, I made them into a toilet roll holder with some nails, hot glue and paints. I even sticked a few decorative tiles and a plastic dog toy for an added fun. So if you're a reading this, feeling stuck to have not enough capital for your home renovation, or things have been stagnant for years in there at home, something just need to be done etc... Make use of the resources that can be found in the surrounding, tap on them to transform into the unlimited possibilties. A little at a time, you just need an eye to look at things differently to make it a great difference to your world!

I've collected a few pieces of  wooden wine cartons from the wine seller and thought I'd get one to put into use in this craft. What you need is a piece of muslin cloth (wide enough to cover the whole box with allowance for some thickness of sponge/cotton fibre fillings around it), some needle and thread, staple gun and bullets, and acrylic paints to add some drawing as decoration. Start it off by stapling one side of the cloth to the inner side of the box so that all staples are invisible. Lay a layer of sponge/cotton fibre around the surface of the box, just enough for the comfort when you're sitted. Cover them with the cloth you've just stapled. Now, staple the opposite to that side, pulling the cloth tight enough for the cloth to look firm and neat on the surface. Continue to work for the rest of the two other sides, making sure the loose cloth at the four corners are trimmed and tugged underneath. Some sewing is neccesary at these a...

Staring at my little garden at the corridor, I got a sudden urge to create something to mark my territory (sounds like a woof, lol). Just a signage to hang in there to spice up a little. I've a number of spare wooden board collected years ago from fruit crates, when I started DIYing as a new home owner. (not much capital la, no choice:<) In Singapore, you could easily get these polyform fruit trays that comes with fruit carton at any fruit stall or supermarket. So, I used a polyfoam cutter to cut out letters and shapes, plus the propellers of the windmill. Bright fabric paints was highlighted to make them livelier.  All out of recycled materials (black fruit tray, wooden fruit crate, freshmilk bottle cap).

I am deeply in love with wood. I love wooden funiture, I like picking up dropped branches for decorations, I'll bring back nice and useful wooden board/plank that my neighbor thrash away, I'll keep my overdue pussy willow for christmas... So much so that I can't waste any single pieces not to put them in good use. This is another unused plank turned into a decorative piece again. As always, I'll spray some adhesive and wrap the wood with a canvas liked cloth. Then, I'll do the artwork. This time is a 'feather'. To create that feathery strokes, I used a type of water-based pen. With firm and steady hands, I left the pen marks on the cloth, one at a time, some lightly while some more obvious. And there you see, nice?

Didn't really have nice picture here again, but this was what I did to decorate my son's bedroom with a farmhouse motive on the wall without adding any stress to my pockets. The small little window was camouflaged with a picture cut-out from polyfoam. I collected them from the packaging that came with fridge carton box. My neighbor somewhere bought the fridge, I have the polyfoam sheets that potected it from dent, lol! I made a turnable windmill out of a recycled board dismantled from a wooden orange crates collected from NTUC supermarket here in Singapore. A perfume spray bottle cap was used as the center piece of the windmill. 5 pieces of the light weight wooden propeller were attached to it and was screwed on to the wooden board. Some stencilling was done to the wall and my boy was given the opportunity to 'scribble' the wall this time. He did some stamping on the wall with animals, farm house and tractor shaped sponge stamps. The ...

Saw a number of carved Buddha picture on sale in the market which are priced in thousands. I love the peacefulness but didn't want to pay for that price to own a piece, haha! In order for me to own one similar to that, I did a replica :P. I had a big piece of estimated A0 sized board hand-me-down from a ex-colleague, left in the store. I prepared another piece of muslin cloth big enough to cover the board. I sprayed both the board and the back side of the cloth with adhesive and stick both sides together carefully without crisp. Staple gun was used to gather those loose ends of the cloth nicely intact to the sides and back of the frame. When the frame is done, I started sketching the face of the Budhha using 6B pencil, and did the shading to give it some textured feel. Though it's quite a simple one, but the simplicity is just what I need to add some vibe to my balcony! A picture speak a thousand words, what...

What could be made from a wooden crate that used to contain oranges? I've dismantled the nails, separated the wood pieces and made use one of the side board to turned into this, a country styled display. I'm truly a fan of country-style decorations, so definitely a good hands-on project here! If you can find any wood lying around, have an eye to look at them differently, you can turn them into something unique!