Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Last month I took two clay project class, the first one is making lily of the valley (鈴蘭). It’s my first time making flowers and I find it much harder than making the food stands as more precision is needed.

Lily of the Valley made with clay.

Close up of an open flower.

Close up on the leafs.

For more pictures on this project visit my Picasa Album.

The flowers all together took about 6 hours and the leafs took about 2 hours. The leafs were pretty fun to make as we use a pasta machine to flatten out the dough, then use a leaf shape cutter for the shape and use a mold to create the pattern. The hardest part for me was creating the waves for the leafs. Also I wish I had bought a better pot for the project. The pot I’m currently using has too narrow of an opening so the flower seemed bunched up. Maybe later on I’ll switch it to one with a wider opening so it’s more lose and feel less bushy.

I’m taking another flower course this month. Hopefully it’ll turn out better than this one.

For the past month Al and I have been attending classes on Saturdays to learn how to make interesting crafts out of clay. Our first project is a Chinese donut and soy milk stand (found in places like Hong Kong and China). Each week we’d learn how to make individual items for the stand and last Saturday we finally finished everything and assembled it all together. Here are some pictures of our finished project:

Almost everything in this project were made by ourselves using clay and paper (for the bags). We both had a lot of fun learning how to make it and were so happy to be able to finish our first project. I’ve taken pictures of Al’s and mine. You can see more photos from my Picasa Albums.

A little note on the course. I first found out about it during Chinese New Year in 2008. The instructor had a booth at Aberdeen Centre during the New Year Festivals. When I saw them again this year I decided to take the course because I want to learn how they make such detailed food stands and flowers. Al and I will be starting our next course in the coming week. I’ll post pictures of project 2 once it’s finished.

I haven’t baked for the longest time because most of my baking stuff had been packed away and stored at the house we’re going to move in later this summer (or so my parents said). However I still want to make a cake for Al and after doing some research for ideas, I’ve “baked” this special cake with chocolate ganache and topped with strawberries.

Here's Al with the "magic" cake (it's magical because you can never finish it...)

Making the felt cake took about 10-12 hours. I didn’t have any templates to work with so had to use some imaginations for making the seeds of the strawberries and the ganache. I bought a cake box from Daiso to put the cake in. The only thing I would  have done differently was to add some weight to it. Since it felt so light when you hold the box with the felt cake inside.

Here are some pictures of the individual pieces.

(click to enlarge thumbnail)

I wish I can sew better because some parts of the white (cake base) were showing on the edge. I think I’ll try to make a mini cake magnet next.

Ok I’ve been getting a bit crafty lately. I’ve gotten my hands on some felt, fiber fill and some needles and now I end up with a pig, a cat and a dog.

I haven’t done felt craft since I was like 12/13 years old. I remembered I made a green bean with felt and some of the peas were hanging from the bean (hard to imagine…I know, but it was cute! I gave the peas smilie faces…) I’ve stumbled up on several websites that had felt food on it and I wanted to try and make some. But first I decided to make another piggy for Al (I made him one like the first year I met him). I don’t have a picture of it because I don’t think it look nice but here’s a picture of the cat and dog I made:

Meow~!

Arff~!

I think I could’ve made the dog a bit better. I’m going to see if I can get started on the felt food now. It seems a bit complicated to make since my sewing isn’t all that great (sometimes I get holes here and there…lol).

Last week we had a tone of snow and for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I didn’t get to go anywhere so I decided work on yet another paper craft project. This time is the Santa’s house. I found the pattern on Canon’s Creative Park website. It’s got lots of interesting projects you can make as gifts.

Here’s a look at the interior of the house. The neat thing about this house is that there are three main components, the exterior of the house acts as a box, the interior of the house can slide out showing two levels, then the lower level can also be pulled out making it easy to see all the details inside.

[Completed house with the first floor tucked inside.]

It took about 25 hours to finish the house. There were many little components to cut but I had fun making it, especially near the end when I was decorating the house with all the presents and little details.

I’ve posted more photos of the house, with shots of individual rooms, in my Picasa Album.

PS: Kaya ♥~ the gold fish pattern is from the Yamaha paper craft website. Have fun! I’d love to see photos of your completed project!