more kurumie

As I said before.. I got addicted!!! My cousin went to japan and brought plents of shikishi... so I have suply for a long time... :)
This is my latest works... the first one is my own design... the others I took from a book.

This thing is quite addictive!! This is my last work... the first one is small and the second one is medium size.
The second one is my own design, a Maiko (geisha apprentice) in front of Toji temple in Kyoto ( a place that will be always in my heart!)

One more...

This last weekend I made another paper doll...

This one gave me a bit of work cause it has more details, but I loved the final result.
I just wanted to post the photo of this new work.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I last posted, during this time I went to Japan... it was so nice to be back there!! I bought some craft books so I ll have many things to try!
Today I started a craft which is called "くるみ絵". I'm not sure Im doing it right, but I liked the result...

Basically what I did was copy the picture and after that cut the pieces and paste... quite easy, huh? (the paper in the back is a shikishi and for the kimono origami paper).
I wish I had drawing abilities so I could do my own pattern, but for now I ll be using the ones I found in the book (やさしいくるみ絵 by 沖原とし子　植田 みよ子）.
The book has many patterns.. so I ll have a lot to play with ;p

Recicling...

My brother decided to give away some of his old clothes (it wouldn't fit him anymore) and as I did like some of the fabrics I decided to recicle it and from 2 shorts I made two small reversible bags!

Before:


After:


I liked so much the result that I made two more bags (luckly my brother didnt fit in many of his shorts... hihihi). And I gave as a bday present, one to my cousin and the other one to my friend Priscila. I didnt take photos :(

I must say that now I am more confortable with the sewing machine, but I still struggle a little bit so the final result is not so professional... But I am proud of my bags... ;p

Bags

Few years ago I decided that it was time to lear how to use a sew machine, at that time I didn't want to spend money buying X-mas presents and I thought it would be nice if I could make my presents.

One thing that I thought it would be easy project was a tote bag, I must say that I made a mess but in the end I came with something near a tote bag!! and I became a bit ambicious and decided to make a bag, I looked over the net and found this site, and it didn't seem so hard to make one.

So I started the first one, and then something went wrong...

To cool down a bit I start another project which was my brother's present, as he was always in bussiness trips I made him a toiletbag and it was way much easier to make! (unfortunately I dont have photos)

Back to the bag... started the second one... something wrong again!!!

Third one.... almost giving up!!!

Finally the forth one was ok, and became my sister's X-mas present (dont have the photo either), after having succeed in that bag I began others projects...

This year while I was organizing my fabrics I found the 3 bags I had started and never finished, as I was much more familiar with the sew machine I tried to fix the mistakes and see what I could save... so.. here are the bags.

well... didnt turn so bad afterall but in this photos you can't really see how it really looks... anyways, better than I would expect!!!

Flowers....

This week I made more flowers, this time I decided to make fabric ones... Days before I came across with this tutorial and did a little research on the subject...

These flowers are made by a japanese technique, to make hair ournament called tsunami kanzashi. I still can not believe that I lived in Kyoto for five years and just now got addicted to all japanese craft!!! but at that time I was doing my masters/ phD, and whenever I had free time I was taking photos, visiting temples, making friends...

Anyways, this flowers are quite easy to make and very cute!!!

The japanese technique uses rice glue, here in this site you can watch a video of the making process, maybe one day I ll get there! hihihi

"magic wallet"

My latest challenge was making this wallet, my sister bought it as a Xmas present to her husband and I found it very interesting... you put your card in the middle of the wallet, close it and open from the other side... and voila... your card inside the rubber....

I also bought some to give to my friends, but I thought that I could make one for myself, as I had some nice japanese fabric at home and did not know what to do with them...

But I was not sure if my sewing machine would work on paper so for my wallet I used hot glue... and yes! my poor skills made me burn my hand so many time that I almost gave up!!

First of all you ll need:
2 - paper card 7 x 10.5 cm
4 - rubber band (not sure how it is called) 11 cm

I sewed the rubber bands to the paper card as you can see in the photo, I left a space of 2cm from the top and 1 cm from the side, and the same for the bottom part 2 cm and 1 cm.

for the fabric you'll need the follow dimensions +1.5 cm for each side
2 rectangle 7 x 2.5 cm
2 rectangle 7 x 7.5 cm
2 rectangle 7 x 10.75 cm

for inlining you ll need:
2 rectangle 7 x 2.5 cm 2 rectangle 7 x 7.5 cm
2 rectangle 7 x 10.75 cm
4 rectangle 7 x 16.5 cm fold it 9cm up and 7.5 cm down

I do hope that the photos can explain the how to make, cause my lack of ability with the words makes it hard for me to explain step by step.

I also noticed that I should have taken more photos and I promisse that if I ever do another wallet I will take those photos, but for now I dont think I will as I still have the burn marks on my hand not only from the hot glue but also from the ironing....

No, no it is not difficult to make one, is only that I am not really good at doing this craft things, though I really love it! And believe when I say that if I can do it, anyone else can do it too!!!

By the way, first I made one using paper just to make sure that I woudnt screw up... I was really afraid of wasting my nice fabric!