Mason Jars Love

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Empty mason jars make me smile. :) These would normally end in the garage, under the sink or on the trash pile. But it’s a shame to hide them in obscurity when the crafting world offers a hundred and one ways to recycle them to stylish home accessories.

I was excited for a simple craft project and I knew where I need to begin. :) I opened the sink cabinet and was glad to find an old Bravo jar inside. It still smells like the cheesy garlic spread it once contained so I dusted a few baking soda in it and let it stayed for a few hours. While waiting for the baking soda to take effect, I grabbed some of my decorative tapes (available in the shop! ;) ) and started wrapping the jar. I also made a matching paper flower to go with it. :)

Here are some other ways to recycle your glass jars. Now you’ll start hoarding them too! :)

As Light Fixtures

( from BootsNGus Etsy Shop)

(from treasureagain etsy shop)

As Flower Vases:

(from Marshmellowfluffstuff)

As Juice Glass

(from Unstiched)

(from ACME Party Box Company)

As Votive/ Candle Lanterns

(from Annaboo’s House) 

(from Fellow Fellow) 

DIY Dresser Trays

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Our room used to have this charming custom-made dresser table near the window. It ceased to be charming when bottles of alcohol, toner, moisturizers, lotions and others began to invade the entire surface area. :P I couldn’t just throw out all those half-used bottles so I decided to engage on a mini Christmas vacation project: Dress up the Dresser(yay redundancy!).

For this simple DIY, I recycled the box of those juice drinks in quick-punch doy pack and cut it into half. This makes the base of my little dresser trays. It was then covered with floral printouts and ribbons. The floral pattern was actually scanned off my clothes and then was fixed in photoshop to make it a seamless pattern. To finish off the look, I added some ribbon and buttons as embellishments.

For the middle one, I opted for a different color scheme and made it from leftover giftwrapper, strings, crochet lace and paper doily.

Admittedly, tthe project didn’t reduce the items on the table, but somehow it makes things look more organized! :)

Bag Repair

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Meet my bag. One glance and you can tell it’s old, worn and overused. I can opt to throw it out and buy a new one, but it breaks my heart to see it in the landfill unrecycled. Actually, I still have no idea how to recycle the materials, so for now I’ll try to stretch its lifespan with me.

Repairing the Bag

I bought the grey polkadot fabric tape from the shop since the color comes closest to the bag. It’s a little weird to pair cute/retro polkadots with studs, but the color is not too loud and and can be forgiven. Since I used fabric tapes, it was easy to apply them around the worn handles. I tried repairing an old yellow bag with half-inch satin ribbon and glue gun before, but the ribbon dislodges after a while and keeps shifting out of place. With fabric tapes, I don’t have that problem.

Next up is the crack on the faux leatherette at the middle of the bag. How to fix that? I grabbed a couple of my designer buttons from the stash and glued it to a peso coin (Yes! a peso coin!) before attaching it to the area where the crack is. It doesn’t fix the crack but it hides most of it. :)

This is how my bag looks like now:

Now the bag looks a little more “me”, with my DIY attachment. :D

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

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A few weeks ago, our refrigerator fan retired and thus the family was forced to finish off the items inside. One of which is a pack of cream cheese sitting forlornly on the door tray, and another is a jar of strawberry jam which we can hardly finish. It was the perfect reason to make a cheesecake! I checked the recipes in the web for baked version, but all of them required more than a pack and considerable amount of time in the oven. Ok, back to no-bakes then. :)

Making no-bake cheesecake should be easy; the hardest part being whipping the cream to form peaks in sweltering Manila heat. I tried… but failed. :P Oh well! Off it goes to the crust and in the refrigerator. The resulting “cake” looks like the photo below. I left it in the fridge for 12 hours, but it apparently needed more time. I was that excited to try it out.

No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake.. Pudding:

Still tastes great though! ;)

Design with a Punch: Petal Confetti Cards

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I will be away during the Holy Week but would like to leave you with 2 new cards using sakura punchers. :) The idea is the same, but the color scheme is different. You can easily replicate this look as this puncher design is widely available in Manila.

Cards 16 – Soft Pastel Confetti

For this card, I gathered all my pastel paper scraps and intentionally punched on areas where there are prominent flower prints. I added some gold foil into the mix for visual interest and texture change. :)

Cards 17 – Sunshine in Spring

Since I have a lot of yellow and gold paper scraps, it was just a matter of time before I make one centering on this color. It was fun to play with monochromatic materials. I threw in a few coordinating buttons as highlights and to make it a little different from the Soft Pastel Confetti Card.

I couldn’t help but smile when I look at the two new additions. I hope you like them too! :)

Design with a Punch: Starry Night Sky Card

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I’m on a roll with this new series. This time I took out this cute star punch for a spin. The idea came from Vicky from Blush Crafts, who made a heart confetti card in time for Valentine’s day. Since I’m too late for heart’s day, might as well use the confetti idea differently. :)

Card 15 – Starry Night Sky

I repurposed a sheet of old translucent plastic to house the confetti. (YAY! More recycling) Ended the card with a gold “star” embellishment. If you know what it called, please let me know. Actually, that’s one of those beading supplies and is used to attached to the end of beads/pearls. ;)

Design with a Punch Series

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I’m excited to share with you this new series: Design with a Punch! Similar to Paper Scrap Series, I will be reusing saved paper bits as materials for my card; but this time they have to go through my craft punches first. :) Punched design technique is super cost-efficient as it is applicable even on small irregular paper sizes and powerful in reproducing designs. Actually, I just came up with this series to promote more usage for my neglected craft punches. ;)

Card 14 – Flower Punched Card

For this card, I drew inspiration from Kristina’s Punched Hearts Flower where she challenged herself to make a card using a small heart punch. I didn’t have one so I resorted to using the closest one in the stash, a small flower punch. :)

Again I had trouble coming up with a color scheme especially if you are limiting yourself to available paper bits. But that is the challenge! :) I’m glad I was able to put together a colorful but coherent card. This one is an automatic favorite!

Our Friendship is Forever Card

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This is one of the few instances that I’ve experimented with stamps. I have a couple of clear stamps gathering dust in the shelf and a colorbox stamp pad that is half-dry. Clearly, I need to make use of them soon!

My stamping skills are apparently nonexistent, as shown in the patch of blank area towards the left. I need to practice. :) I got this old rolled paper flower to serve as my key element and to add contrast to the purple/grey color scheme. Hope you like it.

Congratulations Card

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To continue off the paper scrap series, I decided to forage my stash of paper bits in hopes of coming up with a winning color combination scheme. :) No such luck though. It took me a while to put this together. More than an hour? I loved how everything worked out though. Added the button to match the metallic sakura punches. :) Hope you like it.

On another note, how long does it usually take you to make a card? :)

Fluffy Pancakes

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I confess that I’m not a fan of pancakes. I can barely eat two, the last few bites being captial punishment. There is something about it that quickly satiates the taste. It always makes me wonder how some Americans can quickly down 4 of them. This was until I tasted Pancake House’s fluffy melt-in-your-mouth pancakes. Hmm.. maybe we’re just doing pancakes incorrectly the whole time?

So I checked the web for fluffy pancake recipes and found that most of them employ buttermilk, baking powder and baking soda. With all the ingredients readily available in the kitchen, it was so tempting to try. Then there’s also that strawberry jam we need to finish. Ok sold! Here’s my attempt on it: 

Verdict: Definitely fluffier than your standard Maya pancake mix but still not as melt-in-your-mouth as the Pancake House’s. Still happy to try this out. I don’t see myself buying pancake mixes anymore. :)