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DIY

DIY Thanksgiving Garland

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It is safe to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all times. I love the time you can spend with family and friends, and the fact that there is no craziness of gift exchange like Christmas. We’ve hosted Thanksgiving party every each since we got married except for one year when we were traveling at the close time to Thanksgiving.

This year, we are having some family and friends over in our little town house. I wanted to decorate the house with fall colors. Initially, I was looking at these paper garland on etsy, but since the seller is in the States, I did not have enough time to place an order and receive it by well before the party.

So I decided to DIY my garland using papers I bought from the art supply store, called “Tools”. The one I go to is in the 7th floor of Lumine Est, Shinjuku. I bought four papers in different colors. Then I cut 7cm x 5cm rectangles. After I cut the rectangles, I cut out the triangle shape at the end so that the paper looks like a small flag.

Then I connected the flags together by using sewing machine. I used an old needle I was about to through away, since using the needle for paper will dull the needle so I would have to throw it away anyway. I would avoid using a new needle, and save it for the actual fabric sewing.

Tada! It’s easy and fun!

DIY Paper Origami Crane Mobile

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Today I wanted to show you a craft project I finished recently. When Kiko and I went to a mall the other day, they were giving out these paper origami cranes. They gave us three pretty cranes in pink and red; it was too cute to throw them out. I decided to enjoy them a bit longer by making them into a mobile for Kiko’s nursery. Although I did not make these cranes, it is easy to find many different origami tutorials online (Youtube is great for that), and you can follow this instruction for cranes. There is a custom to bring a mobile made out of 1000 paper cranes for someone who is sick or is hospitalized, to wish them to be well and for a long life. The crane is good luck here in Japan.

 What you need:
– Thread
– Wire
– Pliers
– Origami cranes
First I made cut a wire of about 50cm, made three little circles by bending the wire. The circles are to be used as hooks to hang the cranes. Then I made the wire piece into a big circle as a base to hang all the cranes. It helps to have some kind of circle object as a guide to make this big circle. I used Andy’s weight.
After that, I simply hung the cranes with a thread, and added another thread in order to hang the mobile from the ceiling.

Minnie Halloween Costume for a Girl

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Have you decided what you or your little ones are going to be for Halloween? I’m more excited about Halloween this year than any other year in the past because I have my little girl to play dress-up 🙂

This Minnie costume is not for Kiko, but I borrowed it for the sake of taking the photos. I made this for my friend’s daughter. She has a tradition of going to the Tokyo Disney Land with her daughter every fall, and dresses her daughter with a little Minnie mouse costume. Last year I made this dress for her. This year, she sent me her sketch, so I made a dress based on it. Her sketch has a white round collar, big polkadot baby doll dress with puff sleeves and tutu underneath of the dress to fluff it up.

I didn’t use any patterns; I traced an existing dress that fits Kiko well and added a bit more room and seam allowances. For round collar though, I did make a paper pattern so that they fit accurately. I like this tutorial on how to draft round collar patterns.

I added a sash in the back, and invisible zipper for closure. I made it a bit short so that the tutu will peek out at hem.

One problem I came across was pre-washing the fabric. I almost always pre-treat the fabric before I work on it, so I soak this polkadot fabric in a cold water first. Then I realized that the red color dyed the white dots! I wash it for three times, tried the detergent but the color did not come off. So the white dots are dyed in pink! I did a quick internet search on how to fix/avoid this problem, but no reasonable solutions were found.. Anyone has any advice? I think it was the right decision to wash the fabric even though the dots were dyed in the process, because if I hadn’t, the white collar would have been pink too.

My friend emailed me that her daughter loved the dress. I’m thrilled!