“A season of feasting… and wasting” – The Straits Times

The headlines in today’s papers caught my attention. The was my exact sentiment as I put away my son’s gift wrapping, the boxes/plastics that the toys are clothes were packaged in and also the left-over Christmas pastries in the pantry. It is really scary reading how much waste (esp. food waste) is generated in this festive period.

Over at our household, we are also trying to cut down the volume of trash that gets dumped in our garbage bins. We try to repair, reuse, recycle as much as we possibly can. One ‘green’ item is my fav re-usable bag: the Ikea Big Blue Bag:

image from ikea.com

We always have a couple of these bags in our car. They are great for carrying grocery, esp. the heavy bottles, or cartons, etc that the normal plastic bags can’t hold anyway. These bags are strong and easy to clean out. Best of all, they are guaranteed for life!

This year, I didn’t spend a single cent on gift wrapping paper either. All my gift items are either packaged in my Midnight craft sandwich baggies (made from recycled paper), tied with baker’s twine or with cute piece of decor tape. For bulkier items, I made gift bags and tried my hand at furoshiki wrapping too.

Handmade drawstring gift bags

1 yard of Ikea fabric, wave-cut, rubber bands at both ends & finished with ribbons

Furoshiki-style fabric gift wrapping

Fabric gift wraps are absolutely wonderful to make and to use. For the furoshiki wrap, I simply folded the fabrics selvedge to selvedge, right sides together, leaving a small gap to turn the wrap around. And I top stitch the square fabric and closed the gap. It was perfect for Baby Elliot’s soft book.

So soft Baby books

I love making things for my friends. But it is a constant internal debate whether the recipient will appreciate the handmade gift – the effort and resources taken to produce the item. Or will they feel shortchanged by a ‘home-made’ item vs. a store bought gift? So sometimes, I tend make an item, and then buying something else from the store to ‘make up the value’ of the gift.

Thus my handmade gifting code is more or less this: Give handmade gifts to friends who craft (they will appreciate the effort behind the projects).

Of course, I’m not entirely strict with my code ;> I absolutely LOVE to create things for the little ones. Hopefully their parents will appreciate a little handmade goodness injected in their young lives. Here are 2 soft books I put together (from panels) for the babies’ 1st Christmas.

Mummy Goosey nursery rhymes

Embroidered on my Bernina 440

A baby sign language book for Baby Elliot

and all you need is LOVE

G’s Baby Quilt

A special commissioned quilt for G’s baby niece. It took a while for me to put this together (due to work, health, etc) but after I got the fabrics cut, everything came together very easily. I really enjoyed working on this top. Now, I’m planning for the quilt back to work in a special border fabric which I love very much. Stay tuned!

The snowball/jewel quilt top done!

A close-up of a princessy snowball block

Merry Christmas! 圣诞快乐

Happy holidays, everyone!

It has been a long long time time since I have posted an entry to this blog. BUT I’m gonna make up with some pictures of crafty gifts and some sewing I did since November very shortly.

And as we draw closer to the end of year, it is also time for some crafty reflections. 2009 has really been a fantastic crafting year: I bought more fabrics that I can store in my rooms, bought myself lots of notions and gadgets, attended workshops and completing my quilts (2 of them!). And in this year, Mama G helped to give Midnight Crafts a beautiful skin and with this new identity, I set up shop on Etsy in around May and also created my 1st (and only) Facebook Page.

All 3 platforms give me opportunities to reach out to the crafty community and I have received so much in return with each sale/purchase and also with each ‘fan’ of the page. THANK YOU, everyone! 😀

A very special Thank You goes out to Clara, a sweet local customer who bought some items from my Etsy shop earlier in Nov. And about 2 weeks after the sale, I received a very cool package from Clara.

She made me a personalised notebook and I appreciate all the hardwork that went into creating this beauty: cutting the motif, layering the pieces, setting the eyelets, etc. After a couple of workshops at Made With Love, now I know how scrapbooking is not be sniffed at. Not only you require the creative eye to set everything in their places, you also need to have the right materials and tools to make things happen (just like the tools for putting a quilt together!).

I don’t receive a lot of handmade gifts and this is just something I will treasure for a long time to come. Thank You, Clara, for your thoughtfulness!

It is certainly the most wonderful time of the year!