gift giving...

so tomorrow is dad's birthday... and i promised an designing art student cousin (who's birthday WAS in april) a notebook, which i kept forgetting to send (he's in australia)...

therefore this post is about gifts! yay!

i suppose i should start with the older project. i designed a cover for my cousin. no actually i designed the cover for me, using some clip art i have (that i vectored & tweaked & organized into a neat lil pattern), but put in his initials. printed the design onto green paper and glued those on to a cardboard; i lined the inside part of the cover with old Japanese newspaper. cut up stacks of paper for the inside and organized it, so it has:

1. plain white paper
2. vellum
3. lined paper
4. graph paper
5. green paper
6. black paper
7. small envelope for random stuff
   

took the whole stack to Subur (a local copyshop) and had them wire bind it. i also sewed a little slip cover to keep it neat, then pinned the birdie from previous post onto it.

then i worked on making "packaging" for dad's gifts. he's getting golf flash disk, new golf shoes, & a golf trip to bali in august. yes, he loves golf that much. its the only thing that gets him out of the house... so i took the hiphiphippo pattern i made for miss hippocooks, took out the hippos, and added golfers & golf balls (plus the 18th hole, also a reference to the 18th as dad's birth date)... print on A3 paper with an ink jet printer and tadaaaa: a card, an envelopes & wrapping paper. yay!

birdie birdie...

there was a wedding out of town this weekend, a big drum'n'bass event, and a day of taking mom shopping... so there was really no time to sew or make any big projects, even if my hand were reaaally itching...

but i did have time to make a little stuffed birdie out of left over fabric from my reversible jacket, using the pattern i found on spool sewing... i used the fabric from the head of the sarung, and used the smaller pieces of scraps for stuffing. no waste here... i believe i will make a few for galang (my second cousin's lil boy) and immy (my best friends' baby girl). hopefully its good teething toy...

oh, on the wedding trip i almost finished my circular knit (done whilst talking to aunts over ginger tea & cigarettes) which is going to be a cap to make my favorite helmet (in my brothers collection) fit me. ill do the finishing in the morning & post it then. i also started on a new "watching tv project", taking old tshirts and making the hook rug i talked about on the previous post...

so much i want 2 do... no time 4 me...

there is so much i want to do, yet, the time doesnt seem to be cooperating...

there's this pile of fabric in my room(i counted around 23 different kinds), that i have to reduce to half the size before im allowed to buy anymore fabric... yesterday a dear friend just gave me 2 pieces of traditional fabrics from the trip she took around indonesia, so thats 2 more to figure out what to do with...

not to mention the box of decent sized fabric scraps that begs to be used (instead of trashing)...

i just try to keep the ideas listed in a journal, so when i have free time i can go ahead and do something i wrote down instead of sitting wondering what i can do...

so heres some excerpts from the lists...

sewing:

• black silky kerchief edged kaftan
• black cotton bias cut halter
• reversible fitted jacked using a reversible jaquard in green/grey with contrast bias binding
  
• reversible long jacket using red fabric with pillow embroidery and light batik pekalongan

fabric scraps:

• hobo bag
• quilt (using old wornd down bali blankets as batting)
  
• sewing machine cover
• old tshirt hook rug
• stuffed toys for family & friends who has kids ;)
• box pillows (buy the filling from lokal walking merchants that pass by our house every so often. give back to community. feel good, look good)
  

"recycling" older garments(yes, inspired by the show i've go nothing to wear):

• mom's yellow embroidered jacket (smaller! more fitted! so cute!)
• an oversized shift; begging for pockets, belt or darts
• that paisley top that looks like pajamas; fixed the arms, but the body is still all wrong. what to do what to do...
  

other ideas:

• a light, bright lampshade for my work room (saranwrap over wire? cut out vellum?)
  
• recycling my ID cards into a cute hanging planter inspired by the credit card planter found here (i wont cut my IDs, instead just tape 5 together and use a clear tape so i can still see the colourful IDs; the loops from the ID will be the hangers)
  
• grafittied/doodled cheap bags (actually i've made 2 of these, and one is carried around as a computer bag by a Cosmopolitan Indonesia stylist; but i still want a white one hand doodled)

not to mention ideas how to make my balcony more green. its a big balcony, about the size of my room. currently it has a few pots with adeniums, and an old satelite dish as a vine plant planter. i want to add lemongrass, aloe, small pringodani bamboos, those tiny oranges plants...

so no more shopping for me. just use what i have :)

ok. maybe buy some plants. just a few. then again i can "steal" from mom & granmas' garden...