Easy Father's Day Gift DIY Tutorial

This year marks the first Father's Day for my husband. I thought to commemorate this special privilege by personalising a cup for him.
A little bit cheesy maybe, but what's better to have something encouraging greet you every morning when you need a cuppa.

So here's a tutorial for you too.

Materials needed for a personalised mug:

- A plain cup (I got mine from Muji)
- Marabu ceramic paints (they have a ceramic marker line too if you're not so comfortable with a paintbrush)
- Pencil + Eraser (optional)
- Paintbrushes
- Alcohol wipes
- Oven




Steps:

1. Have a design in mind
2. Wash and dry your mug
3. Wipe the surface area you intend to have design on with an alcohol pad
4. With your pencil roughly sketch in your design. Or if you're daring, just go straight for it with your paint. You can always wipe off whatever is unwanted/redo with alcohol wipes



5. Leave design to dry for at least 4 hours
6. Place designed mug into cold oven
7. Heat oven to 170℃ and let it bake for 30 minutes
8. Let mug cool in the oven

You now have a cup of your very own design that's wash proof (dishwasher safe too) and a much appreciated dad!

{Side note: You might be curious as to why I wrote #0 and not #1. That's because Jian's a coder and in geek speak, 0 always comes before one. You'll get it if you're a programmer.}

Dip Dye Chair Legs

If you have been following me on Instagram, you'd have known that I'd picked up this awesome stool from the trash area underneath my void deck.

I can't believe someone would toss it out. Mainly because I've been thinking about getting one just like this.
Of course though, I can see why someone would. The legs have started to rot.

I didn't think it was that big a deal and thought it'll be a relatively easy fixer-upper. Already I knew in mind what I could do with it — dip dye its legs.
I've decided to document the process and make a simple DIY tutorial.

First things first. Materials you'll need aside from your beat up stool:

Masking tape, or painter's tape + spray paint colour of your choice.

Tape off areas where you don't want the paint to go on. Make sure you get nice straight lines where the legs are. This ensures you get a neat finish.
Everywhere else doesn't really matter so long as you've sealed it off proper.

On hindsight, we should have sanded down the areas where we'd wanted spray painted too. This would have allowed our paint to grip on the wood better.

Take your spraying outdoors. You don't want to be breathing in any fumes. 

Set up your spraying area with some tarp (or newspapers) to prevent the ruining of any walls or floors.

This was what we did. We'd created a setup at our corridor.

Not necessary, but we'd placed a board down from the stool's legs as a further surety we don't get paint on any bits we didn't want either.

Follow your can's instructions and paint as many coats needed. 

Leave your stool to dry and peel off the tape after.

 

Yay, you've just given your furniture new life! This stool is going into the corner of our studio as a plant stand. I think it looks super cute, like it has socks on. 

All we need to do now is to decide on a plant.

Upcycled planter

You'd remember I'd two batches of rosemary I'd experimented with propagation. On the right, was my very first attempt. On the left, my second.
You can see how they're almost comparable in their root growth. I found it surprising how it took virtually less than a week for roots to propagate on my second attempt.
Must be how these clippings are less woody than my first.

Since they are ready to be potted, I thought to do a simple tutorial on how to upcycle the useless metal tins I have lying around the house. 

I chose this odd looking shaped one this time, which had a really horrid teddy bear motiff on it.
So obviously, I'm spray painting it gold - taking it from yucks, to lux.

If you, however, have a really good looking container, please feel free to keep it the way it is.
If you don't like gold, you can of course spray paint it any other colour you please.

You would want to do this outside as the fumes can be noxious.
Don't forget to line the ground you'll be spray painting on with newspapers, tarp, or the like.
Spray paint in layers, allowing each coat to dry before spraying on a new one.

The next tools you'll need are a hammer or a mallet, and a phillips head.

The idea is to punch holes through the base of your tin to allow for drainage.

Once you end up with something like this, you're ready to fill it up with soil.
Go ahead and punch more holes through if you like too. A little bit loud, but a very enjoyable activity.

I chose to place some charcoal at the base before piling on the soil to add to drainage. You can add stones if you prefer.

Once you're near the top, create a hole in the middle of your soil and carefully place your plant in. After that's done, cover your roots over with more soil and do a thorough watering to help your plant ease into its new environment.

Voila! Your plant has a new home.

Simple Cushion Cover Tutorial

I'm in the middle of a room improvement. Since I was about to make some cushion covers from my old curtains, I thought, why not make a tutorial?

This is my first tutorial. It's a fairly easy project. Let me know if it's helpful! :)

Things you'll need:
Cushions you want to make covers for
Fabric of your choice
Measuring tape or ruler
Chalk or pencil to mark
Scissors
Sewing Machine (and a Serger if you have it)
Cup of tea for after you're done

First measure your cushion. Mine's 16" x 24".

Cut out a piece of fabric that measures one inch short all around your cushion's breadth and length.
 I made my fabric 15" x 23". See Fabric 3.

 You want your cushion cover to measure slightly smaller than your actual cushion's size.
A smaller cover helps to retain shape and makes your cushion look plump.
If you like an even fuller look, you can cut it short 2" all around, but I wouldn't recommend anything more than that.

Next, cut up another piece of fabric with the same breadth as your first.
Only this time, extend your fabric's length by 6 inches. I ended up with a 21" x 23".

With this current fabric, cut it right down the middle (breadth-wise) to produce Fabric 1 and Fabric 2, as seen in the picture on top.

You'll now have 3 pieces of fabric to work with.

If you fabric frays like mine does, you'll need to use a serger.
If you don't have a serger, you can run the edge of your fabric really closely through your sewing machine with a zig-zag stitch.

Serge all sides of your fabric

After that's done, pick up Fabric 1 & 2 and bring them over to your ironing board.

With Fabric 1, fold and press a rough 1 cm from the bottom, upwards.

Fold up and press down another 1 cm again, to hide the edge where you've serged.

Repeat the same for Fabric 2, only this time start your fold from the top, downwards.

With your sewing machine, stitch your folds down on both your separate pieces.

Now we reach the most crucial and probably most confusing bit of the project:

Lay Fabric 3 on your work table, (I used the floor), with right side up facing you.

Lay up Fabric 2 (the one with the fold on the top) against the bottom of Fabric 3, with its wrong side facing you.

Lay up Fabric 1 nicely over all other fabrics, against the top of Fabric 3, again with the wrong side facing you.

You should have something like the picture.

 

Next, we pin the pieces all together to prevent them from moving around.
We're about to sew them up!

You want to sew all around the parameter of the pinned up fabric. I forgot to take a picture, so hopefully this illustration suffices.

Leave about 1 cm seam allowance from the border all around the cushion cover.

When you're done with sewing, clip the 4 corners of your cushion with a pinking scissors. 

If you don't have one, a normal scissors will do too. 

Clipping the corner ensures a pointed edge when we turn it over.

The folds of Fabric 1 and 2 form a flap where we can turn the cover over.

Once turned over, it is through the same flap that we'll stuff our cushion through!

And voila! We have cushion covers!

Celebratory cuppa is in order.