Classes in January

I am working on my various layouts in my bullet journal and decided to take a snap shot of my January calendar and do a quick announcement on my social media for my classes.

I have been doing regular biweekly classes at Spotlight The Mines since last year. I have some regular knitters who come and knit and welcome new ones to join us. I also conduct basic sewing class. My classes run concurrently between 10.30-12.30. So, if you want to pick up a new hobby, why not try knitting with me? 

Another class that is happening this Saturday is Personalized T'shirt Workshop where I will be showing participants how to use the Silhouette cutter to cut heat transfer vinyl. There is still seats available if you are interested. Advanced booking is required as I need to get the t'shirts.

Unboxing Dream Journal by Paperdorable

This is a long overdue video. I received a Dream Journal by Paperdorable with compliments from Helmi Razali from Paperdorable months ago last year. I didn’t want to use it mid year so I decided to keep it for 2017. I’m actually off to a sluggish start in the new year because my son was down with viral fever the past few days. He seems to have recovered slightly and decided to go to school today. Then only I can work on my unboxing video. 

I had a tough time setting up my camera for the video because the weather is gloomy outside and I don’t get enough light to come in.  This is my first time doing an unboxing video and I tell you A LOT of things happen behind the scene to make a decent video. I have a renewed respect and admiration to the crafters and artisans who does how to videos and the likes. 

I used imovie to edit and record my voice for the voiceover. At first I thought I could wing it by going off the cuff but I ended up with ummms and ermmmmsss that I ended with a simple text so I can read from it. Another renewed respect and admiration to life tv hosts and stand up comedians. I have but no choice but to stick to my day job.

Anyway, as mentioned in the video. I am super loving the Dream Journal from Paperdorable. It looks and feels so posh with the leather exterior cover and the gold hot stamping details. There’s also a pocket at the back of the journal which is a plus in my book. I opted for the Cherry Red journal and dotted pages. The other colour is Charcoal Black and other options for the pages are lined or gridded. I can’t wait to start journalling in this notebook. I plan to do a review video of the journal once I have my layouts done so stay tuned.  In the meanwhile, here is the video, enjoy!

p/s: Do check out Paperdorable website for more offers and beautiful selections of notebooks and planners.

First Day Of School 2017

Today is the first day of school and only little missy is going to school. Big brother runs a high temperature so I got him to take some medication and go back to bed. 

Here's our customary first day of school photo:

Everything except for her hijab, socks and shoes were from last year. I think we can stretch one more year out of that penifore. I made her hijab last night and finished 2 more today. 

I posted a quick video on how I finish her hijab with twin needles on instagram along with 3 tips. Check out my IG @madebyrozirahman to find out what the tips are.

The other new thing to school for little missy is her schoolbag. I promised her a new backpack this year as her old backpack was one she used since kindy. Incorporating all her favorite things: PINK, FROZEN and GLITTER, i wrestled up this bag on my Brother NV900. 

The pink material is denim. I used flexfoam from Legacy Creation to line the back and the base of the bag. Love how it holds the structure of the bag. Elsa image was printed on a printable heat transfer material and Arwen's name is cut from glitter heat transfer vinyl. 

I took the path less travelled and added corded binding to the bag. Love how it turned out. 

So how was the first day of school turned out for you?

Phone Pillow Tutorial

I made this phone rest aka phone pillow for a bazaar recently. However the sale was not so hot so I had a lot of ready made stocks. Luckily, my cousin bought the whole lot plus some more as gifts. That's my new year egg breaker. In case you are wondering, when I was in sales many years ago, my boss refers to the number zero as an egg. So, when any of our salesteam brings in the first sale, it means we've broken the egg, get it? Nevermind...

Anyway, since I have to make a few more to make up the order, I decided to take some photos and do a tutorial. This also serves as my reference source as I am really bad at keeping physical notes. OK, here goes:

Cut a rectangular piece measuring 8.5" by 6"

Fold the fabric together and sew a line down the short side (6" side) with a quarter inch seam.

Finger press the seam open. Position it so that the seam is in the centre and sew another stitch line on one side and leave an opening to turn later.

Turn your work onto the other side and now position the first seam line at the bottom and stitch pependicular to it leaving an opening to stuff it later.

Turn your work right side out and poke out all the corners. With the first seam facing down on the cutting mat, mark 1" and 1.5" from the edge and sew 2 parallel lines on ghat marking.

Stuff the 1" shell with fiber fill and hand stitch it close.

Stuff the other end of the shell and you will see how the piramid is taking shape. I add a few spoonfuls of fine pebbles for some weight. By the way, isn't the multicolour grain cute? Hand stitch the opening close and there you have it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

I hope the instructions and pictures are clear enough. Do tag me on instagram (@madebyrozirahman) if you do make one following my tutorial. Good luck!

4th quarter and 2016 round up

Last day of the year to do a blog entry. I wonder other than the pleasure of personal rambling space, who else would be reading my blog? I wonder what do they think of me? Or should I be bothered what other people think of me? 😕

OK, last post was in September, so here's a quick fourth quarter round up:

October:

I finally took the plunge and bought Embrilliance StitchArtist 1, an embroidery digitizer software to complement my Embrilliance Essential pack. Starting small, I practise with making simple pencil topper. Check out my Instagram (@madebyrozirahman) on the other designs for pencil topper that I’ve digitized.

I initially planned to have the design cut out on heat transfer glitter vinyl and ironed on but the vinyl wasn’t cooperating with me. So I digitize the same design and embroidered it onto Arwen’s black abaya for school. Gorgeous isn’t it?

October 7, 2016; my first class at Sewtizen, Wangsa Melawati. A nice fabric and notion shop which I would love to spend more time at if only it’s not on the other side of Klang Valley.

October 15, 2016; my first class at The Craftsical, Bandar Baru Bangi. Joinly operated by Abby of SarangCraft and Nina Primus. Beaufiful spacious place with fantastic natural light to unleash some creative flow. Congrats Abby and Nina for the venture. For those in search of craft classes, check out The Craftsical on Instagram for their class schedule. 

I’ve dabbled with heat tranfer vinyl and made personalized T’shirts with them. I do take orders for personalized T’shirts with heat transfer vinyl starting from RM25 (depending on design and type of HTV used) Drop me a line if you are interested to have some customized T’shirt made.

November

Joined forces with Mastura Mustaffa aka Rimaumanja for some children craft activities at Muzium Negara on 12 and 13 November 2016.

I have established a regular class at Spotlight, The Mines for knitting and basic sewing. Basic sewing class starts at RM50 for 2 hours especially targetted to those who have not used a sewing machine before. It covers the basics of a sewing machine and how to get started sewing with a sewing machine. My knitting class for regular knitters starts at RM20 for 2 hours. Class normally starts around 10.30am to 12.30pm. It’s biweekly on wednesdays second and third week of the month.

I was again asked to do a Brother’s sewing machine promotion on Go Shop on 21 November 2016. Here’s a group photo of us post live show with the host, Akma Abdullah.

I made new dress for Arwen and a lounge pants for Danial with cotton knit. Bought a nice black print cotton fabric and made Danial’s prayer robe using his old prayer robe as reference. I didn’t quite nail the v collar but it’s passable. Arwen wanted a pencil skirt which she calls her office skirt while trying to explain it to me. I made her one with the leftover cotton knit from her earlier dress.

My first class for Silhouette and heat transfer vinyl. It was priced at RM80 inclusive of t’shirt of your choice and HTV. I’ll be doing some more classes for this in 2017, إن شاء الله .

December:

I made a bunch of this phone pillows and put them at a friend’s booth recently. It’s a phone rest if you’re still wondering what it is. I’m selling them at RM10 each. Let me know if you’re interested in them. 

I made a thank you product tag for my custom t’shirt to have the care instructions for the vinyl. Love the play time with my Silhouette Portrait. I’m also selling my services for custom price tags or thank you tags cut out with Silhouette. I used good quality Kraft paper and thick cardstock.

Testing out some cake toppers. My test partner is Midnight Bakery. Check out their IG for seriously tasty assortment of brownies and butter cakes.

I’ve joined a fantastic group of sewists recently on Facebook and they’ve organized a loop giveaway which I took part as one of the vendor. Check out @modernsewistsmy or my instagram and look out for this photo to take part in the giveaway. There’s still time and it closes on January 8, 2017. There’s five loops in different colours. Follow them all to increase your chance to win a total of RM500 gift cards! 

I’m not much of a scrapbooker or a paper crafter but I’d still give a hand on it because papercraft is something I can do with my daughter. This is a simple mini accordion album my daughter and I worked on to document our short family trip to Taiping. 

 My daughter is one who love to wear accessories. Once when we passed Pandora boutique in Alamanda, she told me that she loves Pandora charm bracelet. Wow! I was dumbfounded. I myself don’t own one yet she expressed preference to one. So I took out my wirecraft bag and made her a simple charm bracelet with whatever charms and beads that I have. Good thing she doesn’t mind if it’s just Mom’s made so long as she gets to wear some jewelry.

Last project for the year I think, a new school backpack for my daughter. Do you know how ridiculously expensive a schoolbag is? Especially that with licenced Disney characters? I’m too stingy to spend money on one but don’t mind the arm wrestling I got putting this bag together. This bag is cost me nothing because everything is from my stash. It’s my first time experimenting with flex foam from Legacy which I bought from Spotlight sometime ago. I love how well it helped the bag keep its structure. Elsa image is printer on printable heat transfer material Arwen’s name is cut out from glitter vinyl. The bag measures 13” height by 10” width with 4” depth. I’ve read up somewhere in the internet on how to get the correct size for a backpack. Basically, you measure from the bottom of your neck to the top of hip to get the length. It is small for Malaysian standard schoolbag I guess but my daughter doesn’t have to carry all her books to school. She has a cubbie to keep her books at school.

2016 Summary:

الحمد لله I’m grateful for what I’ve accomplished for 2016. I’ve grown into sharing what little knowledge I have and evolved as a teacher; a turn of event that I did not foresee. I am humbled to see how the craft community has grown over the years and the presence of new and talented crafters with their creation. I feel old and ancient noticing how young the age group in the craft scene. I counter that with my thirst for knowledge. This year, I took up leather bag making and natural henna drawing. If you check out my instagram, you’d see some random henna drawing and my canvas is of course my daughter’s hands and mine. I would love to expand this art and do more henna drawing but for the time being, I’ve not figured out how to go about doing it yet. I’ll keep that incubated in the meantime and do more practise.

Well, that’s it folks. Thank you for stopping by. I would love to hear from you if you’ve read any of my post or when did you first follow my blog or I ni syok sendiri ke... 

Here’s wishing everybody Happy New Year 2017!

September Run Through

Opps! I didn’t again. I missed out on my blog post for the whole September. OK, lets see if I can round up my activities in a single entry.

Heat Transfer Material

I found a t’shirt supplier online that also provided heat transfer materials. They cater for the custom design t’shirt makers I think but they also accept small orders from the likes of me. So I got some t’shirts for the kids and myself and personalised them.

Danial loves his Star Wars storm trooper Elite Squad t'shirt

Arwen loves her Frozen’s Elsa t’shirt too

 Baby Announcement Pillows

I still make them. There’s a bunch of them delivered to the respective owners. Thank you for your support. I hope you love receiving the pillows as much as I love making them for you. Here’s one that I made recently. You can check out the others in my instagram: @madebyrozirahman.

 Dar Salam’ s To Know Malaysia Exhibition

This happened on the first of September. Arwen is representing the state of Melaka. I cannot make her nyonya kebaya and the ones I found online is ridiculously expensive. So,  we settled for the traditional baju kurung. I love the cheerful and bright floral motive and the contrast of her orange sarung, don’t you?

 School Merdeka Celebration.

Everybody was supposed to wear a traditional costume. Arwen’s baju raya isn’t quite traditional so I had to whip something up only after I made her a baju kurung. This time we went for baju kurung kedah. I obviously I messed up some measurement, it came out slim fitting. The sarung is from her baju raya peplum.

DIY Laminated Fabric

I bought Legacy’s Vinyl Fuse Matte during one of Spotlight’s storewide sale and got it for 40% less. I’ve always wanted to make my own laminated fabric because one, the ready ones are expensive and two, I’m limited to the designs the store has. It isn’t too difficult to make your own laminated fabric; just follow the instructions and you can make your own. I made a simple wristlet purse from one of my earlier stash of Woodland Creatures.

My First Lace Shawl

I’ve always shy away from knitting lace as I’m a sanguine when it comes to crafting. You need to be someone rather Phelgmatic and Melancholic to actually be able to follow the pattern religiously. But then, I get bored easily if it’s all knit or all purl or occasionally ribbing, (that’s the problem with a Sanguine) so I challenge myself to make my first lace shawl.

I got the free pattern from Ravelry. It’s called ASHTON Shawlette. I could have made it with one ball of sock yarn but I made an extra row of the pattern and I had to get another ball of yarn. I was careful to use lifeline and had to frog my work several times too. Thank God for lifelines!

Air Dry Succulent

Always a sucker to pick up a new craft, I went for an air dry succulent workshop conducted by Schila Iskandar, a fellow ACG member. I love it! No issue of my plant dying if I forget to water them.

After call, I bought all the materials needed for more succulents and I made some more. For the next few days I was in succulent heaven :)

Heat Transfer Vinyl

After the successful trial and error experiment with printable heat transfer material, I ordered some heat transfer vinyl. Danial needs a new bag for school so I thought I’d give a try and make his backpack. I duplicated the storm trooper design I did for his t’shirt and cut it out with my Silhouette Portrait. I added Danial’s name for the bag. Long story short, he absolutely love it!

Spotted in Cameron Highlands 

Wedding Gifts

School breaks are peak season for weddings. We had two wedding reception invitation. My go to wedding gift is embroidered couple’s towels. 

Henna Art Workshop 

Idayu, whom I know from a planner group on Facebook and Instagram is an expert henna artist and when she announced that she’d be doing a basic workshop for henna, I quickly contacted her and signed up. I was the eldest in the group when we had the workshop but one with zero knowledge! Luckily, Dayu really went down to basics and 101 of henna art from the way to roll the cello to how to draw the henna design. 

She gave each participants 2 cones of natural henna and I put them to good use and guess who is my canvas? I love the smell of natural henna and nowadays the henna artists would add essential oils into the henna mix. I love the ones Dayu made where she mixed lavendar essential oil into it. Arwen loves it too. It became a therapy for both Arwen and me. I doodle at least once a week when the henna stain clears up on my hand or Arwen. I’d do a new design.

Arwen’s 3 Way Bag

OK, last but not least for the month of September. Arwen wanted another bag too after seeing how Danial loves his backpack. So I took out my old Cath Kidston stash and made her a 3 way bag. It has 2 handles which she can carry like a tote and the long strap can be attached as a crossbody bag or a backpack.