Living in Singapore, Chinese New Year is obviously one of the biggest celebrations of the year, if not the biggest. I started thinking of all the craziness that goes into preparing for the holiday and how sometimes the kids can be lost in the stress. As a child I was petrified of the lion dance and I thought I’d come up with a project that could get children not to be so scared about it. My dragon puppet, to be fair, looks 50% lion and 50% dragon but it is 100% fun! The project is designed to be made with your children in toe!
Let me know if you had fun making this with the kids!
So I’ve really been enjoying DIYing on my new Youtube channel. If you have subscribed, please do. There are already 136, 000 views, so I’d love to have you there too!
There shoes are inspired by Jimmy Choo’s Floresse heels and will take you just 15 minutes to stitch together. You can watch the whole video here:
Hey Guys, I recently shot this DIY for my new radio station’s online TV channel. I love how it turned out and you can also take a nosy at my room here in Singapore.
Hope you like it. Subscribe to my Youtube channel for more.
I fell in LOVE with the Dev top by Rebecca Minkoff top but it was way too pricey for me to buy. I don’t know how long off-the-shoulder will be in fashion (I find the style very flattering so I hope for a long time).
For this you will need: Black and white patterned fabric, thread, sewing machine, fabric scissors, tissue paper, tailors chalk, pins, safety pin and thin white elastic.
Start by cutting the pattern out of paper tissue.
The larger rectangle for the body measures 62cm by 35cm. You will need to cut 2 of these out.
For the frill cut 2 pieces of 61cm and 20cm.
Pin the tissue paper pattern to the fabric
Cut around the rectangles.
Put the frill rectangle pieces and body pieces together, right sides facing in. Sew the side seams with a 2cm seam allowance. Zig zag stitch one edge of each piece of the fabric and iron over and stitch to form the tube for the elastic.
Thread the elastic through both sets of tubes using the elastic and a safety pin.
Hem both the pieces and then mark halfway into the chest and back and stitch some tiny stitches along the existing seam made for the elastic.
So I finally got my MAC back! YAY! And to celebrate I not only wanted to blog a DIY, I wanted to gift it to you. If you live in Singapore you could win this clutch that I bought all the way from Australia.
You’ll need an envelope clutch (mine is from an Op shop), tweed fabric, chain, needle and thread in black, glue gun and sticks and sewing scissors.
Place the envelope clutch onto the tweed and cut around it, leaving a 3.5cm excess.
Glue the fabric onto the envelope clutch with the hot glue gun and fold the edges in and glue them down also.
Now cut strips of the remnant of the fabric for that Chanel-esque look.
Glue these on and hand stitch the chain on top.
And that’s it!
To win this, you must live in Singapore.
You need to follow me on Snapchat @simoneheng, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. Once you’ve done that, simply comment in the comment section below with your email ID.
Contest closes Sunday 13th September. Winner will be notified by email.
Lunch bags and plaid have been around for a while now but I never thought to do a DIY until I saw this very fashion-forward fabric from Spotlight.
You will need: Sewing machine, matching thread to fabric, sewing scissors, tartan/plaid fabric, tailors chalk, pins, existing clutch to trace off.
Fold the fabric in half and make sure you match the lines up. Trace around the clutch you have leaving a seam allowance of 1cm. You can see below that I also placed the fold of the fabric layers at the base of the bag so instead of having 2 pieces, It’s just 1 long rectangle.
Pin the pieces and cut around.
Zig zag stitch all the raw edges.
Folding the fabric in half, right sides together, sew the 2 side seams. Hem the top of the bag.
And that’s it! I filled the bag with a rectangle beauty case to make it more sturdy and then roll the top of the bag over to wear.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with making lots of jams and preserves. Some are easy to make in the microwave like my lemon curd and some require more traditional methods.
You will need:
20 standard size roses (red/dark ones give a great finished colour but I only had pink in the garden).
1 1/2 cups of sugar
3 Tablespoons of lemon juice
4 1/2 cups of water
1/2 packet of Jamsetta (available at most supermarkets)
Remove all the rose petals and wash thoroughly, cut away any white or hard parts.
Bring the water to boil and add in the rose petals.
Simmer until the petals lose their colour, then add in the sugar and lemon juice.
Once the sugar is dissolved, strain the petals (keep aside) from the liquid. It should look like this.
Put it back into the pot and add jamsetta and watch it thicken.
Finally add the rose petals back in and mix until the texture forms a runny jelly. It won’t be like store bought jam but the consistency will be rather runnier.
I am heading back into the warm weather! I am so excited to be moving country again. So to celebrate, what could be better than an off-the-shoulder top. Gingham is one of the biggest trends for Spring/Summer 2015 according to Elle and Vogue.
This top is so easy and comfy to wear! You just need to make sure you match your squares for a professional-looking finish.
You’ll need gingham fabric (available at almost any fabric store), sewing machine, fabric scissors, elastic and matching thread.
Start by creating your pattern on some tissue paper. You need to create one long rectangle and 2 smaller ones. When pinning your pattern make sure you fold the fabric in half on itself and match the squares. This way you’ll have a total of 2 sides for your body piece and 4 for your sleeves.
Sew the pieces together until you have 3 tubes with small hems also created for threading through your elastic.
Ones you’ve threaded the 3 tubes, simply sew tiny stitches together to fuse the arms to the body tube.
Happy DIYing! Thanks to Paula Fitzgerald of Charles and Violet for the images and for my Mum’s dog Charlie for making a cameo in this shoot!
