Pâte FIMO

School holidays will be over soon. My older daughter has learned to sew as planned. Good. But there is another thing that she has learned. By herself, from tutorials in YouTube. It's about making handmade creations from polymer clay. She uses FIMO.

Here are some pretty things she made.

Love the blue macaron ring! She made that for me *happy!*

Kastengel NCC

We (my daughters and I) made these cheese cookies yesterday night and we had so much fun. As usual, the girls helped me working with the cookie cutters :) They were so happy. I chose the flower shapes (standard & tulip) because I knew my girls would love that idea. And yes, they did.

These cookies will make our festive days complete. Eid Mubarak!

Summer Tunic

From Stylish Dress Book: Wear with Freedom (but the copy in french). The pattern I used was "F". It's a dress but it can be used as a tunic. Wearing a belt on the tunic can give a different look.

I got the fabric from my visit at Marché Saint Pierre, Paris. It's cotton voile (voile de coton). So it's light and perfect for summer.

Note. Bagi yang ingin menjahit baju-baju longgar panjang atau baju-baju muslim, buku Stylish Dress Book yang ini cocok deh. Yang pola aslinya lengan pendek bisa dimodifikasi jadi lengan panjang (atau pas dipakai bisa di-double dengan dalaman kaos lengan panjang - tapi tergantung modelnya sik...). Trus, info dari teman, katanya kalau beli buku-buku menjahit Jepang mendingan di Periplus daripada di ols FB karena perbedaan harganya lumayan. Yang di Periplus udah yg versi bahasa Inggris pulak (tapi mungkin masih terbatas koleksinya dibanding yang versi bahasa asli Jepang).

Tutti Frutti Bag

Do you know U-Handbag blog by Lisa Lam? Yes. It has so many interesting free tutorials of bag making (thank you, Lisa). Last year, one tutorial that really caught my attention was The Graceful Kelly Bag tutorial. I loved the fabrics she used and also the total style of the bag. I wanted to make one. Then I tried to find a purse frame from local shops (it means, from France). But I couldn't get the same frame like Lisa used on her blog but I found one that was on sale (important!). It was quite big, so I thought it would be fine. Not really Graceful Kelly Bag but fine. Ah yes, I bought that frame in January 31, 2012 (I found the receipt :D)

I  tried to follow Lisa's tutorial and used the pattern (Graceful Kelly Bag). And yes, I was silly. My purse frame was not matched. And I was not brave enough to modify the pattern even though I saw the how-to on Lisa's blog. I was newbie on bag making... Scared too much! And at that time, I chose a wrong fabric, I couldn't find the woven fusible interfacing and I was still confused with the term of fusible fleece (learning from english language blogs and books but shopping the tools and notions from french shops - different terms were confusing for me). So I dropped it.

And at the end of the year (2012), I wanted to try again. I started to understand more about different types of interfacings used for bag making. And I found a fabric that looked similar to Lisa's. So, a piece of pretty blue floral japanese cotton fabric was shipped from... Japan. When it was finally arrived, oh it was so soft. Too pretty. "How if I fail again?". I was nervous. So I dropped it again.

Until last Tuesday night. I decided to give it a try. This time for real! At the beginning, I was a bit confused with the fabrics. Changing decision couple times. Finally I decided to take the Tutti Frutti fabric from Vera Bradley for the outer and another Vera Bradley's fabric for the lining. I drafted my own pattern following the shape of the purse frame. Then everything was just running well...

And I was surprised with the result. J'adore!

This bag can fit one standard novel book, my wallet, my cellphone, one pocket tissue, my sun glasses and my home keys. Perfect for my me-time mate on summer!

* All fabrics were bought at Handmade Source on Etsy (China based). The purse frame was from one french online shop that doesn't exist anymore. The chain was from Au Fil d'Emma shop in my city. The interfacings used: Vlieseline G710 and H630.