I want to eat these!

Who likes burger? French fries, or cakes? One weekend we had a walk on a night market here to trip some street foods (yes, I love them). I want to share to you what we have got before we finally reached the place.

The burger...we bought two. One for me and one for my husband. At first I thought they were beef burger but I was wrong.

The yummy cakes....again, must be two (because half is not enough for me).

The french fries...we got only one because it was the best-seller then and almost nothing left but only one.

The hotdog in a bun...we bought only one since the hotdog was jumbo.

The sandwiches...nothing so much to say but I love them although I was looking then for a clubhouse sandwich. We bought two kinds of sandwiches.

We spent half an hour to that peddler on the street before we head up to our final destination. While we were walking, I kept on looking to these foods we bought. And then suddenly I told my husband that I want to keep these foods forever for collection.

So here they are again and I will indeed keep them in my closet:

For sure you have the idea what are those foods. They are one truly cute and amazing food miniatures. If you could only see them in actual, you would feel the desire to own one for yourself, too. For you see how small they are, here is a capture with my mobile phone:

They are so cute, aren't they? My friend said there is a store just across where we live which sells these kind of stuff so definitely one of these days we will be going there and check for more in addition to this collection and I will post them, too when I got new ones..

By the way, they are made of rubber. Thanks for looking!

Another sets of lucky star paper strips

Here is another quick look of my new sets of paper strips for my lucky star paper folding. My husband bought these for me (actually I asked him to**LOL). I almost ran out of stock here in my cabinet so I terribly requested for these.

So now I have more than 20 packs of these paper strips in different designs and colors. I am so crazy about these strips not only because I love making lucky stars but also because the designs are amazingly cute and so attractive.

I have these two huge transparent feeding bottles (not the real baby bottles**) which the finished lucky stars are kept. These bottles gave to me by one of our church friends here...actually these are candy jars. They are almost overflowing and I am now looking for another jars which can accommodate my upcoming more stars.

This is my fourth time that I make a post about my lucky stars. You can check my labels, "lucky stars" to check my other posts. I have some instructions there on how to make such. Also, I shared a video which I grab from a source.

I am quite busy now reconstructing my Dress Up Your Blogs (because I moved it to a self-hosted site) that is why I cannot give much time to these hobby for now. I just want to share to you my new sets. Thank you for looking and hope you give yourself a try for lucky stars. This is fun, I swear.

Collection Fever - Used Recharge Cards

What shall I do with these used phone cards? I don't know. I am just "sick" and not tired of collecting things although sometimes the things I used to collect are total scrap. That is why I called myself a "scrapper"..... a digital scrapper.

I have started collecting these used mobile recharge cards three years ago, the first time I enter Taiwan. At first I never had an intention of collecting these cards because in the first place they were of no use after all. But because I have a tendency to be a collector of everything, I decided not to dispose and keep them instead. These were the cards where me and my husband used for almost three years. They are more than 150 recharge cards in all. There are times I am thinking and I even ask my husband what is the best thing to do with these scraps. I can't even display them or make income out of them, instead they only remind of how much $$ we have spent for such cards but of course they were worth because we used those cards to call our kids in the Philippines.

Until now I am still keeping our used recharge cards because who knows, these could make something big in the future. So, what can you suggest to make these cards, let us say, of good and creative use? (aside from throwing them away!)

I am thinking of making a hanging wind chime out of them; making holes by puncher and hang them together by ring binders. What do you think? Hope you can give me some ideas, too.

Think, think, and think more, Grace....

Doraemon - The Lucky Stars

Last weekend, I tried to look for another paper strips for my lucky stars. I was totally run out and I have to look again for another packs. And for the first time, I saw some sets of Doraemon paper strips and I was jumping for excitement because I love Doraemon so much and I want him to be my lucky stars.

I am pretty confident, everybody knows Doraemon. He is a friend and servant robotic cat of Nobita Nobi in a Japanese anime series. I have known and started following Doraemon since in my elementary years. I remember there was a local TV series translated into a Tagalog version of this anime cartoon and I watched it every afternoon. (Image above courtesy of Wallpaper Nephco.com)

I wanted to buy a dozen of this pack but unfortunately three design colors are available; blue, violet, and yellow. I bought three packs for a while and just get back to that store (even with the same colors) if I run out again (but hoping to have another design colors when I get back). These sets differ from my previous paper strips because they are little bit larger in width. They are more floppy than my usual paper strips but still they are so cute and very attractive. This is the first time I bought this kind of paper strip size for my lucky stars. I am more comfortable folding the smaller paper strips but this size is not that bad, as a matter of fact, lucky stars are even look bumpy and visible.

Here are three samples of the stars I made from these packs. I will start folding again during my free time. I love the colors and the texture of this pack so I am looking for more colors of this pack. My big transparent feeding jar is almost overflowing so I have to look for another jar for my lucky stars. Next time, I will show you my jar and imagine how many lucky stars I already made.

If you want to see how to make these origami lucky stars, please visit my post How to Make Origami Lucky Stars. And if you want to read more about my lucky stars, you can visit The Beginning of my Lucky Stars blog post.

Hope you like my another set of lucky stars. Hopefully, I can make some tips or tutorial on how to make or create paper strips of your own out of your colored magazine pages to be used as a start for your lucky star folding. Just get back to this page and I will try to make such for you.

Happy folding everybody!

Collection Fever - Tiny Creatures

I am so fascinated with these little tiny creatures. They are of no use but I love to collect them. I love seeing them at the top of my CPU. They are not ceramic. They are merely made from plastic. Their sizes are almost just the same with my thumb.

I did not bought them. They aren't gift either. They are just free items from the convenient store near in our place. The store is called, Family Mart (like Seven Eleven). For every purchase of NT$50 (more or less Php70), you are given 1 sticker. And for every 20 pieces of stickers, you are entitled to get one free miniature of something like this. Did you know that it takes time for me to accumulate 20 stickers? I got these six pieces more or less for one year but still I am hoping to get more of this in the coming months. So far I have more than 20 pieces of stickers now which are ready to be claimed for another kind of free souvenir item. This coming weekend, I will go and redeem another little guy to be added in this parade of tiny creatures.

My 6-year Old Crossstitch

I want to introduce you to my 6-year old crossstitch. Yes, this canvas is already in its 6 years in the making and until now I am not yet finish. This is my Last Supper and it measures 36.9" x 16" in 14 count Ecru Aida cloth.

I started working on this on the later part of year 2004 and until now I am still working on this. You might wonder why it takes so long for me to finish this one. The reason --> I am not full time in doing this. I just give it an one hour or two a night and sometimes not. So I am expecting not to finish it in just couple of months unlike my other crossstitch works (The Wedding, Adonis, Holy Family, Mother and child, etc) which only takes two-four months in the making. Let me show you my working paraphernalia for my Last Supper:

But you know what, crossstitching is my favorite hobby which I cannot live without. I started doing this when I was in fourth year high school and I never stop doing this until now. So its been 14 years of crossstitching and I tell you I can crossstitch even in closed-eyes (exaggz!).

So, what are these things. You can see I have two boxes. These boxes are where the threads, the needles, scissor, and the bobbins are kept. I want my things organized so I make sure I have boxes which can accommodate all these small paraphernalia especially for the threads. Here are single capture all these paraphernalia:

DMC threads. This pattern composes of almost 58 different colors of DMC thread.




The pattern. This pattern comes in colored and not in photocopy. This is an original crossstitch pattern from DMC.


The Bobbins are where the DMC threads are rolled and numbered. These comes in different colors.


The scissor, the needles, and the pin cushion.




So, those are the paraphernalia I used to work for my Last Supper crossstitch. I am hoping that this coming year, I can finish this and be framed. I am planning to place this in our dining room. Hayyz, our house actually looks like a one small museum because of these big framed crossstitches. And when I finish my Last Supper, this could be additional. But I am planning to give some of those to my mother because she loves my crossstitches so much.

My husband actually promised me to shoulder the framing fee and that is a good news for me... I will keep you updated about my Last Supper...cheers:)

How to Make Origami Lucky Star

Okay, like what I have promised in my previous post that I will tell you the instructions on how to make those lucky stars. I scanned the actual instructions in each pack of these paper strips I bought but unluckily only sketch pictures are being shown, no word instructions. This is how the instructions look like:

I don’t know why there are no instructions in words. Perhaps for some, these are clear but frankly the first time I saw the instructions, I did not understand them; probably because that time I was new to origami. To make things clear for some who do not also understand the picture instructions, I will provide my own steps in reference to the scanned instructions above. I hope you can understand the steps I will be giving you.

1. Get single paper strip, usually with a size of 258mm by 10mm. This is the size of the paper strip I used but I guess these papers come in different sizes. Tie it like a knot at the end of the paper.

2. Fold the excess or cut it off. But you can estimate the length of the strip in tying like a knot just enough to hide the other end of the strip.

3. Holding the longer part of the strip, fold it and wrap facing the printed part (the back of the strip is plain white) following the sides of a pentagon-like you are forming.

4. Turn it over to fold and wrap again just like in step 3.

5. Repeat the step 4 over and over again until you reach the end of the paper strip.

6. To close the folding, tuck the last tip of the strip into the pouch. If in case the excess is too much, you can fold it to hide or cut.

7. Then you will end up having a flat pentagon shape-like.

8. Hold firm but not too tight, make a gently pinch pushing inward on the five center of the pentagon edge.

9. From a flat folded pentagon shape-like, you will get a fatty star which they call “lucky”.

I have scanned also the instructions in the other pack I have. This could be another steps you can refer in relation to the first set of instructions.

But here is the best tutorial I could give you. I found this video tutorial online from 5min.com and for me this is the best and clear picture of the instructions.

There you have it. Now it’s time for you to practice making one. I advise you to make use of recyclable colored magazine page or anything if this is your first time to try, otherwise you will ended like me during my first try.

Here are some of my paper strip collection:


which turned into these lovely lucky stars:

Anyway, each pack does not cost more, as a matter of fact it only costs Taiwan Dollar NT$10 (USD$0.30) per 100 pieces of strips with ten different designs. Not bad, right? I don’t have to design, print, and cut because these strips are extremely affordable. I am still planning to buy and collect more of these paper strips for my lucky star collection. Have fun!

The Beginning of my Lucky Stars

The very first time I visited a bookshop in Taipei called Kingston, I saw some bunch of colorful paper strips which caught my attention and curiosity. At first glance, I never had an idea to what these papers were intended for. And I discovered that they were used for paper folding like origami or something because each pack has instructions which I did not understand exactly how to follow. What I knew was these were used to make stars, bumpy and fatty colorful stars. Believe it or not, I was being impulsive that time to buy dozens of these tiny pieces of paper strips which in fact I did not know yet how to work with. When I got home, I could not wait to give myself a try following the picture instructions at the back of each pack. And you know what, I almost wasted one whole pack but I still could not get and see the real star. My patience then almost gone and I ended up my day very disappointing.

Two days after that day, a friend of ours who lived in Taipei for almost 10 years came over to our apartment and I mentioned to her about these paper strips I bought. She almost laughed at me when she saw my wasted paper strips and the finished deformed stars I made. That day she invited me to her apartment to see her collection. I was amazed when she let me see her big transparent plastic jar with full of stars made out of those paper strips which almost ruined my day in trying to learn even just one piece of star. I got so excited more to learn seriously about this paper folding. And I did learn. I actually did. Since then I kept on folding here, folding there. It's been almost two years since I started making my own lucky stars and I let this passion pass to some of my friends who are enjoying now more than I do. They are so cute, aren’t they? Try for yourself also. It is fun and another useful and creative way of “killing time”.

Please come back to my blog for in my next post I will tell you the instructions how to make such lucky stars. I will also show you some samples of the paper strip designs I have bought couple of weeks ago. I have bunch of these paper strip collection and I am willing to share my works to you.

Before I end up, if you will ask me why they are called "Lucky Stars", well, me either do not know. I will try to find out.

P.S. I used captured images of my actual lucky stars so far I have in my jar. For two years in the making, I already made thousands of lucky stars, I guess but I gave some of them to my friends.

If you are in this kind of hobby, I would appreciate if you let me see your works too. I would love to visit your blog...cheers:)