greenstore

Good morning all!  I'm now one of the product reviewers at the Greenstore in Singapore. We review and rate green products with a Green rating system, and tell you where you can purchase them.  

Greeny Crafters 15 - Memoryseed

I'm back and it's May Day tomorrow (which basically means an off day for me and the family). How are you spending your May Day? I'll be waking up early and packing a picnic for my family to enjoy with friends at the park at Bishan. Fingers crossed it won't rain!!

This week's Greeny Crafter is the lovely Far from Memoryseed. Far is from Malaysia which is just across the border from Singapore, but she's now living in Iowa, USA with her American hubby of 4 years and an active and naughty 20 month old.  That's very far from her home country, and (like me) I'm sure she misses it!


A little bit about Far

"Growing up as an airforce brat, we moved around a lot from base to base around the country, but one thing remained constant: my mom was always into making things and she sometimes taught other airforce wives at their club whenever she was free. I remember her knotting and macrame projects, patchworking, quilting, cross-stitch and so on. I was always fascinated by this but also intimidated, but I did love to raid her fabric stash and made small sewing projects like pouches and zippered pencil case and such, by hand."

Silk skirt to blouse!

How Far got into refashioning

Far first discovered thrift shopping when she was living and working in the Southern Philippines as a young peaceworker - "Working for non-profit organizations meant very (VERY) little disposable income, so my local friends introduced me to the fun world of "ukay-ukay" shopping! :) There are many types of ukay-ukay shopping experience over there - from a nicely arranged rows and rows of clothes shop type (like the usual thrift/consignment stores we can find here in the US) to the Asian wet market style of dumping everything in a big lump under a tarp by the roadside for the shoppers to dive in to. Until then, I've never known that there's such a thing as thrift shopping, other than watching US/foreign movies where people have yard sales and go to flea markets.

But refashioning is new to me. Just as sewing garment and sewing using a sewing machine are new to me. But it was the want to refashion that driven me to want to learn sewing my own garment, and made me conquer my fear of sewing machines (which is another long story). Fast forward many MANY years, i have a lot of old clothes that I can't seem to let go of and dreamt of using them in a different way (since straight up wearing them is an impossibility after having a baby unfortunately, and I did not know that it is called refashioning/upcycling at the time). I started googling "sewing clothes" online when bored at work and stumbled upon many blogs doing DIYs including Wardrobe Refashion (which was just closing down when I found it) and it was about then that I learn of the word "refashion". "

Far's Projects
My first projects were mainly large tshirts to tops that I saw other DIYers online made, or shrunken wool sweaters into infinity scarves, jeans into shopping bags/lunch bags, all pre blogging. I started my blog I called Memoryseed, in October 2011 to document my projects/personal journey to learn to sew my own clothes, where I also posted some of my sewing related refashion/upcycle stuff. I also share my refashion projects on Refashion Co-op and recently Recycled-Fashion. I love them! A treasure trove of inspiration IMHO. 

Top faves!!

You won't believe what this beautiful tote was
made from - have a guess before you click on the pic!!

 

Teal silk tie front top from a baggy shirt.

This beauty was made from an old long coat. I'm loving
the vintage feel to it! Unfortunately, Singapore is too
hot for coats, or jackets for that matter :-(

Thank you to Far for participating in Greeny Crafters. Far asked me whether I have much luck meeting Greeny Crafters in Singapore? Well, so far I've "stumbled" upon two, but I'm sure there are lot more out there - need to search more :-)

Taking a break this week...

Hello friends! I'll be taking a break this week because of work commitments. Was pondering between rushing out a few blog posts inbetween the assignments or postponing it all until next week.  Anyway, I decided on the latter and think it's the best because we all know that we don't work too well under immense stress!


So, til next week!


Greeny Crafters will resume next week too :-)


Happy crafting!


Agy

New energy audit apps!

Just launched - NEA Energy Audit and Life Cycle Cost Calculator so we can monitor our energy consumption. But I don't have an iPhone, only android....

Energy Saving Thermos Pot

     [(1) put all your ingredients into the pot; (2) boil for 30 mins with lid on!; (3) pop the inner pot into the outer container immediately and snap the lid shut!!]

Here are some pics of my Thermos pot as promised! Mongs from My Thrifty Closet was wondering how I could cook and work. Well, I have home help and a supportive hubby, and I do rely a lot on my Thermos Pot especially when it comes to making stews and soups. You see, Chinese soups requires hours of boiling (morning til night) and mummies (or grandmas!) would have to keep watch over the stove to ensure that the soup wouldn't boil over.  With my handy Thermos pot I don't need to do that. I just boil the soup for 30mins and then pop the pot into the the Thermos, snap shut the lid and I don't touch it until 9 hours later! Everything is cooked and still hot!  I've had it for 12 years now and it still looks brand new :-)

I wanted to calculate how much energy would be saved but I had trouble finding out how to calculate it in the first place. Hope your convinced about the energy savings, and I think it is an alternative to the Wonderbags I blogged about earlier. 

No Sew Old T-shirt Bag 舊 T變 tote bag

It's nice to see designers in places like Hong Kong who believe in refashioning. Check out these videos of Janko and Eileen, Hong Kong designers, showing you how to make flowers (布碎變襟花) from scraps and a tote bag from an old T-shirt (舊 T變 tote bag).  I would love to try out the flowers as embellishments but I'm not sure about the tote as it might be a bit too stretchy for me.


Follow the link (there are 2 videos).  Although they are speaking in Cantonese, you can follow what they're doing through the videos very easily.  


Happy refashioning!!

Greeny Crafters 14 - Shoe String Pavilion

My gosh, this week has been like a typhoon. No time to think or refashion or do any recycled crafts, or even relax. I really don't know how moms with more than 1 kid manage to stay calm and look beautiful all at once - ladies, you're amazing!!!


Today's Green Crafter is a Swede, Titti of Shoe String Pavilion, who lives in Texas, USA. Somehow, I thought of the cowboy hat - am I stereotyping?   This lovely Swedish lady (who has very penetrating blue eyes, mind you) has been  married to her American sweetheart for 8 years now and has two wonderful kids. Texas must be a contrast to the colder weather in her native country!!

I think I failed....

I've been really busy. Practically the whole week has been full-time when I'm supposed to be on part-time so had to leave all the groceries to hubs, who wasn't really convinced with the challenge. BUT, at least we had home cooking. Then today, I purchased an inflatable globe (for my son) from a friend who was clearing out the stock of her mum's shop which had closed down.  Think I have to start over.  Well, here are some photos:

Homemade bread  - yummy! This lasted 4 days.
Then we had homemade waffles for breakfast -
premade and put in the freezer.

Lunch on Monday.

Somebody changed the lights!

Something awesome is happening in our office! Well on my floor to be exact!  The technicians came to change all the lights to energy -saving LEDs!!  Am I using too many exclamation marks? Well, it was exciting to see them go round the office and install the new lights. They are 19watt lights instead of the 36watt lights we usually had. According to the technician, they last 10,000 hours and cut down on half the energy used. Woo hoo - but that doesn't mean we should leave the lights on during lunch time. Remember to switch off the lights :-)

LEDs out!

Spot the difference!

Greeny Crafter 13 - Recreation Station

Easter came and went. Unfortunately, we don't have Easter Monday off like they do overseas - oh, I really dragged myself out of bed this morning and I think I'll be dragging my feet into work later this afternoon. OK, think positive!!!! 

Well, I can't be lazy as I need to introduce my next Greeny Crafter, Steph of Recreation Station!  Over to Steph now!

Trying Mindful Consumption

Okay, I think so far this challenge has been.... a CHALLENGE!!!  Before I took this on, I wasn't making the extra effort to purchase local produce. So far, I haven't bought any clothing, well, I haven't bought any clothing since I can't remember when, and have been refashioning. But, consciously making an effort to purchase local, organic or sustainable produce? Well.... I'm trying, although my hubby frowned a little when he looked at the prices of the organic stuff - to be honest, I think it would double my grocery budget. I'll have to look into that.

Okay, let's see what's happened yesterday and today in pictures:

Do I really, really, really, REALLY need this? :-)

Happy Easter everyone!  I signed up for "Mindful Consumption" of  Evon's DIY Lifestyle Challenge. 


Here's what I have to do. 

"New" bag from old bag

Managed to finish off my bag project. There were a few learning points from this. Firstly, was that I should have bought myself a good set of sewing needles for leather, and secondly was that instead of cotton thread, nylon thread would have been the better choice to sew the project together.  And thirdly (yes, there's lesson number 3!), my mum told me (when she visited and when she saw me struggling with it all) that I should sew on BOTH ends of the thread with two needles going in opposite directions so that I could pull on two ends (instead of one) and tighten the sewing - does that make sense?  

These are the before pics of my old tote bag - I bought it in HK and I love the colours but the seams were breaking, the lining has gone sticky and the bottom has turned splotchy.  It was too nice to throw away so I decided to make something out of it :-)

Here's the after:

 

Greeny Crafter 12 - Operation Overhaul

My gosh, where has March gone too and it's Good Friday next week! I remember telling a friend that with work and motherhood, life feels like a washing machine. I think I need a cycle that says "Relax" on it.  

Check out this quirky pair!!

This week's Greeny Crafters is a pair of sweet ladies from Singapore who love making pretty things. They are Juu and Ros of Operation Overhaul.  Juu & Ros started creating crafts before they set up the website and had very different styles despite sharing the same love for DIY. Their first project was a bodycon skirt created from one leg of a thrifted XXL pyjama pants.  Juu & Ros get their inspiration from everywhere -  other DIY blogs, Pinterest, magazines etc - "Anything can inspire you to come up with a creation! :) ". Nicely put!


Juu & Ros have a lovely range of refashion tutorials and also have posts on inspiration. Hop over and take a look. Here are two of my faves down below. Which are yours? :-)