Teacup Candles

Today I will be showing you how to make these cute teacup candles. It's a nice gift idea for someone who likes vintage things and scented candles. All you need are teacups, old candles, chop sticks, and a pot to melt the wax.

You don't have to buy a new expensive set of teacups for this project. I found these teacups in a thrift store near our house.

And I found these old candlesticks in our cupboard. Nobody uses them anyway. First, melt the old candlesticks in a pot or sauce pan.

Make sure to save the wick. Wind it around a pair of chopsticks and place it on top of the teacup. This will keep the wick stable while you are pouring the hot wax.

Add a few drops of essential oils if you want your candle to be scented. After pouring the hot wax, let it cool.

And when it's completely cool, light up your candle!

There you have it. I prefer using vanilla or coffee extract for a yummier scent. And you can even add food coloring to make it look like a real drink.

Let me know what you think of this cute DIY project. :)

Pin It Pinas! A Community of Content Curators in the Philippines

Hey guys! I just came from an awesome vacation in Guam. I really love it there and I already miss how laid back that place is. But enough about Guam, because today I'm here to talk about Pinterest!

I am pretty sure you already know what Pinterest is, but in case you haven't heard of it, it's a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save ideas.

Sounds fun right? Here is an example of what you can do with Pinterest:

Last year, my sisters and I planned a surprise party for our mom's 60th birthday and I was in charge of the decor. I made a special Pinterest board where I can compile all the inspiration from the invites, to decor, and down to the table setting.

You can set boards on Pinterest as public, which can be viewed by anyone, or secret, which can only be viewed by you and your selected pinners. 

               Follow Catherine Reyes's board Mama's Birthday on Pinterest.    

This board helped me pull together an awesome party for our Mom. And here's the outcome! You can read the article on Katha Magazine.

Pinterest will be featuring my Crafts board on their homepage. You can view my DIY projects that I made in the past, and also my other pins that served as inspiration. When you click a pin, it will lead you to where the site the photo came from so you can learn more about it.

               Follow Catherine Reyes's board Crafts on Pinterest.    

Click here to follow me on Pinterest and if you don't have an account yet, the first 10 people can sign up for an account with this link. This is available for a limited time only.

Happy pinning!

Pom Pom Cake Toppers

Hello friends! Yesterday was my birthday and I wasn't really planning to have an extravagant celebration because it was also Good Friday. But I still asked my sister to bake a cake for me so I can at least blow my birthday cake on my birthday. Hehe.

And of course, my birthday cake has to have some personal touch which is why I made these yarn pom pom cake toppers.

For the cake, we just made it with regular vanilla batter with buttercream frosting. While that one's chilling in the fridge, we made the pom poms.

You can actually make yarn pom poms with a fork. If you want to learn how to make them, click here. There are tons of tutorials that you will find on Pinterest. It's very easy!

And then, you can stick your pom poms on wooden skewers with hot glue. But in my case, our bamboo skewers were too thin so I decided to use plastic drinking straws instead.

And here's a bouquet of pom poms for you! Cut the tip of the straw diagonally so you can easily insert them on the cake. Paper straws will also work if you have the thick and sturdy ones.

Take the cake out of your fridge and decorate it with your awesome pom poms! 

Your regular white frosted cake just got colorful. I like how white the birthday cake is. It's like a blank canvas. And then the cake topper is the subject of the painting. Haha.

Let me know what you guys think of this tutorial. :) Spruce up your plain birthday cake with easy DIY pom pom cake toppers.

I'm Back!!! + DIY Wireless Flower Crown

Hello people! I am alive! After a 10-month hiatus, I am finally posting something on this blog. I have been so busy with work but enough excuses, I'm here! :)

For my comeback post, I am going to share with you a tutorial on how to make a wireless flower crown. My sister demonstrated this awesome DIY project and this has been put on hold since December 2014. Oops!

Also, I am not familiar with flower names, so I will just describe the flowers by shape, size and color. I might have to read more about the types flowers if all of a sudden I become interested in flower arranging.

The flowers that we used here came from the bouquet that was given to our mother for her birthday. So first, grab the small white flowers and make one long bundle by braiding the small stems.

Next, connect the two ends by tucking them inside the braid. This will be the base of your flower crown. The next steps will basically be tucking flowers in your base crown.

Cut the yellow flowers from its stem, maybe just leave about one or two inches of the stem. Then start tucking! We made sure that the yellow flowers were evenly spaced so that there's more room for the other kinds of flowers.

Tuck, tuck tuck...

Now moving on to another type of flower.

And finally, the roses.

To make the flower crown look very dainty, we added a bow at the bottom. That also came from the bouquet. Haha!

And there you have it! Technically, it will take you about 5-10 minutes to make one flower crown. But since my sisters and I were chatting while making this, it probably took us half an hour to finish.

Here it is! A lovely flower crown with no wire needed. That is my sister wearing the crown. I think it looks good on her and it fits her maroon top.

Let me know what you think of this project. :) Expect more posts from me this year. It's good to be back!

Muni Market Day x Katha Upcycled Craft Workshop

So last last Sunday June 1st, Jen Horn and the rest of the Muni team organized an awesome event called Muni Market Day. It's a community event for conscious consumption and mindful living.

Muni asked us to have an upcycling craft workshop at The Grove Rockwell. Geli and I taught the participants how to make bags and bracelets out of old shirts (posted the tutorial here on my blog). I am sharing with you photos of our workshop!

Photos by Geli Balcruz of Katha Magazine :)

The girls of Katha Magazine :)

Our craft kits are ready!

There's Rea, Mae-Ann and Patrick. He loved the batman shirt.

Van and April - two awesome ladies who came all the way from Cavite!

 The end product. Good job guys!

 Here are our lovely bracelets.

Outside were tents where you can shop, dine, and listen to live music.

And there's Jusa, KKK Coffee, Edgy Veggy, Lotus Pod and many more. 

Too bad I wasn't able to see all the pop-up shops because I had to leave early. I really wanted to buy healthy food! Anyway, that is all for now. I am looking forward to having another craft workshop with Muni next time!! :)

How To Make Bracelets Out Of Old Shirts

So what are you going to do with the scrap fabric that you used for the shirt bag? Turn them into shirt bracelets! You will need to cut the excess fabric into half inch strips then stretch them to make the edges curl. For this one, I had four strips and tied them altogether.

This type of knot is the Macrame knot. Take the rightmost string and make an L-shape. Then take your leftmost string and place it over the L.

Take the leftmost string under and then out to the "hole" on the right side. That will be your first knot.

Then just tighten the knot to bring it to the top.

Then do the same steps on the other side!

When you're done it will look like this.

You can also do a fishtail braid or a regular braid if you want your bracelet to be nice and simple :)

Again, I promise I will post photos of the craft project that we had for Muni Market Day. :) Stay tuned!

Making Bags From Old Shirts

Today I will show you how to make a bag out of an old shirt! You can keep this inside your bag and use it if you are going to the grocery store for some quick shopping.

Start with an old cotton shirt. Something that you can easily cut, like this shirt that I used to wear when I was still at the University... so and so pounds lighter.

Cut the collar and the sleeves for the bag handles. By this time your shirt should look like a tank top.

Cut a 3 or 4 inch slit on both sides of the bottom of the shirt.

Cut the bottom part of the shirt into half inch wide and 3 inch long strips. You should cut both the front and back sides of the shirt.

Final step: Tie each strip twice, like a square knot. When you are done, stretch the shirt a bit if you don't want the bottom of your bag to be too tight.

And here is the final product!

By the way, I did this project for Muni Market Day, which was on June 1st. I will post photos of the event soon!

Rainbow Loom Craze

Guess what I have been doing these past weeks...

I have been playing with my new toy! This Rainbow Loom trend is really making me crazy. I even bought a plastic divider to organize my rubber bands by color.

There are a lot of patterns and combinations that you can follow online but this one is easy. I saw this pattern on YouTube and they call it the "Frilly Braid". Before you make this, you should know how to do the fishtail braid and the inverted fishtail braid.

You will need:

25 pieces of blue bands

25 pieces of orange bands

loom

hook

1 C-clip

For the video tutorial, check out this post by TutorialsByA

Start with the first blue rubber band. Twist it in the middle to form an "infinity"or 8 and place it on two pins.

Then get your second band (orange) and your third band (blue) on top of the infinity band. Just like how you'd start a regular fishtail braid.

Let's start with the pattern. If the rubber band is blue, then you should do the inverted fishtail on the left side and regular fishtail on the right side. To do the fishtail braid, just take the bottom band and pull it up to the top. For the inverted fishtail, insert your hook inside the middle band, then hook the bottom band up and over.

Now do the opposite. If the rubber band is orange, then you should do the regular fishtail on the left side and inverted fishtail on the right side.

It can be a little confusing at first so that's why I recommend using two colors for this bracelet so you know which side is the regular fishtail and which side is the inverted.

Just keep doing it until you see the pattern forming.

When your bracelet is long enough, just take your bottom band up and over until you are left with just one band.

Hook one side of the band to the other pin.

Take a C-clip and hook it on the the last band.

And we are done. Hooray!