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!! :)

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!

La Pomme by Apol Lejano-Massebieau

Last weekend I visited La Pomme, the shop owned by Apol Lejano-Massebieau, and did an interview with her for Katha Magazine. The article will be on the next issue which will come out this March. I met her during the Rockwell Holiday Bazaar, remember the lavender pillow? That's from La Pomme. Apol just opened her shop last week at The Collective, Makati. 

Here's the photo of the store front, with her photo bombing in the background :)

What's inside her store? You will see fancy soft toys like these chic handmade dolls.

Here's a close up of the fashionable dolls. I especially love the doll with the turban.

I saw Apol's world famous apples, as seen on Design*Sponge and Apartment Therapy...

...and other whimsical objects, like the swan, panda bear, mushrooms and more.

Apol also has workshops where you can learn how to sew a simple toy. Do drop by her shop during the said days below. No matter how old or young you are, she will patiently teach you how to sew. She even taught her daughter how to sew at the age of 2!

But this Friday, Apol will be having a special Valentine sewing workshop for the date-less called "Huwag Umuwing Luhaan" (Don't Go Home In Tears). If you're not doing anything on Friday, then why not go to the shop and learn how to sew? Apol might teach you how to sew a boyfriend pillow! :)

Here's the map to the shop. It's just along Malugay Street in Makati. I usually come from MRT Magallanes Station, ride a jeep going to PRC and get off at Malugay Street (near Petron Gas Station) and then I just walk to The Collective. Her shop is beside Wabi Sabi.

Katha Magazine's Craft Workshop with Muni and Moonleaf

Hi guys! Let me share with you how my weekend went at Moonleaf. Muni has invited Katha Magazine to participate in The Better Closet and the launch of Muni x Moonleaf 2014 planner last November 16. It was a busy and tiring day, but all of us had fun!

There were a lot of good finds at The Better Closet. Lando was able to snag a nice wool jacket for P320. Such a good deal! Unfortunately for me, I used my money for shopping at Hallmark that day so I didn’t get to buy clothes.

We set up our booth outside and we sold craft items like my pine tree candle holder, Allie’s stamped post cards, Drea’s Merbirds, Geli’s cute paper bags and Aya’s scrapbooking paper. We were glad that we sold many of our items as 100% of the money we earned were for the people affected by the Typhoon Yolanda.

Aside from that, Katha also put together a free craft workshop. We made upcycled holiday projects, facilitated by yours truly :)

So what were the projects that we did? We made fancy snow globes out of glass jars, glitter glue and glitter powder

we also made pillow boxes from toilet paper cardboard tubes and scrapbooking paper

And finally we made magazine tassel garlands, which you can find my tutorial here. Cai from Moonleaf let us hang our masterpiece at one of their cork boards.

That was my first time to teach in a workshop and I was pretty nervous. But all is well! I’m proud of what my students did!

My favorite student was Keisha, our youngest participant. She really loves crafting and didn’t really need that much assistance! She got addicted to decorating her pillow boxes with washi tape :)

If you want to know how to make the craft projects that we did that day, don’t worry! I’m going to post the tutorials here on my blog ;) So stay tuned!

For the mean time, please do check out our catalog and participate on our online auction, Padayon. Just like our booth at Moonleaf, 100% of the proceeds will go to the Philippine Red Cross and it will definitely help the people affected by the typhoon. 

Photos via Katha Magazine