Chicharon Adventures Turns Two! Fabric Stitched Piggy Card

As I have mentioned before (around this time last year), my cousin and friend have a clothing company named Chicharon Adventures.  Well, this past weekend they celebrated their 2nd year anniversary.  This past year seems to have just flown by, and a lot of good things came their way (collaborations with stores, bands, an awesome new look, and even more cool designs)... proving to be yet another successful year for them.  I'm quite proud of their accomplishments and wish them further success in the future.  Since, I couldn't make it to their anniversary bbq this past weekend, I decided I'd make a card to send to them.  I made a card last year too.

Anyway, here's what I came up with. It's a the fabric CA pig, machine stitched onto a card with hand embroidered details.  Here's what I did.

Materials:
- card stock and /or blank card.
- CA pig or other design that you want to put in a card
- heat n bond fusing material
- fabric
- dmc thread and needle
- button for the nose

1.  Adhere fusing material to fabric. Cut a small piece of the fusing material. Keep the protective paper on one side, and iron together.  Cut the fabric if you'd like.

2.  Transfer the pattern onto the fabric.  I just drew it on.

3.  Cut out the outline of the pattern. Remove the protective paper from the fusing side, and iron pattern onto card stock.

4.  With a sewing machine, sew the outline of the pattern using a zig-zag design.

5.  Put some tape on the back so the thread doesn't come undone.

6.  Use a needle and pre poke holes near where you'll be embroidering, for instance the eyes.  A few holes on the bottom side of the eyes and a few holes on the top side of the eyes were sufficient.

7.  Thread the dmc thread and sew thru the pre poked holes so the eyes look like they should, on the right side of the card.  Don't worry to much about the wrong side of the card, because it can be covered up. Embroider the other face details.

8. Place the button on the card at correct location and make marks for where the button holes are.  When buying the button, remember to get a button with 4 holes.  Use those marks to pre poke the button holes.

9.  Attach the button to the card using only vertical lines for attaching the button.

10. On the wrong side of the design, tape down the dmc thread so it doesn't come undone. 

11. Cover the wrong side with a cut out piece of card stock.  Do the same to the other inner face of the card.

12.  Write your message, place in envelope and send it off. :-)

Happy Anniversary, Chicharon Adventures.

DIY No Bag Microwaveable Popcorn

Upon my last inspection of store bought microwaveable popcorn, I noticed that there was a lot of ingredients of which I had no clue what they were. I kept thinking, why do they make the simplest things so complicated... I mean, it's just corn that's popped, or at least it should just be corn that's popped.

Anyway, I did a google search on diy microwaveable popcorn and found that many people has had success in making popcorn using paper bags with kernels in it. This was great, and I thought to myself, once I get a paper bag that I can use, I'm gonna try it. Well, I did finally get a paper bag and I tried it, and it worked, but I had a lot of unpopped kernels -- must have taken it out too soon. I didn't attempt stapling the bag because I just don't believe it's a good thing to do. (Even if Alton Brown's staples didn't spark -- not a chance I'm willing to take), but it worked with a couple of folds on top. Anyway, this worked well enough but I wanted a better way to make microwaveable popcorn without having to wait for a paper bag to come my way (sure, I could just buy them but I just didn't want to).

So I decided to do some more google searches. And voila, amidst all the comments I read thru, someone suggested using a glass bowl with a plate on top. How simple was that... and I had both of those items... yay me! Well, I decided to give it a shot. I don't really think you need a tutorial on this, but I'll give one anyway.
(Note: all the measurements are guesses as I didn't really measure anything)

Materials:

- Glass bowl (big mixing bowl is good)
- Plate
- Popcorn kernels (1/4 cup or so)
- Olive oil (1/2 tsp or so, optional)
- Salt (a pinch or two, optional)

1. Place the popcorn kernels, olive oil and salt in a bowl. I mix it a bit but I don't think it's necessary to do so.

2. Place the plate on top of the bowl, and place the whole thing in the microwave.

3. Microwave til you hear 3 sec before pops.

4. Remove bowl from microwave... be careful as the bowl and plate will be hot. (use oven mitts). You may actually want to put the popcorn in a different container before eating so you don't accidentally touch the glass and burn yourself.

5. Eat. Enjoy. Make more and start the movie. :-)
Variations:
- Try adding garlic powder, parmesan cheese, cayenne pepper as possible toppings... these can be added after the popcorn is popped.

Loom Knit Beanies with a Visor

A long time ago, I saw a knitted beanie with a visor featured on one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. I thought I starred it, but I can't find it. Oh well. Anyway, I ended up googling it and I found that a lot of people were looking for it too. Also, the ones I did find, seemed to be for regular knitting, of which I haven't really gotten a hang of. So, I decided to get the general concept and make my own with a loom.

Here's how I did it.

Materials and tools:

- Knifty Knitter Round Loom (whatever size you want, tho my template was only tested on the green one)
- Yarn (I like the thick wool ease ones)
- This template
- dense cardboard (like the one you find in the back of a notebook)

1. Print out the template and cut it out, then draw that shape onto the notebook cardboard and cut that out.

2. Begin creating the hat just like a regular beanie. Here's a link to a previous post, where I explain how it's done.  Continue til you're going to fold up the brim (just before Step #6.)  The length of step 5 will depend on how wide the template.  The template's width is about 1.5" so you'll want the brim (pre-folded) to be a bit larger than 3" (the additional length is to accommodate for the fold).

3.  Fold up half of the brim, and place the cut out template on the unfolded half.  Continue folding the brim with the cutout within the folded brim.

4.  Continue making the hat following the rest of the directions from the previous post.

5.  Once you've finished off closing the hat, the last thing to do is to slowly turn the brim so that the big curve is on the bottom edge of the brim.

Easy, isn't it? 

Reference: Easy Loom Knit Beanies