Cute fruit!

How about making some cute fruit and veg to remind you of a New Year's resolution to eat more healthily!

These are made from little wooden balls, the sort of thing that are sold to scent your underwear drawer! So as well as being cute they are also scented.

 1. Sand a flat spot on each ball so it doesn't fall over.

2. Drill a hole in the top of each ball. 

3. Draw your ideas.

4. For those that require a stem, cut a piece of wooden skewer and glue it in the hole.

5. Draw the design on the ball with a pencil, and paint it.

6. Make leaves from paper or polymer clay, and glue them in place.

Kiwi fruit, turnip, orange, tomato, pumpkin, pineapple, watermelon, strawberry, aubergine

 And fig

Wooden strawberries

These little guys sold out pretty quickly at the craft fair I had a stall at! They were pretty easy to make, too. They started off life as simple wooden balls, the sort you get to put among your clothes to deter moths!

I drilled a hole in the top of each so I could insert a piece of kebab-skewer as the stem. To make sure they would stay upright, I rubbed each one on a piece of sandpaper to create a flattened area. It's fun because you can have them all leaning at slightly different angles.

I gave them a coat of paint and added the details with a fine brush. I used a piece of patterned paper on each  as a leaf, and coated it with a gloss medium. I added a small flower and some stamens.

Kawaii mushroom pincushion

I made this pincushion from a bottle top and some scraps of fabric.

Mr Chin

This is Mr Chin (or more correctly King Chin), one of a set of two fridge magnets by Alessi in collaboration with the National Palace Museum Taiwan. I've been a big fan of the Chin Family range for a while, so I was delighted when my parents got me these magnets.

New toys

A new little camera to keep in my handbag on the days that I don't need my big camera - just in case I see anything I want to photograph, and for taking to concerts and on nights out.

Also, cute Piu Piu birds from www.pylones.com in France. I fell in love with these little birds after first seeing them in the paintings on parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/ . When I saw them on another blog last week I decided to see if I could order them online, and they arrived from France today, just three days later!

Not only are they cute, but they are also magnetic, and can be used to hold paper clips or pins. They also make a cheeping noise when they are held.

Munny

This is my first attempt at decorating a Munny. I started with a white Mini Munny, and decorated it using acrylic paints and gel mediums. I didn't set out to make it into a girl in a Totoro suit, because I knew that someone else had done that before and I didn't want it to seem like I was copying them. So I started to make it into a girl in a teddy bear suit, but when I came to make the ears I realised that it had more of the character of a Totoro in its face, so a Totoro it became!

I used a mixture of Coarse Pumice Gel and Extra Heavy Gel (Semi Gloss) by Golden to create the texture, then I mixed various colours of acrylic paint together to make the teal colour. The ears are made from Sculpey, and I also made a leaf from Sculpey and wood for her to hold.

Doll obsession

After long admiring the Blythe dolls that so many people seem to have, I finally gave in last week and pre-ordered Casual Affair, which I think looks a bit like me! But I'm getting so frustrated waiting to see if she will arrive here safely from Hong Kong, so I'm very close to ordering a Pinafore Purple which I'd like to customise:). I don't intend to collect dozens of these dolls, but two or three would be a nice number!

And here is my latest Kokeshi doll - £3.75 from a charity shop! (At least she didn't break the bank like the Blythe dolls could!)

Cats in Japan

Another entry in my Moleskine sketchbook about Japan. While researching this, I found a very interesting website, Sushi Cat, which gives information about the lucky beckoning cat.

Harajuku Lovers

My Harajuku girl now has a friend - thank you P & C!

Birthday birdies and more

Here are some of the great things I got for my birthday on Thursday. Harajuku Lovers perfume (I think this is the cutest one of the lot, good choice Mum!), Ikea bowls, a card from my old friend Jane (who also just had a birthday), two wonderful little blue birdies by Lomonosov, and a wonderful blue birdie card made by Mum (I think this is her best card yet!).

Cute stuff

Some cute stuff I bought today: desk calendar, bento box, tea towels, charm from a Chinese supermarket, wrapping paper. I had been looking for a slightly bigger bento box for ages, and this one was perfect (and seriously cute!).

Olympic snowballers

This is my main Christmas card design for this year, inspired by the cuddly Olympic mascots I bought on holiday in China. I made four individual handmade cards for my family, each with one of the mascots on it, and had the rest of the cards printed by Moo from my collage showing all the mascots. I'm really impressed with the print quality of the Moo cards, and when I had a tiny problem with damage to one of the first set of cards they had sent, they printed me off a new set for nothing!

Totoro in the snow

I can post these two cards now that they have made their way to their recipients!

Beijing 2008

I drew this picture months ago but decided not to post it until the Olympics began. I'm very tired today as I got up to watch the team gymnastics at 3.30am! It was well worth it, though - I was on the edge of my seat wondering who was going to win.

Japanese Russian dolls

My Russian dolls are now complete. The largest doll is painted in red, brown, pink and gold and has a design of cherry blossoms. The middle doll is painted in shades of blue and features some fish (which were initially supposed to look something like koi carp) and The Great Wave by Hokusai. The little doll is painted in pale green and gold with a design of bamboo.

I used a variety of paints including cheap acrylic paints (Anitas), more expensive acrylic paints (Golden) and some tester pots from the local DIY store. My favourite paint of the lot was the brown paint and it was one of the tester pots - it is by Jeff Banks and is called Lazy Paint. It went on very smoothly and had good coverage.

China souvenirs: Olympics

We're having an "Olympic Week" at work this week during which the pupils' lessons will be based on various aspects of the Olympics. So to go with the Olympic theme here are some of my souvenirs from China, bought at the airport in Beijing. They are all based on the Olympic mascots, the Fuwa.

Cuteness in pink and green

I finally succeeded in crocheting a ball shape, and it became this little cake. I also decided I needed something to keep my crochet hooks in, so I made this little green fellow, based on the pig ipod cozy I had seen on the Craft magazine website.

Little bluebirdie and friends

Inspired by some of the carved stamps I've been looking at on Flickr recently, I have been carving some eraser stamps of my own this weekend, including this little birdie.

Fruitigurumi!

I've just started trying to teach myself amigurumi and this little lime is the first attempt that's worth showing off. The last time I attempted crochet was when I was at primary school. I think I need a lot more practice, as I started out trying to make a ball shape and this is what resulted! If anyone knows of a good tutorial for someone starting amigurumi, let me know, as I think I need it!

Kawaii Kutie

After spending the afternoon with Mum looking at other people's felt toy designs on Flickr, I came up with the idea for this doll and made it when I came home. It's a bit rough and ready, but it was really just an experiment and I will polish it up a bit more if I make more of them. The doll is double sided - one side happy and the other side sad. I've called her Kawaii Kutie - kawaii being the Japanese word for cute. She's pictured here with the owls Mum made for me.
The doll was based on this little design I did a month or two ago: