Welcoming 2013 With a New Tradition!

As 2012 comes to a close, I hope you are all spending the long weekend or winter break with your closest family and friends!
I spent the weekend with my mom, which was really nice.
I also received a belated Christmas package from my friends in Minnesota, which included a haunted house kit! You may remember the disastrous gingerbread house from last year's Christmas.

So with this nifty kit in hand, I decided to make my own New Year tradition of making a chocolate cookie house!

OK, the real reason was just that it is a fun thing to do and it is what I spent the better part of today doing! More photos under the jump~



The lovely front door! Open the door to new opportunities in the coming year!


An adorable bat for good luck in the window~ Bats are a symbol of fortune (as in being fortunate) in Chinese tradition :)


The back of the house! The scallops were supposed to look like a cobweb pattern, but I think it looks more like upside-down layers of lace or ruffles because I didn't make them spiky enough... ^^;


Some different angled shots


A size comparison with Teddy!


Last year's house for comparison. This year's house definitely has less decapitation and tumor-chimney involved.

How was 2012? Best moments? Worst? What is your biggest wish for 2013?
My best moment was surviving the worst apocalypse ever! Just kidding, it was moving out and becoming financially independent in September ^_~
My worst moment was the hospital stay in October. Failing more than half my classes might actually top that though... (sh!)
My biggest wish for 2013 is to regain my focus and motivation for school, and to wear Lolita more! After school started I wore Lolita much less!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!
Sorry for the lack of blogging. School has taken over my life, but while I did have some free time I made cards for my friends. Here are some more cards I have made!
Click on the photos to see them full size.


Christmas Cascade Card The Santa and dinosaur are on clear acrylic sheet so they look like they are flying!

Chinese Christmas Center-Step Card

Christmas Pop-up Card (the trees pop out)

Christmas Pop-up Card with failed Spring-up dinosaurs.  They don't actually stand up on their own :(

It's the End of the World

Happy End of the World!
It's nearly 9PM here and nothing has happened yet, so here are some photos of my last Fashion Design project. It was a group project and we made two outfits. Click the photos to make them larger:









And here is my favorite photo from the set:


In Fabric Print class we also had to design t-shirts. I wish I had better photos, but here are mine:

The bear is heat-transfer printed with LED lights on the belt
The other two are toy dinosaurs fused to netting and bubble packaging paper and then sewn to the shirt
I like dinosaurs

How was the end of the world in your country?

Happy Holidays! DIY Cards

Happy International Lolita Day! I was not able to celebrate this year, but I thought I would share some mechanical cards I have been making for a variety of holidays. I am no professional by any means, but I will give the names of the styles and you can look online to find tutorials :) For some of them I used tutorials, for some I just looked at the photos and figured it out myself!

It is really neat to gift handmade cards because it's much more personal than store-bought ones. Plus, cards with moving parts or unique folds make everybody happier!

My favorite card so far is this Thanksgiving card! The tail opens and closes :)
This is called a fan card



This is a Christmas side-step card

This is a (failed) cascade card)

This is a pop-up gingerbread house card

This is a New Year tri-fold card

This is a Christmas waterfall card.  The tree becomes more and more decorated as the pages are flipped

This is a Christmas easel card.  It's nice for displaying!

This is a bunny swivel card.  The bunny has cotton on it and it turns as you open the card so it's visible from the front and the inside

Christmas tri-fold or tri-shutter card

Chinese New Year side-step card with a sliding fairy that slides across the cityscape!

A general card.  The idea for the words came to me while I was sleeping, and I made it into a pull-tab card!



I hope these were fun to see!  What did you do for International Lolita Day?  Are you going to be making cards for anybody this season?  Hope you have a good holiday season!