Week Through Instagram: 11/11 - 11/17

I bring to you yet another update of my life... through instagram :) I'm sorry it's late kay?

Here's an explanation of the pictures :)
The first three are of the dinner I had with my friend, Carolyn. It consists of some delicious buttery bread (that Carolyn ate most of) with some type of cheesy dip, a fresh salad with goat cheese, and a pasta dish with white wine, chicken, mushrooms, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes. Freaking delicious.
Photo 4: the sky on a surprisingly bright morning. I thought the clouds look pretty cool, and the sky is pretty much always beautiful and intriguing so yup. I also loveee the silhouette of the traffic light and the treeline. :)
Photo 5: Just a random photo of my lovely Rilakkuma slippers. So soft and fluffy and warm. wheee
Photo 6/7: My nails! I did them in purple and pink, slightly clashing colors. On one hand is pink dots on purple with one unique nail and the other hand is just opposite. I love it, even though the dots are not exactly clean. But hey, not bad for my fourth nail-painting attempt :) I think they look super cool though, and the dots getting smaller is adorable tooo!
Photo 8: I volunteered to help package meals for hungry kids and it was a great experience. I got one of those rubber bracelets and if you can't see, it says "stophungernow.org"... so guys, obviously check it out. It's a great cause.

And that was basically my whole week summed up into pictures. Hope you liked my amateur-ish photography skills made better by instagram!

Live it up,
- CindyC.

Week Through Instagram: 11/4 - 11/10

Hey guys (: So I just recently started instagram-ing... again. So I'm gonna start this little series to show you a bit of my life.. and my artsy-ness plus pro photography skills.. not. haha but really, I do love these photos so I hope you like them too :) Oh, and thank you PicStitch and Instagram <3

Have a good (continued) weekend!
- CindyC.

Quick Cards

Gah sorry for not posting in a while, but I have lots to show for it :)

I'll start it off with just two cards. And I'm not gonna lie... these cards didn't take that much time and not that much effort. 

The first card was made for my secret buddy gift receiver for cross country. And seriously, it took me like 20 minutes, which is saying a lot because I'm slow at everything I do. I know it's a little bit rushed-looking but hey I think it's impressive enough in my standards :)

This second card was for my cousin in Hong Kong. Because my mom is going to Hong Kong, she wanted to have us make cards for our relatives whose birthdays are coming up, and so I just made this card the night before. But I'm happy with the turnout still. The color palette is pretty pastel-y but it's cute and I like it. :]

Enjoy lovelies,
- CindyC.

Sweets and Presents

I'm back with a card for y'all :) It was my friend, Jane's birthday on the 25th, so I made a card for her, based on the Freshly Made Sketches #58. This is what the sketch looks like:

I love love love love Freshly Made Sketches because their designs are always clean and fun to use. They can be used for any type of card and they're so versatile :)

Anyways, here's the card that I made...

For this card, I kept the design nice and simple with a white background. I love the cute patterned paper and of course, the stamps :). The paper behind the stamped white paper is actually one of those paint chip samples. I lovee those colors.

Here's a closer view of the card, and especially the stamps. They only cost a dollar at Michael's and they can be used for so many occasions. And they're soooo adorable! 

I hope you liked it, because it was a fun card to make. I'm always trying out new things, like the stamps and the cute scrapbook paper, and I always love the turnout.

Keep crafting!

- CindyC.

Hair "Do's": Fishtail Braided Bun

Hello hellooo! I have a super super cute tutorial today :) If you couldn't tell from the post title, it's a hair tutorial. For this hair do, you'll have to know how to do a fishtail braid. Since I have a tutorial for that, you can go check it out. :) Ohmygosh I think it just looks soo adorable, pretty, and intricate, while also being casual. It looks absolutely fantastic with just sweats and a tee. Pulled together, but no big deal. :) How to do this? Scroll down my friends :)...

1. Pull your hair up in a ponytail and secure with a hair tie. A high ponytail seems to work best.
2. Fishtail braid the ponytail.
3. You can fluff it out a little for more volume and make it even messier, looser, and more casual
4. Wrap the braid around the base of the ponytail, tightly.
5. Take a long, sturdy bobby pin and stick it in at the base. Then use other bobby pins to secure the rest of the bun.
6. Voila! And you're done! Was that hard? No! You can smooth away flyaways and all that, or pin things down.. but who cares! It's pretty and elegant just the way it is.

I really, truly love love love this look! I couldn't help gushing over it and repeating "It's sooooooo cute!" to my friend that I did this on. You're sure to get compliments. Guaranteed. So you're welcome. :)

Have fun with it,
- CindyC.

Hair "Do's": Fishtail Braid

Hello (: I have a hair "do" (do you get it? haha) to share with you (oh I'm rhyming now!). Let's just start with something pretty basic and simple.

This is just the average fishtail braid, sleeker and tighter. Tutorials for this easy braid at the bottom :)

1. Pull all your hair to one side
2. Split it into two even sections
3. From the underside, take a small section of hair, pull it around the outside, and cross it over to the other side.
4. Repeat step 3 with the other section of hair.
5. Keep going!
6. Finish with a hairtie.

For a more casual, messier look, you can use your fingers to pull at the loops a little so that the look is more relaxed. You can also vary the small sections of hair you cross over to the other side, as well.

Have fun with it!
- CindyC.

DIY: Tribal Pattern Phone Case

Here I am again. Back with something else that I did today. Which is this:

 

Can you spot my name?

Yup, so I got an (one dollar) iPhone case, and if you couldn't tell, it even has a little stand for propping it up to watch videos and stuff like that. I used a trusty Sharpie for the job and I got inspiration for the pattern on all sorts of reference patterns. I know it doesn't exactly look like the cleanest case, but hey, I'm not perfect, and I'm not some magical artist. Imperfections make it perfect. I love it. And that's all that matters, really. 

Anyways, I still have a couple left to post soo

Tata. See you soon,

- CindyC.

"G" is for Gift

I know I promised you all the quilled letter "G" I made for my brother... ages ago. I'm sorry! But at least I have it now! I used orange, red, and yellow because orange is his favorite colors, and because his wall is blue and I love blue and orange together! The frame looks pretty nice and fancy and expensive right? Nah. Just the dollar store. :)

Here it is:

This is actually my first time quilling anything. Seeing as I didn't have a quilling tool... I used a messed up bobby pin. I'm so attached to it now. :) It was a fun project and I'm glad I started quilling because these letters are such good gifts to give and not too difficult to make. 

Here's a closer look at the detail of the letter.

Don't worry, I still have more to show you. 

Stay tuned,

- CindyC.

Happy Anniversary (:

Oh man do I have a lot to share. :) It's been so busy with school. I think it's so much harder than last year.. it sucks. But there is some art in my life that brightens all that negativity up, yay!

So, today is my parents' anniversary :) so I have a card for that.

Here it is:

I'm really loving the little doilies that we bought in Hong Kong! I've already used them in a couple cards and they're so delicate and cute and simple. Mom uses them under her mini cakes or cupcakes sometimes too. For the circles, I used paint samples that conveniently had little circle cutouts that I could just pop out. I wrote "mom" and "dad" in silver pen and dotted the outline of the circle. The little bow is made of hemp string and I think it looks so classy even though it smells kinda nasty. Well I really like this card so hope you do too!

There is more to come! I'm just separating things into different posts :)

Keep crafting,

- CindyC.

Smiles and Trumpets

Hello fellow bloggers! I know it's been a little whilee since I last posted but school and cross country is making me extremely busy.. sigh oh well. It's all good for me, right? Or so people tell me. :)

Last Saturday, September 15th was by brother's birthday. Yayyy. So I made two cards for him.
Here they are:

 

This is the front view of the first card. I think it's sooo adorable and cute. Plus, it was pretty easy to make! As long as you have cardstock, scrapbook paper, a hole puncher, glue, and scissors, you're set to go. And also it's pretty customizable with the hair. :)

 This is the card opened up through the back. It's full on giving you that :D smile!
And it says: "You're never fully dressed..."

 

"Without a SMILE! (:"

Here's the inside, continuing on with the little phrase. I had my mom and dad and sister sign this card as well. And it's still smiling happily from the inside too :D

 This is the second card I created. Originally, the orange paper I used was just a plain strip, but since I decided it was too boring, I just added little black dots to spruce it up a bit.

I drew the trumpet a little bit cartoon-y styled and just colored it in with colored pencils. The white scalloped edge I did by using these lovely craft scissors. I liked the turnout of the whole thing!

In addition to the two cards I also made a quilled letter "G" for him because that's the first letter of his name. I'll put that into another post later.

For now, that's it. So keep crafting!

- CindyC.

 

DIY: Wire Wrapped Wrose Wring

Hey theree bloggers :) Hahaa did you like that alliteration in the title? I know you did.

Anyways, I'm here to show you guys the new accessory that I made for myself. I do love hand-made jewelry. It just adds a little touch of personality to it. It was so simple to do and it doesn't really matter what gauge wire you use. Thanks to that, since I only have 26 gauge, and usually the nicer rings end up using wire around 18 gauge. I think the ring is super cute and fun. And the silver makes it pretty cool. I lovee it <3

So here it is:

Excuse my long nails... heh.

How very artsy. I love the contrast of the metal and the rock. And also the colors. Cool.

But don't you guys think this is cute? Because I do! And I love how easy it was to make. I didn't even really have to use pliers or tweezers.

Enjoy crafters,
- CindyC.

May2012 Designs

Hi! This is going to be the second "installation" of my fashion illustration series. I know I really should design more... but sometimes I'm just not inspired. sigh. I hope I can get back to that soon. Maybe I'll try to crank something out sometimes this week.

Anyways, enough of my babbling; here are the two designs that I came up with in the month of May.

This one was drawn on May 15th. As you might be able to tell, it was inspired by penguins. She's wearing a sort of menswear-inspired ensemble. Her top is a sleeveless blouse with a coral-colored Peter Pan Collar and white buttons going down the middle. She has a charcoal sash around her waist and innocent, white, lace shorts. Her heels are also the same color as the collar, taken from the color I think of when I think of penguin feet. The shape of the shoe is also taken from the shape of their feet.

This one was drawn a couple days after the last one -- on the 19th. My inspiration was Dory from Finding Nemo because I really liked the pattern and the colors of Dory. It's such a cool graphic design and the blue, black, and yellow really go well together. This was meant to be a sporty-type dress, so that's why she has her hair pulled back, cool sunglasses and tennis shoes. I'm personally really proud of this design :).

Thanks for reading... and start illustrating! (:
- CindyC.

DIY TOMS Wallet

Hey bloggers! I recently created a wallet out of the TOMS flag. You know, that rectangular piece of canvas? Yeah. :) I'm actually pretty proud of it, and I just thought I'd show you guys.

This first picture here shows the full view of the entire wallet.

 

Here's the closed version of the wallet.

 

And finally, the inside of the (proudly!) handmade TOMS wallet.

I know there's also the other version of the TOMS flag, which is actually a little bag, but I just thought I'd use the "flimsier" one first since it was the first time and I didn't know whether it would turn out okay. If you can tell, my stitchwork isn't exactly the cleanest and the neatest. I just got lazy and I'm just generally bad at sewing!

At any rate, I hope you liked the wallet. :)

Create your own!

- CindyC.

Summer Vacay 2012

Hello hello! Yes, I know it's been a while! I've been off in Hong Kong for two months. I have relatives there so I go there every couple of years. I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything. I do still have a few things to show you all though :). For now, I'll brief on the trip.

There were so many things we did there. The best part about Hong Kong? Family that I rarely see. A close second? The food of course :). There are so many delicious desserts to eat in Hong Kong. I ate mostly the asian-ified desserts since I can easily get Western desserts in the U.S. anyway. There was a lot of walking around in street markets and town centers and parks and all that. Even though Hong Kong is so small, there is so much to do! Here are some key days/points of my "journey."

July 1: This year was the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China from Britain so it was sort of like the Fourth of July here. I happened to be out with my cousins that day in Causeway Bay, and there were beautiful (and colorful!) fireworks. One of them had the number "1" in the middle!

July 5 - 10: My family and I decided to join of those tours to Korea for five days. We had a lot of traditional Korean food there and had little snacks at the street vendors. We also went to KBS -- which is the place where they broadcast tv shows from I think. Next was the Seaweed Museum where the guide went through the process of making seaweed. There were also a bunch (9 to be exact) of different flavors that we could sample. There was also this new thing with seaweed mixed in chocolate. It was quite an odd taste. Then there was also a lot of shopping and walking around involved and sightseeing from the tour bus. We went on one of the trains as well and it was so slow but I guess the view was nice. After that, we went to some sort of park with a lot of funny-looking totem poles and little clay sculptures and things like that. We then went to the Suncheon Bay Eco Park and spent some time there walking around and using sticks to pick up tiny crabs and such. The next day, we spent at the Yeosu Expo. It's a much smaller scale of awesome compared to the Shanghai one, we were told, but I thought it was pretty cool. The theme that year was based around water and the sea, and how it's so crucial to life. That was pretty much the main point of the trip.

August 3: My cousins and I went to the Disneyland in Hong Kong. Even though it's pretty small, the rides there are nice and the lines are wayy shorter! We went on some of the better rides twice or thrice in a row! That was how short the lines were. We stayed from early morning until the firework show... even though it was raining pretty hard! Super fun trip with the lovely cousins :)

So yeah. That was a "briefing" of my trip haha. That was a little bit long, don't you think? Oh well. It was two months after all.

Stay crafty and fun my artists!
- CindyC.

January2012 Designs

Hey! :) So I've decided that I'm going to share some of my fashion illustrations/designs here that I draw on my moleskine. It's one of those 3.5inches wide by 5.5inches tall black ones with the leather-y covers. I do love it a lot, but I don't put it to use very often. I really should illustrate more in them.

So for this "series" I guess I could call it, I'm going to split the designs by month. This post will be about the designs I drew in January. I know, way back, but as always, better late than never! :)

This is the first design that I drew in my little notebook. It was drawn on the 24th of January. Wow that's a long time ago. Well, my inspiration for it was a Christmas tree. The yellow part is kind of like the star on top while the green is the actual tree. The red is just for symbolizing Christmas. I was actually pretty proud of this one afterwards. :)

Now this one, was for celebrating the year of the dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. I have no idea what the mark on the mark is and I can't get it off! But anyways, she's wearing gold and red, the two lucky colors in Chinese culture and I was hoping some of the structure of the dress symbolized a dragon -- the back representing the tail. I feel like it's a little bit on the plain side and I should have added more detail. It was drawn on the 28th of January.

For me, this one was a little bit difficult to draw. Her legs seemed a little awkward and the hood was a little hard to get right. Well the color of the coat/cape is a light tan that is like the hide of the polar bear and there's white fur lining on the edges of it. The inside shirt and skirt represent that the underside of a polar bear's fur is black. I thought it turned out successful enough and I like it :) This one was drawn on January 29th.

Well I hope you liked them... feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think. Give me something to improve on! :)

Thanks,
- CindyC.

Blooms on Lace

Hey! I am finally uploading the card I made for Mother's Day!

I know, I know. It's really pretty late considering that Mother's Day was exactly two whole weeks ago, but I just hadn't had a chance to take the picture and write the post so here it (finally) is :) Besides, it's never too late to appreciate mom <3

This time, unlike last time, I didn't really follow a template. I just combined different ideas seen on the internet and went with it. I'm actually pretty proud of this card. It'd be nice to play around with stamps some time though.

So since my mom bakes, I just stole one of her doilies and cut two quarters of the doily out. I think the effect it has against the light pink paper is pretty cute and soft. That became a sort of a background for the bright flowers. I hand cut them so they looked a little rough and casual and I crinkled the edges of each, well, petal I guess you could say. I really like the color scheme. I thought everything matched really well. The browns enhanced the brighter colors and make it pop. The grass I also hand-cut and the "Mother" part I wrote myself as well. Overall, I'm happy with it.

Keep crafting,
- CindyC.

The World Around Us

Hey hey. So for my journalism class, we had to take some pictures with specific criteria like leading lines, up-close, sports photos, etc. I thought this was such a fun assignment! I loved taking photos of everything around us that we don't really look for in our day to day life. It's so refreshing :)

I actually found it pretty peaceful to take these photos and it was also relaxing and calming. I just loved it. This is actually one of the first times I've used a legit camera to take photos with. Other times, I've just used my iTouch or one of my family member's iPhone. I used the Kodak EasyShare V610.

So... I've picked out a few out of my many (around 95) photos, and I thought I would share them with you. These are my favorites, and I thought they had something interesting about them or I just plain liked the way they were taken. Enjoy!

I thought the shadow was kinda cool, it sort of jumps down every step of the bleachers. This angle made the legs look really long and kind of distorted. It's not of the best shot ones, but I like it. :)

 I really thought this photo was pretty cool. I didn't know about the camera's macro function so I didn't use it at the time, but I still thought it turned out pretty well. The flower fills up a lot of the screen while the leaves are in the background and a little blurrier. I love the colors of the flower against it's white petals, too!

This photo is so cute! We were walking back to class when I spotted some little mushroom growing in the grass we were walking on. It reminds me of some kind of magical forest like in fairytales. 

I also really liked this photo because I thought it was a really nice framing photo. The cement wall acts as a great foreground frame and my friend in the center is so cute there. Love this photo!

Well, I hope you liked them.. and I'm sure to improve the more I take! This was such a fun assignment and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Thanks for reading.

- CindyC.

Columns of Blue

Hey! So I made a card on Saturday inspired by the 35th sketch at http://freshlymadesketches.blogspot.com/
Here is the sketch :)

I love how beautifully clean it is and how it's so easy to add your own personal touches. Thanks for the inspiration. :)

I have never entered a challenge before.. but there's a first for everything.

 

It was more for inspiration more than anything. This was actually a card that I made for my friend who moved to Japan a couple years ago, but we like to keep in touch. I used a color palette of cream and light blues because, to be completely honest, he has a bit of a feminine side to him. I really liked making this card because of the prints and the awesome sketch.

I hope you like it!
- CindyC.

Something New

Hey, I'm Cindy and this is the beginning of a new journey :).

"Design the Arts" is going to be a blog of my work that includes all things related to the arts. This means fashion design in my moleskine, photography, illustrations, crafts, and cards. Even though I don't have a load of time in my hands due to schoolwork and extracurriculars, I hope to be able to relax and do things that make me happy. I also only have the simplest of equipment to use but it's enough for me. Sometimes the best things come from the basics.

So I hope this will be successful and I'll be able to post regularly enough.

Wish me luck!
-CindyC.