Many of you have asked how I made my little house shelf. So I’m sharing this tutorial so that you can make your own.

You can make it to any size, and you can prop it up in your work room or your kid’s room to display children’s books, magazines, letters or anything you fancy:)

Outline your house on the wood. Mine is an MDF panel board from Bunnings. It cost $11.50. It’s sort of ‘medium’ in thickness. Not too thick and heavy, and not too thin either. My father in-law helped me cut it.

We used two pieces of wood and a hinge to make the stand.

It’s easier to make the stand when the house is flat.

We glued wood moulding to decorate the border of the house. You can get lots of different patterns like flowers and vines. They come in a long strip. I chose a simple pattern called rope. They are all available at Bunnings.

We made two basic shelves. We outlined on the wood first.

Then we glued and nailed the shelves on.

The fun part is colouring the house. I painted mine white because I only had white paint at that time. But you can colour yours in something colourful and stick plenty of fun stuff on it!

One of these days I might re-paint mine..in stripes or polka dots maybe:)

Lots of people asks how I make my origami display tree. I make all my origami using my recycled wrapping paper. You can get them from my shop in a set or individually. Today I am going to show you how to make a cute gift box.

You will need to cut a square sheet of wrapping paper. The bone folder is optional (I use it to press down my paper/ creases firmly, you can use a ruler or your fingers).

Flip the paper over so that you start with the white backing. Fold paper twice so that you have these lines.

Using the 4 lines as a guide, take each corner and fold into the centre.

When all 4 corners touch, it will look like this.

Now take bottom edge of the paper and fold into the centre.

Do the same with the top edge. It will look like this..

When your top and bottom is folded. Fold your left and right sides in the same manner as above.

When you open up your paper, it should have all these creases. Don’t panic, this is good!

These creases will guide you into folding a box (that’s why it’s important to press firmly when you are folding the paper because it helps!)

Keep folding.

Getting there!

Yaay you have a box! You can fill it with candies, loose change, buttons etc. To make a lid, just repeat all the instructions above BUT use a slightly bigger square piece of paper, at least 0.5cm larger. This is to enable the lid to slip on and off easily.

For pretty packaing, I used a strip of coloured paper and some silver strings. I think lace, rik raks and vintage paper would be lovely too.

With this tutorial, you can make ANY size boxes, it all depends on how big your square pieces of paper are! Large squares make large boxes, and small squares make small boxes! Have fun!

Before you throw out your paper waste, you could actually turn them into something useful! You can make recycled paper bags out of old magazines, newspaper and brown kraft paper.

Since I had a lot of brown paper, discarded from various packaging, I decided to cut them out into paper bags for my upcoming market. Something to put my stationery in when I hand them over to my customers. Like a little treat bag you know.

I made a variety of sizes from small to larger bags. I used sticky tape or glue to gum the edges. Then I took out my rubber stamps and made a sweet print on all of my paper bags. I chose a tree print, because I love nature and recycling and my paper goods are all environmentally friendly too.

You can also use ribbons or sew buttons on to your paper bags! And it doesn’t matter if your paper bags are creased or dirty. They are handmade and recycled after all and those effects make them even more charming!