craftingwithcoco

Mending….In an effort to reduce waste and to extend life ont..

Mending….

In an effort to reduce waste and to extend life onto a garment or a piece of fabric, I am a huge proponent and supporter of the visible mending movement. I really like seeing when fabrics are repaired and all of the layers and stitching that goes over the patchwork. It’s signifies life and being worn and I think that’s beautiful.

I have these linen sheets I’ve been using for a while, and bed linens are quite expensive! Through many washes it’s worn out a bit, but I want to repair some of the holes. I have a bunch of beautiful scrap fabrics with different patterns on them so I started repairing it today. I first used an embroidery hoop to add tension around the hole while I hand sewed some running stitches around it.

I really love how it came out. I still have a few more holes to mend, but I can’t wait to keep adding more patches onto the holes. I think it gives it so much more personality and life. 🩵

I’ve been very interested in beeswax lately. I decided to co..

I’ve been very interested in beeswax lately. I decided to coat one of my indigo fabrics with some beeswax. It was inspired by those eco-friendly food wraps, where instead of wrapping your food using plastic, you can wrap it with a beeswax covered cloth. So eco friendly!

Beeswax is such an amazing material and naturally antimicrobial. I also like the way it brings out the color in the fabric and I think I will do this more!

Life has been feeling so intense lately and one of my favori..

Life has been feeling so intense lately and one of my favorite ways to cope is by doing things with my hands.

I was at the store and saw some purple potatoes… and felt like making some gluten free bread. Only took 5 ingredients: purple potatoes, tapioca flour, sugar, soy milk, and olive oil.

The bread came out so chewy (like mochi) and delicious and I can’t wait to make this again. I’m really into natural foods that have naturally fun colors so making a purple bread really lifted my spirits. 💜🍞

Happy Sunday everyone 💚Winter is nearly over and Spring is j..

Happy Sunday everyone 💚
Winter is nearly over and Spring is just upon us. Can you feel it!?! It’s getting more wet and warm in LA, the streets are becoming more verdant and lush… 🌱 we really needed this after the fires.

I did a seed swap with my friends today. We were only trading native California seeds. It was soooo fun and I’m so excited about what I got: Tiny Tips, Lupines, California poppies, Milkweed, Yarrow, White Sage, and so much more. I want to invite more insects and pollinators to my garden this year and this will help our ecosystem thrive 🦋🦋🦋

Do you like my new palm leaf basket purse I made? 💚🧺I really..

Do you like my new palm leaf basket purse I made? 💚🧺

I really enjoyed this process so much! I can't wait to do more. I wove this using a Mexican palm leaf which are ubiquitous in LA. There are thorns on the stem, so before weaving, I sliced them off. Then, I separated the leaf into strips while it was still attached. Once separated, I did a basic over-under-over-under weave and then bent the stem to create the handle of the bag. The fibers are very strong and I can't wait to see how it ages and turn more yellow. Would love to craft more of these!

Trying something new today I’m gonna be weaving, a palm leaf..

Trying something new today I’m gonna be weaving, a palm leaf, and seeing what I can make from it…. Stay tuned! It’s so bright and warm out. 🌴

After doing a project, I love to recharge by going into natu..

After doing a project, I love to recharge by going into nature. I was so happy I got to put my feet in the sand and stare at the light reflecting in the water. Nature is endlessly inspiring and invigorating. 🩵🩵🩵

Finished weaving my rock! This was the biggest rock I have w..

Finished weaving my rock! This was the biggest rock I have woven. 😳 It is going to be a gift for a friend! I estimate it weighs about 7 pounds. I put the first rock I wove next to it for scale. The final part is weaving the “lip” of the weaving and one of my favorite finishing parts to do. 😚

Making progress 💪

Making progress 💪

Having a very quiet night to myself and starting a new rock ..

Having a very quiet night to myself and starting a new rock project. I am going to wrap a rock much bigger this time.

Crafting with one of my favorite people, @kai.kianu last nig..

Crafting with one of my favorite people, @kai.kianu last night! He was teaching me how to make giant tissue paper flowers! The flowers make such beautiful decor. Definitely give him a follow, he’s a genius when it comes to all things floral! 🌺🌺🌺

How is everyone doing?Sorry for the lack of posts! I was fee..

How is everyone doing?
Sorry for the lack of posts! I was feeling under the weather.

Today I want to touch upon the topic of sustainability. I know this isn’t a cooking page, but I do like to focus on sustainability as part of my practice :-) one life hack I learned recently was to freeze scallions! In the kitchen, I hate being wasteful, and I love being efficient. So I learned to cut a bunch of scallions and you can freeze them for later use!

I cut them into two different shapes because I like the long diagonal cut for some soups and I love the thinly sliced ones for everything else. This is going to save me so much time when I’m cooking and prevent a lot of waste! Sometimes the produce goes bad before we can even get to it. I hope this tip helps in your sustainability journey. 💚

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR! 🐍🧧❤️It’s the year of the snake!The sna..

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR! 🐍🧧❤️

It’s the year of the snake!

The snake embodies intuition, intelligence, and transformation.

2025 is a particularly powerful year for cultivating personal growth and deep, meaningful connections.

Embrace the opportunities that come your way this year, and trust the process.

I’m currently at home, wearing red for good luck, and drinking a redish homemade beet juice. I just finished sketching and journaling about my wishes for this upcoming year. I’m wishing everyone so much luck and love and prosperity! ❤️ (extra luck to those who send me a Hong Bao (red envelope) hehehe 🤭🧧) ❤️

Taking advantage of the current rain in LA and planting some..

Taking advantage of the current rain in LA and planting some sunflower seeds from a sunflower I saved from last season. 🌻 much easier to plant things when the soil is wet and we are expecting more rain.

Thank goodness there has been rain this weekend! Our city really needed it. 🌧️🌧️🌧️

I’m choosing to plant sunflowers specifically because they help absorb heavy metals from the soil. With all of the current fires, there’s a lot of ash everywhere and contains a lot of toxic chemicals from houses that burned, and those houses were painted with paint that contains lead and titanium.

Just trying to make a small effort in my garden and improve the soil health 💚🌻💚 I truly believe that nature has the power to regenerate itself, but could use some helping hands along the way!

Trying out my lettuce stem stamp from yesterday’s post 🤭🥬I t..

Trying out my lettuce stem stamp from yesterday’s post 🤭🥬
I think it’s pretty neat! It looks like a rose. 🌹
I could have gotten a crisper print, but the stem was a bit wilted because I waited too long. Next time I will immediately do this so the stamp will be a lot more firmer.

I started decorating some envelopes with my stamps. I like how abstract the rose looks! I think I will write somebody a love letter 💌 it looks so romantic 🥰 I want to try this method with other vegetables too.

(Please excuse the imprint on my face from wearing a mask all day. The air quality in LA is still not good because of the fires! 😷🔥 . I have to wear a mask in my studio. If you would like to support me, please tip under this post or through my DM’s so I can get an air purifier 😭🍃🍃🍃 Thank you soo much. Please pray we get some rain soon!)

Was making a salad today when I looked at the bottoms of the..

Was making a salad today when I looked at the bottoms of these lettuces and thought, “Hmmm! These would make some great stamps!” I’m going to go to my studio tomorrow and ink them up and see what happens :-)

Throwback 🩷Missing Spring. Can’t wait to play in the garden ..

Throwback 🩷

Missing Spring. Can’t wait to play in the garden again and grow plants to dye with. Still too cold. Plus the air in LA is not so good right now with the fires still ☹️

Rose:Ok, this one was actually the most difficult and I'm so..

Rose:
Ok, this one was actually the most difficult and I'm so glad @kai.kianu was there to help me because I was losing my mind. I have never made an origami piece that involved having to twist the paper like that! I think it would've turned out better if I had a double sided red piece of paper :-(. Still so cute though! ❤️🌹❤️

Pinwheel flower:Ok, this origami pinwheel flower drove me a ..

Pinwheel flower:
Ok, this origami pinwheel flower drove me a little crazy, but that's only because I overcomplicated the steps, it's actually quite easy. Though, it involves some glue which I didn't know was ok to use in origami, but it's ok, we can break the rules sometimes!

Also included instructions for these if you want to follow along. The smaller part is the same as the bigger one. I just used a quarter of a square to make the little guy. 😊

I want to show some of the origami flowers I made during my ..

I want to show some of the origami flowers I made during my afternoon with my friend @kai.kianu. Origami (as I hope most of us know by now), is the art of folding paper to create both 2D and 3D shapes.

I loved origami since I was a little girl and I was always fascinated by how a single piece of square paper could transform into an object! It made me feel like there were endless possibilities. I was saving scraps of paper to fold paper cranes and animals.

This is a Lily I made and I included the instructions so maybe you can make one too. 😊

I recently had a fun get together with my friend @kai.kianu!..

I recently had a fun get together with my friend @kai.kianu!
He's really into flowers and I'm really into crafts (obviously 😜) so we decided to get together and combine our worlds and make origami flowers -- it was the perfect collaboration for our worlds and we had both a relaxing (and challenging!) afternoon making the flowers. Some of the flowers were actually really hard to make 😂.

Wow it’s been such a crazy time in LA! I am so blessed to sa..

Wow it’s been such a crazy time in LA!
I am so blessed to say that I am safe and away from the fires. Thank you for your care and for checking in on me. ❤️

I’m getting back into making things. Something I explored recently was how to make rope. I really loved the process of making rope. It’s something I use a lot in my crafts— from kite making two tie-dying, it’s a very important material for me!

Learning about how to make it was so cool. I used a friends antique wrote making machine she found on eBay. I used hemp thread to make my rope. First, we need thread, preferably linen or hemp or jute, because those fibers are long and strong. It takes many threads to create one ply. Each ply can contain anywhere from 5 to 8 threads. And those threads get twisted together simultaneously with the two other plys, to create one uniform coil, it’s so neat!

Praying for Los Angeles right now as we are experiencing the..

Praying for Los Angeles right now as we are experiencing the most intense wildfires in LA history. I worry about my studio and I really hope it will all be ok. Thinking of all the friends and animals being directly affected. 😭😭😭

Happy 2025 dear ones! 🤩. How is everyone starting off their ..

Happy 2025 dear ones! 🤩. How is everyone starting off their year? 🩵

I can’t believe it’s a new year already and already four days in. As for me, it’s that time again with my indigo plants. Today I separated stems, leaves, and seeds from my plants. I have to start gathering the seeds so I can start planting them very soon! I keep the leaves to make the indigo dye so I have to remove them from the stems, it’s like destemming kale. And I have to separate the seeds from the flowers to use those for planting.

It’s a long process and took me a few hours. I still need to remove the seeds from their husks. Due to the climate in LA, I can start planting these anytime between January and February.

I can’t believe it’s already time again to start planting in indigo. I had a few months off from tending to the plants after their growing season stopped in September/October. Here we go again, another year with my indigo. 💙

HAPPY NEW YEARS (eve) from Los Angeles! 🎉🙌🎊🍾Finished my fina..

HAPPY NEW YEARS (eve) from Los Angeles! 🎉🙌🎊🍾

Finished my final craft of the year… wrapping this rock with wire. I want to make more to give them as gifts :)

Hope everyone is having a safe and wonderful day. See you in 2025 🪨💖

Just bottled and strained my first homemade persimmon vinega..

Just bottled and strained my first homemade persimmon vinegar. I wrote about how I made this a few posts ago :-) Happy! 🧡

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🎄✨Crafting and getting to know some really ..

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🎄✨

Crafting and getting to know some really awesome people on here has been the greatest gift. Hope everyone has a great holiday. I’m going to see my family and friends. 💖

How to wrap 5 oranges using a piece of cloth I dyed with ind..

How to wrap 5 oranges using a piece of cloth I dyed with indigo...

I've been really interested in the art of Furoshiki lately--the art of wrapping gifts and objects using a piece of cloth. In Japanese culture, gift giving is a big deal, because signifies thought and care. People give gifts to maintain relationships, especially in business. Wrapping the gift in cloth shows care because it protects the object whilst also helping to transport it.

I was looking at a packaging book and got inspired to try this out. I love the simplicity and elegance of Furoshiki, as well as it's efficiency with only one cloth. It makes me want to dye more cloth so I can wrap more things.

It’s been such a busy holiday season! Forgive some of my abs..

It’s been such a busy holiday season! Forgive some of my absence here. I’ve been busy trying make gifts, see family and friends, and seeing art and some traveling. What have you been up to? How do you like to celebrate the holidays?

I finally have a moment to sit down and be chill. A friend gifted me this hand stitched round bottom bag kit, and I am going to focus on making it today. I haven’t made anything with a drawstring before, so I’m excited to dive in. 💙

I had such an incredible day today! I’m visiting one of my f..

I had such an incredible day today!
I’m visiting one of my favorite cities, New York, to look at art and get inspired.
This is one of my favorite sculptures in the world.
It’s by Louis Bourgeois. She was an incredibly talented sculptor, painter, printmaker… definitely one of my favorite artists ever!
Her spider sculptures are her most famous, I believe. She has a couple of documentaries out about her, check her out!

I can’t wait to go home and craft some more work! This always gets me so inspired.