The idiot's guide: How to make a miniature lunch bag.

Hoho! 

It's a glorious Sunday here, and today will be the FIRST time I'm creating a photo tutorial!
Actually, it's the first time I'm creating a tutorial of any kind.

Solemn apologies for any mess-ups, missed details or dirty fingernails. Ahem.

Today, we conquer..

THE MINIATURE LUNCH BAG.

-wields sword and charges at army of lunch bags.

Before I start, let me just say that I am sure many of you have made miniature bags before, and this project is probably at a difficulty level of 0.0001 upon 100. Seriously. But I'm still going to go ahead and post this write-up, hoping that someone out there will benefit somehow. :)

For people who are seeking the short-cut, here.

For everyone else, let's start! :)

First, we will need some clean brown papers. They could be in the form of real life lunch bags, or brown envelopes. So do flip through your mail for anything you can save before you chuck them all in the bin!

And then we need the usual craft items.

A pair of good, sharp scissors. (or penknife/craft-knife if you prefer)

A sturdy ruler.

A well-sharpened pencil.

White glue, or any glue that will bond paper to paper. Or even double-sided tape.

 

Now choose your preferred brown paper and cut out a rectangle measuring 5cm in length and 3cm in width.

Using your ruler and pencil, measure and draw out the guiding fold lines below on the rectangle.

All measurements are in cm. 

Note that you may change measurements according to your preference for a bigger/smaller/longer bag. Experiment with various sizes! :)

(please pardon this crudely photoshopped image!)

  (click to enlarge)

Fold the rectangle along all the guidelines and make sure that folds are all in the same direction, i.e all folded in/out.

Score the folds by dragging your ruler along them.

This might seem like an unnecessary step, but it is crucial in making your fold lines crisp and neat.

Erase the guidelines after folding, and draw an additional guideline as shown. 

Cut out sections as shown below.

The additional guideline is for the serrated edge of the lunchbag.

 

 Snip away diagonally, making little diagonal cuts which stops before the guideline. 

Leave the shaded portion uncut.

 Snipping away in the opposite direction, you will have a serrated edge, which will be the open side of the lunch bag.

 

Erase the shaded portion, and apply glue/tape on the sections shown below. 

Fold lunch bag together, applying slight pressure on the glued portions.

 

 Now, snip according to the existing serrated edge for the overlapped portion (which is the shaded portion).

 

 Your lunchbag is almost ready! :)

 

 Fold halfway in for both sides, so that the lunchbag can lie flat.

 

Hooray! Now you can make many many more lunchbags for your miniature food. :)

 For people who have no time to read through my long-winded instructions, 

here's a quick step-by-step evolution of the lunchbag.

(click to enlarge)

Now you just have to fill these nice brown bags up! :)

I'm thinking apples, french loaves, a slim wine bottle. How about you? :)

Deja vu.

Why, you may ask, am I talking about sandwiches again?

(okay maybe the first question might be why did I even ask this riddle, which totally fell FLAT.)

Well, I found it only befitting since I just shoved down a ham-lettuce-sandwich for breakfast just a few minutes ago. That, and the simple fact that these are the only new photos I have in my AiClay folder.

And no, this ain't just one of the sandwiches here. 

This sandwich is actually scaled down about 3 times, and measures at around 1cm in length. 

Long silence. 

Wow, I think I've exhausted everything I wanted to say about sandwiches. 

Sometimes I think I take too many photos of one single subject. No?

Now you see it.

Now you don't. 

(Okay fine fine, you still do.)

The following series of photographs is titled 'Lunchbag swallows sandwich'.

I'm starting to fall in love with paper crafts. 

There is something numbingly satisfying about folding, cutting, scoring and pasting.

And then repeating the whole cycle over and over again.

A full grocery bag, packed with AiClay purchases.

I feel like I owe all of you readers for just getting through my awkwardly written posts.

I think I would present a tutorial for miniature grocery bags next, how about that? 

I know they sound awfully simple to make (which they are actually). 

But hopefully there are some tips that I can still pass on to you guys.

Till the next entry! :)

The pau with the red dot.

We Chinese are really fond of our paus, or also known as buns. 

So much that we stuff these little white puffs with various kinds of fillings, from the basic bean paste, to savoury meats, to hard-boiled eggs.

And then, with all that variety, of course you would have to start finding ways to differentiate them when the fillings are all hidden, warmly tucked away underneath their powder-white exteriors.

To solve that problem, colourful dots now decorate the tops of paus. 

A yellow dot for bak pau - chicken meat filling. A pink dot for lian rong pau - lotus paste filling.

And the all-time favourite, a red dot for char siew paus - sweet pork filling. 

 Some mornings, my mom would steam different paus for breakfast. And the char siew paus would ALWAYS run out very quickly, with me and my brother fighting for the last one. :)

The love for char siew paus has now extended to them having their own jokes. 

Here's one. (Disclaimer: It is VERY lame.)

Char siew pau and man tou (a plain bun) went to catch a sad movie, but only char siew pau came out crying. Why?

Think think!

I know a lot of you should be able to guess this!

Alright I'll spill the answer..

It's because char siew pau has feelings (fillings) but man tou didn't!

.......

-awkward silence.

Sorry guys, I won't tell bad jokes no more. -sniggers.