She turned her kids’ old clothes into keepsakes – now it’s a thriving home business

She turned her kids’ old clothes into keepsakes – now it’s a thriving home business Siti Nur’ain Awari turned them into bears and quilts her children could keep. That idea grew into Patchwork Handmade Keepsakes, where the mum of four has transformed other kids' clothes, from baby onesies to school uniforms, into treasured mementos. Siti Nur’ain Awari is that mum who keeps everything – her baby’s first onesie, the pyjamas her children wore as she cuddled them to sleep, their preschool uniforms. “I know I will never throw these clothes away,” said the stay-at-home mum of four children aged 4, 8, 10 and 12. But rather than leaving them forgotten and collecting dust in her storeroom, the 37-year-old sat down one day and cut these beloved pieces up. Her children were right beside her when she did so. “I told them: This is your baju (Malay for clothing) when you came back from the hospital, these were your favourite army-print clothes that grandma bought, this is your K2 graduation outfit,” she told CNA Women. For her first three children, she transformed the fabric pieces into stuffed bears. For her youngest, she made a quilt. These became her kids’ most treasured possessions. One thing she did not expect was for it to grow into a thriving home business. At Patchwork Handmade Keepsakes, Nur’ain has since transformed thousands of pre-loved baby and children’s clothes into stuffed animals and quilts for other families. Prices start from S$85 for a bear and from $120 for a quilt. A PATCHWORK OF MEMORIES The idea actually came from Nur’ain’s cousin. In early 2024, inspired by something she saw online, this cousin sent Nur’ain a bag containing 30 pieces of her daughter’s baby and toddler clothes, featuring the prettiest floral prints and cutest cartoons. She asked Nur’ain to sew a quilt with them. Nur’ain, who has been sewing and altering her own clothes since she was a teenager, spent months researching and practising before she felt confident enough to cut up her niece’s preloved baby onesies. Each piece of clothing is a precious and irreplaceable memento. “You cannot mess it up,” Nur’ain told CNA Women. Making a quilt is more technically complex than most imagine, she added. “A quilt has three layers – the top layer, middle layer and backing fabric. It is quite thick. You need to know what type of thread to use, and how to adjust the sewing machine so it turns out well,” she explained. Since her quilts are made up of square pieces of fabric, Nur’ain has to make precise measurements and align the squares properly. This becomes more complex if some fabrics are stretchier and others stiffer, she said. It also requires some skill to piece the different fabrics in such a way that they complement one another, she added. In May 2024, Nur’ain completed her first quilt for her cousin, and posted a picture of it on Instagram, generating some interest from friends. She decided to polish her skills by making two more trial quilts – one with her father’s and brother’s preloved clothes, and one with her youngest son’s baby clothes. She posted pictures of these on Instagram and an Etsy shop, which she has since closed. A month later, she received her first order of two baby quilts. WHEN A TOY BECOMES A KEEPSAKE After quilts came turning pre-loved clothing into stuffed bears. After watching YouTube videos, she made a bear with her eldest son’s clothes that same month and posted a picture of it online. A few weeks later, four bear orders followed. Encouraged, Nur’ain continued learning how to make different stuffed animals. She now offers eight, including rabbits, lions, horses and rhinoceroses. These caught the eye of her own kids and they asked for their own. The doting mother happily obliged. Since her three older children graduated from the same preschool, she decided to make a bear with their old school uniforms. “Preschool days are special. It is their first time going to school, their first time wearing a school uniform, and they have their first teacher… There are so many firsts,” she reflected. Cutting up the uniforms was definitely bittersweet, she said. “I was the one who buttoned up these uniforms for them every day, you know?” These school bears unexpectedly became her best-sellers, especially for graduation ceremonies and PSLE results day. With their popularity, Nur’ain now frequently receives more orders than she can fulfil and caps her monthly workload at 25 orders, working around her mummy duties and when her kids are asleep. Nur’ain, who worked in an administrative role until she got laid off in 2020 during the pandemic, said that her home business now earns her almost as much as her former job. MAKING NEW MEMORIES WITH OLD CLOTHES One of her most difficult jobs arrived in three big bags two years ago. In them were more than 200 pieces of baby, toddler and children’s clothes tracing the life of someone’s beloved child. The child’s mother requested for three large quilts – one for her, one for the father and one for the child, who was around seven then and unwell, Nur’ain said. “I didn’t ask a lot because I wanted to respect their privacy, but it felt like it might be a serious illness,” she shared. “When I first received the clothes, I couldn’t touch them for a week. It was quite hard for me to start cutting up the clothes. As a mother myself, I could imagine how painful it would be for the parents,” she said. “When I first started this keepsake business, I thought I’d just be making things with cute baby clothes. I did not expect to feel these kinds of emotions,” Nur’ain added. The parent returned a second time in December 2025 to make another quilt with the remaining clothes as a Christmas gift for the child’s grandmother in the United Kingdom, she said. Nur’ain also recalled another job where a parent requested a quilt made from the clothes of 22 preschoolers. It was for a beloved teacher who was unwell, and the class hoped that she could use the quilt while undergoing treatment and feel comforted by their love and support. “Clothes carry not just memories, but emotions,” Nur’ain said. They belong to someone’s special son or daughter – a beloved child who is deeply cherished, she reflected. This understanding has given the mumpreneur a deeper appreciation for upcycling these treasured pieces. “Instead of throwing them away or letting them get dirty in the cupboard, why not make them into a new memory?” she said. CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.