The Party's Over

Yup, birthday decor has been taken down *sob sob*

Yes, I know. Birthday is not like festive season, it's a day celebration. But the decorations were done with lots of love and hard work and I'm sad to see it brought down. So anyway, we had it up for the month of June at least.


All stacked up and ready to be kept away for future recycling.. maybe

Anyone wanna rent birthday decor? Birthday banners and animal cut-outs for decor. I can set-up a surprise party for you too if you are planning one :) (with a small fee)

Post-it Notes Questionnaire

In gathering info, I've prepared a series of questions for my respondent to answer (seen this some where, forgot the link.. so it's not entirely my own idea).


In this colour papers initially

Then respondent wanted to stick them onto his LCD monitor. Though the LCD is huge, the papers somewhat obstructed him during his full screen gaming sessions. And so I was asked to re-write them into these little sticky notes.


I have a feeling it was also due to original papers not being orange (yes, birthday decor is still up)







I wonder what would happen if the feedback did not meet the expected results.

Of Celebrations..

June is a special month for celebrations. My sweetheart's birthday falls in June. Father's Day is in June and daddy's birthday is also within that few days!

Typically, Father's Day is a day we would just spend with daddy for some get-together time. But since I have started the precedent of baking mummy a cake this year, sis has asked me to bake daddy one too. But me with my very limited culinary skills, know no other recipe but my chocolate cake. That, however, is not a problem as the kids (my nieces and nephew) love chocolates.


So with the help of hubby, and some recycled birds cut-out, this is the first cake for daddy.


With an identical cake box design to the Mother's Day cake.


The no-bake Oreo cheesecake for daddy's birthday 2 days later.

As with most celebrations, we eat out at Sit A Spell Café, where pre-dinner, sis and I get to shop around the rows of boutique (with discount for knowing the café's owner), while mum and dad get to chat with my aunties.


My nieces - XY can just about finish the whole plate of spaghetti and XT with her meehoon


Sweetheart (with my friendship bracelet and Benetton T-shirt, one of his birthday gifts from me) posing with XT.

In continuation of the many celebrations, XT presented us with invitations to her coming birthday party.


Her handmade invites

So you see, I have a new project to embark on.... she has named her birthday gift, but I have some supplementary gift ideas brewing in mind *wink*.

Friendship Forever

Remember making friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss during school days?

As a symbol of our 19 years of friendship, I've made my husband a friendship bracelet. It has been as many years if not more since I made one. Do you even remember how to make one? I, again, turned to the ever helpful google search for refreshment course. I still don't know how to make those complicated pretty patterns. It took a lot of trial and error to make the basic ones that I did.


This was me making the W pattern during a recent trip to Singapore. Believe it or not, hubby actually taught me this pattern!


The one I'm using for the keys turned out too short even for my bony wrist and the one in the middle was intended for hubby but also turned out too short for him, so it ends up in my own stash of accessories.


This is another one of the same pattern in similar colours made for him. So we now have matching bracelets! :)

If you are wondering where I got my embroidery floss from (they are awfully expensive nowadays!), I actually managed to search and find the balance I put away from all those years when I used to be a novice cross-stitch enthusiast.


Some of my masterpieces

I kid you not. That was a lifetime ago. I, myself, find it hard to believe when I look at these.. at all the hard work and patience put into them.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Yesterday was my bff's birthday. I threw a party for him and it was one of my favourite parties. Not every birthday requires a large party. Sometimes it's fun to keep it laid back. So with me as the host and the only guest, it was an exclusive affair.

I spent weeks (ok ok.. so I procrastinated in the first few weeks and only really spent the last few days working hard) preparing it. I decided on a safari (him being such an animals lover) and the colour orange (his fav) as the overall theme. My initial concept was much bigger than this, but cost, time and logistic forced me to scale down to what it was.


Birthday surprise started from him receiving this balloons bouquet of my safari-theme, and I had him brought home for me to see even though he couldn't see the rear mirror while driving (and I went through a harmless little white lie with the help from michiyo in ordering the balloons)


While he was at work, I had to keep to a tight timeline to put up everything in place


The birthday banner (especially love the shadows of the animals template on the wall)








In the study room where he spends most of his time.. no, not working but playing games. See that new huge LCD?


Identical banner in the bedroom


The bathroom mirror


And lastly, what is a birthday without gifts..

Looking at the colour scheme, I'm hoping to recycle certain things for Halloween...

Sneak Peek

Pssst... I'm back! Been busy. This is a sneak peek of the latest project I've just executed.



More photos to come...

Handmade Ribbon Necklaces

Note : I have had enough of my own homemade cakes and delicacies for now, after I tried my hands on some Tiramisu as dessert, which hubby dislikes, being a non- 1) coffee drinker, 2) cheese lover, 3) liquor enthusiast, like myself; a no-bake Oreo cheesecake of which I practically had to finish by myself too and an Orange cake which was a flop (don't ask me why).

So I think I better stick back to something I'm slightly better at.. i.e. creating more junks!

I saw this necklace and I'm captivated. Another thing you may have known about me is that I love all things feathery and frilly :). I wish I could afford that necklace, but I can't and I knew I have to try making one myself.

Here's my creation that I know is not the same, but am hoping it's not that bad an imitation either, with whatever materials I have on hands.


Mine looks like a ballet tutu.. so I'm calling it my tutu-inspired necklace


This is how it looks like on a plain simple top


If it's a bit too eccentric to wear on a normal outing, maybe dress it up a bit to stand out in a proper function

That was made yesterday. And today, I came across this! It's beautiful. And it came complete with a step-by-step tutorial. How hard could it be? Till I realised I can't knit! What is a crochet? How do I make that? The link provided in the blog is of no help for novice like me. Not deterred, I googled up more step-by-step guide to crocheting and I managed this..


Ta-daa.. a ribbon-crocheted necklace. Again, I used what I had (yes, I know, my purple ribbon is making an appearance again) and I don't have large pearls, so I used this pearl necklace I bought years and years ago in KK at the Filipino market that I don't remember ever wearing.


Goes with a little black dress


Closer look

Ok, took me 5 minutes to make this next one..


French lace necklace (No, I did not cut my wedding dress to make this)


Simple. Now I have one additional item in my accessories box!

I wish I have more materials to play with. I want to sit here whole day making girly frilly things. I've been having fun with these!

My Homemade Delicacies

Warning : Do not get your expectation high because of my post title

This year, having a bit of time on hands and feeling adventurous, I baked mummy a cake on Mother's Day. Yes, really. You don't believe me?


Here's the proof


I wasn't sure if the cake is edible, so I did my best to pretty it up :) It's all about packaging. I'm a huge believer of that.

We didn't get to taste the cake on that day as we went out for a dinner celebration. However, upon checking, feedback has it that the entire cake was devoured the very next day and declared yummilicious.

Ok.. ok, if you really must know, my first attempt a week before was a sort of failure. The cake is great but my chocolate frosting has lumps of sugar that didn't melt! I still have leftover in my fridge as my daily breakfast.

I chucked that recipe and used another one after spending a bit more time on research i.e. reading lots of comments on recipes posted online and even watched a few step-by-step guide from YouTube. Well, I had time, didn't I?

The chocolate ganache I made to frost the cake turned out delicious. I had a bit to spare after pouring over the cake for Mum. AND.. today, I made some chocolate truffles out of it.


It is surprisingly simple to make, although I only attempted the plain basic ones.

I do realized they are not round since I do not have a melon baller or a small ice-cream scoop for the task and had to resort to using my hands to roll. But they are originally supposed to be mis-shaped rounds and rolled in cocoa powder to look like real truffle fungus with 'dirt' that grows around the roots of trees. That's as much as I learned from my research.

Since I have very little chocolate ganache left, I only managed to make about 15 small little truffles. Not enough to share with the neighbours, but enough for a simple snack or refreshments.

I've also been juicing our own fresh juices recently and thought that would make a good compliment to the chocolate truffles.


Oranges, apples and lemons = an unbelievably sour juice = hubby's fav

Tadaaa... Refreshment is ready to be served.


Yes, again, presentation is important! Haha..


I realized the missing 'l' on chocolates and have since added that in but lazy to re-snap another photo

I had this ready anticipating hubby to return home, but instead found out that he'll be home late today. So here I am, to kill a few hours, sharing with you my creation. My most up-to-date post of my life so far.

Well, don't get your hope high, this is as far as my culinary skills will ever take me.

Cranes Obsession

My latest cranes project


A closer look

It's been a while since this was completed and has been hanging there. But as usual, my post is always back-dated and inconsistent.

Hours and days spent folding these 200 origami cranes, stringing them together, cutting the 'leaves'.. and on the day the hanging mobile is up at this current position, I had to resort to sitting dearest hubby down on the sofa and asked him to stare right ahead before he realized the new addition to the house (I couldn't help doing so, hours after he returned home, he had yet to notice it!). By posting it here, I'm hoping maybe some of you might appreciate it more?

I pretty much had enough of cranes for now. So I'm not going to take up the challenge of folding 1,000 origami cranes to fulfill a wish.

If you haven't noticed by now, I love all things that hang in the air.. so I'm ending with this beautiful image here by snorkiesnork!


Anyone having an outdoor party? This will look stunning as decor!

Be a Cover Girl!

Bored at work? This is one of the many things I do as time-waster =)

Ok, we didn't make it onto the cover of a magazine.

But with Mag My Pic, you can put your mug shot on whatever magazine cover you want!




woohoo!! Fashion icons... haha..




Love this the most. Perfectly belonged to this cover - don't you think?

Tips for additional fun : Upload the photo of the most hated person (Client? Bosses??) into this cover..