In Bloom

Coming to a creative project near you! 

Get ready to play with petals when the Cut Flowers collection arrives soon on Lettering Delights. Flowers are always in and this time of year they are inright, outright, upright . . . downright the thing to craft into many a darling project. 

These flowers have the power to make your party a hit. They have the elegance to make a bride blush. They have the sweetness to make a baby coo. And they have the beauty to make a mother smile.

I will be sharing many a fun and lovely project ideas with you as soon as these blooms are ready to pick. Get ready for projects that will never end and flowers that will never wilt!

Weekend Recap: Laughter

Hello Monday! I'm just going to jump right in here. We had an incredible weekend filled with so much family time and laughter that my heart could burst and my abs are sore from the pee-your-pants fun we had!

My parents came in for the weekend to celebrate my Dad's birthday and if you know my family in the least, you know that also means they brought fun, food, and adventure!

I really tried to pare down the pictures so bear with me! Hope you feel the fun :)

Mimi tells the best bedtime stories :) Papa thinks she is full of it ;)

What we do for fun! Run an obstacle course on Saturday morning. 3 rounds: kids, mommas, and men. It was hilariously fun!

 

 

Papa showing us how to do it the right way :)

 

Obviously the little kids didn't join in on this but the rest of us made it to the top. 

Go Mimi!

No makeup, a little dirty, and having a blast with our family!

That night we surprised my dad with harmonica lessons. He loved it!

My mom ended up getting so excited that she ripped a hole in her shirt. She lives with gusto, what can I say?

Bill was very studious about the whole ordeal

I on the other hand was not. It amazes me that he married me :)

All the adults snuck out for an awesome meal while we left a babysitter in charge of the wild cousins :)

The only thing missing is my sister, Sassy and her hubby Brock!

Whew! I'm exhausted, I have splinters on the backs of my arms and my cheeks ache from smiling so much. I declare this a fabulous weekend! Hopefully I was able to bring a laugh to your Monday!

PS. 20 miles this week and I'll meet my goal, right on time for the race :)

Weekend Menu #26: Taste of Bako

Yesterday afternoon together with my mum and sis, we went for a ride to Bako.  It has been ages since I been to Bako and Muara Tebas.  When I was small, dad used to bring us to Muara Tebas to visit the famous Muara Tebas temple on the hill (and on the way we will dropped by Bako).  

That time the roads were bad and it takes more than an hours ride.  But yesterday it was less than 30 minutes drive to Bako.  Hubby wanted bring us for a lunch at this Bako restaurant which overlooking the river.  It was a old wooden shop but suprising a lot of people came to eat at this old restaurant.  And we can see many activities surrounding the river too.   

We have a wonderful lunch.  Plus drinks, the meal costs RM100.00.  Not bad.  I would definitely ask hubby to bring us over there again.  If not, my girl will nag his dad to bring us because she enjoyed the scenery and some crabs on the mud.

We ordered its bamboo clam cooked in white wine.  Very nice.  Something different than having its cooked in curry powder. The bamboo clams were so fresh and no sandy taste! 

Its famous deep fried squid.  Very fresh and tasty. I ate a lot of these sinful food!

Fresh steamed fish covered in their special sauces.  Tasted like black bean sauce.

Their signature fried taufu.

Stir fried kai lan

The old wooden shop.  The restaurant is the one next to this grocery shop.

Beautiful Bako river.  The sampan and speed boats are means of transport over here

A special treat for the birthday girl!

In My Daughter's Eyes

Today is my eldest child's 6th birthday! She is our lovely honey pie of the house. She is always our princess of the house. And hope like this beautiful song, she will always think of me in high respect. *wink*

Happy birthday, my girl!

Selah's Quilt

Alright y'all. I'm at a good place this summer to tackle a huge project. But I need some help!

This is a gorgeous vintage quilt that was hand-sewn by my great grandmother. It is in such bad repair that I'm at a loss of what to do with it. It was never stored correctly and the rips and tears are major. At first it made me angry that it wasn't cared for but now I look at it as a quilt well loved. Still though, I want this to last in the years to come so something has to be done.

 

Today was actually the first day I completely laid it out. To restore it would be a lot of work. The plan had been that this would be used in Selah's room...yes I'm already planning her room, no we haven't submitted our paperwork. I'll post an update on Monday about that :) Will has taken to asking about her and where she is. I tell him I don't know but God does. He responds with "yep, I bet God is holding her right now". He is going to be such a protective big brother when it comes to his little sister. 

 

Isn't this picture so sweet? He knows it belongs to his sister. Sigh....

Alright back to the quilt. Goodness a momma can get so swept up in her children!

 

These vintage fabrics are drool worthy!

 But alas, this is what I'm dealing with....

What would you do? I had big dreams of this welcoming our daughter into a new generation of woman. That when she looked at this quilt she would see how so many different prints and colors could be combined with such love that it created a masterpiece. That this was part of her legacy now. 

Options:

Pay big bucks and send it to a restoration place. 

Cut it down and turn it into a smaller quilt, replacing the back and the binding.

Cut a few squares out and frame them-this feels very last resort to me.

I would love some advice, even if it sounds crazy. Lets hear it!

Rainbow Shirts

So as you can see its been kinda quiet over here posting-wise! I haven't been able to respond to all my lovely comments, or invitations to link parties lately. (I will soon though!)  These last weeks have been my last weeks of grad school.   All of my final papers, presentations and final evaluations have taken over my life!

*and from writing so many papers this post will naturally be very long. you've been warned ;)*

For the past few weeks I have been up past midnight working on something school-related almost every night.  It is nearly impossible for me to do work during the day.  I have tried, and it never works well.  I end up getting upset at Eliana for interrupting me so many times, which isn't fair to her at all.  So throughout my grad school experience I have done my school work after Eliana is asleep.  I can concentrate better when she is asleep anyways.  So because I am in the final stretch, pulling everything together, this means lately I have been up late almost every night.  Because of this my amazing husband has gone above and beyond in so many ways. He almost always stays up with me to give me emotional support,  to be an extra set of eyes to read through my papers with me and most importantly goes out to the store at the drop of a dime if I feel that ice cream will enhance my paper writing skills ;)


Even though we both stay up until sometimes 2 am, he still has to get up and go to work.  He also gets up in the middle of the night 9 times out of 10 if Eliana calls out, knowing that when I get up in the middle of the night (especially when my mind is over-occupied) I can't easily go back to sleep. So he lets me sleep and attends to whenever Eliana needs something. He continually gets less sleep than me, on purpose, and I whole-heartedly appreciate it and I know I couldn't have done this all without him.


On top of that Eliana was sick for a week with a stomach bug. I'll spare you the details ;) Thankfully yesterday was the first day she woke up without being sick! *happy dance*!  Sadly, now David doesn't feel too great. I just hope this bug doesn't hit me until after my final presentation on Monday. 


So enough about my exhausting life and onto more fun things... ;)


As promised from my post on Eliana's Rainbow Birthday Party, here is a simple tutorial on how to make the rainbow shirts we made. I meant to post this weeks ago, but I found it super hard to justify writing up this post instead of finishing a paper. yeah I know right? I'm good like that. Actually no, it took a lot of willpower to not write the post because honestly this is way more fun than a paper. I'm not ashamed to admit that ;)


And p.s. don't make fun of my lack of craft tutorial skills or photos... I usually only post cute lunches ;) I'll try to use the pictures more than the words.. we'll see how this goes...

rainbow colored fabric paints

For this project you will need:

*Rainbow colored fabric paints

*Gray or Silver fabric paint for the cloud (we used silver glitter)

*shirt to paint on (we went with white)

We didn't use the traditional colors for the rainbow. We used "watermelon" for red and our green was more of a teal color.  We also went with shimmery fabric paint.  So for this project, pick what works best for you :) 

Eliana rearranged the paints and told me that I had to take a picture like this. Yes ma'am ;)

So now that you have your materials you can make your rainbow shirt. For this tutorial I show it on a piece of paper but we (and by we I mean my husband) used this exact method the shirts.

Step 1: Draw out your first color of the rainbow in a thin line

Step 2: Use your finger to smudge the line

That is David's finger in case you thought to yourself "Oh my! she has manly hands!" ;)

Step 3 + 4: Draw out your next color of the rainbow and use your finger to smudge the line

*remember to wipe off the paint on your finger between colors*

It doesn't have to be perfect. It should look something like this:

Steps 5-12: Continue the process with all colors of the rainbow:

*remember to wipe off the paint on your finger between colors*

Ignore that yellow drop of spilled paint. that's what I get trying to do this with Eliana and Mia running around ;)

Step 13 + 14: Add your clouds with your gray or silver fabric paint 

and smudge with your finger

Step 15: let the paint dry on shirt overnight.

Step 16: Wear your shirt! :)

As you can see that rainbow isn't perfect, but like I said before it doesn't have to be perfect ..Or at least that is what I am telling my perfectionist self. That is why David did the shirts, not me.  I would have had to buy 20 shirts and would have mapped out the rainbow to make sure the lines were perfect, the arcs were even, etc. But for your sake, agree with David on this one. It doesn't have to be perfect :)

David did all three shirts in less than a half hour. It was so quick, and easy. And actually it is so simple your kids can do it with you, or by themselves depending on how old they are. We chose to do make the shirts while Eliana was sleeping to surprise her in the morning :)

The completed project:

So we decided to make Eliana's shirt a full rainbow, like the tutorial. On our shirts the rainbows were slanted so that when we stood together it looked like one complete rainbow. The clouds we decided to leave open on the inside so that we when we stood next to each other the rainbow was complete.

My shirt

David's shirt

We decided to make the shirts that way (prepare yourself for mushy moment) because we are complete when we are together. And our lives became so much more filled with love and laughter with our Eliana, who fills our rainbow. 

It may sound corny, but there was meaning to the reason we made the shirts like that.

I had come up with the idea to make rainbow shirts, but David's creativity took it the next level. I may be creative with food, but not so much with arts and crafts! I gotta say, we make an amazing team ;)  I know I have been nothing but a mush today but I can't help it. I am so thankful to have such an amazing husband. He has always supported me with everything, but literally I could have never made it through the past two years in grad school without his love and support. *I love you babe!*


OK seriously enough mushy for today ;)


....And here are some rainbow cake balls: (I couldn't have a post without food in it!!)

This one is for you Myra ;)

I made these cake balls last year.  They still make me happy when I look at them :)
I love how colorful and bright and cheery rainbows are. Of course these crafts and food never compare to the beauty of a real rainbow but I hope this post brought some brightness into your week!

I Link up. Check it out!
I am linking this post to Rainbow Connection! Check it out for more Rainbow inspired crafts, foods or activities :)