So Cute It Hurts

there's a first time for everything. part two

It has certainly been established that i'm a big fan of Parisian tea salons and pastry shops. One day, i hope to enjoy a magical afternoon at these shops Ladurée Paris and Antoinette Singapore.

It makes me really happy to say that i finished my first 2012 sewing project. It has been quite a while since i made something new, so i'm pretty pleased with this new apron. Don't get me wrong, it has a few flaws, but i really love those parts. It fits well and i think it's super comfortable.

My bakery french maid uniform is inspired by this manga series ~ i had a little trouble with the inset due to my rusty sewing skills. Either way, the apron is done and the whole french maid uniform just falls nicely together, which feels really good. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

This maid uniform will be on it's way to a sweet talented friend, Pei Li, once i'm done with a few final touch ups. I think her Ruki (Lati doll) will look great in it.

My little one had such fun modeling this piece with her new little bakery toys. I will be adding more assorted breads, desserts, cakes and french macarons to her little English Tea Cart collection. I'm sure she will be very pleased.

Happy Tuesday.
Happy sweetest month of the year, February.
Love to you and yours...always.

small talk with the moon

My week hasn't turned out too awesome.I was feeling a little under the weather at the start of the week (sinus infection city), which kind of bummed me out. I'm back to my old self now and extremely grateful to be here.

I've also neglected to mention that i was recently invited to a wonderful Love's Pilgrimage art exhibition at small talk with the moon gallery by my lady artist friends, Alison and Eva, here in Kuala Lumpur, and there was a surprising twist that occurred as well ~ intuitive reading by sweet Alison.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort between Alison and Eva, exploring the journey back to love through their inspiring beautiful art ~ the celebration and gratitude of both life and nature.

The exhibition was lovely and inspiring. The sharing session was amazing and the afternoon was spent chatting and laughing with my favorite girls. Good times.

I'm swooned.

I wanted to say thank you for all the super kind and supportive comments sent my way about my new "Let's enjoy" iCase series to come. I'm truly grateful.

After having such a whooper of a week, i don't have much going on except for filling orders, start work on a new project, my nose in The Spark Kit and making homemade comfort food (soup and shrimp, tomato and Basil Pasta)... AND doing everything possible to relax.

Be well, sweet friends
Happy merry weekend.
Love to you and yours.

Happy Monday

I've been slacking on saying hello since last Saturday. Sorry about that. The very warm weather outside is not so good for my overall mood and Mr Headache frequent visits isn't helping much. Bummer.

I hope your weekend was beautiful and relaxing and all the things you needed it to be. Mine was full of tasty comfort food ~ yummie vegetarian banana leaf rice and homemade lotus root soup with pork ribs, a bit of socializing, as well as a few chapters of Danielle Laporte's The SPARK Kit thrown in for good measure.

I'll leave you with a few favorite photos from the yummie vegetarian banana leaf rice lunch with my two best girls, Adeline and Angela.

I'll be back soon with some new sewing projects i'm excited to share with you. My desire to sew this weekend had to do with sewing while listening to this beautiful voice. Her tracks have been on heavy rotation around here.

Today is also my sweet Mister's birthday. We are saving the birthday celebration till i'm there with him in Hamburg (planning and saving up for the long vacation) and i have a little surprise gift for him too.

Happy Birthday, my sweet!
Happy Monday.
Happy week.
Happy.

You know what they say

...there's nothing like baking to lift ones spirits when things get busy.

Hi there. Hope your weekend was nice. Mine was. It was busy, but i didn't finish everything i set out to accomplish but overall the weekend was a success. Labels were sewn, brooch pins were stitched, and multiple loads of laundry were folded and put away.

As you can see, i also did some baking. When things get busy, i mean really busy, there's nothing as wonderful as to stop everything and bake. So, i signed up for a sunday baking class. A simple recipe calling for only a handful of ingredients and it turned out quite ok ~ quite a tasty little dessert, and would be good for breakfast, brunch or even teatime too!

I'll leave you with some film shots i took over the baking class.

Sending you lots of love ~ have a good one! I'll be back soon.

Happy monday

Hope your weekend was lovely. it was really warm here and although i meant to get out and run more errands, i mostly just stayed in and worked on my projects in my little studio. I didn't finish everything i set out to accomplish but overall the weekend was a success.

Some of the highlights include:

I'm such a flower nerd that i rewarded myself with a new bouquet of fresh flowers. They really cheer me up.

I haven't gotten enough done. The main parts of the wearable project of bears and sheep were cut out in orders, so that's something i suppose.

I made a jug of refreshing Shari's spa water~ so fresh and truly yummie!

I managed to score some nifty heart-shaped ceramics on a quick trip to the one of my favorite thrift store. I always love it when that happens.

Honestly, it's been nice to also watch a couple of old movies of this and that, and just relax a bit. And call me crazy, but i'm thinking and looking forward to Christmas. I even throw in a couple of christmas songs while working at my little studio ~ so maybe I'm losing it.

I'll be knocking on your little bubble space soon ~ i promised. I'm having an unfortunate food poisoning situation here ~ but everything is under control with some medication and very long naps. Have yourself a beautiful week! I'll be back soon. Love to you and yours always!

Keep it simple

Hello and happy Monday to you.

If you stop by very often, you probably know i'm not a very good baker {the Mister certainly knows}. However,i did some baking for the Mister's birthday celebration ~ nothing too serious just something simple with my favorite cream cheese made into cupcakes. What a treat and a very simple recipe {from my best girl Alice} calling for only a handful of ingredients.

Perhaps you need one more delicious cupcake recipes in your life...

Cheese cake cups (16 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

16 vanilla/butter wafer cookies
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese {softened}
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degress C). Line muffin pans wih the cupcake papers.
Place one wafer cookie in the bottom of each cupcake paper.
In the mixer, cream together cream cheese and sugar.
Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth.
Pour over wafers in the cupcake papers.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, untill golden brown and set.

I hope your weekend was full of sweetness. Mine certainly was.

A good birthday celebration with the Mister.
Cheese cake Cupcakes were made.
Gorgeous Eustoma flowers around my studio and the house.
Mister's favorite Pork Shoyu Ramen from his favorite Japanese restaurant.
A bit of socializing with my best girl Alice and my lovely sister.
Wearable project is off to a good start.
Not bad, not bad at all.

Have a good week! I'll say hello again soon. Love to you and yours.

Not bad at all...

Hello and happy Monday to you. I hope your weekend was full of sweetness. Mine was. It was busy, but i had a great dinner out with my mama and sister on Sunday, which reminded me how much i enjoy spending a weekend evening dinning at a little place with good food, yummie drinks and lots of conversation.

As you can see, i also got around to make a hearty and comforting soup, old cucumber and pork ribs soup. Something i've learned from my papa and grew up drinking lots of it. But this time, i've used the Mister's lovely twist of papa's soup recipe {he discovered during one of our kitchen experiments}. It was a very simple recipe calling for only a handful of ingredients and it turned out great.

Update: The mister's twist of papa's old cucumer and pork ribs soup recipe

Ingredients ~ {serves 3}

• One small to medium size old cucumber
• One medium carrot, peel and cut
• 200g pork ribs or chicken
• pepper
• salt
• 1.3 liters of chicken stock or water
• 6 dried scallops or dried oysters (optional)
• 10 red dates (optional)
• 1 sweet corn, cut to small pieces (optional)

Scrub the skin of the old cucumber, clean and cut it in half length-wise. Scoop out the seeds using a spoon and cut into small pieces. Some people prefer to remove the skin of the old cucumber. However, if you decide to remove the skin make sure you don’t overcook the soup as these cucumbers tend to “melt/dissolve” easily.

Next, in a small pot, blanch the pork ribs in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Blanching would be necessary because we want a clear soup. Drain and set it aside. If you are using chicken, you may want to remove the skin.

Now, for the soup: add some butter into the soup pot and simmer the pork ribs till lightly brown. Add in all the ingredients and pour in the chicken stock or water. Bring it to a boil for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then, simmer the soup over low heat for about 60-120 minutes. However, if you remove the skin of  the old cucumber, a simmer over low heat for about 30-60 minutes should be enough. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Being a craft geek, i've also spent several hours working and making a mess in my little studio. It was so nice to find some time to get started on my button iCase project. With a little discipline, i'm planning to share this project with you very soon.

Untill then, have a great week out there! Love to you.

the things we do

It has been what i would call a very good week so far. I have the free time that exists during my little break from day job. I mostly just stayed in and worked on sewing projects.

Lately, Kim and i have been doing this cooking game plan for fast and easy meals on weekdays where one of us is completely responsible for preparing dinner. It was the mister's idea to cook up a fast and simple delicious meal with a creative twist on weekdays from the help of "Personal trainer: Cooking" game in our Nintendo DS console. A game that brings gourmet cooking with 245 plus recipes from more than 30 countries worldwide. I was into the idea and the rest is history. For the last two weeks, each of us accepted the "challenge". It's been quite a treat.

Thank you kindly to each of you for all the kindness about the mister's new indoor flip flop. Your words mean a lot to me. I'm going to drink tea and enjoy the last bits of my break. Have a colorful merry happy Wednesday! Love to you and yours.

Happy february

Hello and happy Tuesday. Hope you had a cozy weekend. Mine was full of tasty comfort food, lots of socializing, as well as perusing and making trips to the malls, shops and a wet market thrown in for good measure.

This morning i realized just how close to the beginning of Chinese New Year we are. We're close enough that i could make those lucky paper stars i made as a child to count down the days until Chinese new year and it wouldn't even take me that long. We're that close ~ lots of cleaning and shopping to be done.

This week will be crammed full of reading and homework {e-courses}, working {i have completed several sections/parts of my crafty projects, however, there is still work to be done}, and listening {German for dummies}. I prefer my days to be slow and easy but sometimes slow is nowhere to be found.

I'll leave you with some comfort food photos from the weekend.

 

I'll be knocking on your bubble space soon! Missing your cozy sofas and comfort space lots. Have yourself a sweet week! More soon on SoCuteItHurts craftastic news. Lots of love to you and yours!

Cookies, cookies, cookies

This is the sweetest season of the year, making your list ~ filling it up with holiday gifts ideas, packaging ideas and decorations ideas.

 

Handmade gifts are the best kind, particularly when they're edible and prettily packaged. This year, if time permits i would love to make holiday cookies as gifts and hope that they turn out as pretty as they are delicious. And although i am not a good baker, i do want to try something new ~ baking cookies and pretty them up with lovely packages, and offering them to family and friends. I think baking cookies is much more than a small gesture ~ it's a personal one, showing the best sentiments of the season.

 

I treated myself to a gift in the form of a cute holiday cookie cutter set from Wilton. I love the size of these cutters ~ really mini ones. I can't seem to stop looking at them. It makes me happy. I think im gonna try to keep my cookie recipe really simple. I'd love it if you'd share your most favorite cookie recipe.

 

Who can resist an attractive assortment of freshly baked holiday cookies? Set some out with a tall glass of cold milk, and tempt Santa. teehee  Wishing you a merry happy relaxing weekend. Good times and happy friday! Love to you and yours.