So Cute It Hurts

The dog days of Summer fun.

After a little unplanned hiatus, i'm back to say hello. Sometimes an unexpected and unplanned blogging break is such a good thing for me.

I went on a short summer vacation last month. It was the best of times and our days were so full. We ate like kings. Delicious cakes and home cook comfort food were devoured. There were long quiet afternoons naps and lazy days of serious lounging. There were lots of evening walks involving gardens burst with all kinds of colorful flower goodness and big city exploration. We've loved creating some of our very own traditions and spending the days just the two of us doing exactly what we want ~ celebrating love. Like i said, it was the best of times. Ahhh...summer vacation, i adore you.

Hope your summer is full of adventures and maybe a rainbow or two. 
Love to you and yours.

Nice to meet you

Finally...after six and a half months, one airplane ride, and a boatload of excitement, my twin girls and i met. Seeing the two babies together was sweeter than the candied yams i had!

My twins, Charlotte and Nichole, got a huge kick out of dressing up this morning in their Hello Kitty outfits. Every little girl needs a Hello Kitty dress and shoes, right?

I've also recently scored some new shoes while hanging out on Facebook. These adorable animal shoes have been on my mind and now i have some on my girls' feet. Exactly how many pairs of shoes is too many? I'm not sure, but as far as i can tell i haven't gotten there yet.

Hope you and yours have fun wherever you are.
Weekends are for supreme laziness.
Sending some love out to you and yours.
More soon.

Everything goes with Ice Cream

Happy Sunday, friends.

After almost a year of waiting for it, my "Everything goes with Ice cream" by Koralee Teichroeb book arrived this week! I'm very proud to have gotten the chance to be part of such a great project and equally excited about how freakin' cool the completed book turned out. The book is wonderful and filled with yumilicious ice cream receipts and adorable little craft projects.

I was contacted by Koralee Teichroeb about participating in her new book she was set to publish completely dedicated to everything ice cream. It was such an honor to be asked and i of course said YES. The fun part was making one of my all time favorite childhood Red Bean Ice Cream Bars (one of my papa's specialities) and setting them out for a photoshoot with creating directions telling others how to make this recipe of their own.

The recipes in this book are roughly seasonal and very simple, yet so inspiring and clever. There is a recipe for Peach Cream Ice Cream that i am definitely planning to try. I am also excited about the Hot Chocolate Ice Cream Cubes. The Rich Hot Cocoa Mix is calling my name, as it would make such a perfect little gift. Doesn't that sound perfect?

The little crafts projects are such fun too! I would love to make Kari's adorable apron and Torie's pretty cone wrappers are definitely fun for a party.

To celebrate this ice cream occasion, i made a felted ice cream cone. If you are interested in making one of this adorable felted ice cream cone, the tutorial will be available at sweet Koralee's blog soon.

Blogging never ceases to amaze me ~ i've made great friends all over the world and now one of my childhood ice cream recipe is published in a neat book. How cool is that.

Have an ice cream today.
THANK YOU so much sweet Koralee. I love you.
Love to you and yours.

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.