Burda dress #125A and Zachary’s pants

Yesterday, I attempted this burda pattern (from burda magazine issue 01/2011). They graded this as intermediate level but truly this is not difficult to sew though I took awhile to understand how the weird shape pattern that I traced out from the magazine will work out to what it looks like when done. Fear not, just follow the instructions and you will be fine.

picture from burda website

 

However, though i have followed the sizing chart, the one that I made seem too big on the top portion and I thought there’s too much fabric for me and weigh me down on shoulder.

 

You will see what I mean from the following picture of my own version. But I don’t really care and I am going to wear this out to office soon. 😛

 

As for Zachary, this is the very first garment I sew for him – a pants. I been guilty of not making more for him. The last things I sew for him was pillow covers and mattresses covers before he was born. But but, there will be more to come for Zachary. I already bought lots of fabric suitable for boys. Just need to find the time.

The pattern of this pants come from this book. I redrafted the pattern abit to better fit his size and also to incorporate 2 different fabrics. This book was one of the first few sewing books I bought. It touches on very basic of machine sewing and teaches you to sew a t-shirt, a bag and pants. Quite an useful book for beginner.

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Peanut Miso with Soba and mini Bento

Hi hi, like to share with you a recent dish that I cooked. This dish was inspired by one I ate at a vegan store at Beach Road. I loved the dressing on the green soba noodle they used. I thought I tasted peanut and miso when I ate it and so I researched via internet to learn about dressing that used miso and peanut. This recipe that I am sharing here comes very close to what I have tasted earlier. And I added chicken slices and green veg to go with the dressing and the buckwheat noodle. Yummy and healthy food. 🙂

Peanut miso dressing

2/3 cup chicken stock

2/3 cup peanut butter

3 tbsp miso

1/4 cup lime juice

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp ginger

1tbsp garlic

pinch of white pepper

Place all ingredients in food blender and blend for about 1 minute to form a smooth dressing. Can store in fridge for about a week and can use it for salad dressing too.

Also, like share with you a mini bento box I prepared for Zachary during his school excursion to the zoo. This is a snack bento. You can get most of the stuff I used here from Daiso.

The Japanese really love doing  bento box for their kids but I guess in Singapore, bento making is not common and seriously, I doubt I can find time to make these for Zachary to bring school. But it is really rewarding to see his happy face when he received this bento box

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Exam on bday

Hi Hi. It has once again been a long time since I last posted here. I had been busy studying.

My examination for my first paper of my audit certification was yesterday and I am now glad that it’s over and I pass it. Shall take a short break before embarking on the next paper.

And silly me had arranged for my examination to be on same day as my birthday. And ya, I am a year older since yesterday.

Hubby, Zachary and me celebrated together at Tung Lok Signature last night. Food was quite nice and I love the smoked duck breast. Ambience was not bad at the branch in Central.

And this year, Zachary was able to wish me “happy birthday mommy”. 🙂

Enjoyed the food and also my fabric and books shopping at Orchard yesterday.

During these days of studying hard for exam, I really miss crafting. I do some little crafting and sewing on and off but just simply could not get enough of them. Hoping to get more crafting done before I start preparation for next exam. Maybe a quilt this round? We shall see.

Also, I am so excited to be able to start preparing for my Taiwan and Hong Kong trip in mid May. It has been around 4 years since I last visited Taiwan and Hong Kong. And I going to hunt for some interesting craft items there this round. Actually, this trip was meant to be to Japan and we had booked all hotels and tickets and I had done most research before the earthquakes struck Japan. Since we are going to bring Zachary along and not want him be exposed to the radiation, we had then very very reluctantly cancelled our trip to Japan. I am hoping Japan will recover soon and we can visit this wonderful place next year.

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‘Royal’ Layout

It has really been a long time since I do a scrapbook layout. This is for participation of Prima Feb BAP.

This layout is made with all latest Prima CHA products. Love love them. The stamp used on the heart is also from Prima. 

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Dec Daily Album 7 dec to 13 dec

7 Dec

Xmas is really drawing near and I am hosting an early xmas party at my house on 19 Dec. Saw these tablewares with the dainty xmas trees imprints which I simply can’t resist buying them.

 8 Dec

Celebrated Michelle’s belated birthday (on 5 Dec actually ) during lunch today at TCC. It was nice to meet up with her together with my ex-MAS colleagues. The 4 of us worked together in a team then but now, all except 1 have left. Despite so, we still make an effort to meet up occasionally and celebrate one another birthdays.

9 Dec

Bought these ‘pom pom’ and animals crafting set for Zachary awhile ago while shopping for his birthday stuff. Finally bought it out to let him experiment tonight. He made a lion with some help from us. As usual, he gets more fascinated by the glue stick than any other things. So much that he kept wanting to pull out all the pom pom after pasting them down, so that he could re-stick them again.

10 Dec

Took some photos at the ‘mini park’ near to my house MRT station, Dakota.
Created the film roll background using the tattered angels masks.

11 Dec

Am planning to do some fruit cake xmas gift. To make sure the dried fruits have the strong liqour taste, I am preparing them about close to 2 weeks ahead now. Added lots of dark rum.

12 Dec

It has been 2 years since we last had the Christmas tree in our house. Back in 2008, I was doing confinement during this period and in 2009, Zachary was learning to walk and we did not want him to stumble upon the tree in the congested small house we have. Today, we decided to bring the tree out from the storeroom. Zachary did help a little in assembling the tree. And he definitely loves seeing the tree with the lights on.

13 Dec

Last Sat was the fruit cake preparation and today is the chutney preparation. I hug chutney and love it even more with the ham. Wanted to do a chutney with corella pears but I could not find them in the hypermart the past week and decided to do a plum with cherries one instead.

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Dec Daily Album – Day 1 to 6

Day1

I printed out and kept some of the photos I took at Hort Park in the Maya Road envelope. Can refer to my earlier blog post to see the photos taken at the Hort Park.

Dec 2

Daddy was still away on business trip. Little Zachary was spending the lazy night away with me and enjoying his pocky stick while watching cartoon.

Dec 3

Finally got a chance to have a picture taken with the talented blog author and cook book writer: Keiko Ishida

Grab her book: ‘Okashii’ for lots of recipes on chiffon cakes, tarts and many more including special diets bakes. And she has just published a new book but it’s in Japanese called ‘Happy Treat’ – a bake book for vegan.

Dec 4

Finally, hubby was back and we went off to our nearest shopping mall, Parkway Parade for teppanyaki dinner and Zachary had great fun at the Toy Story Play Stations set up at the mall and also playing at Cold Storage supermarket and Borders.

Dec 5

It was Family Day for my company and we spent the afternoon away in the Bottle Tree Park. As Zachary was too young for the Amazing Hunt, we spent the time with him, painting sea shells, watching kids catching fishes and enjoying candy floss and pop corns.

Day 6

Spending our Monday night at home playing play-doh.

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Zachary turns 2

Our little Zachary turned 2 last Sunday! And yes, he is still at the terrible two stage. He’s really getting and trying to be very independent. So much so that he demands everything to be done all by himself and will protest out loud when anyone try to help.

Some photos of the birthday party to share here. Didn’t take a lot as I was busy preparing food and also, I was down with a bad gastric problem (starved myself for too long hours last Sat as I was baking and decorating his cake). I also didn’t eat the food I prepared; could only make some porridge myself to eat that day.

Zachary in his ‘construction’ suit

Zachary’s Bob the Builder cake (Must thanks my hubby here for his great help in kneading the super hard fondant we bought. My first attempt in covering a big cake with fondant; really not easy)

food for the party

Biscotti I made

Truffles (cointreau flavor – used 70% chocolate – bitterness is just right!)

Smoked Duck crepe

Salmon rillettes

Prosciutto ham wrapped mushroom

Orecchiette pasta salad

I hope everyone who came enjoyed the food and the party. But I must apologize here for being a bad host as I was really feeling too weak to walk around too much to mingle with the guests. 

And to Zachary, my wish is that you will stay healthy and happy always!

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Birthday Preparation

Busy busy week for me as had been busy packing up my house including tidying up my scrapbooking stuff that has been piling up. Need to have my house neat and span for Zachary’s birthday party this coming Sunday. Talking about scrapbook stuff, I hope to be able to share with you some of my organization methods when I could spare more time maybe next week.

Thought I would just quickly snap some photos of my preparation work done to share here. Just taken them with my point and shoot camera at midnight (as my big camera is in Zachary’s sleeping area now). Work done so far:

•  
  1. Invitation cards  sent

My first time trying on the letterpress technique.





2.      Goodies bag (filled with Bob the Builder stuff!) packed





3.      ‘Zachary’ Banner done

Some close up of the banner

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Our 1st Crop Party

Hope you have a nice holiday yesterday. For me, I have bought Zachary with me to a crop party at Moy Yin’s place.

Our crop theme was xmas cards; but we only made one and spent the rest of time having tea, eating the yummy luncheon meat sandwiches and the nutella cupcakes I made specially for the gals at the crop party. And also, we decided to go shopping for stamps after the tea session. Ha ha.

I really wish to thanks Moy Yin for showing us to her craft area, giving free live demo on cricut expression and Yenni for sharing her card making tips and techniques. You may go into their blogs for more details of our crop party and the cards they made. Check out Yenni’s blog for lovely blog candy and drool at all her beautiful cards she make.

Lots of photos to share here.

a. nutella cupcakes I made

b. the xmas card I made.

c. the handmade gift from Yenni. (yenni: thanks so much. *hug hug*)

d. me and yenni and her card she made

e. me and moy yin and the card she made

f. busy zachary at our crop party

g. vintagy findings

h. moy yin’s craft area and interesting things she has

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Celebration @ Culina

Last Friday, we had an earlier birthday celebration for Zachary’s daddy at Culina. Daddy just gone on a 3 week reservist in Australia, hence the need for an earlier celebration.

The 3 of us had truly enjoyed our lunch there. Cosy environment and super fresh and yummy food. The ocean trout we ordered was very fresh and cooked just to the right tenderness. The kurobuta pork was also very juicy and contained just the right amount of fats.

Culina also carry liquor, fresh vegetable, meat and some hard to find culinary ingredients. Nice place to eat, rest and shop which give enough reasons for me to celebrate hubby’s birthday there for 2 years consecutively.

Make your way to Culina at Demsey if you have not been there. And on your way, pop by Huber Butchery for some great meat. I love the ham sold at Huber. Oh ya, Christmas is coming soon! One of my favorite festival with gift exchanges and xmas gatherings.

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