Fragrance Pillow Cover

Next project is a fragrance pillow cover. Actually it started out just being a pillow cover, but along the way, it kinda evolved with laces, and a pocket to keep fragrant sachets of perfume from Fragonard! This one is as sweet as pie! And it smells sweet too! Here are the assembly line....

And the zipper, god I hate zippers! I still don't know how to sew them! Although this one is actually an improvement from my first zipper that has a hole at the end! At least this one is all zipped up, but I kinda got one of the tail wrong.....

And lastly, the end product. Awwwww, so sweet looking :)

Ref:
Fragonard

Lunch Box Carrier

Decided to make a lunch box carrier for myself as I've decided to bring lunch and breakfast (and snacks) to work every Monday to Thursday. Reason being it takes 10 -15minutes to walk out for lunch, and 10-15minutes to walk back. Plus, the food outside is expensive, and taste awful. And I was kinda inspired by the book "The Art of Eating In" by Cathy Erway. But bringing two lunch boxes is kinda hard to fit into my handbag, so I thought I'll make two lunch box carrier to bring my lunch in, two so that I can wash one and still the other one to use :)

Since it's my very first hand made lunch box carrier, I wanted to make it as unique as possible. I got these two ginger bread man and plan to use it like a logo for my carrier. Cute eh? More such toys and where to get them can be found here. I also recently got some great teddy bear patch cloth that I was dying to use, and o-o-o, teddy bear buttons!

Anyway, I've been fascinated with double layered bags, where the inside is of a different pattern. It kinda make it classier, like those branded handbags. So I thought I'll make one like so. So here is the assembling process. Usually I use pin to hold the cloth together, stitch them over one, and then machine sew over them. You'll be shocked to know that I don't use any measuring tape, nor marker :)  I just fix them up as I go along! (hence the weird shape of the end product :P )

Anyway, here's the end product. Not too bad really, if I can bring 3 to 4 lunch boxes a day, this would be perfect. But since I'm bringing two, it's kinda baggy, so maybe I'll start bringing fruits or snacks or desserts to work with me :)

Ref:
The Art  of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway

HTC Rhyme Workshop

Attended the HTC Rhyme workshop on 18-Feb-2012. Saw it on their Facebook page and signed up for it, more for the goodie bags that actual interest on the phone. Don't get me wrong, I'm no cheapo who attend events to get free stuff! I just happen to really really like HTC, and really really love their products, and kinda like collecting their gifts :P Before I start, here's a clip on the HTC Rhyme to share.



The event was held at Cathey Cineleisure @ Kbox, and I arrived on time! The presentation lasted one hour, after which food and drinks were provided, and since it was a girl's workshop, you could get your nails done, glitter tattoos, massage and erm, that's it. Nothing fancy. I queued for the tattoos, and we get a pick of 3 designs. All the girls went for the design without the brand. I went for the HTC design :)  I mean, besides me loving the brand, I thought I need to pay back a little for the freebies they were giving me. Besides, I'm really glad I pick that one cause at least it's memorable :)

Next the goodie bags! It's just lovely! It came with a 1GB thumb drive from J'aime, and it was wrapped up in a nice Paris themed envelope which I thought was really really nice touch. The thumb drive is also shaped like a handbag and comes in pink! Adorable! There was also an umbrella inside with a umbrella bag that can be transformed into a carrier bag! I love that as well! And the design was simple and elegant!

Now my thoughts on the workshop. As compared to the Incredible S workshop I attended previously, I felt that this one was a lot more well organized, and the goodie bag was really really wonderful. In terms of product, I love both product, but I'm not the type that buys a new phone every 2 years. But if I am, I would definitely get the phone, the innovation is just lovely! Simple and lovely. Not much to complaint for this workshop except the following:

• We were really disappointed that the HTC Rhyme did not come in purple color as in most advertisement. They told us they only carry white in Singapore, what a kill joy. And they keep saying ladies go for the design, yet they provided a dull color with no options.  
• The goodie bag came with a SGD200 voucher to purchase the phone with, but the validity is only till end of February. Can't they give us more time if they were really serious in allowing us to purchase the phone?

What I love about the HTC Rhyme? Happy to say lots! (except for the specifications)

• Love the docking station that transform the phone into an alarm clock/radio while charging it wireless! Awesome, can I have that in all future phone please?
• Love the charm for the ladies, can we have that in all future phone please?
• Love the phone cover that came with it! Again, let's make that a standard feature cause I'm having a hard time buying a cover for my HTC Desire and my HTC Flyer! I have no such problem with my HTC Touch cause it came with a cover!
• Would love it more if it came with better specifications, some ladies do go for specs you know!
• Would love it more if it came with Ice Cream Sandwich

 I now leave you with some wordings from my new umbrella carrier :)
Btw, I just signed up to be part of the HTC community. Hope they accept me. Heck, am thinking of applying for a job there too! Will see how that guess :)

Chocolate Covered Cornflakes

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and if you're broke but still want to give something sweet and lovely to your special someone, here's a wonderful gift that is easy to make, sweet looking, and cheap :)  I'm going to give you the recipe to turn the top part of this photo, into something that looks like the bottom part of this photo!

  

Cooking Instruction:

1. Melt like15cm x 5cm + 3cm of chocolate in a bowl. (Cut the chocolate into smaller cubes, then bring a saucepan with water to a boil, place a bowl on top of the saucepan, and in the saucepan put in the chocolate to melt. Stir occasionally until liquid)

2. Throw in half a box of cornflakes, and coat it completely with chocolate.

3. I add almond whole, and cranberries after that, and coat it completely as well. Feel free to add in anything you fancy: raisin, apricots, pinenuts, pistachio etc.

4. On a flat surface, place out all your paper cups, and scope spoonful of fillings to fill the cups.

5. Add the finishing touch with a dash of sugar balls! You can use any other sweet decoration as well! Go wild!

6. Takes around 45mins to cool, and you can package it after that. Stores well for weeks in a fridge!

 

Tips:After mixing the ingredient, leave the chocolate in the bowl on top of the saucepan while you fill up the paper cups. This help keeps the chocolate warm and liquid. If not, the chocolate is going to harden and make life difficult for you.

 

So once again, from left the ingredient,  the end product in the middle showing it nicely packed into a box, and lastly, the valentine gift on the right, all wrapped up with a pink ribbon! Doesn't it look just sweet?

Here's wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! xoxo

Ref:

Valentine's Day

Cat Coaster

 

My husband got a sewing machine recently (why, I don't know). But it was sitting at our study room for like a month before we actually took it out for a trial run! Above is a close up of the sewing machine, and after a few trial run, that was the first cat coaster I made using a machine! It is sooo fast! However, the quality was not as nice as hand sewed cause it was harder to control the machine, and also, there is a mass production feel to it when you see such perfect straight lines.....

Anyway it was fast! And I decided to complete my cat coaster collection. The below is the prep work of the full set of 6 cats all together. It was a patch I meant to do since last year, and I've actually completed two last year. But it was so time consuming to make them by hand. (it takes around 2 hours per coaster). But with the machine, it was faster, and I managed to finish 5 in maybe 3 hours? I didn't managed the 6th as I ran out of laces :(

 

And here are the end product of the five, with the bright red one being my favorite as it look so cheery! Aren't they cute? I feel happy just looking at them :)