Cupcakes for Christmas

Christmas is upon us. And before we head to the shops and spend money on cute trinkets, why not make your own cute trinkets! Handmade presents are the bomb!

This Christmas I’ve decided to make Adam’s family (hahaha!) cute little pin cushions shaped like yummy cupcakes! Whether it’s a useful gift or not, errrrr…. Let’s not dwell on that. Anyway, it’s harder to re-gift or chuck out handmade presents.



So here is a tutorial on how to make your own cupcake pin cushion. You need:

· Two different coloured felt

· Glue Gun

· Fabric or an old sweater



Right on! Let’s begin!

1. Fold your felt into half. Lay them on top of each other and roll away. Hot glue them once a while. Tadah! You now have a yummy looking cream top! It’s up to you how big/thick/tall you want your cream top to be!

2. Now for the paper wrapper. I use an old sweater, cut off a bit of the arms and sewed the ends together, turned it inside out and there you have it. Easy!

3. Hot glue the cream top to the pretty wrapper.



Really, It is that easy and they look delish!

pandoooooodle

Garden

I was never a plant person. But I guess that was because I didn’t have a place to call my own. When we got our house, the garden was barren. Just lots of sand. You know Perth. Nothing but sand. No nutrients and water just runs of the top of sand.

dry as dry

Every weekend, we would go to Bunnings to buy soil and plants. It was a great feeling seeing our garden transform. And even greater feeling seeing plants have baby plants! I mean – Free plants! Haha! Now, I have a small nursery going, cultivating my baby plants.

Lil' bit of green

I do enjoy gardening, pulling out weeds, stomping on snails and caterpillars. I did kill a couple of plants here and there. I tried transplanting some daises. They wilted and died. I moved a fern from sun to shade and it wilted immediately, but I managed to nurse it back to help by watering it twice every day. I hope it pulls through!

And look at my cool terrarium! I have cool pretty cactus flower!


Even Panya has a plant for herself. In the house, she has cat grass to munch. We got her cat mint and cat nip, but they have no effect on here and they were taking over the garden at such a crazy rate, I pulled them out. Oh well – more space to plant our veggies!

I went to Stereosonic a week ago. Sure, the tix were a little expensive at over a hundred a person, but you know what, I had a great time and I finally got to see my favourite DJ in the world, BT. Every now and then, I would hop onto his website to see if he would be playing in any clubs near me. However, be it Chicago, Tokyo or Singapore, he was never in those cities when I was there. So when I heard that stereosonic was coming, I checked the line up and saw his name on it! Totally Going Yo! There were other DJ’s that I am familiar with – Carl Cox, Ferry Corsten, Armin Van Buuren etc. But it was BT that made it a done deal.

Being the total Groupie that I am, I made sure that I was right in front! And I was! I was there two DJs and 2 hours early. Now, which DJ brings a drummer? BT! Totally rocking! I had a smile plastered on my face, jumping to the beats and totally in awe. BT’s photographer uploaded some pics on his Facebook account and I think I spy Adam and I right up there.


Kinda sad that he was on for only one hour. We were there from 2 pm to 9.30 pm! I was completely exhausted after that. Thankfully, I had the day off the next day in order to recover, not young anymore! LMFAO were there too! They dressed exactly like how they dressed in the “Everyday I’m shuffling” MTV. Even the dance crew from that MTV were there. They were full of energy, cheeky, playful and totally into the whole disco vibe. The crowd was loving them! Too bad we were sooo far, and from where we were, the music from the other tents muffled LMFAO’s music.


You know at these concerts you see all those security people. I think it would be cool to be one of them and listen to the music for free. The security guy up infront of BT was kinda cute, though he was constantly in my pics! He pointed at people who had their tops off, who were sitting on shoulders. But it kinda sucks that you have to have your back to the stage.


Yay! Finally got to see BT! I can die happy now.

Fit for life

Adam and I have recently signed up for a gym membership at our local recreational center in Vic Park!


It’s summer here in Perth and it’s time to whip our bodies into shape after a looong winter hiatus. We signed up for a year with a bonus two months free! Sweet. We get to use the pool, the gym as well as participate in the fitness classes. So far we have been really good, heading down to the center 3 times a week. Yesterday, we did a Body Pump class. It’s a weights training class with lunges, bicep curls, bench presses etc etc. A pretty good workout. While other people were piling on the weights and pilling on more weights for lunges and adjusting the weight for different muscle group, I just stuck to my 5 kg for everything and at the end of all the different sets my arms were quivering and on the brink of just shutting down. Oh my puny arms!


Back in the days of school, I was really fit! In Primary School, I played volleyball. In Secondary School, I captained the volleyball team and was also in track and field. In Junior College, I was in the canoeing and dragon boat time. I was the fittest in Junior College as our training schedule was grueling! We did long distance running, weights training in addition to our normal canoeing/dragon boat. We trained thrice a week and on a Sunday too for heaven’s sake! I had toned arms and I could run fast and hard!



When I went to University in the US, I stopped and just stuffed my face with food and sugar water. Occasionally, I would feel guilty and go to the gym, but that was about it. I moved to Japan afterwards. I lived by the river and had a glorious view of Mt. Fuji, or Fuji-san as they like to call it. My job as an English teacher at a local high school wasn’t difficult and I finished at 4 pm. With so much daylight, a beautiful Fuji-san to look at and a lovely river nearby, I started running. I took part in small runs and big runs and eventually completed 2 marathons. And then, I became a couch potato in Singapore. Hah!


So here I am, once again, getting myself into shape. I don’t have specific goals really. I just wanna be fit, have tone arms, lose the tummy roll, the jiggling thighs and run 10k without dying.

Panya

It’s almost a year since we got Panya.

I always had cats when I was growing up! At one time, in primary school, I had five cats! One mother cat and 4 kittens. Our family kept them all. Anyway, around this time last year, I was flipping through the Quokka, a classified Ads paper, and saw an Ad for RSPCA. There was this cute orange (I love orange cats) kitten peering out from the paper with big beady eyes. His name was Ninja! Perfect. I love cats, orange cats. We love Japan and Adam wants to be a ninja! It was a sign.

We drove to RSPCA, which was faaar. We got there and looked around for that orange kitten. No, can’t see any orange kittens. We asked the staff about Ninja, but alas! He was just adopted! Nooooooooo…. But that’s alright, I am sure he has a good home and, in his place, another kitten will have a good home. We looked around this huge play area filled with kittens. I saw a semi-long fur kitten called Matt that I liked but Adam wasn’t too impress. He left and wondered around the other cages. Adam came back a short while and told me he found the one! At the back, there was an enclosure with 3 black kittens and one “Bengal” looking kitten. Ohhhh, Adam and I have been looking at Bengal kittens - a sleek mini wild cat in our house-how cool would that be, but at $600-800 they were expensive! And I rather rescue an abandon kitten. So this kitten in the cage was brown and had a marble coat – three strips down the back adidas style and a circle on her tummy, just like a marble Bengal! SO CUTE! I went in and played with her. She batted my feet with her tiny paws! Yes! We chose her!

Oh and her name was originally Maddison. Adam chose the name Panya, which literally means Bread Shop in Japanese, or simply Bakery. We sometimes call Her Panini or Pandog or Pandoodle! She was such a cute itsy bitsy kitten with big curious eyes and huge ears. Now she is HUGE with an even HUGHER gut – and that circle on her tummy just emphasizes her gut. She is still playful! She still pounces at you from behind the door or shower curtain. And she has developed a habit of jumping into sinks and drinking water out of the faucet. Cute!

We just changed her dry food from kitten to adult. My baby has grown up too quick! And the size of those dry adult food is big! I hope she doesn’t choke on it. Anyway, Panya is throwing a hissy fit. She doesn’t like her adult dry food. And she cries and rolls around on the floor waiting for kitten food when there is a mountain of adult food in her bowl. I hope she loses weight that way!

Cat Bed

What do you do with an old suitcase? Rusty hardware, scratches all over!

Behold! The potential! A bed!

.
.
.
.
.

Now Panya has a bed fashioned out of an old tired suitcase. Mr A. collects all manner of paper, including boarding pass. I, on the other hand, am too keen to chuck them out. So with his thick stash of boarding passes, I pasted them onto the suitcase. It also helps cover all the dings and dents of a suitcase being tossed around. I also sewed her a little cushion!

You see those red legs on the bed? ohhhh! Mr A. saw a chair on the verge and swiftly chucked them into the car. And now it serves as legs for the cat bed.

Also, please note that this was the one and only time Panya was in her bed. She hates it. She prefers the couch and the bed.

So, I don't know. Maybe this bed will become a magazine holder... or a plant bed... :(

cheerful chair

So this was a tired looking chair that was inherited from the in-laws. I love the curved back leg! We used the chair for painting our home, and hence it had blotches of paint. Also, the seat cover was cracked. The chair has great form, you have to admit.


So with a little spray paint! and a most lovely fabric, it went from blah to ohhhhhhh-I-Love-It!

So Pretty!