Saturday, August 1, 2015

A Note to Self

I have not been writing for quite sometimes. I wish I can say that life got into me and other excuses. The truth is I do not have the perseverance to make the writing a habit.
Every morning I set a me-time where I allow myself to surf the net with a good cup of coffee. I think it is my way of finding inspiration. True that there were times I found things that inspired me in the morning but lately in spite of feeling inspired, I become overwhelm. I found so many good things that I feel I cannot compare to the rest of the world. I feel that my writing is less of importance which is why I need to dig deeper to why I started in the first place. I need to remember that I did not start this blog to impress the world, I need it to channel my creativity and to streamline all the things jumbled in my head.
Looks like I need to cut my morning routine. I need to focus on what resource I have now instead of looking around finding things that I don't have yet.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

A Very Late Post : Her Second Birthday Party

To answer the question I posted here, I have to say, 'No, I don't have what it takes to have a descent planned birthday party.' But I do however, have good eyes to spot a place where it involves a very minimum effort to decor the place. So I chose Nanny's Pavilion at The Flavor Bliss, Alam Sutera.

Since only a small part of our closest family will attend the party, I decided that we won't be needing a dessert table. What good a dessert table do to 15 people, which includes 3 toddlers? We settled for a nice family lunch, celebrating R1's second birthday.

In the link above, I have mentioned that I asked my niece to make the printables for the birthday party. Here is the complete set of the printables

Courtest of Marcella Clarissa

The cupcakes toppers I use for the brownies my niece baked.

Here are the final product from MC. I have to say I'm very happy with the result..

.. especially how it blends with the venue ambiance..

.. and they also looks sweet against our brick wall at home.

For the cakes, I only brought the brownies and the cupcakes I purchased at the Twelve Cupcakes from Plaza Senayan.

Red Velvet, Chocolate, and Coffee, I just ordered three variants which are supposedly our favorites selection

Both cakes I served at the family lunch

I initially planned a party for R1's birthday. I mean really a party, with friends and extended member of our family as our guest, decoration and all. In the end, we settled for a family lunch. Athough it was not a grand celebration, I am very grateful that we have the chance to make my baby feels special on her birthday, again.

Monday, May 26, 2014

DIY Chevron Canvas Wall Art - The Lessons

Chevron was a big thing for a couple of years now and I have to admit I have been attracted to this neat streamlined pattern. I have seen them everywhere across the web and having those two 30 x 30 cm canvases, I though I just jump on the wagon of chevron-lovers.

I actually love three canvases arrangement show below but since I just want to start a project with anything that I already have at the moment, I settle for only two

source here

source here

So I gather all the supplies I need to start. First of all, the canvases.

If I succeeded most of my canvas project, I will review this handy medium in the future. I find the canvas ending of this particular selection is annoying. See that gaping between the frame and the canvas? Hate it.

Then with pencil, I draw very thin lines to make 2.5 x 2.5 cm squares.
Very thin lines, people. Guess what I learned in the next step.

Then I stick marking tape to make the chevron pattern.

I finished drawing the lines while Baby R1 is sleeping and she woke up in the middle of the taping process. I could only finished it later on that night. Sorry for the low quality image, I took the next photos in my bedroom using my table lamp.

Taping process done

You can still see the thin pencil lines

The details of the tape sticking onto the canvas. 

Since I decided to catch up the trend from the recent years, I went with emerald green for the painting. I use Sakura Acrylic Paint # 26 Emerald Green. I use a small spong to dab the paint onto the canvas. I don't want the paint to stain beneath the tape.

I cut a larger sponge from Ace to dab the acrylic paint

First layer of paint, I decided to dab at least three

The details in the painting process. I chose to dab the paint because I think it is easier to make sure that the point of the tape is not lifted in the process. Wrong.

This is how the canvas looks like after two coats of paint. I already have a feeling I may not be satisfied with the end result.

Although I initially would like to take the tape off in the morning, since I saw that the paint is already drying, I pull off the tape impatiently. There. I saw and imperfect result and I was not happy.

Peeling off the tape gives me a good feeling though, about the peeling off its self, not about the result/

 The green lines is too thin! Then I realized what I had done wrong. So here are the lessons:
  1. Since we are using a 2.5 cm width tape on 2.5 x 2.5 cm squares, there is going to be a difference in the width of the chevron lines. You need to decide which color you want to emphasize
  2. Paint the canvas with the primary color first.
  3. When you start to tape the canvas, keep in mind that the taped part will be the primary color. In my case, the tape part should be the emerald green and the additional color is the white.
I tried to fix the canvas a couple of times, such as adding the width to the green chevron line. Whatever I have tried, I end up disliking the result. 

All those uneven lines #sigh

The paint that runs under the tape, the different width of the same green chevron lines

I need more oomph to this side of our bedroom

I will try to fix this piece of canvas though not anytime soon. What are the things you learn through trial and error in your DIY projects? Please do share. 

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Trip.. What? Triptych and Subway Art

I am so doomed. I have ordered my canvases for wall art and was waiting for my order to come when I realized I miscalculated the number of canvases I need to buy. Remember that my intention is to have a wall art with a quotation about home? Please check here.

This is one lesson learned. We have to know exactly what kind of wall art we want to display. If I wanted to follow the image shown here, which means that whatever display I want to show comes in more than one canvas and knowing that I am drawn to an uneven number of canvases, I should have minimum of three canvases, then by all means the wall art I want to display is called triptych.

Wikipedia explains that triptych is a work of art (usually panel painting) that is divided into three sections, being the middle one is bigger that the other two. The triptych form arises from early Christian art and was a popular standard format for altar painting from the Middle Age onward.

Source hereSagrada Familia con ángel músico, Santa Catalina de Alejandría, Santa Bárbara, 1510-1520, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

In a modern world, Francis Bacon created some of the most popular triptych.

Source here. Triptych, May - June 1973. 1973. Oil on canvas

Of course I am more into some fancy wall art like ones shown below:

Source here
Source here

I learn from here, is that if I want to create a triptych, unity as a principle of design, should be applied to triptych. That means that all panels have to share some properties: color scheme, repeated elements or variations of elements, common theme, background or anything that will make these three panels look like they belong together.

Meanwhile, what I wanted to be put onto the canvas is actually this quote :

Source here

People! This is called subway art. Shame of me for not knowing this sooner. This subway art has been a craze all over the globe and I just know that it has a name. I was fooled by the wood planks and the brush stroke which make this image appears like a three different planks put into one.

Subway art which is subway signs turn into arts have that modern feeling that I am sure will blend well with some major part of our house interior. Images below are some of the subway art that inspire me.

source here. Remember my brick wall? Although we have hung our wedding photo on our brick wall, this image will remind me that if we want to stick to eclectic or modern look, someday we might be ablt to replace the photos with the subway art

source here

Source here

Source here. Don't you just love the modern feel from this image?

So there you go. You have triptych and you have subway art. I have to make up my mind which one of those two I would like to create for the wall art in our house.

Upon deciding, I just realized I bought the canvases in the wrong quantity. Now we have the follwing :
- 2 pieces of 20 x 20 cm canvases which I intent to make the kids' hand prints (Inspired by Becky Higgins. You can see more of it here)
- 2 pieces of 30 x 30 cm canvases. As I write this, I totally forget my intention of buying canvases in this dimension.
- 2 pieces of 60 x 40 cm canvases which I intent to make 'In This House' quote into three pieces. Yes, I missed 1 piece when I ordered.

Well, I guess I will work on the kids' hand prints first before moving on to the triptych or the subway art.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Ice Cream Birthday Party - The Starting Point

As I mentioned here, one of my reasons for writing this blog is to record the birthday parties I planned for my babies. I have been planning to have a candy birthday party with the color theme of pink, blue, and yellow.

One of the mood boards I created for my babies parties

I know I have been terrible in planning the parties since we are already in April 2014, people! And I have not been doing my homework properly.

So last week I sort of contact the beautiful and talented graphic designer / baker / gym bunny, Marcella Clarissa to start brainstorming the ideas of having candy birthday party. Within two days, she came back to me with ideas and input.

She firstly design these pattern for the R1's second birthday party
The initial choices for the R1's birthday

We were straightly chose the first patter for the babyish and fun ice cream logo. The look itself makes me giddy excited to move forward with choosing the color scheme which she gave me the following choices

Three color scheme option

Although I very much in love with color scheme number two since it brings out the Pantone Color of the Year 2014 theme (duh!), we decided to use the color scheme number three. Yippie! Woop woop!

So I am now in the process of choosing the decoration material that goes well with the color scheme meanwhile Ms. Clarissa is designing the printables with the selected pattern.

source herehere, and here
Excuse my minimal Photoshop skill, I am learning to create better photo collages. Do you think we can finally have a decent planned birthday party? #fingercrossed

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Managing Our Groceries

I would like to start to manage our groceries more properly. Currently, peoples in our household are my husband and I, our two adorable babies R1 and R2, and the nannies for each. For the nannies we decided to have catering prepare their daily meal. The catering deliver their meals everyday at 10 AM which is more or less when the nannies have their late breakfast. They serve three types of meals and they last for a day. Our groceries is more like an additional for the menus from the catering.

Menu for April, three meals a day for the nannies

As for my husband and I, we like to have light breakfast like coffee and toasted bread or the ready-made breads from the bakery. We have our lunch out in the office since I don't cook, hopefully next year this flaw of mine will change next year. For dinner, we usually eat out or buy something to bring home.

Coffee with sugar and some ready-made bread. Man, I need to learn how to cook #sigh

Baby R1 is now 20 months old and R2 just starts to eat solid. We will always need to have some fruit, vegetables, and chicken meat. Their milk is certainly the utmost important things in the list of course.

I have been saving this format I have downloaded from the net for quite sometimes. I don't remember where I have downloaded it from. Basically, I start using this format because even though they categorize the groceries into so many category, I found it applicable to our situation, moreover since I will be the one (and maybe the only one within this household) who uses the list, I find its arrangement is the closest to how I categorize my groceries (I put this grocery categories as a mental note, that is)

My grocery list draft

Some of the category are applicable to our household while others don't so I have altered the list to our own needs and expand it further into a price book and an expense tracker.

After 5 months (already?) of trying to manage our household groceries, I concluded that we always need these grocery must-haves:

Our grocery staples

We always keep stock for the following items :
1. Broccoli
2. Carrots
3. Boneless chicken breast
4. Eggs
5. Meatballs
6. Red chili
7. Potatoes

At first I thought that since we need them regularly, I bought them in bulk. But we found that system is not working since a couple of times when we want to cook them, the vegetables may not be as fresh as I first bring them home

Nowadays we purchase those items every week or at least every 10 days from our local market except maybe for the meatballs which we still buy in bulk for 60 pieces.

Do you categorize your groceries or just buy as you went along? What are your fridge staples? Please do share how you manage your groceries.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Hanging Radiant Orchid

There are a few more walls I would like to decorate. First wall is the one that you can peek from the carport, which is the outer wall of the toilet downstairs and second is the one perpendicular with my wall of photo display, the outer wall of the kids' bedroom.

The outer wall of the toilet at the ground floor. Yes, that is a big clutter I need to sort immediately before I hang any wall decor on the wall.

The wall you see when on the stairs, in front of the kids' bedroom

I took the measurement of both wall and with my minimal CAD skill I draw an elevation drawings of them. I wanted to see the proportion of each wall so I can determine the size of the wall decor I wanted to put on each of them.

By using AutoCAD, I can easily measure the wall and have them compared with people's height.
So now I am hopping around the net to find ideas on what to actually out on both walls. I definitely would like to have something like the image below because of the bold color and the big feature. It will make such a statement for my boring plain white wall.

source here

But I think I have seen the emerald color way too much. Maybe because it was chosen as Pantone Color of the Year in 2013. So when I visited Pantone official website, I found Radiant Orchid as the Color of The Year 2014

source here
So one idea is to have painted canvas in the Radiant Orchid color. In which I have to determine the dimension of the canvases. After googling around, I have found the standard canvas dimension and I start drawing them in the AutoCAD file.

I decided to put the canvas on the outer wall of the toilet at the ground floor since this wall is facing directly to one of our windows. I figure that it is safer to display the family photos only for anyone who is actually in the house, rather than having anybody who happens to be in our carport to be able to see our family photo details.

The variety of canvas proportion to our existing wall

It is best for me to say that I would go with either two option below. I imagine that I would love to have the wall brighten up a bit and having 3 canvases 50 x 50 cm each will definitely do the trick. I am concern with the total height of the display. The lower canvas is just too low and the highest, well, too high. I leave the two option and start thinking what to display in these canvases.

I have my mind set for this quotes
source here
source here
Having stumbled on this shop makes me wonder, why not cross check the shop wall art dimension with the availability of the canvas here. After all, I will spend less for this wall art if I only need to purchase one piece of canvas in medium size, rather than three small ones. So I did and found that the above wall art comes in 60 x 119 cm dimension which unfortunately is not available as a canvas standard here. The closest dimension is 60 x 100 cm and if you measure it on CAD, it will look a little bit off, like this

Yes people, 19 cm means so much. The 60 x 100 cm looks awkward on that wall, doesn't it?

I have decided to use three 60 x 40 cm canvases with the above quotes. Now I will measure the dimension of the letters using the format you have seen above.