How to prepare a baby shower

My sister just gave birth to a baby boy end May 2013.

In Singapore, we usually celebrate the baby shower when the baby is 1 month old. And during this 1 month, for the mothers they are called a confinement period, in which the mother will stay indoors to recover from the delivery and there will be lots of confinement food from the timeless braised pig's trotters with black vinegar tto the homemade chicken essence with wine. It is usually low in saly and fat and packed with goodness and great nutritional value. 

Back to the topic! I was tasked to help out with the baby shower with a $50 budget =S, specifically the gifts to the guests and the decorations. In fact, it is my first time decorating for a function!

It wasn't easy working with such a small budget. I started with the gifts as there were no big inputs I needed from my sister regarding the sweets. I went to Phoon Huat to get a pack of 100 cookie bags and the twister to tie the bags.

Next was the titbits. I went to the value dollar store that sells sweets and chocolates at considerably value-for-money prices.

value dollar store

It took a while, trying to work within my budget before I narrowed down to these:

Next for the packaging~ I needed some inputs from my sis whether she would prefer the packaging to be neater or prettier. Personally, I preferred the neater option (as it was easier to pack, of course!). Lucky thing ,she too, preferred the neater option. It just requires some folds, 2 punches from a puncher, twist with decoration wires and tadah~ job done.

prettier

neater

The titbits were individually packed ....

..and sealed with love!

Now for the decorations~ in fact it took a while to understand what my sister really wanted. The colours I can/ cannot use, the fonts that she would prefer, motifs that she would like to include.

These are some that she has commented on:

I like the owl and the colour scheme.

I like the elephant and the colour scheme

I like the bear and colour scheme.

OK I LOVE THIS FONT AND COLOUR SCHEME! And that whale.. super nice!
Can you do "Yuan Kai's Baby Shower" in this scheme? Difficult?

This is a lil similar to number 4. Can follow this colour scheme if 3 is too difficult.

The way they string this is very beautiful. But i am not a fan of the zig zag pattern colour scheme here.

 I don't like this colour scheme so don't use yellow. I also don't like the duck coz no eyes and not cute.

Cute elephant! Nice colour too:D

i don't like this.. very cheapo looking

WOW! I usually don't like green but this colour scheme and layout is simple and nice! The blue thread is beautiful too! Plus the turtle is cute! AND best of all.. the font is so beautiful! Nice combi D:D

After I looked at these photos, my jaw literally dropped. I only had 2 days left to do the deco, plus I was a normal working adult that hold a 9-6 job, plus I had after office activities that I couldn't miss and I HAD to go i.e. hubby's grandfather's bday. You get my dilemma =( =(

And most importantly, I didn't have the tools to do it! The only few miserable craft tools are a paper cutter, an edge-rounder and a scissors! I didn't have time to buy craft paper to do this project as well. But since I promised, I can't back out can I?!?!

Disclaimer: so if you see my end product, do not be too disappointed as they are NOT as pretty as those above! hahaha~

I managed to get some scrap (literally) craft paper from my colleague. And from the font that she has specified in the ideas list above, I choose something that was really close to it and printed on an A4 sheet.

Then, I snipped it out of the sheet and taped it onto plain craft paper. On colours that probably could match the colours that she has not condemned =P

And on some alphabets, I cleverly used the existing patterns to create something more unique.

Once, the alphabets are cut, I tried to match it with the patterned papers I had. Ultimately, I want to achieve a baby block look for each of the alphabets.

Done with the matching~ now with the "S" .

i'm the chosen one! =D

 Next, I matched the background.  I made it in a way that the background lines were downwards and 

Round the edges~ and ~ this is the final result! told ya ~ it doesn't look as fantastic as those seen earlier. hope you didn't have too high an expectation haha~

Next~ what are baby showers without balloons? Due to budget constraints, I bought a pack of 100 balloons and 2 masking tapes for the sticking. The balloons were separated by the colours for easy mixing and matching. Make sure you buy extras in case the balloons burst or has holes during the pumping process!

As for the baby shower banner, I went to the The Party Stuff! to search the banners and shortlisted these:

I went physically to the store to grab it and decided on the solid one. Metallic fridged seems to be more difficult to place on the solid wall.

Down to the real deco~

I spend a total of S$52 (burst the budget by a wee bit) haha~

Hope you enjoyed reading some of my ideas for this baby shower!!

Minion Paper Crafts

Despicable Me has always been one of my all-time favourite animation movie.

With the Despicable Me 2 Trailers coming out....

I decided to do something Minion-ish.

I got this from deviantart.

sian... you mean I'm going to be folded?!?!

I did it up and realised that this template was missing its hands and seems like there's something that was supposed to be on the head!

see the slit on the head?!?!

My final product turned out like that:

It's still kinda cute don't you think?

In fact, I thought it also look kinda funny without the legs.

I managed to find 2 other minion paper craft templates from cubeecraft

The final product should look like this:

Have fun in your minion projects!

 Catch it in cinemas July 3 2013!

You might also like to read:

Post: How to murder a Minion 

Thanks for reading! 

Do also leave me a comment for any other cubeecraft suggestions you might have. 

Thanks!

Home Renovation

It's been a long time since I updated my blog as I was busy with my home renovation. 

We got our BTO 4-room flat few months back but were on a very tight budget to work with since I just finished my PT studies and my hubby just started his PT studies as well. Recently, we worked our finances and decided to get going with the renovations after so many months.

We had a chance encounter with the contractor a few months back when we were "checking out the defects" of our flat. The contractor was from Coos design and concepts and he approached us when we were opening our letterbox. 

We, on the other hand were looking for a contractor since some of the IDs that we have viewed were either too costly (~S$40K) or the quality was not up to our standard. Having shifted 6-7 times in a quarter-century, my uncle was always the one that did my home renovations but.... he was no longer in the business anymore.

The concept for my home is that I wanted to come home with a bright and colourful home aka POP. 

Colours usually brighten my mood~

So starting with the home tour: 

Living Room

With POP in mind, we choose a bright colour for the living room...

Pre-reno look

Partition added to split the living and dining room

Colours added: Sassy Pink

In the day

Aircon added above the beam for space saving

Study Room: Cornfield yellow

Spare Room: Green

Lights for all the rooms from Lightings.com.sg


Kitchen

Pre-reno look

A lowered dish strainer for easy access

Hope you got some inspiration for your house as well. Thanks for reading~

Simpsons Family Paper Craft

I have been playing this game recently on my HTC one XL.

The Simpsons Tapped OUT

It has amazing graphics and the colour is brilliant!

The games starts with Homer playing an iPad while at work and blow up the whole Springfield town!

Homer playing his iPad

The objective of this game is to rebuild the neighbourhood that Homer Simpsons once lived in and bring the non-existent humans (The Simpsons, Neighbours, Food Joints etc.) back to life.

A really lame beginning but what the heck... it was interesting idea nonetheless!

Riding on my Quest~ I found a few templates for my Simpsons family at Cubeecraft....

Homer Simpson

Marge Simpson

Bart Simpsons

Lisa Simpsons

Maggi Simpsons

Here comes the real deal~the Simpsons Couple!!!

*Update: I finally had some time to do up the whole Simpsons family today!

You can realise that the Maggie Simpson (baby) is significantly smaller than the rest of the Simpsons family and in fact was also the easiest to piece together - due to the lesser number of parts to assemble =)

I will end this post with a merchandise that caught my eye the other day at *scape~

Adorable bobbing head Homer and Marge Simpson!!!! ****SCREAMSSSS*****

If you have any questions or think that there are other crafts that you would like me to try out, please leave me a comment below. Cheerios!

Hope you had a great weekend!!