Plan Toys Outlet

Sorry again for the lax/lack of posts!  But wanted to share this just in case you might want to do some more Christmas/Hanukkah shopping!

Visited the Plan Toys Outlet a couple weeks ago and wanted to share where and how it was.  Had a good assortment since there aren't many department stores carrying them.  They are available now only at Toys R Us and Isetan.  But if you go here, you can get some great deals and maybe pick up a very cheap showpiece!  

The shop is located in Sathorn Soi 10 and it's not hard to get to.  It's about a block from the Sathorn Healthland and once you get into the soi, it's on the left side (kinda tucked away).

The staff were very friendly and helpful.  Here's the contact number 02 237 3070 and some pics!

Quick Tip: Happy Feet

Do you always find a great deal on kids shoes but your kids are not with you and the sale happens to end that day??  I got a great tip!  Trace their foot size on a piece of paper and cut it out to keep with you!! 

Halloween: Hawaiian Hula Costume

My children had Hawaiian Day at their school last week (yes they are in school--very short story but long in so many other parts--but they are loving it) and I wanted to share how I made my daughter's costume just in case you would like to make one for Halloween. 

1) I love these plain tanks and they were so cheap, 90 baht ($3) at Cotton On Mega Bangna.  You will see that I am using these as the foundation of all my costumes this year.  I took brown fabric and used fusible webbing and ironed them on for the coconut bikini top.

2) Then I used some pom pom ribbon for the string of the bikini, you will need to sew all along the back and also the shoulder straps too and just a little right in the middle of the coconuts.  And you're done with your top!

 *** Quick Tip:  I found the lint sticky stick works great when you want to clean up all your thread bits!

3)  Now the bottom part, the skirt I used this wonderful tutorial here and do everything the same but before you put in the elastic, get your scissors and cut strips!  I used 2 layers of different color green fabric so it looks just a bit more grassy!!  

And there you go!  Easy and fun!  Btw the grass skirt gets a bit frazzled if you put it in the washer and dryer but I thought it added a nice effect to the skirt.   As for the lei, I got them at Daiso but cut and strung them on some green yarn.  Made one for my daughter's head piece and one for her neck.  If you like, you can also use the left over petals and decorate the skirt with them.  Aloha!

Happy gift...

A few weeks ago we sent a birthday present to my daughter's best friends in the states, we wanted it to be extra special and I remembered a Pinterest pin where it was a box filled with balloons and so I thought we could try with this present.  The box was quite small and so we bought small balloons and packed them with some bracelets and tinsel!  It turned out wonderful and I think the recipients enjoyed it too!

Put you best vest forward...

Wanted to share a wonderful tute I found.  I was searching how to make vests for my children's class line leader vests and this tute from The Mother Huddle was amazing!  Her tute was very clear and detailed, it was so easy to follow.

But if you would like to make a bigger or smaller size version, I would suggest using any size tee you want and tweaking the pattern from that.  

As for the star emblem and LEADER artwork, I used my Silhouette to cut out templates and then acrylic paints.

Have you started working on any costumes for Halloween?  Well I'm prepping tutes for a Dinosaur and Hula girl costume to share with everyone soon!

Happy Thai Mother's Day!

Image by Thainie

 Here in Thailand we celebrate Mother's Day on August 12th since it's the Queen's birthday. She is regarded as the mother of Thailand and is loved by everyone, this goes the same for our King.  

 

I know the image above doesn't seem to go along with the post, it was taken this morning when I was playing with my kids.  I love setting up the toys like this because it brings me great joy seeing my kids' reaction.  It's an indescribable joy for both parent and child that I wish I could record each time. 

 

Everyone has their own views on having children or not having them and I totally respect both views.  I, myself, personally feel it's the most important and precious accomplishment that I could ever achieve and wouldn't have done anything different if I had the chance to do it all over again***due for editing once my kids are all teens? ;-).

 

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!  Happy Mother's Day!   

Post 100...

I have been very blessed with having the opportunity to experience so many things and also be able to have a place to share these experiences.  In the beginning, I started this blog as a way to update family and friends about the going-ons in our family, a few random postings and babies afterwards, it soon blossomed to be a place that I can share, what I as a reader would like to read about.  Even if there might be only 10 people reading these postings, that's okay because I really do enjoy writing and creating these posts, I hope you have enjoyed them too.  Thank you!

Bag and Store It

Wanted to share this find from IKEA, it's the SKUBB Storer and it worked out perfect for storing my bags and purses!  And best yet, it was 229 baht !  Oh how I would so marry you IKEA if I could!!!!

Have a good weekend everyone!

The Princess Tea Party Birthday

Of course this idea was from Pinterest, I did this the night before her birthday morning.  Only thing different was I hung the balloons outside in the living room since they always get up in the middle of the night so her room door was not going to work

Okay this is going to be the longest post ever since it's about my daughter's recent birthday party.  My now 4 year old daughter wanted to have a princess themed birthday party and so I played with the idea and thought of a Princess Tea Party theme.  This way the girls would be able to be all princessy and enjoy a nice tea party with tea cups and everything.  I secretly was delighted at the idea of throwing one too!  Although, this year I decided to do a more cozy and small party since it would be more controllable enjoyable to do crafts and activities with a small group of girls, 6 little girls to be exact (T's 3 very best girlfriends, her godmother's daughter and her friend).  Luckily, my 2 year old boy went down perfectly for his nap during the party and my 13 year old daughter was home to help!  Lastly, I set a budget of about 5,000 baht ($150+) for the party since I believe you don't have to waste money when you can diy or find it cheaper!

So here's the rundown!

The Invite...

 

First, you have to have an invite!  I found this perfect scroll online and put the details of the party as well as found a cute seal with her initial.

The font I used was Edwardian Script but after checking for the link, I found that you have to pay for it now and so I would recommend going to any free font site like dafont.com and downloading a font style you like from there. 

I then printed the artwork on A4 premium drawing paper and cut the shape out with the Silhouette.  The invites were then put into an envelope and sealed with our family's letter seal to add that royal touch!!! 

Here they are, signed, sealed and ready to be delivered to the lucky princesses:

The Birthday Banner & Streamers...

I used the Silhouette machine and cut her name and the background shapes then used 3M repositioning spray adhesive (the link actually goes to the widely used Krylon one -- in the states-- but I am using 3M since it's the only kind I can find here in Bangkok) to attach them together.  I really recommend this repositioning spray adhesive for any paper craft you are working on.  It's so easy to use, you can spray several pieces at the same time, goes on clear and you can reposition it (it's like the stickiness on the back of post its!).  After all pieces are cut and glued together, I strung them together with ribbon and then attached with some masking tape at the back so that it would position just the right way on the wall. 

The streamers were made of scrap fabric streams that were cut and then tied onto a plain old white string (the string that is used for packages).  Also great project for just decorating a room too and the perfect way to use all those scraps!!! 

The Pom-Poms

I have a confession to make, I'm a tissue paper hoarder--in addition to a hoarder of mostly all craft-related items.  I love my tissue paper collection and I couldn't bear using tons of them on the pom-poms.  And so trusty ol' IKEA came to the rescue!  I bought the colored paper napkin packs and they had the perfect colors for the party.

1) IKEA Fantastisk (don't they name their items so cool?) paper napkins, I also bought the paper plates and cups for the party there too.  

2-3) You take about 6-8 paper napkins and lay them on top of each other and then follow these directions!  But instead of the wire I used a plain rubber band (it was also great since you can stretch the rubber bands onto whatever you are decorating).    

4) Now the tricky part!  You want your pom-poms to be fluffy and airy but they just don't look like that, you have to spread the sheets since each paper napkin is 3-ply.  So carefully spread your napkins apart and fluff!  It's a learning curve but it gets easier! 

And hopefully you will get these:

The Goodie Bags and Activities Goodies...

As mentioned, I was working with a budget, luckily I found some great goodies that were perfect!  

1) The custom made royal invites.

2) All the goodies on show.  Books were from Kinokuniya (100+ baht/book), some princess pencils from The Emporium (they came is a 6 pack), notepads I had hoarded through the years, fruit chews, bracelets (also hoarded, bought them from Sampeng years ago) and a custom skirt I made with my fabric stash.

3) Princess tiaras, these were for the craft activity, I got the idea from here at Lu Bird Baby. 

4) These were also for the craft activity, they were little zipper pouches that the kids would paint in their names with metallic gold or silver acrylic paints.  You can see my tute for the stencils here.

5) This frame was a light bulb moment at IKEA!  It's the Tolsby frame and was 49 baht for each of them.  I used artwork from Lettering Delights and my trusty Silhouette to cut a hole out so that a photo could be inserted, the other side just had a message saying thank you for joining the party.

 All these goodies then went into a paper bag decorated with a doily and their name written on it.

The Activities & Crafts...

A smaller amount of kids turned out to be perfect since each one had the chance to do their own crafts.  In addition to the princess headpiece and zipper pouch, I also had the following:

-  A bracelet kit that I got at the mall (The Emporium) and it was perfect since it came with plastic bangles and gem stickers.  

-  A bunch of plastic beads and elastic to make our own royal jewels (Central B2S).

-  A wand craft made from foam clay, which dries light and airy (Central B2S) and attached to balloon sticks. *** Sadly, this craft turned out to be more of a art piece than a wand.  But the kids had so much fun making them, so did the moms!

-  "Kiss the Frog" (aka pin the tail on the donkey), I took green construction paper and cut out a frog and cut out lips and sprayed the repositioning adhesive spray so that the girls could kiss the frog while blindfolded with these cute panda eye covers I got from Cotton On (Mega Bangna).  It was a hit!  The girls had so much fun and a lot of giggles, their prize were IKEA markers!

-  Well this was a last minute activity craft that my daughter requested.  She wanted a pinata (she calls it a "pee-a-tah") and how could I say no right?  Well I was very lazy to do the whole paper mache pinata and on a budget to buy one and so I MomGyvered it.  Looked around the house and found paper plates, stapled plates together into a shape, covered it with crepe paper and liquid glue.....then thought about what that shape would be...it turned out to be a teapot for the tea party!  The lid, spout and handle were just cut out shapes, again from the Silhouette and decorated with a bit of frayed crepe paper and presto.....PEE-AH-TAH completed!

The Princess Tea Party Decor...

Paper napkin pom-poms, goodies, pee-ah-ta, streamers and everything else was ready to decorate!  I picked up some helium balloons at Pinata Party Place while out that morning picking up the birthday cake.

Threw everything together and it looked like this:

I had bought these adorable little tea cup sets from the 60 baht shop and you can see the IKEA paper cups, plates and napkins.  I also used paper napkins that I ironed out the night before for table mats.  Bought some fresh (well almost fresh day old cheaper flowers at Villa-I didn't need pre-bloom ones)  and each place setting had a place card cut from the Silhouette with each of the princess' name.

For the cake stand, I just took an over-sized cup we had and a plate and use UHU putty to hold it together.  Perfect again for the teacup/tea party theme!

The Princess Birthday Cake...

How cool did this cake turn out?  This 3D cake was ordered from S&P and was 790 baht ($26)!  You need to order about 2-3 days ahead and pick it up yourself but it was so worth it, the kids all loved it!  I then added a small decorative pom-pom, candle and tiny frog!  Can you guess the on-going theme here other than the princess theme?  Yes, Princess Tiana!!!

Last but Not Least...

My birthday princess and her Princess Tiana costume I had made for her. 

  

Well, that's it....  I'm happy to report that the party was a success but will have to decide whether I'm up for another themed party next year!  I hope you enjoyed sharing this special day with me and it will help you with your princess or prince!  Happy crafting!

There's a card for everything!

Do you have tons of membership, loyalty or discounts cards that you have to lug around with you and the moment you don't have it you need it?  Well after filtering and filtering all these cards (on a weekly basis at times), I still had a bunch that I needed to keep in my purse and they definitely were not all going to fit in my wallet.  

And so I came across this wonderful mesh pouch at The Emporium and decided to do a little sewing project and make little compartments for the cards and on the other side was perfect to hold any excess coins.  

You can actually use any size pouch and just sew vertical stitches where you want to separate your cards.  It's easy and quick since the stitches just need to be long enough so that the cards don't wobble to the other sections.   It's so handy and I can sort my cards as well, yes I am an organizational freak....

*** will get back about the brand of the pouch and price....

A card hill!!!!  (Image by Thainie-click to enlarge)

Just simple needle and thread will get your cards organized (Image by Thainie-click to enlarge)

 

Something old and something new....

There's a new gal in town.....well actually it's just my new logo!  What do you think?  Many more surprises to come, please stay tuned!

New Places: Asiatique The Riverfront

Wipe away...

You know how those small packs of wipes some time dry out because of the sticker enclosure not sealing properly?  Well I re-purposed the plastic from the big packs and used double sided tape and stuck it to the small packs!  Easy to use and access!  

Have a good week ahead! 

Image by Thainie

Noo Yoo: Piercing, Perfected.

Images from Thainie

I've been waiting for this day and it finally came!!!  Baby daughter got her ears pierced!  My husband and I didn't really expect it to be so soon since she's not even 4 years old yet but we stumbled across this cute shop at CentralPlaza Rama 9 the other day and decided to give it a go?!  She was so excited, we tried to inform her as much as we could on what was "going to happen" before getting there but she could only think about how pretty her little ears will be just like Mommies, her big sis and her aunties!  

The shop is called Noo Yoo, their website is www.nooyoo.com and they have shops in The Mall Ramkampeng and CentralPlaza Rama 9 and soon at Mega Bangna.  Very nice and clean with all the pretty earrings on display.  They also do nose and belly piercings as well.  Prices start at 490 baht for a simple pair of stud earrings and the piercing service is free.  They have tons of cute earrings to choose from too but the most perfect was that they had a great selection of children appropriate small earrings for children (and all earrings are made of surgical grade stainless steel).    

So we first had our daughter pick out the earrings and then she was seated to do the piercing.  The Noo Yoo staff was very nice and patient with our daughter, she first carefully marked the holes with a marker and let us see if it's good to go.  Once the holes were confirmed it was time for the piercing.  The piercing gun was kinda cool, I was use to the gun looking kind but this was just a square looking metal tool and the earrings were well packed in these medical like packaging and so when it was ready to be used, she didn't have to touch each earring but just used the gun tool to insert and load the earrings.  (Now I wished I took pics of each thing!---sorry)  Well I'm not going to lie, after the first ear piercing she cried but after a little comforting we did the other ear and she was back to being overjoyed with her pretty ears!  If you are interested in getting your child's ears pierced, I would probably suggest to try asking them if they can have both ears pierced at the same time (2 staff assisting)  so that it's done in one go, forgot to think about this.   My daughter is still gushing about her beautiful earrings!!!

Cool Finds: Sprinkles at Top's

Was at Top's Supermarket the other day and saw these sprinkles, 

were also priced really good too.

Sew Thainie: Wonderful Stuff Toys Holder

 I am such a neat freak, I'm always trying to keep everything organized and I feel horrible that my children have to bare with this!  Well I usually try to go through their toys every now and then to see what they aren't really playing with or which can be donated but we have a bunch of stuff toys that we just can't part with since they each have some kind of sentimental value.  Thanks to A Lemon Squeezy Home, I was able to make this wonderful stuff toys holder/net.  Also thanks to my friend Rach for her generous jersey fabric too!!! 

*** Just be on the look out once you put this up, my daughter has decided it is a great chair/canopy that she wants to lounge on....sorry that I don't have a pic of that.

Easter Craft: Salt Dough Egg Magnet

I wanted an egg painting craft but didn't want to do eggs eggs since I wouldn't know what to do with two dozen boiled eggs.  I also wanted a craft that the kids can take home and keep as a memento.  So I thought of salt dough egg magnets that the kids can paint and I would modpodge and glue a magnet on.  

It was a big hit, not just the kiddies but also the mommies!  Only thing I wished I had used pastel colors but they still look cool!  Best of all, it was really easy to prep.  I used this dough recipe from Busy Bee Kids Crafts but you can also take a look at this old post I did too for more details.  The salt dough recipes are a bit different and I can't really decide yet which one I like but the one from Busy Bee Kids Crafts was easier to dry and bake.  Maybe it's the high salt content?  Well all you do is roll the dough out flat to less than a quarter of an inch thickness and use any oval/circle cookie cutter to cut out and then mould to egg shape.  I used a small glass since my cookie cutters were too big.  Then I let them air dry over night (this also cuz I did them last minute late at night and so I was lazy didn't want to bake them right then) and then in the morning put them in the oven for about 20 minutes at the lowest temp.  It will still need to air dry after painting them since they do soften up again.  Also, we used acrylic paints to paint the eggs, will post a pic of the magnet once finished!

Easter Crafts: Bunny Bags

This year my friends and I all got our kids together for Easter a few days earlier since some of us weren't going to be in town on the day of.  Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the crafts that we did to share them for everyone to enjoy!  

This is a really easy bag craft that you can do with any kind of paper bag and you just need to cut out the bunny ears and the bunny face.  I used scrapbook paper for the ears so that the boys and girls can choose from the different designs and it was precut since I had planned 3 crafts and wanted them each to be short and fun.

You can also add googly eyes and pom poms for the nose too.  Threw in some stickers as well!  I've attached the bunny's face so all you need to do is print and cut!   

Happy Easter crafting!!!

Image from Thainie

Image by Thainie....Click to enlarge and save...

Eggsaster? That's okay, there's always crepe paper...

So many of my friends were attempting this egg yarn craft from Simply Modern Mom for Easter and I thought with the right tute it would be easy peasy right?  I mean it's just yarn, glue and a balloon, how hard is that?  Well as you can see from the picture below, BIG FAT CRAFT FAIL.  It wasn't the tute, the tute was really amazing but I'm going to blame the balloons, they were cheap balloons and the deflated in an hour!  

And so I did this balloon craft from Not Martha and instead of fabric starch (which I couldn't find here and made the mistake of scented fabric starch, the one they spray to iron, well lets just say it only make it smell nice...other than that it was like using water) I used the good old glue and water mix.   They turned out really nice and made a great centerpiece!

Top left image from Simply Modern Mom, other images from Thainie

.....here's the tail

Image from Thainie

Here's the craft in action, the kids all loved picking out the pom poms and gluing them on the bunny.  Tried gluing with a glue stick at first but it didn't really stay well so used white glue instead (Elmer's).

Easter Freebie: Pin the fluff ball on the bunny

Easter's coming and been prepping art projects for the kids and thought I would share this with you all.  You can either use art pom poms or just plain ol cute cotton balls!

Click for the full image to print on A4:

Do the hooky pokey...

Did you ever wonder how they do those vinyl stickers so nicely, especially the ones with cut out letters in them?  I finally got a chance to use the hooky thingy (aka Universal Hook) that I bought to use with my Silhouette machine on a labeling project that I've been also wanting to do for a long time....there's a lot I've been wanting to do for a long time....  Anyhoo, so I thought I would do a short tute on how they do it.

Image from Thainie

 - To begin, cut out your stickers with your cutting machine.

- Take some masking tape and gently apply it on top of your vinyl sticker. You don't want the masking tape to completely cover your label.  Make sure you can still see the top and bottom so that you can align it easily to what you are labeling.

- Position your sticker on and rub the sticker until that sucker sticker is on there for good. 

- Gently peel from top to bottom/side to side, depends on your cut out but always take it slow since you don't want to tear the insides.  

- Now get your hooky thingy and start picking at the letters to peel them off.  Be careful if you're peeling against plastic or anything that can be scratched easily.  

- And there you have it!  Wasn't that easy?

 

Here's some repurposed mayo containers for your cooking necessities...

Image from Thainie

  
IKEA plastic boxes for art supplies labelled...

Image from Thainie

*** I'm thinking you can probably use a toothpick or those dentist thingys?  Will have to try it out and let you know how it goes...

 

Get your shopping fix on

Looking for some wonderful children's books, gifts or just a shopping fix?  Check out the following sales going on now.  (Please click on flyers to enlarge)

The gall of it all

Image from Family Wellness Website

Yep, that image above is not of a flower bud but of a gallbladder and budding gallstones.  Yep, I just had surgery to take my gallbladder out.  I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that I'm gallbladder-less right now (I've come to be very protective of all my organs) but thankfully it was diagnosed and hopefully I'm back on the road to better health.  

How did this all unfold you may wonder?  Well since having two babies one right after the other, I haven't been the best at taking care of my body and what I eat.  With two young babies in tow, freelance graphic designing and also volunteering for a non-profit organization, health and nutrition took a back seat (rather way in the trunk) with all the everyday chaos.  I wasn't eating on time, not eating at all or eating too much of what I should not be eating (too much pizza, my ultimate fav food)!  I would get these pains and then attributed to just poor diet and not eating on time.

Fast forward after two separate late night visits to the hospital emergency room in less than 6 months apart after experiencing the most excruciating, agonizing and gut wrenching pain at the top center of my stomach (pain was worse than giving birth!--at least that ended with a baby, this was just pure pain) that would last hours with no letting up at all, the doctor finally had me take a blood test to see what really might be going on.  Tests showed my liver levels were sky high and that I needed to get an ultrasound to see what was causing it.    So I was admitted into the hospital that night and an ultrasound revealed I had gallstones!  The doctors wanted it out and I struggled about loosing my gallbladder but finally had the operation and am now recovering gallbladder-less.  All this in a span of what was suppose to be a nice quiet weekend!  

I won't get into details since the link will pretty much tell you everything but I will recommend to those experiencing this kind of pain to get it checked out if it happens often.  It seems it happens commonly with women and can be even more exasperated when you are in your child bearing years!  Darn hormones again!  Lastly, thank goodness for insurance since it covered most of the operation and hospital costs!!  Take care everyone and have a wonderful weekend!

Kids broke your iPad?

Did you ever check out this site "Sh*t My Kids Ruined"?  Well just to be fair, "technically" I'm not sure if my 20 month old son did break it or it just happened to be a glitch while he was operating it?  The screen had totally blacked out but you could still see faint images..barely.  Anyhoo I was gutted!  Hurried over to the Apple store at J Avenue hoping that it would still be under warranty but just my luck (or lack of it) the warranty had just expired--like a month ago!!   It was going to cost 14,000 baht (almost $500) for a replacement!  Practically like buying a new one!!!  You could probably guess my answer and so I hit the Google search engine and found a thread about others that had the same horrific fate.  Came across Tan Telecom, took it in, got it fixed in less than an hour and for less than 2,500 baht ($80)***cue heavenly harp music***!!!!  Love this country!!!! 

We can all help...

I admit I've had my weak moments...when I just got tired and couldn't bother to care since it seemed all too daunting but since having kids I have been more driven to do more and be more, if that makes any sense?  I wanted to write this post in hopes that I might be able to convince others that recycling is really easy, even if you're living in a condo with limited space.  My hubby says the building cleaning crew usually sorts it but why not make it a little bit easier for them too?  All you need are some laundry baskets and there you have quick and easy recycling bins!  We have one for plastics/glass, paper and another pile just for  newspaper.  I hope you might consider starting this and getting your family into the beautiful habit of recycling.  Each one of us can make a difference for our children's future!

Thainie Tip: Easy Cheap iPad Wrap

Wanted to share this tip for those that might use their iPad in the kitchen.  I was following a recipe from Pinterest (again) but flour and other seasonings were attacking my iPad and so I thought about plastic wrap.  Oh holy kitchen gods!!!!  It actually works with the plastic wrap on!!!  Also helps if you have greasy hands but need to scroll the recipe.  Might consider wrapping it permanently for my kids!