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! 

Thainie Shopping: Bajou

Image from http://www.bajoustudio.com/

I am so delighted to introduce this new line of children's clothing that a friend recently launched.  Please check out Bajou, gorgeous handcrafted designer kidswear by the beautiful and talented Alena Henriksen --- no this is not a paid ad but I'm also overjoyed since I had the pleasure of designing her logo.  So if you're looking for gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah or just something pretty, how about checking Bajou out?!

 

Thainie Tips: Christmas Decorating

Just last week while decorating our home for Christmas I redid our curtains by sewing the tabs down so the rod would not be visible, I got the idea from Pinterest---as usual.  Also, we recently made some changes to our home and so the place where we use to hang our Christmas stockings was no longer available.  And so I thought, why not use the vast amount of hanging space over at the curtain area???  Razzle dazzle, it turned out beautiful, if I might say....  I used a few S hooks for the garlands and decorated some S hooks with a bow so the stockings could be hung on them.  Who says you need a chimney!!!! 

I love Christmas!!!!  

Thainie Crafts: Advent Tree

Christmas, my favorite time of year!  And it's even more special when celebrating with your children.  For the past years, we had used a cloth hanging advent calendar with small pockets for treats but with 3 kids now, the small pockets cannot hold a fair amount of treats for each of them.   And so began the search for advent calendar ideas which eventually lead me to spotting this cute little tree at our local Big C.  Using my wonderful Silhouette machine, I made cut out ornaments with the days leading to a big Santa cut out so that I could tape them to tissue wrapped treats.  And the countdown to Christmas begins!

Here's the breakdown for this fun advent tree (forgot to include a 100+ baht star topper from Central Chidlom --- which happens to be the best place for gorgeous Christmas decorations!) : 

Thainie Crafts: Ornaments

With the holidays coming up, get ready for some festive posts!  Especially to make up for the lack of postings :-) Here is an article I did for a magazine recently on how to make your own ornaments with your child's handprint.  I found the recipe for the dough from Pinterest (love this website) and changed a few things, like  painting the ornament with acrylic and modpodging it when done.  

I actually like this dough recipe more than modeling clay or plaster since it's easy to make and holds up pretty good.  Just an important note to use really, really, really low heat when you are baking it in the oven since you do not want to make pita bread!  Yes this happened to me, one had ballooned up like a pita bread when the oven was too hot.  I would even adjust the heat to be less than 200 degrees.

This can also be baked in a toaster oven on very very very low heat too (always watch it closely).  The rule is steady low heat and longer duration.  Once it comes out, air dry it for a day and then paint.  I was saddened that after painting the ornament it had softened but after air drying a few days, surprisingly it's now hard as a rock!  So if you don't want to bake it in the oven, it will harden with air drying over a few days in a dry place.  

Overall it was a fun craft to do with the kids and it looks beautiful on the Christmas tree.  Happy crafting!

Happy Halloween!!!

Sorry for being such a slacker, it's been a loooooong time since my last post but hope to make it up with this post filled with adorable cuteness!!!  I love holidays, especially the ones that involve costumes!  When my daughter was born about 3 years ago I took on sewing so that I can make "itty, bitty, cute" outfits for her.  I loved the "idea" of being able to create her costumes, even though I had no clue how to go about doing it.  And so the parade of Halloween costumes began.  

4 months old "Cute lil Pirate" :: this was inspired from a stripe onesie she already had and so I took an old tank top I had and repurposed  it into a little pirate skirt for her and then took the bits and pieces to make a tiny little vest to go with the outfit.  Finished it with a red sash, grocery bought hat and patented flats.  

1 year old "Sweet Strawberry" :: Still a novice sewist, I tried to do a more daring costume that would involve actual buying and cutting of materials.  This strawberry costume was a wonderful beginner's costume since it was an easy pattern to sew.  

2 years old & one more baby boy "The Tortoise & the Hare" ::  And the plot thickens, now with two babies, I had to come up with duo themed costumes!!!  It's so much fun, too bad Halloween is only one time a year.

I would love to share patterns but honestly I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and pretty much improvised from beginning to end.  I truly believe it was the hand of God that guided me!  If you would like help or the pattern, please drop me an email and I will try to help you the best I can.  Happy Halloween!!!!  

All the birds of a feather...

Did I mention my kids are crazy about the movie Rio?  It's playing almost once a day in our home and they love dancing to the songs, the soundtrack is really good.  It made me think of a project that I wanted to do and thought it was the perfect opportunity to tie it in with the movie.  

 Eri of Llevo el invierno has a diy tutorial/pattern avail­able on her site that is ahmazing!!!   I adapted her tute and tweaked it a bit.  Here's what I did:

1) I cut the 2 side wings from the same pattern and I reinforced with fusible lining (sticky side up) so that it would be easier to hold the feathers when sewing (I'm thinking that it would have been more airy if I did without it but too late...you can leave this out if you want)

2) I precut all my feather pieces, you don't have to stick with the rounded feathers, I think it would have looked just as nice with more of a pointier look.  

3) Lay your feather strips in the order you would like and iron if you did the fusible lining OR pin and sew later OR you can just use fabric glue.

4)  Since I did the fusible lining, I just kept ironing my feather strips on.

5) It's a quick project actually and there you have your wings.

6) Sew your layers of feather strips.  Again, this is optional but I wanted to reinforce mine so that my kids don't have them torn off from wearing them.

7) The inside of the wings will look like this.

And there you go, fun wings for your fun kids!!!!  Here's a pic of my daughter modeling hers.

Kids Room Makeover (or makeunder?)

 I have been itching to paint my children's room since I always feel that the colors were making my kids crazier than usual.  I loved the jungle/under the sea theme and don't get me wrong, I love primary colors but I think for the bedroom it just didn't mesh well.  So I wanted to create a more calmer environment for them and thought light blue skies and grassy fields.  The tree as you can see in the pic was an unplanned addition but there were some bad spots where I had ripped some of the previous coat of paint off and was too lazy to spackle it smooth before painting.  It's amazing how different the room feels now and I think my kids are more calmer too (or it might just be the paint fumes)!  

*** If you would like to makeover any rooms in your home, I suggest using wall paints that are VOC free, matte finish and ask for the type that is easy to clean (just in case your kids go crazy with their crayons).  For this project I used TOA SuperShield paints.  For any wall murals/artwork, I just used crafter's acrylic paints.

*** If you would like to have your children participate in painting their room, I drew the outline of shapes and had my daughter color them in, she did a fantastic job and really enjoyed being part of decorating her room.