Thainie Craft: DIY Christmas Frame for Kids

With Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, I'm getting a head start on everything.  Beginning with preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner, we'll be having friends over with their kids and so I wanted to organize a fun but easy craft project for them to work on before or after dinner.  

I had a bunch of sequins and embellishments (from hoarding of course) and thought the children can glue them on to the IKEA NYTTJA (comes in pack of 2 and all colors) frames.  You can also make these goody bag treats too and just organize them in sets for giveaway.

Note:

- Sadly I'm not close at all to any Michael's but all the sequins and embellishments in the photo are all from Sampeng in Chinatown and range from 80 baht to 100 baht for a bag full.  You can also check out B2S and BeTrend, they have some as well, not a whole lot but beats a trip to Sampeng at times!

- I recommend TOA glue or Elmer's since it's easy to use and it really sticks well once you let it dry properly.

Sugar Cookies Success Story!!!

 Baking cookies has always been a challenge, even with the best or the world's best recipe, it usually ends with failure and lots of fish food.

Then this recipe came along and happy days!!!   Perfect from the first batch.  Cookies and icing!  I also mixed everything in a food processor and it worked out perfectly.

Kids had a fun time decorating but it was quite difficult to make them understand that frosting should not be more than the cookie itself!

Halloween: Pumpkin Costume

 Halloween is approaching and I usually try to finish the children's costumes ahead of time so that I wouldn't be pulling my hair the last week of October.  Fortunately this year, their school had requested more "Halloween" themed costumes and not the usual superhero or princess.  I'm not at all against any of those costumes (or the school) but I can honestly say my children would have never chosen a pumpkin costume if it was up to them.  So luckily they wanted pumpkins!  

What I got (2 plump pumpkin costumes for 3.5 and 5 year old):
- 3 meters of orange fabric (cotton mix)
- 1/2 meter of green fabric (cotton mix)
- 1/2 meter of green felt
- 1/2 meter of black felt
- iron on webbing
- matching threads
- elastic 

I had actually searched the web for a children's pumpkin pattern, which I found and paid $8 (240 baht) but it had printed out about 120 pages and I was lost---this pattern paper fiasco is now being recycled for my kids' artwork.  I'm just not capable of patterns!  Gave up and just took one of my daughter's dresses and put it on the fabric and pretty much drafted my own pattern.   Cut into sections and sewn them together.  I'm sorry this is not going to be a very good tutorial but I can offer the following amazing references to help guide you there as they guided me.

Making your own pattern from clothes you already have
MADE

Sewing dress and lining (applicable to this costume!)
Cool People Sew

For the pumpkin features, first take felt and iron on webbing then trace the eyes, nose and mouth, cut pieces and iron on to the pumpkin.  If you want to, I stitched over the pieces.

Leaves Pattern for felt leaves
Pink Suede Shoe 

*** Print out the leaves the size you want or you can search on the web for any kind of leaves you like and cut out green felt

Note, the lining for the plump pumpkin was a padded quilted fabric (you can get this at Fabric House) and you just sew the same as a lining.  Lastly, fold up bottom at insert elastic.

My daughter had a bit of a diva moment and decided she wanted it to be more dressy (you can take the princess dress away but you can't take the princess out of the kid), so I cut around the existing pattern (copying her dress) and just added the green cotton lining and cut the bottom zig zagged, luckily we had kept a cute black petticoat skirt that belonged to my older daughter and was able to use it under this dress.

Happy sewing!!

Easter Baskets

 Luckily we have been in a strawberry eating frenzy and I was inspired to make Easter baskets like we did in elementary school.  Very easy, cute and perfect for collecting all those chocolate treats from the Easter Bunny tomorrow morning.  

All you need to make these nifty baskets are:

- Strawberry plastic boxes or any box/bowl you have on hand will do just fine.

-  Pipe cleaners, if you don't have them then you can use some rope or any kind of string.

-  Decorations, I got a bunch from Chinatown (hoarder!) and B2S.  Scored these crazy cute dinosaur ones out of the blue too!

- Scissors and  a hole puncher (loving Martha Stewart's Crafts Screw Punch)

And then you're ready to make your baskets with the kiddies!

- First have them braid or twist the pipe cleaners.

- Then fold the green paper and have them cut thin strips out.

- Punch holes on each side of the basket and have them lace in the pipe cleaner and twist shut.

- Add the paper grass filling and decorate!  

 Ready for the Easter Bunny!!

Happy Crafting!!!

Foodie Friendly

Love sharing the foodie love, here are some local Bangkok food makers and bakers that have been tried, tested and tasted!!!

Urban Pantry Personalized artisan bread and gourmet food delivery in Bangkok.  Must try their Zuni Zucchini Pickles and Cajun Pita Chips!!!

GMT Farm Fresh, delicious, clean, quality vegies.  Must try their salad dressings!!!

The Bangkok Bread Boys Yummy baked good, coffee and more.  Must try their muesli and brownies!!!
 

Pancakes....

Yes, finally a pancake recipe that actually lives up to the hype!!!  It was like some sort of sweet serendipity that I had been watching Cake Boss this past Friday evening and he was making some yummy looking pancakes!  I'm not so much of a pancake lover but my family loves them and they're easy to make in a big batch and refrigerate for the rest of the week.  

So after a bunch of literally deflated supposedly "the best" recipes, finally the Cake Boss delivered.

Fluffy Pancakes for Sure!!!

Makes around 7-8 nice sized pancakes/about 2 dozen mini pancakes (we like doing these)

  

2 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose flour)

2 BIG pinches of granulated sugar (I did about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons...this is really up to your sweet tooth)

4 teaspoons baking powder (the magical ingredient I believe)

Scant 1 teaspoon fine sea salt (go ahead and live life!  Put an actual teaspoon!) 

2 large eggs

4 tablespoons of butter melted and slightly cooled (yes cooled, you will be making some custard if you put it in hot or warm, I suggest melting in microwave and popping in freezer for a minute or until cool)

2 cups of milk (I will be trying a batch with rice milk and let your know)

The original recipe that I searched on the web didn't have the directions but my pancakes turned out pretty perfect so I will stick to what I did. 

Whisk the eggs in a good sized bowl and add milk, melted butter, sugar, salt, baking powder and flour, yep all in the same bowl!!  Stir until all the flour bits are gone but I still leave the batter just a little lumpy.

Take a laddle or spoon since this batter is slightly thick and drop your pancakes into a nonstick pan and do as you do in cooking pancakes!  Hope this recipe works out for you!!!! 

Valentine's Day Treats

Happy Valentine's Day!!  Just wanted to share what I did for my kids' classmates this year.  Used a basic sugar cookie recipe, supposedly the best sugar cookie recipe but I'm still searching so if you have one please share.  The cookies weren't that bad, the kids loved them but who doesn't love a cookie?  

Well I wanted to share that I used a small rubber stamp with the word "LOVE" to stamp the cookies and it worked out actually nice.  Will have to try some other stamps and share how they turned out again!  Also, food coloring, LOVE Wilton's food coloring gel, totally recommend for any baking treats.  It doesn't stain and the colors really are very rich.

 ***  Please ignore the burnt looking ones, they were from the first batch! 

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!