Some peace and quiet

I didn’t realize that our last post was on Jan 6! Where does the time go? I FINALLY get a week of nothing to do! My goodness, how I longed/missed these moments! The last week was super busy for me. My girlfriend from junior high school got married this past Saturday and since we had a friend flying in for the wedding, we had a small get together at my house Friday night. Forget about grocery shopping and getting the house in order, my main focus was finishing up that blanket! With 3 kids, 5 year old twins and a 4 month old infant, I must say that I was able to finish up this blanket in a reasonable amount of time.

My girlfriend had her son a week after I had my daughter and seeing that it took almost a week to finish this for my girl (granted, I was 8 or 9 months pregnant), I lost hope and kept the fabrics tucked away. This is the perfect baby gift! Too bad it is so time consuming and just drains you I’m telling you, I had to emotionally prep for this project!

I finally purchased the Olfa Chenille Cutter to speed things along this time around. My review: It definitely cuts back on time and saves your hands/fingers from cutting every. single. channel. Unfortunately, I found that after cutting a few channels, the lint from the flannel fabrics would get stuck in the blade hindering the tool from cutting smoothly.

I had to pull out the lint with tweezers! So really at the end, did it really save me that much time? Another thing I found was the blade would get dull after a few rows so I needed to turn the dial to expose a different part of the blade quite frequently. You could make approximately 3-4 blankets with one blade before having to purchase another one. Just some things to consider before investing in the tool…

Anyways, I hear my baby cooing so I am off to spend some time with her before picking up the big kids. Lil sis and I will be moving soon…rather this site. It’s been something we’ve been wanting to do for awhile…another reason why we’ve been so quiet here. We hope to have the new site up and running in the next 2 weeks *fingers crossed*

Talk to you soon!

big sis

The year of the rabbit

Happy New Year!!!

Not too long ago we celebrated baby #3′s 100 days (aka baek-il). Without going into too much history, Koreans celebrate 100 days because infant mortality was such an issue waaaay back in the days. It was a time of celebration where a family would gather, feast, and eat/share rice cakes (dduk). It is is still very much celebrated these days and lil sis and I, although born and raised here, still follow many of the Korean traditions. You can see what lil sis did for her 2nd daughter’s baek-il here.

With so much going on around the holidays I had little time to think of decorations. All I knew was that there was going to be some kind of bunting for the top of the rice cake. Lil sis, as she always does, talked me into adding an animal-face-cut-out-of-a-piece-of-fruit decor. Seriously, I have no idea what to call it so you can imagine how difficult it was to google it and find images!

I made a different banner this time around. You know I love the itty bitty bunting but this one was seriously the fastest banner I have ever made!

Well…minus the itty bitty felt ball ornaments! But aren’t they SO adorbs?! Truth be told, they are tedious and time consuming to make but so cute that I will have to find another use for them. Directions on how to make them can be found here.

And since Sisi is born in the year of the rabbit…

my animal-face-cut-out-of-a-piece-of-fruit!

Surprisingly, this was also super easy to put together. I did it 30 minutes before leaving for the luncheon. Needed: one firm cantaloupe, skewers, toothpicks, olives or dried cherries, carrots, sharp knife, and a steady hand.

I am very much looking forward to some down time. The big kids start school next Monday, which gives me 4 days of intermittent sewing time so that I can FINALLY start and finish up my friend’s faux chenille blanket! Sure, her baby is 4 months old but since he’s not crawling, I figured I’m safe to gift her the blanket Let’s see if I can finish this one in record time.

big sis

Hurrah!

I did it! Just in the nick of time too! All 60 felt mice now have their tails, have been tagged, and strung with baker’s twine or silver embroidery thread. I was getting annoyed with myself, wondering why in the heck did I decide to make them and then got more annoyed thinking that the only thing the Kindergarteners want are the candy canes. So lil sis suggested I add a string of some sorts so they can be kept as ornaments! Perfect idea! Hey, whatever to help me sleep at night! Then my crazy mind got to thinking “will the kids know what that string is for?” I didn’t want to string 60 of them all in haste so I quizzed my daughter.

Crazy mom, aka me: If you saw this mouse and it had a string attached to it, what would you think it could be used for?

5 year old daughter: An ornament!

Could I be any prouder?

In stages…

I needed to save time so I used googly eyes and black tiny pom poms for the nose. So much quicker! TIP: My daughter helped me by gluing on the ears with Elmer’s glue. Well, after gluing together almost 20! we noticed that the felt ears were NOT adhering to the body. Panic! I switched glues and used tacky glue. It stuck perfectly! HUGE sigh of relief!

Of course, I didn’t make it any easier on myself by asking the twins what colors they wanted the mice to be…my boy picked blues and greens, and my daughter picked pinks and purples.

Final step

Done! Done shopping, done wrapping, done crafting. The only thing left on my list is to make gingerbread cookies with the big kids tomorrow on their 1st day of winter break.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. We’ve got 2 parties back to back and I’m hoping that my baby doesn’t lose it on me! AT 3 months old, she knows when she’s done for the day!

Happy Holidays!!!

big sis

Reindeer Marshmallow Pops

{via adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com}

I found these reindeer pops on . They were too cute to pass up on making! I made some for Lila’s class, and I decided on making some reindeer pink because my own daughter doesn’t like chocolate. I know, strange for a kid not to like chocolate. I guess it’s a good thing.

It was a hit with the preschoolers. I’m glad I made enough pink reindeer because both boys and girls wanted pink reindeer versus the brown ones.

This will be my last post before Christmas, so Happy Holidays everyone! Enjoy this time with your loved ones! Stay safe and have fun!

xo,

lil sis

Tabi’s First Birthday Party!

Tabi’s first birthday pictures are in, and I’m loving each and every one of them! Sako Pak of Sky Blue Seed Photography did a wonderful job capturing all of the special moments, both big and small. If you’re in need of a friendly, talented photographer, go to her website and see her beautiful work! Also, I must give a shout out to my dear friend, Amenda Beck Makeup Artist who did my makeup. She’s done makeup for fashion shows and for brides…she is one talented lady! I asked for a clean, natural look, and I loved the way it turned out. I would normally not pay to get my makeup done for a kid’s birthday party, but my old roomie said she would do it for me. I couldn’t pass that up! Thanks AB!

Before I start posting about the birthday, I just wanted to say hello to all the new subscribers to our blog We’re hoping to transition to our new site very very soon! That’s our goal before the year ends!

Big sis and I have yet to post pictures of ourselves on our site, for various reasons. Well, that’s going out the window for 2012. We are so grateful to see our facebook fans growing, and we get so happy to meet you guys at the fairs. It’s only fair that you get to see who we are! You’ll see some pictures of me (lil sis) with my kiddos in this post, and big sis will show up eventually too.

Big sis and I are Korean, and in our tradition, the first birthday is a major event. The importance and the cultural meaning behind the first birthday also known as the dohl is what makes some of us CRAZY in the head when trying to plan the first birthday party. I hear many moms say planning their kid’s first birthday party is almost as stressful as planning a small wedding. Whether it’s being held at a hotel or at home, we are all just trying to make a memorable, joyful event for our little one.

We had Tabi’s first birthday party at Old Spaghetti Factory. This time around we kept it low key with around 60 guests versus Lila’s birthday which was a 100+ person party. There was no set banquet manager to help me, but all of the managers there were so accommodating. I worked with Erika, and she went above and beyond to help me out. What kind of venue lets you set up the night before until midnight!? It worked out perfectly because I didn’t hire anyone this time around to help me with decorations like I had for Lila’s birthday. Most of the stuff was DIY, and I am forever grateful to my girlfriends who helped me set up that evening because they pretty much did most of the work. I caught the 24 hour stomach virus that day, so I was ready to just collapse by the time evening came around. At one point I had to hold my head up with my hands because I felt so nauseous while they were both ironing my tablecloths. Worse timing to get sick!

Alrighty, on to to the pictures! This is going to be a picture overload post!

Private banquet room at OSF

Got this idea from the internet! I wish I can link to the site, but I don’t remember where I saw this. I loved the idea of taking pics of my daughter representing the items for the doljabi. The doljabi is a traditional game in which we have a variety of items laid out in front of the birthday girl/boy. The baby is encouraged to pick one of the items, and it’s believed that whatever he/she chooses is supposed to predict the child’s personality and future. Guests predict what the baby will choose and they enter a raffle. Tabi got to choose from the following (as shown in the picture above from left to right)

basketball ~ pictured in my husband’s alma mater outfit: athlete

microphone ~ pictured wearing her shades and singing in a mic: musician

money ~ pictured wearing big sis’ hand me down burberry dress given by a good friend of mine (thx rose) and holding up fake money: future baller

book ~ pictured reading a book: scholar

yarn ~ pictured playing with the yarn (couldn’t figure what to do with her on this one!): long and abundant life

btw, she chose money! cha-ching!

Yummy red velvet & vanilla cake pops made by Cats! The dol go ims (the traditional towers in the background made with beans) were also a project that I did about 3 weeks before the party. I didn’t have towers for Lila’s birthday, and I regret not making them for her so I had to make some this time around for Tabs. One tower says First Birthday (Chook Dol), the other is a tiger (Year of the White Tiger though I made a brown one), and the third one says her Korean Name (Chae Yeon). I took some pictures of the whole process, which I’ll post about later. There are some great tutorials on the internet on how to make dol go ims.

A Chalkboard fabric backdrop adorned with some felt flowers. I made one flower a night for a week w/ eco felt. Wool felt would have been better to work with because it’s stiffer, but I couldn’t get myself to spend the money on that felt. Instead, I just sprayed starch (used for ironing) on the felt and it made it a tad bit stiffer so the petals wouldn’t limp. The chalkboard fabric is hanging from the PVC pipe that the hubs made…again, a later post.

big sis’ made a big batch of these yummy mini cupcakes! i just glued some colorful paper strips on skewers to make some flags.

Paper placemat info here pictured with big sis’ daughter’s collection of squinkies.

flowers from la flower mart, fabric runner from joanns, floor length white polyester tablecloths from ebay member linentablecloths ($11 each). seriously i looked at every party supply store including party city. no one carries floor length tablecloths that are NOT PLASTIC.

glass vases were borrowed from friends. i had two short ones & two tall ones. i just cut up some white fabric into strips and knotted them around the vases. i added ribbon as well. i was really big on having different height levels, so i used a couple of boxes to make a stand for my cake stand. even a cake stand can have a stand! i wrapped wrapping paper (the white side) around a small pampers box for the bottom box. the smaller one above is an anthropologie gift box. i always ask for a gift box if i ever find myself buying something at anthro. their boxes are sooo pretty and super sturdy.

two days after the party, the peonies fully opened up and they looked so pretty. not so much here. there is a trick i found on the internet though! you spray some warm water on the peonies and it will help them open or you can dip the flower bud in a bowl of warm water. not sure if these tricks work, but it’s worth a try.

hello! that’s me, lil sis

i’m changing tabi into her traditional korean dress called a han bok. i’m so glad she didn’t rip off that headband like she does with all her hair clips. i’ve made so many clips for my girls, but she REFUSES to have one on her head.

the doljabi (btw, i’m addicted to picnik)

the girls’ birthdays are two days apart, so i got a cake for my three year old too. we had our guests sing happy bday to her as well. as you can see from the bottom left picture, lila was loving it.

the end!

Can it be done? Will it be done?

(as my husband rolls his eyes)…

So the twins’ last day of Kinder before winter break is the 22nd. Both teachers asked if I could make a batch of gingerbread dough for their classes by this Monday. Still left on my list of things to do before Xmas: few gifts, few cards, trips to 3 different markets…all while taking care of my baby. So, am I setting myself up for failure and my kids up for dissappointment when I say we (and really me) want to make these for the kids’ classmates?

image via Martha Stewart. Directions here

What to do…sigh. 72 candy canes have been purchased, which means I’m definitely going to attempt it. C’mon, I can make 56 by the 22nd right?

big sis

My last custom order for 2011!

Thanks, Kristen! Hope the girls love them! Happy holidays!

big sis

Vintage Cutlery + Birthday Girl Information Paper Placemat

Not sure what I was searching for on Etsy, but I stumbled across a first birthday placemat. It just had a 1 in the center and the birthday girl/boy’s name on the corner. It gave me inspiration to make my own custom paper placemats for Tabi’s birthday with some fun facts about her.

Thanks to Digital Scrapbooking, I was able to create a placemat pretty easily. It also served as decoration on the tables, so I justified that by printing it out in color. $.98 a copy versus $.20 (black and white). Sigh…doesn’t seem like a big difference, but I had to print out many many copies. It made me cringe a little to be spending that kind of money on paper and ink. I was hemming and hawing about printing it in color for days. My husband got sick of me asking him what looked better, so he said to just print it in color and stop bothering him. I got the hint!

I got the vintage cutlery placemat download (FREE PDF) from The Pretty Blog. I’m horrible with Photoshop, so I used Creative Memories’ Storybook Creator Program, which is a Digital Scrapbooking program to add the wording, banner, etc. I had a friend enlarge and space out the cutlery so that it would fit nicely on a 11×14 placemat versus 8.5×11 which is what the PDF file is set to. I went to Staples and had them print out the file on 11×17 and paid a $1.90 flat fee to cut all of them down to 11×14. I started corner punching each paper and stopped at like the third sheet. Seriously? Not sure what I was thinking because I prob had over 65 to do.

Anyhow, just thought I would share this. I thought it brightened up the tables since the decor is so dark and rich at the restaurant. Plus, it gave the guests something to read while waiting for their meal.

~lil sis

And She’s ONE!

Happy 1st Birthday Tabi! Yesterday was her official birthday, and I’m SO happy to say the birthday party is over. This weekend was a crazy one for our family. We celebrated Thanksgiving, Lila’s 3rd birthday at Chuck E Cheese on Friday, Tabi’s First Birthday on Saturday, and then the whole fam got sick with the stomach bug on Sunday. Even lil Tabi! Whew. I want to say that I had the 24 hour bug because I’m pretty much over whatever it is that I caught, but my girls are still under the weather. Hoping they recover quickly so we can enjoy this beautiful weather we’ve been having here lately.

I don’t have any pictures to show (yet) from her birthday party. Though I did want to share my photos + my experience with the Los Angeles Flower Mart. I didn’t have a theme for her birthday party, but I incorporated flowers here and there as part of the decorations. I was on a mission to get a good deal on flowers for centerpieces to spruce up the tables. I drove to downtown LA on Black Friday and the freeways were absolutely CLEAR! I got there in record time!

So for those of you who have never been to the LA Flower Mart and are considering going, it’s not as daunting as it seems. There is plenty of street parking, but it’s by the hour…$3 to be exact. The meters take credit cards, so there is no need to scrounge for coins. If you don’t want to use your CC, they only take quarters! If you are planning on spending more than an hour looking around, you will probably want to park at a lot. For non trade/florists, they open up at 8am. It is $2 admission. It’s highly recommended that you bring some kind of rolling cart if you are planning on buying a lot of flowers. I brought this cart and stuck a Home Depot bucket inside so that right before I was ready to leave, I asked one of the florists to give me some water for my flowers.

I had about 30+ mason jars that I wanted to fill. I had my heart set on peonies because that is my favorite flower! I had them in my wedding bouquet too. Managed to find a pic of my bouquet…ahh memories

I looked through every florist vendor in the warehouse before actually committing to buy. Many of their prices are the same esp when they are for the popular flowers like roses, daisies, hydrangeas, etc. In addition to peonies, I wanted these small white wildflowers (don’t know the name) and yellow billy-balls. Love how cute they are! The white flowers were not as easy to find. Maybe one out of three vendors had them, and they were sparse. Prices varied, so I made sure to look around to see who had them for the cheapest. As for billy-balls, I only found one vendor that carried them! Can you believe it? Maybe I just didn’t look hard enough.

Here are the flowers I’m talking about…

Yellow Billy Ball

100 Layer cake

(The pink flowers on the left but in white)

Mellano’s had the biggest selection of flowers, and they were super organized. They kept all their flowers in a separate temperature regulated room which felt like I was in a freezer! Pale pink peonies were 1.71/stem. The small white flowers were 2.75 a whole bunch (yay!). Billy balls were $5 a bunch, and to call it a bunch was exaggerating. I left with $65 worth of flowers, and 50% of them were peonies. Hydrangeas would have been the cheapest and more bang for your buck route because most florists were selling them for $6 a bunch.

Here are some of my flower mart pics~

Honestly, the LA Flower Mart has great deals, and you can’t beat their selection. I’m kinda itching to make a drive out there again before Christmas to decorate my house with Mellano’s fresh wreaths and garlands. I’m hosting my family’s Christmas party this year, and I’m excited to get the house decorated. Not gonna stress about presents this year. All the kids are getting Gap clothes…and I’m doing it all ONLINE!

Anyhoo, can’t wait to show you all pics of the birthday party!

~lil sis

This and that.

So many things…where to start.

Lil sis just threw her 2nd daughter’s 1st b-day party. 1st birthdays are a big deal in our culture (remember Lila‘s). It takes months of thought and prep and if you are like lil sis, no detail gets forgotten. There were many conversations between her and I where we wondered…”What’s wrong with me/you?” (referring to lil sis). haha! I know she has tons of pictures so you’ll have to wait for her posts. As much as I wanted to bring my camera, to take pictures of the event and try to get our 1st family picture (can you believe? we do NOT have 1 family picture with the five of us. sad, I tell ya!), it has been a struggle to pack light for outings, and I was not able to justify bringing another bag for the camera. ugh! Not to worry…lil sis just gifted me a photo session for the fam!

I did it. I finally moved my baby girl to her room. It was a sad day. A. Very. Sad. Day. And it def has been a struggle. Not to mention, she has a bit of a cold so as much as I want to scoop her up and bring her into my bed, I stop myself b/c it would break my heart to start all over.

I still feel like I am adjusting to this new role of mine, despite it being almost 3 months. I almost feel like life is moving fast and I’m trying to keep up with it all. I cannot believe that the twins are half way done with Kinder and I have yet to volunteer one day (can you detect the guilt?). I cannot believe that my baby is almost 3 months! I cannot believe I have not crafted in so long! haha!

Things I am sooo looking forward to:

1. to have some kind of schedule back in my life. It’s very OCD, I know…but I’m a planner and I like things to be organized. All this craziness (mainly in the evenings when I become a single parent to the twins and infant) is messing up my mojo

2. to be able to muster up enough energy to hit the gym! I am SO missing my cardio kick boxing classes. Choice: use the remainder of whatever energy I have to work out or rest? So hard to choose.

3. sleep. sigh…

So during late night feedings, I am glued to my phone and I came across these stickers. Must have for new mommies!

image via Sticky Bellies

Sticky Bellies sell these stickers that you can peel on and off for your baby’s monthly pictures. Such a cute idea!

So that’s what’s been going on in my life. I took on a custom order while lil sis was prepping for the bday party. But it turns out that I actually need a bit more me time before I start making things for the shop. So this one will probably be it for me until I return some time next year.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have SO MUCH to be thankful for and I am so glad I get to share my thoughts here with you. And if you’ve gotten to this point and read all my ramblings, thank you

big sis