Longest Winter Ever

Yes, it is already April but we still need to feel Spring! It's been freezing weather still and we seem to only have a few hours of great weather before it suddenly turns cold and windy. Warm weather please...

This is why we ended up 'celebrating' Easter Sunday on a Saturday! Well, it was more of a picnic with the Chinese classmates of the kids as they've not experienced Easter so we thought a picnic would be great and also to let the kids have a chance to run around. Unfortunately we only had Saturday forecast to be sunny!


Counting the Easter loot...


The week before Easter, I got ambitious and thought of making these Felt Easter Bunnies for the kids to give away to all their classmates... And then of course, I encountered some timing problems and only ended up with 9 instead of 30! Oh well... The kids enjoyed playing with them and still brought it to school and share with their classmates.

Finishing Up

Somehow March has just snuck up on us... what we thought would be a long long month, is now it's almost over. Easter is just around the corner (not a big event here in Shanghai expat for the expats as Chinese don't celebrate Easter, however Easter this year is celebrated on the same day as Tomb Sweeping Day).

With the weather going crazy - one day cold, one day hot, one day snowing (yes, we had a big snow which did not settle though, in March), one day rainy, and so on... everyone's been sick with the colds.

Anyway, been trying to finish a lot of stuff that are way overdue. Reading other people's blogs at least gives me comfort that it's not just me but also some of you out there have those unfinished projects.

Finished the tooth fairy pillow for Samuel, which turned out more complicated than I had planned. Pattern to follow soon.


A cardi for my boy... I love the red accents and how everything turned out nicely. I'm hoping he would still be able to get into this next winter.


And finally, matching jammies for the twins. I didn't manage to get a good photo esp since they were both doing all their kungfu moves! These were supposed to be our new Christmas tradition - new jammies for everyone - but I only managed to make the bottoms for everyone this time. The kimono top took a backseat so it was a great feeling to finally finish the whole set. The kids were quiet ecstatic and Samuel told me he didn't want his jammies washed for a long time (oh no!).

I love the versatility of these Oliver + S patterns that unisex because I can cut the pattern for both and sew both in one go.

These days...

A bit of jamming...

A bit of hugging on the way to school.

Playhouse All Done! (at last!)

We had a good 9 days off work for the Chinese New Year holiday so the kids and I spent the better part of it making our felt playhouse (inspired by Homemade by Jill) with the first 2-3 days more productive due to the terrible weather outside. Probably the one and only big project I will be able to tackle this year.

Kids are enjoying the playhouse and that is what's important. They've always taken the duvets or blankets off our beds and used them as roofing or tents so when I saw Jill's playhouse, I just knew this was perfect for my twins. They've basically told me what the design or what the playhouse should have like the front door was specially for Audrey and the garage door on the back will be for Samuel. And that there should be a garden with corn, carrots, apple tree, etc.

Here are some snapshots I managed to take. More can be found here or here.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Rain rain go away...come again another day

Rainy days... dreading the rainy days. We ended up staying home all afternoon during the weekend. We managed to go for a swim in the morning on Saturday and a breakfast on Sunday. That's as far as we got and then home.

It was a blessing in disguise as I managed to get started on the big project - Felt Playhouse. Need to get ours done soon as the Chinese New Year holidays are coming up and we have 9 days off school and work. Something to keep kids busy in case we get more of these rainy days next week.

Matryoshka Tooth Fairy Pillow

Okay, I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog. So many things just somehow happened all at the same time and as much as I wanted to stretch waking hours to 24 hrs, just couldn't...

Anyways, a couple weeks ago my daughter gave me a bit of a scare telling me one of her tooth was loose. So that got me scrambling to do a tooth fairy pillow. Searched online but couldn't find anything I liked so in the end I did my own design.

I used felt to do this and pretty much hand sewn everything except for the outline which I used a sewing machine just to make sure the filling inside don't come out. Along the way, I also slightly made some changes to the result so feel free to do your own based on the template.

The tooth, when it falls out, would be placed inside the pocket of the apron. For now, the pillow is hanging on their room door... next I need to do one for my little boy - a robot one.


Click below image to download a printable PDF.


It would be great to see what you made. So please post to Flickr group pool here.

All Good

It's now November and somehow I've lost track of time so quickly! All's been good here.

We've been enjoying the nice warm weather still ...

except ... it had suddenly gotten freezing cold today!

Halloween weekend, we ended up not doing much. We don't really celebrate it here except shops and restaurants. We did end up with pumpkin soup for dinner which the kids loved. It was the first time I've made it was easier than I thought.

And finally managed to try out the recipe from Our Kitchen for this lovely focaccia. It went well with our pumpkin soup, although I'm not sure these 2 would be good pairings, but nevertheless, it turned out really yummy!

The ingredients are simple and ones I already had. Used some whole olives instead of seeded ones as those were the only ones I had. Rosemary were from my little garden.

It was perfect and so easy to make. Importantly, the kids loved the simple meal (even if we had to pick out the olives and rosemary from their slices of bread).

Bubble Dress Finished!

Managed to get a few hours of sewing time and so so so happy that I managed to finish the Oliver + S Bubble Dress for my little girl. This was supposed to be a birthday dress but it got put on hold a bit.

Audrey was excited to wear it and we did on a little picnic outing and lots of races. She wondered why there's no 'bubbles' as shown on the packaging's picture.

On the dress, this was a great pattern to work with but approached it a bit with trepidation because it looked complicated and not sure about my sewing skills. But it turned out actually easy and just loved the way it turned out and still cannot believe I made this. Now, on to the next Oliver + S pattern... or another Bubble Dress.

The Birthday Party

The day has arrived and the kids were excitedly waking us up this morning getting us to get up as it's the day of their birthday party. We started the day with our breakfast at Wagas and came home to do some more last minute preparations. The party was to start at 3:30pm but we were all finished by 2:00pm.

When a new movie on DVD failed to keep them occupied longer, we got them on the computer playing online games, and then more "herding" of the balloons scattered everywhere on the floor to float back to the lounge area.

And when the guests started arriving, it all just went in a blur. I didn't even get a chance to take pictures of all the kids wearing their costumes, didn't manage to take more party pictures and nor did I manage to take pictures of our homemade piñata!

Here are some pictures I managed to snap...

Kids with their party clothes, all sewn up at the last minute...

Happy Birthday banner which was easy to do.

Balloons everywhere. We started with about 100 of these but some blew up before guests arrived...


One of the 6 no-sew tutus I made complete with the name tag...

And the girls wearing their tutus...

The boys wearing their superhero capes and masks...

Banana cupcake recipe from Bakerella... except I added too much food colour than I should.

My first attempt at birthday cakes...

The little goody bags for the guests...

All in all, it was a success, the kids enjoyed themselves. I'm glad it was over and I've another year to plan another; one of the advantages of having twins... 1 party once a year.

Usually we don't give kids any presents also on their birthdays as they get to have the party and plus they get gifts from guests. And yes, they get to extend their birthday as we only get them to open 1 gift a day (maybe next year I'll hide the gifts so as to extend the opening of presents longer). Sounds harsh but actually this turns out well as the kids get a chance to play and enjoy 1 toy at a time rather than get overwhelmed by so many toys.