...more on princess d.i.y...

...a few more pics to share from the superheroes & princesses d.i.y....

these were ilaika's "masterpieces" from the party & i found them in her princess bag. she had saved them to bring to school!

a trip down memory lane...us three in singapore circa 2007...

zain put this comic strip together back when ilaika was still a baby. it was just after our first trip as a family of three. ilaika was barely four months old & we had decided to take a break in singapore for a few days. she cried & screamed throughout the whole holiday, except when we were in the hotel room. the pic of her in that baby onesie - will work for milk - makes me laugh everytime.

clockwise from top left:

at a singaporean wet market that zain dragged us to using his gps (hobby of the month that month)...apparently they had the best char kueh teow in town...it took us an hour to get there, only to find out it was closed on that day!

mini me & me in our pj's in hilton singapore. she was so tiny back then & always had that look on her face...

zain & ilaika back in kl. she had an obsession with the tv remote...she still does except now she actually knows how to use it!

i bought this onesie in singapore & it was so fitting as ilaika had been part of a tv commercial just a month before! look how happy she was to be in the hotel room...

superheroes & princesses d.i.y.

i usually bake my biscuits & decorate them in the comfort of my mum's large kitchen. however, a friend of mine had a special request for her kids' birthday party; it was her son's 4th & her daughter's 2nd. as she wanted something more interactive for the lil superheroes & princesses, i pre-baked the biscuits, packed my decorating kit & anxiously brought them over to her house. we set up a table amidst the party chaos and let the kids have a go at decorating their own biscuits.

we filled up squeezy plastic bottles with icing, gave them the "stickers" which i designed & printed the week before...all edible of course ;) and also provided them with colourful sprinkles.

my own princess ilaika was of course, the most excited of them all. having seen me prepare these at home, she's been itching for a whole week to get her hands on these tempting goodies! unsurprisingly, she was the first guest at the sweet stuff booth...

the other pretty princesses & handsome heroes churned out real works of art too ;) unfortunately, i was so tied up with managing the booth and making sure the kids peeled off the plastic sheet behind the stickers (!) that i didn't get to take many pics of their masterpieces. here are a couple i managed to snap...

quite a few of the kids weren't interested in decorating the biscuits, especially the older boys...and it was a shame to have them go to waste, so i decided to decorate all the biscuits i had brought. mini me & i had a blast with this but the poor thing konked out at the party, before all the biscuits were completed!

luckily for me, i had other ever willing helpers who were oh-so-excited to be allowed to decorate more than just one biscuit!

before i end this post, i have to thank aida for  her support and for insisting i bake the biscuits even though she's an even more talented chef than me. i really enjoyed myself & hope super-idris & princess qaisara did too!

it's a boy!

before you get all gooey & excited, allow me to clarify -- no, i'm not expecting another baby. despite the constant "so when's your next one" hints, i think i shall stay away from that subject for at least a few more months. selfish as it may sound, i am not quite ready for yet another bout of sleepless nights & feeling like a dairy cow! this, of course, is a completely different story altogether...one that i shall save for another day...

a couple i just recently came to know, has just been blessed with an angelic baby boy. mind you, his mother will beg to differ that he is only angelic in the presence of other people and is quite a little monster behind closed doors - something many mums will be able to relate to!

this little angel will be a month old soon and his lovely mum has asked me to design some biscuits & matching invites for his naming ceremony. i've only ever made invites for myself & ilaika's parties but never for anyone else. hence, i had quite a bit of fun with my power point* & mac book pro these past few days. 

* yes, am still using power point...i SO have to start using a "proper" design software soon!

i started with a blank "canvas" and two boyish colours - blue & brown. it turns out the mum is like me - we both prefer our invites to be not so kiddish. however, i couldn't completely ignore the fact that this was an event for a baby...so i still had to include childlike elements into the theme. i used some digital scrapbooking ideas -- added some stripes, a few circles & a couple of buttons...here's the initial design i came up with:

- front -

 

- back -

it's no mona lisa but i was kinda proud of this. not bad for a newbie, me thinks ;)

thankfully, the mum liked it too. we made a few changes here & there, added the baby's pic & sent it off for print. i'll share more when the invites & biscuits are ready...

reminiscing our tradition : the night before raya & the way it used to be...

every family has their own traditions, especially when it comes to celebrations. for as long as i can remember, one of our family traditions was to have dinner together the night before hari raya/eid...or more like the night hari raya would be determined.

after a long month of fasting, the whole family would gather at my grandparents' lovely spanish-villa-inspired house & break fast together.

even back then, our family was very large. my grandparents raised their six children plus my adopted mum, with an age gap of roughly 20 years between the eldest child & the youngest. thankfully my late grandfather had the hindsight to build an exceptionally large dining room to accommodate all his children and grandchildren. the adults would sit at the large long dining table and the kids would sit at the smaller one (as the years went by and the family grew even larger, the seating arrangements still remained but the tables were replaced with bigger ones).

after a cheerful (and usually very loud) dinner, the children would then adjourn to the driveway & light firecrackers & sparklers whilst the adults catch up with each other on the marble steps of the grand porch. shortly after, the younger adults would bring out the more "hardcore" firecrackers & we would countdown and cheer as they exploded, beautifully decorating the sky with brightly coloured flares. one of the firecrackers i distinctly remember was the one that would shoot out a tiny parachute which we would all rush to catch as it fell from the sky. the winner of course, gets to take the measly prize home!

familiar malay songs of the muslim celebration could be heard emanating from the green room as we so fondly referred to the additional guest living room back then. the room had green leather sofas and green curtains for windows overlooking the driveway. my grandmother would usually sit there & watch us from a distance.

at around half past eight, someone would call us in from inside the house & we would gather in front of the telly, in anticipation of the announcement of hari raya. at times it was good news which meant no more fasting the next day...and other times, the bad news meant another day of fasting to which us kids would moan & groan about...

the night would then go on for another couple of hours until the last cracker was lit and then it was time to head back to our individual family homes.

fast forward about 15 years & i am now close to thirty & married with a child of my own; the younger adults i mentioned above have added more to my list of young cousins; my older cousins have more kids than me. so you can imagine how much larger the family has grown & we still religiously practice this tradition. in fact, just a few days ago, we sat down together to break fast. but oh, how times have changed us. and when i say "us" i don't just mean each person's character but also the ritual itself.

the patriarch of the family (my late grandfather) is no longer around (though i'd like to think he is watching us from the heavens above). the matriarch (my grandmother) is unwell & is just overwhelmed and happy with the fact that her usually empty & quiet house is filled up with family even if it's just for one night.

the dining room is still very much the same but the two tables have "grown" & there is an additional one squeezed in between the two for the much younger kids. the adults (my parents' generation) still conquer the larger table despite the much much larger one in the next room, which is almost never used as it has always been the formal dining room purely for entertaining important guests of my grandparents. old habits die hard i suppose. us "kids" are no longer kids but have yet to be promoted to the "adults" table. our kids sit at the tiny new table & the even younger kids of ours don't even have anywhere to sit so they either take turns or willingly eat in the playroom upstairs with their respective nannies.

after dinner, the kids still adjourn to play firecrackers but sadly the adults (including my generation) remain in the dining room until it is time to leave. the kids no longer play in the driveway as we used to as our larger family means more cars which take up more space so they make do with the garden instead. unfortunately, they don't play with their parents but they are chaperoned by the numerous nannies of our family. the only sounds that can be heard are the crackling of the fireworks and the loud laughter of the adults. the green room is gone and the music is no longer playing & has long died, so to speak.

the announcement of hari raya on the telly has become a formality & no one bothers with it anymore. with all the astrological technology & opportunity lost which comes from not knowing which day hari raya falls on, i suspect the dates are fixed at the beginning of each year, if not earlier.

as much as i find this such a shame, i am also guilty of playing a role in contributing to the adjustment of our yearly ritual. i guess as we grew older & the dynamics of the simple world (as i knew it) changed, my generation became accustomed to what some people refer to as the bourgeois or even aristocratic lifestyle. we work hard to upkeep our high maintenance lifestyles & we value our precious time...hence we have a string of nannies to assist in looking after our kids & maids to clean the house. we get caught up in our own lives & we don't see each other very much. and then we try to make up for it by catching up not just over dinner but the rest of the night....and in the process, delegate the responsibility of chaperoning our kids to the nannies. or perhaps we have just gotten used to having the nannies around. either way, i can't help it but at times, i do wonder if this would or might affect how our kids develop & turn out later in life.

bear in mind, i observe this in comparison to the reminiscence of my own childhood & the way our tradition was back then...or how my memory registers it to be. in reality, our kids honestly know no better & play joyfully with each other with large cheshire smiles beaming on their innocent faces. and when all's said & done, i suppose that's more important than having things the way they used to be...and for all i know, our parents lived the tradition differently too when they were growing up & probably thought the same of ours....and we turned out pretty ok...i think ;)

raya greetings...

with hari raya (or commonly known as eid in some parts of the muslim world) just a couple of days away, the office is rather quiet; many are already on leave, the phones are not ringing and if i concentrate really hard, i can hear a bird chirping outside!

i work in a convention centre. on a normal day, we have thousands of people in the building attending conferences & events; some are here to dine in our two f&b outlets. hence, it is a rare occasion to have the building feel like ghost town....but i welcome the peace & quiet with open arms. indeed, it is great for wrapping up loose ends and catching up on dreary admin work. it's also great as we can actually play some music as there are no clients walking in and out of the office.

it also means i can take a few minutes to wish everyone a very very very happy raya holiday! do drive safely if you are leaving town...and do go easy on the delicious raya feast  ;)  yes, i shall constantly remind myself of this too!

as with christmas, raya is a season for (amongst other things) giving, forgiving & being with loved ones. so i made raya greetings to give away....unfortunately, i can't courier to everyone. instead i'll share them with you here.

lots of love always...

xxx

izreen

uploading pics for dummies

last weekend, i experimented with photobucket. it's highly recommended by some of the scrapbooking sites i've visited & it's meant to make life easier when uploading pics onto blogs. i've yet to really play around with the features very much...just with the recent bollipop pics on my previous post but i reckon, for an amateur at editing, it is really simple to use. in fact, almost idiot proof! no dummies' guide needed ;)

will post more experimental edits soon!

biscuit lollies...a.k.a....bollipops!

i've been meaning to make biscuit lollies for some time now, so when i received a request to make biscuits on a stick, i jumped at the chance. i was even willing to forgo my minimum order policy ;) but how to make them was a different matter altogether...

so i've seen those lovely wilton cookie treat pans numerous times at the local icca shops but decided against buying them as it only has space for six at one go...which would mean hours of baking, even for a small order of 30 pieces. after numerous googling sessions, i finally braved baking them the d-i-y way:

• make the dough...
• roll them out thick...
• cut them out with cookie cutters...
• and simply slide the sticks in the dough before popping them into the oven to bake!

there were just two things i had to do differently compared to when i bake my usual biscuits - the first was to roll them thicker so that the sticks could fit in the centre and the second was to not bake them too long cos i didn't want them too crunchy - i was worried the biscuits would crumble at the first bite and break off the stick. the end result was a soft creamy butter biscuit, quite similar to a shortbread texture.

i had two themes - for the actual order: a caricature with a quote bubble for a 30th birthday celebration & for my long overdue samplers: some hello kitty ones which i previewed in my previous post (i printed the hello kitty sheets a few weeks ago & they've just been waiting for an opportunity to find a "home" on a biscuit!)...this is how both themes turned out:

hello kitty

caricature

i had my little helper with me too ;) though the only thing she contributed was this:

oh and i have to credit her for the term bollipop! when she first saw these, she excitedly picked one & started licking it! i explained that although it looked like a lollipop, it was actually a biscuit which she has to bite. her response was, "ooohh bollipops!"

meow...

i finally got round to baking these biscuit lollies with hello kitty, my childhood obsession, as the theme... ;)

am packing them tomorrow...so more to tell & more pics to come...