OCD-ed & OD-ed...all over a blog design!

so yes, if you haven't figured out yet, i spent quite a lot of time obsessing over the layout & design of this blog...so much so that i completely lost the whole point of a blog which was actual blogging! so after a couple of weeks (ok, maybe a little more than that!), i decided to stop obsessing and am finally quite happy with my current blog design. i've googled & googled & googled over & over again various topics on blogs & this is what i came up with:

 

the raison d'etre behind this design:

• i love the concept of scrapbooking but have not had the time or resources to indulge in this art - the lovely bits & bobs available in malaysia are really expensive. so whilst looking at other blog designs, i discovered digital scrapbooking! hence i wanted to add elements of it into this layout. i'm thinking this is something that will come up more often in this blog ;)

• the main part of the blog itself had to be plain & easy to read, which is why it has a white background in the centre with very simple fonts.

• for the background, i wanted a damask print as i, well, love how a damask print adds  understated elegance & romance with a touch of the "old-world" charm.

• i actually wanted to do more & design my own templates but that would mean learning photoshop which is next on my to-do list. so for now, it's just amateur editing on powerpoint slides!
  

• last but not least, it had to be simple & sweet.

i used a few templates from various blogs; amended them here & there (the header especially) to make it a little more personalised. i hope in doing so, i have not violated any copyright policies and if i have, i sincerely apologise for my ignorance and of course, do let me know and i will amend it asap. 

many many many thanks go out to the following sites for without them, i would not have had such a pretty layout (well, i think it's pretty pretty...) :

• kevinandamanda.com
• check this site out for lots of wonderful fonts - all free too! Amanda also has tips for newbies to both scrapbooking & blogging. a site i will definitely visit very often.   

• shabbyblogs.com
• Shabby Blogs provides far from shabby blog templates - this is where i found the damask print for my background and also the pretty buttons found in the side bar.
  

• ShabbyPrincess.com
•  Shabby Princess also brings you not-so-shabby scrapbooking templates - lots of them! very pretty designs & so many frebies to choose from....and if that's not enough, they also have an online shabby shop for your scrapbooking shopping spree!

• thecutestblogontheblock.com
• this was actually where i first started with my design. they have lots of blinkies & lovely freebies - a great place to start for beginners like me ;)
  

• independentfashionbloggers.org
• i found great & easy to follow tutorial on realigning the blog header with the rest of the blog - a problem that was bugging me for days on end!

so now that i've got this design up...i am finally ready to start blogging - am stepping out of my comfort zone and announcing this to the world, and by that to my world of facebook! feedback & comments are most welcome...do go easy on me though - i am still learning through trial & error...

xxx

izreen

site under construction

please bear with me as i work on the design on this site...am such a newbie & blogger dummie so am still trying to work my way around here...i pwomise it should look pretty good pretty soon ;)

xxx

izreen

chirp chirp tweet tweet....

it was ilaika's first school trip...

the day started out with a mad rush with Ilaika not wanting to wake up & then not finding her sunnies.

and then of course, being the BIG girl she is now, she insisted that only her friends & teachers were going..."mummies cannot!", she insisted but she quickly changed her mind when she saw the other mummies waiting at school!

so with the rest of the SAL bunch - teachers, toddlers & mummies, we got on the big yellow school bus and made our way to KL Bird Park.

ilaika definitely had a lots of fun today...ate lollies, ran, played, drank too much ribena for my liking, etc etc etc...oh and she was ever SO thrilled to be allowed to have so much sugar & so early in the morning too! just imagine how sugar high she was by 11am...

the birds were so pretty and colourful and i might hv gone a lil overboard snapping pics of them.

now, the last time i went to the bird park was probably 20 years ago, back when they had KL's first Carl's Junior there (has the park really been open that long?!), so i had forgotten how large the park was & hence, my feet were really missing my havaianas by mid morning.

*mental note: must buy new havaianas...*

half way through our tour of the park, we stopped at a photo booth to take a pic with the birds but we had quite a bit of trouble trying to get the lil ones to stay put...especially as we had parrots on our heads, shoulders & arms!

even ema, ilaika's nanny, enjoyed herself tremendously...

...though ilaika was probably more thrilled to see the slides on the playground than she was with the actual birds!

so expectedly, she wasn't too pleased when we dragged her away from the slides & swings to watch the bird show, which she eventually enjoyed (to my surprise!)...she was even laughing through out and commenting, "silly bird!" every time it made a funny trick!

ilaika also adopted two furry friends - "one from mummy & one from daddy" was how she negotiated for two toys when i said she could only have one. how could i say no?! sigh...i am a sucker though; i secretly found both the flamingo & penguin too cute to resist so i gave in.

by the time we got on the bus back to BSC where her school is located, she had very little energy left but enough to have two sausages, a chicken nugget & chocolate cake, after which she just dozed off!

needless to say, i konked out myself when we got home ;)

xxx
izreen

fiesta, fiesta! that means a party!

* title extracted from lyrics of the sesame street fiesta song ;)

our baby ilaika turned two on fifth march and we had a fiesta by our pool to celebrate.

i generally don't like character parties as they sometimes come across as too common & kiddie-ish for my liking...of course that is just my personal preference and alas, kiddie-ish themes are difficult to avoid for a 2-yr old's party!

so when ilaika chose elmo & cookie monster for her theme, i decided to base it on her favourite sesame street fiesta dvd. and to come to a compromise (for mummy!), the invites featured ilaika, elmo & cookie  monster but had patterns of colourful stripes as well as red polka dots and faded white flowers - with a scrapbooking feel.

- the front of the envelope -

- above: the back of the envelope -

- the inside of the invites, left: the front, right: the back -

the main colour theme was red for elmo (which i "kidnapped" ...ok i literally had to beg and borrow  this battered life size cut out from the party shop)...

but as it was a fiesta, we had lots of bright colours everywhere!

we decorated the tables with pom pom flowers and table stands with cards that had similar designs to the invites...

and each table had brightly coloured m&m's...

and in the last minute, i found some really cute vintage-looking wrapping paper with sesame street characters all over! so i used these for the streamers, tables and liners for the desserts as well as to wrap the presents for the games...

as i could not find the fiesta songs anywhere, zain ripped the songs straight from the dvd! i LOVE that the songs are enjoyable by both adult and kids alike. very lively and catchy tunes.

the party started at three pm so we served light finger foods and i might have gone a little overboard with the dessert spread...with homemade cupcakes, toppers and edible sheets with elmo & cookie monsters on them (exactly the same as the invites - but i removed ilaika's picture cos the thought of people eating her face was some what too "cannibalistic" for me)....

- sweet stuff biscuits -

- sweet stuff mini chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter icing -

- sweet stuff carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing -

- homemade flag toppers -

we invited mostly family (which is already a head count of close to thirty kids!), a few close friends and ilaika's classmates (which at this age, is only a headcount of only eight kids!). it was a challenge deciding on the activities to have as the kids were of various ages from zero to twelve. 

what we did was have a variety of things to keep them all occupied and entertained. we gave them plain white boxes to decorate into lovely keepsakes with stickers and markers; there was face painting which transformed some into pretty butterflies & spiderman (!), a treasure hunt, musical chairs & pin the nose on elmo (cos they don't seem to play these traditional games much nowadays!) and lots more fun and games. 

there was also a tug of war; boys vs girls and daddies vs. mummies. i think the girls won but the mummies sadly lost badly, with the daddies not even having to pull very much! of course, this all ended with the elmo pinata - the white boxes came in handy for this!

lastly, it was time for cake (put together by yours truly - believe me, it was an amazingly challenging feat trying to get the giant cookie to stay up at an angle!)...

- sweet stuff vanilla butter cake with oreos butter icing -

and then it was time to go home which only meant - time for party packs! there was an assortment of things customised to each child's age - elmo & cookie monster hand puppets, key chains, soft toys and purses, sesame street colouring books, customised colour pencils with their names on the boxes, notebooks customised with the theme's stripes, polka dots and flowers and colourful mechanical pencils too...

all in all, i hope everyone had a fun time...ilaika certainly did ;) 

this fiesta was a special gift from her mummy and daddy as well as her grandparents (my mum being the biggest contributor and cheerleader cum constant reminder of how little time i had left leading up to the fiesta!)...ilaika also got a present from us - a barbie tricycle...(cos we couldn't find an elmo one!)...

thanks to everyone for helping out, for coming and for the lovely lovely presents, which mummy-me has kept away so that ilaika doesn't get bored of them all at one go...she shall now have a present every weekend, much to her delight!

oh one last thing...check out this cute slideshow template on photobucket...how fitting for the fiesta pics!