Monday, December 28, 2009

bubble, bubble, toil & trouble...and a wee bit of park babble...

* interesting fact to share: did you know that the quote "bubble, bubble, toil & trouble" is actually from duck tales, and not macbeth? the original quote from macbeth is "double, double toil and trouble!"

i'm not really a nature-loving person in the sense that i hate to be out in the sun and usually try to stay away from situations where i'm most likely to break into sweat! this sunday morning, however, was an exception. it was a lovely morning and the weather was absolutely gorgeous with clear blue skies made even brighter by warm rays of the morning sun.

in the spirit of christmas and the holiday season, i decided to join my aunt who had planned to take her kids and ilaika out to the park. i was also curious to see this park in particular as i'd driven past the area once and was very impressed with the development in general. 

Desa ParkCity is a beautiful development with picturesque landscapes and broad, tree-lined pedestrian walkways; a simple luxury that is unfortunately rare in KL. each small "township" (residential neighbourhood) is a gated community of its own and in the heart of these townships is The Waterfront, the "town centre". it's not quite the town centre  that onewould imagine by the given term. it's more of a small community shopping block which brought to mind the community areas found in smaller towns outside of Central London. 

The Waterfront is complete with ample parking spaces, grocery store, atm facilities, pet shop, restaurants, cafes and some interesting looking shops. it even has a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf outlet and a branch of one of my favourite japanese restaurants, Rakuzen - both of these overlook The Central Park which lies just behind the shopping block.

and this was where we spent a good part of the morning. The Central Park was not like any other park i've seen in KL. there were no  brightly coloured slides and swings normally found at other playgrounds. instead, there were odd minimalist steel contraptions which looked futuristic and did not  appear very inviting at first glance. of course, it didn't help that all the contraptions were of dull greys  and blues. thankfully, looks can be deceiving...somehow the kids figured out how to use these contraptions; some were pretty straightforward and loads of fun...

Photobucket

Photobucket

...but others involved a little bit more trial and error!

Photobucket

this being said, i would assume that the target audience would be slightly older kids for ilaika wasn't too impress with the whole minimalist concept...

Photobucket

...and she was much happier playing with her bubbles...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

our sunday park adventure was unfortunately cut short by some bubble trouble...ilaika, in her excitement, fell on her knees whilst trying to catch a bubble. lots of sad tears  accompanied by shrieks of pain (mostly drama at the sight of a teeny weeny drop of blood) and a few cuts and bruises later, the poor thing didn't even squeak a protest when we decided to call it a day. all tired out, she fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the van! honestly, i did too, as soon as we got home!

Monday, October 19, 2009

i see stripes & polkadots everywhere...!

whilst i love eating cupcakes, i find them too troublesome to make, compared to biscuits...somehow, my cupcakes never rise to a nice "dome" and i always end up with cupcakes of different heights! i also admit that my decorating skills for cupcakes are rather embarrassingly limited to classic butter icing and flag toppers...shame on me, i know ;p

therefore, when my cousin, emi, asked if i could make cupcakes for her friend's birthday, i declared upfront that cupcakes are simply not my forte. i was also a wee bit nervous as emi is an amazing party planner. every party she organises, whether it's a small dinner party or a large do,  turns out beautifully coordinated. so imagine the pressure on me to come up with something wow and even more pressure added when i found out the cupcakes were going to be the birthday cake. nevertheless, i was inclined to oblige when she said she liked my chocolatey-chocolate cupcakes and really didn't mind plain ol' flag toppers...

her theme was stripes and polka dots in any bright colours, so i came up with these two designs to work with:

Photobucket

Photobucket

with these, i made the flag toppers which are really easy to make:
  • pick a picture and edit (again, i used power point!),
  • print them out,
  • cut them out,
  • laminate them so they appear sturdier, and
  • stick them on the front & back of a toothpick
and in a stroke of pure luck, i managed to find cute lil cups with stripes and polka dots too. this was the end result...

Photobucket

stripes and polka dots - it's such a simple theme that actually turns out really fun for all ages. a word of caution though - for at least a couple of days, i was seeing stripes and polka dots everywhere i went ;)

Sunday, October 18, 2009

it's a dino-star-ous party!

i received a call from lina, zain's colleague. she was planning her son, isaac's 3rd birthday party and didn't have a specific theme. according to her, isaac likes: dino, little einsteins, rockets, safari animals, trains, trucks....!

me being me, i could not work with not having a theme so with this list of isaac's likes in mind, i went window-shopping and came up with a dino-star-ous theme!

isaac was turning three but his friends were between the ages of  (barely) one to nine. so you can imagine my initial headache in coming up with the goodies to place in each bag...in the end, i  managed to prepare  each party pack customised to their respective ages (somewhat) whilst sticking to the theme. lina also asked for a lil  snack  box of dino-biscuits and i had these personalised with each child's name and isaac's name too.

check it out:

Photobucket

- dino-star-ous munchies waiting to be packed -

Photobucket
 
 - the lil reusable snack box that had the dino-star-ous biscuits inside: half with the child's name and the other half with isaac's name -
 
Photobucket

- star-tags personalised with each child's name. i had extra star tags and dino tags with each child's name so i threw them in their respective bags too. hopefully they find some use for these! -

Photobucket

- the party packs had a star tag with isaac's name and age - 

Photobucket

- each party pack had a dinosaur bubble gun (for the boys) and a pink bubble gun (for the girls)...for which kid does not like bubbles?! the packs also contained glow-in-the-dark stars to decorate their rooms, lil dinosaur figurines (the girls got a few of these too - in pink!) and a flying heli-propeller toy that kinda looked like star ;) the younger babies got a few mini soft toys instead of figurines - 

Photobucket

- since the theme was generally boy-ish, i threw in a special present for the girls: a small pouch with a dino-tag personalised with their pretty names -

Photobucket

- each pouch had beaded bracelets, hair ties and hair clips with bling too - 

Photobucket

- personalised name tags for each guest and a thank you note from isaac -

as you may have already guessed, the colour theme was a mix of purple, blue and green - fun dinosaur colours for a hyper three year old. 

i had loads of fun preparing these dino-star-ous packs and i hope isaac and his friends had even more fun unpacking them! 

thanks lina, for this great project! 

Sunday, October 11, 2009

hug me kiss me love me pinch me...

about a month ago, i put up a post about invites that i had been asked to design...and now i'm finally getting around to posting the pics with the matching biscuits...

after a few minor tweaks here and there, this is how the final artwork turned out...

Photobucket

- the front of the invite had the angelic baby boy's picture and on the back of the invite, each corner said: hug me, kiss me, love me, pinch me -
 
using the same colours of blue and brown as well as beige and white, i designed matching biscuits to announce the name of the baby boy...

Photobucket

...with matching quotes from the invites...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

...as well as sweet and funny quotes for laughs...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

this is my personal favourite...

Photobucket

so true in my books...especially the smaller bankroll and shabbier clothes ;p

Related Posts with Thumbnails