Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Playing with Paper Dolls

First of all, I'm sooo Happy that I won a giveaway from Lakota at FaithHopeandCharityShopping, furthermore I won a "Stitch" book from Cath Kidston, I'm a CK fan and I love all of her designs, so this is like a double winning for me and I will be taking pictures of the book when it arrives, Thank you so much for hosting the GIVEAWAY, Lakota! Check her blog and follow her " Adventures in Vintage and Thrifting, the quest to find a new favourite thing, and always liking change from a fiver!" (quoted from her blog).

I also want to thank the lovely ladies for the get well wishes on my husband, he's much better now although he's still off work and resting at home. I was looking for something to do that dont require too much time and energy, I have an extra frame that I have painted white awhile back and haven't put any pictures in it, I found a lovely website called Betsy McCall Paper Dolls, printed out some of her cute outfits and frame it :)


I remember when I was a little girl and used to love playing with paper dolls, I love to dress it up with different paper outfits and tried to make my own but really have no talent for drawing unless my mom bought me a coloring picture book, i guess it's easier to color something or paint something than drawing something for me :)

Have a Wonderful Day!

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Tea or Coffee?

My love for tea is still the same but i've been losing sleep since my husband fell sick these last 4 days, i havent baked anything to accompany my tea time, so in order for me to stay awake, I've been having lots of coffee, capuccino is my favorite with chocolate sprinkled on top in the shape of a heart :)


The mug i'm using was my birthday gift last year from one of my friends, it comes with the heart shape duster, I love the words on the mug too since i'm a chocoholic :)

I guess it's too much to ask that the weather would stay sunny like last week, it's back to the usual gloomy and drizzling, i'm gonna have to walk to the nearest supermarket to buy some bread and milk coz we ran out and we usually do our weekly grocery shopping on tuesday. I wish I can drive but I cant, I hope it's okay I'm posting coffee on Tea Time Tuesday! :)

Linked to:



Sandi - Tea Time Tuesday


Lady Katherine - Tea Time Tuesday


Martha - Teacup Tuesday


Terri - Teacup Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Teapot and Tea Things Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Tuesday Tea for Two

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Red Nose Day

I know it's abit late to post this but I have been very unproductive this weekend, No Baking, No Crafting and No Going out coz hubby is still feeling unwell, so anyways for those who don't know what Red Nose Day is, you can visit the website and find out more Here.

Basically in the UK, Red Nose Day is a day like no other (on 18th March) when the whole country gets together to do something funny for money and change countless lives in the process.


My husband and I are fans of Jamie Oliver, he has all of his recipes books and I'm glad that He contributed his part on Red Nose Day by selling a mini Baking Recipe book coz I love baking these days so I grabbed it from sainsburys for £3, they also have a cute pin that I could put on my cardi and as for hubby, he bought the silly giggler red face that he managed to annoy me so I could wake up in the morning, right in my ear, it produces the most scariest giggle/laughters that I really tempted to throw it into the bin :) well at least wearing that little red nose that I also bought for the fun of it didnt annoy him coz it doesnt giggle like a maniac :)

I'm glad hubby is feeling abit better, not sure if he's going to go back to work tomorrow but I hope everyone has a better weekend! x

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Bake a Boo!

I've been in the mood for baking lately and for this Pink Saturday I'm sharing one of my favorite Baking book recipes from Zoe Berkeley. It has a cute pink cover as well as colorful and wonderful pictures inside.


I have one sick puppy in the house right now, my husband is feeling poorly since yesterday that he had to stay at home, he's been coughing and feverish last night that both he and I didnt get much sleep, I hope everyone else have a healthy and blessed weekend and Happy Pink Saturday! :)


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Friday, March 25, 2011

Bookcases Makeover

I finally finished re-painting the two bookcases that I bought the other day from charity shop for £15 (including delivery). I just painted them white and used Cath Kidston's Wallpaper for the backing then added white scalloped shelf edging for extra cuteness :)


I just put whatever i have around the house in one of the bookcase for temporary decoration, now i have more space to put something i love and more excuse to go to charity shops or shopping online to fill the shelves :)

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V.I.P Party at:

Designer Garden



Thursday, March 24, 2011

I ♥ Paper Hearts

I made an easy craft made of paper hearts to put on the window, I didn't really feel bad about using one of the book that I bought in charity shop the other day coz I know I'm going to use it for this purpose and also i was lucky enough to find the book with one of the character has the same name as mine *teehee*.


I was inspired to make the paper hearts by my dear friend Magie who is a very talented crafter, she's one of my inspirations! x

I went out to town yesterday to have lunch with my friends and as usual, the haberdashery is one of the shop I never failed to visit especially the basket for remnant fabrics and stuff, must be my lucky day coz I found three remnants oilcloth that i've been tempted to buy but too expensive! the tea time design is £14 a metre but i got the remnant one which costs £8 and it's a lil over a metre coz there's some crooked design on one corner, who cares? I also got the blue and white polkadot oil cloth for £1.33 and the red and white polkadot for £4.50 a metre. I'm a happy shopper, even my friends were teasing me if I was going to make a dress out of the oilcloth coz that's all I bought while they've been buying dresses in debenhams and I was happy and content to babysit one of my friend's 10 months old baby while the mother went to the fitting room :)




It's another beautiful sunny day, please stay that way at least for couple more days until i finished painting my bookcases, Enjoy the Spring Sunshine! x

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Spring Reading

What a wonderful weather these couple of days! the sun is shining brightly and the wind is just perfect to give abit of a cool breeze! I finally could take one of my to do project outside into the backyard, I bought the magazine rack/holder at the charity shop the other day for £2.50 and re-painted them after I cleaned it up then made a decoupage using mod podge which was ran out half way (boo! need to order more on ebay) so i used normal craft glue coz i'm impatient :)



I've been reading HOME magazines and Cross Stitchers for Spring ideas and Day Dreaming while browsing every pages when i see something lovely and cute and adorable, I must admit I love reading magazines more than books, coz I think pictures speak louder than words but then again when I read a novel book, I sometimes forget and can't stop reading when the book is really GOOD! :)

I'm off to do the next project, re-painting the bookcases :)

Linked to:



Transformation Thursday






Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Blackforest Cake

I think Baking on weekend has become sort of like a habit for me. Not only that I love something delicious to accompany drinking tea but also I'm a peckish person, coz I dont do housechores on weekend, me and hubby spend most of weekend watching movies on tv and relaxing which got me thinking of baking after a few bags of crisps gone within one movie, and also I want a dessert after having Sunday Roast Dinner. (i purposely hide the weighing scale under the bed now).

I made Blackforest Cake on Sunday, it's my first try, abit messy on the fillings but otherwise delicious but hubby in the other hand prefers dried fruits while I dont like dried fruits on a cake but he eats it anyway :)


He also not overly a fan of chocolate cake, he prefers something like lemon flavor and though i love fruity flavors too but I'm a chocoholic :)

I'm going to go shopping to Sainsburys later, going to browse my BAKING recipe book for ideas what i'm going to make next weekend. Have a Happy TEA TIME TUESDAY! x

I would like to wish Melanie a Happy Happy Birthday! I wish you a beautiful Birthday and GOD BLESS YOU!! x



Linked to:



Sandi - Tea Time Tuesday


Lady Katherine - Tea Time Tuesday


Martha - Teacup Tuesday


Terri - Teacup Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Teapot and Tea Things Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Tuesday Tea for Two

Monday, March 21, 2011

Busy Bee

Last week, I went to the shops about 25mins walk from where i live coz they have about 5 charity shops there instead of 2 that I normally go closer to my house about 5-10mins walk. I've prepared myself by bringing two large canvas bags in my big shoulder bag coz I know I wouldnt come home empty handed but I was wrong :)

Most of the things I saw on those charity shops are abit pricey despite the competition that the charity shops are close to each other, however I did buy a few things but things I bought were too big for me to carry, I bought two medium book shelves that costs £15 including the delivery that will be delivered sometime today, they're in sorry state but perfect for me to do some makeover :)

I also bought a wooden magazine rack for £2.50 which I saw the same ones that they sell in my charity shop closer to my home for £4-£5, this I had to carry it myself coz it didnt fit inside my BIG bags and I had to ask the lady in the charity shop to keep it for me first while I went to other charity shops that took about 2 hours!

I found this Vintage Mandy Cartoon Strips Story Book for girls for £2 (eeps), I wasn't going to buy but since it's in the year that I was born, I couldnt help but picked it up! I also bought a few novel books £0.99 each.


I'm going to do some projects with the magazine rack and the book shelves this week while cross stitching for pillow cushion for my Mother-in-Law to give her on Mother's Day as well as other projects that keep nagging at me to do them but i can only do one thing at a time.

I hope everyone had a marvelous weekend? x

Friday, March 18, 2011

Have a Tea-licious Weekend!

T.G.I.F! ..although my husband just left from work an hour ago, I can't wait for him to come home in the afternoon and spend the weekend with me, i'm putting another cupcakes' photos that I baked the other day and i meant to post it yesterday but I havent edit them on my photo editor but i'm glad coz now it would be my post for Feathered Nest Friday and an early Pink Saturday :)


I printed out the floral wrappers for the cupcake and marshmallows from SHABBYBLOGS, Thank You! aren't they so lovely?. I tried to make a tassel that I hung on the frame but I'm not satisfied with it so I will make another one next week and post it separately.

I'd like to thank you for the lovely and kind ladies that left a sweet and uplifting comments on my previous post and I'd like to wish everyone a lovely and blessed Weekend! xx

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

All the little things that Make Me Happy

...are just too many to mention, one of them is my tea time charm bracelet that I bought awhile back at Accessorize Shop downtown as well as the matching teacup necklace and earrings (though the earrings I forgot to include it in the picture which was taken awhile back too).


I've been abit lazy for a couple of days now, maybe coz of the windy and gloomy weather, I haven't been taking photos for two days (that's so unlike me!), I didn't even take photos when I was picked up by my indonesian friend who lives near me yesterday and cooked Indonesian lunch for me at her house! She's so kind as she's been living in the UK for more than 10 years now and when she's free she would drive me around so I can familiarize myself with the area. She's the 2nd indonesian lady that I met online then in real life who lives in the same town as me, I guess I'm lucky enough to meet her and the others who has been so kind to be my friends and when they're off from work would dropped by and took me out and cooked Indonesian food that I miss so much! It's a blessing to have met them as I've been homesick and still is.

I'm trying to be positive and optimistic that time would make things easier for me to adapt the life here in the UK and would feel more at home, I do try to find all the little things that could make me happy, such as watching the herbs that I planted last week growing slowly each day, the exchange of greetings from the people on the street when I take a walk, the sound of my hubby's car when he comes home from work and lots more...I also thankful and grateful that I met more friends online in blogging world so I wont feel too lonely and think so much about the sunny weather all year round in my hometown Indonesia and my HUGE family that always make the house seems like a supermarket, busy and noisy :)

Sorry for the long post and my ramblings, it's one of those days i guess :) Have a great day to everyone! x

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I do try to make it green but since I lack lots of green in the house but i want to go into the celebration of St. Patty's Day (though i'm not irish nor my husband when i asked him if he has an irish blood) on Tea Time Tuesday, I did my best to come up with this pictures, the teacup has some green on it which I think it's cute, the cupcake that I baked has a green wrapper, the frame has a very light green and there's some green as well on it, I used green color for the icing on the cake, a green flower on the tin and of course the Happy St. Patrick's Day for the cupcake that I printed it out from TipJunkie, Thank you!


I would like to wish those who celebrate St.Patrick's Day, a Very Happy St. Pattys Day, I wish you all good luck in everything you do and plenty of Blessings! x

I entered Giveaways at (maybe i'll be lucky enough to win!) :



Linked to:



Sandi - Tea Time Tuesday


Lady Katherine - Tea Time Tuesday


Martha - Teacup Tuesday


Terri - Teacup Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Teapot and Tea Things Tuesday


The Plumed Pen - Tuesday Tea for Two

Monday, March 14, 2011

Another Card

This is my 2nd time making my own card after seeing the lovely tutorial from my dear blogger friend Marianne on how to make a teacup card that has a pocket inside to slip in a tea bag. I now made another card from a stacked teacups picture that I printed out from the internet coz I can't draw :( , then I use my leftover scrapbook papers to cut the outline of the teacups then glued it onto the card and stack them one at a time. I use different scrapbook papers for each cup to make them more real instead of using the same paper.


It's Monday and I'm feeling like baking some cupcakes as hubby is back to work and I've been spending a few hours bloghopping looking at lovely blogs by lovely people, so many talented and crafty people and I'm having a headache because each time I saw a lovely blog I swoon with amazement and they inspire me that my brain just can't cope with each ideas from each blogger in my head and I'm not sure which one first that I'm going to make (copy). *Grins*

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Mosaic Monday

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Thankful Sunday

I would like to give a BIG thank you to Scarlett for nominating me for her Blog Award, I must say I'm so touched by it and never thought that my blog deserves it at all and I also want to congratulate her for recieving a Blog Award, now THAT is a well deserved one because her blog is so inspiring and I always enjoy visiting her blog and look forward to her post on her finds from car boot sales to thrift stores/charity shops, She's got the talent and the skill for bargaining and finding treasures! Do say hello and visit her blog by clicking her button below :)



....I never want the weekend to end! especially when my husband took me down town for shopping, now I dont shop for clothing often, not even once a month and when I do, I tend to see if there's a Sale going on in the shops. I fully aware our financial problem when there are lots of job cuts going on at the moment and my husband is the only person who puts food on the table because I still have no luck finding a job for myself and help him financially.

Anyways, I went to "New Look" today and they're having a SALE! I bought three dresses for £15 and i'm fortunate enough to find a dress with my size as I saw some that I like but they dont have my size. I am so grateful for my husband for trying to make me happy and I'm blessed to have him as my husband, Thank you for the shopping trip! xoxo


Note: The brown with black collar (the biggest image) and the Black and white striped (smaller image on the left) are the dresses I bought in New Look, the floral and black dress (on the left) I bought in separate occasion months ago, I didn't put the 3rd dress i bought coz i wanted the picture to have a theme which is Collared Dresses (not sure what's the proper fashion word for those) :)

I wish everyone have a great and Blessed Sunday!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

What Time is it?

It's Pink Saturday! I always look forward to the weekend where my hubby and I could sleep past 7am! we normally woke up at 6.30am on weekdays as he has to go to work at 7 and I had to prepare his lunch box and coffee before he goes to work, that's our normal weekday routine. :)

On weekends however, we usually woke up late, this morning we woke up around 9am and I would put a pot of coffee for him followed by breakfast, I love weekends!


...we usually were woken up by the sound of an alarm clock but on weekend, we switched it off of course and I love my pink alarm clock above that i put at the corner our bedroom, The pink flowers are artificial :)

Wishing everyone a Great and Blessed Weekend! x


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Friday, March 11, 2011

Spring Mantel

Spring is Coming and I decided to decorate my mantel with bright and cheerful spring color with frames and vases and did an easy project with some twigs that I cut from the tree in front of my house *grins*, all I did was removing the leafs which was not many anyway and clean them up and painted them in white and put them in a vase. I saw so many talented and crafty bloggers made these and thought I wanted to make too coz it's easy as i'm very impatient when it comes to DIY projects :)


..and easter is coming soon too! so i will be adding eggs in those twigs later.

A few months ago, There was an event called writing a love letter to your father and I always wanted to write one for my beloved Late father who passed away in 2002, I know it's kind of silly but i did it anyway and today I got an email saying that the letter I wrote (in Indonesian as the event was from a book publisher over there)is being put in the book along with other people's letters to their fathers who were chosen, I'm so happy and excited! furthermore, it's for a good cause coz the profit from selling the book will go to charity in Indonesia. So now I'm thinking on how to get the copy of the book and send it to the UK, might have to call home and ask them to post it to me.


I love the cover of the book and yes the event was called "Dear Papa" coz lots of indonesian call their father Papa just as I used to call my dad, Papa...I still miss him, every single day.

I hope everyone has a great and blessed Weekend!

I entered a giveaway at:




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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Framed Wallpaper

I found rolls of wallpapers in the corner of my local charity shop the other day and surprised to find one roll that is still unused and has a cute pink flowers in the middle of gold pattern on it for 50p and another roll but this one is half used and it's probably only a few metres left, it's also pink and has a kind of striped pattern on it but the price is also the same, i can't help to snatch them up and use them for the frames that I also bought in charity shop £1 for 3 frames (I still have one frame to do something else) and repainted them white and did abit of shabby chic style with one frame to make a distress look.


I saw so many beautiful silhouette tutorials out there from talented and crafty bloggers that I just have to try and make one, so I picked up my camera and put it on timer to snap a pic of me looking sideways, then use a Threshold option/effect on my photo editor so the photo only shown black and white, printed it out and cut the outline and glued it in the middle of the frame where I use the pink striped wallpaper for the background.

PS: MyUncommonSliceofSuburbia is having a super duper cute giveaway, pop in there and you might just get lucky!


Linked to:



Transformation Thursday




Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Almond and Cherry Cake

I baked Almond and Cherry Cake over the weekend for my husband and I as a delicious company for tea, I must say I overdid it with the table setting, my husband even asked, "what's the occasion?" and I just grinned, coz he knows I don't do this often and only for special occasions *guilty*. But he loves the cake, that's the important thing for me :)


I actually made the little hearts cushions for bunting but i thought it would be nice also for table decorations, I made them from felts and gingham fabrics that I filled with polyester fillings. and again hubby asked, are we having two other people over? I said no, i just wanted to put extra teacups there so the table look nicer *grin*.


My mother in law actually invited to have pancakes on Pancake's Day this tuesday but I can't come because I have a dentist appointment and really, Im not looking forward to it as the dentist always finds something wrong with my teeth and I really hate my mouth being poked around *sigh* and normally, I dont feel like eating afterwards so eventhough I really would love to eat my mother in law's homemade pancakes, i will have to pass it this time and perhaps make my own once I get my appetite back :) I'm glad i have this almond and cherry cake already though!:)

I hope everyone has a lovely Tea Time and a Blessed Tuesday! x

Linked to:


Sandi - Tea Time Tuesday

Lady Katherine - Tea Time Tuesday

Martha - Teacup Tuesday

Terri - Teacup Tuesday

The Plumed Pen - Teapot and Tea Things Tuesday

The Plumed Pen - Tuesday Tea for Two

Monday, March 7, 2011

Planting Herbs

I love cooking with herbs and so we decided to plant some herbs that we use often in my cooking and we also try to plant tomatoes from the seed in a plastic container that they sell in my local supermarket when we grocery shopped a week ago. I have to put them in the windowsill where they can get alot of sun, I still need to buy some more herbs in the garden centre soon and also some flowers' seeds for my backyard.


Actually, I dont have the green thumbs for planting, my mother in law likes to give me a pot of plants for me and she has a nice garden and plants inside her house, most of the times most that I planted dont last very long, either I forgot to water them or they just suddenly died on me, but I just have to keep trying and read more books about gardening *teehee*.

The three metal containers are for Basil, Chives and Oregano that we bought in Sainsburys and it's a set of three, while the tomatoes and another basil plastic pots are sold separately, the tomatoes will be moved soon to a larger pot, hopefully they wont die on me! just gotta keep a closer eye on them. I wanted to plant strawberrys and Pumpkins as well but we'll see how it goes :).


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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Storrington's Tea Rooms

A visit to a village called Storrington was lovely, it's about 30 mins drive from where I live, The weather seems agreable and we could do with a bit of exercise by walking around the village town. Lovely shops from antique shop, craft and of course tea rooms, my favorite!


I saw there are two Tea Rooms in the village, I was confused which one to choose to have our tea, hubby decided to choose for me, we had our tea in the tea room at the end of the street, closer to where we parked our car.


We did however went in to take a peek of the first tea room, it's so beautiful coz it's also a tea shop selling teacups and plates and even shabby chic decorations, lovely place but abit expensive when i look into the price tags :) but I want to come here again and have tea in the other tea room :)


I hope everyone has a great and blessed Weekend!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Tea with Anne of Green Gables

I love reading children's books and right now I'm reading a book called "Anne of Green Gables", a story describing a couple that were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of a boy, yet decided to keep her. It's an interesting and entertaining story, I love it.


I love it more when they use pink color as the cover of the book and added teapot , teacup and cupcake pictures on it! it's actually a bright pink color, different from the mug, although it's a pink color too but it's more pale and calmer shade with little roses pattern on it. I do enjoy having Tea while Reading.

It's going to be a relaxing weekend for me, I wish you all a great and blessed Weekend and Happy Pink Saturday!

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Goodbye February, Hello March!

Although it's still too cold outside to do anything in my back garden, I'm so glad that it's going to be Spring soon, in fact I can't hardly wait for spring to come! I have so many ideas and things that I want to do or make in my back garden, it's very plain right now, no flowers or green grasses as my husband wanted to have a low maintenance backyard however small our backyard is and he's not one for gardening, so he decided to get rid of the grasses and put gravels years ago in the backyard when he was still living alone. I did however put little touches here and there in the garden when i moved in, like the dwarf's statue near the fish pond, the bird's feeder with fake bird and a couple of fake bunnies :)


I have prepared some flower pots to plant some flowers but we haven't got a chance to go to the garden centre to buy the seeds, so hopefully it will be soon before it's too late to plant anything for summer! Oh! that bench also needs a TLC, needs to scrap it and repaint it, maybe this time, red? we'll see!

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Extra Storage

I found two of these metal shelves in our spare bedroom a few years ago, I thought to brighten them by re-painted them from black to white, coz it's from metal, i thought it would be easier to spray paint them rather than paint them, I do need more storage to put my knitting and sewing stuff for when I'm not using them so I bought 4 wicker baskets for one of the shelf and the other shelf i use it as shoe storage.


These were taken a few years ago when I finished spray painted the shelf, Not much on top of it, but now I have added a mirror and it became my emergency dressing table :)



That's my transformation Thursday, I hope you have a wonderful and blessed Thursday! :)

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Transformation Thursday

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Just a Little Card

I would like to say thank you to my dear blogging friend Marianne who has been so kind to share her tutorial in making a teacup card that has a pocket for a tea bag, she's so very talented, I love her fairy drawings in the cards that she made and I wish I could draw just like her! (not a chance i say). If you wanted to make yours, you can find the tutorial in her lovely website Here.

I made one today, coz I can't draw for the front of the card, I just use a card that I already have and bought a long time ago from Miss Peacock, the inside is blank so it's easier for me to use it for this project, I just find a teacup cutout and use my leftover scrapbook paper and printed out a little sentence for the left side of the card and just glued them and added a Lady Grey Tea bag in the pocket so Voila!


Thanks again Marianne for sharing the tutorial for me to get inspired and make my own, you're so kind! Have a Blessed Day!

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