Catching up...

I found a parcel at my doorstep yesterday sent by my lovely blogger friend Bee Happy, it was a lovely surprise and I wanted to thank you so much for the birthday gifts you sent.

Loving the 3 spools of cute ribbons she sent, a cute metal sign, lovely Heart shaped hanger made of fabric that she screen printed (i gotta learn that!), handmade cute keyring from ribbons and a sweet birthday card, Thank you Bee! x

I know it's kinda late but I didn't have time to take a pic and post it before i left to Indonesia but my dear friend Marianne also sent me a parcel full of pretty things for me.

I'm enjoying flipping through each page of the Tea Time Treats she sent me along with the heart shaped cookie cutters (definitely going to use it soon), a gorgeous red nail polish, lovely selection of ribbons, a sweet notebook that i brought with me to Indonesia to write little notes about my journey and floral scented soap that smells heavenly. She even wrote me a lovely letter on a paper that she designed herself...cute cherries! Thank you Marianne! x

I also won a giveaway before I went for a holiday from MellyBee, I was so happy to have won Jubilee items from her such as Jubilee greeting cards and postcards, some cute badges and lovely tea towel that she made herself. I'm so lucky!

..and last but not least, I wanted to share photos of the Jubilee swap that i sent to and received from Hannah that I joined over Faith Hope & Charity Shopping, this too..im sorry to say I took the pic from my camera phone and it's not a good camera and posted it in Instagram, so i'm sorry it's abit blurry but I would like to say thank you to Lakota for hosting the event and to Hannah for the lovely swap gifts she sent.

if you want more clearer photos, click her link on her name above to see what she has sent me, I love the jubilee bunting that she made, the pomander is a pretty addition, a Jubilee tea and.......a sedum cutting (also known as 'Ice Plant) that she grown herself in her garden which is a direct descendent of a plant which is growing in one of the Queen's gardens i'm told, complete with a note on how to care for it coz i dont have green thumbs....but Lo and behold! it's not dead yet although i left it for more than 10 weeks but it has now pink flowers on it though it doesnt look that good but i do hope I don't kill it! hehe Thank you so much! please forgive me if i killed it in near future (fingers crossed i wont!)

I'm Back!

It's been ages! felt like it anyway, not sure where to begin and how to write it but i'm gonna try and make it short. More than 10 weeks in Indonesia and I just came back a lil over a week ago,I spent every single minute of it with my family and friends, shared so much laughter and tears, endless flow of conversations 24/7 and i feel like even 10 weeks is not enough :p Lots of happenings while i was there, being picked up by my best friend at the Airport was a nice surprise, visited my dad's grave the next day and then went for a road trip as it's our family tradition that we go for a family road trip usually once every 5 years so it's long overdue for me and as usual we took Java - Bali route as we've done it a few times by car.

From Jakarta where my family lives, it took us about 24 hours drive and more than 1500km to reach Bali Island plus a 20 min ferry ride to cross from Java Island to Bali Island. Since all my nephews and nieces have grown up, this time we rented the second car a slightly larger one (3/4 mini bus ELF), total family who went? 18 people :p

Lots of Toilet trips along the way in every rest areas or petrol stations and sometimes when you really gotta go and cant find toilet? well in the bushes in the woods. I was appointed to be the navigator for the bigger car and my older brother became the driver and as for the smaller car was my eldest sister the navigator and her husband as the driver who came from Netherlands with their kids :) Thanks to GPS now that we didnt get lost too often :p I truly dont want to be the navigator next time coz when all the others were watching movies in the back or sleeping, I had to concentrate on the road and see signs and entertain the driver so my brother wont get sleepy or hungry hehe.

Lots of meal breaks too and experienced lots of lovely food from different towns/cities along the way, stayed at nice villas/bungalows, mom and aunt are in charge with the food with the help of my sisters/in law. Cook our own meals in the villa and the kids spent many nights awake playing cards and hanging out alot. I took so much pictures that the 8GB memory card in my digicam ran out of space and had to buy 2GB more. Watched sunsets every afternoon on the beach in Bali, truly heaven!

So much things to say, so many photos i've taken that I dont think it would be enough to put it into words in one page but anyways, when we came back from the road trip and had a long rest days, we attended my youngest brother's wedding and that too was a lovely family gathering, all my relatives were there and it was held in another town called Bandung so we also stayed in the villa, it was my chance too to meet my other relatives that i've never seen for ages!

so anyways, when my sister and her family had to go back to the Netherlands, it was a very sad moments, everyone was crying and then I too had to fly back to England. We don't know when we're going to have family reunion or road trip again as it's kinda sad now that everyone has grown up and have their own families and busy with their own things and I feel lonely the next day I arrived back in the UK, the house is so quiet and no midnight talks and kids' laughter while they're joking around. I'm missing them and feeling homesick already! :p

anyways, it's a long entry here, gotta say I miss blogging and i miss reading my friends' blogs and so many things i've missed! the jubilee, the olympic, my husband's parent's 50th wedding anniversary and i havent even unpack my suitcase, just finished cleaning the house that is sooo messy and I even almost missed my own birthday hahaha but got here in time and hubby cooked me a nice birthday meal, that's for another post as I've been on the laptop for quite a long time and it's still not fixed yet and I will give it a rest for an hour or so before I got online again and visiting my lovely friends' blogs one by one!

Cross Stitch Mural

I came across a lovely blog called Craftberry Bush last year and admire her creative and talented works as well as her photography skill that I just love. I think it was in January that I happened to pop by her blog again and saw her creation of cross stitch mural and heart pillow she made that blew me away, I wish I can draw like her but I can't but anyway I read her blog post on the cross stitch mural she made that led me to the original creator of the mural itself, a very talented and creative lady by the name of Eline Pellinkhof, she created a beautiful cross stitch mural that i can't help but try and make myself!

Eline Pellinkhof is a designer,an illustrator and an author of home decoration books, i'm in love with her creations but sadly all of her books are in dutch language and although my sister who lives in the netherlands offered me to buy her books over there for me, I hate to say that I need to be able to understand what she wrote and would rather wait until she published her books in english :)

I tried and made my version of cross stitch mural by using the leftover canvas I had and printed out a simple small rose image on my photo editor that i changed it into pixels, there are online converters out there to help you transform any image/photo into pixel/cross stitch pattern, i want it to be simple and easy to follow then I just used my laura ashley's paints and a small brush and just painted lots of cross-es where the pixel indicated by little squares on the image :)

the problem is you cant really see the shape of the rose if you see it close but you can see the shape of it when you stand further away :) but i'm happy although i still dont dare do it on the wall :P

I'm not surprised when i saw her featured in February Mollie Makes magazine (issue 11) with her beautiful cross stitch mural! I just love her and cant wait to get her book!

I also love the free gift from mollie makes, a free kit to make a cute babushka doll keyring :)

Back for Awhile

Hello Everyone! sorry for a long absence due to No Laptop condition, hubby couldn't fix it fast enough as he and his colleague who said that he could try and help fix the laptop were also busy at work and when they did, it's not totally fixed. The good news is the laptop is up and running again, the bad news is they said the monitor is failing so if I use it longer than an hour, the screen started to go weird and there are lines came up filling up the screen and that's the sign i have to switch it off to cool it off :(

But anyways, we know it's an old laptop and we need to buy a new one sooner or later but not at the moment as money is tight and i have other probs that are more important to think about but I hope everyone is doing fine and gosh! I miss blogging and most of all, reading all of you lovely ladies' blog posts! I know i got a lot to catch up but bear with me with this ol' broken laptop of mine, i'll visit your blogs as best as i can.

If there's any consolation, i'm grateful to my android phone, i can still twittering, facebooking and chat on the phone though it's limited of course. I guess it's a training for me who used to cant live without internet! and my going back for a holiday to my country Indonesia is drawing near too, if everything goes smoothly i'll be flying there on end of june and will be spending my time with my family for about two months! I do hope i can stay away from the computer that long coz i dont think i'll have the chance to go online once i'm there but i hope i could! (already envision myself fighting over one computer with 4 nieces and nephews) :)

I need to go off now but I'll be back blog hopping tomorrow morning as it's abit late now, i will also try to blog about things i made on my absence in the blog world. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

NO LAPTOP :(

I'm writing this using my friend's computer, just to let you all know (incase you're wondering) that abt a week ago..my laptop crashed and cant be switched ON again, hubby tried to bring it to work to see if anyone could help repair it as we can't afford to buy a new one, so...i'm still waiting and gosh! i'm so miserable without it! just a short update to let you guys know...i hope someone could repair it though and will get online as soon as i'm able.

Hope everyone's doing well! xx