DIY : Placemat Shopping Bag Part 2 (TUTORIAL)

I just finished sewing my first placemat shopping bag... (gonna make more bags..). In my part 1 post, I thought I was gonna make the handle using the polka dot ribbon. But the ribbon width was a bit smaller, it didn't nicely fit with the large placemat. So, I made the handle using the bag strap... I found it at a local craft store, RM6 for 3 metres...

TADAA...here is the finished product.. I just love how it turned out so adorable with the fabric flower.

This is the handle strap..

First, on the right side of the placemat, measure 3 inch from the side and pin it. I was quite easy because the placemat had vertical stripes. 

(Suppose to do like this) At the end of the strap, tuck the end of the strap under the other end and fold the upper strap about and inch. I made a mistake here (below picture).. 

Make sure to make a loop at the end of the placemat and the length should be equal for both sides.

 Sew 1/4" seam along the strap on both side of the strap.

Once finished, fold the placemat in half with the wrong side facing out. 
Stitch on both sides for 1/2 inch seam. Do not stitch on the opening of the bag.

With the wrong side is still facing out, pin the bottom corner of the bag such below picture. Mark about 3 inch from the end of the corner and stitch the dotted line. Repeat this step with the other corner.

Turned the right side out and tadaa... You got it... Very simple and easy project...

Once again, my placemat handbag sitting on upholstered bench...

Have a nice day!! :)

Recipe : Pilaf Rice, Grilled Chicken with Herbs, Grilled Shrimps and White Sauce

I cooked these dishes two days ago.. Everything with mixed herbs.. Pilaf rice, chicken and shrimps, white sauce and definitely, veggies...

The pilaf rice...

The chicken and shrimps...

The white sauce...

The veggies.. 

RECIPE : PILAF RICE WITH MIXED HERBS

1 cup rice

Olive oil

1 tsp of minced garlic

1 chopped onion

Salt

1 tsp white pepper

2 cups white stock

1 tsp mixed herbs

2 tbs raisins (optional)

1 tsp ground thyme

In a pan, sprinkle olive oil in a pan, place on stove over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add garlic and cook. Stir constantly until translucent and becomes soften, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add onion and saute for about 1 minute. Add rice and saute, make sure to coat it with oil. Leave it for about 5 minutes. Add white pepper and salt. Add the chicken stock, stir occasionally until the water becomes to boil. Add mixed herbs and raisins. Cook for 30 minutes or until it is cooked. Once cooked, add ground thyme and toss with a fork to combine.

RECIPE : GRILLED CHICKEN WITH MIXED HERBS

4 pcs chickens

1 tsp of salt

1 tbs of honey

1 tsp of mixed herbs

1 tsp of fresh ground thyme

1 tsp of minced garlic

1 tsp of white pepper

Olive oil to grill

In a large bowl, mix everything. Leave it to marinate for 15 minutes. On a skillet, sprinkle some olive oil, let it  hot and start grilling.

For the shrimps, I didn't season it (request from my husband). Because the shrimps were super extra fresh, so he wanted to taste its' original sweetness and flavour.

For white sauce recipe, you can refer here for the recipe. 

Tata for now.. Have a nice day!

DIY : Placemat Shopping Bag Part 1

I found this DIY idea on pinterest. It was made by Deborah from wonderwomancreations.blogspot.com (click here to directly go to her post). I felt in love with her polka dot ribbon.. The ribbon tie was really cute and adorable.. Most importantly, it was affordable especially to the DIY lovers and crafters. 

I was looking for placemat for quite some times. So, last weekend when I went to Tesco Extra I found this placemat for RM11.50 (about USD3.50). Another placemats were below RM10, but the clothes were not as good as this one.I think it was a great bargain considering the quality of the placemat and apparently, only one left. It was my lucky day, I guess!

To make the handle, I bought a spool of ribbon for RM5.90. 

Here suppose what it looks like when I finished it.. :)

For embellishment, I will make a fabric flower from remnants of my previous projects. 

Ok, will need to start sewing now.. I will update the final product once finished. 

Tata for now...

*UPDATE - You can refer the finished bag here.

Gardening : Birds visiting our yard

We have a small yard measuring about 5' x 15' in front of our house and my hubby chose to grow Philippines grass. Birds started coming to find foods in our yard.. It was a beautiful feeling of being so close to the Mother Nature. So far, common myna and pipits have paid visits to our yard.. Next thing I want to do is making a bird bath.. This bird bath by Kelly is  a great idea to attract more birds and butterflies to our yard. Plus, her design was so simple and adorable..

This is common myna...

Searching for foods..

Foods..

 More foods...

Click! click!

What's that sound?? Treat or threat?? :)

Gotta grab my camera when pipits revisit our yard :)...

Recipe : Peanut Butter Milkshake

The taste is just like Sweet Alabama at Manhattan Fish Market. I tried to make this after had our lunch there yesterday. My hubby and I had Grilled Sharing Platter, fresh salad, soup, sweet alabama and a cup of tea and amazingly we finished everything (apparently, we never finish our meal at this restaurant because it is a lot).

PEANUT BUTTER MILKSHAKE (FOR 1 PERSON)

A glass of milk
2 tbs of peanut butter
A scoop of vanilla ice cream @ chocolate
6-8 ice cubes

Put everything in blender. Blend for few minutes until smooth. Tadaa... Top it with your favourite topping. 

I used peanut butter with grape jelly. It turned out the jelly clumped at the bottom of the glass (you can see it in the picture above)... However, it turned out creamy and delicious!! :)

DIY : Felt Baby Shoes

Here is my second felt project. Baby shoes...  First project was making a felt shopping bag. But, no pictures were taken. Huhu..

It was made for my husband's niece.. The hand-stitches were not so neat. I was in a hurry to finish it up because they were leaving back to Putrajaya.

Here is from another angle.

I wrongly sewed right to left side and vice versa. Huhu... Got to make one for me like marthastewart's (here and here for baby shoes's tutorial)

Have a nice day!!

DIY: Upholstered bench

We moved to our first house on 1st January 2012. It was new year's day... So, when other people went out to movies, picnics etc. we spent the whole day, shifting our things to our new home.. At the time we moved in, the house was still not in good condition. The wall was not yet painted, wiring was still going on, there was no kitchen etc. We ended up having dinner outside for about a month, until all the major renovations completed. 

Our first DIY project was to make an upholstered bench for living room. There was an empty space in our living room that I kept thinking what kind of furniture that fit in there. So, one day, during our journey to find a tv cabinet (it was a long and tiring journey), I saw this kind of simple bench that costs RM250 (about USD80), which I thought very expensive for that simple design. The bench looked almost like this.

While my husband looked around for a tv cabinet, I studied the bench design, tried to register into my brain, and thought I could use some spare woods from kitchen cabinet project.

We went back home.. I told my husband about it, he said, ok and then blah..blah about other things. Hurmm, as usual he didn’t really anticipate to what I was talking about. I started with designing the bench (huhu, like a real pro… ;-) ) … It was only a sketch. I showed it to my husband and asked him to help me cutting the wood. And then he was like, uh, ok… I waited for about a week for him to cut the wood. So, on Monday, I came back from the lab and got the courage to cut it on my own. I was able to cut 3 pieces of 1” thick x 2” width wood for 2’ long (uughh, that was hard). I showed to him when he came back from work later, he was like “Ok, I’ll help you tomorrow to cut the rest”. But, he didn’t. So, on Friday I urged him to help me (he was on leave that day) cut the wood and immediately assembled it. This was the look .. :-p it didn’t look nice, right?

During our "journey" searching for tv cabinet, my husband learnt about hi-gloss painting. Thanks to the chinese owner of a furniture store. He was really kind to give us a lesson about furniture painting and lamination. Suddenly, my husband became really enthusiatic to beautify my bench. He did some research and stumbled into some high gloss painting techniques on the websites. He didn’t wait any longer, and went to the hardware store the next day. He purchased two types of paint; hi gloss paint and undercoat paint, a wood filler and a plastic scraper (I guess it came with the filler).

Next weekend, early in the morning, he started polishing the bench with sandpaper. He used a sandpaper modified to fit the grinder and easily polished the surface. There were many nail holes on the surface, he filled it with wood filler, dried it up for half an hour and polished it again with hand-sanding. He repeated this for 2 times.

After that he painted the bench with undercoat and dried it under direct sun for 30 minutes and sanded it again. He repeated it two times (supposed need to repeat few more times, but he couldn't wait to see the finished result). 

Lastly, he painted with high gloss paint and this was what it looked like after drying.

This was our first DIY together (even though, he seemed not interested in the beginning, I appreciate him for helping me went through that tough job; sawing! ;-)). 

So, next step was upholstering that bench. I don't have the finished picture now (have to disciple myself to hold camera all the time, sigh!). Will upload it in next posting.

Have a nice day!!

*Sorry for the low quality pictures. I used my handphone camera to take the pictures. Need to snap using my DSLR.

Recipe: Honey chicken grilled with white sauce

I cook this dinner quite often, since it is very simple and my husband likes it too.

This was a picture from another day (below pic). I made chicken and meat with black pepper sauce, that's why you can see meat slices next to chicken :). I'll write the black pepper sauce recipe in next posting once I snap a picture (words without pictures won't give your taste buds any flavour, right?)

Ok, here is the recipe:

HONEY CHICKEN GRILLED WITH WHITE SAUCE

6 pieces chicken

2 tbs honey

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tsp mixed herbs

cayenne pepper

In a large bowl, season the chicken pieces with all the ingredients. Mix well and leave it for about 15-30 minutes.

The chicken can either be grilled in the oven or on your pan over your stove or just do it outside with your barbecue set (I don't have one, so pan suits me well, :)). Sometimes, I choose to grill in the oven, but, it take longer to cook than using the stove. I like to use the stove because the chicken pieces will retain its' juices and more tender than using the oven. In a hot pan, sprinkle some olive oil (about a table spoon). Grill (or better say fry) the chicken until both sides are golden brown and a bit crispy.

Veggies are the best stimuli for my taste buds (Oooohh, I love veggies,huhu!). It is a must for every meal I eat. The more the better.. So, for this recipe, grilled potatoes, asparagus, and pepper are the perfect match. Plus, a bowl of salad. For the grilled veggies, just spread some pepper and salt. Grill on your pan for few minutes until it is cooked. Potatoes take a bit longer to cook, so you'll need to slice it thinner but not so thin, because you'll not get the tenderness and taste of potatoes once it is cooked.

WHITE SAUCE

1 tbs butter

An onion (dice)

2 tbs flour (mix up in half cup of water)

A cup of fresh milk

Pepper
White stock

Salt to taste

In a pan, melt the butter. Add onion. Wait few minutes until it becomes yellowish. Add in flour. Mix continuously until it boils. Add in milk, pepper, white stock and salt. Mix slowly until it boils.

Finish it up, with rosemary or parsley... Tadaaa... But, I don't have picture of white sauce. Will snap one, once I make this again.

Buat apa di sini?

Yep, why am I here? Since I am not that kind of person who share things on the internet, right?.. :-)..

Sy sebenarnya seorang yg suka membuat sesuatu dgn diri sendiri...sejak dari dulu..yg mana boleh buat la...yg tak boleh tu, kena mintak tolong org jugak kan... Sy suka buat kek...menjahit, dan baru2 ni suka buat kraf sendiri.. jadi, rasa sayang sgt ilmu yg ada tu hanya untuk diri sy seorang... jadi, sesetengah pattern atau design tu, suka untuk saya kongsikan dengan sesiapa yang berminat.. contohnya, pattern untuk kasut bayi dari felt, bench untuk ruang tamu (upholstered), taman fairy dan beberapa projek lagi... jadi, harapnya perkongsian saya ini akan memberi manfaat kepada saya dan anda juga..

Sy juga berbesar hati untuk belajar dengan anda semua sama ada, tips masakan, idea kraf, cadangan bercuti ke dan mcm2 lagi..

Ok, setakat ini untuk entry kedua...jumpa lagi...