Say “Joy”

If you want to get your Christmas home decorations sorted before everything gets frantic in the last month, I’d say that probably now is the time.

This year, apart from doing the Christmas tree as usual, I actually want to introduce a few new ideas, something simple, practical and can function well to add joyful seasonal atmosphere into the house.

Let’s just start from something that couldn’t be easier. This is a paper project from The Long Thread. 3 paper trees with light blue snowflake patten and big letters printed on the paper. All you need to do is to download the templates, cut and shape them into cones, then lay them somewhere in a line, now you are set….sit and enjoy!

If you have a fire place, I think it is the best place to display them. I just leave them on the window sill, facing outwards so people from outside can see. I reckon the principle of “white on white” works perfectly in this case. So try any white surface to put them, you will be amazed! 

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Peg Bag

This is a sewing project that I had finished a while ago. I didn’t mention it because it seems a bit of too “normal” and I don’t want to make it a big deal. To be honest, I don’t know how many people really use a cloth peg bag nowadays, apparently we didn’t need one until the old plastic bag finally was broken two or three weeks ago. My husband thinks that plastic one was perfect and he seems really fond of it.

Peg Bag

I hate that bag and wanted to get rid of it long time ago anyway. Watching it falling apart has been one of  the most pleasant and forseeable things in my life. I was like an evil holding this little “dirty secret” in my mind, and at the same time conceriving “a real peg bag” to just wait for the right moment coming.

Then I made it happen. I saw a couple of designs in the cheap dollars warehouse and also looked some interesting ones on the Internet, and believe me, some of them are really fancy. Finally I decided that I only need a basic one and comparing its look and function, apparently the latter weighs much more.

So basically I didn’t use any pattern, I just measure out the size that I wanted to make. The width of this bag was mainly based on the size of a baby cloth hanger that I had available in hands. I still used that old piece of fabric I had used in many sewing projects before and added it red bias tape as the decoration for the highlight.

It took me a second time to finish it. The first time I made the opening to sit below the middle, which caused a serious problem — it reduced the depth of the bag and held very little pegs. That was a very stupid idea and I do think I was just as silly as the bag looked. Then I fixed it by putting the opening above the middle, everything seems fine then, though I admit that the upper half is still not usable anyway.

See, I could have just kept quiet about this project to show my respect to my husband’s feeling (as he liked the old plastic one and didn’t think making a cloth bag myself very necessary and a terribly brilliant idea). But guess what, he went out to help me to hang the washings this morning, and he took the peg bag with him as I insisted. He seemed very impressed and found it quite handy and enjoyable.

My work was validated accordingly. So now, I am feeling quite motivated to share it with other people in my blog :-)

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Chipolatas in puff pastry

This is something that even kids can make. I actually got the idea from one of the kid’s cooking books. My husband is not a big fan of sausages, but I get cravings from time to time. I have to say, I am always obsessed with making stuff with puffy pastry. They can create tasty, fun and quick snacks and making less mess in the kitchen. Read the rest of this entry »

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Not Mom’s Embroidery

Knitting, crocheting, sewing…..after having experimented all the stuff that requires a needlepoint job, should I really be surprised that I finally get myself into embroidery now?

I suppose that I shouldn’t be, but I still was. Look, my mom used to do embroidery, as most of women do at that time? I remember she did some flowers to decorate a pair of pillowcases, which was an exquisite piece of needlework and had been used for many years by the family. That’s how I get the impression about embroidery. An embroidery work is supposed to look like that, and certainly I got the feeling that I could never achieve it. So if I can’t, why would I be bothered even trying? Read the rest of this entry »

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Shao Ji Gong & Golfing Practising

We went to friends’ place for the lunch this Sunday. Before I got to their place, my mouth was already watering, thinking that we were going to have “Shao Ji Gong” (a kind of spicy chicken stew using rooster as a main ingredient), which I only tried once in my life back to 1998 or 1999 in Chongqing when I went to visit my boyfriend’s parents ( that boyfriend had been upgraded into my husband soon after ).

One of his best friends treated us in a restaurant with Shao Ji Gong, which was very popular around that time. I couldn’t remember what it tasted like, as to me the food from Sichuan almost taste the same at that moment, all very hot, looking reddish, being covered with half plate or bowl of oil, red peppers and chillies, rich in flavours and making you sweat. However, I remembered the name, a funny name to call rooster. It sounds more like a dish to cook SOMEONE (similar to Lao Gong) instead of cooking an animal. Read the rest of this entry »

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One at a time: a paper dome ornament

The other day I was on the phone with Jessy who happened to just have a look at those new photos of my new craft project — the red paper roses. Apparently she liked them, as she asked me if I have any other good paper craft ideas to try out. I told her “yes”, but as a matter of the fact, I realised that I am not just having a positive answer, I actually have many many ideas hovering in my head, which not only make me feel compelled to tell, but also make me feel a bit of “overloaded” at this moment. Read the rest of this entry »

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