First Quilt for Raya and Toy Blocks

 

I finally made the trip to Jumeirah Town Centre in Dubai to buy my fabrics for my first baby quilt, I ended up getting lost and walking under the super hot sunny noon because the taxi driver bring me to the wrong MALL, ah that was not fun at all but when I reached to the right shop, it was worth my trip.

Here, below is what I come up with. Please excuse the messy stitches and the beginner outcome, I promise to make better next time. I have no clue on what I was doing (LOL) but I stitched all through out and  I was so happy to have it done. I also made a toy block out of the layer cake fabrics too, just to let my curious little "angel" have fun.


 

I can see every quilt has a name so mine will be "The Beginning" as it is really my own first journey to this wonderful hobby. If only I can sew all day, (sigh).

Got to rest my tired fingers and eyes now!

Have a blessed Wednesday to all!

MARGOT

PAPER MACHE MONOGRAM

I was inspired to make yet another project for my daughter's room. It was made with love even it shows some imperfections.

A little history:

My family from Paete, Laguna Philippines are known to make wonderful paper mache` export products and I used to spend hours of my vacation helping my auntie to finished some deer, santa claus and just about any form actually made to paper mache'. ~ well, I helped only, just got the idea on how to but not an expert. ;)

 Okay let me continue my ramblings :

Then came along mother hood, and the crafting itch hit me again. Sure you can buy decorated monograms or even the whole set of alphabets for that matter for your little ones room, but there is nothing more rewarding than making it from scratch by yourself and cheap too.

But we all know, paper mache needs a form or a plank of wood pattern in order to make this sturdy and beautiful art. So with that in mind, another dilemma arise. Where I will get a plank of wood, or buy a monogram letter as my form..and I think where is the fun with that??

Then, google always helps a lot and yahoo too.. Just type monograms and you'll find tons of tutorials in the blog land. I found one that solves my problem from http://greenzebracrafts.com. She made the form from cereal boxes, so clever and thrifty. You should check out her post here about the monogram she made for inspiration.

I made mine using an old piece of blanket/duvet divider carton insert ( you know, the one in between the sheets when you buy them from stores in packaging? ) Yes, I didn't follow Crystal's instruction and set my self to making my own fonts, didn't use tapes and instead all pieces or 100's of small magazine papers after- I told myself, next time follow the tutorials first :)

The reason for this was, I used what I have only, it was not that bad  =)) but It took me a long time to construct the form  and then complete it with paint. Below are the before and after pictures.

BEFORE:

Letter "R" is still sitting on my window to dry, the 3D effect was bad & un -even because I used papers only not cartons and It was only free hand drawn, still looks like an "R", right?

The height is about 12 inches, I am not sure haha.. not your fancy measure, detailed kind of lady.

AFTER: (or PRESENT)

NIGHT TIME and still drying. I will make some sort of design into it after it dried up. It is RED, I was opting for LIGHT PINK but I ran out of white poster paint so again, manage what you have available.

By looking at the after picture, you will see and define some imperfections on my Paper Mache MONOGRAM. Sorry for that,  (Raya will not be able notice for now) will try to make a better one, I need to chow down some cereals in the near future =).


That's the only two pictures I managed to take while my sticky hands are soaked in flour/water paste.

I hope you liked it!


Have a blessed crafting to all!

Margot


UPDATE:

I was so annoyed but the RED color paint, I made a little improvement to my "R" monogram project. Here is it:

I have some creep papers left over from a project I made for my nephew Mohamed, and It was useful for the monogram. Rosette flowers are easy to make and I loved the finished product now =) more girly looking now. Sorry for the bad photo though.

 

 

Hope you all liked it!

Sleeping Bag/Diaper stacker

This is quite very simple and no fuss at all, we bought this sleeping bag from Carter's on SALE  for AED 30.00 only but my daughter used it once because I think she had a growth sprout so fast that after 1 washed, she doesn't fit here anymore. Since it is cute and new, I thought may be I can give it away to my friend but I kinda love it and decided to kept it until I can make something out of it. One day, I made her a diaper stacker from a old bed sheet but it didn't have the stability that I wished..then I remember this sleeping bag. I just put one of my soft hanger and wallah! instant cute diaper stacker. Isn't it great, a re-purpose item without  sewing.

I hope you find it helpful, because I sure do.

margot

FABRIC STORE in UAE and ramblings

After a long search online, I finally came across a post from expatwoman.com  about a craft supplies store in Jumeirah Dubai. What a relief for me, I don't like going out much in summer season for it can be really harsh weather and CRAFTLAND is a heaven sent for me. I know most people goes to souk in AL RAS/ SATWA, Dubai or Rolla Sharjah area for crafting, fabric supplies but those are places quite far from where I am living, excepts Rolla but the traffic going there is unbearable at times.

It is even beside the store where I bought my paper punchers PAPERLANE, wow people from Jumeirah must be lucky to have such novelty stores. I almost wish we are living in that area, oh but I love our new place here in Sharjah. When you stay in a place for so long you get attached to it so much you won't like to be living anywhere else i think. Back to my excitement! I browsed their site and I was a bit sad to find their online shop isn't working yet so I emailed them and hopefully will get a highly good response by tomorrow.

I am very thankful that I didn't buy internationally, I was hopeless to find an online shop of fabric here in UAE and almost, so close in buying from some wonderful online shops recommend by some pretty good crafters here in blogger in USA ..but I was thinking of the shipping cost, I hesitated and hold my horses =) THANKS GOD! Not that they cannot be trusted but to buy within U.A.E is my best bet for shipping.

I keep on asking my husband to buy me some cotton fabrics so I can start my quilt project and pillows and more, so lucky me, he always forgets. He can get it cheaper too because he represent a company but may be he is really forgetful.

I bought some from IKEA DUBAI in DFC last time but the one's I bought was not what I hope for my projects in mind. Design wise and color, they can be good for something else but not for my living room pillows and some runners I wish to make. My husband got some black out fabrics from DRAGON MARKET but I made it as our curtain, sure it is nice but not the quilting type or maybe I just didn't like it. 

If you may ask why I cannot buy it personally by my self is because, I have a baby to care for, a house to clean, a husband to cook for and  going out is difficult alone if you don't have a car now that it getting super HOT again. Sewing projects just makes me sane and keeps me busy at night to relax my earthbound body, but my overly active mind seems to disagree about rest and decided to shoot me some ideas and of course inspirations all over internet are really abundant.

So I hope if any one is clueless like me to where is the best place to find some nice fabric and craft tools, please click the link I made for Craftland.com.

That's my rambling for today, have a Happy mother's day to all the great mom's here!

MARGOT

Awful 2 kg more HIGH and LOW

How I wish I can make the scale love me, I hate it more when it shows me what I don't want to see. I gained 2 kg and it was terribly due to brownies cravings I've been having this past 2 weeks. After so much deliberation and finding inspiration boards on pinterest, I decided to quit my sinful snacks and found comfort with almonds ( raw from Iran ~Thanks Mama! ).. then chewing some greens, riding my bike again for 20 minutes a day. I do hope this time it works out. I know I have deeper problems, I had  hypothyroidism when I was pregnant. There was no chance to visit a doctor again after we went back here in UAE. I am constantly stressed and dizzy, may be because of lack of sleep and  again stress.

I made a decision to have one child, though my husband doesn't agree; I know it is the only way I can be a good mom to Raya. Regaining my strength and loosing weight is a battle but that the driving force is the goal to be back on track with exercise and a healthy living. I have more respect now to stay at home moms since I became one, not that I don't have before but I do now realized the hardest JOB really is being a mother and a wife.

I tend to forget my own needs and still struggle to basically stress my self out on doing everything. By the time my husband comes home, my exhaustion really dive me to our bed and doze off till the next feeding time. In between the naps of Raya in day time, I am on the go cooking and eating or may be grabbing bites of what I can see that is why I cannot control my weight..the refrigerator offers quick and easy meals that of course heavy on calories. But I had enough, I must tell this to my self over and over again, especially when I see my self in the mirror.. aw what a sight to see ;).

I believe this time I can win this battle, and so may God help me!

MY way of teaching my self

Now a days, everything can be search and googled (is that an acceptable word? oh well) and I am a stay home mom to a giggling, wiggling daughter of mine "Raya". I love to try some new things to make for her room and since we are living in a foreign country we called home now, it seems practical to make it than buying for when it piles up like our clothes would be hard to bring home to where??
( I am from Philippines and my hubby is from IRAN, we still cannot make up our mind where we should finally stay for good, my hopes I win )when it is time to pack and say Good bye to U.A.E.

I believe if you can read, you can do a lot and so I did, so many wonderful blogs about different crafts made me sane through the night when my little bundle is sleeping..thank you ladies for making it easy for me to learn new things and revive some of my very old skills like sewing (straight line only lol).

One thing caught my attention was this crate seats for toddlers that I originally saw from Pinterest but here is the link to the original post Tupelo Honey Caro . I read on and found her lovely and funny way of saying she makes them on her own terms.



It is so wonderful and useful too. We have tons of crates here lying around outside the malls and small supermarkets and I want to take them home now and make some of this for Raya's room.  I would be posting soon. 

Some more projects are at bay because we are still waiting for our baby sitter to come. Some stuff toys like OWL, Frog, puppets those are some on my list aside from planning a birthday party. My generous hubby bought me my first ever sewing machine, I used to sew by hand and used some manual machine back when I was a teen ( electric/digital is quite intimidating at first  and expensive too so I waited and blessings came "Thanks Mahal").

Go visit Tupelo Honey Caro's site and be inspired.

Khoda Hafez!

Margot