New Year! New Beginnings!

Hola people!! How is the New Year treating you?? Fun? Happening? Not so much? Here are a few updates from my end on what's been happening in the New Year!

* I saw this picture on Facebook here and decided to have my jar of "good thing notes"!

So here is my jar with notes about what I am thankful or grateful for or happy about. The jar itself is a happy reminder of a wonderful New Year's eve and day spent with friends and family :) I will keep adding a note to the jar whenever something makes me feel good. 
                        May all of you have plenty of moments to be thankful for, may you have moments that bring you closer to you and your family this year :) 

* I have started writing for another website called Women's Web! With that now I am freelancing for 3 websites - The Portico Fashion@Home blog, the Dottedi blog and Women's Web. 
My latest post on Fashion@home is on "How to make the best of the sale season!" so go on read that and head out for some shopping therapy :) 
The one on Women's Web this month is how to organize your home smartly and decor items related to that. Need a quick refresher for the house? Check this article. 
I am looking for more writing opportunities, not necessarily in the same areas. If you know of someone or something that can help me, do let me know. 

* I have also decided to shake that blanket of laziness and get this blog active and up! So look forward to more homes in the "Real Homes" series, more store features, posts, updates on setting and decorating the new house. #Rubbingmyhands, #Excitedme. 

Have a lovely day and happy week ahead!!

Day 14 - Christmas Parade and Carols

In New Zealand, most of the work places shut down fully or partially around 15th December for a month. Yes, for a full month, work comes to a halt! Except the essential stuff, of course. Offices send out the year-end holiday shut down dates via email as early as May-June so that people can plan their holidays.
Most of the public Christmas events, parties and school functions are done with, by Dec 15th. After which people set out for their personal or family vacations, celebrations and escapes!
The Kiwis take their annual summer holidays very seriously. Holiday homes, villas and beach rentals are booked out well ahead in time (we found that out while looking for our December retreat). Home leases and employee contracts are signed up till Jan 15th and not Dec 31st, so that nobody in inconvenienced to look for new tenants or employees in the middle of their vacation.

The Wellington City's annual Christmas parade was last weekend. It was all that you expect from a parade and more. Here are glimpses from the parade and the party that followed.

It was a riot of colours!

The white ice queen

Summer sun = Fedoras and Hats!

The end of the parade

The party begins!

Darth Vader and his li'l fan!

Li'l girls in oh-so-cute-tiaras

Hospi (from Wellington Children Hospital) giving out free hugs

Crowds colourful and happy

The party goes on until evening and late night

The lights on the huge electric Christmas tree are turned on

Little sparkles of joy - my favourite pic of this lot

So much colour! Another facet of the previous pic

Listening to carols in candle light err saber light!

Happy Holiday season!! Just 10 more sleeps until Christmas eve :)

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012.

Day 3 - Gift paper love

We all have those quirks that define us. Some small, some big. 

I have traits that make me "me". One of them is that I have a photographic memory for birthdays and anniversaries (the ones I want and need to remember). Some of my friends admit to relying on me to remind them about common friends' birthdays. They say they don't need a calendar, they have me :) 

My other quirk is gift wrapping paper!! 

 I have a thing for it. I hoard it. Shhh! I just can't help walking over to the gift paper section in a store in a zombie like trance. And I keep adding to my collection, under the watchful eye of my now-very-vigilant husband. Every time I buy a new one, he does try to remind me that I have a dozen of them at home already. But this addiction is hard to get rid of. I swear I am trying my best though.

My friends and even some of my neighbours know that if they have a wrapping paper crisis they can come to me. I always have something or the other available. Always!!

I have this one which is perfect for a little-man aka pre-school boy's gift with robots, gifts and balloons. A gift tag from Templetree, Bangalore with an alien space ship to go along. 

This one is simple and blue (yay!) and I have these perfect little message tags/cards to go along with it (again from Templetree). 

Gift bags are elegant too, with a matching or contrasting colour of tissue paper inside. Sigh! How I love those pretty gift bags stuffed with crinkly tissue paper inside (I know, I know, I am beginning to sound crazy now). 

Want some tags to go along with that? 

And this one is one of my favourites. It's stamps of different colours, sizes, shapes on a basic brown sheet. I love basic brown sheets coz there is so much you can do with it. And I have message cards for this one too! 

This one below is the latest in my collection. Spotted it the other day and could not resist buying it. Ain't it cute? I love those tiny shoes. Perfect for that girlie gift!!

I like wrapping gifts nicely and could do it all day long. Who doesn't love a neatly nicely wrapped present?  Now all I need to do is make a career out of it ;) 

Happy Monday!!

P.S. - This post is part of Day 3 of The Marathon Blogging_Dec 2012 event. 

N turns 4 and a tad cuter and wiser!

N turned 4 last week and with that S and I breathed a sigh of partial relief. Yay!! we made it through the terrible threes. But wait what might the 4s bring?
Then I read somewhere - " If 3-year-olds are busy, inquisitive, and fun, 4-year-olds are all that, magnified — yet with a budding maturity, self-control, and understanding of rules that help make life a bit calmer." I hope so. 
The 3s have been very demanding. But I can already feel the 4s being more pleasant :) 

When we were talking about how he would like to spend the day. He didn't really have a list of wants. He did not mention the word party. But he continued to scan every toy/gizmo/vehicle around him and let us know that he would like to get it as his birthday gift.  He was told to choose any 2 things - one from mum, one from dad. He did spend a lot of time thinking about what to choose using the phrases "Thinking", "Still thinking", "Still Still thinking" and ultimately chose some decent (subjective, I know!) gifts. On the actual birth day, we took him to an indoor soft play area that he loves. It was bright, colourful and happy and N enjoyed it with friends. 

We were reading a book a few nights before his birthday. It was about a boy named Angus who shares food from a goods train with people who need it rather than the rich and full, royal family. We do the "What did you learn/like/dislike discussion for the books we read?" And so N said "Mamma, it is a good thing to share things with people who don't have them. I would do that." That motivated me to walk in to my local soup kitchen/community kitchen for people who don't have homes, here in Wellington and I asked about what kind of donations they accept. They said pretty much anything was welcome. I asked N if he would love to share some of his birthday cake with them. He liked the idea!! So we ordered a big cake... 

... and decided to donate it to the soup kitchen after the party. We went to the kitchen after his birthday party and the staff and volunteers there were pleased and wanted to show N the place. His favourite part was the huge walk-in freezer, as big as our master bedroom. 

May the sharing and kind spirit continue. God bless you N!! 

I love this poem by Kahlil Gibran and I hope I can follow it while raising N.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

~ Source here

50 followers and a giveaway!!

Yay!! Thank you all my lovely followers, readers and commenters :) I love hearing from you. Your thoughts, opinions or just a "hello" means a lot. 

And so on this historic occasion [a li'l melodrama is always fun, ain't it?] I will be having a giveaway. Yippee!! I know, I love giveaways.
This one will be dedicated to all my followers and one lucky person shall receive a gift from a place that I LOVE LOVE LOVE! [Take a guess people].

Keep watching this space for more on the giveaway. Coming soon!!

Image via Google Images

Featured on The Birthday Blog...

Yay!!!
N's 2nd birthday celebrations have been showcased on the birthday blog!
Go check it out here.

Anniversary gift

S and I recently celebrated 5 years of being married! Its been a beautiful 5 years. I love him as much as I did when we were dating. My heart still skips a beat when I see him turn down the corner, it melts like butter when he holds me (ok maybe not like butter but it does become a li'l mushy) and I miss him when he is away, even for a day!

In addition to his "demand" for a 2nd remote for his Wii Sport as an anniversary gift I decided to make something (well not exactly make make) personal for him. Something to mark this milestone of 5 years.

I was browsing through Blue Cricket Design and came across a wall art by Tammy of She Wears Flowers. She had created an eye test chart art for her anniversary. I  loved the idea and this looked like the perfect thing for the occasion. Nothing too mushy and yet personal!!

So I went ahead to the website that allows you to make a custom eye test chart for free. It also allows you to make custom road signs, receipts, prescriptions and more :). Once I customized the letters on the chart I saved the image file to my laptop.

I opened the image file in Microsoft Paint to erase the last line of text at the bottom.

When I went to my local Printo store the guy said the resolution was really low on the image file and it wouldn't look great when printed. So I downloaded the Photoshop WORKABLE version (PSD) from Tammy's post. I basically know nothing about Photoshop so I had the Printo guy help me. He modified the letters to put in what I wanted. If you know your way around Photoshop, Tammy's post has all the details about fonts and sizes.
I had a couple of different ideas about the wording but eventually went with what I wanted to tell S - "I Love You Today Tomorrow and Always". I got it printed on a 9x12 semi-hard poster sheet. This is how it looked like.

Got it framed in a simple black frame, like Tammy says to make it look more authentic :)  Gifted it to S on our anniversary and he loved it! Though I wish I had used a brighter colour of ribbon to wrap it up.

Thanks Becca and Tammy for sharing this with your readers.
Have a great weekend everyone!!

Update - I am linking this to Patty's Weekend Wrap up 20.







 

And Show and Tell Wednesdays on Blue Cricket Design



N the pirate!

This is my entry to Artsy Craftsy Jan 2011 over at Mindful Meanderings.

N's playschool had a fancy dress show as part of their Christmas celebrations. This was his 1st time in a fancy dress apart from the Halloweens N has been part of while we were in the US.

A pirate is what I thought of - easy to do and a different look. So the basic dress was a pant with the ends tucked into his socks to make them look like polo pants. The shirt was tucked into the pant and a kamarband or broad belt was wrapped around the waist.

I added a moustache and a mole on his face with a black marker. A bandana on his head and an eye patch completed the look. The eye patch was cut out of silver paper glued onto a black chart paper (chart paper can be of any colour). I added a string from a face mask to the eye patch so that it could be worn over the eye.

This is what N looked like that day -

A closer look -

And to my pleasure N went up on stage and shouted out "I'm a pirate. Want a ride anyone?" without being self-conscious at all.

Happy Diwali to everyone!

I wish everyone a very happy and safe Diwali!!

Glimpses from my Diwali :)

N's 2nd birthday

Read my earlier post on N's birthday party invitations. To match the transport theme I ordered a customized cake from the Institute of Baking and Cake art Bangalore. They were so good, I loved their Customer service. In terms of taste the cake wasn't out of the world but the cake looked great and matched my theme!

The food was made by a lovely lady who caters to birthday parties, store openings and any such personal parties. She makes most of the stuff at home and it was gorgeous! Most of all the kids loved it.

We had jam tarts, mini veggie burgers, jelly cups in the theme colours of red, yellow and green, pinwheel cheese sandwiches and fresh potato chips from the hot chips guy with yummy tomato salsa dip and yoghurt and cheese dip.

 

For decorations we had red, yellow and green balloons and vehicle cut-outs hanging from the ceiling, car paper plates and paper napkins.

The return gifts were packed in brown stoplight paper bags - I cut red, yellow and green circles to represent traffic lights and stuck them on the plain brown paper bags. I put in tissue paper of the same colours to brighten up the bags.