What keeps me busy these days...

I know my blogging has been .... well, pretty much absent... but there are exciting changes that are coming and I am working hard to make sure they happen. In more detail, I am building myself a little retail website where I will be selling my fabric as a real fabric shop. I am in a process of establishing some business relationships with oversea manufacturers to produce my designs on certified organic cotton with low chemical dyes. And all this at affordable price for my dear buyers. So as you can see I have my work cut out for me :))
Meanwhile, check out this cute lunch bag made out of my fabric "Country Cats":

 Adorable, right? And available for sale in this Etsy shop.

Cooking with kids

The other day we had a fun, little cooking project with Alina. Perhaps, those of you with kids, are already familiar with this, or even made these when you were kids. But for me, this was the cutest discovery!
Alina had so much fun making these cute, eatable octopuses, and then ate them proudly!

Party was a success!

The main feature of last week was, of course, Alina's 4th Birthday Party!
Big homemade celebration, complete with Chinese-inspired food made by me, fancy appetizers served in tiny bowls with tiny spoons made by Alina's grandma, big-fluffy-meringue cake made by my mom, clown with a dog and a princess, face painting, and photo shoot with props!
Looks like everyone had a great time!

These fun photo props are available for free download here along with instructions. I simply borrowed their idea:)

What to do with kids artwork?

Yesterday I got a bit tired of looking at the empty frames on my wall, waiting for the inspiration to strike. 

I decided to take action and use what I have in the house to fill up a few spots.

Guess what this is?

If you guessed "your daughter's first watercolor painting",  you guessed right!

She did it last year, when she was 3 y.o., and I found them fascinating, and kept them in special folder.

She painted a few pages in a regular ruled composition book, and I cut out the irregular shapes and pasted them together on a white background.

Looks like a great abstract piece of art! 

Here is another example:

These were done with colored markers.

Simple and effective!

How do you display your kids art? Leave a comment ;)

Birthday party favors for kids

My daughter's birthday is coming up this week - August 17th. 

While the big party will be held on the following Saturday in our backyard, a smaller celebration will take place on Wednesday in Alina's daycare.

Now, every once in a while my kids come home with little plastic bags filled with candy and small chatchka-like toys that usually get broken that same day and thrown around the house. That means someone had a birthday in their group and the kids all got their goody bags after the party.

It is an easy and the most affordable way to complete the task of making children favors for the birthdays , especially for the daycare... I myself made little sugary goody bags last year...

 Guilty...

However, just recently my kids came home each with a box of puzzles - a favor from someone's birthday party. They were SO excited! It kept them busy all evening and they still play with them sometimes.

 I was grateful to that parent for the thoughtfulness and appreciated the lack of sweet, artificially flavored candy that usually dominates kids favors.

This time I wanted to follow this example and get something that would get kids attention and make use of their skills rather than their teeth. Still I wanted to minimize the wallet damage and make it look presentable.

After searching a discount store for a while I found something that I  thought would make a good fit.

It's a small book with a single black dry-erase marker. A child is supposed to fill in the pictures inside the book, like a castle with missing doors and windows...

Under $2 each, it will keep the little one busy for at least 15-20 min.

Wrapped in pretty pink tissues and placed in chic black and white bags ( value pack)...they don't look half bad! 

I am pleased with how everything turned out: not too baby-ish and not useless breakable waste...

This packaging sort of tells you it is coming from a girl, doesn't it? ... :)

I may drop one lollipop in each bag just to sweeten the whole drawing experience a bit :))

Chicken wings in an iron skillet

Easiest dinner ever!

15-17 chicken wings

1 Spoonful of Mayo

1 Squirt of Ketchup

Salt, Pepper to taste

1. Put everything in an Iron skillet 

2. Mix well

3.  Cover tight with parchment paper

( I try  to avoid using foil with heat, 

as I found out  from a friend chemist

that it is not healthy to do so)

4.  Bake for 30 min on 350

5. Uncover and let the wings brown till golden and crispy

( may use broiler setting to speed up the process)

They come out crispy and sticky and yummy!

Custom fabric project

I am very excited to share with you guys this very special project I am working on. The lovely owner of My Brooklyn Baby store, which soon coming to downtown Brooklyn, has contacted me to help her out with some fabrics to decorate her store. After a little brainstorming, we have decided to create a completely new unique design based on the logo. The fabrics will be covering a seat cushion and pillows on a super long lidded toy box in the play area. I can wait for it all come together because Darcy ( the owner ) has some pretty cool ideas!

Colors are so awesome too: coral and soft turquoise...

I played around with the logo and here are a few samples I have came up with:

 Now we just have to wait for the actual fabric samples...