Preparing For the Baby Announcement Picnic Basket

For Joie's one month baby annoucement hamper, or widely known as Manyue/ Manye, we wanted to give something special and useful for the receiver to keep and use them. My friend Yulni gave a lot of suggestions and I decided on picnic basket. I had a lot of fun looking for things to fill the basket with good quality items and also they had to fit into my budget.

Picnic Basket ordered from Madewithlovelyby Pepperbliss

Colorful frosted mugs from Kandadinda Souvenir and custom print from freebie image from Weddingchicks

Smiley wooden spoons from Aliexpress seller

Gold rimmed 6" ceramic plates from Senin Indah

Japanese inspired honey citron cookies made by Surely+Someday and added Kinder chocolate eggs

Assembled into the box

Fitting into the straps and pockets

Tagging the baskets with free printables from Smitten Blog Designs. Thank you for the lovely freebies!!

Ready to be delivered

Vintage Hankerchief Baby Announcement

Ordered vintage scalloped handkerchiefs from a Aliexpress seller and had them shipped from China in a big envelope. It said 100% cotton but I have to say it felt more like polyester due to the stiff material.

Found the flower wreath on free DIY printables from Wedding Chicks/
Printed the announcement on iron-on transfer paper. Its easy and fast but it came out to be a plasticy film over the handkerchiefs.I wanted to try stamping but I ran out of time to custom the stamp.

My Other Cake Projects

Practice makes perfect. I wanted to improve my fondant decoration skills and I volunteered to make for cakes for friends and families.

I used the rose mold for this cake and used water to glue them to the cake (the sides) before realizing its too 'plain' This was for my grandmother to celebrate her 81st birthday, so it had to be more festive, so I used red petal dust to paint the roses.

 The problem with painting with the glued flowers was that the colors bleed. Thus, I piped buttercream and painted the swirls with gold.
Lessons learnt: how to cover shaped cakes and don't glue down until sure of the cake design

Challenging myself to make 3-tiered cake. Everything went well except... Making a bright color from colored gel and mixing them to cover the cake was tiring and disappointing. I used Americolors and the Fuchsia color didn't even come close to bright pink. I had to use petal dust to wash color over the cake. Lesson learnt: buy ready made color fondants

Reason why I like to bake and decorate cake: to see the outcome and the children faces when they see the cakes

One of my favorite cakes. Simple and elegant

Used royal icing to make dots and sticking the daisy flowers. Then, I painted pearl petal dust on the dots. The tricky part was attaching the crystal brooch on the cake.

What to Wear to Events When You Are Pregnant

Don't have to wear black when you are pregnant. Rejoice and flaunt your fabulous tummy! Unless of course if you are conservative, have skin problems (my case for both #1 and #2), or like some of us who don't have svelte or toned arms, by all means- throw on a cardigan to cover up.

Maybe it was my third pregnancy that I don't want to look frumpy and wear those boring pregnant dresses like in previous pregnancies. I want to look good and feel great even in my third trimester. Here's some fancy day looks that bring forth best of Spring/Summer 2012 for pregger ladies who wants to look pretty during events.

Olian long jersey dress
Hatch the Gown
DVF Zarita dress as worn on Kourtney Kardasian

 For glitzy look for evening events,

DVF Penelope embellished dress

For some other basic looks, I also post up a review on Trifle Thoughts

In late 2010, my sister and I hosted my cousin's bridal shower in Hotel Mulia Orient 8's private room. It was a small intimate affair.

Informal gift table area

Guests dress code - Jewel

Bride-to-be gown custom made by Eddy Betty

My little girl, with Ipad to entertain her before the dinner start and she had to go back home

Naughty gifts from friends

Words of Wisdom from married and single friends

Bridal Shower Mood Board

Months before I planned for Cousin E's bridal shower, I had asked her what flower she like, and she told me she likes daisy. After looking around for inspiration, and a venue, I came up with these mood board - a simple, non-fussy, elegant luncheon with small games with the bride-to-be.
Just a few days before, while chatting with Cousin E, asking what requests she have, something I should have done before planning or deciding on the theme, because it seems that what she wants is completely different than what I had in mind. She like roses now! Deep red ones...Move over daisy, we changing the theme.

From left clockwise: Daisy necklace from Kate Spade (selling in KS store in Jakarta), Collete's Daisy Cake, Cupcake box from Meri Meri, Bunga Rampai restaurant, and gold-sprayed flowers centerpiece seen on Orange Beautiful.

Baby I 1 Month Package - Man Yue

I started ordering and folding the cupcake and cookie boxes for baby I's Man Yue before his delivery, so I could focus on adjusting to his arrival.
Having budget in mind, I had to carefully plan out costs and also the timing so I could get 60 boxes ready by Baby I's 1 month celebration and sent out to 60 different addresses.
Finally found the pram box last minute and once finalized with the order, I filled with the box with goodies - Chocolate cupcakes with tiger toppers, chocolate chip cookies and Jolly Time popcorn.
2 days before Baby I turn 1 month old and delivering the Man Yue boxes, I started bakingthe cupcakes and cookies. What took most time and effort was the cookies. I only had one cookie sheet and my oven is very small and was only able to bake 1 batch of cookie for 15min.

Tiring but it got fun when cookies were done and I started to package the cookies in the foils and seal it with heat sealant.

The pram boxes were made by Cherchrys Gift.
Cupcake boxes and Cookie boxes from RM Boxes.
Sealer for the cookie wrappers can be bought from Ace Hardware.

Cupcake Moments

Oh Dear! They look too good to be eaten. Look at the Japanese and Chinese inspired sushis and dimsum! They are like those pretty clay window display food that tempt you to go into the restaurant.

But, hey, these are real and best of all, they use quality ingredients- all imported ingredients to what my sister mentioned to me that it can't get more 'international' :)
Wait! There's more: the baker assured that their cupcakes are "baked and decorated in a clean and sanitized environment", which is, definitely very important for us mommies who want clean food for our kids.

Images courtesy of Cupcakes Moment

Inacraft - Gift Favors Part 2

As I felt that I haven't fully explored Inacraft, I made another trip on Friday morning and I was glad I made the effort! The traffic for weekend to Inacraft was just horrendous...so many cars that they caused major traffic jam. Here's some more exhibitors worth mentioning:
Iluvitz - Makes multi-purpose portable table for laptops, book and food tray; very useful gift favor for older children. Showroom : 021-83796601, Jln Tebet Timur Dalam II No. 3b, Jakarta Selatan.
Guru - Sells a large variety of educational wooden toys. 021-78839430 and has a site here.
Char & Coll - Makes unique personalized gift favors for all ages. I like the personalized make-up bags and canvas bags (good for bridal showers)
Honey Bear - Wholesales cute girl accessories, a tiara hairband costs about Rp17.500/pc. 081615433888 (Evi) Surabaya.
Inet Toys - A huge range of wooden toys and retails in ITC Permata Hijau. Has a site here.

Funny Cookies - They can also do cookie painting for children party activities.081311104004 (Asti)
Cyber Art Studio - They have many activities for children parties such as sand art, t-shirt painting, face painting, and etc. 021-70505687, also has a site here.
Sweet Cotton - The company pack the towels as rolled cakes and cupcakes.08161113435 (Aileen), also has a site here.
Forshka - They make cute Matryoshka dolls.081382909355 (Ratna), also has a site here.
Rakita -Produce and sell in discounted prices for customized embroidered towels, clothing, and blankets. 021-68888333, store in Jln Cilandak V/5 Jakarta Selatan.

Make biscuits without preservatives and export to Malaysia and Singapore. What's unique is their range of packaging and jars. There's a miniature metal Javanese house that becomes a cookie container by opening the roof. Cool. Has a site here.


Also, for those brides-to-be, mommies and others who wants packaging contact, here's another company you can try. 08161976044 (Irene) and has a site here

Inacraft - Gift Favors

Confused what to get for children favors as I do? Head down to JHCC now (22-26th) for the Inacraft fair that happens annually during April . I have been waiting for this fair and I wasn't disappointed.
1&2. Lisa Souvenir - Beautiful plaster figurines made into lampshades, candy holder and many others. One of my top picks for Baby J's favors :) Price for 1 lampshade Rp175,000 (USD17).
3. Temple Trees- A big range of gift favors ranging from combs to measuring height to homewares. Has store in Senopati and site here
4. Kado Kita- Assorted baskets, boxes, recycled gift boxes, wedding baskets, etc. Affordable prices. Has site here
5. Incraft - Cute stickies for bags. They also make the plastic material bags for children. Has many outlets such as in Mall Taman Anggrek on Lt-G and Supermall Pluit Lt4, has site here but under construction.
6. Sophisticate - handmade and eco-friendly soaps and super expensive boxes from Bandung.

Left- Tiara Craft sells their glass cookie jars from Rp30,000 (USD3) each
Middle and right - (*** lost name card) sells handpainted bottles, cookie jars and eggs? Phone 031-5047162

Other gift packaging:
Kantong - sells some handmade paperbag. Has site here
Cardose - custom make hard gift boxes. I made Graha Baby's gift boxes from them too. Has site here

More on Inacraft findings, please visit my other blog

Baby G's Man Yue Cake

The Box

Cute fondant mini cakes.

In lower drawer of the cake.

I love my niece's Manyue cake. In fact, I still kept it and displayed in my library shelf. Its so pretty don't you think?

Baby Man Yue Cake

I have always rave about how much I love crystals and after searching on flickr and other cake sites, I finally found one I love. It has to look luxe and somewhat affordable as I had to make 100 over cakes to send out to relatives and close friends.

Cake inspiration from Estilo Weddings.

Once I had delivered Baby J, I contacted several bakery specialist for quotation and settled with Pasadena Cakes. They were very helpful and made the crystal monogram using wire and glue.

Finding the crystals and butterflies took sometime but by chance, I came up with some suppliers in Indonetwork. I cant possible afford hundreds of real crystal to form the monogram and flowers so I searched for arcylic ones. It was cheap for 144pcs considering at $1 :D

The butterflies came late so we didn't put butterflies on the cake. Otherwise everything else look simply wonderful.

Here's the sample cake by Pasadena and I love it! I was very pleased with the outcome. It came with mica box and pink ribbons. Sweet!

Baby Shower

We threw ourselves baby showers- me for my sis and my sis for me. My sister-in-law offered but she was busy with her upcoming baby (we all are having babies at almost 1 month difference!). Our good friend also offered but having 1 toddler and 1 small baby in tow, she was also busy.

Nonetheless, we were more than happy to use our creative juices for our own baby shower. I took out my crafts stuff from my sister's wedding shower (which was early 2008 and she's preggers within same year!) and we started to whip out decorations and favors.

We both like Martha Stewart's pom2s, so we became this little elves (umm large elves with huge tummies) factory teamwork - I cut, my sis fold and tie up the pretty pom2s. We did large, medium and little pom2s in 2 days.

Then my brother-in-law enthusiastically strung and hung the pom2s from the stairs handle on 2nd floor so it dropped looking like hanging on the ceiling.




Then we packed the favors using leftover papers to wrap the favors, velvet bound photo album.