Monday, September 8, 2008

Rockin' & Crochetin'

In a week or so This weekend, my BFF Kay is going to be giving gave birth to her first child! So last month, her girlfriends threw her a shower, but since she lives in LA, I wasn't able to attend.

But I knew I wanted to make her and her baby something as a keepsake, so I took a month to crochet a present for the little one.


I used organic cotton yarn, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't too heavy since she lives on the west coast. and since i wanted the best of the best, i went to the bead store and picked up real pearls! I even looked up the average size of a newborn baby's head and feet to make sure what I crocheted wasn't going to be too big or too small.

After the finished product, i still couldn't believe they would actually fit because they look like the size of doll's clothes!

in addition to the bib, hat, and ballet slippers, i made a pair of mary jane booties too:


i also wanted to give something to the grown ups at the party too. the original idea was to wrap empty toilet paper rolls in pretty paper and put candy inside. cute right? But G brought up that the shower guests are from California and might get grossed out knowing where their party favors had been! so i decided to make a CD full of awesome music instead.

with G's help, i came up with a playlist that I hope is enjoyable for a baby, but I also hope is fun for the parents! Making the CDs and their cases was pretty intense, but it was really worth it because i was so pleased with how they looked when they were done!

here's me hard at work:


and here's the finished product - "Rockin' the Nursery"



The songs on the CD are:

1. The Most Beautiful girl in the World- Prince
2. Playground- Another Bad Creation
3. If you can't say love- Visionaries
4. ABC- Jackson 5
5. Banana Panakes- Jack Johnson
6. Girls just wanna have fun- Cindy Lauper
7. 5 on a joyride- Cody Chestnutt
8. Say After me- Bic Runga
9. Buddy Holly- Weezer
10. Jump-van halen
11. The Sun-Ghostface Killah
12. 99 red balloons-Nena
13. Sweet Caroline- Neil Diamond
14. Day Dream Believer- The Monkees
15. Angers- Robbie Williams
16. Little Star- Madonna

Friday, September 5, 2008

My Little Helpers

My next few blog entries will be retroactive, looking back on projects and events I waned to write about but didn't get a chance to.

This one is about an adventure me and G had the week of July 4th on our way to go shopping. And it happened to be garbage day too! You know what that means, neighbors are throwing out good stuff!

As we were walking, we noticed our neighbor a block away had thrown away what used to be someone's bedroom dresser. But judging by its shape, it doesn't have to be a bedroom dresser. With a couple of changes here and there, it could work in the kitchen or living room or anywhere! We carried it home to use it for a buffet table in our dining room.

It took us a full week to disinfect it. and during that time, we planned how to convert it from a plain old piece into something that fit our decor. (G calls it "his" room since it would look right at home in a Chinese household!)

I knew i wanted to paint it black to fit in with all the black furniture in the dining room already, but something in me wanted to paint the inside of the drawers too. I asked G a million times if he thought it was corny to paint the inside of the drawers to match the room walls, but he just says who's gonna look inside the drawers?

but luckily I had little helpers the following week as three of my sisters kids and my two young cousins came to stay with us. It was so great to have them around to help me paint the buffet table! (JK! it was great to have them around no matter what, but you can't blame me for putting them to work!) We paid the price though, they kicked us out of our bed because it's so "comfty" and we slept in the guest room.

Anyway, they all chipped in and each painted a drawer themselves. it was a big help to say the least! I put Krishna second in command since she is 12, and the biggest of them. The rest were Brandon (10), Pywat (7 at the time, now he's 8), Mealea (6 now, 5 then), and Morodoc (still 3). (look at the littlest guy wearing the yellow shirt in that picture up there, he's almost falling off the bed!)

according to Pywat, kishna is a "pre-teen" and Mealea is a "toddler." i don't know who taught him how to classify kids by their ages. LOL.

And the finished product looked like this:



I'm glad it's cool and "green" to recycle old furniture nowadays. Back in the day, they just called us poor!

Oh and check it out, we got the kids to help clean our floors too!