Now and then..

I grew up with my mother in my grandparents house, and sometimes with us sometimes next to us were my uncle and cousins, we grew up together playing, fighting and experimenting with toys and food. Those were the days we had lots of fun just trying to have sliced cheese out of the fridge without the grown up knowing (of course they did) .

These days me and two of cousins,(the older two) are married with children, and we still gather together and the kids play, it's like history is repeating itself. I have a girl, my male cousin and his lovely wife have two boys mashallah, and my female cousin has a girl and a new comer soon inshallah. But still when the eldest three are together it's like us ( the eldest three also) back then.

So I'll leave you with some pictures of us back then..



And them right now...



Can you tell which kid is for which parent-who-was-a-kid ?
The answer is in the next issue of the magazine..
There is a prize for people other than family members..

By the way how do you like my rosy background? I know nothing about HTML and I had to spend near an hour trying and re trying till I got it right, I'm so happy with the way the blog looks now mashallah.

A few changes here and there..

I'm known for getting bored fast. and since my husband doesn't enjoy coming to a home that has a chair in the place of a table, I never could re arrange furniture unless we spend some time studying the project. but late one night I was sitting on my sofa in the crafts room feeling bored and I thought to myself, " why do I have the furniture arranged this way?".. And since it's my room where I create in, I created a new arrangement, and just let me tell you how happy it made me.



First of all I switched places between the left and the right side, so everything was on this side went the other. And this sure left me a very needed wall space near the working and computer tables. I love hanging stuff like bulletin boards and shelves to put all my sewing things. And that's what I did.. Plus I made this thread rack which fell minutes after I took the picture, Yikes, it needs better gluing or maybe even some nails..



I also had my eyes on this little Barbie toy accessory and finally I got it, it feels so right with my room colors and the sewing theme and I just love it.



Well over all I feel happier in my room and that's what matters . 7amdillah. All I need now is to do more sewing or crafts in general, and finish organizing my dressing- turned -storage room.

confessions of a shopaholic..

That's me.. who did you think it was?
Well I am a big shopaholic, and I am a bigger collectaholic when it comes to things I love, mainly craft goodies, and I think all the ladies in my family are like that too. When I start a craft, I have to have everything about that craft that I can put my hands on. Like I did with scrapbooking, I had to have all the papers (of course new ones keep coming every day) all the scissors, cutters, stamps, ribbons, brads, buttons and stickers I can get.Even now that I stopped scrap booking since I discovered sewing (and you know how much of things to use in sewing I already have) I can't resist buying stuff from my favorite scrapbooking shop in Bahrain, whenever I enter that shop I turn into a maniac and just start taking things out of the shelves, most of the times I return a lot of the things I took but I still end up with many things I don't need, but reason with myself that I do.

Well I know something I need and I got, thanx to my husband who got it for me as an early birthday gift after seeing my eyes sparkle and I almost started drooling over it! This is my new love




The picture is from the site , but mine is exactly the same, it's for storing and moving scrap booking supplies any where you are going so you can create every where. ofcourse I will be using the papers I got for making small cards to sell inshallah, and I will never say never to going back to scrapbook because I love it still. So it's no waste to get what I want, right?

Anyways I watched the movie 300 last night and I LOVED IT soo much.. I don't know why exactly but it was a great movie in my opinion and I enjoyed every minute in it, I even wanted to watch it again! (don't take my word for it, tastes differ from one person to the other and I seem to have a taste that is a bit different than most people I know)

So back to trying to do one of the million things I have to do, and the billion things I want to do.

second try..

This is my second try at the notebook and pencil holder, this time using another tutorial.



This one is a bit easier and looked nicer at the end, but still I didn't like the quality of my sewing, I blame it on the sewing machine, the poor thing is old (it's my mom's) and I over did it with it sewing a lot of things. So it didn't turn out as perfect as I like it to be so there may be a third time.



Yesterday I went to Dammam with my aunt to the wholesale market, it was very nice , filled with lots and lots of cute and useful things. I got a box filled with pony tail hair rubber thingies ( I don't know what they are called) and these beauties..



They can be used as pins or to hold the hair. I loved the colors so much and might use them on my bags (that I stopped sewing for some reason) well I could've get more things but we were in a hurry and to get anything I'd have to at least get a dozen of it, what would I do with them all? Maybe I'll go there again to the stationary or fabric section to get me some good bargains.

buttons..buttons.. buttons..

I have a lot of them.. I love them and it's only recently that I started collecting them. Whenever I am in a place that sell bags of different styles button I buy some. I still don't know what to do with them, I used some in scrap booking, and some in my bags or the flower pins I put on them, but I still have many ( I actually like it when I see a lot of anything around me) and I need to look for a project to use them.



So the last bag I got from Jareer (they were two small bags) and I found these in there that I liked the most..



So any idea anyone what can I do with them other than use them for decoration? I found some cool ornaments and picture frames made using buttons, but the ones I got are very different from each other. Well I'm sure I will find some use to them , meanwhile I truly enjoy looking at them (do you see a pattern here? I like collecting different styles, shapes and colors of crafty things.. hmm I really need that crafts shop)

I guess I'm back to normal

Depending of course on your definition of normal. After sleeping at 5 in the morning and waking up at 11 30 I felt a lot better 7amdillah, I had some needed quiet time by myself, and I mean quiet, no people, no music or tv no nothing, not even strong light, only me and my thoughts in my room. Well at first I didn't feel a difference but then when i woke up I felt much better and even felt the need to do something crafty. So I went to this tutorial and made this..



I still need a lot of practice to make it close to perfect, it turned out a little small for a coloring book to fit in there, plus a little not straight rectangle and I had my ribbon upside down!



But my kiddo is happy with it and playing school right now. So maybe the next one ( if there will be next one) will look better, maybe if I made the pocket bigger somehow, at least now I know the general idea.

And about my diet? I'm still on it even though last night I decided a million times that I had enough. It's not easy having to diet so say thanks to Allah all of you out there who can't put on weight no matter what you do, we are dieing here to lose some! 7amdillah anyway.
So this is my second time to post twice in one day, it seems nice to find a place to put my emotions in .. that's why I blog.. That and to share with you whatever stuff I'm in the mood to make. And to maybe have the chance to meet some new nice talented people all over the world. It's nice to have internet.. 7amdillah.

Help! I don't want to sleep..

I am a mess..! it's 3 3o after midnight and I don't want to sleep.. My eyes are refusing to stay open and I still don't want to sleep..!
I am very bored and depressed, I don't even know why.. I thought maybe because of the diet, or maybe because I spent all day yesterday watching old home videos of a 16 years younger me.. carefree.. child free.. responsibility free.. ( I won't say husband free because I was depressed back then for not having one!).. Or maybe not..!
Well who knows about these moods, one minute I'm all happy with rosy dreams, the next I'm turning into mister Hyde..! I need therapy, in the form of a flying ticket to any place with a lot of greenery, nice looking homes, new shopping malls or small shops, a hotel and some room service, public transportation and a baby sitter..! I'm a bad mom, sue me !
Well I better find me another thing to do to make my mood better soon or else I will turn this blog from rosy to thorny, and that I don't want to do..
See you again when I'm back to being my cheerful self (goodbye for ever! .. naah just kidding)

My daughter is a chocoholic!

Not for real chocolate though she likes them a lot just like every female in her mom's family does, but she got this addiction to Charlie and the chocolate factory movie, the new one with Johnny Depp ! well ever since we got her the film she asks to see it every day sometimes more than once. Her other addiction? Barny of course. She doesn't seem to get tired of them mashallah. I did!!



Well to tell you the truth the chocolate factory is a bit addictive, with all the sweets in it, so yummy!


So Her other favorite thing is setting a picnic for us, with all her mismatched toys of plates, cups and pots and pans.. and she makes strange looking food, always with pineapple.. international taste..!



but isn't it strange that her favorite game involved food while the least favorite thing for her to do in real life is eating? I wish I can say the same thing about me! All I can think of is what to eat, of course I am still in my month of liquid diet and not eating, but this just makes me think more and more of food. I still have two weeks before it ends and I just hope after those two weeks I will continue dieting reasonably and never stopping until I reach my goal weight, which is whatever weight that goes with a look that I feel satisfied with. I want to live healthy and happy more than skinny.

Ta daaaa....

Remember the picture from my last post? (how can you forget it when you still can see it?)
well there it is, it's a baby booty that I got it's pattern from this blog. And no I'm not expecting a baby but I know a few ladies who are ;)




Anyway I wanted to post this earlier but I was busy, so now it's Wednesday.. Happy mother's day I love you mom, it isn't easy being a mom and it's even much harder being a mom like you.. You are the best (it's a shame mom doesn't read my blog, she doesn't have internet)

So my lovely husband surprised me with the best thing ever, he ordered a book I was looking for from amazon and it came to me gift wrapped with lovely green paper and matching ribbon, and a card which he chose it's words.. I love surprises and this one was great, made me happy. Thanx sweety (my husband doesn't come here either, who does you ask? well you do :) )

By the way my cousin was wondering about those plastic thread organizers , well they are from Zamil where else? It's still the best crafts store here.

So another weekend is here and like every week, I wish you have a good time.

Not another doggy..

But another thing that I don't need to do right now..! Well I tried doing the things I need to do , and actually I did some of them, but I still find it hard to craft, that's why when I had a feeling that I needed doing this felt project I was more than happy to do it.



Can you tell by looking at that picture what it is I'm working on? ok so I'm not telling now until it's all finished and I have a nice picture of it.
And speaking of colors (did anyone say color in the first place? I must be hearing voices in my head!) I would like to share with you one of my pleasures to look at.



What do you think of that? well once upon a time long long ago, I don't know maybe 15 years or so? My mom and I used to cross stitch a lot, I kept going on even after she stopped. Then eventually I slowed down too but after I took from her this treasure, at that time she bought a bag bag filled with one of every color of embroidery floss DMC had to offer and wow, it looked great. Of course for a long time it was all tangled up together and a pain to work with , until I got the plastic containers and sorted them in there..



Aren't they a pleasure to look at? well I just hope I can get back to working with them like I used to do, more often. I might even try embroidery one day, it looks nice.

By the way, did I mention that I hate the net? we are supposed to have DSL and it seems like a snaily dial up! I hate that it took me three days to try to post something new!

Mother's day is on Wednesday, I still have to do something with mom's gift. yesterday mom took us shopping for mother's day gift to my grandmother, and secretly (not very secretly I can hear everything they were saying) helped my daughter buy me a gift, it was the kids selection a pink necklace with a big heart and a big pink ring. I loved them so much (of course she couldn't wait until Wednesday to give it to me) and it felt nice to have a gift from my little -looks like a grown up-girl. Well until Wednesday happy mother's day to all moms and moms to be.

What I woke up to today..

This is what greeted me in the morning from my crafts room window, what a sight.. Well I felt the cars before I saw them, they made a great sound and the whole house kind of moved under our feet. I think these cars are here to check on something under the ground, actually they are all over the city. well we had fun watching them moving and moving all around the area. (no they didn't start that early, I woke up late!)




So how was your weekend? mine was great 7amdillah, we went shopping on Wednesday with mom, on Thursday and Friday with my husband, ended up spending a lot of money but getting many nice things for us and the house. on Friday we went to the movies, there wasn't a very good film but we watched Smoking aces. not bad. But it felt weird again going in and out of the movies without having my nachos with cheese dip.. AAAHHH I miss the food. well I only have 18 days to go, I might make it more and stop just before my birthday so I can celebrate well. Who knows I might do it.

So still no crafts done, just working on my never ending blanket. Pictures soon inshallah.
ok so thats it for now I have a headache that I kept getting all the weekend. Strange.

Small dog.. or is it?

Question, what do you do when you are so bored you can kick yourself , and you have billions of things around the house that needed to be done now? simple, you make small over stuffed dog toy.
I thought the answer was obvious.!

Well I used this pattern
And ended up with this..



My daughter was wondering while I was working.." wow mom this is great, is it a horse or a donkey?" well that shows how good my work is.
I have no idea what to do with it, since my girl doesn't play with soft toys for some reason, but I had to try doing one. I used two fabrics,



maybe that contributed to the strange look of the doggy, plus I stuffed it so bad it started exploding in some places I had to sew it again. But it was hard sewing this small thing, I now have more respect to everyone who works on small toys, it is hard and need patience.

Well I will try this weekend to do some of the billion and one things I have to do, oh and by the way the diet is working out well 7amdillah, I keep stopping myself every night from eating anything that comes my way but otherwise it is good.

So I need to watch a good movie, I want to go to the movies but nothing worth watching right now, plus we have tons of new movies in our computer to watch anyway. But nothing beats the movies.. Anyway we'll see.

So have a nice weekend.

more pink (second time.. bad blogger!)

well as I was saying, ( and blogspot wouldn't show my pictures for some reason!) life is pink!! well I was in a better mood in the morning when I wrote the post, but I will try rewriting it.

In a fantasy world of pink, let me take you into a tour of my surrounding.. First this is where I live..



And this is my car..



In my house I have this in the kitchen..



And this...



And in the craft room I use this...



To make my lovely pink stuff.
And when I feel tired I love to watch something on this...



AAhhh what a life..
So why don't you give me a call?



and maybe we will go on a ride somewhere in the land of rosy pink dreams..




Actually any of the above things would make a nice birthday present ;)

It's all about pink

A week of my diet has gone 7amdillah, I don't want to think of the many many many more weeks I still have until I reach my goal because I want to take it a day at a time. Well the last two days were hard, I was in the house all the time with nothing much to occupy my time since I find myself in a craft block, I can't do anything new or old, I have a bag that is cut and waiting to be assembled since last week.! Well I'm sure it's only temporary and I will go back to being my crafty self in no time inshallah.

Anyways since I don't seem to have much to talk about I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite things in the house right now..



I saw this on one of the blogs I visit a lot a few months ago (now I don't remember which one) and I just fell in love. It's from a British company called the pink toolbox and they have a site with the same name. And since my sister lives there, when she asked me what I wanted for Eid's gift guess what I asked for? I was very happy and excited when I received my gift, I wasn't sure she got it for me or not, and when I opened the box I jumped up and down screaming like a kid, I really like to have all my things in pink..



And since I do a lot of small DIY things around the house it's nice to have my own tool box and in pink to use.

Well I have to try and get more pink things like I don't have enough. I keep remembering the cartoon pink panther when he wanted everything pink and the guy in the cartoon wanted it blue, well that's me, if it's not pink, paint it!

How was your weekend?

Mine was good 7amdillah, the usual Wednesday and Friday gatherings, which I find it very nice to meet my family, but this time it felt a little strange with no food, not that I didn't have anything I had my soups and salads and fruits. Well not like real food but I'm still going on mashallah and it's not as hard as it was the first two days.
well on Thursday I decided that I needed to do some drilling and hang some of the many things in my room left unhanged, so that I did and I ended up with this little wall arrangement,



It still needs some changing, the hanging thingy needs to be painted white, the mini buckets needs some color and some pink flowers too. But I'm happy with the way it looks. This is the wall above my tv.

On Friday we went for the first time to that big hypermarket carrefour or something ( the spelling is not right I'm sure) and it was kind of nice, looks allot like the many hypermarkets here but I found these..



And I fell in love! there were many shapes of them, lambs, giraffes, an apple, a basket ball shaped one, soo cute.In case the picture isn't very clear these are small cute televisions, probably made for kids rooms or something but I need to have one, or two.! or maybe I can do something similar to my monitor with some fabrics and felt?? This is an idea that needs some attention.

Oh and I'm still working on my rippled blanket, maybe some day soon I'll post a picture of it. It's still not nearly done but I'm still enjoying working on it.

And I want to thank all my sweet family members who visited my blog and commented, nice of you, nigamilkom fil afra7 !

Organising..

first it's the third day, second day went better than first, I went to mom and we had soup and salad at Steak house. then I went shopping and got me a new box-bag for my rik raks.



It was a mess in there , most of my rik raks were bought by the meter and they ended up all over each other tangled and hard to get when in a hurry


So I cut up some cardboard and put every color on it's own.
And half an hour later I have an organized rik rak place..



They look yummy and I feel like I wanna get more colors ( yes I know I'm a hopeless case I need therapy! ) and of course I wanna do something new with them. Maybe in my attempt to do something new every day so I can get my mind off you know what, I will do a new project featuring more of the rik raks I have, so if I finished some I can get more.. LOL

Oh my god I just figured out how to put my pictures inside the text, WOW after 8 months.!!

Mini bags

Day one of my diet is over, it was harder than I remembered dieting would be, I don't know why every time I start dieting all I can do is sit in my place thinking of food, I want to eat this, I like this , I shouldn't be eating this, it's like everything in me just stop functioning and just concentrate on FOOD !. well I try to think of other things and do other things but it's hard when you are staying at home all day seeing no one and doing nothing.
Not entirely true, I finished a mini bag for my cousin's daughter, she asked for a bag that looked like one my daughter got as a gift from her grandma, well I tried copying it but it turned out weird looking, maybe the pleats were larger than the original. anyway sadly I'm not a person who would try doing things more than once, if it didn't work from the first time then it wasn't meant to be made by me. I don't believe in the saying " practice makes perfect" ( well I do but I get bored very fast and I'm lazy as you know I'd rather do something new)
Anyways if she doesn't like it my kid does, she's trying to put her hands on it since yesterday. Ofcourse needless to say the black and white one is the ready made bag.!

I made this chart today to mark my 30 days of liquid diet ( plus all the veggies and fruits I want to have )
After months of every person in my family tried to make me start dieting it finally got through to me, I never let myself go for so long, unless I was depressed or something, and I keep trying and trying even if I failed one or million times I keep trying again. And this time is no difference, I just started something because I got fed up with the way I'm living my life, now is the time for me to try something again, so this is it, I really need you to wish me luck because I need great strength to start and stick to a plan, the one month is only a start, a kind of disciplinary thing to myself , just to show who's the boss ( hopefully the strong sensible me will be the boss ).
Anyway, this post is about dieting but of course the chart itself is a crafty thing since I used one of my recent purchases of patterned paper, a lovely one with girly stuff such as bags, shoes ans dresses all over, to remind me of all the lovely things in life I'm missing with over eating. Things I love and enjoy like shopping and dressing up. I want to have my life back, and inshallah this time I will.
I'm hanging the chart right next to my computer desk since it's the one place I spend most my day in. Again, please please please wish me luck. Thanx.

I love fabric

Did I mention that before? ( I guess I did million times hehehe) I feel that I don't have much of it, at least not enough to satisfy my love, but the other day my aunt gave me money to buy my gift of fabrics of my choice, I was so excited thinking of all the possible colors and patterns when mom just said " you should stop buying fabric until you finish some of what you already got, you have enough! "
Well I think mom didn't see the blogs I read daily, each one of these ladies have enough fabric to make my stash looks like a baby in a room filled with grown ups. But hey mom's got a point, just like 10 months ago the subject of this post would be ( I love patterned paper ) which by the way I still do! the point is I'm a collector, like my mom and grand mom before me, we fall in love with a craft and we have to have everything and anything that has to do with it, in all sorts of colors. Mom told me " you are not a shop" well that's one of the reasons I wish I had one ( a shop ) .
My dream shop would be one where I sell materials for many crafts ( which I would pick myself to satisfy the need for buying) and then have a mini course teaching these crafts inside the shop. maybe a coffee shop and a mini crafts library will look good.. Aaaahhhh dreams, I have tons of them.
Have I told you about the shop mom and I opened long time ago? I don't think so. Well it was the year of staying at home bored after a year of graduating from college. Mom knew ( and had the same dreams ) I always wanted a shop to sell my stuff. In those days my specialty was painting on wood and paper and small furnitures. So she did, we got the place, spent months decorating it and just when we wanted to start really working in it I got engaged, and then moved to Dhahran from Jeddah where the shop was. I kinda miss the shop, I think if we had it now instead of then I would've worked better in it, I was young and eager to get married and didn't pay much attention to the shop ( and sadly didn't have any picture of it!)
Anyway at least for a little while I had my dream, and I still feel like I'm going to have another one one day, maybe after the kids are all grown up ( yes I know I only have one now, but who knows maybe I will have another one day! ).
So keep dreaming.. I know I will never stop .
( wow that was a very long post!)

Fluffy flower

I just did my first fluffy fabric flower following this tutorial It was easy and actually the only thing I could try out doing since I had a horrible cold since I wrote my last post! I had great plans for the weekend and I ended up mostly on my bed . Anyway 7amdillah I still had a nice weekend.
So back to the flower, it turned out bigger than I expected , I was planning to put it on the bag above but I think it looks so big on it. I tried the flower with two kinds of buttons and I think the orange one looks better, what do you think?
You should try making one it's really cute looking in real life, maybe next time I will start by cutting smaller squares.
Until next time , HAAAATCHOOOOOO , take care.
( I feel like my head will explode!)