colors, or buttons..?

Which one of these is more tempting.. Why do I find myself always buying things I don't need just because they put it in groups of different colors? Why is it I can't resist anything that comes in more than one color? and why do I keep buying buttons when I don't really know what to do with them??
The answers to these questions will remain a mystery.. At least to me.

So my favorite scrap booking shop + money from mom as a gift for our anniversary + some time in our hands while waiting for another shop to get us something we ordered = disaster..!
Well not really a disaster, just a box of colorful buttons which are expensive and I don't need at all. But who can resist such a thing?



Anyway I knew that at least two of my relatives loves buttons too, so I decided to share with them some. And of course I have to have a nice package as that one my cousin gave me for the salts, so I used some spice jars I got looong time ago and never used, plus some of my embellishments I collected over the year.



i like the way they look and seriously thinking of putting all my buttons this way, they look yummy.



(the pictures are a little blurry, I'm using my mobile camera and it doesn't zoom)

So.. the real question is.. To be or not to be.. or to buy or not to buy is more like it.. I ned therapy.!

So next Friday inshallah I will be organizing a baby shower for my cousin, it will be the first one for me to plan and I have lots of ideas in my mind, and limited time and abilities to do them all, so i guess I'll try not to over stress myself and just have fun with it, and if you don't already know this about me, i really love throwing parties, specially themed ones.. So pictures will be expected inshallah next week.

To explain myself..

About why we didn't enjoy ourselves much in the trip, it seems that you were wondering how can we not enjoy the scenery there, well we did, and the weather was great, not so cold and yet some rain fell in all days, and once it even hailed. Well aside from that it wasn't summer or the high season so most everything was closed or not working.. Even the hotel was a bit empty , the main attraction areas closed and no activities at that time.
So we only had malls and restaurants (which they have little good ones) and the outdoors which we are not really fond of staying at long times.



Beside that I had trouble breathing well all the time, and felt extra tired every time I did the littlest activity like walking or going up a few stairs. So it wasn't fun when you are out of breath all the time!
But we did have some good times 7amdillah, I loved the flowers and trees that were every where and the nice weather, and of course the hotel room and the famous room service for me!



My husband worked mostly till near 3 and we started going out at 4 driving around in the car enjoying the scenery ( of course if you ask me I would prefer the greenery of European mountains where everything is green and you won't see lots of rocks like in Abha)



So just to say I'm not really a mountain lady, I'm more of a sea one, and I love the oxygen !

We're baaaaack..!

Thanks to Allah we are back, there is nothing like home..! First of all how is every one doing? we are good 7amdillah, it was a somehow nice 4 days, that will never be done again! atleast not to Abha and maybe not with the kiddo and the father together! It was a bit tricky having to stay almost all four days in the same area together, but we managed 7amdillah with some good times and some not so.



Well, at least the room was bigger than I thought would be, with a lot of sofas, seats, tables and benches for her to jump over, and some room for her to run around.. which she did, a lot!
But I was thankful for the Disney channel which kept her occupied watching her favorite cartoons.
And even though we went to malls (in which she played in the amusement area) and to parks ( where she played in the swings and slides) she kept begging since the second day to go back home. As a matter of fact we all felt the same way, we had a nice time but Abha is not for people like us, who hates the outdoors..! and there is nothing special in Abha but the outdoors.



Anyway 7amdillah it was a nice experience and a good chance for us to bond together and have some quality time together. And we now appreciate more the city we live in and the house we have. 7amdillah..



The above picture is the view from the restaurant in the fifth floor.. It's the same one from our room except we were in the third floor.
And this one is from one of the mountains in Souda area.

Away on a business trip

For a few days inshallah starting early Friday we will be in Abha on a business trip ( my husband's business not mine..!)
We will be staying at a hotel , hopefully with some time for site seeing and shopping. I will try mostly to finish my blanket and have some quality time with my girl ( alone for so many hours in one small room!!)

There will be no internet so I will be having a blog vacation.. Will you miss me? I'm sure you will hehehe..

So see you inshallah when I get back with hopefully some good pictures and nice moments to share. Till then take care..

Oh yah and thanks for your wishes we had a nice anniversary day 7amdillah arguing about life and dreams and destiny after watching the movie " stranger than fiction" it's a good movie. watch it. but not on your anniversary..!

Tomorrow is..

Our sixth wedding anniversary ..Yes we've been married six years mashallah, and it's been an adventure.. We had our ups and downs like every body have, but though it all we remained best friends to each other.. and 7amdillah this is the best I can ask for.

We also had many great moments, talking , laughing and even crying.. Life would be boring with only rosy moments , right? we need other colors too.

We shared the best moment of having our lovely girl, we were frightenend together of the huge resposibility and demand that came with having her, we had to grow up ( we r still struggling to do so) we had to become parents instead of spoiled kids. We may sound complaining all the time but we know what a blessing we have mashallah..

So to my best friend, my man , my one and only love.. To us .. happy six lovely year sweety..
May the next years be filled with happiness , understanding and travels! ( well I won't mind another baby also..)

A fairy tale

Yesterday we went out shopping for new things for my daughter's room. After months of thinking and rethinking about her room, I couldn't get myself to accept her choice of multi colored cute but babyish Hamtaro the hamster.. I know he's lovely, and cute and huggable, but he's just not girly or pink enough for me! That's why when she told me she wanted her room filled with disney princesses thing I couldn't go shopping soon enough!
What more can I ask for, all those lovely girls in their lovely dresses.. Just like the dress mom made for my girl and she wouldn't make a day pass without her playing and dancing in..



So Disney princesses here we come, I only got so far as to get her a lovely shelf/coat hanger and something for her bed.. ( she wanted a cute toddler bed with the princesses on it but we thought she will outgrow it very soon, beside we already have a twin bed in her room)



I spent last night assembling it with the help of my so eager girl, and here is the result..



Isn't this dreamy? I always wanted a canopy over my bed.. Hmm maybe I should get me one for my room!
She told me to pack her hamtaro bed sheet and comforter ( anyone cares for one?) and even said bye to them.. We have to get her new ones.

Well next step will be more accessories for the room, maybe some organizing units and a carpet and some framed pictures.. all princesses for my little princess..
And I can never forget paint.. probably three different colors for the walls and maybe a castle mural.. I have to do a better job after the first two rooms you know..!

lovely baby (mashallah)

This is baby 7ala, She is the new born daughter for my friend , you might remember her by her baby shower that was my first, she is soo cute mashallah, and tiny I couldn't hold her , it's like I already forgot what it's like to hold a tiny baby in my arms.



I miss having a baby, and my daughter fell in love with her she wanted me to take her home with us!

Well we visited her after 20 days of her giving birth, and still the baby looked small.. We had a good time there, I met again two of the lovely ladies that were in the baby shower, and talked a lot about babies and birth and crafts.

Speaking of which, these are the chocolates that my friend made herself to give to visitors, aren't they just lovely mashallah?



she even cross stitched that lovely framed art..



She has talent mashallah, I wish she can become my neighbor so we can spend time together crafting.. Maybe she will be, she's looking for a new home, wish us luck ;)

I love taking pictures

And that includes pictures of anything that captures my attention. Some of the pictures I took made the people looking at it go either "wow that's very good " or " huh? what's that?" I like the pictures that doesn't include people posing, I prefer to take a picture of someone's back, or side or even feet or hands rather than have a smiling face. And I like choosing angles that shows only part of a thing. Like a window or a door or even the stones on a street.

Well I don't have many of the good pictures I took in my computer, maybe one day I will share some of them ( when I say good I mean I think of it as good ) .

For now I will share some I took in Bahrain this weekend which I like. This one is of the restaurant " Johny Carino's" which we had lunch in, I love the style of that building very much..



Some flowers on the road..



Some in the small round about in the way to the mall..



And this is my favorite.. We were in a bookstore looking for a novel when I turned I sow my daughter sitting on the floor flipping through a children's book she took, she looked so cute mashallah i had to take her picture..

AAAAAhhhh I love this !

And I didn't cheat, it just happened to be what's right for me..

You Belong in Rome

You're a big city soul with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian people - could life get any better?

What City Do You Belong In?

Nice thing on the net

Look what I found..

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

Pretty gift

Yesterday I got this lovely gift from my lovely cousin..
It's a very pretty jar she filled with colored, scented salts, and embellished with this cute fabric cover and her favorite ; a shell..



It's very lovely I will find it hard to open and use the salts!
Thanks dear cousin.

Do you see a cute baby in a tub next to my jar? they are three babies next to each other, a lovely piggy bank mom got me from London 6 years ago. and behind that is a small cross stitch frame I made before I was married to put in our first home, it hanged on the door of our bathroom for almost three years till we made our first move .



Looks like I love bath tubs.. lol

Nice cake books

Of course I don't make cakes that often ( actually you can say I hardly ever make cakes) when I do I usually use the ready made cake mix, and ready made frosting. But once upon a time long long ago when I was in college ( I majored in Food and Nutrition ,the college people thought it was a good idea for our study to contain a lot of cooking classes! obviously I didn't think as they did ) We once had this course about cake decorating..
I would make cakes, frosting, sugar roses and flowers all night and the next day put it all in a big basket and take it with me to all classes all day long ( which involved going up some stairs and walking many miles) and then after the class is finished taking it all back in with all the stickiness involved to the car.. I think you know by now how much I hated the experience!
But aside from that I think that if I took the class on it's own without having to stay with my basket full of things in college from 8 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon, I would've liked cake decorating..
In fact I love the idea so much that I got some interesting cake decorating books which I'm waiting to try some out.
This one is a favorite of mine,



I originally got it to use it with modeling clay, but I didn't really like modeling clay that much so I didn't do any of the nice projects in there..It's filled with cartoon character's cakes great for kid's parties..Two of the best (in my opinion) ..



And this one is a recent favorite,



since all over blog land you keep seeing cupcakes that makes you really in the mood for making and decorating some, this book is really great with fantastic pictures for cupcake decorating..



Or even cookie decorating..


And at last i leave you with a cake I decorated with chocolate colored sprinkles in the picture of my kid's best bear.. It was for her second birthday party.

ٍٍSome old friends..

Came to visit me this week... Right now they are sitting on my desk..



Waiting for me to start cutting, gluing, creating with them.. It's been a while since I last worked with my sizzix and my papers to make cards.. Now they are back for a while since I'm working on some tags for my aunty's gift shop that will open soon inshallah.



It feels so good to work with paper again, and yet I felt like a kid who doesn't know what to do with all these goodies when I first started. But I remembered again how good it was cutting paper and choosing colors.
Still I miss my fabrics I might do something that involves both!

Right now I need to get more ribbons, not that I don't have enough but I'm missing some colors and I need a smaller size. Well I have to go to Zamil now... (yippeee)

Tatty teddy..

I just love tatty teddy.. and I can't resist the need to get me one or two every time I see a shop selling it. My love started in London long time ago when I kept seeing it in every card shop there. I fell in love with the grey fellow, and it kept growing on me.



So the collection I have is small, I love it but i just don't get much because after all it will be a waste of money to do so, right?

I got two from my friend, one from my mom , one from my husband, one from my cousin when I had my daughter, and the rest I got myself..



The last purchase was this weekend in Bahrain when I entered a pharmacy looking for a medecine and I found shelves filled with my sweet bear.. some large and some small. I wished I can get all of them but hey.. I still got me a small one as a key ring and this cute one for holding pictures..



I collect tatty's cards, and all the pictures I can find online. And whenever my daughter tries to play with any of them I just refuse.. A girl has to have her toys, right?

My weekend of celebration

Well it wasn't the entire weekend, most of it. This year I asked for a night in a hotel in Bahrain instead of a gift and a cake. You see i just love hotels, I don't mind going there all the time. And I have this kind of tradition for me in every hotel room I go to..
First it's room service..



I just have to have room service even if it wasn't a delicious food. I mostly order sandwiches. I just love the idea of being served in my place with nice plates and glasses without worrying about bringing the food or taking it out.

Secondly it's showering.. yeah weird I know, but I have to use the room's shower specially great if they have this big shower head and lots of hot water. I don't use the shampoo and shower gel they provide, I bring my own , but still I like taking these back with me.



So I have some strange habits.. who doesn't. This hotel was very nice, two bedrooms, a kitchinette and a living room and a nice view from the windows. And very near to the major malls in Bahrain we went there walking most of the times.



Add some movies and lunch at my favorite burger diner Johny rocket plus a visit to the best scrap book store and you have the ingredient for a very good weekend.But the best thing was having all my loved ones with me.. 7amdillah I had a very good time I almost forgot I was getting a year older! but hopefully with this year I will get wiser and better in all aspects of my life..

I almost forgot.. They had the most lovely fluffy pillows I've ever seen.. I had all four of them under my head while relaxing and watching tv and it was like sleeping on a cloud.. My husband asked me " how do u know how is a cloud like?" and I answered.. " it's like these pillows only colder..!" I love fluffy pillows I almost stole all the four they had!

Happy birthday to everyone who has his birthday this weekend, mine is on Friday and I'm off to having a celebratory weekend with my family, and yes I can tell you how old I am

32

And to mom.. I'm only 19!
See you after the weekend.. Thanks Wardoalwan for the very nice cake picture :)

I hate stupid minds!!!!!!!!!!

This country have some stupid minds.. First of all it was the blogger's picture site that was blocked, so the pictures couldn't be seen from saudi arabia unless you had a programme that shows blocked URLs , so I had to use another site to host my pictures and one of the few I found open was photobucket, and almost all my pictures are in there and just now I found it blocked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm sooooooooo angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate this stupid thing!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I have to figure something out, thanx for listening to my angry outburst.

So back to my daily life, I decided finally to post a picture (hopefully won't be blocked!) to my not-nearly-finished ripple blanket,



I still have a few ( lots) rows till I can use it for myself alone. It won't be big enough for two unless I do double the work, which I won't do because I'm starting to get bored with it, specially now that it's almost summer.


I'llprobably be using it as a throw in my crafts room , it goes well with all the colors there.



So hopefully they won't block more picture hosting sites so I can have a blog with pictures ! meanwhile I have send a request to unblock the site, and tried to change pictures in post to blogger's picture hosting.

I love the net..

Of course I have many reasons to do so, the net is the greatest place for anyone to look for anything, and we can find almost everything in it to learn about , or get entertained with and I really like it when I find good tutorial to try out new things and I like the outcome.

Like this little fellow..



I got the tutorial from craftster, a really great site. and the lady who posted the tutorial was very helpful and the step by step pictures were easy to follow.

I always wanted to do a bag with the handles cut in the fabric but was afraid it could be hard, it wasn't..

Here I used a fabric I got some time ago from Ikea, and the lining in green fabric that was used once as a curtain to our old house.



I like it and I know it needs a little small things to look perfectly good for my taste. But somehow I can imagine it in all sorts of fabrics and color combinations..

But next I want to try another new thing..

A first for me

Yesterday morning (very early for me!) we went with my aunt and cousin again to the wholesale market. This time in search for gift wrapping things and stationary. Wow what nice stuff we found , I had to say no to my girl when she asked to get everything she sees and actually I was saying no to myself too! well I just couldn't resist these cuties...



The pink rabbit with big feet was crying out for me to get him, but I had to get a dozen of them so I got some of the froggies and puppies too. They are used for the mobiles and they are missing three, one in my mobile and one for my cousin and the third one for my little girl.

And the first for me? I got this tutorial for an easy and very nice wallet that I had to try..



It looked nice at the end, but maybe their money is thinner than ours so the next time I probably need to make it wider and I have to use stiffer fabric or add interface. Because it turned out a little wobbly..



But still it was a great experience trying to do new things and using some of the huga pile of fabrics I have. I kind of like tutorials with pictures because they are easy to follow, and I found lots of them at craftster which I intend to follow inshallah, so prepare to see new things in the next few days unless I lose interest again, which I hope I won't.