A swap..

My cousins and I agreed on a swap more than a month ago, before preparing for the baby shower , and since I was very busy at that time, and after that I got a bit sick, I had to start late .

And finally today, just 2 days before the deadline, I am done! wooooohoooooo!!!!

I can't tell you know what my items are, not untill I give them to my cousins , and recieve mine :D

I just can tell you that our theme was handmade, travel theme. Originally it was "around the world in 80 days" theme,but some of us found it hard to do since they didn't see the movie ...

Anyways, these are my items , all wrapped up in brown papers andd tied up with , ribbons ;)

I used the gift tags my cousin got me from Dubai which I loved..

On another subject, I am back to the dieting wagon, so far I am in my second week and I am still feeling motivated mashallah... Hope I will be that way and better for a long time . Wish me luck :)

Baby shower day

Hi I am back with pictures from the actual baby shower , we had it at the mom-to-be's house, since my house is too small for such a crowd mashallah.

I went there with my cousin from the afternoon and started putting things together, some pictures of the decorations..

 The prizes/favors table.. looked yummy with all the pink ;)

We played a few fun games and gave some prizes..

 the "dress the baby monkeys" was the funniest game, we gave the only two girls a chance to play and it was fun to cheer and watch

 we had a go at the game while blindfolded and that what the babies looked like after wards!

Then had dinner, everyone brought something and I got the cake and cupcakes..

And the diaper cakes, but it's not meant to be eaten :P ( I did one , mom the other )

All in all it was a great day 7amdillah..

It's been another long time.... Happy everything :D

Well sincs tha last time Eid has come and gone, so Happy Eid, and it was 7amdillah, we had some moments of sadness for sure, my late uncle (allah yir7amu) has left many memories for us, he was there in our lives strongly and everything reminded us of him.

But we still managed to make it a good Eid for the kids at least, and yes it's Allah's Eid so we have to celebrate even if sad.

I went to Jeddah in Ramadhan to visit my dad and family and friends there, spent two weeks and it was a nice thing to do , see loved ones and change scenes.

Eid was spent visiting each others, exchanging gifts, and playing some fun games my auntie and uncle prepared for us along with gift certificates as prizes.
some of the Eid gifts..

 Lovely Eid kids mashallah..

 Yummy Eid food ..

 Two lovely growing up fast girls mashallah..

 Praying 3asor on third day of ramadan , mashallah..

Then i spent a lot of times .. well two weeks to be precise :P preparing for my cousin's wife (is there a shorter name for that? I can always call her my friend or sister cuz she is like that ) baby shower. I was hosting it , but in her house since mine can't accomodate 19 ladies and 11 kids, at least that was the number of people who were supposed to show up. not all did.

So as you might notice, I love thinking of things for themed parties, and this theme was pink and brown with rubber duckies. I love rubber duckies..:D

I'll  leave you with some of the pictures of the things I made,
The invitations...

 Favors..

 preparing ..

 cupcake wrapper and topper, downloaded from the net..cut by hand..(30 of them )

 Banner, handmade with scrapbooking paper..

More pictures of the actual party coming next post inshallah.

Ramadan kareem

wishing everyone a very Happy Ramdan, may Allah accept our fasting and praying and keep us all in good health.
We started the month with the traditional making of the ramadan lanterns (fanoos)

And a traditional greetings, back then ..

And right now..

Mashallah she looks very grown up, I can't believe she will be 8 at the end of ramadan,we were trying to recreate the famous picture that had a run all over the net, the one I posted here I got from my cousin telling me it was on youtube in a video clip, that's why it is in black and white, I honestly can't find the original now which had the same dark brown in the background..

May Allah keep her safe and happy for me.
Have a nice Ramdan :D

Another project checked off my list!

Yes I feel creative these days mashallah !
I am trying to finish half-way there projects before I tackle new ones, and this one was amongst the top 10 on my list.

I wanted a nice door mat, the cutest ( and goes somehow well with my theme) I found was this one..

Not bad, but try to compare it to what I want and you will see a big difference..(pictures from the net, sorry can't remember the sources)

Anyways, since ordering a doormat from the net is out of the question , I tried to do the second best thing, make one.
Starting with a cheap brown ,weird looking kind of mats from Ikea

Using a bit of spray painting (not in the color I wanted, again no large amount of choices) , some stenciling..

And alot of free hand painting (it's very hard to paint on this kind of mats , the fibers are all rough and showing, but I did best I can )

The end result in it's place..

Not bad for a door mat, right? and it only cost me 19 ryals for the mat.. well not counting the paints, cuz I will be using those in a lot of other things.
What do you think?

I'm trying something new, linking this post to one of my favorite blogs to check out, remodelaholic

I finished my big project!!

Finally , after what seemed like million days, I am done with my big project. I remember mentioning it some time ago, can't remember when though.

So I had this dream of transforming a dead place between the rooms into a work of art, it's a very small area, which in only used to get from one room to the other, so I thought I can really go wild with it.

First I wallpapered 2 thirds of the walls with pages from 3 different novels, i had to pick the pages because I didn't want to give the kiddo something steamy to read once her english is good enough :P

After that I waited forever to decide what do I want to do with the rest of the wall. I tried on some different colors, but I finally settled on using hot pink, it was called hibiscus on the paint chip and I liked it.

After two coats, came the desicion about a border. I initialy had in mind to stick some roses cut from napkins on the pages wall. but then I thought it would look nicer being used as a border , and I love the results.

Then I hung some artwork , and I still need a rug and then be done with it.

So tell me what do you think of this big project? I feel I need to paint the doors and door frames white, I don't like the brown at all, but I guess this have to wait for another time, I want to do some other nagging projects before.

When I didn't know what to do

I have a problem, I get bored easily. And a lot of the times I can get bored even when I have things to do, like I can finish reading the book I enjoyed, or cross stitching the purse I loved or watch the movie I downloaded and was eager to see and still get bored.

The only reason is that I already finished a few books, watched a few movies and cross stitched lots of things before, and I needed a new activity.

We don't have cinemas, museums, theater, zoos, good weather to go out , clubs, bowling or billiards places ( for women at least) or even scrapbooking shop to hang in it.. And if you want to go out it's either to eat ( which I have to stop doing much of) or shop ( I should stop that too cuz my place is already resembling a small shop itself!)

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about my city, there are many things in there I still like , specially when the weather is good, it can be one of the nicest cities to live in. But I only wish there were different things to do! like seeing a musical, playing bowling and watching a movie, flying in an air balloon or visiting an old castle ( things I did before and don't mind doing again)

I was talking to mom about that, and she suggested we go visit the Aramco summer cultural activities. It was a mainly kids thing but I was really in need to do something different that I agreed to that.

When we got there , it was in the afternoon and the weather was strangely not that bad, we walked a lot in open areas and didn't find it uncomfortable. Songs for kids was playing loud and the whole are was filled with cartoons painted on every wall or fence.

There were a few areas to see, one for science, one for general kids crafts and activities with a show from sesame street characters , but we didn't catch that from the start. There was also a theater which had different plays for different days, a huge food court , a heritage village tent which was greatly decorated and a tent with an exhibition of some great national geographic pictures.

All in all it was nice for a change 7amdillah, the kiddo played a bit, we walked a lot and saw people having fun and greatly organized activities I just wish I had some of that yummy smelling food :P


So I hope we can have lots of other interesting days with new things to experience in the future.

Finished purse

I finished my free Cath Kidston purse tonight, the cross stitching didn't take that long, and the sewing part was a bit hard since it's been a long time I sewed anything, I decided to add a lining to it, and I hand stitched the part attatched to the zipper cuz I don't have a zipper foot in my machine.

I like the look of it, I just don't know what am I going to use it for lol

I discovered to day a new to me show, it's called Mike and Molly and I read about it from a blog where the lady was talking about how some people reacted to the show by disliking it since it shows a full figured couples starting a relationship. That got my attention and I decided to google it, then watched the pilot and got hooked.

I personaly found the show - so far- a bit funny and a lot inspiring , gives someone hope for the future, that regardless of your shape or looks there is someone right for you, and you for them..
But I have to finish the season to see if I am still going to like it when it is over... Something to do :P

Cath Kidston books

As most of you can tell by now, I am a big Cath Kidston fan. And as much as I can , I like to have things from her line, or anything that resembles it.

So I was happy to hear about her books and the free kits they contain, I know they are not new, but to me they are, and I found out about them after I came back from England so it was too late for me .

But my dear friend, who has been in London for the last year and half, was coming for a visit on her way to Korea, and I asked her to get me the books.

When we met on saturday she gave me not only the two books I asked for, but a third one too

I was very happy with them, and as soon as I got the chance I started working on the free purse that was included in the stitch book, I am in love!

So far I loved all the projects in all three books, thanx my friend for such a precious gift
It seems like I might make a few of those projects for Eid gifts ;)

for sale

I was working on a craft project when I heard my little princess calling out for an opening of a new shop in the mall.. in case you didn't get it, we were home..

So I went to the "shop" to check it out, armed with my (fake) money ready to buy me some stuff.

Cute shop with the cutest shop owner mashallah. And this girl could really sell! good convincing logic she has mashallah, one day I will have to open a real shop-which she kept insisting we do since she was very little- and make her sell people our stuff ;)

Our friend from Jeddah is here for the weekend and we are having a great time with her, and inshallah two other friends will come soon , I like visits from friends :)