My first 3D bento

Feeling very inspired by fellow bento-ers, I decided to try out a 3D figurine. I'm not a very organised person and for the fact that I do not have a lot of storage space for my bento stuff, I keep them in a shelf in boxes and sometimes, when I feel like making a bento, I do get lazy thinking of having to dig into the big pile. So, more often than not, it's the latest bento accessories which are near at hand, that get a chance at being in the limelight.

My newest gadgets are stored in a container on my dining table so that I have quick access to them. I decided to make a sealed sandwich with seaweed and sesame seed pork floss that I picked up from Bee Cheng Hiang. I'm waiting anxiously for my little pocket sammies mould to arrive. This mould was a gift from a friend who knows that I love to bento and who follows my blog quite religiously. Thank you for your support, dear friend. I am also happy to know that she has started making pretty bentos for her girl to take to school.

I gave her a set of cutters recently and if I'm not wrong, they were the bear set and the one I used today is the rabbit one. I hope that it gives her an idea as to what you can do with the cutters if you can just be a little creative. I think I did quite ok considering I'm not a terribly creative person. :) I'm still learning every day.

I used the big pink cutter for Miss Bunny's body and cutting off the ears from the head of the bunny, I made them into her legs. The oval cutter was used for her paws and the round blue cutter for her nose. I put the tiny pink round cutter in the photo by mistake. The red stick helped when I needed to remove the cut cheese from the cutters.

My initial plan was to use the sliced cheddar as her head and body but found it to be too light in colour. Decided to use the smoked cheese to make those instead so that it would stand out from the white of the bread.

We attended a birthday party on Sunday and part of the day was spent at Lilliput's indoor mini golf and the second part was spent at The Icing Room at Tampines Mall where the girls got a 4" cake each to be decorated in any way they liked. This is my girl's creation. She did it all by herself. :D I think she did a great job.

K2C Graduation Party

My daughter's class is the only class that has birthday invites all year round. I once asked the Chinese teacher if the other classes were the same. Apparently not. As a result of these parties, the parents have gotten to know each other pretty well. And without a doubt, the entire class will be invited if anyone in class is celebrating their birthday, unless if it's a sole girls' party then the poor boys are not invited. When we found out that the end of year celebration was a joint picnic with the entire school, we decided to have a party specially for our class. And after much emailing to and fro with over 18 sets of parents, we finally decided upon a date - 30Nov. It was not easy, I can tell you that. Just arriving on that date alone gave me lots of headache. People were travelling or had this and that thing on. At the end of it, someone said for me to just decide a date and people just had to change their schedules around. But luckily I didn't have to make that difficult decision as we manged to agree on that one day. Phew!

The dessert table. One mum ordered these beautiful agar-agar (see the graduate as well as the word 'congratulations'?). They were so beautiful no one could bear to cut them and they were there for a lonnnnggg time.

This pinata was handmade by one of the kids' mums. What a fantastic piece of work!

Birthday Party

For S's party, G catered from the prison's catering service. It's not the first time that she's ordered food from them. The quality of the food is great. The cereal prawns were a favourite with most.

The broccoli and cauliflower was lovely.

For me, I loved the Ayam Masak Merah.

There was a candy floss machine.

As well as a caricature artist.

Time for cake.

Art Boot Camp

We were invited to an Art Boot Camp party and it was lots of fun for the kids. It was something different from the usual parties that we've attended. It engages kids in something that they all love - painting. And best part is parents don't have to do a thing. We just mingled, chatted, ate. There were beautiful canvas (done by the kids) to take home as gifts.

Some of the childrens' artwork.

I do highly recommend this party venue for anyone planning a party.

Art Boot Camp -

BUKIT TIMAH CAMPUS

ADDRESS
200 Turf Club Road #01-23A, Turf City
Singapore 287994
(across from Sixth Avenue. Off Dunearn Road)

CONTACT
Tel: 6469 5525/5535

The man in the balloon

Over the weekend we attended a birthday party. It was a combination party for both the girl and boy, as they share the same birthday month, thus the two initials on the cakes.

This balloon man amazed me at the funfair that we had last month as he was fantastic with his balloon creations. P decided to use his services and boy, were we wowed! The man in the balloon act was a bonus that we didn't expect. I think he was fantastic and he grabbed our attention with that particular act. Before that, I wasn't paying attention to him at all. Unfortunately I am not planning anymore big birthday parties for my girl or I would not hesitate to use him. It was a lovely gathering for us mums too. It's our last year together and once everyone goes off to P1 next year, there'll be less time for each other, so we're making the most of it now. :)

Note - That's 5 posts for one day which should make up for the shortage of posts for the week gals. ;) Hope you are happy. :D

Dinner, etc

My offering for dinner this evening... finally tried the deep fried prawns in the netted wrap as recommended by Jo. It was lovely and tasty, and best of all, so easy to do. I just seasoned the prawns with a light sprinkling of salt and black pepper before frying. It is served with Thai sweet chilli sauce. Unfortunately I couldn't get the mango to go with it. Hope I spy some mangoes in the supermarket soon. It'll make this dish splendid! I loved it, since I love prawns and anything to do with them. The black dish in the foreground is fish flakes. I remember when I was young, my Ah Ma used to take the flesh off fried fish which we didn't finish the night before, flaked them, and stir fried with black sauce and some sugar. What I used was fresh fish though. Princess is not into fish. She refuses to eat them now, so I either force her to (in the case of cod), or else I 'camouflage' it this way. ;)

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A Princess Party

We were invited to little Princess Anna's party yesterday. She turned 3. Can't believe that her mum and I have known each other since we were 7. Wow, sure is amazing considering how we lost contact for a couple of years. I treasure old friendships from way back when...

The kids had a great time. There was the magician from one of our previous birthday parties (couldn't believe that he still remembers my girl by name!) and also the tattoo artist from our last birthday party. I even managed to get a flower drawn on one arm. :)

There was a good mix of spicy as well as non-spicy food. Needless to say, I veered towards all the curry and chilli. :) The fish was very very good. I'm so in love with it, although I doubt I can re-create it. The hosts had catered the buffet from a Nonya restaurant called Baba King.

Anna's mum gave me this gift from Hokkaido which her lovely hubby picked up specially on his recent trip to Japan. She said it was very good and I totally agree with her. It's sort of like rice krispies coated in chocolate but a hundred times better. Very light and tasty as the wrapper proclaims it to be. Look out for it next time you are in Japan. You won't be disappointed.

THE party

I can't believe that I am sitting here at 3am and doing a post! Why I am awake at this ungodly hour is because the princess woke at 2plus coughing and I couldn't fall back to sleep after being woken. Thus I am here now. I should be snuggled up in bed recovering from the excitement of the past few days, with the princess falling sick the day before school started, on Thursday, and all the buzz with preparing for her party happening at the same time. It was a test of my endurance to the limit. I've never been so challenged before, taking care of a sick child and surviving on very few hrs of sleep a day, and doing such a huge amount of work at the same time. She seldom falls ill, and hardly this bad. And it had to happen now of all times. Since Friday, she was waking up in the early hours of the morning - 3am, 5am, and then on Saturday night, after baking the entire day, I was all ready to rest early so I'd be up bright and early, and all rested for Sunday's madness, but no, our friend had other ideas. She was coughing continuously we all couldn't even go to sleep till after 12am! And considering I had to wake at 6am to prepare the food, I was in bits! I just have to thank the good Lord that I was in good health and able to accomplish loads.

I am never EVER going to have a noontime party again! It's crazy! I just have to say I'm VERY relieved it's all over. But then again, I have told her that this is the last big party we are having. She has agreed to it. From next year, we will only have a few very close friends, and I do mean it. I know of poor G who said that, when her girl turned 6, but still has no choice but to have big parties. Haha. Speaking of which, I'm sorry G and her family were not able to make it due to family commitments.

Preparations started earlier in the week when I made the pasta sauce to freeze, then baking of cuppies on Saturday all day. And finally on Sunday morning - baked chicken wings, prepared sushi rice and ingredients, iced cuppies, rolled sushis, etc.

I almost abandoned the sushi last minute as I was very rushed for time. However, I'm glad I persevered and was rewarded. My shifu, Minako, says I did well, that they were nice and round, and not like mountains this time! Hurray! That's what stress produces? Haha. Perfect round sushi! Yay!

Photos didn't turn out too well. Most were blur. Sad, as I used 'auto' on the camera. I usually do 'manual'. I mean how bad can 'auto' turn out? Beats me!

On the menu we had sushi, pasta in bolognaise sauce, chicken hotdog, some little salad, baked chicken wings, which were prepared by moi. Then I ordered fried beehoon from the market stall downstairs my place; curry chicken from a hawker stall in Suntec; canape and chocolate coated strawberries courtesy of princess' godpa from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf; pizza from Canadian 2 for 1; some fruits. Am glad all the pizza were gone, and pasta too which had half a pot of sauce remainder. I panicked and quick thinking me got godpa to check if he could help get some from the outlet. Thank goodness he managed to get us more pasta. I can't thank him enough. And also the lovely coffee which was a hit.

The curry chicken was loved and devoured by all. Lovely with the beehoon or the crusty baguette.

Time for cake. I would like to thank Cranberry for showing in her blog the icing printouts and eagle-eyed me for spying them. I was actually looking a few months back on the internet for these, and Cranberry directed me to her friend Zu who printed them. Thanks to both you ladies, and it was a real pleasure to meet Zu who so kindly met me closer to my home during her lunch hour. Thanks very much.

The icing I did didn't turn out too well as I was truly pressed for time. I whipped it too stiff so it was a little tough to pipe them out, but still managed in the end. No time for perfection. Looking at Cranberry's really put me to shame. Such perfect stars.

It was a craft party, namely t-shirt printing. I don't have photos to show as I was too dazed to even take photos of the kids at work. At that point, I was just working on autopilot. Friends who spoke to me during the party, I'm sorry but at times, nothing was going through my brains.

I had wanted to do cupcake decorating with the kids but no time to even prepare the icing so that activity was abandoned. And besides, quite a number of them had to leave by 2pm, so there wasn't really much we could do.

The other activity was nail art done by princess' friend's mum, Daph. She was all prepared, with a portable fan to dry the nails, and one mum guest even asked if she was a professional. Hahaha. The birthday girl gets special stickers on her nails - her favourite butterflies.

I was, however, disappointed with the tattoo artist. I had booked her for 1pm, partly my fault, as I thought it'd be nice if she came after they had all eaten. But when I heard that some kids were leaving early, I messaged her to come at 12plus. Unfortunately, she came too late, at almost 1.30pm. I feel really apologetic that some kids didn't have a chance to have paintings done on them.

However, this artist is really talented. I mean I have seen my fair share of people doing body art, but not this kind of standard. While speaking to the artist's mum, I found out that she was the one at the recent EA Christmas party we attended just last month. No wonder, when I saw the girls at the party with tattoos, I said it to G that hey, that looks like the work of the artist I hired. These are her signature works.

She did a Rosella. For those who are not familiar with Rosella, she is Barbie as the Island Princess, in the latest Barbie movie. Rosella was a favourite pick among the girls.

Ariel was the second favourite choice.

She also does beautiful fairies.

In ending, I would like to thank so many people. This would not have been possible at all without my group of trustworthy friends and cousin who constantly help me out each time. For putting up with all my nonsense, very high standards, and all the last minute things I throw out at you. For the message that came through last night, saying, 'do you need me to come in early to help you set up?'. That really warmed my heart. I wasn't expecting that as she has a new baby to care for. Thanks a bunch, Daph. Your little prince is very handsome. And even hubby thinks he looks ang moh. I don't know how you gonna convince others that Chak is the daddy! Hahaha. I think it's because he is too fair for a pure Chinese and also the light brown hair. Hey, you think that got to do with you always colouring your hair? Hahaha. Also, thank you for the echinacea you brought for little princess. That was really thoughtful of you. And thanks, Chak, for so kindly preparing them into syringes all ready for consumption.

To the godparents, I can't say thank you enough. For everything. I'm sorry I had to dump all the dirty work on you, K, and thank you for being one of my great friends.

To Jill & Sam, thank you too, for always picking up the pieces along the way. Sis and Lyn for tidying up after, carrying all the stuff back to the house, and Lyn for playing with princess after she woke.

You guys are my rock. :)

Also not forgetting the people I neglected as I was too busy or tired. Thanks for your understanding.

Ok, ok enough already with the Oscar speech. It is time to go back to bed. Hope I can sleep now.

That should satisfy some for my week of missing posts? ;)