Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Link Party No 59/ Ruffle Top for a Baby


I moved the tutorial for this project here.

Ok, I bet you all are busy with 4th of July just around the corner. Still, do you have any projects that you want to show off and share with everybody? If so, you came to the right place! Here are the rules;

1. Please post something YOU made. It doesn't matter if it is crochet, quilt, clothing, anything would be fine. I want to see it! If you use someone's idea or patterns please give them the rightful credit.

2. Link to your specific post, that way it is easier for everybody to find and read it.

3. Please grab the "Tea Rose Home" grab button, and link back from your post. If you can mention the party in your post or place the button on your side bar, that would be great! I want more people to have a chance to come and show off their creation.




Monday, June 27, 2011

Guest Posting at Living with Punks



I am guest posting at Living with Punks today. Please head over there to say hi to Susan and see what I did with some of my scraps. Here is the sneak preview...


You can find the complete tutorial for this project at Living with Punks; see you there! :)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Link Love No. 58!

Hey, I am back! You might be wondering where I was the last few days. I have been so busy with lots of other things (Psst, that includes the guest post I am doing for Living with punks on Monday...) and couldn't do a post for a couple of days.

Today we had BIG block party with our neighbors and it was lots of fun! I did a face painting booth for the kids and it was a great turn out. Pretty much there was a long line pretty much the whole time. I was going to take some pictures to share, but I did not have a moment to do so.

Well, I had lots of projects that I loved at this link party; it was so hard to choose only five projects! I went back and forth and I finally picked five projects that I am going to highlight this week. I am sorry if you did not get picked this time, but I really appreciate all of your participation in my link party. Thank you!

Ok, the first one... My jaw almost dropped when I saw this charm bracelet. Can't Stop Making Things created this one of a kind very unique piece of jewelry. I need to keep some of my kids small toys, just to make this bracelet!


This is one of those "WOW" projects too. Do you have unattractive book shelves or TV armoire made out of laminate? Well, DIY Kinda Girl did an amazing job on transforming those type of furniture! She shares what kind of products she used to accomplish the project on her blog, go check out how she did it! :)


The Fourth of July is just around the corner, have you decorated your house for one of the biggest holidays yet? Just Sew Sassy shares a step by step tutorial on how she made this unique patriotic pinwheel burlap wreath on her blog. So pretty!


I have to agree with what Simple Simon & Co said, peg dolls are not for girls anymore! They did such a great job on these that my view of peg dolls has totally changed! I know my boys (I mean my hubby included) would LOVE these!


I believe she is new to my link party...4 the Love of Woodshared this beautiful piece of furniture she transformed. I love the writings on top, it adds character and beauty. Thank you for stopping by and come again! :)



Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Link Party No. 58! / A Mom's Mumblings

Note: If you haven't had a chance to read my last post about the June promo at Silhouette, don't forget to read it! Find out how you can get a special offer using the promo code provided for Tea Rose Home readers!


I am planning for tomorrow's cooking class for my kids (and one of Michael's friends. Michael is super excited, and actually, he is still awake in his bed).

Sometimes I wonder what it was like to be a child, you know, that age group older than five and younger than 10. I am trying to see the everyday life through their eyes (of course it's not like that all the time. It seems to only happen when I am in-tune).

I have lots of memories from my childhood, bits and pieces and very eclectic. Although, some of the memories stick out more than the other where there are strong vivid colors and even smells. It is surprising how well I can remember certain things.

As a mom, I hope I can help my kids to fill their mental scrapbook with happy memories. So when they grow up and start living in the "real world", they can pull them out whenever they want, even on blue days.

Making happy memories could be something as simple as taking them to a park, baking for them (they love the smell of cookies & cakes! They come running from wherever they were), play games with them, look them in the eyes when they are talking... (I don't know about you, but sometimes even things like these take effort and planning).

Today...

They were SO excited about bugs Christopher brought home from summer school. We made a home for them, and the kids kept staring at them for a long time.

They were SO happy that the water melon I cut for them was so red and sweet.

Rachel was SOO scared when she found a spider on the floor; she screamed and jumped on the chair. She didn't stop screaming. I had to stop cleaning the bathroom to smash the spider for her. After that she was SO happy and grateful.

I wonder what will make them happy tomorrow. :)

OK, it's time for you to link up your projects. Happy linking & visiting each other!

As always here are the rules:

1. Please post something YOU made. It doesn't matter if it is crochet, quilt, clothing, anything would be fine. I want to see it! If you use someone's idea or patterns please give them the rightful credit.

2. Link to your specific post, that way it is easier for everybody to find and read it.

3. Please grab the "Tea Rose Home" grab button, and link back from your post. If you can mention the party in your post or place the button on your side bar, that would be great! I want more people to have a chance to come and show off their creation.




Monday, June 20, 2011

Review ~ Silhouette / Tattoo Paper ~


I have been wanting to buy a Silhouette for a while. I was going back and forth if I had the machine; would I really use it or would it just collect dust (since I am not really tech savvy)... then, a few weeks ago I was contacted by the makers of Silhouette to write a review for their product.
I was SO excited for this opportunity I literally squealed when I read the email! (Thank you!)

Just in case you haven't heard of this amazing machine called "Silhouette", let me tell you little about it...

The Silhouette is a digital cutting tool that you can hook up to your computer just like a printer, but instead of printing designs it cuts them with a small blade. You'll get access to all of the fonts on your PC plus the thousands of cutable designs found in the Silhouette Online Store.

What I love about Silhouette is, I can pick and choose the cuttable designs and buy them separately (most of them are 99 cents a design!) instead of buying a cartridge with many designs that I don't need or use. How awesome is that?

Also, I LOVE the designs they provide, they are fresh, stylish and modern. Not only that, you can create your own designs too. I am not there yet, but I would love to try that someday. :)

Silhouette is doing a special promo for the month of June with temporary tattoo paper (Tea Rose Home readers will receive a special discount, read the post till the end! :) )

I was asked to use tattoo paper, and I decided to make some of the play things for my kids.

Some mustaches...

Trust me, he is really excited about the mustache, but he was worried that if he smiled it would ruin the mustache (It wouldn’t once it dried). He was giggly before I put that on his face.


I don't know what character he was playing but he was totally into it.


At first I wasn't going to give her the mustache, but she really wanted a mustache just like her brothers.


I made lots of scars for their sword fights... (not that my kids don't have real ones from rough housing)


Also, I have a fairy in my house now.


Wouldn't it be so fun to have temporary tattoos like these for birthday parties? Their birthdays are coming up; I think my kids and the guests would love them!

Oh, in the beginning of the post I mentioned that I was worried that if I wouldn't use the machine and it might collect a dust? No, I don't think that is a concern...

I was so psyched about the silhouette machine, I made (with my beloved friends help)cupcake wrappers too. I have other design ideas (I especially want to try some projects with fabric interfacing) for using this machine, it will be so fun to experiment with it!



Ok, here is the great part everyone, Silhouette is going to run a special promo from June 21st through the 29th. During this promotion, my readers can get;

1 Silhouette SD

2 Packages of Temporary Tattoo Paper

All for $199 (U.S. only), that is 120 dollars in savings!

Also, 25% off all other products in the Silhouette shop (excluding gift cards and download codes)! The promo will run June 21-29. Just enter the promo code: TEAROSE when you check out.

This is such a great deal! If you were looking for some projects for this summer, Silhouette is the way to go!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Link Love No 57!

Oh, I had a full week! Between the kids’ summer school, extracurricular activities, and family get-togethers, the time flew by so fast. I made time to do cooking school for my kids last week. I taught them how to make Japanese style curry. I pretty much let them do everything. I had them washing the veggies, cutting them and all the other stuff that needed to be done. There were a few times that I was on edge watching my son cutting the vegetables. The knife was SO close to his fingers, I thought he was going to chop the tip of his fingers off!

I guess I am little bit of a perfectionist, and deep inside I had to fight the urge not to interfere.

Surprisingly they did a great job, and pretty much did everything by themselves. The curry tasted so good too!

Several people asked me if I am doing a cooking school post to share the recipes and stuff. I thought about it, but I decided not to.

If I decided to make this into a post, I don't think I can enjoy the time with my kids as much. I might be more worried about taking good pictures as such and not focusing on my kids. That kind of defeats the purpose.

So, I am sorry, I am not doing cooking school posts each week. I might share the recipes later on though.

Ok, here are the link loves for this week!

Check out these cute gift boxes! Sandy is such a genius person to come up with all of her paper creations. Her design idea is so clever!


I am in love with color orange lately, and these sailor shorts by The Girl stuck out to me. Isn't this so adorable? I love the contrast of the fabrics and the buttons. So cute!



Bless by Tone shared this really unique and fun project. She created a space that transforms for each seasons. This can be a shelf, then it can turn into a plant table and finally it can become a summer bench. Isn't it such a great idea?


One of the skills I would love to develop and get better at is knitting and crocheting. Maya from Little Treasures makes beautiful crochet items. The colors on those headbands are so pretty and vibrant. Thank you for sharing!


Simple Simon & Co shared a great tutorial to make kids chairs! Go check out her blog to see how she did it. Those chairs are so perfect for the back yard and taking on campouts.



Thank you all for your participation. You guys are so awesome! Have a great summer!

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Reason for You to Stay(UP)



Have you noticed there have been so many pretty dresses out there for summer? I always loved dresses, to me they are comfortable, easy (you don't have to coordinate the top and the bottom) and instantly make you look feminine.

I guess one of the trends is the tube top maxi dress. I have seen many pretty prints so far. Although, I have a love and hate relationship with "tube" tops or dresses. The problem?

They don't stay up.

I don't know if it's just because I don't have enough volume around the area where it is needed. After having three kids and going through breast feeding for each child, they simply disappeared... that's ok, I am not bitter. I think my three munchkins are totally worth it.

Those of you who have no idea what I am talking about when I say "they don't stay up", here is the example.

I was at Wal-Mart one day happily shopping (wearing my tube top dress) I thought, "Boy, I keep stepping on my dress. It is hard to walk!"

I looked down, and the tube part was becoming a "tummy warmer".
Are you in shock? Well, don't worry, I always wear stuff like that with something underneath. There wasn’t a "Shocking" costume malfunction episode, but it was still embarrassing to pull the dress up and fix it. Rather annoying too!

I bought the dress you saw in the picture at the end of last summer at Old Navy for around $7. As I expected it was kept sliding down.

When there is a problem, there is a solution (hopefully most of the times). I decided to cut off a couple inches from the hem, and made shoulder straps for the dress. No more looking down to check if the dress is still in the right place, I love it!

Now, there is a reason for the dress to stay up. :)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Link Party No. 57!

You probably have noticed that last three posts were about my kids and what I did with them. I have been working on some projects on the side and those posts are coming up, and there are some projects that I can't share with you yet.

As much as I want to do more tutorials and sewing posts, I want to take advantage of the summer schedule to do a lot of things with my kids too! They grow up so fast; I want to make fun memories with them. :)

OK, show off your creations, sewing, crocheting, and/or cooking. Anything you have made is welcome. Link up and have fun! :)

As always here are the rules:

1. Please post something YOU made. It doesn't matter if it is crochet, quilt, clothing, anything would be fine. I want to see it! If you use someone's idea or patterns please give them the rightful credit.

2. Link to your specific post, that way it is easier for everybody to find and read it.

3. Please grab the "Tea Rose Home" grab button, and link back from your post. If you can mention the party in your post or place the button on your side bar, that would be great! I want more people to have a chance to come and show off their creation.




Monday, June 13, 2011

Children's Art Festival

Before I start this post...there were many people who asked for my pot sticker recipe from the last post. I actually blogged about it the recipe a while ago. If you go to the comment section of my last post, you will find my comment with the link to the pot sticker recipe. Enjoy!

One of the things I did last Friday with my kids was to take them to a Children's Art Festival held near where I live. There were 20 art booths where they can go and make things, and the great thing about this is, it is all free!


There were so many people there, it was a miracle that someone pulled out of a parking spot right in front of me and I was able to get it.

They had fun experimenting with different types of art projects. Most of them were really easy to do. I think I am going to let them do more art project like that this summer.



Besides getting there a little late, we had to wait a long time at the face painting booth. So we couldn't go to all 20 booths, but they were so happy that they got their faces painted.

Do you want to see the results?

Child 1 with rainbow and cloud:


Child 2 with Green lantern symbol and eye patch:


Child 3 with a new set of eyes...really? Is he really mine? He looked kind of creepy.


After the art festival, we had to go get some things at Wal-Mart really quick. Child 3 with his new eyes got so much attention (he loved it) at the store. People would start smiling and laughing, and some people made funny remarks.

My favorite reactions were from the small kids and babies. Some of the babies and toddlers would just stare at him very intensely. They could not take their eyes off of him even though their moms kept pushing the cart forward; even when they were far away the babies would still keep looking at him. Child 3 had a blast creeping people out; he couldn't help himself from giggling. A whining toddler who was following his mom saw him and jumped up on the side to get out my son’s way, but the whole time he was staring at him. I guess even the littlest kids could tell there was something akward about my son’s face. Writing this makes me laugh, even now. :)

I hope we can create fun memories like this as a family throughout the summer!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sachiko's Cooking School

The last couple years I have made a giant calendar that lets me see the whole schedule for summer vacation. To have all the events, kids extra curricula activities, play dates, family functions and trips all in one sheet paper! I write down all the free activities that are happening in the area that I can take my kids to. This has worked so well that I made one for this summer too.

My kids behave better when we have a schedule, planned activities and something they can look forward to. I also do many art projects, but this year, I added something else on the list for them to do...

Sachiko's Cooking School


I think that my kids are old enough (especially the older two) to learn more cooking. They can cook mean scrambled eggs, pizza toast and such, but they are ready for more.
I asked them what they think about attending my cooking school once a week and they were SUPER excited! I asked them what they wanted to learn. Some of the things are...

Pot stickers, curry rice, yakisoba, fried rice, tempura...and the list goes on.
Aren't they ambitious? Maybe they were just shouting out the things they want to eat, but I love their enthusiasm. :)

I had my first cooking class this week. They learned how to make pot sticker. They washed, cut vegetables, and had so much fun doing so. We all sat around the table to wrap the pot stickers, just like I used to with my sister and mom growing up. They did such a great job.

Here are the pictures of pot stickers that they wrapped.

Apprentice no. 1 (5 years old)


Apprentice no. 2 (8 years old)


Apprentice no. 3 (10 years old)



They were so excited to serve them to the ultimate food critic (my hubby). The pot stickers turned out so good that the kids had big smiles on their faces and full tummies.

After the dinner, apprentice No. 2 was asking me; "Mom, what are you going to teach us tomorrow?"

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Hello My Name is...

Whew...I am back! Thanks to my sweet husband, he was able to save all the pictures, and everything up and running. Yea!


A few weeks ago, I was asked to sew a bunch of parts for sock monkeys. There is a summer camp for young women in our church, and this is a craft activity that they are going to do. All I needed to do was to cut and sew the parts, so they can stuff and put them together. The person asked me to do this got the idea from Sock & Glove there are a very easy to follow instructions in the book.

Near the end of it, I was getting very fast at sewing them. Then, I remembered the socks I bought a while ago were intended to make Rachel's leg warmers. I decided to make a sock monkey for her instead.

Since this monkey is for her, I thought it would be a good idea to include her in some of the decision making.

For example, I asked her what kind of eyes we should give the monkey, and we went through my button case. Here are my picks...




Cute, but predictable right? Here are the Rachel's picks...




Cute and unpredictable. The combination of different shapes and it is hard for you to tell by these pictures, but the red and aqua colored buttons are SO HUGE, that they would cover half the face of the monkey. She will look like an alien.

Every time she found new buttons for the eyes, she would hold them up to the monkey's face and laugh real hard. The laugh was so contagious that I started laughing too! I quickly realized that she was enjoying this but not serious about picking the eyes to give the monkey a pretty face.

So I said (imagine that I am using my "nice voice" and acting that I just discovered something amazing) "oh, look, there are these buttons that are perfect for her!" and picked the eyes and sewed them on.

Then, I was going back and forth about what to do with the nose. No nose? or this and that, there were a few options but I couldn't decide.
I asked Rachel, "What about her nose?"

She exclaimed, "NO nose!” followed by a giggle.

So, I said "Oh, look, if I do this, she can breathe better!" and quickly sewed two lines for the nose. Luckily she liked it too.

At last, the monkey was complete, except her name. I was talking to myself (loudly), "hmm...what should I name her..."

Then Rachel said, "Chef Boyardee!!" (Yes, I feed my kids chef Boyardee sometimes, don't judge me...) she was laughing so hard, she almost fell off the couch.

I said, "No, I want a different name... (the pause is for giving her the opportunity to come up with a different name)"

Again, she said "Chef Boyardee! hahahah". She was just so fond of her brilliant idea of coming up with such a name; she didn't let it go.

We repeated the same conversation a more few times, then, my son Michael who was watching TV there had enough. He said, "How about Lulu or Lala."

Ha! I liked the sounds of it, so did Rachel.

So, her name is....



Thanks to Michael, she didn't end up with the name "Chef Boyardee".
Rachel was just so pleased that she was in the important decision making process (even though they weren't the final picks. :) ) She held Lulu in her arms and went to play.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Computer Problems

Sorry I didn't get a post out yesterday. Something went terribly wrong with our computers. Either it was a virus or some sort of malware or spyware; so we've had to physically disconnect our computers from the internet until my husband can clean them off and restore them.

Fortunately I was able to save all my photos and such and should be able to resume posting again either tonight or tomorrow.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Tutorial ~ Ruffle Top for a Baby ~


Hi all! I made this top for my neighbor's new baby a while ago. I will share a quick tutorial with you.

1. I bought the type of underwear that folds in the front like kimono. You will need a shirt, and some lace.


2. Treat the edges of the lace with Serger or zigzag stitches.


3. I folded 1/2" from the rough edge of the lace and sewed two lines using the largest stitch setting. One is 1/8" from the edge, the other 1/2" from the edge. Then pull those two threads to make ruffles.


4. Pin the lace onto the front edges along the neck line. Sew in the middle of the two stitched lines. Repeat the process to make one more ruffle out of a lace and sew it on to the bottom edge.



Since I don't have a baby anymore at home (even though my children seem to act like it sometimes...), it is so much fun to come up with little baby items to work on. Don't you think there is something about baby stuff that brings smiles, "ohhh"s and "Ahhh"s?
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