Tuesday, May 28, 2013

How to Make a Silk Flower Arrangement

If you haven't entered in for a chance to win the cruise voucher for a family of 4, make sure to go to this post and do so!

I talked about making flower arrangement for my friend’s daughter, who is getting married soon, the other day. They have a modest budget, and they needed a large silk flower arrangement for the backdrop where the bride and groom are going to stand during the reception. I finished making it, and I am ready to share how I did it! I am no professional, but I thought it will be fun to show you what I did, and how easy it is to create your own silk flower arrangement. Thank goodness Joann Fabric was having a 50% off sale for all the spring silk flowers, I was able to stick to the $50 budget!

So, here is what you will need;

* Silk flowers (from right);

2 long stemmed white flowers
1 long stemmed red flower (have several branches, if not, you will need two)
2 med length white flower bushes
1 flower bush with red flowers

Left top, 1 white flower bush

Middle top, 2 bushes of white flowers it had about 12 flowers together

* Tools: glue gun, wire cutter, floral tape, wire and Styrofoam


{How to}

1. Put 2 white long stemmed flowers together at the stem ends. Secure it with floral tape in several places. Then, spread the branches apart. I pulled a couple of the longest branches downward.

2. Take long stemmed red flower and separate the branches with a wire cutter. Then, add them to step 1 with floral wire. Make sure that it looks symmetrical.

3. Add med length stemmed white flowers on both sides with floral wire.

4. Cut out the middle of the Styrofoam, so the stems from step 3 will fit. The reason why I took this route is that I was worried about breaking the Styrofoam by stabbing thick stems into it. Lay the stems down on the Styrofoam and secure it with wire. I also glued it with glue gun.

5. Cut and separate the white large flowers. You need some stems short and some long, so hold your horses until you balance them to see exactly how long you want the stem to be. For the one in the middle I cut the stem to be about 3" long. I poured some glue from the glue gun, and added it in the middle of the Styrofoam.

6. Take two of the white large flowers and cut the stem to about 6" long. Bend 1" from the flower to 90 degree, so when you add the flower to the Styrofoam, they will face front.

7. Repeat the process from step 6 and add more flowers to the top & bottom.

8. Use the rest of the flowers to fill in the open areas to make the flower arrangement full.

I had so much fun making it, and yesterday, the other person who is in charge of the decorations and I created the backdrop. Here are a couple pictures of the whole flower arrangement.


I can't wait to see both of them in front of the backdrop. It is such a privilege to be part of making their day special. :)

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

A Few Fantastic Nights

If you haven't entered in for a chance to win the cruise voucher for a family of 4, make sure to go to this post and do so!

Last Friday, a couple tickets to Les Miserables were given to us. Mr. TRH and I were able to have such a special (it was totally unexpected too!) date. I LOVE going to plays, but usually, we are too busy, or some of the ticket prices are a lot more than I can bear, we hardly ever do that. Les Miserables was one of the plays that I have always wanted to see. It was so wonderful, and there were several parts that I needed a tissue. Seriously, why didn't I think to take some? There were many times I was tempted to wipe my tears (and runny nose) on Mr. TRH's shoulder... I admire and appreciate the talents that other people possess so much. It was just a fantastic night.

Talk about a fantastic night! One of the things we started doing as a family since we started living at my in-laws is... Family walks.

They live near a nice walking trail, and we decided to take advantage of that. The thing is that I usually can't go on the family walks because I can't walk too much. If I do, it will aggravate my vein problem and I will be in pain for several days. Though, we found a wheel chair that Mr.TRH's grandmother used to use in the garage.

Yeah, take it for a spin! We really enjoy the time we spend together.


The last time I took my camera with me. I was clicking happily while Mr. TRH pushed me around in the wheelchair. Look at this amazing cloud. Watching the kids having a ball, talking to Mr. TRH, and taking pictures randomly... it cannot get better than that, oh wait! It did. We had ice cream after the walk. :)

What is your happy maker lately?

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Mother's day and ...

If you haven't entered in for a chance to win the cruise voucher for a family of 4, make sure to go to the the post and do so!

Hello! I have been scatter minded lately (as I talked to you a few posts ago...), but I have a lot of things that I have promised to do for blogging and non-blogging things. I have decided to make a list of them last night and clear my mind, and making a list may sound really simple, but boy it helped me so much to prioritize!

One thing I started doing today is making a flower arrangement for my friend's daughter's reception. Mainly, they are using real flowers, but they needed a flower arrangement with silk flowers as well. I haven't seen the flowers they ordered and I have no idea how they are going to arrange them. The only clue I have is the picture of the flowers and color scheme... hmmm... I hope I can make it work.

How was your mother's day? Mine was very relaxing and I enjoyed my family and extended family's company. I received a mother's day gift and cards from Mr.TRH and our kids. One of the cards I got from Rachel read:

Dear Mom,

Thank you for marrying my dad. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

love

Rachel

That was totally unexpected, and just gave me a huge grin. Seriously, what do you say to that? "your welcome?" :)

The day was a great reminder of how lucky I am to have the family that I have. Especially, to be a mother to all my kiddos.

I will share the flower arrangement when I am done. The wedding is getting close, and I should get working on it!

Friday, May 10, 2013

Summer is Near Necklace

I have been wanting to create a necklace that looks delicate, versatile, and has a little more detailed design than just stringing beads. I drew up some designs and came up with this...

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and had to take this for a test run. The beads and pearls I used are light beige, and as I predicted, it is pretty versatile with many different outfits. It has enough presence but it doesn't scream out "Look, I am here!"... this is exactly what I wanted. :)


I am going to make this with white or ivory beads & pearls in the near future. I think it will be a great addition to my summer wardrobe.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Norwegian Cruise Giveaway

It is that time of the year again…the kids will be out of school for the summer, and we get to have fun! We get to visit the fun places in our local area, such as museums, fun centers and pool. Plan a summer picnic with family and friends. Play outside all day and watch movies till their eyes droop. Sure, there are lots of things to do every day, but I also love going on a big family vacation too.

I don’t know about you, but it’s not like we can afford a costly family vacation every year. That is why when we have the opportunity to do so, it is such a big deal for us. To make sure that we get the maximum fun for our modest budget, I get busy researching and planning for our trip. What do I do and where to start? There are a few key points I think about when I am planning for our trip. 1. Where do we want to go? 2. What is our budget? 3. How do we get there? 4. Where do we to stay? 5. What kinds of activities are there? Are they going to satisfy everyone? What kind of restaurants are nearby? Of course your list might contain something different from mine, or the order might be different, but for our family vacation planning, those are the things that come to mind. Let me share some examples how I planned our family vacation according to my list…The last couple big vacations we took was to Lego Land and Sea World one year, and Disneyland another year.

Because we wanted to take our children to those places for a long time, the answer to the question No.1 was easy. The No. 2 question on the list… budget… Mr. TRH and I already had a budget, but we decided to add a bit extra just in case (which turned out to be a good thing… on one of our trips, our van broke down after we got to our hotel, we needed repairs and that cost us over $300!). No.3 on the list “how to get there?” took me a very long time, here is why. Because we drove instead of flying, I looked at the actual map and got on Google maps. I not only looked at the route from our home to the destination, after I decided on questions No.4 and 5, I went back and marked all the places we wanted to go. Then, printed out all the directions on how to get from point A to B, B to C, then C to A and such; then I put everything in a binder. You might think that this is unnecessary, but I am glad I did. Our navigator system wasn’t working, and we weren’t familiar with that area at all! That planning totally helped us and we never had problems finding places.

The next thing on the list was where we are going to stay. I started looking for all the nearby hotels. Comparing their prices, location, and all the amenities are very important. Also, some hotels have special offers such as combining hotel stay and Lego land/Disney Land park tickets. I spent a long time looking for great deals and it was totally worth it! No. 6 on the list is amenities, activities and restaurants. Since our vacations have been pretty economical ones, our family is pretty easy to please. Here are the few things I look for… a pool at the hotel is a “must”, being able to watch movies in our room, having a small refrigerator, and a microwave would be nice. I also look for other activities to do, and finding interesting restaurants is one of the exciting parts for our family. Phew… I feel like planning for the family vacation is a lot of effort and time. Don’t you agree? That is why one of my dream family vacations is to go on a cruise!

 

Have you checked out Norwegian Cruise Line lately? I have been doing some reading on their site and found out many awesome things about them! They offer Freestyle Cruising, there are so many activities and entertainment for people of all age groups, and the youth program seems very interesting. I have children ages 7 to 12 years old, and a 5 year difference at this age is pretty big. If we were taking our family on a cruise, I would want to make sure that we will all have fun. On their kids and youth program, there are many things that caught my eye. I know my kids will surely enjoy something like CIRQUE DU JOUR (a circus program) and many of their sporting activities. There are of course overall family-friendly ship features to enjoy too. After all, we go on a family vacation to enjoy each other and make lots of fun memories.  Head over to Norwegian’s site and find out more about their family vacation options.

 

Now, Norwegian and BlogHer are doing a sweepstakes for one grand prize - a cruise voucher for a family of 4!! This is one prize for all the blogs in the program---not a family cruise for each blog. “What is your dream vacation for your family?”  Answer in the comments section below for a chance to win!

 

Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: "#SweepstakesEntry"; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. The Official Rules are available here.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household. This giveaway is open to US residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. This sweepstakes will run from 5/7/2013 to 6/2/2013. Be sure to visit Norwegian Cruise Line's brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts! 

 

Good luck everyone!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Scatter Brained, Delayed Projects

I am leaving to pick up the kids in the middle of a project...
At the end of last week, our house building process finally started to show some progress. After I picked the kids up from school, I drove by the site to see if there were any changes on our lot and there were... They started digging!! As I was watching them digging the ground I had a huge grin on my face; I was so excited and simply couldn't help it. I just sat there and watched them dig for a while. I know they were working hard, but I felt like the process wasn't moving quickly enough. Oh, how I wished I could just jump in there with shovel to help them dig!

Ever since our family moved to our temporary place, my driving each day has increased. Now my kids' school is 5 cities away instead of 2 cities. I am saying this to myself every day, "This is only temporary, and less in than a month they will be out of school".

I have been busy with other things too, and that leaves very little time for my projects.

Though my friends, I am still here. I can't wait to share my new ideas and projects with you in the near future.

One of the other things is that contributing to my "Scattered Brain Syndrome" is that I have been thinking a lot about how I am going to decorate my new house. I go through the entire house in my mind and try to picture how I am going to decorate each room. I can't wait to share the interior decorating process once we move in. It will probably be a slow process because I really want to create lots of things myself, instead of buying everything from the furniture store.

Ambitious (or insane)? Maybe I just love the process of creating our living space from a "house" to a "home".

I would love to hear your decorating stories and tips. Is there favorite area in your house? Where and why? I am looking forward to hearing from you!
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