The One About My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Did you notice the updated sidebar on my blog? My work on the baby shower gift paved the way for me to be featured on One Pretty Thing! I'm supposed to be doing my thesis but I'm too over the moon to be doing it seriously! Hahaha!

The One About the EARCOS lootbags

Just over the weekend, I attended the EARCOS Teachers' Conference 2010 at the International School Manila. A lot of delegates from other international schools around Asia attended the annual event. I was looking forward to joining the workshops lined up. More than that, though, I was excited to see my friends and former colleagues from Cebu International School.

I prepared for their arrival by making Alice in Wonderland-inspired loot bags to give to my friends. Here's how I made them:

Start with a 1/2 cardstock. Put double-sided tape on one end of it.

Pull the strip of tape off.

Form a roll by making the two ends of the cardstock meet, sealed by the tape.

Now, put double-sided tape inside one end of the cardstock roll, strip it off, and press the edges to seal.

I used my paper crimper to crimp the edge.

Nice, isn't it? I love my paper crimper!

I made "Eat Me" labels -- inspired by the recent Alice in Wonderland movie. To make it a tad humorous, I added the words "when you get bored at your workshop." :)

Made a bunch of them!

Next, seal the other end of the cardstock roll by pressing it in the opposite direction, ending with a triangular packet. Seal with double-sided tape and crimp it as well. Don't forget to fill the packet with candies and treats. I filled mine with coffee candies to fight boredom (haha!) and threw in some mints as well.

Tadaaaaaa!

More on the serious side of EARCOS in my next post. Until then, happy crafting!

The One About Baby RG

I like making baby crafts. My Cebu-based friend (a former colleague at Cebu International School), Gade, will be giving birth soon to a baby girl. She e-mailed me recently to invite me to attend her baby shower but I couldn't go since I was in Manila. I wanted to give her a gift anyway, so I came up with this simple baby shower gift.

I wanted to do an alphabet silhouette frame at first. I love the drama that silhouettes evoke and I thought maybe I could make one for a baby - a fresh change from all the cutesy baby shower gifts. Eventually, I decided it would be nicer to concentrate on the baby's initials with silhouettes of pictures that begin with the initials of the baby's name.

I texted her to ask for her baby's name but, according to her, it was still a secret. I asked for the initials, instead, and they turned out to be "RG" -- Teddy Bird's real name initials! :)

I printed the initials from a computer then traced and cut them out from white construction paper.

I got cliparts of a rabbit (R is for rabbit) and a girl (G is for girl) and found a way to make a picture story out of them. I traced and cut them out from construction paper too.

I arranged the cutouts on a pink construction paper as the background and glued them into place. The frame I used was given to me by Cebu International School when they used it to store my "Certificate of Appreciation" of service before I left. I've been wanting to find another use for it.

Tadaaaaaa!

I have friends from Cebu coming over to Manila next week. We will be attending the EARCOS Teachers Conference 2010 at the International School Manila. A number of international schools in Asia will be attending too. I'll just ask my Cebu International School friends to handcarry this gift for me when they fly back to the Queen City of the South (which I happen to miss terribly).

Speaking of EARCOS, I just thought of the perfect EARCOS lootbags to give to my friends! More on that soon!

Happy crafting!

The One About My "Nag-level Up" Budget Envelopes

Last Saturday after my Binondo birthday breakfast, I headed straight to Trinoma to meet up with Teddy Bird. While waiting, I decided to get started on my holiday shopping (yep, that early!) and looked for a gift for one of my nieces. I chanced upon this store called Beabi and found an answered prayer:

It was a receipt organizer!

I have been collecting receipts for some time now and I have been quite disorganized about them. When I get home from a trip to mall, I simply toss them on my table. However, I'm not really a serial receipt collector. I collect only receipts from establishments that promise tempting discount cards! So while the receipt organizer had a lot of pockets, I decided to use it as a budget envelope as well. Yes, even in this digital age where budgeting is conveniently done using computer software, I'm quite traditional about it and still use envelopes. Thing is, envelopes get crumpled and ruined in my bag. I saw a DIY tutorial in the internet and while I was itching to be crafty about it (and save a few pesos along the way), cardboard envelopes were still prone to wear and tear. So I decided that this receipt organizer would be a good buy (Ugh. I sound like Becky Bloomwood...) because it was durable.

I found the receipt/budget organizer to be rather boxy and wanted to soften it up. I searched the internet for some vintage-designed labels and found some at i-do-it-yourself:

Look at what I typed on them:

I'm hoping this pocket gets to be the thickest of them all. Hahaha!

Excess money from my weekly, weekend, and shopping expenses must be added to savings.

You may be wondering where the "Savings" pocket label is. I practice paying myself first so whenever I get my paycheck, the savings are deposited in my savings account right away. So no need to withdraw it and place it in the budget organizer lest I spend it all (Not so Becky Bloomwood, am I?)

I printed extra ones which were blank for future categories.

The nice thing was, even if the organizer was store-bought, I still found an excuse to get all crafty over it. :)

Happy crafting!

The One About the Binondo Breakfast

It was my birthday last February 24th. I turned *shudder* 28. As a simple celebration, I treated my family and relatives to my favorite breakfast place - Wai Ying! Introduced by Teddy Bird, Wai Ying is a small tea house in Binondo along Benavidez Street serving Cantonese fare. I especially love their siomai, hakaw, and radish cake. Anyway, we were 14 in all when we went there at 7am last Saturday and literally had a feast: bowls of fish and mixed meat congee, siomai, hakaw, kuchay dumplings, radish cakes, fried noodles, asado, roast duck, soy chicken, and yang chow fried rice. I might be forgetting something 'cause we ordered a lot. That was the highlight of my day. :)

Usually, when I have breakfast in Wai Ying, I stuff myself full that I don't get to eat lunch anymore. I thought it'd be that way last Saturday but then lunch time came around and I had pizza and pasta at Amici. Oh well... :)a

The One About Rent the Musical and Salcedo Market

Teddy Bird and I had a blast last weekend. Our weekend adventure began when we checked in at Salcedo Suites last Saturday. I discovered that the community at Salcedo was quiet and charming and was dotted with quaint, hole-in-the-wall restaurants. We spotted a World Topps place and had lunch there. I remembered enjoying World Topps when I was in college. Just when I thought it had fizzled out of the restaurant scene, we stumbled upon it in Salcedo and I was glad we did because the food was still good! As we feasted on their appetizer plate, Beef Salpicao Rice, and Sisig, every morsel of it was familiar and yet had a comforting note to it.

That afternoon, we dropped by the Salcedo Park to check out the Salcedo Market because, for the longest time, I have been wanting to go there.

An art fair was going on that day and Teddy Bird and I looked around. I was on the lookout for something different in that place. Lo and behold! The gods must be smiling down at me for we saw this:

Wagyu cheesesteak sandwich!

The bread was soft and warm and the Wagyu beef was really soft and tender. Being big on cheese, the melted Provolone made it all delightful. I figured this sandwich went well with a can of super cold Coke but Teddy Bird thought otherwise:

Mojito at 4 pm! And he had two!

That night, we went to RCBC Plaza as I had bought us tickets to watch Rent the Musical.

It was really nice!!! Teddy Bird noted, though, that it was different from the first Rent production shown some years back. It was good, nonetheless. I love watching musicals and I'm happy Rent turned out to be good one.

The play ended at around 10:30pm and, being ravenous eaters that we were, we spotted a North Park restaurant - in Salcedo, of course - and had a not-so-light dinner of Yang Chow Fried Rice, Boneless Honey Pork Spaeribs, and Salted Squid fried in batter. Yummy!

The next morning after going to church, we went to trusty ol' Jollibee for breakfast. I love their Longganisa Rice meal and La Paz Batchoy. I never eat there without ordering La Paz Batchoy. :)

We checked out early and headed to Megamall where we met up with Teddy Bird's cousin who was joining the Philippine Food Expo. After some chitchat and going around the fair, we had lunch at Amici. I remembered having Amici back in Don Bosco when it was still owned by the Italian priests. It was my first time to eat there since it was bought by the Red Ribbon people. I was happy that the food still tasted the same and the prices were still reasonable. We feasted on their Capriccosa pizza, Aglio Olio pasta, Spaghetti Carbonara, and Mozzarella Frito.

Our tummies were super happy last weekend! Teddy Bird and I are still having withdrawal symptoms as we feel the weekend ended too soon. I guess the title of this post isn't really suitable considering the weekend appears to be more about the food than the play and the weekend market. Oh well...we were happy. That's all the matters. :)