Amigurumi gift ideas

Sorry again for the long hiatus, but I am back for a bit! :) I started my internship 9 weeks back and I am inching towards the last week of my internship. It has been an interesting experience in this MNC, and I have learnt quite a lot. I do not regret giving up the other internship opportunity as I felt that this internship given me chances to try things I have never tried before, such as creating infographics and doing a presentation in front of fellow colleagues. At the same time, my colleagues are also very friendly. Since I would not ever be in this industry (Because I am not qualified), it has been a really good experience for me. :)

That being said, it is time to worry about farewell gifts for the colleagues! After thinking for a very long time, I decided to crochet some amigurumi for my colleagues. Since I have not made it known that I can do that, I figured it would be a nice surprise for my colleagues. At the same time, I can practise my crocheting skills. It has been a while since I crocheted, so I really really enjoyed it! :)
It is my last weekend, but I have not finished crocheting. I have been doing it on and off for the past week and a half and I still have some to go before I have something for everyone. Making stuff is one thing, but deciding what to give who is another thing. :/

So let me share what I have been making :D

First up, is this very adorable pacman ghost! This is the tutorial that I used to make the ghost. It was very fun to make. Thank you for sharing the tutorial, Ms premise conclusion!

Here's my pacman ghost. It does not quite look like a ghost with such cute eyes, but it's okay. I am thinking if I should embellish it with something. Hmmm.

Then, I found this tutorial for making a lemon. This one is for my fellow intern, who followed the other colleagues in putting lemon slices into the water then asked me if she can drink milk. She is so funny. Hahaha. When I told her the lemon water will react with the milk to become curd, she did not drink the milk. Hahaha. The only think about the tutorial is that I was not able to gauge where to put the eyes, so my lemon's eye came out a little too much to the left side. But I think it is still cute nevertheless.

Here's the lemon!

I found another tutorial which I could not resist. A tutorial on making a sperm whale! It is super adorable and the tutorial can be found here!

And here's my whale friend :)

Isn't this super adorable? I had so much fun making it! I was thinking of adding a suction it so that my colleague (who has a young child) can stick it on the car window. But I am still thinking about it. :)

Okay, so this is my super quick update on the stuff I have been doing lately. When I finish everything, I will post a picture with all the things I have made. I am going to be so busy hooking this weekend. :D

What's baking in the oven?

I have been a little lagging in my crafting lately. No craft inspiration:( On the other hand, I have been baking. A lot. I use my oven 3 times a week! Hahaha. Must be due to the long baking hiatus of 2-3 years. 

Best bread I have baked so far. It is really pretty and it tastes so good! :)

Made my very own vegetable soup, which was good, but the pea smell never went away. 80/100 because of that. I will make this again, but not too soon.

The bread after my best bread. Much uglier, but still fluffy. Salty for some reason. I was so upset after this because my attempt to bake 2 batches of bread failed big time. :(

Made my own vegetarian lunch on a stay home day. glass noodles with mock abalone and celery, rose scented tea from indonesia and green bean soup, which was funky. :/

Made more buttercream.

This was a good meal. roasted pork, roasted duck and chicken with romaine lettuce and an apple and pickles and an egg. Eaten through the day because it was wayy too much for one meal. Hahaha.

Nutella bars?! The nutella became dry and the bars were hard like rocks. :( Kinda disappointed since it was my first time trying out a bar recipe. 

First try at pizza baking. FAILED. Because the cheese was not nice! I am so sad about it. Because I was had high hopes. :(

Really fluffy white bread! It was nice! Some are wrapped with sausages and what not.

When I first started working as the receptionist, I ate Korean food because I was alone.
They served me 6 side dishes and I had jajameun(spelling?!) for $11. I think it was worth it^^

Found a place in marina square which had semi buffet. Not bad!

 Some fish for me.

Ugly little sausage bread which was not bad!

Potato with spring onions and ham and cheese. OMG. This was good.

Had dinner at this place for Patricia's birthday. The service was not good, but I lovelovelove the kiwi juice. Good juice they have there.

Went to the Japanese place again with my mom. I think she liked it. :)

Went to brew werks?! I forgot the name, but the food was okay. Typical western food place where I ordered my normal sandwich. Because you can hardly go wrong with bread, cheese and ham. Unlike my parents who ordered chicken and shepherd's pie respectively and had difficulty finishing their food. Hahaha.

Honey oatmeal bread which did not rise properly. I kind of did it in a rush. Maybe that's why it tasted so bad and dense. :(

Went with lynette to the standing sushi bar! 25 slices of salmon for $15! Such a good deal. I had it with $2 sake and we had ice cream after that. I like eating with lynette. Hahaha. We have really similar tastes for food. We order the same thing half the time. Hahahaha. Actually, anything with salmon works for us.

Whole meal tortilla that tasted just like tortilla. Hahaha. 

For all the good food that I have been enjoying, I now need to lose the weight I gained. T.T 

I have one week of holidays left. Let's endeavour to lose 2kg this week. :( 

belly too happy.

My belly has really been too happy lately! I ate a lot of food at home and baked quite a few times! I have started to love baking at home again.

First, in the beginning of June, I made tortillas. So simple, I will definitely make them again when I need them in the future. I forgot which recipe I used!

When I went to Chinatown with Fion and Josephine, we had Lerk Thai. I ate my Phad Thai as usual, but I did not really like it. I do not think I will patronize them again. I do not like their version of Thai food:/

I made whipped buttercream and peanut butter cream cheese. The former is better than the latter in my honest opinion. The whip cream makes a lot of difference in the texture of the buttercream. It is so much creamier, even I liked it. Note: I do not like creams in general!

This bread with the two spreads is really super delicious! Nomnom!

Making tortillas resulted in me eating a lot of it. It tasted good with some chicken, pickles and minced meat potato. Nomnom! I drank Indonesia rose/black tea. I love it! It is not very strong, but the slight rose scent is so good. I do not fancy rose tea by itself, but this is good!

Sour green apple with buttercream is good!

Pasta with indulgent milo dinosaur! I like mine with plain milk and tons of milo powder on top!

Then, I baked bread. This was my first try. It taste edible, but not tasty as all! Best eaten toasted with buttercream. I made it with this recipe.

On the trip to K.L, we bought a dozen of Krispy Kreme back. This is the bomb! Caramel cookie flavour, as shown above, is the best flavour for caramel lovers like me! It is like Oats(the cereal) on top. Really really the best!

Chocolate cream/dream. This is not my favourite. I do not like it! It is like....custard inside. >.< Not for me.

Chocolate glazed donuts is good.

Korean food for dinner one night. Egg drop soup, instant ramen and a variety of kimchi and other pickles. I do not touch those. Only the marinated squid(which is raw) is to my liking.

  Second attempt at bread baking with this recipe!

Pretty doughs!

Grow, my babies, grow!

Looks much better, doesn't it? Compared to the first attempt?

 LOOK AT THE PRETTY INSIDES! It is so extraordinarily soft and so good! The day I baked it, we almost finished a loaf. The sad part is, like all baguettes, it was not as soft the next day. It tasted like regular day-after french breads. :(

Still tasted very nice with fried sunny side down and ham with pickles. I devoured the rest of the bread and too many eggs the next few days after.

Or with pickles and fish and toasted bread!

Food from the canopy at Bishan Park! It is really nice even though I do not fancy the fish roe on top. >.< Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and salmon roe if I remembered the name right....

 Third and most recent attempt at baking bread! WHOLEMEAL BREAD! Baked with the Tangzhong method and this recipe, I have to say this was exhausting! Not because I used a lot of energy, but because it was so heartbreaking when I could not knead the dough enough to pass the windowpane test. After 45 minutes to one hour of kneading with my Kenwood machine, I gave up and decided to try my luck.

When homemade bread tastes like store-bought bread, I feel awesome. This is freaking wholemeal bread which tastes super good! OMG. I am feeling super awesome! <3

Okay, off to Chinatown I go for the second time in three days to get my friend's 21st birthday present! ^^

Facelift!

Decided to give the entire blog a facelift! I went on to play around with the settings! I super love the results now! The only problem I have is that the header picture becomes less sharp after I converted it from PSD. to JPG. Anyone knows the solution to this? I already selected the highest resolution!

I decided to move away from the scrapbooking style,

to a more simple style! I was playing around with the fonts and downloading a lot a lot of fonts! I specially like those with a little vintage feel! :)

I wanted to practice the font thingie because I am going to create some quotes for my new photo frames. Decided my room needed a makeover. A mini one!

Going into baking bread. I never knew it was so easy! Anyone volunteering to be my guinea pigs? Hehe.

:)

Tutorial: How to make studded barrettes with pronged studs!

Crazy about hair accessories? I know I am. I got so crazy, that I bought 20 French barrette blanks from Ebay to add to my collection! Hehe. Previously, my fringe was too short to use a barrette  so I had to use crocodile clips. There are only so many ways to deco your crocodile clip! So as soon as I could use a french barrette, I converted :) So, now when I am going through a "French barrette" phase, I just had to find a way to make more to add on to my collection. Look at this:

From whipped cream barrettes, to rhinestone barrettes to bow barettes! I have them all! HAHA! Every single one of them was handmade by me^^ From felt to real leather to ribbons, I tried to make every one of my barrettes special! Hahaha.

So. I was just thinking about how to make a studded barrette because I bought a packet of studs to stud my top and I had so many leftovers(because I was greedy and bought 100 in a go) They were pronged so I could not just glue them on.

BUT. I found a way, and I am gonna share it today! ^^

This is my first time doing a compiled tutorial! It is much easier:) I did it my way, so ya.

All you need is some felt, pronged studs, hot glue gun(mine is pink<3) a French barette and some studs! I used a 60mm French barette and I cannot remember the size of my studs probably around 12/11mm? Maybe? I used 5 studs per barrette....

Have a insulating something to hold your stud. I used a scrap leather. I went on to make a bow with my leather with this tutorial (bow as shown above)!

 Measure the felt to be a little smaller than your studs.

Add glue to the empty space of the stud to fill it, 3/4 full will do and wait for it to cool and harden a wee bit before  pressing the felt onto the glue.

Prong it.(Is this even how I am supposed to describe the process?!

Continue to the end.

Add glue to the barrette and press it gently to the pronged and glued felt. Do not flatten the glue.

Ta-da! You are done! Wait for it to cool completely before putting it in your hair please. HAHA.

Okay. That is it. Your very own studded barrette! ^^

Okay, That is really all I wanted to share today.

Ciao!

Rebecca :)