Feature of the Week

I'm so excited to present the lovely dress of the week.  I need to confess that I've saved the first finish product for my own girls.  And finally, it is available in the little shoppe!  This little dress is crafted of a very fine and soft cotton rosey print and the trim at collar is the finest one yet in my collection.  A beautiful velvet waist belt and a sparkly piece of gem is added to make this little one extra charming.  Hope you like it!  =)

Black Rosie Dress

Happy Thursday!

Cookie Time

If you've seen some of the recipes I've done before, you probably could sense my preference towards simple recipes.  I'll save the complicated ones for the professionals, at least for now.  =)  This little very easy red dot recipe are dedicated for the ones who love flaky and light cookies.

make 20 cookies

flour  3/4 cup

cornstarch  1/4 cup

butter, soften  1 stick or 1/2 cup

sugar  1/3 cup

vanilla extract  one little drop approx. 1/8 teaspoon

pinch of salt

raspberry jam  2 tablespoons

Preheat oven to 325°F and grease a large cookie sheet.  In a medium bowl, mix flour and cornstarch together, set aside.  In a large bowl, put in butter and sugar and beat until the mixture turns pale.  Add salt and vanilla and continue beating.

 Then, add in the flour mixture in small batches.  Beat until all the dry ingredients are blended in.

 Form little 1 inch balls and place them approximately 1 1/2 inch apart from each other on the cookie sheet.  Pinch the top of the dough balls to make a well in the middle of each cookie and fill the wells with raspberry jam.  A little stirring stick is very helpful for this task. 

Place the cookie on the middle rack of the oven and bake them for 18 minutes.  Let the cookies cool down for 20 minutes before enjoying them.  Delicious!

Happy Baking!  =) 

Feature of the Week

This week feature is based our little baby doll dress design with an added contemporary twist of two lovely fabrics.  The adorable polka dot print has a very nice denim look but it is actually a very soft medium weight cotton fabric.  And if you take a closer look at the tiny cherry print, you can see the tiny little yellow and white stripes in the background.

Cherry Denim Dress

Happy Thursday!  =)

Marion Peck

It is so hard to find one word to generally define her works.  They are whimsical, adorable and sort of creepy.  Her use of lighting and soft rendering techniques are my favourite elements of her work.  Her little animal drawings are my favourites among all.  Here are some of her lovely works.

Kitty

Supper Club

Darla

For more of her works and info, please visit her website.

Happy Tuesday!  =)

Feature of the Week

When it comes to fabric, voile is one of my favourites.  It is so soft to touch and the sheerness makes everything much more romantic.  This week's feature is a lovely collar baby doll dress crafted of a vintage inspired green floral print and beautiful soft white voile.  And it is embellished with my favourite vintage gold beads on bodice, as it has almost become a staple of the little baby doll dress.  Hope you like it!  =)

Vintage Green Blossoms Dress

Happy Thursday!

Favourite Things

We've certainly picked up a few things here and there in the past few trips.  It's time to put them up on the wall!  We've got this little "house" box from a swap meet.  It becomes the showcase of my favourite little objects, vintage notions, pins, little mascots, etc.

I felt in love with this little 1930s print from Kittens and Puppies by Ruth E. Newton when I first saw it.  Poor little kitten had got into trouble.  It is so adorable!  =)

 The little ceramic bunny works well with the sliced up petrified forest.

 

Happy Tuesday!  =)

Feature of the Week

The little round collar makes the baby doll dress even sweeter!  This little dress is crafted of lovely cotton linen blend fabric on body and delicate floral print cotton fabric on both collar and sleeves.

Dark Chocolate and Blossoms Dress

Thanks to dear chun from Puppy52 for our fun little day out and her lovely present!  =)

Her girl was a bit shy.

 She is such a fabulous doll dressmaker herself and her friend Mai at Mai Little Alien makes the most beautiful doll jeans.  Should check them out if you are into ball joint dolls.  =)

Happy Thursday!  =)

A Bit of Vancouver

It has been a while since my last visit to Vancouver.  It didn't change much except for the Winter Olympic Facilities and the new skytrain system.  As always, Granville Island was my favourite place to visit.

lovely handmade wood pins at Paper-Ya 

 One of my top priorities was to eat and eat.  It ended up with a table filled with a lot of fatty food, mostly fries.

Poutine Fries and Fully Loaded Curly Fries

We went this little Japanese hotdog place on Robson, called Japa Dog.  As you can imagine, there will be teriyaki sauce and Japanese mayo involved.  =)  

 We tried the Terimayo dog and Love Meat dog with a side order of Aonori Fries.  The Terimayo was a beef hotdog covered with teriyaki sauce, mayo and seaweed topping.  The Love Meat was a beef hotdog smothered with meat sauce and a lot of cheese.  And the fries were seasoned with seaweed.  They were all delicious and it was fun to try.  =)

Have a lovely week!  =)

Caught Off Guard

Puchi is a little light sleeper.   You can wake her up even by on/off sound of a camera which makes it very difficult to take a picture of her sleeping.  But once in a while, if we're lucky, have the camera on in another room first and try our best to quietly sneak into the room, we can get a little sleeping shot of her.

afternoon nap

 caught off guard

Happy Friday!  =)

Feature of the Week

 It has been a long debate within my mind on the anatomy of the little yellow blossom dress.  If you like the little mix and match of navy pin dot last week, I hope you'll like this simple basic one with muslin pintuck bodice too. =)

Yellow Blossom Dress

Happy Thursday!  =)

Feature of the Week

It seems that it is not easy to find a nice piece of yellow fabric, at least around here.  Maybe I'm too fussy, but really there are only very limited selection in most of the stores.  Here's my latest creation with a recent found. =)

Dottie Yellow Blossom Dress

Happy Thursday!  =)

A Slice of A Quiet Valentine's Day

  I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day.  Mine was pretty simple and quiet.  It started with a mostly window shopping trip in a local mall and watching all those guys rushing in and out from stores with bags of presents.  The day was highlighted with a surprise rose from the information lady when I was asking some questions.  That was so sweet!  Plus a little bag of very delicious Valentine's cookie, I wish you can have some too.  =)

Once again, we found ourselves at this lovely family restaurant, the Storyteller's Cafe, in Downtown Disney at dinner time.  It had become our little tradition for the past few years.  It is one of our favourite restaurants there because it falls into the category between a packed family restaurant and a fancy restaurant where you can enjoy family style food at a nice decent setting.  We always go for the buffet as they have the freshest mix greens and my favourite chicken nuggets. 

Happy Tuesday!  =)

Feature of the Week

The little dress of the week is inspired by the budding blossoms in the neighbourhood.  The beautiful pink roses and the dark chocolate micro dot print reminds me a lot of the Valentine's Day.  =)

dark chocolate and rose dress

 The craftsmanship of this delicate print is simply superior.

 

Happy Thursday!  =)

Time for A Little Love Note

 It's that special time of the year again, hooray!!  It is always nice to send a little note to your loved ones and dear friends for the big romantic day.  I apologize for using the same one from last year instead of creating a new one.  But hope you'll still like it and can make use of it.  =)

It will be up for free download until next Monday.It's in pdf format and includes two cards per 8.5" x 11" printout.

Enjoy and Happy Tuesday!

Feature of the Week

This week we're back to the sweetness of baby doll dress.  Simple yet elegant, it's the best way to bring out the natural beauty of the little girls.  =)

blue strawberry field dress

pink dottie dress

Happy Thursday!  =)

The Little One

Puchi has always been the special little one in the house.  She brings us joy everyday, keeps us company for the most part (sometimes she likes to be alone) and cheers us up during the not so good times.  I have to admit that it was a pretty rough beginning when we first got her.  But after all the dramas, we are so glad and grateful that she is part of our small family and she has changed us a lot, in a better way.  =)
inspecting the new arrival

 resting underneath the voile curtain

Happy Tuesday!  =)

More Dresses

Here's a snap shot of the pretty dresses that I've been working on.  I guess romantic is not exclusive to pink and red, black and navy can be romantic too.

Happy Thursday!  =)

More Gardening Books

Since we're still working on the drainage in our yard, it means that I still have time to read more about vegetable gardening before our mini farm is ready to go.  The Gourmet Garden by Virginia Hayes has a few pages about growing mushrooms which is the only one so far I've found and is interesting to learn about it.

 Okay, this one doesn't have the most appealing cover but it is a pretty nice book, The Kitchen Garden by Alan Buckingham.  

 What's nice is that it covers a year round planner like what to grow and what to prepare.  The plant family section has all the details from the characteristics of common crops, growing and harvesting tips to my main concern, pest issue from different plants.  It also covers a brief explanation and solutions to common plant diseases. 

Happy Gardening!  =)

Feature of the Week

 This week's feature is for the sugar sweet girls.  The little dress is crafted of pretty soft pink polka dot fabric and beautiful French laces.  The pearl beads embellishments has made this lovely one very elegant.  Hope you'll like it!  =)

romantic pink dottie dress

Happy Thursday! =)

The Whimsical Playground

There is a very unique place at Pier 45 that I would recommend for antique lovers, the Musée Mécanique.  This big building is filled with antique arcade games and machines, the oldest one dated back to 1800s!  It was almost like we were back in time.

The little characters came to life as we inserted the magic quarter.  Those tiny miniatures were awesome.

 The monkey band

This shooting games was my favourite.  It was much more fun than it appears in the photo.  =)

 A typical scene at the seafood stalls of Fisherman's Wharf.  Delicious!

Happy Tuesday!  =)