May 29, 2008

3.. 2.. 1...

So yesterday was a crazy day. Went to collect my flowers and met with all sorts of mishaps. Like how the flowers I ordered weren't available, colours all wrong, drenched in rain etc etc. Cos of the rain and my rush, some of my flowers died on me. Don't really care if a few cheap roses die, but my expensive hydrangeas completely wilted. I went into panic mode and went online to search for how to revive these delicate flowers. Basically the advice was to re-cut them and stick them in boiling water for 30 sec and put them back in regular water. That solution worked somewhat, except that they look like they're dying on me again tonight. How are they suppose so survive till Sat? Here are the before and after pictures.

Dead Hydrangeas Somewhat alive Hydrangeas

My plan was to order the flowers early enough so that I'd get the exact flowers I want and for them to have time to bloom. However it's turning to be pretty troublesome. Spent a few hours last night dethorning the roses, cutting the flowers to make sure they absorb water, sticking them into many many red pails and hope they come back alive and bloom. Luckily for me, most of them bloomed, I just hope that it's not the peak yet and they survive for 2 more days. you can see the peonies (2nd picture, pink flowers in the foreground) really in full bloom already.
Before conditioning After conditioning
I also spent some time working on my candy corner last night - doing up the jars and filling them with the jelly beans. The colours are very pretty if I may say so. I made some tags today to stick on the candy favour bags, and made some samples so people will know what to do. Now, if only I can find my candy scoop.


Some of the bridal party also came down to help decorate the church reception venue tonight. It was quite a bit of work, but we managed to get it done. It started looking out very much nicer with ceiling swags that joined (as seen in the picture below), but we soon discovered this was a hazard as they could get caught in the ceiling fans. We tested with the fans on and indeed one of the swags got caught and torn. So we had to take out all those that were close to the fan and just hang them kinda randomly while avoiding the fans.


Tomorrow morning I've gotta do up all the flowers. I really really hope they don't die on me.. and that I can finish it all up in time. The house is a huge mess still, I've no idea how it's going to magically clean itself before the wedding. Need a miracle!!

Goodnight world.

May 27, 2008

4 Days...

Tonight's work mostly consisted of doing mock-ups. For the arch... for the ceiling swags... and also doing up the wish tree. I'm quite pleased overall with the results.

Obviously won't be using those ugly plastic clips to clip the well-wishes. But Taka Art Friend has ran out of the wooden pegs. Not sure where to get so much of them at short notice.

On a side note, I think my camera is going kaput. The colour comes out quite bad.. and there's always lines on the pictures. Sigh. Think it's time to get a new one... no money no money. I've been bankrupted by all the home changes.

May 26, 2008

5 Days..

The wedding is 5 days away! So many things not done! Gah!

I think I've gone slightly overboard on the DIY stuff. Case in point - I went to the Upper Paya Lebar nursuries (Greenhub, Sing See Soon, GG Flowers) on Saturday and chanced upon these cool Curly Willow branches (at least that's what the florist told me they were, tho they really dun look like the normal ones). They weren't the normal kind you can get at the wholesale florists, with thicker stems and really curly smaller branches. The lady told me they were imported from Holland (read expensive). When I saw them, the neurons in my brain started firing away contemplating the stuff I could do with it. So of course I got suckered into buy two of these babies since I didn't want to leave there empty handed after coming all the way. I had actually hoped for Manzanita branches which I suppose you can't find in Singapore unless you import it yourself.

These are the regular curly willows and Manzanita branches..

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And mine looks like this...


They had come as 2 separate branches but I set them in plaster to make them into a tree, following the instructions here. The pot's from Ikea btw. But they're not as strong as the Manzanita branch. Hopefully I can still hang some sort of stuff on it... tho I don't think it'll be too many things.

I also went on a ribbon buying spree on Saturday after I got the branches. I'm planning to hang them from the tree, from the ceiling swags, and wherever they can help prettify the place. Here's my stash of ribbons in the wedding colours.

This tea set is apparently way back from my parents' wedding. Was pretty rusty when they were first taken out. Family heirloom see the light of day again.. Way to go WD40.


This is just the beginning of all the other stuff I need to get done... Tomorrow shall be cut cloth and cut ribbon day.

May 17, 2008

First Batch of Cupcakes!

After spending an entire afternoon with JY going to all the different bakery shops to suss them out - Phoon Huat, Sun Lik & Sia Huat (with a side trip to Raffles City along the way), I added a muffin tray, 24-pc nozzle set, palette knife and some measuring spoons to my baking assets. We then came back to my house and started our first attempt to bake something using my new tools, mixer and oven.

I chose to make the Chocolate Spiced Cupcakes from the recipe pack that I got from a demo class at Shermay's the last time as it seemed like it had the easiest and least complicated list of ingredients. Decided to pair that with Vanilla Cream Cheese & Sour Cream frosting - yum.

After mucking around a bit and creating a bit of a mess in the kitchen, our cupcakes were finally baking away in the oven :) Unfortunately, we only had enough batter for 7 cupcakes despite my large oven cos the cases I bought were bigger than the recipe's (it's supposed to make 12 cupcakes). Never mind, next time I know.

Started on the cream cheese frosting, and had a mini crisis and almost went into state of panic when I couldn't get the mixer to work. Luckily it was only cos I didn't slide some safety lock into place. Stupid me. Decided to use the star nozzle and experiment on frosting patterns haha.

So... drumroll.....



Tada, this is how the cupcakes turned out. Quite ok lah... JY and I decided to sprinkle some of the metallic sugar balls o them. Looks pretty but they were damn hard to eat. As my brother puts it - very old people-unfriendly.

Alright, that concludes the first (hopefully of many) baking adventures. Since this batch could only make 7, I'll make another bigger batch so that I can have more to give away!

May 16, 2008

Cutest cutest flower girls


I just couldn't resist stealing this photo off my sister's wedding blog. We had taken some pics of her flower girls that day while my mum was measuring them for their dresses. Aren't Charmyne and Celest the cutsiest prettiest sweetest girls every? They love to pose for the camera too haha!

May 15, 2008

New Kid On The Block - Kenwood Prospero

Look at my new baby!!!! Some of my wonderful sweet friends gave this to me as my bday pressie!!! I'm so touched! Really appreciate it and want to thank everyone of you

It blends, it juices, it beats, it kneads, it minces, it processes. Gosh what can it not do?? *somersault* I will definitely be baking this weekend and giving a little treat to each of you in return.

WOOHOO!!
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May 14, 2008

2 more weeks!!

It's like 2 weeks to my sister's wedding... shudder... I'm panicking a little cos there's so much I've not settled yet, like the decor...

Did some mock ups the other day of the flowers when we got our cupcake samples from our lovely baker Cotton Candy Bakeshop!




Here are the invites based on their Edward Monkton Lovely Love Story theme that I designed which have mostly been sent out already.


Programmes and favours are in the midst of being printed as well.



Plus many many more things!!!! Not enough time!!!

May 11, 2008

More Retail Therapy!

Ho ho ho ho ho. I bought my oven! I got the Ariston one! (see post below for pic) It was on sale at $560, compared to the normal $689 albeit it's the older model with black handle and knobs (which is probably why it's on sale but who cares!) Wooohoooo!

Now I'm lusting after a KitchenAid mixer. Unfortunately it's super expensive in Singapore (MSRP $899), I know it can be gotten for about $700, but that's still a whopping lots of moolah compared to US$240 on Amazon :( I'm contemplating getting someone to lug it back for me. But problem is, it'll be the 110V version and not the 220V. Bah. Don't know if it'll work properly, the KitchenAid forums seem to indicate mixed reviews on using a transformer.

How how how? Am I even going to use it? Or will it just sit there and collect dust? Hahaha...

How true

"I think a man only needs one thing in life. He just needs someone to love. If you can't give him that, then give him something to hope for. And if you can't give him that, just give him something to do."

- From the movie Flight of the Phoenix

So what if you have no one to love, nothing to hope for and nothing to do?

May 6, 2008

OD on Ovens

I've been on a quest to buy a new oven.

So first question - Table top or built-in? For the uninitiated, a table-top oven are the oven toaster lookalikes, usually without turbo fan (convection). Some call it static or electric oven, small size ranging from 20+ to 40+L. The built-in oven, is well, a built-in oven, usually bigger in size, usually more than 50L and has multi-functions. And of course the price is quite different. Table-tops are around $100 for small ones, going up to about $400 for big ones whereas built-ins start at about $500 and can go into the thousands for a high-end one like Miele.

I already have a small table-top oven right now that is seldom used, and since we have space for a built-in oven in the new set of kitchen cabinets, might as well utilise the space right?

After browsing several forums and websites where people discussed their oven-buying experiences (useful articles here and here), I've narrowed down to a couple of choices. My budget is about $500 so it rules out all the top-end brands. There are also so many different combination of functions such as top+bottom heat, fan-assisted, top only, bottom only and whatever combis in between. Each apparently helps bake/cook different stuff optimally. Below are some of the ovens I saw...

Clockwise from top left: Delonghi Table-top Oven, Rinnai Built-in Oven 5CSI (~$510), Ariston FB51.2 IX (~$600), Cuizino OV728X (~$470), droolworthy Miele (not sure model, >$3000)

So which one to get? The real contenders are really the Ariston and Cuizino (those on the righthand column). Considerations are that Ariston is a well-known Italian brand whereas Cuizino isn't, plus it's made in China so dunno when it'll go kaput. The Cuizino has more functions than the Ariston despite being cheaper but I'm not really a heavy-duty baker so I probably won't require super many functions. Both look pretty good and fit into the cabinet. I guess it sounds like I'm biased towards the Ariston for now... How?? More money but do I really need it??

May 4, 2008

Breather

Sunday mornings are when I get to spend some catch up me time and tinker with my Macbook. For the past month, I've been heading over to Prive Bakery after church. It's pretty quiet during the brunch hours and best of all there's free internet. 

So I clear my emails, do some work, and read blogs for inspiration. These weekends have also been filled with getting ready for my sister's wedding. Thnk it's coming along quite nicely but we still have to try to find a way to decorate the not very nice looking reception hall at church.

Off to buy cloth!
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