Baby O's Mickey Mouse-Themed 2nd Birthday Cake

This is what has been occupying whatever left of my time and energy over the past few weeks...

The good side of the Mickey Mouse cake

And the whole thing which took hours and days to set up, was all over in just a few minutes!

This is a chocolate sponge cake layered with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries decorated with fondant. My very first fondant covered cake. An unsuccessful one that is! I underestimated the time and skill required to just roll out the light blue fondant and cover the cake! On top of that, the whipped cream didn't set hard enough and the humid weather here in Penang just took the opportunity to melt the fondant on the cake before we could cut it.

I actually started molding the Mickey and Minnie figurines less than a week before the party. I had initially wanted to just buy the figurines off eBay or the toy store. A lot of eBay sellers don't ship to this part of the world (sigh!) and the toy stores don't seem to stock just Mickey and friends figurines in their original attire! Seriously didn't know that before! So I ran out of time and decided to just mold the figurines. Only Mickey and Minnie instead of all the characters from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto as I was already short of time and didn't want to challenge myself further. So using a piece of cut plastic straw, I managed to mold Mickey's head which probably was the hardest bit. Was quite pleased with the result although dear hubby calls him Mickey's cousin!

Mickey or Mickey's cousin?

Replicated the procedure and made Minnie. Then added the body, legs, shoes and arms.

The only close-up picture of the two that I took of the couple

I actually molded the Mickey Park arch, a 2D Clubhouse, stars on skewers with Baby O's name on it and other bits and bobs the following nights. Unfortunately, I now realised I have not taken a photo of them! 

The night before the party, I baked the chocolate sponge cake. I took the recipe from a friend's friend's blog. Someone I know who bakes a lot and have very successful bakes. She referred us to Kitchen Corner's fool-proof chocolate sponge cake. I only understood part of the instructions on the video but found it really helpful to see how the texture should be after each procedure! Will write what I did in another post when I find the time (and energy). Anyway, if the cake had failed, I would have gone to Secret Recipe the next day, buy a cake and just put the figurines on it!

On the morning of the party itself, I  whipped about 500ml whipping cream with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla till it is stiff and used it to layer the cake with some sliced strawberries. Then covered the whole cake with whipped cream and dunk it in the fridge to set. The layers added height to the cake which I was really glad!

Love the colour contrast

While setting, I rolled out the fondant, and rolled out again as there were cracks, then rolled out again as the size wasn't big enough, and rolled out again cause some other thing happened..... When I finally got the fondant rolled out nicely, and was putting it on the cake, the fondant split. Well, like I said, I took very much longer than anticipated and was late to go and set up the place with not long till the guests arrive. Yikes! So I gave up and just left the back as it is, all patched up... 

Oh! No! Dear me, dear me!

At least the front was decent enough...

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Then it was off to the party venue and to finish assembling the rest of the items there.

The melted cake...

Anyway, the cake wasn't the highlight of the event of course but I had a lot of fun putting it together. It was something different for me to do to occupy my time. It was almost therapeutic and I certainly look forward to doing things like these though glad that the party is over and I can rest now!

He's Alive!

Amazing love
How can it be
That you, my God
Should die for me?

- Charles Wesley

How thankful, how reassuring.

Earth Day 2011

Been away and will blog about it later. It's Earth Day today. I may not be an award winning environmentalist but preserving the Earth for our future generations and teaching our kids to love the world they live in is important to me so I'm stealing some time to write just a little about it.

 

Last year I pledged to:

1. Potty train Baby O. Failed big time. Well, at least we tried. Numerous times. Unfortunately I think she is now traumatised by the whole experience and may take her even longer to be trained! Yikes!

2. Switch off all electrical items when not in use and not leave on standby. Quite a success except for the Astro decoder which they want us to leave on standby mode for updates. Hmm... 

3. Use a tiffin carrier or own containers for taking away food. Done whenever we know that we are going to take away. Other times still rely on the containers provided by the food seller. I must comment though that a lot of them have actually switched to recyclable paper boxes or plastic wares which we can reuse and not polystyrene anymore. Bravo to them!

Other things that we have been doing:

recycle and make our own books and toys.

recycle our milk cartons, egg trays, glass bottles, cereal boxes, etc.

compost though we have unfortunately stopped doing so due to space constrain.

planted own veg though not every plant was successful as everytime we are away even for just the weekend, our poor plants succumb to the heat and lack of water :( We still have sweet potato, ginger, chilli and pandan to harvest from now.

use only one car and public transportation while we still can and don't need a second car.

use our own bags during shopping. I've in fact sometimes swapped a recyclable shopping for my handbag! One size fits all!

This year I pledge to:

1. Continue to try to potty train Baby O.

2. Make my own organic cleaning agent of some sort which does not contain as many harmful chemicals for us and the environment. Am keen to try a soap or shampoo but will have to source the ingredients. 

3. Refashion! Dug out some old t-shirts and hoping to have a chance to make them into something else that can be worn by someone to extend the life of the materials! Very excited about this but just don't know if I'll get a chance to do so. But will pledge to anyway! 

Do you have an Act of Green that you want to share with us? Remember it doesn't have to be something big! Just one small action makes a big difference! Here are some suggestions to get you going:

• Extend the life cycle of a product - re-use bags/ wrapping papers/ use both sides of the paper etc.
• Grow your own fruits and vegetables
• Reduce food waste - buy only what you need/ clear refrigerator before buying more food/ ask for less (rice/ noodles etc.) when ordering if you know you can't finish it
• Reduce use of air-conditioner by drawing the curtains to keep hot air out
• Recycle old cell phones and electronics
• Collect rain water to wash the car, water plants, etc.
• Car pool instead of driving alone
• Pay bills online
• Ask more people to join in the pledge!

Jaring Scam?

Mom called earlier informing me that there is a letter addressed to my name from a solicitor acting on behalf of Jaring. The content of the letter basically state that I owe them a few hundred ringgit since 1996. Yes, 1996! So many questions ran through my mind... Firstly, I don't recall ever signing up to Jaring for their services. We did use them at home before but never under my name. I was just out of high school then thus would not have applied for it myself. Mom would have done it and under a common family name. Secondly, I have never, not that I can recall, used the username mentioned in the letter. On top of that, I don't recall ever seeing a Jaring statement before in my life. So why would I suddenly be billed hundreds all of a sudden!?

Whatever it is, I need to get some detective work done. So I tried calling the solicitor's office and initially, it was always engaged. When it finally got through many dials later, no one picked the phone up even after a few more tries at different times. I will need to try again later. I was given two other numbers to talk to someone directly though but I'm hesitant to call these numbers. Somehow want to know exactly is going on and try to clear things up if necessary.

There are tonnes of online Jaring scams going around but I couldn't find any that sends a physical letter during my random search on Google. If this is a really a scam, how in the world did they get my full name and address? If it is not a scam, why have I not received any bills from then from 1996 till now?? Anyone experienced similar incidences before?


*Update: Managed to get through to Jaring, the guy on the other line seems to know what it is all about even though I have only told him my surname and a letter regarding outstanding payment. He also directed me to the same two numbers stated on the letter which I was reluctant to call initially. Still feeling skeptical, I dialed the number. I was only greeted with a 'Hello'. No, so and so speaking from Jarings Communication Sdn Bhd, nothing. I had to ask who is speaking, then explained about the letter. He actually has all my details down: Full name, address, telephone number. I told him that I had not applied for their services on my own before, bla bla bla. I asked how come I had not received any reminders before and then suddenly slapped with a lawyer's letter? Seems they sent out reminders through emails and incidentally my supposedly jaring email account was terminated in 2008. He then told me the only way to get my name off their list is to pay up or get a police report.

Conclusion, I gave it a little more thought and may just make a police report. The more I think about it the more absurd this whole thing is! I was probably either preparing for or maybe even in the exam hall itself sitting for one of the STPM (A-level equivalent) papers on the date mentioned! How did I find myself registering for Jaring services at that time, I have no idea!

MOMMade: Homemade Guess Who Lift-The-Flap Book

Can't think of anything easier to do than this with Baby O. A personalised lift-the-flap book! Got the idea from the Playhouse Disney channel where at the end of one of the programmes, the viewer was asked to identify which cartoon character it is by revealing only a partial body part. Immediately went scrap hunting after that. 

This is what we used: 

Old magazines with relevant pictures - we used AstroView for Baby O's favourite cartoon characters. Other option would be pictures of animals or vegetables and fruits.

Used envelopes

A booklet - one made of relatively stiff paper would be ideal. Otherwise I suppose old exercise books/ diaries would work too!

Scissors

Glue

Pen

This is what we did:

1. Look for and cut cartoon pictures out in old magazines. Trim to fit booklet.

2. Cut used envelopes big enough to cover the cartoon pictures with about one centimetre extra as the flap.

3. Mark and cut holes to reveal only certain parts of the picture as a clue for the child to guess who (or what) is behind the flap.

4. Glue the flaps down adjusting the hole(s) ensuring only the selected parts are covered or exposed.

5. Decorate if desired.

Honestly no rocket science involved. You don't even have to be able to cut a straight line! Here are pictures of some of the pages:

Lift the handy flaps for clues!

The many ways to use see-through envelopes!

Incorporating some numbers

And some shapes!

Baby O was really good with this little game of 'Guess Who?'. She could identify most of them easily. The best part is, even though she already know the answers to some of them, she will still go back to the booklet and lift the flaps again and again! 

You know, we can buy less and be more green if we really want to!

Cut and Paste Craft

A few months ago, I decided to introduce Baby O to glue. Funnily enough, she was quite paranoid about having some invisible sticky stuff all over her fingers and kept wanting to wash her hands! She can be quite a clean freak at times. That didn't last too long though as she kept wanting to put glue on everything after that! Anyway, here is how we used our glue. 

We first gathered a bunch of colourful junk mails and brochures.

Then, I cut them out into pieces and put the different colours in different compartments. Baby O however decided that it was more fun mixing everything up.

 

I found this picture of Barbie, cut her up and pasted her on a piece of blank paper. The idea is to 'decorate Barbie's gown'. If you can't find a relevant picture, just draw some simple shapes and paste away! No hard and fast rule when it comes to art anyway.

 

Our masterpiece. :)

Nothing fancy, just lots of learning fun. In the process, Baby O was exposed to lots of new vocabulary - glue, paste, stick, squares, colours, etc. and actions - cutting, arranging, pasting, etc. That's one easy activity for the morning besides just drawing with her crayons! At the same time, making use of all these junk mails instead of just binning them.

Home Craft Projects

We have been embarking on a number of projects simultaneously these few weeks. Firstly, I was ecstatic to find printable magnetic paper. I had something in mind and looked high and low for this special inkjet magnetic paper which we can actually print on. Initially found a shop around Jalan Perak selling them. One piece was priced at RM16.50! Was at the verge of giving up when to my surprise, I found Jusco at Queensbay Mall selling them at half the price! So I grabbed them. Can't wait to use them!

Second project has to do with these...

I have cleaned and dried these milk cartons since months ago so it's about time to do something with them. First phase completed. Not sure when is the next phase...

Project no. 3: While trying to get Baby O to use up her energy one of those days at the mall, I stumbled upon this little family. They were only RM2.50 each and I couldn't resist bringing them home. Now I am wondering if I should give them a little make over and build them a house... 

Finally, this baby... Bought it eons ago. Amount of time used: zero. Brought it up to Penang not too long ago and have a little refashion project that I would really love to embark on. Saw so many of these sites making pretty dresses for their little girls out of old t-shirts and thinking I might just be able to do that too! The big question is, when????