Ezra's construction birthday party

Yellow, orange, black & grey were the color scheme for Ezra's 4th birthday party last July. There's barely anything soft and cute in this construction party.

This is the dessert table...

The cake is by my sweet neighbor Astrid from Cupcake Rocks. The topper is CAT toy truck.

The cupcakes were offcourse by DapurQ: chocolate cupcakes and my favorite red velvet cupcakes with yellow cream cheese. The construction sign for the topper is edible printing. I used my hubby's tool box to display the cupcakes... It turned out so cool... :)

The tool & truck cookies were also by DapurQ. I bought this tools shape cookie cutter from Etsy and sent it to Mba Riani DapurQ.

I wrapped chocolate Ultra milk boxes with printables said "FUEL". The parents and kids were quite amazed by them. The orange metal toolbox is my hubby's vintage by Hafele.

The favors were tool boxes that my workshop made out of leftover plywood and painted grey. Inside were SIKU construction diecast, Fun Doh plasticine, and tool shape cookie.

The backdrop for games and photo booth was a very simple panel made off painted black plywood and decorated with construction tapes.

Mba Ira from Kertas Krep helped me providing MC for this party. He was funny and the kids loved him.

I almost forget to mention about the kids costume. For Ezra, I bought the vest from ELC, while for the other kids, I actually made them out of bright orange and grey nylon fabric I bought from Tanah Abang. I copy the pattern from the ELC vest (modified it a bit). I might do some tutorial for this vest (I can't promise though). For the construction helmet, I bought them from eBay. The kids were so excited with their costume (I even saw one of the kids - our neighbor - wearing it the next day playing in his frontyard).

If you see some interesting props and custom signs in this party, most of them were made by me and my hubby out of leftover materials from our workshop. It was a great feeling to create a great party with eco-friendly mind...

Happy birthday my little Ezra...

Train Playboard for Ezra

This train playboard was Christmas present for Ezra that I made for Christmas 2010. I know... I know... It's so long ago. But it's worth telling.

Did I make it myself? I designed it, yes. But my carpenters & sticker guy at my workshop did most of the works. First I made the pattern for the board.

I printed it in 1:1 scale so the carpenter could cut using the template. We used  plywood & melamine board.

Then I made the image to be printed & applied on the board. I used CorelDRAW software (I'm not good in Photoshop). The first image - which was the scenery - was to be applied on general board, while the second image - which was the train track - was to be applied on the track that's 3mm lower than the general board. (Did you get what I'm saying? I'm really not good in explaining things)

And this was how it came out:

To make it more fun, my husband added some details.

We bought the red bridge construction at Daisho for IDR 22.000 (Yes the price at Daisho was 22.000 at that time, now is 27.500).

The traffic light was actually a topper for candy packaging. It's a good way to recycle it right? If you pressed the button behind it, it would light the red light on the top. If you pressed again, it would light the green light, and so on.

The black & white crane was my nephew's broken toy. My husband rescued it and repainted it.

Although Ezra has his Thomas & Friends No. 1 Mega Playset, this playboard was great for travelling. We always bring it for trip to grandma's house and for him to play at hotels so he doesn't get bored.

Moshe Things flower lamp shade @ Tabloid NOVA

 

We were on Parents Indonesia

Last March, Mommies Daily asked me to write tips about birthday party on budget. It was to be submitted on Parents Indonesia. I didn't expect it to be published, but it turned out I won first place for best tips. So happy...

Batik for Humanity

I've been a fan of batik for a long time. Even when I studied overseas more than 10 years ago, wearing batik was always made me proud. People over there would say, "Wow... nice fabric. Where are you from?" Then I would told them about how great Indonesia was. It was a pleasure to do, because back then, every news about Indonesia overseas was mostly bad news.

I introduced batik to my kids, since they were babies, especially my daughter Kanaya. I try my best to make them understand their Javanese roots. And batik clothing is the easiest and most fun tool. I was glad that their school decided batik to be a compulsory clothes for Friday.

From all Kanaya's batik clothes, her favorite is this dress from my mom, because it's in her favorite color: purple. I don't have any picture of her in fancy pose with this dress, but I got better ones. Here are pictures of her in the dress when she was helping my mom doing social work for a Posyandu (health care for women & children) for the poor in Semarang. She did easy task: taking notes of the children's weight and height, and passing the healthy food to the children. But oh... she was so happy doing that. And the batik she's wearing seemed appropriate.

It was a very memorable day for Kanaya...

If you love batik as much as we do, you can join Satu Batik Jutaan Jari event by Bodrexin. Bodrexin has this amazing idea of making batik print using our children' finger prints. So go upload your kid's finger prints at Kebaikan Bodrexin or Twitter @tentang kebaikan. I wonder how the batik pattern will turn out. It would be very unique.

Being member of Mommies Daily had given me a lot of useful info about events like this. Besides all resources about children and parenting world, you can see a lot of inspiring children batik outfit there. Check it out...

Kanaya's bird garden & doll picnic birthday party

Another birthday party... Kanaya turned 9 last February, and she wanted a bird theme party. It was only a small party, so I thought that we had to make it a little different than other parties. So we decided to make a doll party too. Every girl that's invited got to bring their favorite dolls with them. Kanaya was very excited with this idea, since she got a new baby doll, Mell Chan that she'd like to show her friends.

The party color scheme is pink & red. I used doilies for almost everything: invitation, decoration, banners, favors, etc. They're cheap but really made things prettier.

Almost everything was made by Mba Riani, DapurQ: the cupcakes (the best red velvet cupcakes I ever taste and Kanaya's favorite vanilla cupcakes), strawberry pudding, and lovely bird cookies.

I happened to got this red-white polkadot tea set last Christmas, and the cups and saucers really matched the color scheme.

The others were just strawberry wafers, lollipops from Fantasy, and strawberry milk in bottles.

Like I said before, lots of doilies were involved...

Also on the favors bag...

I made the hair bow and the bird felt pencil topper myself.

As you see on the title, it's a picnic party, meaning that no chairs were needed (meaning I didn't have to spend money to rent them :)). So I threw flowery fabric on carpet for the girls...

... and made a separated picnic area for the dolls. I used Kanaya's tea party toys and they looked very adorable... :)

The dolls also got the mini version of their owners' party hat... :)

I bought some stickers for the girls to decorate their hats while they were waiting for others to come.

The games were simple but were hits:

1. Each girl had to introduce her doll. Kanaya got to choose which one had the most interesting/ funniest way to tell about her doll, and that girl got a prize.

2. I showed the girls a tray filled with 10 doll stuffs (mostly Mell Chan's stuff): blue doll shoes, pink doll shoes, mini umbrella, milk bottle, mini toothbrush, mini toothpaste, little hat, little doll bag, a cute doll dress, and a toy spoon. I showed them for about 10 seconds while told them the name of each stuff. After that I hid the tray and the girls had to write those stuffs on a piece of paper. Girls who could write 10 stuffs would get prizes. And there were 3 girls who could write all the stuffs!

3. We put all the dolls in one laundry basket. Each girl took turn to be blind folded and had to look for her doll by touching. This time, every girl got a prize coz ofcourse it was an easy game. But surely this game was the biggest hit.

After tired of laughing and screaming during the games, the girls were ready to eat. The dolls went to their picnic area (unfortunately I don't have the photo). After praying, the girls decided the dessert table were their first stop, not the main meal table. They were all together picked the same first sweet: the bird cookies! I guess the cookies were too adorable to be eaten later. Then, I couldn't stop them when they ate lollipop before their meal...

The day ended with all girls played together with their dolls. Kanaya got her best day in a year today.

Happy birthday my Kanaya. I love you very much... :)