Mad-Made: 22 Wooden Door Signs

This is a feat, even for me.

22 unique wooden door signs for 22 friends!

Although they all look similar, each one is absolutely unique and took me almost 3 hours EACH (I'm a bit of a perfectionist you see)!

As usual, I start out by laying out my materials on my bed. The stickers and letters were from Spotlight and the unpainted cardboard from Made With Love while the ribbons and lace were from Daiso.

My materials

Also from Daiso are these pretty brads at just $2 each. Love that they're so cheap and cute! =)

To accomplish this enormous task, I first had to cut up all my paper (using a zig-zag scissors) and decide which name to go with which design. As the designs are pretty much dictated by the pattern of the paper (bought from Popular Bookstore and Made With Love), I'll be grouping pieces using the same paper into the same collection.

Collection #1: Naturally Green

One of my favourites from this collection is this yellow bird that I painted with yellow acrylic paint.

If you notice carefully, I had also stuck foam tape (from Daiso) to the back of all the letters so as to make them pop out. Surprisingly, the foam tape actually stuck on pretty well so the letters were quite sturdy.

I also bought a whole sheet of cork (also from Daiso) to cut up into different things..

..such as this camera, which I made by cutting up the individual shapes, sticking them on top of each other and painting some parts with acrylic paint. The coconut tree was also cut out of the cork sheet and stuck to the paper with a brad in the center. Loved the way they turned out! =)

Collection #2: Laced with Flowers

This was everything girly and pretty and therefore reserved for the girls!

In order to match the flowery design of the paper, the cork sheet was cut up to form flowers instead of trees. For one particular piece, however, I had somehow cut it such that it looked more like a butterfly than a flower. So instead of throwing it away, I made it into a butterfly by painting the body and feelers with brown acrylic paint (see below)! Turned out pretty good! =)

Other favourites include the pop-out heart and cardboard birds that were painted with acrylic paint =)

Collection #3: Laid-back Cool

The overall feel is one of relaxing by the beach. Once again, the cork sheet was used to cut out the trees and stars. The cardboard letters were painted bright yellow and the bird house painted bright red so that they would stand out from the blue background. Finally, the green border sticker from Daiso was added to the bottom.

Collection #4: Vintage Brown

This is actually a mixture of different elements of the earlier collections but with brown paper. The cardboard letters were painted champagne but my favourite element is still the camera! =)

Collection #5: 2 Become 1

This collection is made specially for my married friends (who lived together) so I decided to tie the two wooden pieces together with ribbon rather than make 2 separate door signs.

Wedding Design

For the wedding design, I fashioned the wedding bells and the bride and groom out of the cork sheet by cutting out the shapes and painting parts of it with acrylic paint. I then finished off with painting the cardboard bird house, branch and lettering.

Family Design

Similarly, for the other married couple (with a 9 month old boy), I cut out shapes from the cork sheet to form a baby carriage instead and painted it with different shades of green. I really liked it! =) I also wrote the words 'Home of' on the sticker and added the lettering, which somehow did not stand out in the photos even though it can be seen quite clearly in real life.

Collection #6: Special Designs

I made these for my sis and her bf with pieces of paper that I had left over from previous scrapbooking projects. They are one of a kind and totally unique, just like they are!

I'm particularly proud of this DJ spinning console and headphones that I had fashioned from the cork sheet.

I painted the disk black as well as a wire linking the console to the headphones, which was positioned strategically over the 'head' of the letter 'J' (which was painted with champagne acrylic paint). Love! =)

And there you have it! I hope you guys will like it as much as I had fun making it! =)

~~~~~~

This post is part of my Mad-Made Art series that documents our artistic creations!

You can also see more on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumart! 

Movie Preview: The Change-Up

Thanks to omy.sg and United International Pictures (UIP), the hubby and I got to catch the movie preview of the comedy The Change-Up held at GV Grand (Great World City)!

From the director of Wedding Crashers, the writers of The Hangover and the producer of Click, 'The Change-Up' features a star-studded cast which includes Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, Green Lantern), Jason Bateman (Horrible Bosses), Leslie Mann (Funny People), Olivia Wilde (Cowboys & Aliens) and Alan Arkin.

Here's the Official Trailer:

The story basically revolves around two best friends Mitch (Reynolds) and Dave (Bateman) who wished they had the other's life. Mitch was envious of Dave's beautiful wife Jamie (Mann), kids who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm while Dave envied Mitch's stress free life without obligation or consequence. Following a drunken night out together, Mitch and Dave's worlds are turned upside down when they wake up in each other's bodies!

The fact that this movie was about a married and a single man exchanging bodies made me excited to watch it. Plus there's also my favourite hot eye candy, if ya know what I'm saying (Reynolds, duh!).

The Change-Up

This movie is rated M-18, so you can expect a lot and I mean a lot of adult content such as nudity, swearing and sexual references. This is also perhaps the reason why, when asked if he preferred this movie or Johnny English Reborn, the hubby answered that he preferred this one.

This is definitely a movie for the guys. Especially the married ones =)

Aside from a few pretty disturbing scenes, I kind of really like the moral of the story behind this movie, which was to treasure what you have (I know, I know, it's kind of like the moral of every similar plot but still a great moral don't you think? *laughs*).

As usual, the storyline is predictable (duh, what do you really expect?) and the ending cheesy, but the movie was also really funny and entertaining!

And last but not least, the poop in Dave's face (as seen in the trailer) is not real lah please! Baby's poop, especially that of a breastfed baby, does not look like chocolate. Duh -_-"

Catch 'The Change-Up' when it opens in cinemas on 6th October 2011!

Disclosure: A pair of complimentary movie tickets were received from omy.sg and UIP for the purposes of this movie review. No monetary compensation was received; all opinions are my own.

DIY Ravioli at Italiannies

I'm not really familiar with Italian food even though I've visited the country. I'm one of those poor folks that didn't even know what foie gras or caviar was (not Italian food, that I know as much) for crying out loud.

So I was kinda lost when looking at the 'Create Your Own Ravioli' menu when dining at Italiannies last Saturday with my friends.

Credits: italiannies.com.sg

Seriously, what do all these words mean?

But since a friend of my friend MW said this was a must-try, I decided to order one for myself even though I had no idea what I was ordering.

I ended up ordering the ravioli that had truffle in it 'cos my good friends Mr & Soon-to-be-Mrs P happened to be experts on everything Italian and they love truffle so I figured I wouldn't go wrong. And since I like mushroom, I decided to order the mushroom and pesto sauce to go with it.

And you know what, I hit the jackpot! *laughs*

White truffle ravioli with mushroom & pesto sauce

My ravioli was really tasty! The waitress told me that there was cheese in it so the whole combination of cheese, truffle and mushroom was really right up my alley! Or in this case, down my stomach! *laughs*

SJ and MW chose the same filling but with Orange & Tomato Basil Sauce and Saffron Sauce respectively and both were nice too, although I still prefered mushroom. Orange ain't my cup of tea, ya know what I'm saying.

My other friend MY chose to order a soup, which came out looking like seafood spaghetti except without the spaghetti! Totally did not look like the typical soup portion! I was so amazed by it that I forgot to take a picture (drats) but I can tell you that it tasted marvellous =)

We ended our lovely meal with Tiramisu and Rum Baba cake for dessert.

Tiramisu and Rum Baba cake

I liked the Tiramisu but not so much the Rum Baba (personal preference I guess 'cos SJ loved the Rum Baba). MW felt that the alcohol was not strong enough but I thought it was fine (especially since I don't drink alcohol).

We couldn't even finish the desserts as we were soooo full!

All in all, although this meal was slightly pricey for me (unemployed SAHM here), it's definitely worth a visit for its great taste =)

Italiannies is located at 111 Somerset Road #01-02 Singapore 238164

Mad-Made: 3 Frames for 3 Friends

As you know, I've recently been very addicted to scrapbooking and have been giving my creations away as presents. After stumbling on some very cool frames in Daiso, I thought I'd create 3 different LOs for my three very good friends =)

As usual, I always start by laying out all my materials on my bed so that I can have a bird's eye view of 'what goes with what'.

Laying out all my materials

Once I've got a rough idea of the design, which may take ages sometimes, I'll put everything together.

As the frames are smaller than the border (which I got from Art Republic), I cut it into three pieces to fit the frames (shown below).

Cutting the border to fit the frame

I got the background paper from Popular Bookstore at Clementi Mall, where I was delighted to find scrapbooking materials that I could get at 10% discount as a Popular member!

For Frame #1, I stuck a cut-out photo of PH, me and baby girl, added letters (from Papermarket), stickers (from Spotlight), some journaling at the top..

Frame #1

..plus a strip of blue polka dot paper at the side of the frame.

For Frame #2, I decided to go with a landscape layout..

Frame #2

..with the photo in the center as well as a photo border (from Art Republic), lettering (from Papermarket), various stickers (from Spotlight) and felt leaves (from Daiso) surrounding it.

For Frame #3, I decided to add a polaroid photo of DH and me..

Frame #3

..pink photo borders and flower felt (from Daiso), various stickers (from Spotlight) and some journaling on a heart I cut out of black paper.

And viola! I hope you girls love them as much as I do! =)

Our self-timed shot we took at Starbucks @ The Cathay.

~~~~~~

This post is part of my Mad-Made Art series that documents our artistic creations!

You can also see more on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumart! 

The Bunting Bunny

A few weeks ago, my friend and fellow mum blogger Adora (who blogs at Gingerbread Mum) contacted me to review a new product that she had created called The Bunting Bunny.

She came up with the idea of creating a DIY bunting pack for mothers and their children to work on together due to feedback from clients of her craft business, Buggy Bee Kids, who wanted to do more crafts with their kids but didn't have time to find the materials to make them.

She asked me if I would like to try it and I agreed immediately!

My Bunting Bunny pack in the mail

My Bunting Bunny pack was then mailed to me and in it was a bottle of glue, ribbon, flags, letters of my baby's name and instructions.

Components of my Bunting Bunny pack

Step 1, according to the instructions, was to decide the layout of the flags.

Laying out the flags..

I almost always do my crafts on my bed, which I never had a problem with as I'm really careful although I'm totally re-thinking that strategy now that I'll be doing more crafts with a messy baby.

Anyway, baby girl helped me with Step 2, which was to apply glue to the back of each letter.

Applying glue to the back of the letters

Make sure that you're applying on the back of the letter and that the whole felt, especially the corners, is filled with glue. Next, stick the letter in the middle of the flag.

Sticking the letter onto the flags

Letter 'J' on the flag

If you're like me and you have this need to align everything perfectly, here's a tip. Fold all the flags down and make a crease across the top of all the flags, which is the 'line' that you can use to align your letters.

As usual, baby girl got bored after the 2nd step and I was on my own for Step 3, which was to glue the flags onto the ribbon.

You'll need to fold the ribbon into two in order to get a middle line where the middle flags go so that both ends of the bunting are the same. Then, put the flag on top of the ribbon before applying the glue so that you would know exactly how much glue you'd need to apply.

Applying glue onto the flag

Leave the whole thing to dry overnight and viola!

The finished bunting!

I love it! It would look absolutely perfect in my girl's room of our future house =)

Benefits of The Bunting Bunny:

• Great crafting opportunity for busy mums who have no time to prepare crafts for their kids
• Older kids can enjoy a great bonding experience with their parents
• Younger kids can learn the letters of their names
• Great idea for birthday presents, christmas presents, etc

How to order:
You may order one for yourself by emailing the following details to thebuntingbunny@gmail.com:

a) Name of Child:
b) Choice of design:
c) Type of postage: Normal / Registered
d) Mailing address:

It will take approximately 2 weeks from receipt of payment (bank transfers only) to receive your order.

Price:
Each customised Bunting Bunny pack costs $18 (not including postage) which includes up to 7 letters of your child's name. The 8th letter onwards will be charged at $1 per letter. For e.g., if your child's name is C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R (11 letters), you'll have to pay an extra $4 for the 4 additional letters that are not included in the price.

However, there is an introductory offer of $15 (not including postage) for all orders made before the end of September 2011!


And even better news..

ONE lucky reader of my blog will stand a chance to win a Bunting Bunny pack!

To win, all you need to do is:

1) Like MadPsychMum on Facebook, if you haven't already done so

2) Leave a comment on this post, stating why you would like a Bunting Bunny pack, who it's for and where you're going to hang it!

3) Leave another comment (optional) on my facebook fan page, under the giveaway status, for an additional chance to win!

It's that easy!

This giveaway is only open to readers residing in Singapore & ends on 30th September 2011 so start liking and commenting! =)


UPDATE: I have randomly picked a winner and it is none other than San! I'll be contacting you soon =)


Disclosure: A complimentary bunting was received from Buggy Bee Kids for the purposes of this review. No monetary compensation was received; all opinions are my own.

One Wedding Down, Four More to Go

At the end of every annual Hungry Ghost Festival season is the usual flooding of wedding invitations from friends and family and this year was not different.

First up was my paternal cousin's wedding to his long time sweetheart of 9 years!

We dolled baby girl up in a dress we got from our trip to Shenzhen and some fancy white shoes I bought at OG at a discount for only $9 (I don't believe in buying expensive shoes for my baby as she'll grow right out of it in 3 weeks)!

She looked so cute we just had to take pictures with her on the way to the wedding!

My cousin, whose wedding was held at Hotel Fort Canning, is the same cousin who owns a pet iguana..

I took a picture of one of the pages of their wedding album

..like for real! When I saw this reptile in its cage for the first time at my cousin's house when visiting them during Chinese New Year, I was really surprised! I heard that he had raised the huge fellow ever since it was a teeny tiny little thing and therefore was so extremely attached to it that he refused to let it go to the local zoo despite much pleas from my late grandmother.

I'm not sure if his wife loved his beloved pet as much as he did but I sure thought it was sweet of her to allow it to be a part of the wedding pictures! So cool ain't it =)

My dad was also in town for this one..

Baby girl with her maternal granddad

..and it was great as we hardly get to see him 'cos of work.

And since we got so bored waiting for the banquet to start, we decided to take some shots of our own!

Love these photos of us!

And then, it was time for the bridal march!

The beautiful bride and groom!

The food was pretty tasty and I particularly loved their door gifts..

Crown Blank Keys

You could either make keys out of them (which I intend to do once we get our own house) or hang them on a string as a necklace (my sis' idea).

After the wedding, we gathered at my mom's house for chit-chat. Baby girl was feeling uncomfortable in her dress so we got her out of it and into one of my sis' tank tops..

..which we custom made to fit her by tying a knot at the back! Smart eh =)

We enjoyed my dad's company very much and it's too bad that he had to leave so soon. Can't wait for his next trip back!

Until then, we've got four more weddings to go!

P.S. Check out my first article that I wrote for Mama Moderne as Guest Contributing Writer as well as our wedding feature on Singapore Brides! :))

Movie Preview: Johnny English Reborn

I was invited by omy.sg, together with United International Pictures (UIP), to catch the movie premiere of the comedy spy-thriller Johnny English Reborn held at The Grand Cathay.

Me at the Movie Premiere of Johnny English Reborn

Our Tickets in a very Interesting Postcard..

Once again, Rowan Atkinson reprises the role of Johnny English, an improbable secret agent who appears absolutely clueless but makes up for it with his quick wit and extremely good luck. In this movie, this secret agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Service must attempt to stop a group of international assassins before they eliminate a world leader and cause global chaos.

Official Trailer:

As usual, the hubby went along with me for this one as he's the kind of person that really appreciates physical comedy (i.e. any joke that requires deep thinking is totally not for him *laughs*).

And Rowan Atkinson is the king of physical comedy!

I had expected it to be lame and predictable so that wasn't a surprise. The surprise was that there were actually nuggets of great wisdom in this movie! The wisdom actually balanced everything else thus making it very entertaining!

Johnny English has everything a typical secret agent (like James Bond) or super hero (like Iron Man or The Green Hornet) would have: 1) a great side-kick, 2) fantastic gadgets that could do a million things and 3) an amazing, fully automated, state of the art car!

Come to think of it, you can't be a good super hero without a good ride. Unless you can fly of course.

This is a great movie for people who had worked their butts off the whole day (i.e. dealing with horrible bosses/customers or running after hyperactive kids) and just want to enjoy a good laugh without needing to think like a rocket scientist.

Catch 'Johnny English Reborn', which opens in cinemas today (15th September 2011)!


Disclosure: A pair of complimentary movie tickets were received from omy.sg for the purposes of this movie review. No monetary compensation was received; all opinions are my own.

Nursing Rooms Review Criteria

If you've been following me for some time, you would know that I'm so super pro-breastfeeding that I live it and breathe it all the time. Sometimes to a point where singletons get creeped out and some mothers get annoyed (ah well..)

Add that to my love of window shopping at various malls and you'll get an awesome review of nursing rooms in Singapore & beyond (which was also featured on SingaporeMummy)!

I'm sure you're wondering how I came up with the ratings, which I can assure you is not dependent on my feelings. I'm a researcher. Objective assessment is in my blood, so of course you'd have to expect some sort of judging criteria as befitting of a true scientist.

Criteria for Nursing Room Assessment

The criteria is based on my knowledge of what nursing mothers need and want as I'm a nursing mother myself.

• We need lots of room so that we won't bump into other mothers.
• We need lots of amenities, such as electrical points (for mothers who pump milk), hot & cold water dispensers, a waiting area for family and friends, etc.
• We need the nursing areas to be separated from the changing area so that different mothers with different needs are able to utilise the nursing room at the same time.
• We need beautiful decorations to look at and adequate cleanliness without the smell of poo.
• We need enough privacy so that we can feed our babies in peace without the fear that someone might walk in on us.
• We need more than one available nursing room as waiting for the one and only nursing room in the whole building while your baby is screaming for milk will just drive anybody crazy.

[P.S. To the Management Committee of shopping malls: If you could design future nursing rooms that can better cater to the needs of nursing mothers and parents of young babies, we parents will definitely greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and in turn give you our support!]

Each nursing room that I visit is rigorously judged using said list. After adding up the points, a rating (between 1 to 5 stars) is then given.

Rating System for Nursing Room Assessment

And there you have it! =)

Waterplay at Jurong East Swimming Complex

I've always wanted to bring baby girl to my favourite water playground since I was young: Jurong East Swimming Complex! We decided to take a MRT to Chinese Garden Station and walk for approximately 10 minutes to the complex.

Walking towards the complex with baby just awaken from her nap

I chose not to bring the stroller as I didn't want to have to look after it when we're there. But that turned out to be a wrong decision as carrying a 10kg baby while she slept on my shoulder nearly broke my back. And I'm not even joking..

So you can imagine how happy I was when we finally reached our destination.

Jurong East Sports Complex

Jurong East Swimming Complex

My Sis, Bro and our cousins used to come here for great water fun for a really affordable price! It only costs $1.50 per adult and $0.80 per child (persons under 19 years old) on weekdays and only slightly more on weekends.

We quickly changed in the toilets and kept all our belongings in the lockers. The lockers only cost $0.40 per locker and this had remained the same since we were kids!

Beside the lockers is a counter where you can rent floats at just $2 per float! Cheap eh! However, you'll need to pay $5 per float as the additional $3 would only be refunded after the safe return of the float.

My bro filling out a stub to rent the floats

After renting our floats, we decided to introduce baby girl to the children's water playground. However, she's still too young for it so all she did was wade around a little bit.

Checking out the water fun!

We decided to skip the slides because, 1) baby girl is too young obviously and 2) the rest of us were too old, or rather, too lazy to climb up the 'tower'.

So what do lazy people do? Why, hang out at the lazy river of course!

Floating down the lazy river

Initially baby girl really enjoyed riding down the river in the above shown manner (i.e. on top of the float). But she soon realised that she was never going to get really wet this way and attempted to jump right into the river! Totally not kidding.

Me: "OMG! Baby, what are you doing?! Do you think you can swim already? No no no!"
Baby Girl (still struggling to get into the water): "Yeah yeah.."
Passerby swimmers (laughing and pointing): "Ohh look, so cute!"

Yes, that's how much she loves the water! So I had little choice but to get off the float and go through the middle of it so that baby girl and I can have half our bodies in the water. You would think she would be scared by the current, but noooo.. she loved it! Parents floating by us were half astonished and half worried that she would drop through the hole of the float right into the water.

Before you judge me, you must know that the float fitted around both of us pretty tightly and her mummy is a pretty good swimmer. There were times where I had to stop the float in the middle of its drift to wait for my mum who was lagging behind and yet I was able to hold my position for more than 5 minutes.

So before you go and try this with your own kid, you gotta know that it ain't that easy but really really fun for both you and your baby =)

In addition to the lazy river, there is also a wave pool in this swimming complex!

Wave pool at Jurong East Swimming Complex

At first we were bobbing around in our floats but then I decided to do without it and let her just play with the waves. Baby girl loved it! She did, however, have a problem with the constant splashes of sprouting water onto her face and soon got tired.

When we went back to the lazy river later, she nearly fell asleep on my mother's lap while their float drifted down. That was our cue that it was time to go..

And although baby girl was dead tired, she left extremely happy and satisfied.

"Mummy that was fun!! Can we come again? Please?!"

Just like her mummy, her aunts and uncles before her, baby girl loved this place! As did her grandma, who said it was even more fun than Sunway Lagoon! *laughs*

We'll definitely be back! =)

~~~~~~

This post is part of my MadPsychMum Fun in Singapore Guide to all things exciting for kids! 

Check out other fun playgrounds and attractions in Singapore! =)

You can also follow us on Instagram or join us by using our hashtag #mpmfuninsg!