Updates...

It's not that I've stopped blogging. In fact, I have constantly met my personal target of one to two entries a week. It's just that I have officially become one of those "obsessed parent-bloggers", except that my child is furry, has four legs and is certainly the cutest creature on Earth (and so I think). I've not given up on craft, I am still into vintage and cool things, I am basically still me. It's just that most of my interests are all centered around a certain little guy called Sam. I am ashamed to say but I think my furry little rascal has a way more interesting life than I do.

So, check out Sam's Little Forest to grab some snippets of my life.

enjoy~

One month away...

We're finally reaching the final stretch of our NYC adventure. Just one more month.

Am i excited? Absolutely. Am i sad? Surprisingly, not at all. I'm really happy to have called the Big Apple my home for the past 3 years but am equally happy to say goodbye to her. Yes, i would certainly miss the many friends that we have made, the nice carefree 2+1 life we have lead (Yap, zero family obligations kinda rock) and of course, the seemingly endless holidays and road trips we have done. Yet, with all that being said, we both know it's time to go home. Mr Lim's work life balance here is close to zero and admittedly, I've enough of doing nothing. (It was awesome while it lasted but I think 3 years is enough.) Not to mention, the depressing winter days. BYEEEEE!

Meanwhile, we've been really busy with packing and sorting through our belongings. To account for the insurance of our shipment, we had to declare the value of all our stuff and it sure is scary to see the total value of all my shopping (No, I'm not saying it here, but it's certainly wayyy more than I have expected.). Guess that's a good way to keep my future spending in check. 

On a separate note, the bittersweet feeling suddenly hit me when I saw Sam playing in snow a couple days ago. I just felt a little sorry for him that that was probably the last time (in his lifetime) that he would feel the coldness and fluffiness of snow under his little paws. Sorry Sammy boy, while I can't give you snow, I promise you that you will have tons of grass, sun, beaches and humidity (pui~) in our future home. That is if you survive the flight. *Fingers crossed*

We are going home~~

My stupid husband....

Here's a little background story: My cousin is currently staying with us and happened to have a late night out yesterday and came home after we both fell asleep.

So...in the middle of the night while Mr Lim and I were both asleep, I woke to Sam eagerly wagging his tail at me (he normally does that when we come home after leaving him behind and not in the middle of the night).

Me:  tapping Mr Lim to try to wake him up "dear~ why is Sam wagging his tail? Is something wrong?"
Mr Lim: half-awake.. "Huh, no la, think your cousin just came home.."
Me: "Izzit? Okay..." and I went back to sleep.

Sounds normal? I thought so, so I kinda let it slipped.

UNTIL.. I heard the truth..

While having lunch the next day, my cousin asked if we had purposely locked Sam out the room last night. I was shocked and insisted that I didn't and certainly wouldn't. Then I remembered what happened....

Before I went to sleep, Mr Lim had stepped out of the room to make a call and the silly boy tagged along. I fell asleep before Mr Lim returned from the call. SO, what exactly happened was...our beloved Mr Lim conveniently locked my precious little boy out of the room after he returned from the call without realising that Sam followed after him. Hence, the poor little thing was locked out in the dark for a couple of hours before my cousin came back. She was surprised to find him greeting her at the door and he was really excited. After she showered, she saw Sam sitting outside our bedroom door staring at it. Hence, she opened the door to let him in and that was when he jumped on the bed and greeted us, wagging his tail excitedly and waking me up. (Thus leading to the conversation above..)

SO POOR THING!! MY POOR LITTLE BOY!

After I realized what exactly happened, I quickly texted Mr Lim to 'scold' him.. and no surprises, he didn't realised that the silly little boy was outside the whole time.

SIGH~

This is what you get when you married a guy that's living in his own world....

T_T Poor sam~

My Anthropologie Shopping Spree!!

I love Anthropologie's House and Home items! Well, the clothes and shoes too actually (Just that I ain't that willing to spend that kinda money for that.) Anyway, I went on an anthropologie shopping spree for some items for my Senja home.

SideKick Show-Off Ring Dish
(Yes, it's another dog home decor item and Yes, I am THAT obsessed.)

(source: Anthropologie)

ChalkBoard Spice Jar

(Hee.. I bought 3 out of the 4 colors and I can't remember which ones and can't check as they have been packed away.)

(source: Anthropologie)

Farmers Market Basket (Large)

(Using this as a key holder to be placed near the door.)

(source: Anthropologie)

And lastly, my favorite purchase...

Knobs!

(Yes, I bought all of the following designs!)

(source: Anthropologie)

It's for a personal DIY project. (well, kinda DIY since I'm gonna get my contractor to do it and I'll just provide the knobs.) 

So what kinda project?

This is how my wall looks like. While I love how easy it is to organise my bags by hanging them on the wall, 3M hooks just ain't the prettiest. 

So, with the knobs, I'm actually gonna get my own Bag Wall Hanger(s) done. I got the inspiration from Pottery Barn and thought that this would look lovely on the empty wall of my walk-in wardrobe.

(Source: Potty Barn Kids)

Hee, cannot wait for the final product. For now, I'll just drool at the gorgeous knobs.

My family portraits...

Hee, after getting the soft copies of all the photos from our lovely photographer, we decided to invest in a family album. Melissa was really lovely and patient and after 4 drafts, the family album was sent to print. And in just a few days, it has arrived!!

Here's a few pages from the awesome album.

We decided to dedicate a special page just for Sam and to make it more a kid's page, we chose a cute pokka dots background.

To make better use of the $$ we spent, we chose 4 of our favorite photos and with the help of our trusty old friend, Canvas on Demand, we created a wall gallery. It's kinda ironic that none of our wedding photos were actually hung in our house (none were printed into canvas either). We did think about it, but procrastinated (for too long) and with the move to the states, we didn't get around to doing it. I guess the main thing was, we didn't have a habit of hanging things up then (I'm obsessed with that now though), plus, it was felt kinda weird to hang pictures of just us in the house for us to see. Like, who cares~

But with Sam, our family just feels completed (will be a little more completed when we get our Number 2, in maybe 7-8 years, no thanks to HDB's rules). Hence, I'm ready to hang these awesome photos up in our Senja flat. Even if I'm sick of staring at myself or the mister, there's always the cute little monster for me to admire. 

Here's a sense of the sizes of the canvas. The quality didn't disappoint as usual, and of course, the dog approves and I can't wait to hang it up. But for now, they sit well protected in my little store room (aka the guest room).

Thanks...

 for serving me for such a long time. 

Yap, it's a time for a change.

Lotsa Love, Zim & Key

I went etsy shopping again and found this amazing shop, Lush Prints, that sells USA made stamps. Not only do they make dog stamps, they even had a Jack Russell one! Hee, so of course I went ahead and made one for us. 

I love the quality of the stamp and how it turned out.

The stamp arrived right on time as I had just finish making a set of "thank you" cards.

Instead of the usual signing off, all I have to do is to stamp. Hee, under Rachel's suggestion, we used a darker brown ink to highlight Sam's ears and tail! (I know it's the wrong ear, but it's still distinctively Sam!) Love it~

The "Thank You" cards were actually made for some of the service providers here (e.g. doorman, sam's daycare) and would be given out to them when we leave for good. Seems like Sam approves!

Home Improvement Project - Vintage Suitcase Dog bed...

After seeing a blog entry about making a dog bed out of a vintage suitcase, I was inspired and decided to give it a try. 

(source: www.curbly.com)

I dragged Mr Lim to the Hell's Kitchen flea market in hopes of  finding my own vintage suitcase. Lucky us, we managed to pick one for just USD20. (And it was in green!!) 

Once we got it, I started procrastinating. I read the post sometime last year and bought the suitcase maybe a week later. 8 months later, I finally took the suitcase out, gave it a clean and took a photo of it. 2 months later, I finally started (and COMPLETED) the project.

Sam was curious about what this was for. 

The suitcase was really beat up inside. The fabric lining smelled pretty bad and was falling apart. But the little man liked it anyway. Yikes~

I spent a good half hour giving the outer case a good clean using the Rejuvenate leather & vinyl restoration kit and probably emptied a bottle of febreze inside to kill the smell.

I loved that the suitcase was green in color and I knew immediately that I wanted a yellow stripe fabric to make the pillow case out of. After some online shopping, I found the exact fabric that I was visualizing on fabric.com - the Riley Blake Chervon Yellow fabric. I bought 2 yards of the fabric, but only used about 1 yard for this project. 

As usual, the dog approved.

I hate cutting fabric, thus lazy me simply used an exisiting pillow case and added 2 inches to the width (for seam allowances and zigzag stitches to prevent the raw edges from fraying) and 5 inches to the length to allow me to fold the fabric in. (Hee, a easy tip is to fold the fabric into half and cut, keeping the folded side intact so that there'll be one less side to sew!)

A quick sew and ta-dah, a really basic pillow case was completed!

Sam test-laid and approved (again).

A quick check and it appeared to fit in the suitcase perfectly. 

I thought the sewing was the tedious part and once I was done, we just had to unhinge the suitcase and the dog bed would be completed. Boy was I wrong. The tough part was actually unhinging the suitcase. Damn the suitcase. It was really built to last. 

Mr Lim, the engineer, studying the structure. 

The hinge simply refused to give way and despite constantly hammering, it did not budge. 

After possibly 2 hours, a drill and some internet research, the engineer finally broke the suitcase into two! (HOORAY~) I was so bored waiting that I actually went on and completed yet another project (next entry!!). 

Mr Lim was pretty proud of himself for his hard work.

Look at the amount of tools we attempted to use.

After a more detailed examination, we realized that the inside of the suitcase was far more disgusting than we expected. There were orange residue (probably rust) and dirt under the lining.

Hence, we went ahead and removed the lining and gave the shell a really thorough clean (and disinfecting). 

I thought that the case looked really ugly and decided to add my own lining instead. I found a really cute (and appropriate) dog fabric in my stash - Premier Prints Best Friends Slub Charcoal. After a lot of hot glue, the new lining was added!

Tadah~ Presenting our very own vintage suitcase dog bed! It looked a little deflated due to the pillow. Time to search for a fuller pillow for the dog bed, meanwhile, we made do.

The dog couldn't wait and hopped right on it once we declared it completed!

He did a trial run of tossing and turning and approved (YET again).

We left it at the little corner by the window and went ahead to pack up the mess we created. When we turned back, we found the little man sound asleep on it. Sigh~ what a heart warming feeling to know that he appreciates our hard work and effort. (Okay, I'm reading too much into it.)

My initial plan was to make two beds from each half of the suitcase. Unfortunately, the condition of the upper half was just horrible that we simply tossed it away. While I am really pleased with the end product, I am not too sure if I would want to replicate this project! It was a lot more work than I've expected. But at least it was fun. 

And the little man does like it. 

That makes it all worth it. 

What happened next...

Time for the big reveal.. Our change of plans brought us to.... ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORES EVER - Vintage Junky!

What exactly happened was this.. while planning for the trip, I already requested that I would to like to add the store as one of our pit stops. However, after doing the math, we decided that the detour was a little too big and thus I disappointedly gave up the thought. (Mr Lim made it a little better by promising that we would do that road trip another time.) 

SO... when the longest yard sale turned out to be such a disappointment and Mr Lim was feeling all bad and stuff, I suggested making the pit stop again. Of course he said yes! Though that meant an additional 6 hours drive each way (and making new hotel reservations), I was super duper excited. (Hee, I even called to make sure the store was gonna be opened!) I've been following the blog for the longest time (often drooling over the delicious furniture she has) and it's just such an amazing feeling to know that I would finally get to shop there!!!

Sam's getting a little restless after asking "Are we there yet?" for a consecutive 5 hours.. 

And when we finally arrived, someone was as happy as I was!

I was seriously grinning ear to ear when I saw the sign.

And yes, it was OPEN!!

The actual store!

The little trailer outside the store was really cute. The retro vibe aside, the decor was yellow!!

Yeah, I could totally live here...

I didn't take many shots in the store (too engrossed shopping~), but check out the blog and you would see all the amazing furniture she sells. (I would buy the whole store if I could...) The owner, Michelle, was really sweet and friendly.  Her little guy's really cute and funny too. I was such a groupie when I finally met Michelle in person. I sure hoped that I didn't scare her with my over enthusiasm. I just felt so at home and totally glad we made the drive in the end. It was so worth every single minute!! (even the backache I got from the whole road trip.)

Of course that was absolutely no way I would go back empty handed. Here are my steals~

A vintage display unit

A repurposed vintage window

(I'm thinking of using it to put Sam's many polaroids!!)

My favorite buy of the day - an Odette Dresser with Mirror!

(source: Vintage Junky)

The drawers are actually laid with vintage music scores. LOVE LOVE LOVE the little touches that make the dresser even better. 

Plus, I also love that even the receipt is vintage!

To make it easier to transport the dresser back, the mirror was detached. We decided to keep it this way for now so that it would be easier for us to ship it back home. Hee, I actually caught the silly little dog checking himself out.

For now, the dresser sits proudly in our living room! Hee, I cannot wait to bring it back to Singapore!! And of course, the dog approves~

All in all, I was really happy with how the road trip turned out. I'm equally thankful for a supportive and sporting Mr Lim for being so gung-ho (and Sam for not complaining. =P). While the longest yard sale sucked, everything else was perfect and I'm loving all the items we got on the trip, hence no regrets. 

It sure was a crazy wild road trip.

Will I do it again? Absolutely yes~