I'm a full-time mummy

I've discovered a new hobby that is very therapeutic for myself!

Introducing the Do-It-Yourself (aka DIY) ribbon hair clip!

Sometime ago, I saw a mummy friend in my FB SAHM group sharing that she wants to pass on her ribbon hair clip making knowledge to whoever who is interested. To be honest, I was interested but there were so many mummies responded in that post thread that they want to learn so I just keep quiet myself and continue on with my busy life...

Until recently, I plucked up the courage to send a personal message to that mummy friend (who is also on my friend list since then) and asked her about the ribbon hair clip making updates and how the other mummies are learning on from her.

To my surprise, she said no mummies contacted her personally and I'm the only one who asked her about it now. And so, that sparked off my interest again and I began Googling for more info and also sending lots more PMs to my friend (her name is Kerry btw) asking her as and when I came across some bargain deals online,to find out from her whether it is worth it to purchase such items etc.

She gave some important inputs to me on what items to look out for such as the type of ribbons to get is grosgrain ribbons, the sizes, the type of alligator hair clips, the craft glues, and so on.

I told her I will only pester her if I need any more info and went on to buy from 2 online store. I have so far received one of the package while the other apparently got stuck in the postal office (status shown unable to deliver to me and package returned back to post office - and I've got NO notice card left by postman to proof that I can collect it personally at the pots office.. sigh, that is another story)

Anyway, with the package I received, I started off doing the hair clip, with a very simple tutorial to practise my skills. Which I intend to start off with learning how to glue the hair clip all over. And then slowly add other appliques or decorations on the hair clips as I practised along.

So how is this new hobby of mine end up being so therapeutic? Well, most of the time when I was doing the hair clips, both my kiddos left me alone. I get some 'me' time and honestly, I needed as much uninterrupted time as possible because at 8 months pregnancy now, BOTH my kiddos are really, really, really clingy at me! I can't even be out of sight from our 4 years old boy! I go to bathroom and not even 5 seconds, my boy asked from outside 'Mummy are you done?'. I tried to take a nap (despite the risks of being slammed down by my kiddos on the bed when they skipped their daytime nap) and my boy goes 'Mummy are you sleeping?' or 'Mummy you sleep enough?'

Even though I will be sitting on my chair at my desk doing the hair clips and still needing to entertain my kiddos, our 2 years old girl will most of the time immediately climb up to my chair and squeezed right next to me and started touching everything on my desk and our 4 years old boy will go 'Mummy see', 'Mummy look', 'Mummy why..' every 10 seconds on average, oh well, at least when I'm doing the ribbon hair clips, my kids left me alone. That is some precious moment of peace!

So yes, I've been practising and trying out new designs almost everyday and I get extremely excited when I see my girl gently touching her hair after I pinned the hair clip on her head. She is so scared that the clip will fall off. I chuckled when I see her smiling and looking at the mirror immediately after I put on the hair clip. Vainpot! Hahahah!

I started with a simple ribbon hair clip where I learned to glue the ribbon all over to cover the hair clip and then topping it off with a cute pink hat button.

I then tried to make my own decoration by following a sample online, making a strawberry flower topping.

The following day, we saw a gigantic rainbow above our house in the evening and that sparked my ambition to try out the rainbow hair clip. A tad too big as I did the rainbow without proper measurements, but I like it nevertheless! Made two at the same time and gave the other one away to a good friend of ours, his daughter is younger than mine.

I also made a pair of hair clips which I dubbed the 'Mother and Daughter hair clips' also given to our good friend, I hope they like it!

And this is one of my latest result! I am very happy with this though definitely need more fine-tuning - I still need to figure out how to stick the back of the lollipop properly to the hair clip and most probably need to get a thinner ribbon instead of the current 8mm width of ribbon I'm using now. It makes the lollipop a tad too big and thick for the tiny hair clip but it looks so superbly cute on our 2 years old girl, right?

I also made some fruit themed hair clips such as grape hair clip and banana hair clip shown below:

Anyway, you can view the pictures of My DIY Hair Clip Project I made so far which I shared on my Facebook page. As for tutorials, I hope I can share with you what I learned but most of them you can also find online anyway. I am not confident at all to teach anyone as of now as I am still learning myself and would not want to be teaching anyone the wrong thing. I can only share that one of the online store I used will be getting more clients as I have been recommending mummy friends and my blog followers to purchase the materials there. The price is OK for beginners like me but if you plan to do this more and in the long run, best would be to buy from eBay or other websites which can sell wholesale quantity.

Until then, I hope to be able to make more awesome ribbon hair clips for my children. Again, a very special note of thanks to Kerry for her guidance and tips in helping me along with my new journey!

Towards the end of May this year, I blogged about our upcoming product reviews for Skechers again and yes, it has been such an awesome opportunity to be able to work with Skechers again! I have previously shared our review on Ben's awesome kid's shoes, the " Skechers Boys' Hot Lights: Damager - Police II Shoes", Alyson's "Skechers Girls' Lite Dreamz - Dreamweaver Shoes" and my hubby's "Skechers Relaxed Fit: Superior - Pace Shoes", so this round (which will also be my final review post for Skechers shoes) will be on my "Skechers Women's EZ Flex Shoes":

Description from the product page:
"Sporty good looks and lightweight flexible comfort harmonize in the SKECHERS EZ Flex - Melody Maker shoe. Smooth synthetic and mesh fabric upper in a bungee laced slip on sporty casual sneaker with stitching and overlay accents."

I fell in love the moment I saw this pair of beauties! I just love love love the color combination! Black and bright pink, mysterious and yet daring to be bold. Nice! All I gotta do at the shop is to get the right size for my feet and I purposely get a larger size in anticipation of my feet swelling up due to my third pregnancy now.

I love shoes with:

- Soft elastic material

- Love the colors and cute design

- Strong grip on the shoes' base

Most important is I do not need to tie any shoe laces or stick any Velcro straps hahaha.. I love being able to slip in my foot into the shoe and off I go! Now let's see how this awesome shoes look like.

Here are some pictures of me wearing the shoes! Apologies for most of my pictures showing my legs only ahaha because nobody takes my pictures!

I'm very happy with this shoes and am very satisfied I get to continue wearing Skechers shoes, in fact, the previous one that I reviewed can still be worn over and over on daily basis so yes, very confident and happy with the quality of the shoes! Awesome!

You can check out the designs at http://skechers.com.my/index.php

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by Skechers in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

It's been over half a year since I last blogged about my 2 kiddos' potty training progress!

Just a brief history for all of you who are new to my blog, I blogged about starting Ben back on his potty training in February 2012 after months of delaying it (Alyson came along in September 2011 and I had to pause Ben's potty training since then) and even listed down some short, medium and long terms goals that I looked forward to accomplishing with Ben. Then I also blogged about the precious sight I get to see - Ben finally pooping in his potty! (instead of diapers which he always insisted on), and revisiting those goals I set in February 2012 against the progress in early May 2012 and checking off the ones we achieved 3 weeks later, and now...

Just to report, our 4 years old boy now is officially pooping on his own in the toilet seat without needing our help at all. He just climbs up a chair, switched on the bathroom light (at night), get his step stool and positions himself nicely on the toilet seat and does his business. I do still need to help wash his bum after he finishes his business though. Hubby does not feel confident with our boy washing his own bum yet though I did teach Benjamin to do that sometime ago.

As for bedtime, if I sleep late or I woke up halfway or I woke up early, I will get my boy (still asleep) to pee in his potty - but provided I remembered him drinking more liquid prior to his bedtime. So far, no bedwetting incidents even though we missed waking up in the middle of the night to get him to pee.

As for our almost 2 years old girl, she can sit on the toilet seat to poop and she also indicates to us correctly a couple of times when she feels like want to poop! There are a few cases where it is wrong timing, I rushed to prop her up in the toilet seat, and nothing comes out, put back diaper for her and voila.. poop came... but at least, those few missed cases, she did tell us she wants to poop! As for starting her on potty training, oh well, I think it is not the right time especially when I'm pregnant with our 3rd child now.

I remembered rushing to start our boy with his potty training while I was 8 months pregnant with Alyson and oh boy, not very fun though I did managed to get Benjamin comfortable with being near his potty. I think Alyson will have no problem picking up potty training especially with her able to see her brother going to toilet with ease and all.

So there you go, looks like we are getting almost all of the goals soon for Benjamin and Alyson is progressing well (at her own pace too)! Thank God for this and for our dear boy to be so good in passing his potty training! Mummy and daddy are so proud of you both, Benjamin & Alyson!