Christmas Glass Pebbles & Chinese New Year Lion Heads

I know it's the oddest of topics, but I made some wonderful glass pebbles for my family members last Christmas as tags and have forgotten to blog about it. And since it's Chinese New Year now, I just have to blog about these wonderfully cute cupcakes I made for the celebrations too.

Printed rows and rows of images I stole from their Facebook!

Cut them to size. Found these pebbles from Daiso but did not have enough so had to make a trip to Multifilla.

Magnets for the back of the pebbles.

I used Modge Podge to secure the image to the flat side of the glass pebble. These were a set just for Alistair. Do you see Eddie?

Before Chinese New Year, my garden was a grand mess. Stan decided to give our little garden a little plastic surgery. LOL!

Who would have thought that fake grass will look so real.

Mind you though, the plants are the real deal! If they had fakes that good looking I would have thought about it too.

Love the flowering hedge around.

Ah! My forever green garden. We could have a little stitch bee here. What say you, Paul?

This Chinese New Year, I discovered how incredible a rhombus can become.

See the lantern taking shape.

Between laughing at some poor English translations I managed to figure out some wonderful lantern patterns using a plain simple rhombus fold of a red packet. How talented the chinese are! Will take a nice shot of all the lanterns I've made later to show you what I mean about these wonderful creations.

The mess on my kitchen table.

All that research on making toppers for the new year. Looks like I still can sketch some. LOL!

Some white chocolate piping. This was really fun to experiment. I printed out the chinese 'Fook' aka 'prosperity' and traced the wordings in one good stroke. Edible Calligraphy! How 'bout that!

Some mandaring oranges. A little whimsical but aren't they just the cutest!!!

Lion heads all in a row.

They look kinda majestic.

We also celebrated our Grandfather's 83rd birthday.

I made the topper out of a Shangri-la moon cake box motif.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR KUNG-KUNG!!!

Macadamia Honey cupcakes with the Chinese New Year themed toppers.

Close up shot of the cuppies.

GONG XI FATT CHAI everyone! May you have a blessed year ahead!!!

JANUARY 2012 : CROCHET & CUPCAKES!

This is not happening. A blog post a month is just not acceptable, so I make a tiny pledge that I will do this more often than a fortnightly ritual. But before I start, I have to backlog all my postings into one gigantic one. So between some frantic crocheting and baking adventures, there were some celebrations and cool crafting time as well. All the great 'C's I must add!

We sneaked off to Carey Island (The first 'C') for some Crabs!

Brought along my dearest Hayley for a little adventure off the Coast.

Here's Nigel enjoying Marmite Crabs.

'Stop taking photos! Mom!' Digging into that yummy Claw!

While we ate, Hayley decided to catch some nap time.

Here's dad enjoying a Coconut! (How many 'C's already???)

Some Tawashis being made as I worked. This was a month before Christmas.

Some toppers for cupcakes. My dear neighbor ordered some for her office party.

I wanted them dainty and cute.

Yummy Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes all Christmassy.

Love sprinkles on cupcakes. I think it adds a little jazz.

Chocolate ganache on fudge.

All boxed and ready to go. Thanks Janet for ordering them!

Mug cozies for Christmas. Love that shade of grey, must remind myself to get more of them yarns.

A week after, a tote full of tawashis.

Gosh! This was way back in November. A little order for a hen's party. Guess the theme!??

Red soldiers in a row.

Blood red apples and ribbons.

Wolverine paws and lily. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Hand painted for the first time. Still good with brushes, right? Some of you who knows me - I do paint a little.

Check out the presentation!

These are eggless cupcakes by the way.

Thank God for the toppers, eggless cupcakes do not brown very well. They were kinda pale but tasted darn nice!

We were in Penang for a short weekend. My dear uncle passed away the day after we were there, so we ended up attending a funeral in Penang too. My condolences to the Yee family.