Whirlwind In A Mama's Head

I recently came across a few online stores on facebook that sells Batik  and with Rp. 35.000 - Rp. 65.000 price tag per piece (US $3.50 - $6.50), who can resist but order a bunch! My online purchases arrived a few days later and I was so excited! Sadly, I only had time to start doing anything other than washing them a week later (today!!). Wohoooo! First up on my list is a skirt for Miss Kiki. She looooves twirly skirts (what little girl doesn't?). Even I still like to frock twirly skirts sometime! I followed this tutorial for a Tutu Skirt from Little Pink Monster , written by Jessica from Happy Together . Then from there, I found Jessica's tutorial for a head band and made my second item of the day from the same fabric. Check this out!

Since Miss Kiki turned 4, we've decided to start teaching her a little bit of money management. I read that it's good to start at an early age so they will be well prepared when they are older. Totally makes sense. It's smart to be financially smart amongst other smarts ;) I first heard about this a couple of years back when Jessica from Intellidance blogged about what she did with her daughter. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find the post to link back :( I recently came across this site on Pinterest called Money As You Grow with great tips on how to teach money management to children from different age group. We want to start with teaching her the value of money. That we need money to buy things, that a lot of things have a money value attached to them, that you get money by working, and to differentiate between her wants and her needs. Following Jessica's idea, we started her on a 'jar plan'. We have three glass jars for her, one for saving, one

The end result I had some leftover fabric from the skirt I made for Miss Kiki, so I decided to try making a fabric rose.  The skirt The  skirt was cutout from an oversized shirt, and this fabric was cut from the sleeve hem so it's already finished at the ends and folded nicely for what I need it for. If you have just a piece of fabric, you want to cut a long and slim rectangle, fold the wrong sides together along the length in half and press. My inspiration was from the Cluck Cluck Sew Blog.  Allison there has a nice tutorial with detailed pictures. Have fun! The material Gathering process Rolling the Rose Sewing the bottom The only thing I did different was at the last step, I folded my rose out so it became fatter. My fabric was a knitted one so it worked really well.

On Friday I promised you a tutorial for the fabric flower that I made for Miss Kiki's Birthday outfit. It's actually quite simple. I followed a tutorial by Jen Renee , using her instruction for fabric flower No. 2. This is how I did mine: Cut fabric into circle shapes. I cut it close to the size that I want my flower to be. I used pink and blue tulle with glitters, 8 circles each. I take a pair of circles, one pink and one blue, and fold them in half with blue on the inside. I fold them again one more time to a quarter circle shape. I sew the bottom (the centre of the circle) together so they don't unfold Repeat steps 2 and 3, alternating the colour order. This means the second one I did had the blue on the outside and pink on the inside. Sew the first and second one together and keep adding until you get the desired fullness. I used 8 of each colour in my flower. This is what it looks like at this point. I separated the blue and pink fabric that was folder

Miss Kiki is turning 4. I can't believe how fast it has been! She is one of the smallest kid in the class, even though she is one of the older ones. Oh well, maybe she will have a growth spurt one day. Just the girls Today we had a lot of fun celebrating her birthday at school. I was there to tell the story of her life, and she held a globe and went around round yellow table cloth that represented the sun 4 times. We sang happy birthday and blew the candle and cut the fancy cake that she designed herself! Her birthday outfit was one of the tutus that I made for her using this tutorial  but slightly modified, with a tank top she had embellished with a matching flower. I'll post the tutorial soon. Today, I would like to show you how I did her tutu skirt. I basically followed the instruction on how to make a fixed size tutu skirt  but instead of tying the tulle into knots around the elastic, this is what I did: take a tulle strip fold the length

Let's just ignore the fact that the previous post was more than 8 months ago (!!!) and continue with what I should have finished then. The picking up of the passport was rather uneventful, except for the part that my friend got kicked out of the immigration office :P The day I was supposed to pick up my passport I called up my Lao friend (who lives in Jakarta) if she wanted to come with me to pick up my passport. I warned her that it would be a boring trip with heavy traffic and long waits at the immigration office, but I'd love company. Without hesitation she said yes (what a good friend!) and off we went to Mampang with Kiki on the back seat. So it happens that that day she was wearing a sack dress above her knees. We parked in the basement and took the elevator out. As soon as we got out of the elevator on the 2nd floor, the security guard stopped her and told her that she wasn't allowed inside because her dress was too short. Seriously! It wasn't even higher

Yesterday I talked about my first visit to Kanim Jak Sel to get a new passport. I submitted the required documents and so far it cost me Rp. 100.000 for taxi and 5 hours of my time. On my second visit, I decided to leave a little bit earlier. Jam 8 pagi saya sudah mengambil nomor antrian di Kanim. Sembilan puluh enam. Not too bad, I thought. Jam 10:30, nomor saya dipanggil untuk ke loket dan membayar biaya paspor. "Dua ratus lima puluh lima ribu, Mbak." kata petugas. "Pak, saya mau yang 24 lembar aja dong, nggak perlu yang 48 lembar." "Kalo mau jadi TKI baru boleh minta yang 24 lembar, Mbak" kata si Mas sambil nyengir lebar. Keluarlah Rp. 255.000 dari dompet saya. Sekarang saya harus mengantri untuk foto dan wawancara, dan tinggal satu setengah jam sebelum jam makan siang pegawai. Nomor yang sedang dilayani waktu itu adalah nomor 60. Petugas piket yang bermaksud baik mengatakan, "Tunggu saja, Bu. Biasanya cepat kog. Saya rasa bisa masuk sebel

Since this post is mostly pertaining to Indonesians getting an Indonesian Passport, I will be writing in a mix of English and Bahasa Indonesia. Thank you for understanding :) Setelah bertahun-tahun hidup di luar tanah air, saya sudah terbiasa mengurus hal-hal administrasi sendiri, tanpa jasa calo. Tidak tenang rasanya, membayar servis yang biasanya involving 'salam tempel' walaupun bukan saya sendiri yang harus melakukannya. After a little research online, I decided to just jump in and do it myself. Apa sih, susahnya? Apapun hasilnya, yang penting sekarang ini bisa mendapatkan pengalaman berharga. Berbekal informasi yang saya dapatkan online, I left for Kanim Jakarta Selatan, dan berencana untuk meminta paspor elektronik yang tahun lalu baru saja diluncurkan. Sehari sebelumnya, saya sudah mencoba untuk memasukkan berkas-berkas online, tetapi melihat persyaratan yang diminta, I decided it was too much work. Dari rumah saya di Kebayoran Lama, dengan Blue Bird taxi memakan