DIY Popsicle sticks photo frame

I had been thinking of creating something from popsicle sticks for months together - lacked inspiration and idea. Saw a photo frame at my friend's place and another friend's birthday gave me enough inspiration and ideas - yup! got my mojo back!

This is the final look of the popsicle stick photo frame

Used simple glue to stick the popsicle sticks and used a golden and purple metallic paint. Foam sheet, some quilled pieces was used as embellishment. Used some blue-tack to fix the photos on to the frame.

My DS's birthday celebrations

My DS had been wanting to celebrate his birthday at his school. I had been searching for someone who could make angry birds cakes for sometime and then stumbled upon this  http://debyprabawa.blogspot.com. One look of the blog tempted me to order cakes from Dear Deby.

Here are the pictures:

Awaiting to have one whole cake to themselves...

The heads are bent down and hands are busy.....

Thanks, Deby! The cakes looked yummy and tasted wonderful. You indeed made my son's birthday a very special one.

A photo album made from toilet paper rolls

Numerous blogs and picture inspired me to make this photo album from toilet paper rolls. 

I gathered about 7 toilet paper rolls and flattened them. I had to keep them away tucked under my mattress for them to super flat. 

I covered them with these card stock.

You can see the tools that I had used and the card stock with punched holes.

I used a cereal box to create small tags for the photos. The brand tag or the price tag that comes with the clothes make a excellent choice for these things. You just have to retain the holes and cover them with paper and can use them. 

It took me real long time to dress-up my album. I had chosen a plain card stock/paper and did not know how to dress it up. This is how it looked.

This photo album was made to record the first few days of my little one - it was a pleasure to re-visit and re-live those early days..

A 'Thank you' quilled card

This is the card I made for G's teachers.

Its 'ANGRY BIRDS' time here in Singapore

For this year's mid autumn lantern festival, the shops are flooded with different types of lanterns. The popular ones this year seem to be based on "Angry birds".

I found these cute pencils at a shop near Bedok MRT.

A quilled card

This is the picture of a card that I made recently.

A close-up picture of the same card:

A new chick @ home

My little one has so much of imagination that I little did know of. The other day I was kneading dough and he came up to me to ask for his share. This is what he made.

@ Hong Kong disneyland, Small world

closer view
Originally uploaded by Anu.karthik

Does'nt this picture remind us about quilling?

Via Flickr:
Quilling @ Small world???

Channa masala

Channa masala
Originally uploaded by Anu.karthik
I followed my friend's recipe http://superzfood.blogspot.com/2011/01/channa-masala.html  and prepared this dish. It tasted yummy! Believe me, I have tried making this dish several times but never turned out this tasty...she has magic fingers!!! Aww...love the dish and her blog!

Pinnawala elephant orphanage

Pinnawala is a beautiful village, 90km from Sri Lanka capital, Colombo. Thanks to our son, we got inspired to visit this place.

A bright sun welcomed us at Colombo airport which was seen missing, thanks to the clouds, in Bangalore. The immigration was pretty quick and we decided to make enquires as to how to reach this orphanage. We were told that we will be never left outside the airport unless we state our hotel name and purpose of visit. Since we did not have any reservation made in any hotel we were planning to use the name of some hotel nearby but the need did not arise.

We had a bit of US dollars and ample amount of Singapore dollars - we decided to carry Indian rupees also. We looked for a foreign exchange at the arrival lounge - spotted a few of them owned by different banks for Sri Lanka. To our horror we discovered that one would be buying INR and exchanging them or Sri Lankan Rupees. They would certainly buy USD, SGD and even Malaysian Ringgit but not Indian rupees! We did not know about this nor had any options at Bangalore Airport for exchange.

Luckily the agency of whose taxi service we hired was willing to buy INR at "BLACK" and gave us Sri Lankan Rupees. Nope! I'm not going to discuss why things are that way and whats the exchange rate. I would like warn traveller to this country that please do try to exchange INR into Sri Lankan rupees - be wise! carry UDS or SGD or any other currency except the neighbouring country India's INR.

The weather was good though not very hot and the roads were EXCELLENT - having spent about a month in Bangalore I Loved these roads - I could imagine myself rolling on these roads!! (yes, there are better roads in the world but for me - something like this in Sri Lanka, entire stretch of Colombo to Pinnawala was a dream...)

On our way we could find many shops selling crafts made out of bamboo, coconut shells. Do stop to buy them and ofcourse you can bargain - couple for Sri Lankan rupees here and there and not too much.

A statue of Buddha is very common on the streets here.

The famous Indian "auto" called here "tuk tuk" are seen in different colours!

After 2 hrs and 30 mins of drive we reached the orphanage. Every afternoon the herds of elephants go to the river for a bath. They exit the orphanage and cross the road and take a small lane lined with hotels/resorts/shops to reach the river.

A view from "Elephant bay" hotel situated on the banks of the river.

There is an entry ticket which can be bought and can be used to visit the orphanage as well the hotel or the resorts. If rates are according to the country whose citizen you are. As we were from SAARC country, the ticket was priced very minimal.

We could not wait to see the elephant. We checked to a hotel called "Elephant Bay". We had a late lunch which looked very appealing..but worth everything!

Another view from the Elephant bay hotel.

It was totally very relaxing to watch the elephants having a bath, lazing around and searching for food and sometimes even fighting!!

For more photos, check out my Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29012034@N07