adding a bit of fabric to a date leaf basket

A few days ago we had a chance to spend our week end in Abbotabad a beautiful city of Pakistan i bought this color full date leaf basket from a man there who was selling his stuff on a bicycle i wish i had a picture of his beautifully decorated mobile shop .




the edges of this basket were a bit rough and also very delicate i feared that if one of the dried leaf link gets broken it might damage the knitting of the basket so i decided to cover it with some coordinating colored fabric ,i took two strips of the fabric one for the basket and one for the lid.



spray the fabric strips with water and iron the outer edges to the middle like this.






then covered the raw edge with the help of a needle and thread,




over lap the ending edges of the fabric to give a neat look.

the lid was also done in the same manner.








hot glued a double YOYO flower to the center of the lid and thus added a bit more fun look to my cute basket,hope you like the idea too :)

designing a toy cupboard

Well i think all of us who have children knows that even if you don't buy toys very often they still have a strong tendency to increase in number and the pile grows and grows ,more toys=more mess and its a Universal law that children love to have new toys they play with them and then they scatter them all over the house perhaps this is an essential part of playing and then they just go! leaving every thing where it is ,thinking that they have done their share of decorating the house in their own special way its such a shame that dads and some times even moms too does not appreciate such hard worked decorations .
I have only 2 daughters one is five and the other is 2 and a half and they just love to "decorate"the house all day long and the most pain full decorations are the small tiny toys which are so difficult to gather and pick up ,looking at all this i decided to make a proper cupboard for their toys instead of a large toy chest
I thought and thought............ a standing cupboard with partition will do good for large toys but what about the itsy bitsy stuff, we need a drawer like space to fill them with this tiny stuff but then if the drawers are filled up they become heavy and its not very convenient for kids to drag them open! after much brain storming i came up with this idea



a three feet tall cupboard with two small doors on the upper side and two sliding doors on the lower side




the upper chamber is for large toys or stuff toys and the second chamber is an opening to the lower chest like space so that small toys can be stuffed into it easily now you must be thinking whats the use of the sliding doors well ...............

in case the children have to find a specific toy or may be some day i decide to clean the cupboard for them we will just open up the sliding doors and all the stuff will come out automatically and my kids just love this automatic flood of toys out of the toy cupboard and they are also very happy to own a brand new cupboard designed and made just for them BUT still they continue to DECORATE the house :) well i guess thats also a fun part of living with young children they will make you feel their sweet presence in the house all day long :)

"Raita" full meal in less then 200 calories.

This recipe is a tasty treat for all my weight conscious friends .In just 177 to 190 calories you can have a full and satisfying meal with out the botheration of cooking .Its basically a salad very popular in my country and its named as "RAITA "

click HEAR to see the video tutorial of tomato peal Rose used for garnishing.

INGREDIENTS:

1. one medium sized onion chopped.......... round about 32 calories
2. one medium sized tomato chopped........round about 35 calories
3. one medium sized cucumber chopped ....round about 8 calories
4. one cup skim milk yogurt.....................round about 100 calories
5. salt to taste .................................................zero calories
6. red chili powder one pinch

TOTAL CALORIES = 177



To prepare this dish just put all the ingredients in a large bowl and thoroughly mix it garnish with a little cumin seeds and enjoy your very healthy low calorie satisfying meal

Road side snap shots

Two days ago we had to go to Lahore for a very short trip, yes! we stayed in that beautiful and historical city just for 5 hours that we spent at a relative's house and then we came back at night.Its about 4 hours long journey to Lahore on the Motorway from my home city Islamabad , i knew it very well that i can't snap any photographs from the main Lahore city because of the little time we had so i took some road side snaps from inside of our moving car because of which you will see a lot of photographic mistakes sorry for that but even then i want to share them with you hope you enjoy them.


beautiful lush green trees on the road sides



Bake oven to make clay bricks
One of the worlds largest citrus regions ' The Sargodha Region'

A small glimpse of River Jehlum


some fields of ready to harvest wheat



trees grown in a slant of wind direction.






Passing from the bridge over dried up river Chinab

30 minutes summer dress for little girls

This is Faareen my little princess.



This is a supper easy dress and even the beginners can try it out easily,i am no professional in stitching ,haven't attended any classes the only teacher i had is" experimenting" i saw one of my friend's daughter wearing this kind of a dress i liked it so much that i just had to try it my way, and it turned out so good that i decided to share it with you so sorry if you find some flaws in the pattern or the method of stitching.



click on the image to see a larger version

just measure the length of some old dress and width of the shoulders of your child ,now cut your fabric in 2 equal rectangles as demonstrated in the pattern above the width of the dress would be 6 to 8 inches added to the measurement of your child's shoulders so that we can have a ruffle effect on the chest and back now place these rectangles on each other wrong side to wrong side and fold them in half .
NOTE: please don't forget to add seem allowances on all the sides.


place a sleeve less dress (that fits your Child) and mark the arm holes with tailor's chalk and cut the fabric now open the rectangles ...



this would give you the identical front and back of the dress.


now fold and stitch the arm holes
click on the image to see a larger version


fold the upper edge of the dress to about 1 and a half inch and stitch to make a casing for the ribbon



take a 3 to 4 inch wide strip of fabric and create pleats in it

now stitch together the front and back of the dress from one side attach the pleated strip at the bottom then stitch the other side of the dress . Now draw ribbons through the casings made on the front and back parts of the dress let your child wear the dress and then tie the bows over her shoulders ..... there all done ....

Free printable Easter cards

The month of April is finally hear so every body must be busy in the preparations for the Easter ,but what about the friends and family members that live far away from us and we cant visit them ? Well here is one suggestion send them some cards ! don't worry your budget will not be affected .... here's is a gift of some free printable cards from my side for every one who celebrates this occasion .


select this simple but colorfully painted egg card.




another simple yet colorful design


A cute gift basket full of colored eggs


How about this cute Easter bunny !


To take a print out of these cards just click over your selected card to see a larger version of the picture in a separate window now click on the "File "in the extreme right on top of the window to open the file menu then hit the "Print" option arrange the size and then hit "OK" Tab .

Transforming an old drawer into a shoe rack

This is a drawer form our old bed room cupboard which we had for spare for quite some time its 1 foot deep and 3 feet long !a few days ago a marvelous idea poped into hubby's mind that why don't we make a shoe rack out of it and trust me it was not difficult at all ,all we did was that we removed the handle and filled the holes with the filling material that is made by mixing equal quantities of wood glue with chalk powder (the white spots you can see in the picture ).



then we fixed four panels into the drawer to make 5 chambers the upper two chambers are kept a bit narrow for children shoes and the lower are slightly wider for adult shoes.



now we covered the raw edges with framing strips with the help of wood glue and tiny nails .
that's it the shoe rack is complete and just need a few coats of paint.



after 3 coats of dark brown paint and 1 day for drying we placed the shoe rack in our lounge in a corner which was always crowded with shoes before as no shoes are allowed on the carpet in our house :)


TIP:
you can also make a rack out of a square or a wide drawer all you have to check is that it should be deep enough to hold the shoes, and if its not deep enough to hold adult shoes then you can make a shoe rack for children out of it .
As always think creatively and nothing will seem to you as a piece of junk .