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 ....