I'm Back!!

Hi people, I'm back, finally! This blog has become dusty, being neglected for months. I wonder if anyone still reads my blog. :P Not only that, I find myself blog-hopping lesser and lesser. I couldn't help it, as I had to prepare for my wedding and setting up of my new home then. Every weekend was filled with activities... Meeting up with bridal coordinators, choosing and collecting invitation cards, making of video for our wedding montage... etc. Well, nothing beats the importance of my wedding, followed by work. So, baking and blogging has to be put on hold then. :P

It was a really busy year for me last year, but fun and fulfilling. I have to admit that in the midst of "happy future planning", there were times when I felt a little stress or overwhelmed by all the conflicting views by both side of our parents when it comes to our wedding. Although times have changed, but we still have to respect our parents who are more traditional in their thinking and hence have to abide by their customs. It was also through our wedding that I felt very touched by how our parents and family loved us, the things they did for us, and being accomodating and helping us wherever they could.

I am slowly getting back to my baking routine and have baked twice using my new Bosch oven! I have also cooked a few dishes and loving it, except for the washing and cleaning. As for blogging, I believe I won't be blogging that much but I'll try to keep it going as best as I could.

Here's sharing some of my bridal photoshoot taken in Singapore. I am so proud of myself that I could resist the "temptation", and only bought extra two photos (but costing $75 per photo which is daylight robbery! lol). I wouldn't want to spend thousands over just because the photographer took too many photos of us and allow us to choose!

:D

Pre-wedding Photoshoot Prelude

It has been a long time since I last update the progress of my wedding preparation. Well, in fact it has almost come to a halt since my ROM last year. Since the beginning of this year, way before we collected the keys to our nest, we kept ourselves busy with sourcing for renovation contractors / interior design firms, furniture / appliances shopping, etc. Most of our friends are really amazed to see that just shopping for a simple dining light could take us months to decide. The shop assistants in Balestier could even recognise us at the bus stop because my hubby went to Balestier too many times! *lol* Anyhow, we enjoy this process because those weekly hunting has become our dating affairs :) Both of us are rather picky (especially me) so we'll rather spend more time than to regret for not having browse enough. Since our schedule to our wedding has been planned well ahead, why not? :)

Our house is almost 50-60% completed, sans the carpentry which would be installed very soon. It was rather draggy though due to some hiccups in our flooring and our design concept. ;) I am looking forward to see some carpentry work done up this week and hopefully by Nov, we can start to do the final touches. Then, we'll be able to focus on our wedding held in Jan 2012. Oh gosh, just realised it's less than 4 months to our wedding. :D

Opps I digress again. I should be taking about my pre-wedding PS... :P Our PS was on 15 Sep 2011. It was a hazey week, with the island experiencing a higher than usual PSI on 12 Sep, few days before our PS due to the Sumatra fire; and heavy rain hit parts of the island the day before. NEA weather forecast showed that on the day of our PS, rain was expected in the late morning / early afternoon. It did, followed by fine, clear weather. We were so lucky! We even managed to capture blue sky in botanic garden. :D

Here are some of the shots taken not by the photographer, but my best friend aka da jie using her iphone 4. The first photo was taken in the studio. I love the white background.

This is retro doesn't it. My boss exclaimed: Oh my botanic garden time! *lol*

This was in botanic garden as well, the man-made waterfall.

Another shot in botanic garden.

Botanic garden was our first outdoor location, after which we proceeded to the shophouses along Tanjong Pagar area, and landed at our last stop at Sentosa for sun set shoot. As much as I wanted to be creative and wish to avoid the more common PS locations, we still settled for these safe, yet beautiful locations, as Singapore is really that small.

Although it was really tiring, we really enjoyed the PS (especially me!). :P In fact i had a crazy idea - to do another "post-wedding" PS during our honeymoon. *wink wink*. Well... we shall see how... We'll be able to choose the photos in a few weeks time. I'm determined not to allow myself to top up extra photos over the package of 44 that I am given. $85 for each extra photo? I would rather sign another package. :)

Cranberry Scones

Hi to all of those who do still pop by my blog, I know I've been missing for some time... but it doesn't mean that I've ignored this blog or my love for baking. I still do, but as some of you may know, I'm busy both in my work and my wedding/house renovation.

In the past, I may complain that I'm too busy to blog but I still do bake. Now, I don't even have the luxury to go blog hopping, let alone bake and blog. This post was put up a few weeks ago, when I sneaked in some time to post the pictures, and sneaked in some time to type out the recipe and finally here I am now, determine to finish it today, to at least post one entry for this month, and hopefully more! I made this almost 2-3 months ago. This falls in in 'quick bread' category and that was why I chosed this. I named it Scones ~ bakery aroma cos' the kitchen was full of bakery aroma that I felt this was real bakery, attributed to butter and cream. ;)

You can bake this in advance, cool and store in the refrigerator. Before serving, just pop into the oven or toaster and you get the bakery aroma again!

I shall leave the rest with the pictures and the recipes. :)

Ingredients:

220g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

80g unsalted butter

30g castor sugar

1/2 tsp salt

110g of egg yolk and milk mixture (1 egg yolk with enough fresh whole milk to make up the amount. I combined with leftover whipping cream and some low fat milk to make up the 110g)

40g cranberries, chopped

Method:

1. Prepare flour and butter a day in advance. Sift flour and baking powder together. Place butter and flour together in a plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator overnight. (i omitted this step).


2. On the day of baking, preheat oven to 200 degree celsius .


3. Add sugar. Rub butter into the flour until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.


4. Add cranberries together with egg yolk and milk mixture and mix until a smooth dough is formed.


5. Place dough on a floured surface and knead lightly.


6. Rolled to a thickness of about 1.5-2cm.


7. Cut with a 5-cm round pastry cutter dusted with flour. Alternatively if you prefer to shape into wedges like mine, you could roll into a circular dough, and cut into wedges using a pastry cutter.


8. Place cut-out dough on a baking sheet brushed with milk.


9. Bake for 12-15 minutes until scones are golden brown.


10. Remove from heat and cool on a wire rack.
    

Recipe adapted from: "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida

Some updates about myself. My renovation is going smoothly and it's really excited to see more things done every other day. It is a tiring but enjoyable process... but I really do miss baking... alot. In fact I had a few arguments with my hubby because he wanted me to spend less time on baking and reading baking blogs but to spend some time to think and surf the web for ideas on what design I wanted for our house design. *lol* I was rather stubborn at first thought of it but I do understand his intentions. Afterall, he wanted me to have our dream house and would have no regrets in the final outcome. Anyhow, I discovered he is a perfectionist when it comes to this big project of ours but I appreciate that as I could see that all he wanted was to ensure that I'm happy with the choices that we have made, in terms of colour scheme, design, layout, etc. :)

Our first Love Nest :)

After almost two years of waiting, finally we are now proud owners of our first asset, where we will be setting up our home. :) Haha... this photo doesn't spell anything about our new flat, and our keys. But we are imdeed posing in the office of HDB. I realised all the photos taken reveals my new house number, so P&C. ;)

Huat ar!! (meaning increasing wealth in Hokkein)... LOL... that's the Chinese custom of rolling two pineapples before stepping into the new house, for wealth and prosperity.

Here's a small, 90 sqm public housing, with three bedrooms, in the northern part of Singapore. :)

Looking from the door entrance.... It's rather dark as we are living on the fifth floor... On the left is the household shelter, to the right is the kitchen.

Pathetic small kitchen.... We will be hacking off the left wall to make way for an open concept kitchen. Nevermind that people often advises about the grease and all, we need a bright kitchen and more spacious living hall. We will buy a strong hood!

The service yard area, where we will be putting the washer.

Looking out from the service yard area. That's the household shelter.

Our living room. :)

Stepping further in....

Looking from the living room. On the left is the kitchen, Behind the wall with the circular vent is the household shelter. Got it?

Moving to the left will be our bedrooms. Very small yea?

Our dining area. We plan to put a big mirror to enlarge the space. There, you see three bedrooms. We'll be combining two bedrooms into one as the master bedroom is so freakingly small.

Alright, that's about it... will update more again when there's more things to see instead of a bare house.

We started sourcing for contractors / Interior Designers (ID) since last year and finally, we decided to be our own ID. An interior designer helps to design your house but we find that most of the designs coming from such identical layout are similar, and as our house is small, there isn't much designs to play around with.

Hubby is the main "designer" and I'm fortunate that he's enjoying it and good at all the details. :)

Renovation permit has been approved and we'll be starting our renovation soon... *excited*I shall journal it down when things get going... ;)

** I have no idea why the moment I published the post, the paragraph spacing becomes so large. Sorry for the ugle presentation. ***

Wedding DIY Card

These four days of Chinese New Year break is really a good time for me to recharge myself and sleep late to do whatever that I like. I don't get this kind of break when I apply for vacation leave or going for holidays because work is still ongoing in the office which means I've got to clear my work before and after my vacation leave and that's a great deal of stress for me as well! I know this doesn't happen to all workplace but it does for my office culture.

While doing some housekeeping of my photos, I saw these photos of the invitation cards which I made for my wedding solemnisation at Sentosa. They were just simple invitation cards that I printed for my friends with some embellishments of flowers and ribbons. They weren't really neccessary but I made it for some fun and rememberance :)
I bought the envelopes from Popular Bookstore and made designs using a heart-shape hole puncher. The wordings were stickers from Popular Bookstore as well.

By the way, I've finally uploaded my wedding photos taken at Sentosa by my freelance photographer on Photobuket and linked its slideshow at the right hand side bar of my blog. Feel free to click on the slideshow to view the photos ;) The photographer had taken over 400 photos and I've picked about 200 of them for the slideshow. I love how the photos turned out and they were what hubby and I wished for in a beach wedding. :D

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Two days of Chinese New Year have passed. This shall be the last year that I can receive Ang Baos because according to Chinese tradition, I'm not yet married as we have not gone through the customary wedding. I will certainly miss being a young "girl" receiving ang baos :P

Updates on our Happy Future Planning

I just wished my hubby a Happy 3 months to our marriage today. :D

It has been three months since the day we solemnised and this is the first time I remember our 3rd month of marriage on the exact day. I always remembered it either a few days before the 10th or after that. Since I can't remember myself, I can't blame hubby too. But of course, come the next 10 Oct, we certainty won't forget. :)

Some people have been asking me how's marriage life but I told them I couldn't feel much difference because we are still living apart with our own parents, besides the calling of each other "laogong" and "laopo" occassionally. But I do feel a sense of a status change especially now that I know I'm no longer single, with that wedding band on my finger that I faithfully wear 24 hours a day (except when I'm baking / washing up) until it already gets scratches in just 3 months... *heart pain* LOL

For the past few months we've been busy planning for our new home renovation, sourcing for banquet locations and choosing of a date for our customary wedding. I'm so happy that we have finally fixed our customary in Jan 2012, and we have booked the banquet location at Orchard Hotel at the Wedding Fair last Saturday. It will be an 8-course Chinese sit-down lunch. Reviews from the Chinese Hua Ting Restaurant in Orchard Hotel has been good so far and hopefully they'd remain the standard and we love the ballrooms! :)

Yeah... finally one item settled and we are on our way to concentrate on our renovation planning, before the keys come in March.

Exactly one more year to go... though I can forsee it wouldn't feel that long cos' this year's gonna be a really busy year for both of us but we are enjoying every moment of it. I'm looking forward to building our nest and the bridal photoshots a few months later. :D :D Will try to update as much as I can. ;)

Wedding DIY - personalised wedding bear

I love to D-I-Y (Do It Yourself) stuffs. If baking had not become my top hobby, there'll be lots of handicrafts I'd love to do. Cross stitch (the one I'm making for my dd is still done halfway since like 1.5 years ago? :P), crochet, knitting, accessories and many more.

There were actually a list of DIY that I had planned to do for my ROM but I was too ambitious and some were actually unneccessary. dd had been asking me to have more rest instead of trying to perfect things here and there and making myself so tired nd busy, since I also have my work committments. Well, I guess those were common for excited bride-to-be like me. :P

There was one in my list which I have to do - personalise our wedding bear.

I actually prefer the wedding ring pillow given by Lee Hwa Jewellery if we purchase the wedding bands from them. However, after visiting a few stores, we settled for a pair at Soo Kee Jewellery. Instead of providing a wedding ring pillow, they gave a pair of wedding bear as a complimentary. I thought of making my own ring pillow but it is just not cost effective and with my sewing skills, it wouldn't turn out good. I decided to make do with the complimentary wedding bear but I had to let it have a "make-over" as it was too plain.

I made a set of clothing for them, added some crystals to the ring holder and some seashells to the base and tada! ... I have my own personalised wedding bear, solely my own. It became the star during my ROM as photographers were busy snapping shots of it away, no less than the groom and bride!

I am by no means a tailor who can actually made a set of clothing. What I did was I literally wrapped some ribbons and cloth on the bears and sew to seal it. For the bride, I wrapped a white silky ribbon with some patterned design over its body. Then I used a frill corsage kit (please refer to the picture below) to wrap it around its waist, that made up its skirt. The material is organza-like so it's very light and sweet. I also glued some silver sequins on it. Finally I gave the bride bear a final touch with a handmade string of pearl necklace! :)

I sewed a big ribbon to cover the untidy needle works at the back.

Making a piece of clothing for the groom bear was the challenging part. I can't simply wrapped a piece of cloth for a male. I thought of buying a pair of wedding bear and take off its clothes for my bear to wear! *lol* Very fortunately, I have my dear mum who took the trouble to help me out with it. She learnt some tailoring during her younger days and had in fact made me a cardigan and pyjamas for my brothers and I when we were kids. She said she had forgotten her skills but she still tried to do some trials and errors by cutting some scrapes of cloth. Finally she was able to cut out the shape for the bear's pants. What we did then was to wrap the black colour felt cloth over its thighs, and sew the pants tightly. The pants ended too tight for the bear so you'll find that it had difficulty sitting straight.

Instead of making it a coat, I came up with a brilliant idea of sewing a strap over it's shoulder (I do not know what this type of clothing is called). :) My mum took out her"antique" (vintage) buttons that she had kept over decades from our old clothings and I chose a matching set for its buttons.


I glued some "blings blings" on the ring holder. :D


These are my mum's collection of "antique buttons". ;)


This was supposed to be a corsage kit, from Daiso and I used it for the bride's skirt and it turned out really pretty.

Thank you mommy for helping me out. :D

Sneak Preview on 10.10.10

I am married, to Mr Fong on 10 Oct 2010 or 10.10.10, the perfect 10 ( 十全十美 which stands for perfectness) :P

Together with 118 couples or perhaps even more who didn't sign up for the event, we exchange our vows before 5pm in the beautiful Palawan Beach at Sentosa. Heaven's on our side, as the weather was really good; though hot and sunny, the sky was clear blue with beautiful clouds, perfect for beach photos. we were glad it didn't rain and everything went smoothly. Before our photographer is ready with the photos, I'd just upload a few photos taken by my dear friends to have a glimpse of my solemnisation at Sentosa. :D

I didn't take a break the next day as I'm tied down with work. But I'm taking a day off today and wanna spend a day with dd as a different status (hubby and wifey) hehe *shy*