I am broken-hearted as a mom… Last night, i broke down with tears for much loneliness of not being able to hug my baby. I long for her embrace and her scent.

We do make our own choices with a hope to make life better. Nowadays, we strive working towards the goal of providing a better life for our ‘lil ones… And for some, it means having to deal with distance and loneliness being far from the loved ones for financial stability.It pains my heart now. It’s been a week of being away from my daughter and it seems like forever. I am struggling with the realization that money will never be of equal value with the happiness of having your family beside you. 
Today I woke up with a heavy heart. I get it! We are in a state of “building” and “forming” foundation for our family and even in any construction, this stage is the most crucial and important. But once the foundations laid straight and strong, the next things to worry are how the building will work and look great, that’s where aesthetics and functionality follow which can be tweaked here and there in a latter stage. But, does everyone go through this same phase? Why does it seem pretty easy for others and difficult for us? Why do we have to spend days, and even months of not being able to spend time together as a family? I am now unsure if the choices we make are right. I know we have painstakingly took our way to lay the groundwork but for some reasons my hands are a bit too shaky to handle the load while ensuring a sturdy base for the construction of our future.
I stood strong with all the piling works. I even went beyond my capacity as a woman to handle all the load and I have to reinforce myself with determination and strength. I hid all the weak emotions to be able to provide a stronger support for my husband, but today I felt weak and would want to take easy way out and as I keep thinking my head throbs with pain coz there’s no shortcut to building our dream house. We must go through the brick laying which depends on good workmanship and efficiency and that would mean that me and my husband have to strengthen the scaffolding with fewest possible motions to achieve a definite result. There is no room for uneven or soft ground.  
The sad truth is, our castle isn’t ready yet and our princess has to sleep away from us while we are building strong walls and roofs for her shelter. May God grant us more strenth and courage to complete this labor-intensive phases. May our love reach her and may she never feel incomplete without us beside her. This is just a temporary stage. Soon we will celebrate all the occasions together. Happy Valentine’s day our princess Danna Halliah. Mom and dad love you eternally.
  

December is indeed a busy month for everyone and the same speaks for myself during ’tis season. I have to rush for drawings to be issued and tons of shop drawings to comment before I go off and celebrate holidays, not to mention the almost every night shopping for presents.  I did not imagine that shopping would be a chore not just destressing and fun activity.  I have to shop and buy gifts for families and friends and most especially for Danna’s birthday. 

 

These are the gifts i personally wrapped. Oh by the way you have to include wrappers and gift tags along with your budget.  You are lucky if the store where you bought goods has paper bags and that would mean that you don’t have to individually wrap the gifts. In my case, i liked wrapping gifts so i just kept the paper bags.

It seems that i have searched the entire stretch of malls along Orchard road just to find  bits and pieces for Danna’s Mickey and Minnie mouse themed party.

And so the list goes on and i have to put up a party along this season when I have lots of expenses. I have to think out of the box and ta dah, why did I not consider DIY earlier. That could have saved me hours of loooong search for affordable but chic stuffs for her birthday. It is always an advantage being creative especially when you have to work on a budget.

Useful tools are important as they will make things much eaiser. Some of those I used are:

1. Double sided tape of 2 sizes, 1/4″ and 1/2″ thick. 
2. A pair of scissors
3. Stapler and staple wires
4. Scotch tape and dispenser
5. Cutter
6. Cutting mat
7. Steel ruler

•   

These are the DIY stuffs I prepared

• Popcorn containers– bought a pack of 100pcs plastic containers for $5.70. Covers are sparately sold at $3+++ (I can’t remember the exact amount). I then printed mickey and minnie mouse heads on top of the cover and used them as popcorn containers. I considered buying the ready made popcorn but buying the microwavable packs is a lot more cheaper.

  

• Personalized Chocolates– purchased small bars of chocolates (in strawberry, almond, mocha and dark choc flavor) at $5 for 10pcs.  I designed Danna’s personalized chocolate wrappers (a variety of 4 designs for each flavor) and replaced the original wrapper. 

    

  

• Prizes for Parlor games-this is a bit too much coz we can just hand down these prizes but keeping on Danna’s birthday theme is so much fun.  Black and red polka dots wrapper matched with gift tags and ribbons.

    

• Cupcake toppers– my sister bakes so I just need to make these cupcake toppers. I printed mickey and minnie mouse heads on 250gsm matt paper and put wooden toothpicks at the back with double adhesive tape.

    

• Paper bags– I have irregular sized prizes to be given away like purses, stress balls, sweets and others so i gotta have paper bags to neatly pack them. These are my DIY paper bags. Those with Mickey mouse heads are for boys and and Minnie mouse are for girls.

  

• Door gifts– Everyone at the party gets one kisses chocolate each ornamented with thank you card.   

• Extra bags– these white paper packets are bought at $2 for 50pcs. These bags are for those who want to take away sweets.

• Biscuit sticks with dio– Found these biscuit sticks with chockate dip at $8 for a bag of 25.  I just put the Mickey and Minnie heads on top of the wrappers using double sided tape.

  

• Lollipops– these lollipops are cute and I just covered the original stand with white 250gsm paper and added the Mickey & Minnie cutouts. 

 

• Mickey and Minnie mouse balloons 

 

•   Mickey and Minnie mouse stuff toys

  

  

  

  

• The birthday cake– this is a combined effort of my sister, bro-in-law, nieces, my husband and me. We made this cake! It’s not perfect but the effort is all worthy 

  

  

  

• Minnie mouse necklace- 22k necklace with Minnie mouse pendant. I saved to buy her this on her special day but unfortunately she was not able to wear it coz she is a pulling it out so we have to take it off from her.  

  

  

We blew off a successful party for Danna Halliah and it seems rewarding seeing her happy smiles and giggles!