In Erika's Kitchen: Apple cornbread recipe

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Jumping Clay

Hi everyone. A very good morning to all of you. Today I would like to share with you another of my crazy ventures - making stuffs out of jumping clay. This hobby was introduced through my intense curiosity about polymer clay. I was watching Youtube after Youtube on flowers and stuffs being made from polymer clay and so after weeks of watching how things are being created from polymer clay, I went to my friend and asked her if she sold any polymer clay and she told me yes but the catch was, 'Very Expensive' and so she introduced me to jumping clay.

And so like a child I took the packet home and started making stuffs. The first ones were the animals - the ones you are seeing below. And then I became adventurers. I made tiny winee pizza, cakes and etc. It was really exciting, exhilarating. I spent hours moulding the stuffs. Small objects require extreme patience. But I didn't mind. I disturb no one and no one disturbs me. My two girls happily left me on my own because they too wanted time to be at their computer! Well, I am sure you too face the same dilemma of whether to let your children spend hours after hours at the computer. But they find a whole load of information from the net so do I stop them or not? My husband and I sometimes give them tasks like searching for information from the net and they could come out with more than we expected so .........? Well, coming back to my craze.

Then I tried my hands on making flowers, like the ones I saw from the Youtube. Sigh..... let's put it this way, jumping clay is not as fine as polymer clay and therefore it has its limitations. For making flowers, you will need to use either polymer clay or cold porcelain. I will show you my works on cold porcelain later. This medium is versatile. Jumping clay is more for children and they are soft and can bounce and thus this medium is called "jumping" clay.

And so for the whole two weeks or so, I indulged myself in this hobby and now a dilemma begins - What do I do with all these wonderful creations that I have made? Yes, they can be made into key chains but they are not meant for rough use. Well...... another idea came into my mind. I use them for decoration. I will share one with you.

I created a birthday card using a CD (you can find this idea in one of my blogs - CD love) and stick a jumping clay pizza here. It was an abt creation because this friend was a coordinator for NIE magazine sponsered by Pizza Hut.

crab

snail

penguin

My favourite - an octopus


sandwich



hotdog



cupcake


strawberry cake



burger



pizza

Cold Porcelain flowers: Tutorials on making Orchid flower (Part 2)

Cold Porcelain flowers: Tutorials on making Orchid flower (Part 2)

A really wonderful blog. Do come and view it. It teaches the method of making flowers using cold porcelain and other things.

Tips on Floral Arrangement

Last month was my sister-in-law's birthday and it was tough trying to think of what to give her as a gift. Her house has everything. Finally I decided that I would give her a floral arrangement to put in her office. Fortunately it was a right move because her office was bear as compared to her house.

This was when I learned another tip. If you have read the earlier post on floral arrangement, you will understand what I am saying now. Well, I went to get my leaves and my flowers. And the presentation is here for you to see.

Tip No 1 : Always get extra blooms. Don't make the foolish step like me in saying "Yeah, I have enough" at the shop and then when you go home, you find yourself in a tight spot. Your arrangement does not come through as there are many big gaps in between the flowers that need to be filled up. Don't forget we don't own a shop that we can easily reach out to a stalk to fill the gap. So through painful lessons, I learn that after estimating the number of stalks I need, I always make sure I buy an extra. For example if you have estimated that you would only need three, don't just buy 3 but buy an extra stalk.

Tip No 2 : Always buy in odd numbers. Please don't ask me for the reason. The arrangement does not go well with even numbers.

Tip No 3 : You can more than 1 type of leaves but in this arrangement which is for a small space in the office, I have used only one type.

Tip No 4: Take note of the first photo, look at the leaves. They are long and overbearing. At first I couldn't understand why my arrangement looked awful. I got the right number of leaves and flowers stalks, the height was proper (flowers taller than vase : 3/4 higher) but..... what was wrong? Then I knew it, I had to trim the leaves to a shorter length. Bravo, the whole awful arrangement suddenly became so beautiful and mind you, I couldn't help admiring my own creation. Ha! Ha! Ha! You know, no one is so kind as to share their knowledge with you on how to arrange flowers. We all have to learn the hard way and spent tons of money but even if we pay to learn, we are still coming out with the money, right? It takes guts to learn on your own but the satisfaction is tremendous. So I would encourage you to take up this hobby.

Tip No 5 : Buy more fillers. I think my arrangement still lacks fillers but since I had come home and time was running short, I had to made do with what I had in hand. Now, do you understand what it means by buying extra? Sometimes the shop can be so far, it is really difficult to go back all the way to the shop to buy an extra stalk. So on the wise side, just buy extra. Well, another lesson learned.

I think I should add the pink fillers at the bottom. The top view of the arrangement is good but the side view has a slight imbalance, right?

Well, I hope you will have a wonderful time learning up this beautiful and satisfying art.

Gifts Presentation

Hi everyone! I hope you had a pleasant week, the one that brought satisfaction and contentment because you had done your best and benefited from it. I had a tiring but indeed a fulfilling week although the outcome or rather what I hope to achieve did not materialize. So how could it be a fulfilling week, you may want to ask since the objective had not been achieved. Well, let's put it this way: in every project that we planned and carried out whether the project is a failure or a success, we learn a valuable lesson from the process. For me, the experience is my richness - a wealth of learning experience and information.

My school had planned months ahead to have a Hari Kokurikulum (Co-Curriculum Day) and the person whom we invited was the Menteri Besar (the highest person in authority in the state). We went through careful planning; ran everywhere to get proper feedback on protocols and spruced up the school, spending like crazy (of course the school looks bright and cheerful now). We got people to come to teach us and to guide us, and we also went to the relevant people for advice, careful that we would not miss a step or careless. We had meetings after meetings and phone calls after phone calls to one another to make sure that we would not miss out anything. We put our students to months of training for various presentations, organised the prefects over and over again and we even advertised the good news on the FACEBOOK. The response from our students was fantastic.

Alas, just a week from the day, we got the reply that he was unable to come and there was no representative too. It was confusing because a day before we received the faxed letter we received a call asking for the Menteri Besar's text (his speech) to be emailed over and when the very next day we received the faxed letter, it was a hard hit for all. We could not understand the dynamics behind this. We were all so disappointed and we consoled each other. For me, it was a great learning experience, something that no textbook would be able to teach.

I learn that whatever we have planned, there are many small holes to be plugged and these small holes can really sapped one's energy. I learn that many mistakes could be made and they have to be rectified with the help of your team mates. There should be no arrogance and that there must be team spirit. It was tough because my efficient partner fell ill just after the first round of running. It left just me and my Co-curriculum supervisor to do the running and we had to make sure the rest understood our plans and the need to do it well and to believe that we could pull it through. Well..... the rest is history. No tears spilled but a great lesson learned, not a negative lesson but a positive one.

I am taking a break now, although my heart is heavy because the objective is not achieved. If the objective has been met, the school will see some changes that will bring relief to the students. We would be able to build a sheltered walkway for the students to walk into the school and a large sheltered open hall for them to assemble. At present, the students walk in the rain and sun to come into the school and the worst part is; the afternoon session students have no place to assemble. They sit by the corridor in the hot and rain. School discipline is weak as no amount of canning and shouting could be gotten across as students are everywhere and it is impossible to reach out to them using the PA system because they assemble all over the school. The boys one side and the girls another side and the active ones.......... it is up to your imagination. Sigh.....

And so today I will like to share with you on how to present your gifts. What has gifts presentation got to do with what I have shared so far? Well, life is still beautiful despite a painful result. How could be it beautiful? It is beautiful through a positive thinking. Simple boring gifts can be 'make-up' to look wonderful if you put in effort and some money and of course careful planning. It brings cheer to the receiver.

Let me share with you on how I present some of my gifts. I plan carefully and I take the time to really sit down and do it. I want my receiver to know I care. I want my receiver to know that whatever I give, I give from my heart, not because of obligation, not because I want to please, not because I want a favour. No! Absolutely no.

This is a small basket, slightly bigger than a large man's palm. I spruced it up and put in 3 kiwi fruits for a friend. Of course the content might be a wee bit too little but the presentation is captivating. Would you not agree with me?

Look at the three lady birds, the two carrots and the cabbage. They are all made from jumping clay. It took time but the outcome is wonderful, right? I gave this away as a pencil holder.

Yeah, this is log cake but made from towel. If I were to just gave the towel log cake, the presentation would be plain, would you not agree with me?

I have used my friendship bear to present this gift to a birthday girl. Inside the basket were lots of chocolate bars. In this way, after the receiver has eaten all the chocolates, the basket could be used for other purposes.

We need to give gifts that not only carry a message of love but the gift must leave a lasting effect. It must give another purpose.