My family portraits...

Hee, after getting the soft copies of all the photos from our lovely photographer, we decided to invest in a family album. Melissa was really lovely and patient and after 4 drafts, the family album was sent to print. And in just a few days, it has arrived!!

Here's a few pages from the awesome album.

We decided to dedicate a special page just for Sam and to make it more a kid's page, we chose a cute pokka dots background.

To make better use of the $$ we spent, we chose 4 of our favorite photos and with the help of our trusty old friend, Canvas on Demand, we created a wall gallery. It's kinda ironic that none of our wedding photos were actually hung in our house (none were printed into canvas either). We did think about it, but procrastinated (for too long) and with the move to the states, we didn't get around to doing it. I guess the main thing was, we didn't have a habit of hanging things up then (I'm obsessed with that now though), plus, it was felt kinda weird to hang pictures of just us in the house for us to see. Like, who cares~

But with Sam, our family just feels completed (will be a little more completed when we get our Number 2, in maybe 7-8 years, no thanks to HDB's rules). Hence, I'm ready to hang these awesome photos up in our Senja flat. Even if I'm sick of staring at myself or the mister, there's always the cute little monster for me to admire. 

Here's a sense of the sizes of the canvas. The quality didn't disappoint as usual, and of course, the dog approves and I can't wait to hang it up. But for now, they sit well protected in my little store room (aka the guest room).

Thanks...

 for serving me for such a long time. 

Yap, it's a time for a change.

Lotsa Love, Zim & Key

I went etsy shopping again and found this amazing shop, Lush Prints, that sells USA made stamps. Not only do they make dog stamps, they even had a Jack Russell one! Hee, so of course I went ahead and made one for us. 

I love the quality of the stamp and how it turned out.

The stamp arrived right on time as I had just finish making a set of "thank you" cards.

Instead of the usual signing off, all I have to do is to stamp. Hee, under Rachel's suggestion, we used a darker brown ink to highlight Sam's ears and tail! (I know it's the wrong ear, but it's still distinctively Sam!) Love it~

The "Thank You" cards were actually made for some of the service providers here (e.g. doorman, sam's daycare) and would be given out to them when we leave for good. Seems like Sam approves!

Home Improvement Project - Vintage Suitcase Dog bed...

After seeing a blog entry about making a dog bed out of a vintage suitcase, I was inspired and decided to give it a try. 

(source: www.curbly.com)

I dragged Mr Lim to the Hell's Kitchen flea market in hopes of  finding my own vintage suitcase. Lucky us, we managed to pick one for just USD20. (And it was in green!!) 

Once we got it, I started procrastinating. I read the post sometime last year and bought the suitcase maybe a week later. 8 months later, I finally took the suitcase out, gave it a clean and took a photo of it. 2 months later, I finally started (and COMPLETED) the project.

Sam was curious about what this was for. 

The suitcase was really beat up inside. The fabric lining smelled pretty bad and was falling apart. But the little man liked it anyway. Yikes~

I spent a good half hour giving the outer case a good clean using the Rejuvenate leather & vinyl restoration kit and probably emptied a bottle of febreze inside to kill the smell.

I loved that the suitcase was green in color and I knew immediately that I wanted a yellow stripe fabric to make the pillow case out of. After some online shopping, I found the exact fabric that I was visualizing on fabric.com - the Riley Blake Chervon Yellow fabric. I bought 2 yards of the fabric, but only used about 1 yard for this project. 

As usual, the dog approved.

I hate cutting fabric, thus lazy me simply used an exisiting pillow case and added 2 inches to the width (for seam allowances and zigzag stitches to prevent the raw edges from fraying) and 5 inches to the length to allow me to fold the fabric in. (Hee, a easy tip is to fold the fabric into half and cut, keeping the folded side intact so that there'll be one less side to sew!)

A quick sew and ta-dah, a really basic pillow case was completed!

Sam test-laid and approved (again).

A quick check and it appeared to fit in the suitcase perfectly. 

I thought the sewing was the tedious part and once I was done, we just had to unhinge the suitcase and the dog bed would be completed. Boy was I wrong. The tough part was actually unhinging the suitcase. Damn the suitcase. It was really built to last. 

Mr Lim, the engineer, studying the structure. 

The hinge simply refused to give way and despite constantly hammering, it did not budge. 

After possibly 2 hours, a drill and some internet research, the engineer finally broke the suitcase into two! (HOORAY~) I was so bored waiting that I actually went on and completed yet another project (next entry!!). 

Mr Lim was pretty proud of himself for his hard work.

Look at the amount of tools we attempted to use.

After a more detailed examination, we realized that the inside of the suitcase was far more disgusting than we expected. There were orange residue (probably rust) and dirt under the lining.

Hence, we went ahead and removed the lining and gave the shell a really thorough clean (and disinfecting). 

I thought that the case looked really ugly and decided to add my own lining instead. I found a really cute (and appropriate) dog fabric in my stash - Premier Prints Best Friends Slub Charcoal. After a lot of hot glue, the new lining was added!

Tadah~ Presenting our very own vintage suitcase dog bed! It looked a little deflated due to the pillow. Time to search for a fuller pillow for the dog bed, meanwhile, we made do.

The dog couldn't wait and hopped right on it once we declared it completed!

He did a trial run of tossing and turning and approved (YET again).

We left it at the little corner by the window and went ahead to pack up the mess we created. When we turned back, we found the little man sound asleep on it. Sigh~ what a heart warming feeling to know that he appreciates our hard work and effort. (Okay, I'm reading too much into it.)

My initial plan was to make two beds from each half of the suitcase. Unfortunately, the condition of the upper half was just horrible that we simply tossed it away. While I am really pleased with the end product, I am not too sure if I would want to replicate this project! It was a lot more work than I've expected. But at least it was fun. 

And the little man does like it. 

That makes it all worth it. 

What happened next...

Time for the big reveal.. Our change of plans brought us to.... ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORES EVER - Vintage Junky!

What exactly happened was this.. while planning for the trip, I already requested that I would to like to add the store as one of our pit stops. However, after doing the math, we decided that the detour was a little too big and thus I disappointedly gave up the thought. (Mr Lim made it a little better by promising that we would do that road trip another time.) 

SO... when the longest yard sale turned out to be such a disappointment and Mr Lim was feeling all bad and stuff, I suggested making the pit stop again. Of course he said yes! Though that meant an additional 6 hours drive each way (and making new hotel reservations), I was super duper excited. (Hee, I even called to make sure the store was gonna be opened!) I've been following the blog for the longest time (often drooling over the delicious furniture she has) and it's just such an amazing feeling to know that I would finally get to shop there!!!

Sam's getting a little restless after asking "Are we there yet?" for a consecutive 5 hours.. 

And when we finally arrived, someone was as happy as I was!

I was seriously grinning ear to ear when I saw the sign.

And yes, it was OPEN!!

The actual store!

The little trailer outside the store was really cute. The retro vibe aside, the decor was yellow!!

Yeah, I could totally live here...

I didn't take many shots in the store (too engrossed shopping~), but check out the blog and you would see all the amazing furniture she sells. (I would buy the whole store if I could...) The owner, Michelle, was really sweet and friendly.  Her little guy's really cute and funny too. I was such a groupie when I finally met Michelle in person. I sure hoped that I didn't scare her with my over enthusiasm. I just felt so at home and totally glad we made the drive in the end. It was so worth every single minute!! (even the backache I got from the whole road trip.)

Of course that was absolutely no way I would go back empty handed. Here are my steals~

A vintage display unit

A repurposed vintage window

(I'm thinking of using it to put Sam's many polaroids!!)

My favorite buy of the day - an Odette Dresser with Mirror!

(source: Vintage Junky)

The drawers are actually laid with vintage music scores. LOVE LOVE LOVE the little touches that make the dresser even better. 

Plus, I also love that even the receipt is vintage!

To make it easier to transport the dresser back, the mirror was detached. We decided to keep it this way for now so that it would be easier for us to ship it back home. Hee, I actually caught the silly little dog checking himself out.

For now, the dresser sits proudly in our living room! Hee, I cannot wait to bring it back to Singapore!! And of course, the dog approves~

All in all, I was really happy with how the road trip turned out. I'm equally thankful for a supportive and sporting Mr Lim for being so gung-ho (and Sam for not complaining. =P). While the longest yard sale sucked, everything else was perfect and I'm loving all the items we got on the trip, hence no regrets. 

It sure was a crazy wild road trip.

Will I do it again? Absolutely yes~