Highlight of my life for the 2nd half year 2012 Pt 1

To continue from my previous post, now I'm going to share with you the highlight of my life for the 2nd half year of 2012 before we say good-bye to 2012 and we'll welcome 2013.

Still in June 2012 event, my daughter started her first day of school. She was delighted to go to school for the first time and she wore all pink and carried her beloved Barney bag with her. I walk her to school everyday together with her classmate. So everyday I have 2-hour me-time :) At first I wanted to just sit down at the restaurant nearby her school while reading a book and enjoy my me-time, but then I realize that if I did this everyday, I would feel bored and grow fat as I would be tempted to eat and eat while waiting for her. Luckily, on the 4th floor of the same building, there's a gym. So my friend and I joined the gym and sweat it out for 1 hour at least before we sit down at that restaurant to eat our lunch and have a chat. Usually I would go to the gym for running 3 times a week, then once a week I would sit down doing the lazy exercise: sauna bath ;) This way I won't feel guilty taking in some calories during lunch break with my friends :) See how much calories I burned:

Because I exercise for an hour regularly at least 3 times a week, I managed to loose weight. Yay! The gym regime also taught me to choose my food and change my diet to include healthy menu everyday. My friend and I get really addictive to work out at the gym because after exercising, we will feel happy and healthy. I guess we got addictive to the hormones that are released during working out such as endorphin and serotonin. I prove it my self how exercise can change me and my life completely. Not only that I manage to shed some pounds, I also can think better as exercise helps to pump more oxygen to my brain. I am beautiful and happy inside and outside. That's the great thing about exercise regularly. So, I highly recommend you to start exercising regularly. You don't have to go to the gym. Just start at home! I know the 1st start is the hardest point. But once you get going, you'll get addicted to exercise.

Since now I gain my body shape, my face shines and my skin glow, I want to do makeover to my overall look. I want to be more fashionable and look more beautiful. And I was very lucky to be able to join Sophie Paris Philippines Inc. as their partner. So, my beauty and fashion business days began.

With exercise regularly and doing business in make up & fashion, I am able to transform myself from an ugly duckling into a beautiful healthy and happy swan :) God is also very happy with me too that He helped me to win a basic make-up training from Babymama Philippines photo contest! Yay! I won the prize of learn to do basic make up with Ana Isip. Ana Isip is a professional make-up artist in Philippines. You can check out her work at her website: Makeup by Ana Isip.

That was July to early August 2012.

By end of August to early September, I still continued doing my routine: kids, home, cooking, art & craft, photography, gym and my Sophie Paris business. In doing business with Sophie Paris, I learned the art of direct selling and the art of running your own fashion business. I was shy at first to approach people offering Sophie Paris products, so I just wore all the products myself. But then the response from people were great! Sophie Paris products are beautiful and really eye-catching, especially the bags. When I wear the products, people started to ask me about it. So, there I went, starting to explain and offer people Sophie Paris products. Not only did I manage to sell many Sophie Paris Products, I also managed to get new members to join the happy family of Sophie Paris Philippines and to help me to sell more and to a bigger market. I also saw myself going back and forth to Sophie Paris Philippines main office in  Mandaluyong, Makati. You see how I become busier and busier everyday. 

My days with Sophie Paris Philippines flourished when I won their twitter competition for having the most Sophiesticated Total look. You can read the post on Sophie Paris Philippines tumbler here: 

#SOPHIEsticated Total Look

In art and craft, I made a surprise birthday cake for my husband. I learned to make a fondant figurine and I made my husband fondant figurine that surprisingly really looked like him.. :D

Here is the fondant figurine of my husband:

Having no oven at home didn't stop me from making a birthday cake. I made a no-bake birthday cake the same way as I made cake-pop but multiple times bigger than a cake pop.

My husband got his morning birthday surprise from me... :) He laughed so much looking at the figurine of himself. My daughter was very happy requesting him, "Daddy, can I eat you?".. :D.. :D

In October, still in happy mode, I won another Sophie Paris Philippines twitter competition again. This time I won a ticket to go to Sophie Paris Philippines 10 anniversary Danca Extravaganza and Miss Sophie Paris Philippines coronation night at Sofitel hotel. While I was busy preparing myself and my dress to attend this big event, another Sophie Paris ticket winner contacted me to give away her ticket as she could not attend the event. Oh la la!! How lucky can I be? I got 2 free ticket to go to the grand event!

Then, also in October, I was requested to teach for a day during teacher day at my son's school. I know I am good at art & craft, so I choose to become an art teacher. I prepared my material for teaching to make sure the children would have fun and able to enjoy their creation. We would give our art & craft creations for the class teacher. I divided the classroom into 3 groups, one of the groups doing the fondant art. I prepared the no-bake cake for them to decorate. Here is the cake before and after decorated:

and below is result of my teaching day :)

I am grateful that I was requested to teach in my son's classroom because then I was able to appreciate how hard work it is to be a teacher that has to control and teach 28 students everyday. By teaching in my son's classroom, I was able to get to know my son's classmates this helps my son to feel proud being in the classroom.

Before October ended, my parents visited me in Philippines. This sure brought big big smile on my face. I took my parents for a culinary experience in Philippines. They really enjoyed their trip to Philippines. They agreed that IT IS MORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES indeed :)

When they were in Philippines, St. Pedro Calungsod was canonized on October 21. This is a rare event. They said I am blessed. I believe I do as I was able to end October on a high note: I was upgraded to a franchisee level in my business with Sophie Paris Philippines. My group made more than P25K in sales!

In early November, I took the whole family to go back to Malaysia again for a short vacation. This time it was really only us staying in our Malaysia home. I got to clean up the whole house everyday for a week; sweeping, mopping, dusting, brushing, washing, etc. This activity helped me to loose weight more. As you can see, the simpler exercise starts at home! Clean up your house and you'll clean up the fat in your body too! You kill 2 birds with 1 stone :D

Dragon Year fondant cake

To welcome the new water Dragon Year, I decided to make my own dessert: Dragon New Year Fondant Cake.

I used 4 ready-made mini round sponge cakes with 3 different tastes (melon, yam, and pandan) to be decorated. The decorations are all made of marshmallow fondant that I made by myself. I like to use the marshmallow fondant better than the commercial fondant I bought from the store because marshmallow fondant tastes better.


To continue reading this post, click here: My Dragon New Year fondant cake

My son's Angry Bird 7th birthday party - The fondant decorated birthday cake story

To continue the story from the birthday party preparation, I will start from the birthday cake making.

Since I was the one responsible for the birthday cake, I learned everyday about cake decorating using fondant. I have never tried this before. It would not be so easy to decorate with fondant here as the weather in South East Asia is forever hot and humid! But I would not be deterred by the weather. I have 2 airconditioned rooms in my house. The AC will be my best friend to control the heat and the humidity...:)

Internet was the best source and best learning media. I learned to make my own fondant using marshmallow as I love the taste better than just pure sugar. My 3 years old daughter is always happy to help me as fondant is like a clay, she had so much fun playing with it. She cut the shape, pasted it everywhere on her toys, and got her fingers all sticky...:O

I made many colors of marshmallow fondant. I also bought a set of Wilton rolled fondant primary colors (which has red, green, blue, and yellow). I didn't remember that 1 of the Angry Birds is black! I completely forgotten to buy Wilton rolled fondant black/grey set or at least a fondant black coloring. I was so sad that I was not able to create my own black fondant. So, I can't make the black Angry Bird.

I also bought more kitchen utensils in nearby supermarket to help me later in decorating the cake. I took out all my cookie shape cutters. I designed the cake decorations on a piece of paper complete with color descriptions and shapes that I already have and I am able to make.

A week before the party, one of my good friends baked a cake for me to try to decorate it using fondant. I am a complete beginner here in terms of decorating cake, especially with fondant. I made the Angry Bird cake decorations for that trial cake. It was for my 12th wedding anniversary. It turned out great! I was able to shape 3 cute Angry Birds and 2 green pigs and put them on top of the cake. So, I had more confidence to decorate the cake. I abandoned my 1st plan to have a giant jelly cake as jelly will not go along with fondant. Besides, the birthday boy requested a giant rectangle cake. He didn't want to have a round cake like the trial cake.

To make things easier, I ordered the giant 12"x16" rectangle triple layer cake from a cake shop without any decorations. I have made all fondant decorations 2 days before I collected the cake. I made the mini TNT boxes from mashed sweet potato fried cake with cheese inside. Then I used chocolate fondant to make the sweet potato cakes more like the Angry Birds TNT boxes. I even got an incident where the chocolate fondant I used to decorate the mini TNT boxes has melted because the weather was too hot. 

When I collected the cake, I was so surprised by the size of the cake! It's very big! It was half of my dining table...:) 

I needed a large area to decorate and I only had a day left before the D-day. Oh my God! I was a bit frustrated because the fondant I have prepared was not enough to cover the whole area of the cake and it was torn because I rolled it too thin! So I had to make an extra dough using a different color :(

I kneaded and rolled the fondant again and again. Until finally I was able to cover the whole cake but using 2 different colors. It was not too bad! Thank God! But my arms and hands were extremely sore.

After I rested my hand for a while, I started to put all other decorations on top of the cake, starting with the green pig family on one side complete with the bunker. The pig bunker was made of Pandan cake I glued with raspberry jam and covered with chocolate icing, then I decorated using many kinds of chocolate   I bought from supermarket nearby. I put the stolen bird eggs cooked inside the pot on top of the bunker surrounded by the pig family. The Angry Birds family was on the other side complete with the slingshot and the empty bird nest...:) I really had so much fun decorating the cake. I started to decorate at 4pm and finished everything by 8pm. Not bad!..:D

Since the cake was giant, I couldn't fit it into my fridge. So I had to keep it inside my air-conditioned bedroom that had temperature of 16 degrees Celsius.

My hands were so sore from kneading and rolling the fondant but I was very pleased with the result. The birthday boy was extremely happy and amazed with his giant Angry Birds birthday cake. He hugged me tightly, kissed me, and said, "Thank you, mommy! The cake is so beautiful just like what I want". My husband gave his compliment to me, "Damn! That's really good!" when he saw the finish result. Many of my friends in Facebook said that the decoration was amazing for a complete beginner like me. 

On the D-day, I didn't display the cake at the start of the party at 3pm cause I was afraid the fondant would melt again. So, the cake was only brought out of the air-conditioned room at 5pm when the cake ceremony started. My guests were all amazed with the cake. The children in the party couldn't wait to take the Angry Birds and the pig family figurines. So, the moment my son blow the candles, the children 'attacked' the cake! They stripped down the cake decorations completely...:D 

I made the slideshow for you to see things I have written about. 

Don't forget to continue reading my other stories about this birthday party! It was absolutely a very tiring event but it was a great party! Thank you Rovio for creating the Angry Birds games!