Ark Avilon Zoo

R and I recently attended the 4th birthday party of his classmate and so-called girlfriend, Kyleen. I know it's crazy for me to be tolerating this, but he honestly likes this li'l girl. I can't blame him; really, she is such a cutie and so nice, too.

The mom texted me a save-the-date message a few days before the party, which really would have sufficed. Still, the invite was courteously delivered to our house. The thoughtful gesture is highly appreciated and truly speaks a lot about her. R was giddy with excitement when we got the invite and that was the highlight of his day - getting a card from Kyleen.

Of course, when we found out that it was going to be at the Ark Avilon, R's joy could not be contained. It's the zoo, after all!

The celebrant's mom carefully planned everything to make sure the kids were engrossed with age-appropriate and creative pre-party activities. The kids were provided with medium sized pebbles, paint brush and acrylic paints to make to creative paper weights with the child's choice of animal painted on the stones. Or if the kids were not of the creative kind, they could go bird watching as there were lots of exotic fowls freely roaming around.

A guided tour of the zoo was also exclusively arranged for our group, with the tour ending in the petting area where all the kids hurriedly and crazily rushed to feed the rabbits, hamsters, et al with all the leafy greens their tiny hands could grab. No animal was spared, as even the most satiated one who instinctively turned his head away from the source of food was unfortunately met by another chubby hand willing to find a mouth to feed. All that's left for the poor rodents to do were to wish that they were meat eaters instead. Kidding!

Thanks for the wonderful party, Helen!

Share

Pinoy Pride

Lately, Bea Valdes and Tina Ocampo have been charming fashion editors and style mavens all over the world by showcasing Filipino craftsmanship at its best with their evening bags and accessories. They have both recently wowed the audience at the Vendome luxury trade show in Paris.

Bea has come a long way since being featured in Vogue in June 2005, where the magazine called her bags, "the must-have evening bag for the year." It was said that when she went to the US to present her creations, the fashion editors over at Vogue loved her work so much that her designs were immediately photographed and she was soon after scheduled for a photo shoot and interview to go with her handiwork.

Click here to view her first Vogue appearance, for her second Vogue feature here. And click here to view her tv interview.

I seriously love her work and would love to own at least one of her creations - if only I can afford it. :) Uppermost left pic shows the Ophelia necklace, a variation of the Ophelie necklace shown in the InStyle spread, just in case you want to understand why it costs US$2,150.00, or simply to scrutinize the consummate artisanship of her pieces.

Even designer of the moment, Tory Burch, is in awe of Tina Maristela Ocampo. Instyle's April issue featured an interview with Burch for the Welcome To My Life section, and Tina's minaudieres made a small appearance in the interview, too.

Pic 2 shows Tina's Pacquiao clutch named after modern day hero and boxing champ, Manny Pacquiao. Pic 3 shows the Mother of Pearl clutch made famous by Drew Barrymore at the 2007 Golden Globes.

Abante Pinoy!

Share

Pinoy InStyle

I have been reading InStyle since 15 years ago ( since I was 13. Tee-hee! :)). Throughout most of my single life, I always looked forward to that time of the month to get my subscription. It was one of my guilty pleasures.

However, after I got married and when the kids came one after the other, I somehow got sidetracked into other things that were more domesticated, hence the interest in cookbooks, attachment parenting, arts and crafts, and with all things Nigella and Martha. :)

Two years ago, C surprised me by renewing my subscription to InStyle. It was a blissful yet heartrending moment for me; overjoyed that even after 12 years of being together (with a combined total of 6 years of pre-menstrual syndrome, pregnancy sensitivity, post-natal depression, and all the other attitude-changing effects of my female hormones), C still hasn't changed his loving thoughtfulness towards me. He is still as funny, romantic and generous as the day I first met him, but that is another story that deserves an entire post. Going back to where we are, the grounding reality that I am now a parent to 3 kids is undeniably a stark contrast to those days where I could max out my credit card and leave a zero balance in my payroll account just to buy the latest fashion It-anything (another one of my guilty pleasures).

Looking through the glossy pages, at the present, is like a practice in restrained indulgence for me. I know I can dip my hand in the fashion cookie jar, nonetheless, I only get to take out one small cookie at a time. As opposed to being the spendthrift fashion cookie monster and cleaning out the entire jar in one swipe.

Here are some hand candies from Pinoys who make us all proud by landing in this month's issue. They all got featured together in one spread on page 255. All right!

click on pic for enlarged view

Abalone Minaudieres by Celestina Maynila New York of Tina Maristela Ocampo
Ophelie Necklace by Bea Valdes
Rattan Bag by Rafe New York of Rafe Totengco

Share

SDC: Make It Monday (Gift Tags)

The idea for this project was like a double edged sword of blessing. This is an activity that I know the kids will love and it would also mean that I will never run out of gift tags. With 3 kids in school, each with their own set of friends, we get invited to a lot of kiddie parties and somehow I always end up running out of gift tags to use. I (sometimes) end up dashing to the bookstore at the last minute to get one or, if laziness drops by for a visit, I (most of the time) just cut up a board paper to size and use that as a gift tag. tsk! :)

With this project behind us now, I am secured of a sizeable stash of gift tags to last me a year. :)

click on the pic for an enlarged view

Share

SDC: Make It Monday (Sand Art)

My kids have a fascination with colored sand. They love to gently sift through it and see how they can create their very own rainbow as they pile up the different colors one on top of the other. It is like being the creator of their own universe - their glass bottle universe, that is.

So that day, my dining table was reincarnated as an indoor sand table. I poured the different colored sands into different containers and placed a plastic spoon in each to prevent the colors from mixing. I had them make two activities with it, sand painting and sand art bottles. I gave them each a small clear glass bottle with a natural cork cover for the sand art bottle. For the sand painting, I just chose an image from the net (of their choice, of course) and printed it our on board paper.

This activity was one of the easiest to do, almost no supervision needed.

click on the pic for an enlarged view

Share