A 7th Birthday Pool Party

For my son Sabre's 7th birthday, we just decided to go to Hong Kong for a family vacation instead of having a big party. However, he said he still wanted to celebrate with his friends so we just threw him a small pool party right after we got back from our trip.

A Pineapple & Flamingo Party!

My eldest turned 8 years old a few days ago and I really can't believe how time has flown!

All Aboard! A Train Themed Birthday Party

Skyler is now 4 years old, and as you all know, I love doing different themes for my kids' birthdays every year. Even if it's just a simple set-up at home, I still want it to be special so they'll have nice photos to look back on when they grow up.

DIY Heart Wall Stickers

Our house is featured in Real Living!!!

If you know me or have been reading this blog for quite some time now, then you know that Real Living Magazine has been a constant source of inspiration for me for many, many years. Even before I got married, I was already reading this magazine, just dreaming about the day when I would have my own home and get to decorate it.

When we finally moved into our house 3 years ago, I initially wanted to hire an interior designer. I actually inquired among several decorators whose style I liked from Real Living and even had an ocular at our home to know the costs. Well, it turns out we couldn't afford it then, but I guess it was a blessing in disguise since I was able to fully exercise my creativity and DIY skills to the maximum level.

Hubby and I bought furniture on sale and had some custom made to save on costs. I went online to find inspiration from websites like Houzz and Project Nursery. I discovered so many blogs that inspired me to do my own DIY projects (which I blogged about as well!). I discovered places like Dapitan and Uniwide which were treasure troves for budget conscious people like me.

All these things led us to have the home that we have today, a home that I'm extremely proud of. And what makes it even more special is that I didn't need an interior designer after all! Like the title of the article says, this really was my "PERSONAL PROJECT". And this just proves that you don't need to spend a lot in order to have a nice space. I think it's just a combination of inspiration, imagination, and a little bit of hard work too (hindi madali ang magpaint ng room ha!).

Before, I would just read Real Living magazine, gushing over the beautiful houses page after page. Who would have thought that I would eventually be able to see our own home inside the magazine? I swear, it really is a dream come true!

DIY Triangle Accent Wall

After I painted my kids' room blue, I knew I wanted to do something with the main wall behind their bed. It previously had an owl mural so the plain blue was just looking well a little... plain. ;p

DIY: Repainting my kids' room

I'm probably the most adventurous when it comes to doing painting projects in my kids' room since it's not that big. I know I can pretty much do it myself without spending a whole lot for materials. One of my very first DIY projects was doing this owl tree mural, which is probably one of my all-time favorites.

After, I decided to paint half the wall purple, just to give it an accent color.

Then, I went all out and painted stripes on the ceiling since I figured, why not? ;p

I guess I'd forgotten how much work it actually took to do these projects since after a while, I was itching to make some changes again. Plus the kids were getting older, which meant they could already give me input on what they wanted. Both my son and daughter stay in this room so I couldn't really choose between a "Princess Underwater" or "Power Rangers" theme. ;p

Basically, I knew I just wanted to change the color of the walls first. Of course, it had to be gender neutral and something that would match the striped grey and white ceiling (no way was I repainting that anytime soon since it took me forever to do that!). Honestly, it was so hard to choose especially when I was looking at paint swatches since there were so many nice colors!

In the end, I decided to go with an light blue color called PEACE RIVER in a satin finish. I got a gallon of paint which cost about P1k. This was honestly more than I was expecting to pay for the paint, but it was good quality which meant good coverage. So I figured it was fine since I was going to be looking at those walls for quite some time right? :)

Before I got started though, I first wiped the walls using a damp cloth. This is important since a lot of dirt and residue can accumulate on your walls over the years. Mine was super dusty, I didn't even realize it! I also sanded over any uneven parts from my previous paint job. You definitely want a smooth and clean surface when you start.

it was definitely hard to take the owl mural down, but it's time for a change ;)

Since I was repainting over the owl mural and also the purple half of the wall with a lighter color, I had to get a primer so I could even out the color first. Others might just go ahead and paint over everything at once, but you might need more coats to make sure the old paint color won't show through. Personally, I think a primer saves you time and energy and just ensures a nicer end result.

I loved putting on the primer since I didn't need to be neat about it. It doesn't have to be applied perfectly since you'll be covering it up with your new paint color anyway.

After everything was covered, it was finally time to really paint. I also love how my little assistant was back! She also helped me paint the purple half of the wall before. I had to kick her out after a while though, since honestly, we would never finish with her around! lol ;p

Anyway, if you think it was easy, it was NOT. I definitely need blog posts like these to remind me of the blood, sweat, and tears it took to finish painting the damn room! I blame HGTV for making it look like a breeze haha! And honestly, who here hasn't looked around a small space and confidently thought, "I could paint this in a few hours max!"

Well, it took me 3 days and I almost gave up and hired someone to finish it for me. I think maybe it was because of the cheap paint rollers I used, or maybe I just bit off more that I could chew. But I got the job done in the end and it's beautiful if I do say so myself!

I love how the color turned out! Even though it's blue, the light shade is still feminine enough for a girl. The primer definitely worked since it covered all the old paint perfectly. And the color made the room brighter and fresher, don't you think? My kids are happy and so am I!

My whole body was aching for days after I did this - from all the bending over, reaching up, and going up and down the ladder. I now have a newfound respect for house painters! I told hubby I won't bargain anymore when a painter charges for labor since I now know how hard it is to do their job haha! ;p

I honestly want to paint over a lot more walls in our house (like the accent wall in our living room and also our master bedroom). But with this weather, it will definitely take a while before I do manual labor again hehe! But stay tuned since I have a lot more home improvements coming up soon. :)

A Power Rangers birthday party

It's my little boy's 4th birthday, and the theme for this year was a no-brainer since he's super into Power Rangers!

You should see all the poses he does whenever he watches the show! So intense lol! And check out this quick and easy DIY Samurai Ranger shirt I did. I just got a plain shirt, placed some masking tape to form the "Y" pattern, and used black pentel pen to draw the lines in the center. ;p

I used colored art paper for the banner and just cut the letters out of bond paper. I didn't put the buntings on a string anymore and just stuck them on the wall with masking tape. I liked the geometric pattern this formed. :)

If you've been following my other DIY birthday posts, you know I love using my kids' toys as cake toppers! And just printed out the Power Rangers logo for an added touch. :)

make a wish!

Power Rangers cupcake toppers

Check out his birthday gift which he just LOVES!!! He hasn't let go of this since he got it a few days ago. :)

So again, happy happy 4th birthday to our very own Power Ranger. Don't stop being so sweet, funny, thoughtful, and a big ball of energy! We love you so much! :)

Updated Family Silhouette Art

I made a DIY silhouette art of our family back in 2012 when it was just me, hubby, Miley and Sabe.

read more about this DIY project HERE

I've been meaning to update it last year ever since Skyler was born, but never got around to doing it until a few days ago. I was thinking whether to just keep our old silhouettes and just add another one for Sky, but decided to just redo everyone's artwork. And it was nice to see the difference after a couple of years. :)

LEFT: Miley in 2012, RIGHT: Miley in 2015

LEFT: Sabre in 2012, RIGHT: Sabre in 2015

Skyler's silhouette at 1 year old

I bought my frames in SM also a few years ago and if I remember correctly, they only had those 4 colorful ones (aside from white and black). Good thing I had the white one and also some yellow spray paint lying around. In just a few minutes, I had my new frame ready! :)

Now here's our updated silhouette art on the wall (and the new arrangement of the frames). So happy Skyler's now part of it! :)

A Peppa Pig birthday party

I've been asking Miley for the longest time what theme she wanted for her 5th birthday and we've been pretty much set on a rockstar party. I've already had the colors all picked out for the decors (something like pink, black and gold) and have been eyeing giveaways (like those bubbles that come in microphone shaped bottles).

But a few weeks before, she suddenly changed her mind and said she wanted a Peppa Pig party because it was cute! The thing is, she was addicted to Peppa Pig last year then sort of grew out of it. It's actually her younger brother Sabe who watches it all the time now. But I was still happy to work with that theme since she has so many Peppa Pig toys that we can use. :)

Our princess with her Peppa Pig doll. Taken by Sugarpuff Photography.

I started with her invites first. I decided to use the Peppa Pig princess fairy character since Miley even has the crown and magic wand toy. I also decided to incorporate polka dots in the whole theme (check out the washi tape I used to seal the envelopes).

I then made cupcake toppers and used colorful polkadots as the border:

I was looking for loot bags to match the designs I did and I came across these party supplies from Metro Department store. Look at how the colors matched my cupcake toppers exactly! I was literally jumping for joy when I found these. I just had to get them even though they were a bit pricey at P169 for 8 pcs. I also decided to get the matching Happy Birthday banner which cost P179.

The only problem with the loot bags were that they were a little bit narrow. But I figured it was ok since I wouldn't have to buy so much candy to fill them up. ;p

I love buying stuff to fill the loot bags and one thing I found was these KooKoo Birds surprise bags which I got on sale for just P20 each last year from Toys R Us!

I also got these jelly beans from 168 Mall in Divisoria. I love how the colors matched my whole polkadots theme too. The whole set cost P160 and it had 20 bottles.

For Miley's girl classmates, I added these bracelets and rings:

And of course, more goodies!

I also made personalized name tags for each loot bag:

To make it easier for the kids to carry the loot bags, I punched holes in the top and added strings for the handles.

For the kids' juice, Miley helped me pick these out which were colored pink and yellow. I just made bottle labels to cover the brand.

Got these balloons from Divisoria as well. I bought a lot of the star balloons which I also gave out as giveaways to all her classmates. I just wished they came with a stick though, since I wanted them to be like Peppa's magic wand. But the kids loved them nonetheless and they kept saying it was a shooting star hehe. :)

For the cake, I just bought a simple one which cost less that P500 and used the kids' Peppa and George toys as toppers. Cute right? :)

And even though she was celebrating her party in school, I made sure to make a nice set up at home to surprise the birthday girl when she woke up! And of course, so that I can take lots of pics hehe. Oh, and notice the table cloth I used? That's actually the kids' bed sheet which again matched the colorful polkadots perfectly! I just love it when everything comes together with items I already own. :)

So again, happy 5th birthday to our little princess! We love you so much!