Miniature Paintbrush

家家酒， 不如家家‘画’

When I was young, I had lots of furry/non-furry animals/soft toys to play around with. I would pretend to be their teacher and my little sister would make them (especially my own toy) as bratty as possible to make my life miserable (that's just the nature of my sister! *joking*) and hers to be like angels. Of course, I had chance to make it even. 😎 For no reason, I think we never had a class on arts. 

You know how most asian parents are. Loving yet protective - fear that their beloved children will make a mess out of themselves (well, actually it's the house that my parents would be more concerned of! 😂).

So, today I introduce to you something fun (it is to me!) where your child can pretend to be an artist and take it from there. 

Image 1. Ain't he a painter? 😍 (without his painting hat though). Yes, he's the legendary mole from Czech. Krteček is his name. There's an interesting story to how I own him which I might share in another post some day. Nope, he's definitely not here to steal the spotlight today!

  

Image 2. The view from my little Mole's angle. He's not that tall by the way, if you can't already tell. 😅

Image 3. Download your FREE template here. Note: Drawing stand and paper are NOT provided. You can utilize any recyclable materials like cardboard and just get creative!

Reasons not to not give this a try:

1. SIMPLE - Get your own felt. Cut off shapes from the templates and as soon as you know it, you have your own sets of painting tools!

2. DESIGN - Yes, you're the boss. You can decide your own colours of everything - paint or brush. 

3. LIGHT & SOFT - They are unlikely to post dangers to your little ones.

4. CLEAN - Your children do not have chance to make a mess of themselves and your house!

5. EDUCATIONAL - Colours! I would have wished that I own one many years ago. (Yes, my third concept! Something educational, but fun at the same time! - Refer to tic-tac-toe for my second concept)

6. PROUD - Be a proud parent. Show to your children that they have been given one of the best gifts in life - handmade!

7. PRACTICAL - train DIY-ers to work on something delicate; train your kids to hold a brush.

Feel free to share your experience in making one or let me know what's stopping you! Enjoy :) 

How to literally walk around London

Goody! It's this time of the year again! Meeting up with my two old pals ET and LW in London somehow became an annual thing which I pretty much look forward to. In a few days time, ET is going to graduate (unfortunately work could not afford me to attend). In a few months time, LW will graduate too. So, this year is the final complete reunion of us three in London. 

LEFT: Spent my night after dinner preparing breakfast bars. Simple ingredients - Peanut butter, fruit jam, roasted oats, white sesame, cinnamon powder and almond powder. WARNING: Never ever flip them upside down until you are sure that they're sticky enough. Well, long story short, almost half of them ended up in the bin. Jam was already something sweet and I did not want the taste to be too strong. So the stickiness bit is something I have to work on. RIGHT: Well, I could not think of any good graduation gifts or birthday gifts, so that's how I came to the idea of 'healthy' breakfast bars. 

Early morning, it was raining and gloomy. Stepped into puddles of water - as I was 'wunning' (walk+run) *as usual* to catch my bus. A 'good' start of the day 😑. My coach reached the destination 10 mins early at 11.20am and I would only be seeing LW at 1230pm. Discovering that our meeting point was walkable (my friends and family have a totally different definition of this. Let's just say that my sister used to complain to mom that she could not feel her legs after joining my trips to Europe) and could still arrive just on time, that was when I decided to just walk. 

Lunch @ Patty&Bun, Borough Street, London. 

https://www.pattyandbun.co.uk/borough-high-street/

Gave the medium-ly done 'Lambshank Redemption' Burger (£9, excl service charge) a try. It was pretty 'petite'. To be honest, the taste was alright, but it's a taste that I would forget the minute I stepped out the place. Possibly due to my high expectation after watching their patty making video the night before *oops*. 

Hummingbird (£9.50, excl service charge) @ Where the pancakes are

https://wherethepancakesare.com/

Dessert done, but ET was no where near. All thanks to rain. 

Time: 4.10pm. Bus to depart at 5.00pm. Estimated walking time: 1 hour and 10 mins. And yes, for some reason, I just decided to 'wun'. Rationale behind: If I'm walking then I, not the traffic, am in control of the time. However, that decision this time was just plain fun. 😄 The best part was that my phone died when there was still 51% battery remaining. Time: 4.45pm. Luckily, it was a rather familiar place where I could still roughly make way to the station and I was still hoping to get something from Domique Ansel Bakery (just beside it). The ones I wanted to order and go were completely sold - apparently it seems to be a rather popular place). Could not make up my mind to any alternatives, I decided to just pay a visit next time (there's always one since coach is my best friend) as I had only 5 minutes to spare.

Oohh, a queue! Used that opportunity to snatch a sandwich from PRET and when I was about to make payment, the young lad serving me exclaimed 'Latte on the house'. I'm not a coffee person (it stains! and I could not really tell what's a good coffee), but hey, why not? Never get to know the reason, but I definitely owed them a 'Thank You'. That was all I needed - something warm - on the bus after whole day of rain and walk/run. 

Now, just need to think of how not to use the toilet after having green tea from the dessert shop and that coffee. Oh wait, how about sleep?! *End of Story* 😆

   

- 6 hours bus. ~ 7 miles. 2.25 hours walk. 3.5 hours meet up -

An enjoyable day with you, LW. Truly grateful that you took your time off to meet up. All the best in final year! As for ET, happy graduation, truly proud of you! Your future awaits! It's a blessing to have you both in my life.