iherb haul

Hihi friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

there's always a good reason to shop online yeah?... As I was tossing and turning in bed one night, unable to fall asleep, I decided to do some shopping on iHerb. 

About a week later, my loot arrived.

Here's what I got: 

• EcoTools Full Volume Styler brush - I love this brush and instead of having a paddle brush to brush out my hair and a separate round brush for blow drying, I use this huge round brush. 

• EcoTools Retractable Kabuki brush - LOVE LOVE LOVE this brush!  It's fab for touching up on the go.  I retract this and cover it up with the cap and leave this at work or take it along with me when I travel.  The first time I bought this brush was probably five years ago.  It was in the silver packaging.  I am still using it, just thought I should get another.. just because....

• Edamama in Slightly Salted and Spicy Wasabi - The salted version tastes better... somehow the wasabi powder manage to land on the sides of my lips and mouth area and I could feel the heat which was rather uncomfortable. 

• Annie's Bunny Grahams, Chocolate flavour - Kiddo's and my favourite! Not too sweet, just right with a tad bitter chocolate taste.  Repurchased this countless times.
• Stacy's Pita Chips, Cinnamon Sugar flavour - LOVE LOVE LOVE... everyone in my family loves this, even Kimmie The Dog.  Repurchased this countless times too!

• Go Raw Super Chips, Pumpkin flavour
• Go Raw Masala Chai Super Cookies... nice texture, but I don't fancy the taste... won't repurchase this again, but I may try the other flavours.

• Stash Tea in Morrocan Mint and Breakfast in Paris - I'll recommend Breakfast in Paris.  It is a lovely light subtle taste of bergamot, this black tea is neither tart nor bitter.  Steer clear from the Morrocan Mint tea though coz it tastes like it contains liquorice.  I bought it coz it contains peppermint and spearmint.  I thought it will be a good combination along with green tea to detox BUT... somehow it tastes of liquorice... eeks!

• Alba Cotanica Hawaiian Shampoo & Conditioner in Mango
• Dickinson's Witch Hazel toner.  OMG!  I didn't know that this toner smells soOOooo bad! I really doubt i'll use it again... will probably use it to wash something... say, the sink? 

• Some E.L.F. lip products

• Nutiva Chia Seeds - repurchased countless times, coz I eat it with oats every morning.  Kimmie The Dog eats it too, so I have to repurchase this quite often.

• Auromere Need soap - purchased this for Kim, coz neem soap is supposedly good for her sensitive skin.  

Here's a code that I'm sharing with you ladies.  Use it to get some dollars off your first purchase. 

Talk to you soon!

DIY trinket dish

Hihi friends of Hazelnutt House (",)

Now, just what did I do with this stack of dishes from Daiso?

Along with this baggie of wooden cylinders ... which I spray painted gold...

I hot glued the wooden blocks together before adhering it onto a plate. When the glue had dried, I glued a little cup on top.

Mission accomplished!  

Here's one for Kiddo...

                           

and here's mine... 

Talk to you ladies soon!!! 

Check back for more craft ideas (",) 

Gatecrashing ideas for Chinese wedding

Hihi friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

Last year when a friend of mine got married, she invited me to be her one of her bridesmaids and my daughter as the flower girl.  Click here, if you wanna take a look at Kiddo's flower girl makeover.   

So, one of my duty as the bridesmaid was to design a menu of exciting dishes for the groom as well as the groomsmen.  The bridesmaids scour the internet for ideas and we finally came up with these four pretty original dishes.  

In the Chinese culture, the groom and his buddies have to eat their way through four (sometimes more) dishes before the groom gets to meet the bride.  

The bridesmaids have to create the dishes with these four elements in mind - sour, sweet, bitter and spicy. 

For the sour dish, we filled plastic champange flutes with apple cider which is truly and awfully sour when you drink it neat.  For the toppers, we made a skewers using rolled up sour candies and lemon slices. 

The sweet dish was simply Lotte Choco Pie  dunked in condensed milk and double dunked in colourful sprinklers. 

For the bitter dish, we coated a marshmellow with 99% Lindt cacao (available in major supermarkets).  The chocolate bar was first melted slowly in a microwave.  To amp up the bitterness of the dish, we tossed in some fresh cranberries that are bitter and tart.   

Lastly, for the spicy dish, we served the men with fried bean curd filled with chilli padi laced with a generous amount of wasabi.  

   

Thank you for reading, hope this entry comes in handy when you're planning a gate crashing menu for someone's wedding.

(",)

Robot craft for kids

Hello friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

Kiddo and I embarked on a robot sculpture project using boxes that I have been collecting.  Yup, I have a corner in the craft room where I keep empty boxes coz you'll never know when they will come in handy for craft projects.  

First we placed the head, neck, body and legs together to see if the body parts go well together.  

Next I covered each individual box with silver vinyl.  My dad found a huge ream of silver vinyl discarded outside a warehouse and he carted it home for me.  It's a huge industrial sized ream and he has been bugging me to use it.  So now I have!  After covering each box in silver, Kiddo and I added hot glue and stuck everything together. 

We decided on how we wanna design the face and body of the robot using random bibs and bobs that we have and Kiddo put together a name for her girl robot... she also insisted on adding eyelashes to make it look like a girl.

Kiddo made a marshmallow stick for MXJO using the packaging peanuts that I kept.  We also used the same foam peanuts for the arms of MXJO. 

Here's a rundown of the items that we used other than the boxes and silver vinyl:

• plastic fork and spoon for antennae 
• plastic bricks and goggly eyes for eyes
• jumbo paper clips for ears
• cardstock for mouth and name tag
• magnetic clock on body
• green glitter foam for button panel
• pom poms for buttons
• packaging foam peanuts for arms

Oh yes, I untwisted the jumbo paperclips and pushed the foam peanuts through for the arms. 

Yups, that's all for today (",) 

MXJO checking out! 

Quick and easy boxed lunch - veggie pasta

Hihi friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

It's Sunday night!!!  

Tis the night that I prepare my lunches for the next couple of days - usually three days worth of lunch.  I do not enjoy eating out while at work but I don't mind eating the exact same home cooked lunches few days in a row.  So, my lunches are prepared, usually on a Sunday night and on Wednesdays nights.  I used to prepare sandwiches or wraps in the morning before heading to work, but I prefer to sleep in a bit more instead (",) ... so it's preprepared refrigerated lunch boxes for now.  

Tonight, I've celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and broccoli. 

Here's what I do to put everything together...

Coat the pan with olive oil and in goes the ingredients... and swish them around a little before I added the seasoning.

For this veggie pasta, I added some wholegrain mustard and pesto. 

When the veggies are well coated with the seasoning, in goes the pasta that I've boiled earlier.  Stir it all up and let it cook for a bit.  I try not to cook my veggies all the way since I heat them up before eating which in turn cooks the veggies further.  

Just FYI, here's the other bottles of seasoning that I alternate with.  I try not to use tomato or cream based sauces for my packed lunches coz the idea is to eat healthy and sauces are higher in calories as well as salt content.

Here's my little tubs of veggie pasta ready to be refrigerated (",) 

I usually go with 30% carbo and 70% veggies for my veggie pasta. Coz having a full lunch makes me wanna go to sleep while at work.. hehehe...

Talk to you ladies soon!

Easy 3 ingredient breakfast - Oatmeal Flats

U know how it is when you get back from a vacation?  There's hardly any food at home and the fridge requires some stocking up before you can start cooking anything proper?

Well, we just got home from a 3 weeks vacation in the US and I am so sick of eating out all the time.  In Singapore, I eat home cooked food 80% of the time.  So you can imagine how eating out daily upset my system.  

So when I woke up today, I was scouring the kitchen and refrigerator for something to prepare for breakfast and I was so lost coz there was no bread and eggs in the house for me to whip up something simple.  

I thought hard and long and decided to try making some oatmeal flats (yeah, I decided to call them that) for brekkie.

Here's the ingredients I use: 

• 3 tbsp oatmeal
• 1 tsp peanut butter
• raisins 

I added hot water to the oatmeal before adding the rest of the ingredients.   The consistency of the oatmeal has to be thick and not runny.

Then I cooked them on a non-stick pan for about 10 mins, flipping them often to prevent browning.  

Added some strawberries that my mum bought the night before and viola! 

EASY PEASY HOMEMADE BREAKFAST!!!!

I am a happy trooper!

The outer layer of the oatmeal flat was nice and crisp while the inside was still slightly soft and warm.  No extra sugar since the raisins are sweet enough.

Talk to you ladies soon!!!

Phone craft using foam and random bits

Hey hey friends of Hazelnutt House (",) 

Kiddo has a phone! ... yup...one that she made with foam (",) 

I kept these two pieces of foam sheets after removing them from a package and today, I thought of a good way to use it - Kiddo and I decided to make our own mobile phones (",) 

I cut out some rectangles for the buttons using card stock.

To achieve a slightly popup effect for the buttons, we used these double sided foam to stick the buttons onto the foam.

When Kiddo was done with her buttons and home screen, she pulled out her sticker album and started to add some Bling! to her phone.

Kiddo's really thrilled with her phone...*ahem... pls ignore the laterally inverted numbers that she has written on the buttons >_< 

Here's my foam mobile... robot style. 

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!