Mihoko Seki Collection

New Arrival: Mihoko Seki Collection
Mihoko Seki is a stencil dyeing (Katazome) artist. Katazome is a traditional Japanese stencil technique for dying fabric and paper. She designs things from matchbox labels, to Kimono, Kimono sash belts, food packaging and stationery. The world she creates is somehow nostalgic and fairytale like. We have 3 new designs for TENUGUI in two different colours!

bottle (purple)
play of the village (brown)
no sense of direction (Asagi)

We also have some of her other items, like stationery and baby bibs.
See our Mihoko Seki Collection here!

http://www.nunoandstitch.com.au/mihokoseki



woth love,
Allie

My favourite things-Baby Journal by Write to Me stationery

On Valentine’s Day in 2014, Paul gave me this baby journal. We found out that we were having a baby just before the Valentine’s Day, so it was a wonderful present. We started to fill in some parts even before Nico was born and since he was born, every month we sat down together and wrote things down about the Nico’s growth. 

 

I love this journal not only because the design is cute, but the content is unique. For example, there’s a page you can write about things that happened in the year the baby was born, like the prime minister, petrol price, AFL grand final winner. It will be interesting to see this page in the future! 

 

We put this journal on the table at the Nico’s 1^st birthday party, so that all guest could see how Nico has grown. Some of our friends were surprised that we had the energy and time to fill in all the pages…honestly it wasn’t easy, but we enjoyed thinking about our little guy after he went to sleep and thought about all the memories we got from the month.

This is a 5 year journal, so we will continue to fill the pages for next 4 years, but after his 1^stbirthday, we don’t have to fill it in every month, just every year. We already decided to give this to Nico on his 12^th birthday just before he becomes a teen. We're hoping that he will know how much we loved him from this journal and that fact will help him through some difficulties before he becomes an adult.

 

With love,

Allie

Birthday Party!

this is the only photo I took for this blog. I will share professional photos when it's ready!

Oh I feel like I have now done the biggest job as a parent. Before we had a child, many parents told us how painful the labour is, or how hard it is to get up at night for feeding, but no one told us about how much effort we needed for the first birthday!

Well, we tried to choose the easiest option, so we had BBQ party. I hope this doesn't make us look like lazy parents, but we set it up as a "make your own burger" buffet. Our guests could choose tomato, lettuce, bacon, beetroot, cheese and so on for their own burger. I cooked little quiches for little kids, macaroni salad for the side, two birthday cakes and some little egg tarts. ( I will share my egg tart recipe someday! It's so easy and yummy.) We had about 30 guests and no one was hungry at the end, so it was successful I guess!

We wanted to start the party at 11.30am,which was soon after Nico's morning sleep, so we planned to go to the venue at 10.30am and set up everything...but it took ages for Nico to go to sleep in that morning and we only left home at 10.40am. We quickly did the cake decoration and put up the signs and decorations and started cooking burgers. By the time all the guests arrived, I was sooooo exhausted.

I don't even remember what I was doing during the party, but I was so busy. I couldn't chat much with our guests. Probably I was chasing around after Nico half the time. The best choice we made for this party is that we had a photographer. I didn't have to worry about taking photos. Actually no guests were taking photos (even Nico's proud grandparents), they could just enjoy the party thanks to our wonderful photographer.

We wanted our guests to have a wonderful time, so we prepared some games too! For the one of the games, guests had to guess Nico's weight by holding him and then matching his weight with some other objects. Nico got lots of cuddles from the guests!

Packing up everything was almost as hard as setting up, but all our extended family helped us and my lovely nephew helped me carry all the stuff to our car - thanks Lachlan! As soon as we got home, Nico and Paul went to sleep together (when he's too tired, it's easier for one of us sleep with him) and I got all the stuff out of our car and cleaned.  When I finished all that, I was as exhausted as after our wedding! But, like the wedding, it was really satisfying.

We had leftover burgers that night and went to bed. We were all really tired, including little Nico...but the most annoying thing was that the house across the road was having a huge party and loud music lasted till 1.30am!

Next morning we heard from our neighbour that it was someone's 21st birthday. I thought about our little Nico having a big party like that in 20 years and that thought made me feel really exhausted once again, but oh well - I won't worry about it for 20 years!

With love,
Allie

Nico's 1st Birthday

Yesterday was such a wonderful day for us! It was our special boy's 1st birthday. We had a breakfast celebration at home and sang "happy birthday" at 8.20am sharp, which was the time Nico was born. We invited Paul's parents, his sister and Nico's little cousin, Luca. We prepared all the food and room decorations the night before. Nico's smashing cake was pancake stacks with yoghurt and cream.

we prepared everything the night before

Nico enjoyed balloons in his cot in the morning!

musical band TENUGUI became a bunting!

I used this origami (click!) from nuno and stitch to make a high chair bunting...

Pancake "cake" and Musical band washi tape cake bunting!

Nico smashed the cake!

After his morning sleep we went to Melbourne aquarium. We were thinking to take Nico to either the zoo or aquarium, but we're glad that we chose the aquarium. Nico loved seeing the lovely coloured fish, and big sharks and stingrays. First we put him in his pram, but soon he started to march around himself.

They loved the huge tank!

I almost cried when I saw him enjoying himself!

Nico is also really enjoying the new toys he got from his grandparents and aunties. Our present for him is not a toy this year. We have a weekend party tomorrow so we asked our photographer friend to come and take photos. He won't remember his first birthday himself, so we wanted all these special memories to be captured by a professional photographer. I can't wait to share the photos here!

He loves all the toys he got

Today has been a very busy day preparing food and some other stuff for tomorrow's party. I thought I wouldn't have time for this blog...but oh well, I made it!

With love,
Allie

My favourite things- Musical Band TENUGUI‏

"Yonagado"TENUGUI (musical band blue) $24.20

When I saw this TENUGUI, it gave me some inspiration for Nico's first birthday theme.
It's "Animal Party!". When he was a kid, Paul always thought that dogs were boys and cats were girls... Do you agree? Paul does look like a doggie sometimes and he thinks I look like a cat. Our Nico is a boy, but somehow he doesn't look like a dog. He's more like a monkey. So this animal theme will match with this animal family.

When I order TENUGUI from Japan and see it in real life,
I always think that they are much nicer than they looked in the photos!

This musical band TENUGUI also looked much better in real life and I really wanted to use this for Nico's birthday...but how?? Well, I'll show you everything after his birthday. It's a little secret for now.

ONGAKUTAI Washi tape (blue) $4.95

There is washi tape in the same print too! This will be Nico's signature washi tape.




Our little monkey boy will be 1 tomorrow.

It has been really wonderful to be his mummy for 1 year. He gave us lots of smiles and happiness. We sometimes can't believe how lucky we are. He still wakes up 3 times at night and sometimes I struggle to get up in the cold and dark, but I'm so happy that I can do something for him. He's such a great boy. Thank you Nico for choosing us as your parents;-)

With love,
Allie

Lately...

 

 

I love cooking cakes but didn't have time for that since Nico was born.

I made this "gateau au chocolat " for my sister-in-law's birthday.

I love making buntings with washi tapes! See our washi tape collection here...

 

 

 

 

Birthday gift from nuno and stitch shop.

I love this "ten to sen double gauze hand towel (hometown)".

 

 

Our "AFL Grand Final" day...we can't wait for the next season!

 

We went to Rose Street Market to learn how to set up a market stall.

I got some good ideas from some shops for this market (click!) in November. 

 

And I got this cute shop sign!

 

We're invited to our friend's son's first birthday.

He was born 5 days earlier than Nico.

(his mum and my due date were the same..haha.)

 

It's good to see our son mingle with other kids.

He is pretty independent!

 

Tomato plants and succulents at Mount Waverley Market.

Thank you to the people who supported my Aussie parents' charity!

 

Baba Sus

My sister-in-law Maria had her birthday just recently and we took her to our favourite café, Baba Sus in Glen Iris, for breakfast. The co-owner of this café is a Japanese chef (you can read about her here !) and the menu has some Asian influence.

Paul and I always share two dishes, a savory and sweetie. We ordered a burger and the Hong Kong Style pancakes ;-) Their food never disappoints us, the staff are friendly and their service is great!

If you are traveling to Melbourne from somewhere else, it's not really an easy spot to visit though because it's a bit far out from the city (about 25min by train) and there's no tourist attractions around there, but if you live in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne, this is a must-go place. If you take your friends there, you can definitely impress them!

with love

Allie