Star of the day

In Belgium the month of May, is the month of the first Communion. We already presented the gift bags we made as a keepsake for the Communion of Julie.

Today we show you the dress and gadgets we made for the Communion of Elise. The star of the day, choose Twinkle Twinkle in teal from the ‘Constellations’ collection of Lizzy House.

Elise requested some matching gadgets for her hair and a wristband. As I did not know if she prefers an elastic headband or a tiara we made her one of each.

The Curl Up model on duty looks a little glum, she thought the gadgets where looking good on her and she disagreed on sending them to Belgium.

The sister of the party girl also got a new dress. She chose a Candy Cane Bubble Dress and matching accessories.

The clothes were send to Belgium, and after a sunny day we received these pictures.

Both Elise and Isaline wearing there party clothes.

Pattern of the flowers: Zo geknipt

Star fabric: Twinkle Twinkle in Teal from Lizzy House, bought @ HawthorneThreads

Candy Cane fabric: bought @ Bambiblauw

Dress patterns: homemade by Curl Up

Birthday Girl

Saturday it was the ninth birthday of our eldest daughter. Saturday she had cake, she had a friend come over to celebrate, she wore a crown and she got presents.

The crown was put back on today because one gift she didn't receive yet, as it wasn't completely finished.

Our daughter is a diligent child! She loves sports, reading, and doing craftwork, but above all she loves cooking.

So we wrapped a homemade apron and put it in this little brown bag. The apron was only assembled very last minute out of a patch of Little Chef fabric that was just bought the day before yesterday.

The other side is made of Wasabi Blue of our favorite brand Petit Pan and finished off all round with fluorescent orange bias binding.

Our daughter often comes trotting along –once in a while really untimely- asking if she can cook something. Mostly that means mixing up really bizarre combinations of food in our Babycook machine.

She writes down the recipes and photographs the dish. A glimpse on one of her ‘famous’ recipes: ‘Le mosarela et les trois tomate’ and ... have a look at the picture she took of the dish! There are at least twenty tomatoes covering the mozzarella instead of just three. Hilarious!

Anyway, the notebook she uses costed only 20 eurocent and so the cover does not really look nice or anything. So I made an oilcloth cover for her precious recipe book!

She also got an oilcloth purse, because if she cooks, she needs to buy ingredients.

She also got a reusable shopping bag.

The shopping bag was currently stuffed with 2 cooking books for kids. She was well pleased and an hour later her first tomato-zucchini soup was simmering.

The pattern of the shopping bag comes from ‘Zo geknipt’. I do not necessarily need a pattern for such a bag, but then I bought some books and I might as well use them. Honestly … I have to give credit where credit is due: the bag was ready in no time and without gnashing! The pattern and assembling method are ideal as you can also use the bag inside out without revealing ugly seams.

Consequently we decorated the inside of the bag with a fluorescent pink star; if ever she wants the inside to be the outside.

First 2013 present

During Christmas holidays a group of our Belgian friends came over to visit us. We offered to celebrate New Year at our house. So we did grocery shopping, cooking, set the table, …; all of this for 15 adults and 14 children.

And then it was time to make each of them a present! The adults got a home decorated napkin.

The children got a T-shirt or a vest decorated with ‘SuperSky’.

Dubai has an amazing ‘skyline’ and the teenagers taught the link with the brand SuperDry was SuperCool!

As we watched –from our garden- the fireworks displayed on the Burj Khalifa the caption in Arabic writing says ‘828 Burj Khalifa’ (the height and the name of the tallest building in the world).

The presents were wrapped with a home stamped name tag and placed at the dinner table.

To anticipate your doubts: the prints were not carved by hand! I made the designs with the computer and consequently they were cut out with our plotter. 

Beach Wedding

Our kids’ school finishes at 2pm, till that time there is a little time for myself but afterwards the driving around starts: after school sport activities, visiting friends, going to the dentist,…

Thursdays –for us the last day of the schoolweek, as our weekend is the Friday and the Saturday- are especially busy for ‘driver mummy’.

Thursday afternoons I have to drive 3 times to the gymnastics club. The first time I drop our four year old and one of the boys. As they are under 7 years of age I am expected to stick around during the class. So usually I take some needlework that needs to be finished: attaching buttons, repairing a seam, attaching darts by hand,…

Not last Thursday! I allowed myself to relax with a book. Just before starting to read I consulted my Iphone todo list and I got a small panick attack when I realised I did not yet start making the dress for the wedding planned the day after at 3.30pm.

The cover of the book I planned to read, was instantly transformed to a piece of drawing paper and the dress was designed during my kids’ gymnastics class.

After two more trips to the gymnastics club driving and dropping the rest of our tribe I drew the pattern and cut the fabric. The Friday morning I started the needlework on the darts and pleats by hand, while I was watching my daughter play a rugby game. Returning home I assembled the dress in about 2 hours. Nevertheless there was no time left before the ceremony to finish the arm openings, nobody really noticed as I covered up the unfinished parts with a vest. 

I finished the inside of the collar and arm openings between the ceremony and the dance party!

The sleeves I initially planned to attach were eliminated after I calculated how much time there was left to assemble the dress. The finishing was minimal (no liner, but biais binding to hide the borders!) nevertheless I was happy with the result.

The kids enjoyed, especially as they loved the little parasols they got, as well as the ‘pull-a-little-brother’ game they played just before driving off to the wedding.

The newlyweds, well they were only looking at each other!

Any attempts to take a picture of our whole tribe ends up being catastrophic! At least one person always looks the wrong way.

In February we have another Beach Wedding, remind me that I do have to start a little earlier on the making of the dress, so I might actually be able to add some sleeves.

Party time

The end of the school year is approaching: so time for some last minute birthday parties. Louka her party should have been in January but the poor thing broke her wrist. So the party was postponed to a later date. Four months she needed to convince me to finally throw her party. And then, I decided two organize all the 2012 birthday parties at once, not the actual party of course! I chose two consecutive Saturdays, so the party fever is a little distributed and I do not see myself running around in our garden, checking on about 20 kids aged between 3 and 9 years old! But so I can send out the emails and make the party bags all in one go. Regarding those party bags: the result actually made me feel happy. (Not the pictures, as I do not seem to get them pictured properly). Every kid chose his own decoration for on the outside of the bag.

Inside the bags we put a T-shirt decorated with a drawing of the party animal and a matching badge. We also added a little bag with homemade kids tattoos, of course also with drawings the kids made their selves.

The party bags were sealed with some Washi Tape. Finally a container of gorgeous, colourful tape found its way to the Middle-East.

After the party, we enjoyed a warm bath and then we were ready to go to bed. The new Tshirts served as sleeping dresses.

And then ... there was a party

The month of May is a month of parties for the Curl Up family. Papa and moeke got a year older again and the youngest family addition got a lemon meringue pie with his very first candle.

So … we threw a party. A party, that means drinks, and drinks that means ice, and to keep drinks cold when its 40°C outside you need a lot of ice.

But we ordered more ice than we had cool boxes, so 50 kg ice was used to cool down our overheated little ones. They were super happy; as it’s the first time they saw snow in our garden.

  

The whole family helped cutting, baking, and decorating; and we were happy with the result. Especially the couscous seemed to be liked by the party gang.

Nina gave us the most beautiful and tasty cupcakes we have ever seen/tasted, made be a friend of her.

 

Blue selection

  

Colourful selection

Festive couscous

Curl Up its favourite party dish is couscous with dried fruits and nuts. A great side dish for a wide range of main courses, such as quiche, wine & cheese, but also to accompany for example grilled meat. The advantage is that you can quickly make a big quantity of it with a minimum of effort. This is how we like our couscous, but of course you are free to experiment:

Ingredients

150g normal couscous

75g unsalted pistachio nuts

1 small red onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

25g flat-leaf parsley, chopped

15g mint, chopped

juice of 1 lemon

a handful ready-to-eat prunes, apricots, raisins, figs (chopped in small pieces)

4 tablespoons of olive oil

salt and pepper

fresh seeds of a pomegranate

Preparation

Prepare the couscous according to the preparation details on the packaging, or follow these instructions: measure the amount of couscous and pour the couscous in a glass dish. Add some butter over the couscous and then measure the same amount of water as the amount of couscous you measured earlier. Add some chicken/vegetable stock to the water, heat the water in the microwave till boiling. Pour the boiling water over the couscous. Set aside to cool.

Mix all the other ingredients: the nuts, onion, garlic, parsley, mint, lemon juice, and dried fruits in a large bowl. Add the oil and the cooled couscous. You can add as much dried fruits as you wish, making your couscous even richer. Finish by decorating the couscous with some pieces of pomegranate.

Double celebration

Today it is double party time. Felix turns 1 year old and we posted our first post @ the new Curl Up blog! A blog about life in the United Arab Emirates, sewing, cooking, rugby, a garden filled with kids, and what to do with big, middle and small size fabric scraps. Hoorah!

The four other kids couldn’t decide which pie was most suited for today’s celebrations, so we just made them all. Omar and Elias decided we had to make a brownie; Louka just always goes for lemon meringue pie and Jade choose Cornflakes pralines.  

As the kids were allowed to help, of course the kitchen was a big mess when we finished, especially as Jade dropped the box of Cornflakes on the floor. Luckily we have enough brushes and a very good vacuum.