BelangZ

Author: Kimi Welcome Brioche: I am happy to be the one to blog about our new family pet! Her name is Brioche and she is a Shorthair cat. Fun fact about Brioche’s name, in French and means Bun/Bread. She has a calm and friendly personality and approaches anyone new, asking for pets and cuddles.  Even though she is a bit cheeky, by climbing onto the counter and dining table, we all still love her very much. She also loves napping during the day, so at night she is really active.  Our whole family loves her a lot. Brioche the Cat. Welcome to our family :). 

I have been using cloth pads for more than 10 years now, and have never looked back. I babbled on an on about it in this post:  https://belangz.blogspot.com/2011/11/cloth-pads-for-earth-loving-ladies.html  - being so excited to save the planet LOL! Guess what, I still use these pads until today. They are definitely long lasting. I thought I add some more cloth pads to my collection and absolutely loving Designer Bum’s designs. I bought one from  https://fluffbumsandmums.com/  and also purchased from their website when they have promotions:  https://designerbums.com.au/ . 40% off is definitely a bargain!  How cute are the prints? Different sizes for different days. Black cotton layer - good idea hey! Australian owned and designed in Melbourne. Cloth pads are definitely a sustainable product - based on my own 10-year experience. You can layer them with cloth liners through out the day to ensure that you feel more confident and comfortable. I have been making ...

Working from home seems to be the new norm. And very convenient too! Just started a new job this year as an environmental officer and is definitely the highlight of my 2022… for now =D And the awesome thing about this new workplace is that you can choose 2 days to work from home. As a full-time mom, this flexibility will definitely help with multitasking. Hasben is also working from home - 5 days a week. Lucky man! Anyway, just gifted him with this IKEA Langfjall office chair to complete his home office. Super comfy, compact and looks beautiful. Matches his desk well! I am planning to buy one for myself too. *opens FB marketplace*   

Happy anniversary to us! Plus happy new year 2022. I will start the new year with this entry - talking about what we did at home... which is yes, very uneventful. At this point of time, Covid is still at large, with Omicron creating more drama than the other variants. And the weather has been a bit wild, with the ex-cyclone Seth sending us strong winds and some rain. Gloomy weather We did plan to have an anniversary trip - which was supposed to be our yearly event but I have forgotten when was the last time we had such a trip. And we ALWAYS go to Sofra to celebrate our anniversary but with everything that's going on, we thought it will be better to just stay home and have Uber send our food. We had Indian today from Bombay Bliss. I surprised Hasben with a Skechers GoRun, because he has been very determined to be active (which probably is his 2022 resolution this year). We all assumed that he liked it - as he wore them and ran across the house LOL! The boys went to Jumah Prayer and ...

B-Max and Venus in 2019. We brought home our first family pets back on 26th May 2016 - B-Max, Snowy and Nemo. Three goldfishes, so tiny with different colours. B-Max was black with small orange patches, Snowy was all white and Nemo was all orange.  The kids sat excitedly in front of the aquarium for the first few days =) However, just a few days later, Nemo died under the bridge - we suspected that the aquarium was too small for 3 fishes, so we maintained with only 2. A couple of years later, while we were on holiday in Malaysia, our friend, who was pet sitting for us, sent a picture of Snowy looking very sick. It died not long after, this time possibly because of trauma when Hasben transported them to our friends' house. Upgraded our aquarium . We bought a bigger aquarium for B-Max as it grew very big. It now looks more orange/white with small black patches. Also, we bought a new friend for it - a comet goldfish we named Venus - because it is bright yellow! Venus was very, very t...

If you're like me, obsessed with plants, I am sure you will have many collections of plastic pots from the plant nursery. Here in Australia, the most popular place to buy plants is of course, Bunnings. I usually go for the clearance section, obviously, as I am such a frugal person. But also, because I am not confident enough to ensure the plants' survival. So if I kill them, at least it won't be such a great lost! Anyways, since I keep going back for more plants (either because they did not survive, or just because it's spring!), I have soooo many plastic pots in my backyard. One way to reuse these pots is to make a cozy - either from fabric or by crocheting. It would be a waste to throw such a perfectly usable plastic pot, right? So, for my friend, Sofi's belated birthday present, I decided to make my first plant pot cozy.  1) I started of by crocheting a circle, just a bit larger than the bottom of the pot that I am using: 2) Then, without any changes in the numbe...

Finally! I managed to complete this project which took approximately 1 year to finish.  I am a sentimental person and keeps a lot of old stuff stashed randomly everywhere. So this particular doona cover - or duvet, or comforter, depending where you are from - was bought by my mother maybe in 1999 because I requested a green bed sheet. It was my favourite colour and I wanted to decorate my teenage room green. I remembered when my mother brought it home, I was so upset that it wasn't what I wanted and I even bruised my skin near my big toe from the friction with the sheet (Boo hoo, typical, ungrateful teenager!). But I quickly got over it as I realised that God gave me that itty-bitty pain for being a jerk, LOL. Well, anyway, that's a piece of history I remembered so vividly. Back to the present day, the doona cover now looks a bit worn out - well it has been 20 years! So I decided to upcycle it into a coverlet or blanket as I don't use a doona anymore. My old doona cover has...

A pamphlet by: Islamic Dawah Centre of Australia, United Muslims of Brisbane, and Islamic Information & Services Network of Australasia.  A beautiful and simple explanation on the importance of women in Islam. Just sharing it here for my future reference. Click on the images to enlarge.

How awesome is the Facebook Marketplace? We are literally buying and selling most things through there now. I have been eyeing the IKEA’s KVISTBRO coffee table for a very, very long time. I missed out on the sale last year and being me, do not wish to pay full price. I lurked around the FB Marketplace for ages and finally, someone was selling 2 of them for just $25! What a bargain. Stair's gate is up as our lil miss is a climber now! But I only need just one, so will  have to sell one of them. Next project is definitely to replace the fake bamboo plant with a real plant. And probably the rug too. And... my other project is to set up the kids’ school station - where they can easily store their school bags, swimming bags, homework, sun hats, coats, etc. The idea was shared on Kmart Hacks. I needed at least 2 of these Kmart lockers (I already had one) and finally got the other one from FB Marketplace for just $10. Hasben had to drive 30 minutes to Highfields to pick it up and he was n...

Ahhh... Here we are, already February 2021 and Covid-19 is still here around the world. Australia is doing quite well, but not Malaysia. We can't travel home and I miss my family so much! I have never been apart from them this long and it's haunting my dreams! Anyways, I can't believe my mood for sewing or crocheting have not fully kicked in this year. I have a few ideas but just not in the mood to create. On the plus side, I managed to make a few cloth liners and before putting them on my eBay store, I decided to visit my blog. So here I am! Oh yes, my cloth liners have been out-of-stock for months now and one of my regular customers have sent me a message asking if I am still making them. And this was back in November 2020. Now that I am finally free from my uni work, I can slowly put on my maker's hat and embrace my creative side. For this batch, I pair the Dino microfleece with the yellow chevron cotton fabric. They look very striking, I must say. Ok, will upload th...

Kimi and Afi are getting so smart now! We were playing a game where I gave them a scenario, and asked them how they would react. For example: Me: If a girl say, ‘can you be my boyfriend?’ What are you going to answer? Kimi: No thanks. And suddenly Afi said it was his turn to ask a question. Afi: Ibu, if a boy say ‘I like you’ and ask you to go to the airport so you can fly somewhere, what are you going to say? Me: Hmm... where are we travelling to? Afi: Malaysia  Me: No thanks, I have been there many times. Kimi: Ibu, you should say, ‘No.. I’m married!!’ LOL These smart boys with their dinosaur art gallery. It’s bedtime, but they decided to get creative now.. pfftt...

Date: 30th June 2020 Hi, It’s Kimi again . Now I’m going to tell you about my adventure at SEALIFE Mooloolaba QLD. This is me and my brothers lining up in the longest line I’ve ever been. But we made it to the end of the line and got our tickets and started our journey. First, we went to the touching bay, I touched 3 starfishes and 1 sea cucumber but we weren’t aloud to touch the fish. Remember this is not a sea horse it’s a sea dragon, sea dragons don’t have a curly tail like a sea horses. Next, we took a picture of this, and when Hafi took the boy one I didn’t want to be the girl so Aydin was the girl and I was in the middle. Before we went in the tunnel my mother took a picture of this Great White shark🦈 and it can rip it’s prey apart.    This thing here is a giant stingray, stingrays have barbs that has serious poison ☠️.  But they won’t hurt you unless you disturb them. This is a Goliath Grouper, Goliath Grouper have giant mouths to swallow its prey and it was comin...