Niko Smiles

Yay! I've been so eager to share these smiles with you. Not my smiles but Niko's! He was already smiling on his name reveal post too. Did you notice? ;)

The biggest inspiration to begin all these changes with Niko has been my baby Bruce. Can you believe it's been NINE months since I gave birth?! It's such a wonderful experience being a Mommy and watching my little boy grow day by day; albiet tough at times, but great times nonetheless. His smiles and laughter melt my heart and his pouty faces crack me up. So each time I would get back to work while he takes a nap, I'd always feel like there's just not enough emotion in Niko's original face. Niko's always happy but you simply couldn't tell what he'd be thinking (which is one thing I love about the "content" face). But now, with these expressions, you can really see how happy he is!

I'm already using these happy faces in my current project (you know, the one with the Christmas deadline? Haha), but I hope to use them more in other projects too. I haven't decided whether I'd ever change my penguin plush faces though... Oh, decisions decisions. ;)

Shout Out - Mochi Qtie

Cuteness overload! <3 I stumbled across Mochi Qtie yesterday trying to look for kawaii ("cute" in Japanese) items on Etsy. Here's a few of my favorites but there's so many more in her shop; you should definitely check it out! :D

shop: Mochi Qtie
photos: Furry Ball Bear, Fan of Mickey Mouse, Chubby Panda

Tagline

before

Were you able to spot the minor change that I mentioned last Friday? I took out the "Handcrafted gifts personalized for you" tagline in my logos and everywhere else they used to be. I'm doing my spring cleaning in early summer. :P These are just a few of the changes I'm making and there's more to come in the near future! Can I get a "woot! woot!" for all the good changes going on? Lol! Ok, enough with the corniness. Getting back to business.

Air Force Penguin

air force penguin

from a to her fiancee

Darling Moments: Mini In A Bowl

Yesterday, I came across this ohdeedoh post and brought out some bowls and spatulas Bruce could play with. Here's his Mini getting a little break from all the excitement. ;)

Note: Yes! I found his Mini that I was looking for. He was hidden in the laundry basket waiting to be washed. :P

101 in 1001: #87 Rope Coasters

Good morning!! I'm going to start off by saying, I love Martha Stewart! :) She has some great tutorials for all types of gifts and even personal projects for yourself. I bet you can guess where I got the tutorial for these rope coasters I made for my friend, Veara! :D

Here's the link to the rope coaster tutorial. The directions are quite simple. I think the only hard part was making sure my ends of the rope didn't fray, which you can kind of see in this last photo that it started to do so. I used a lot of glue and even used a brush to make sure I got every nook and cranny so it wouldn't fall apart. I went glue-happy. :) I chose to coat it with white acrylic instead of color because I figured it'd match with any type of home design style, even Veara's bachelor pad. ;) What do you think?

Things That Make Me Smile

It's Friday already! This week went by so fast and I was pretty productive. :) Here's a glimpse of what went on:

1. Sharing Brandon's first Father's Day. It took me a while to bake the Postcup mug we got him because I kept forgetting. But it's all ready for him to use now! He says he'll be using it at work which kind of bums me out since I wanted to see it being used. Haha, or use it myself! ;)

2. Announcing the My Dear Darling's original penguin's name: Niko the Penguin! :D I'm so glad it got a positive response! Thank you again!

3. Earlier this week, I moved my iMac to the living room/dining room to cool down. Life is so much better when it's not 90+ degrees while you work. (My screensaver reads 80 but that's in SF. We live in Novato.) And see that dinky box on the wall? That's what Bruce, Katsu, and I survive on throughout the hot summer days: our air conditioner. :) Life is good. Oh, and we ended up buying a fan for our bedroom because it was much too hot to sleep there without it!

4. I updated one main image throughout my website. I don't know if you noticed but I'll talk about it more next week! ;) Can you spot it? It's very subtle.

5. Every time Katsu finds a nice comfy spot to sleep and relax, Bruce comes up behind him wanting to play. So one day, I realized I hadn't seen Katsu for a while and I called for him with no response. I looked around and found him in the furthest corner of the house hiding sleeping. :) This made me laugh out loud.

I apologize for the lack of photos today. Hopefully, I'll take lots of photos this weekend (with my iPhone again) so I'll be back next week with lots to share! :D Have a great weekend!!

An extra for today:

I found this duck(?) with a nice hairdo

at the farmer's market this past Tuesday :D

hehe, so cute!

Shout Out - Oh The Cuteness

I don't quite remember how I came across Chase's blog, Oh the Cuteness, but one thing I know is that I signed up for her Finish It project almost a year ago. I think I miserably failed at completing most of the tasks, but I had the pleasure of following her blog along the way. :) She shares great tutorials and has cute handmade items in her Etsy shop.

I love the sequin mushroom! :D Don't you?

shop: Oh the Cuteness!

blog: Oh the Cuteness!

photos: lovebirds wedding cake topper, sequin mushroom ornament clip, oh the cuteness blog banner

Will You Be My Valentine?

I realize Valentine's Day was way back months ago but I hadn't shared this special penguin that I made for B to give to his girlfriend, Tessa. :D I hope they had a lovely Valentine's Day!

for Tessa from B

Darling Moments: Bubbles

Yesterday, I got out the bubbles to play with Bruce and Katsu. They both loved it. Mini loved it too! ;)

P.S. Thank you to everyone that let me know they liked the name Niko! :D

Niko the Penguin

If you follow me on twitter or Facebook, I've hinted at exciting changes that I've been working on and today I'm ready to reveal the first of many. I started My Dear Darling selling just one personalizable original penguin plush and with that, I explained the reason why I didn't give the penguin a name was because I wanted the new penguin owner to name him. But over two years have passed and I've changed my mind. My penguin wants a name! He deserves a name, don't you think? :) So after lots and lots of searching, I've found the one!

I started out looking at popular British butler-esque names. Lol, I know, random right? But how can you not like Alfred, Winston, or Edwin for a penguin? :) But every time I looked at my penguin and repeated English names, I realized my penguin ain't British. I searched around some more and ended up looking through Japanese names. Nothing stood out and I was stumped. I went back asking myself why I started making penguins in the first place and BAM it came to me: smiles! I wanted to make penguin plushies in hopes of bringing smiles to others. I finally came up with the name Niko!

"Niko-niko" is a Japanese onomatopoeia that describes a smile. If you didn't know, I'm Japanese (my last name is Vietnamese because I'm married to a Pham) so it was natural for me to give my original plush-baby a name taken from a Japanese word. I was just trying too hard with the butler names. Maybe I can name another character Winston... no? ;)

I'm so excited and I hope you like his name too! What do you think of Niko the Penguin?

Father's Day Weekend

Good morning! :)

This weekend was quite different from our usual weekend as we celebrated the marriage of a wonderful couple on Saturday and Brandon's first Father's Day yesterday! I wanted to share some photos from the beautiful wedding venue, Marin Art and Garden Center. It was gorgeous! It made me realize we really don't know much about our town (technically, not our town but a couple cities over). The entire place is immersed in trees! It made me want to lay on the grass and watch the clouds roll by as the breeze make the leaves dance on the trees. :)

The wedding itself was wonderful and the food was delicious. Congratulations to the newlyweds, C&J!

a lovely night to end a perfect day

A special thank you to my dear friends Diana and Courtney for babysitting Brucie & Katsu for us on top of my hair & makeup, dress, fresh mushrooms & avocado from the farmers market, and these beautiful flowers above. Do I have the greatest girl friends, or what?! Love them! :D

~ & ~

What did we do for Father's Day the next day? Brandon wanted to eat ramen so we headed over to Japan Town in SF and pigged out. :) Oh yes we did! Hehe. Earlier that day, we all Skyped with my dad to wish him a happy day too and he was tearing up because he couldn't believe how much Bruce had grown. He can officially stand up on his own! :D Then Bruce and I gave Brandon his gift that I was excited about since this post:

We got him a Postcup by Bailey Doesn't Bark! :D I've been wanting it for so long and finally found a great reason to give one to Brandon. I bought another since they were on sale here just in case I botched the first one. I'll be baking the one in the photos tonight in hopes that it'll turn out fine and have an extra one to gift. :)

And not to worry. I traced Bruce's hands on a piece of paper first, cut it out and then traced it onto the cup. So no harm to little Brucie in the making of this personalized gift for Daddy!

What did you end up doing this weekend?

Oh! And I have an exciting post coming up later today! ;D

Baking Extravaganza

Good morning! Instead of having my regular Friday post today, I thought I'd share all the great things I ate this week since, you know, yummy food always makes me smile. ;)

homemade strawberry shortcake cake

My friend Bryce came up to visit and we actually went through making everything that was on our list! I had so much fun, I know I'll definitely be doing it again.

my first artichoke

For starters, I know this isn't a baked good, but I wanted to share: I had never had a whole artichoke before this weekend. I've had the hearts in pasta and salads but never one I had to pick at myself. Boy was I missing out! It was all so foreign to me (Brandon too!) so she had to show us how to eat it, which reminded me of the time I taught my college roommate how to eat edamame. Apparently, I wasn't a good teacher because she ended up eating the whole pod! :X Oops! Anyway, Bryce was a good instructor and I loved my love artichokes!

inside filling was the best part

Okay, so the very first thing we baked was a strawberry shortcake cake. I got the recipe from Pioneer Woman (thanks to Erin, "team P-Dub!" hehe) and it was de-li-cious! It's a bit heavy so you only need to serve small slices but it's so good. Like sooooo good. Yes, you must try it!

Then we made apple pie pops* (pie-on-a-stick), which are Bryce's creations. These were good both when served fresh out of the oven and when served the morning after for breakfast! :)

Since I had never had cake pops* before, we made those too! The kicker here was that we used See's candy chocolate which made them rich and that much better.

Okay, I'm bracing myself because this was my favorite dessert we made this week: Macarons topped with a little hint of cinnamon. Drool. Bryce bought me the book, I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita, so we used the recipe and read through all the tips to create the most amazing macaron ever. I can't wait to try making it myself (haha, since I was busy with Bruce during this time) and only hope that it'll turn out just as good as they did. Heaven.In.Your.Mouth. Really. These have become my favorite dessert. Period.

Last but not least, she made mint meringues*. Ahhh, these were so good too! I got to eat them while we watched Bridesmaids at the theater. Yup, we snuck 'em in. ;) Best in-theater snack I've had. Beats popcorn to the curb. Lol. A special thank you to Bryce for coming up to visit my little Phamily. ;)

*I didn't provide links to the recipe for the ones with stars because Bryce had them. Sorry! ;) Maybe she can share in the comments section?

Was this enough inspiration for you to do some baking this weekend? Hehe, I hope so! If you do, let me know how it went. And if you have recipes for me to try, please share! :D Have a wonderful Father's Day weekend! (It's Brandon's first Father's Day! How exciting!!)

Shout Out - summersville

Did I ever mention how much I love Etsy's "Suggested Shops" section that finds similar shops from the ones you've already favorited? Well, I love it! Simply because I find shops I would've never come across without it... Like summersville!

Look at these beautiful graphics screenprinted on fabric, paper and mugs!

Everything in Lu's shop is handmade in England. Just lovely. :)
*I love the glass cup in the first photo too. I wonder if she made that too!*

shop: summersville

blog: summersville

photos: droplets, bloomsbury, weave

The Dancing Chef Penguin

Last week, I said I'd reveal who made that salmon nigiri for the USC penguin. Well, let me introduce his girlfriend, Chef Penguin. :) She loves to cook and sing:

they are simply inseparable ;)

personalized penguins for her bf from C