Currently viewing the category:
"tutorial"
I’ve made this stock several times and I thought I’d share my recipe b/c it never fails. Husband, who is not Korean, says it reminds him of Chicken Long Rice, a Hawaiian dish. In my book, it is the perfect comfort food! and my lil ones eat it up!
INGREDIENTS NEEDED:
- 4-5 lb whole chicken (this will serve a family of 4 and you will have plenty of leftovers!)
- 1 whole onion
- 4-5 inch piece of peeled ginger
- 10-15 garlic
- 3 green onion
- 4-5 hours!
HOW TO:
1. Rinse your chicken thoroughly. Throw away the giblets. Trim all the excess visible fat and cut off the bum tip. I also like to remove some of the skin to reduce having to repeatedly skim off the fat later on.
2. You need a pot big enough that when the chicken is placed inside, the chicken is fully submerged with water like so. Now I’ve read on other sites that to reduce the fat/grease, you should boil the chicken once and dump the water. I’ve tried this once but I do feel that you lose some of the flavor this way.
So the choice is yours… retain the full flavor (go to step 3) or get rid of as much fat/grease as possible. If it’s the latter, this is what you will see.
Not a pretty sight, I agree. After it comes to a boil, dump the water, rinse the chicken, clean your pot, and submerge again in water.
3. Place your onions, ginger, garlic, green onions in the pot. This will really flavor your stock! Cover and let it come to a boil for approx 30 minutes. Stay nearby…otherwise you risk having the water boil over and creating a big ol’ mess 
Once it comes to a boil, lower your heat to about medium. Cook for another 45 minutes.
4. Remove all your veggies. and at this point, they will fall apart on you. It’s easiest to use a slotted ladle.
what your stock will look like. Yes, it is greasy! I just use a ladle and start skimming away. This step I do quite often b/c I’d like to get it as “clean” as poss.
5. After cooking the chicken for 2.5 hours from the start, remove your chicken. At this point, your chicken will also to start falling apart. I use a pair of tongs and slotted ladle.
your chicken will be SUPER moist and delish!
6. Once your chicken has cooled, you can shred it or cut it into pretty pieces to have later on with your jook (porridge).
7. Clean off the bones and you can add it back to your stock to make it milkier!
after 1.5 more hours of boiling with the bones!
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!
1. Julienne veggies (onions, squash, potatoes) and make kalgooksoo!
2. Add rice to make jook (porridge). Soak your rice in water for 1 hour. Drain and add to stock. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. I’ve used orzo which husband loved! and I’m thinking of adding egg noodles next time.
ENJOY!
Thanks for stopping by! and have a great weekend!
big sis
So it took me almost 5 years but I finally have my wall frame gallery! It was something I wanted but didn’t have the energy/desire to put together. That is, until we got our pictures taken professionally for baby#3′s 1st birthday. So for those who have a wall frame gallery, I applaud you! It is a lot of work…from choosing the frames to deciding on which pictures to enlarge to how the frames will be situated on the wall! All difficult decisions and if you want to get it right the first time and avoid making multiple holes in your wall, I recommend some planning.
Step 1. Deciding on the frames. My style is a bit contemporary, modern so it was a no brainer, Room and Board it was. Here is my blank wall.
Step 2. After choosing our frames, I drew out a rough sketch of the placement of the frames.
Step 3. After it was approved (by me! haha), I cut out faux frames out of paper bags, using the exact dimensions of the purchased frames (as you can see, 2 of my paper frames were missing corners…I got lazy).
Step 3. I lived with paper bags on my wall for about a week. Going from a blank wall to one filled almost entirely with pretty big size frames was an adjustment for me so I wanted to make sure I would be OK with the wall frame gallery.
Step 4. After about a week, I decided it was time to commit and I contacted my photographer and enlarged pictures galore! I opted to go this route instead of enlarging it myself and I’m so glad I did. The cropping, the alignment, the sheer quality of the prints was perfect and I definitely would not have been able to do a better job.
Step 5. I nailed directly over the paper bags and this method made it so easy to make sure everything stayed lined up.
Step 6. After all the frames were hung, I went back and pulled off the paper bags.
End result. 
I smile every time I walk by this wall and baby girl loves to point and name everyone in the picture. <3 it! I probably could have skipped a few steps here and there, but I really needed to be happy with the end result. In fact, I went through a whole lot of drama with the bottom right frame. It took months to get it right and I can now say that all frames are a keeper
Hope my lil how-to gives you some ideas on how to start and finish your wall frame gallery! Thanks for stopping by!
big sis
I was given an entire lesson awhile back on transplanting Cymbidium Orchids from my father-in-law’s friend who as been growing, caring, teaching about orchids for 50+ years! I couldn’t just sit on the information so I took some pictures along the way to show you how to transplant them.
The biggest advice…they are SUPER resilient and you can be a bit rough with them and they will still survive!!!
What you’ll need:
- Bark mixture (bark, coconut husk, perlite). I purchased my mixture from Yamada’s.
- Pots with holes on the bottom
- Epsom salt
- Oyster shells or washed and dried egg shells
- Nutricote fertilizer
- Knife
- Pinking shears
- Plant tags
When your pot starts to look like this, you know it’s time to transplant them.
Generally speaking, it should come right out of the pot. Unless you’ve waited this long, you may need to use a lil bit more finesse to pry it out.
What I’ve found that works is laying the pot on its side and applying pressure on the pot. This should loosen it up from the pot and the plant should easily slip out.
This is where all the fun begins!
The roots were so firmly packed that we had to use a knife and pinking shears to clean it up. What you’re aiming for is removing all the old bark, cutting off the dead roots, and trimming any new ones that have gotten long. How do know when the roots are dead? By feel…haha…well, for a newbie like myself, this was hard. But you can tell by looking at the roots; the new healthy ones are firm, white/tannish, not shrivelled and browned. After removing the bark, cutting the old ones, and trimming the new ones, your orchid should look like this.
Now it’s time to separate the bulbs. You want to have a minimum of 3 bulbs in each pot.
Using your knife, you can cut the bulbs apart. Again, they are quite resilient so don’t be scared…just find a separation of bulbs and slice through them.
To clean them up further, you’ll notice that there are dried up leaves on the bottom of the bulb. You can peel these off and if they are really tough, use a razor to split the dead leaf apart and then peel away. Here’s what it should look like.
Much better! Now we are ready to pot them.
Take a pot and fill it up halfway with your bark mixture. You can use your hands to really make the bark compact or use a stick like so to pack it down.
Position the new plant so that the “older” bulbs (ones without leaves) are closer to the edge of the pot. This will enable the bulbs with the leaves to continue growing and have enough space to do so. Then place bark on top and pack it down again using your fingers or stick.
Ready for the secret?
OK. So maybe it’s not a secret but it’s news to me! Epsom salt, which provides magnesium to your orchids. Some believe it to be a “bloom booster”. Oyster shells, which provides calcium. And Nutricote, fertilizer.
Sprinkle a bit of salt around the bulbs.
Then some oyster shells. Place another layer of bark mixture on top of the salt and oyster shells.
Your last layer is Nutricote. Make sure to leave approximately an inch from the top of the bark to the top of the pot. Water your plant and then pack down the bark again, if needed.
From 1 plant to 5! Be sure to tag them with the names of the orchids.
It’s been 4 months or so and none have died! Yay for awesome teachers! They won’t bloom this year but I cannot wait to see all 16 of my orchids(!) bloom next season!
Hope you found this tutorial helpful!
big sis
After daughter’s 1st cooking class, the teacher requested for aprons too. I immediately started panicking. You know I’m all about planning my days out and a trip to Joann’s + sewing sessions were not on my to do list for that week. haha. Yes, it would have been so much easier to just buy one but heck I made her a “chef’s bag”, I might as well make her a cute apron to go with it, right? So I searched, pinned, designed one that would suit my big girl (and me!).
I referenced Tidbits Child’s Apron Tutorial and Made’s Gathered Pocket Tutorial. Let’s get started!
Sizing: 4-7 year old.
Pattern: You only need to draw up half the pattern since you’ll be cutting the apron on the fold. Top width of the apron: 3.75 inches wide. Length on the fold: 20 inches. Width of the apron: 8.25 inches. From top of the apron to the bottom of the curvature: 8.5 inches. Here’s an image of my pattern.
What you need: 1 yard of outer fabric and 1 yard of inner fabric.
Prewash your fabric. Fold your outer fabric and pin your pattern to it. Cut. Do the same with your inner fabric.
Now on to the ties. You’ll need 4 strips total. Cut 2 strips of 18 x 4 out of your outer fabric and 2 strips of 16 x 4 out of your inner fabric. You’ll use the same method discussed below on each strip.
Fold over 1/4 of an inch and press with your iron.
Fold lengthwise in half and press. You’ll do this to obtain a crease.
Unfold and there’s your crease.
Take the ends lengthwise and meet at the crease. Press with your iron.
like so
Then you’ll fold it again so the exposed ends are sandwiched. Topstitch 1/4 of an inch all the way around. I didn’t use pins but if you’re afraid that they won’t line up, by all means pin away.
Do this with all 4 strips.
On to the pockets. You’ll need to draw up a pattern for the actual pocket and a strip that will hold your gathered seam. The dimension of my pockets are as follows. Width: 6.5 inches. Length: 4.75. I also made a pattern for the strip 6 x 1.25. Here’s an image.
Cut 2 pockets out of the outer fabric. Cut 2 strips out of the inner fabric.
For the pockets, you’ll press 1/4 of an inch all the around (I recommend that you serge or zig zag stitch your ends before pressing. Lesson learned!). For the strips, you’ll meet the 2 long ends in the center and press with your iron.
Sew all the way around your pocket. Now we are ready to gather the pockets.
To gather the pocket: Adjust your stitch length. Make sure you give yourself a “tail” (meaning, pull the thread out a few inches) before sewing so that you are able to gather the pocket.
Measure 1 inch down from the top of your pocket and sew. DO NOT backstitch on either ends. When you get to the end, make sure you leave enough of a tail so you are able to gather here as well.
Then using either the top thread or bottom (choose 1), gently pull on both sides and it should gather.
Then you’ll take your strip and pin it over the stitches. I just eyeball it and center the strip with the stitches. Fold over the hanging edges and pin as well.
Sew 1/8 of an inch at the top and at the bottom of the strip. This will ensure that no stitches get pulled out and your gathered stitch will stay put.
No measuring here…I just eyeballed it and placed the pockets evenly apart. Pin them down and sew about 1/8 of an inch around.
Now for the ruffles, you’ll need a strip measuring 30 x 3.5 out of your inner fabric. Fold over a 1/4 of an inch, press, and sew. You’ll do this on both sides. Then fold in half lengthwise and press. Here’s how you’ll gather the ruffle.
Adjust your tension.
Adjust your stitch length.
Sew 1/8 of an inch and you’ll see that your material will start to gather on its own.
Pin your ruffle to the bottom of your apron.
We’re almost done! Pin down your strips. For the top ties, pin them 3/4 of an inch from the edge.
Sandwich everything. Here’s what it should look like. Sew all the way around using a 1/4 of an inch seam. Make sure you leave an opening to flip everything out!
Notch the curves.
Flip it out and then topstitch all the way around, making sure to stich up the opening where you flipped everything out.
And there you have the completed apron!
My big girl, the chef!
Enjoy the tutorial!
big sis
For all you non-sewers out there, this is a pretty easy way to make a bunch of hair clips for your little one and all you need to keep the bow together is some hot glue!
Remember these hair clips I made? Well, here is a tute on how to make the felt bow…here we go!
Materials:
- Felt (I prefer working with a wool felt blend instead of the craft felt)
- Fabric scraps or ribbon
- Thin ribbon
- Hair Clip
- Hot glue gun
- Lighter (optional)
Step 1
Gather your materials
(still love you K Stew!)
Step 2
Cut your felt 3″ x 1.75″, cut a coordinating ribbon or fabric scrap 2.75″ x1.5″.
Before we move on to Step 3, you can use a lighter to heat treat the ends to avoid fraying. See my post on How to make a Ring Bearer Pillow, and you can see a picture of a heat treated piece of fabric and one that isn’t as a comparison. It’s best to heat treat ribbon!
Step 3
Glue the wrong side of the second piece of fabric/ribbon. I just dabbed a few dots on the all four sides, and then attached it to the felt.
Step 4
Cut a 1.25″ piece of thin fabric. This is going to be used for the center of the bow.
Step 5 & 6
You will pinch the center like so,
and wrap the center ribbon around with glue.
Step 7
Cut a small piece of felt to cover the tip of your hair clip.
Step 8
Glue the under side of the hair clip and attach to the back of your hair clip
I like these alligator clips better for my 3 year old’s hair since it’s thicker. Any clip with teeth holds much better than the flat ones, esp if your little one has a lot of hair.
Voila…~
-lil sis
2 weeks prior to baby girl’s birthday party, I started on my faux cake. If you recall…here was my inspiration.
I started with a 5lb bag of Sixlets, purchased from Amazon. They honestly did a great job packaging it up but in transit + the deathly heat wave we’ve been having (I’m assuming), many arrived cracked 
Purchased two 7-inch cake forms from Joann’s
I stuck toothpicks all around just to be sure that the 2 styrofoam cylinders wouldn’t separate. I started with Elmer’s glue b/c I had this fear that hot glue would melt the styrofoam but quite the contrary. NOTE: Elmer’s glue will NOT work in this project!
Then I covered the top and sides with white paper.
On to the fun part! Using your hot glue gun, start gluing away. Since Sixlets are chocolates, I would recommend dropping the hot glue directly onto the paper. There were a few instances where one would pop out and I had no choice but to drop a dot of glue on the Sixlets; they didn’t melt terribly but def do it the other way to save your fingers
Now here’s where I blew it! Remember, all my projects are completed in the evenings…when all the kids are sleeping and I have a good 3 hours of uninterrupted time. But this also means, I’m tired and working hard to complete the project (I hate leaving projects incomplete!). I was suppose to alternate colors starting from the 1st row but in my haste, I did rows of solid colors.
And the worst part about it was I didn’t realize it until I got to here!!! Yes, it’s still pretty but it was not what I had envisioned. So I called it a night. Do you think I pulled it apart or kept going?
aww…you know me so well! I pulled. it. all. apart. Well, I can’t take full credit. I bribed the twins with some Sixlets and they helped pull them all off. I dropped dots of Elmer’s glue all over the top and adhered the sprinkles. Once you’re done, you can Shellac the whole thing! From what I’ve read, the Shellac helps the candy coating look less dull from handling it with your fingers (the natural oils will take away the shininess). Hey, whatever to make the faux cake last! It’s been almost a month and it still looks the same!
Here’s the top. If you look carefully, you can see the styrofoam peeking out but I swear no one knew it was fake
If by any chance you want it and are willing to come and pick it up, it’s yours! I really really don’t want to throw it out Just send me an email at lilsprinkles@gmail.com.
And if you are wondering if I used all 5lbs, the answer is no. I had so much left over! So each kid got one of these in their goodie bags!
big sis
Raising a 8 month old baby and 6-year-old twins leaves me with very little time to craft. And although I had very good intentions, I just was not able to get to my sewing machine for their birthday party. So for the twin’s party favor bags, I ordered muslin drawstring pouches
and decided to decorate them. Beyblades…cupcakes… sigh…
For the boys, I found an image of Gingka Hagane (if you have no idea who/what I’m talking about, be glad! be. very. grateful.) and printed the image out on iron-on transfer paper.
Then I cut the image out so that the outline was the only thing visible.
This part is very time consuming but you want to make sure you get close to the outline. Otherwise, when you iron your image, the surrounding white areas will show up on your pouch. Not pretty.
Iron the image on to your pouch and there you have your one of a kind party favor bag!
For the girls, I found a cute cupcake stamp and stamped the images all over the pouch.
Based on my research, the best ink pad to use on fabric is VersaCraft and I concur. There is absolutely no smudging, the image is very clear, and once it is set with heat, it’s permanent! (well, so they say…I haven’t washed my daughter’s pouch yet).
So here’s the question…did I really save time by personalizing these muslin ones vs. sewing up my own fabric drawstring pouches??? Hmmm…
big sis
This is what we did on a HOT Monday morning…
MAKE TERRARIUMS!
I’ve been wanting to make one for the longest time, and I’m so happy we got around to creating these beauties. Big sis and I were saying how great these would be as house warming gifts or birthday presents. The big plus is that they are sooooo easy to make!
Materials:
- Cactus/Succulent Potting Soil
- Rocks – Purchased Mosser Lee Decorative Rocks which only allowed us to make two terrariums. I had to resort to some Pottery Barn rocks which I already had and some rocks from my backyard.
- Succulents
- Glass Container
- “itty bitty” figures for decorative purposes(as my niece would say). This is optional!
Close up of our succulents:
Ok, so here we go.
Pour a layer of rocks into the glass container. I had a cute lil helper handy too!
Break up the roots from the succulent pots . We think it looks better to have a variety of succulents in one container. Prettier.
Pour a layer of potting soil on top of your rocks. We also mixed in some of the soil from the pots.
Tip: Do not over do it with the soil. Once you arrange the succulents, you will need to pour more soil to keep the plants in place.
Scatter some more rocks on top of the soil. If you have moss, you can add that as well. I just purchased a small moss bag at Wal Mart for $2. I decided to add moss in the smaller terrarium.
Darn! I knew I should have bought another bag of the decorative rocks. I had to use some black rocks for this terrarium because I ran out.
Top View:
Top view of the bigger terrarium:
My niece was so nice enough to give me her plastic ducky because my daughter absolutely ADORES duckies!
Top view of big sis’ terrarium:
Easy, right? Did I mention they only need to be watered once a month. Another plus!
-lil sis
Edited to add big sis’ tips 
1. pour a bit of activated charcoal before the soil to prevent your terrarium from stinking! this step is completely optional and from what I’ve read, it really is only a necessity for closed terrariums
2. use your bare hands or a spoon to shovel the dirt in. Gloves…way too difficult!
3. if you get dirt on your succulents and start to panic (like me), just get a straw and blow the dirt away
Edited to add FAQ’s
Q: What kind of lighting do they require?
A: Terrariums require bright, indirect sunlight!
Q: How frequent do i need to water the plant.. how long will the plant live?
A: They only need to be watered 1x a month. Be careful not to water the actual plant but around it, if that makes sense. Sorry cant say how long they live…it all depends on the conditions of the plant, environment, so forth. Mine have lasted 6+ months.
I started this tutorial on our old blog but never got around to finishing it, so I decided to post our first tutorial on this blog!
Materials to make three towers:
4 bags of lima beans 1 bag of small lima beans 1 bag of pinto beans 1 bag of black beans Three rolls of [...]
I started this tutorial on our old blog but never got around to finishing it, so I decided to post our first tutorial on this blog!
Materials to make three towers:
- 4 bags of lima beans
- 1 bag of small lima beans
- 1 bag of pinto beans
- 1 bag of black beans
- Three rolls of Paper Towel (I used the Costco ones)
- Glue Gun
- Templates – I printed out the tiger as well as the chook dol word from this blog, unexpected stay at home mom. As for my daughter’s korean name, I just printed them by installing the Korean character font on Microsoft Word using this tutorial.
Step 1
Print out your templates. I printed them out on regular 8.5×11″ paper and taped them to the paper towel roll. I used two blank white sheets for the back. I didn’t want any of the paper towel wording to show through. Tape it down securely…
Step 2
Start the gluing process! It took me about two small bags of glue sticks to finish this project, and I used a mini glue gun. I started off by gluing the outer box and then the characters. The small white lima beans go inside the box, and the larger ones are glued on outside.
I separated my beans out in bowls.
It was helpful to have a tray out to spread out some of the smaller beans like the black ones for the words because I was always searching for the skinniest bean or the fattest one to cover certain areas. It’s even worse when you’re trying to fill in between some of the lines.
Step 3
Finish the towers off by gluing the large lima beans outside. It’s best to keep them facing the same side up or down to give it a more uniformed look. I also glued the top like so…
Step 4
After gluing the beans down, look over your tower and take off any remaining glue strand stragglers. Admire all the hard work you put into making these towers!
You never know what you’ll end up doing with these towers. Someone contacted me via facebook after seeing my dol pictures and asked to purchase them from me. She didn’t have the time to create them since the dol was a week away, and I had no use for them so it worked out perfectly!
-lil sis
Connect with us!
Printables
