Acrylic Painting I made for my friend and her reaction :)

Baku, 5 day trip...

So this time in kids vacation v planned to go to GEORGIA, we were super excited, but few days before leaving we came to know that alot of people were deported on Georgia airport (click the link for gulf news report). We were heart broken... a friend suggested us to go to Baku.When I searched Baku on internet I couldnt find any detailed information. But since we had no other option and my kids were adamant to go somewhere out of UAE so WE DECIDED TO GO TO BAKU.

We were happy just because we were travelling with two other family friends, other than that there wasn't much we were expecting...  

COST PER PERSON

Cost per person was 2000 AED.

We went in a group of 6 adults and 7 kids arranged by Musafir.com Cost included 

Return Flight,

Hotel stay for 4 nights 5 days (in 4 star Shah Palace Hotel)

Hotel pick up and drop off,

3 days guided tours, 

Tickets of all the museums, parks and chair lift in Gabala

Mercedes mini van for day 2 & 3. (Gabala was 4 hour drive one side)  

OUR ITINERARY

Day 1

Dubai airport to Baku airport 1pm to 5pm.

Stay at Shah Palace Hotel (in old city)

Day 2

Old city guided tour

Day 3

Visit to 2 Museum showing village life of azerbaijan 

Fire temple.

YANAR DAG, (meaning burning mountain).its a natural gas fire which is blazing countinuously on hillside for thousand of years.

Day 4

Gabala (its a beautiful place with chairlifts)

Day 5

Hyder Ali Airport to Dubai.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

It is a beautiful city, but do get hotel in OLD BAKU city there is so much to look around... specially dont miss Nizami street.

We went in the month of August, in morning weather was super hot so do pack your umbrellas. but in evenings it was very pleasant. It was a lovely break after hot weather of Dubai :) It is a tourist friendly place so you will find water and cold beverages on every corner.  

Knowing education is 100% in Baku, It was little strange when I noticed there were very few people who could communicate in english, even mcdonalds manager at Baku airport couldnt understand us. When I asked my tourist guide, (who had excellent english) he said no one is uneducated in BAKU but they resist learning and speaking English... though its changing now. 

You will not hear Azan, or see any mosques around. our guide told us though it is a muslim country but there are very few mosques in Azerbaijan and they all are at one place, plus they dont have loud speakers so u cant hear Azan unless you are living next to the mosque. 

By the way it was super cheap... their currency is manat, and 1 Manat = 2.16 AED. Approximate meal per person is almost 7 to 10 Manat (15 to 20dhs) which includes drink salad, and good portion of food. We got little toys for kids for 2 Manat. Souvenirs we bought for 30 Manat. 

dont forget to bargain though... ;)

Super Clean. It was v neat and clean. New and old both parts of the city were very clean.

One thing I read about Azerbaijani people on internet before going was that they are very friendly. But sadly speaking my experience was completely opposite to that other than v few ladies, who wanted to know where are we from...

Check out some pics and a video I compiled from our Baku trip.

Shah Palace Hotel, Old Baku City

Me & Hubby all fresh for 2nd day touring.

Our tour Guide, Kareem.

Kids after a tiring day.

Me, at Baku Museum

Me & my friends.

Beautiful Old Baku City Streets

Kababz yummm

And more Kababz :)

highly recommended, hand made ice cream from Doner Kabab

crafter mom's family, 1 sleepy head missing.

Fire Temple.

Fire Temple.

fruit sellers, in our van... when we stopped for a while, on our way to Gabala.

Kids in front of Baku's ancient bazar.

This Bazar is centuries old.

Love Blogging, Back to blogging after 7 years...

 I have always loved blogging... 

Started blogging 8 years back, when I was only a crafter mom of two little naughty boys (5 and 1 year old). Back den I wanted to do something crafty for myself and wanted to share that with the world to keep my sanity... But after a year of blogging, I got in to many ventures and never got time to blog and share my experiences...

In these last 7 years I, 

worked online full time, 

started my cake business, (which got me extremly busy)

started taking baking and fondant classes with figurines and 3d cakes, in pakistand and UAE.

But I had to leave everything in Jan 2016.... after having another musketeer in my team :)

  

And since then I am a full time mom... 

I did alot of little projects which ill be sharing soon. 

one of them was making my kids youtube channel The dabbing Bros, do like and subscribe :)

Luv u all....

Irum.

1 Day Fondant Make & Take workshop

 

Good news Cake Cuisine Dubai's ...1 Day FONDANT MAKE & TAKE Crash Course.... is back :D

 

http://www.facebook.com/IrumzCakeCuisine/

This workshop is equally valuable for beginners & for those who have already worked with fondant and looking for perfection...

 

  All tools and materials will be provided in the class, you will work on ur cake and will take ur creativity home :) Printed recipes of chocolate cake, choco buttercream, classic buttercream, chocolate ganache, white chocolate ganache, marshmellow fondant and perfect homemade fondant will be pr...ovided.

You will learn,
1. Chocolate moist cake.
2. Choco & classic buttercream.
3. Frost a cake.
4. Chocolate Ganache hard & soft.
5. Marshmellow fondant
6. Perfect fondant
7. Cover square & circle cake with fondant in perfect way.
8. Color fondant, & make fondant cutouts.
9. Fondant flowers
10. Gum paste
11. Gum paste Bows.
12. Present Box Cakes. (pic attached)

All students will be decorating their individual cakes in class as per demonstation...

Please note we have only limited seats available for this course. Course will Start on 3rd May, Friday. Timings: 2:30pm - 7pm
Seat will only be reserved on payment. It is a first come first serve process...

Please feel free to contact me at 055 6120585 or email at irum.adnan@gmailcom

 

Love Personalized Graphics

I have a long long long TO DO list... but not getting enough time to start working on it...

My mom in law is coming to visit us in a month and I am super excited, want to do some good changes in my home before her visit... though i am not sure ill be able to do this with my kids + having in mind that we are going to move to a new place in a couple of months..... still confused... well, lets see...

Now a days hubs is on vacations which simply means NO POSSIBILITY of any CRAFTING WORK... so ill start working on my list only after this weekend..

DISTRACTED AGAIN ....... AHHH :)

ok, so today when my kids were sleeping and I got some time to relax and was searching on internet for some graphic sites I came across Widley Tinks it is so kool, thought I should share it. I made this little family graphic using this site.




My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

It is very simple to use, you just have to select the number of your family members, customize graphic, copy html code and paste in your blog... its that simple.

Tip : If you dont want all the links to appear under your grapphic you can always use a print screen option, like this

I also made this one...

These graphics can be used in any sort of any project and its a simple, easy & quick thing.

I will be using them soon... luv it.

have fun
Irum. 

All is well that ends well…

For a long time I wanted to make my kids name initials wall art… M & A to hang on wall

But I couldn’t find wooden alphabets as there is no craft or hobby shop where I live. So I planned to make it with cardboard….



this is what I did…


I typed M & A in word with 900 size.


Cut 2 pieces of each alphabets. 


1. I drew and cut alphabets on cardboard, 2 pieces each.
2. Pasted thick double sided tape on 1 piece.
3. Attached other Alphabet piece on top.
4. Taped well to make shape.

1st Disappointment

I wanted to cover it with wool but it was not strong enough and lost shape so I had to think of something else.

2nd Disappointment

So I covered it with blue color felt with the help of glue gun. I was still not happy with the result as It had a lot of imperfections….


by that time it was already 4:45am so I slept with a heavy heart, I had spend so much time on this and the result was not what I was expecting.



Next morning when I woke up, hubs suggested me to cover it with wool or add something else, as it was too simple. I wrapped it with wool and it worked perfectly… I will be making the other A very soon.

Things to keep in mind
1. If you want to make it with wool, take a strong material as a base….

2. covering your alphabets with fabric could be a great and much easier option.


I am planning to make my next Alphabet A with card board but in another way… will be back soon.
have fun

Irum.

Flashman cuffs & mask

I wanted to treat Mohammad, as he got certificate in school for having “Excellent Knowledge about Islam”… He got his certificate in assembly and now it was our turn… he expected a BIG treat from US…. (trust me these cuffs were only the beginning...)





So I googled and searched on Pinterest & Etsy and got many interesting ideas for boys and planned to make these super hero cuffs.


He loved it…. he was jumping through out the time I was stitching it, whenever I asked him to try the cuff on for size, I got it back after half an hour :)…. He is a hugeeeeee super hero fan…






TUTORIAL

Now the steps…










I cut,
- 2 Black cloth Pieces,
- 2 Red felt Pieces
- 2 White felt circles
- 2 orange felt flash signs
- 2 sticking tapes (or whatever you call them)



this is how I arranged it.



I hand stitched white & orange felt pieces on red felt.



Before attaching black cloth to felt, stitched sticking tape to cloth.



Stitched black cloth to red felt piece. And Done.


MASK


Now coming to the mask, I drew this mask shape on felt and cut it.



Used a black felt piece for backing.



Stitched them. And sandwiched streching elastic in endings. Later I cut the extra black felt and hot glued flash shape orange felt piece & that’s it.








Enjoy,

Irum.