Queen Kwak is now on Pinterest.

Queen Kwak is now on Pinterest, please click here to follow me. I have a slight Pinterest addiction, it gets everyone in the end. I used to dabble from time to time, but now I am a fully fledged Pinterest crazy addict. Any spare moment of time, I find myself pinning. Waiting for the kettle to boil, pin it. Waiting for two babies to finish their dinner, pin it. In the bath, pin it. Too much info? Sorry. If you would care to follow me then please do so here, I look forward to becoming pinning buddies with you soon.

Queen Kwak is now on Facebook.

Queen Kwak now has its very own, brand spanking new Facebook page, hoorah. I have been a busy bee of late, squirrelling away and hopefully this shall be the first of a few new Queen Kwak sidelines to accompany my blog. The page has only just been established and I am slowly setting about adding all of my works/ witty comments (ahem) to it but if you should so happen to like what you see here and/ or like my work even just a smidgen then please, please, please, could you check out my page and like it right over here, I will be ever so thankful to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much indeed. 
And I really do hope you are liking what you see so far... Any comments or feedback would be very much appreciated. Even just a quick little hello would be nice. Thanking you lots, Toodle pip.

Life: Abuji/ Father's day Treasure Hunt fun.

This past Sunday was Fathers day, or Abuji's day, as it is known in our household. (That's Korean for Dad which you probably guessed). And so what does any doting daughter/ darling wife do on such a day? Why yes exactly that, they go away for the weekend with their friends, with not a dad or dad of their children in sight. Go me. In my defence, I never go away, tragically I never get to go out too much either. Boo. This trip had been arranged since last year, and I only realised two weeks ago that the weekends clashed and I felt really rather rubbish, so in my absence I decided to whip up this little treasure hunt so my babies and their daddy could have themselves some Abuji day fun. And fun they did have indeed. Here is how I went about planning our Abuji day treasure hunt.

Cards:

First we made lots and lots of cards, these were made by the babies at home and in nursery.

More Cards:

And then another card was made by my good self. That is a detachable felt rosette that I whipped (sewed and glued) up for the occasion, for Abuji to wear all day.

Banners:

Two little Abuji banners were cut out to hang up.

T-shirts:

And two little T-shirts had Abuji stencilled upon for our babies to wear for the day. The banner of the left in the photo above was actually the stencil for the T-shirts. I bought the T-shirts at Primark, £1.50 each and used some Dylon fabric paint I already owned.

Crown:

This crown, fit for a King Kwak, was sewn for the occasion, using felt, Dalmatian like fake fur and embroidery thread I already had to hand.

Book:

This is where I thought I should purchase a gift he may not put to one side after five minutes, so I hunted down a book I thought he may like. He likes it very much, so that is jolly good.

Map:

Once the treasures were gathered, I sat and pondered hiding places in our home for a very good while. Once decided I set about drawing a little treasure map for the occasion. It was very quick, but well they found the gifts easily so I figure it served its purpose well. The little lady had the responsible job of hiding the map until the Sunday, which she did very well.

Hide and Seek:

The treasures were packed into envelopes and wrapped and were hidden in pretty tricky places. If you can see the map clearly enough above, you can spot this lion print in clue number one, that's the little chaps room, I believe I may have mentioned my frame obsession once or twice?! I also made them keep alternating floors on each clue just to make it more fun (and ever so slightly annoying for Abuji).

Star Prize:

Any official treasure hunt has to have a star prize and ours was... Abuji's favourite beer, what a good wife/ mummy I am. I am quite surprised he did not guess what we were up to as the night the treasure was hidden, my little lady greeted her Abuji at the door from work with "We hid you some beer today, but I am not allowed to tell you that". Miraculously the little chap was dive-bombing onto him at that very moment and he did not hear. 

I have been told the treasure hunt went down very well with all and I got good mummy/ wife points despite my absence. The little lady spent the rest of the day hiding things in the same spots and making them hunt them down, they had a very nice day indeed. I too had a super amazing Abuji's day (aka weekend away with my friends), in case you were wondering.

So have you organised a treasure hunt? How did it go? Happy belated Fathers day to my babies Abuji, my Dad and any daddies who may read this, chin chin to you all.

Illustration: First attempt at Pattern Illustration.

As you are aware I am setting up my freelance Illustration company, it has been a little while in the making but fingers crossed I am almost ready to become official. In a bid to increase my work/ portfolio I have entered a couple of illustration competitions from Tigerprint who supply card/ wrap/ stationary to M&S. These competitions have been quite good at allowing me to tackle a different brief, the anxiety/ development of which is something I quite miss from my previous job. The brief last month was to design a female surface pattern. I was going to give it a miss, I was a bit snowed under with work at the time and decided to focus on their greeting card competitions, but then I gave myself a little slap across the face and pondered what I was thinking. I have been interested in pattern illustration for some time, have been wanting to have a go, so what was stopping me? I decided to give it a whirl, though with only a few days to spare before the deadline. Now lets make this clear from the offset, I did not win. Boo. Did not even come close in fact. Double boo. However I really enjoyed creating a pattern and having to work out how it repeats together, so that is what was important. I chose the subject of make up as I thought it covered females through a big old expanse of age groups. If I had more time I would not have gone with the make up, it is not really me, but at the time it seemed like a good solution for a female theme. 

        Pattern:

This is the segment of pattern I designed and illustrated. Make up tastic. Above is how it repeats together.

Thumbs up:

Alas this was before I found out I did not make the finals. To be fair, I was not expecting to and am rather chuffed to even be in the top 100.

        Alternative colours:

From looking at the finalists I think I need to possibly tone down my colours for any future entries. This was a quick mock up of possible alternative colours for my design. I think I prefer it.

So I hope you liked my very first attempt at surface pattern illustration, I am definitely going to give it another go when I have a chance. A little beg here... If anyone could please point the way to further illustration competitions I would be ever so thankful, I would not mind entering some from time to time. And if anyone is aware of any templates for creating pattern and could lead the way to them for me, I would be even more ever so grateful. I am normally quite proud that I can track down anything on the web, but can I find templates? No I cant. Do they even exist? Can anyone possibly shed some light over here? Thank you lots!!

Artwork copyright of Queen Kwak.

Illustration: Personalised Ballerina Print.

Here is an illustration I originally drew for my daughter the ballerina. She takes ballet lessons, each week she returns and I ask her what she has learnt and each week it is the same thing... smiley feet. Very cute, but it has been a year and a half. So in a bid to encourage her ballerina ambition here is a little print I made for her bedroom, she loves it. Have I mentioned my frame obsession before? There are an awful lot of frames in our house, hundreds, and above is a mere snippet from one of the little ladies bedroom walls.

Casually hanging around:

On a side note I have been a little absent from here this past week as I have in fact been building my website. A proper website, I had a little informal lesson a week or so ago and now I am almost there. This print will be upon it and will be available to be fully personalised. I hope to add a link to my website very soon.

Personalised Print:

Last Christmas the little lady was in a ballet show, in a proper theatre on a real life stage and everything. She was so not happy about it when we first arrived, to be fair none of the under fours seemed to be best pleased, but the teachers told us she will soon love it, and sure enough she did. It was an amazing day for her and us, and here is a little photo of before she went on stage not looking too impressed. 

My daughter the ballerina:

Artwork copyright of Queen Kwak.

Royal play: Child flower crown activity.

We have discovered the world of play dates. We LOVE it. (Well except the constant having to clean part, boo). The little lady is in pre-school and making lots and lots of lovely friends and we try to have them over, (individually... I am so not that brave) at least once a week.  I am quite enjoying coming up with new ways to entertain them, and thought I would feature here some of the activities we have done together. So last week little N came to play and we indulged ourselves in a spot of flower crown DIY action. An activity which ticked the flower, fairy, princess, crown and sticking boxes nicely, go me.

Felty flowery goodness:

So this took about ten minutes to get together, whilst the girls played barbie houses. I roughly measured their heads and cut two felt crown shape lengths to the approximate size. Then I took to a bag of felt offcuts and cut flower shapes out of various colours, circle flower centres from yellow felt and leaves from various green felt pieces. Some of the flowers and the semi circle bush type things, I had from the Easter jars that never were, (RIP), but the remaining flowers I cut free-stylee, whilst the girls played. 

Serving suggestion:

Place all ingredients upon a serving platter, accompanied by a side dish of fine gloopy PVA glue, and two paint brushes. Then serve.

Sticky Fingers:

The little friend has been cropped out, a shame as she is the cutest little girl, but probably best not to show her here. This activity kept them occupied for at least a whole fifteen minutes and they were very happy indeed. A further ten minutes were enjoyed picking the glue off of their fingers. Take note of the costume choices, Cinderella and Princess Holly. Costumes appear to be the first rule of play dates.

Stitch it:

The crowns were left to dry over night and once so, I quickly stitched them into a circle and there we are, two little flower crowns for two little flower fairy princesses. Dreams.

Details:

Pretty aren't they? I believe the girls were very proud of their efforts. The bottom one was my little ladies, the top her friends.

Casually hanging around:

Model pose:

Action shot. Exactly 23 photos were taken to get this one shot. Extremely worthwhile as how cool is my girl?

Disco dancer:

And on a side note, the little lady attended her first school disco last week. This was her disco outfit of choice. My dad asked if it was fancy dress. Charming, it was not. The little chap went too, looking very dapper in braces but not allowing me to take a photo. She is definitely getting better at this posing for photos business, and this is her current pose of choice, the growl. Fierce.

So does anyone have any play date activity recommendations? Come on, hit me with them, I am looking for lots!!

DIY: Girls Alice in Wonderland costume.

The little lady was invited to an Alice in wonderland themed birthday party last weekend, now I presumed that everyone would be in Alice inspired costumes... Silly me, the majority were showcasing their finest of princess dresses. I am getting the gist of the 4 year old party circuit now, whatever the theme, girls arrive in a princess dress and boys in Spider man. Well a week ago I was oblivious to those rules and I set about making up the little lady her very own Alice costume. I showed her the cast on the iPad but as she has been insisting I call her Alice for months now, it was pretty much a no brainer as to whom she would chose.

On your marks:

First off I purchased a little blue school dress, I was going to fashion the dress out of a blue small ladies t-shirt, no doubt courtesy of Primarni, but I happened to be in a charity shop and spotted this, so that is how I rolled. £1.50, pretty much new. Bargain.

Apron:

Now I must admit I do not have any step by step photos. It was night time and I may have been partaking in a wine, but hopefully the following photos and my amazing commentary will show you the details you may wish you know. So first things first, I Whipped up an apron. I checked where the little ladies waist went then drew and cut the main central piece, sizing it according to the dress. The sleeve pieces were cut separately and sewn on, the scalloped edges were cut in three individual pieces and sewn on, as was the pocket. As always I used felt and embroidery thread. I still have my fabric stash so I used what I had and did not buy anything further than the dress. The ribbon was sewn using white embroidery thread, and the ribbon was free as it came tied around a pair of pyjamas I purchased. 

Pocket:

The apron was finished by embroidering the name Alice onto the pocket, this was partly done as I felt it needed something else but mostly as it is the little ladies favourite name. 

Details:

Here you can see how basic my sewing is, remarkably straight I feel as wine was involved. I used a running stitch throughout. After the apron I attached the lace frill to the edges. I actually already owned this as I had been planning to make these beauties (wow). I have been planning on doing this for over a year, it is never going to happen and definitely no time soon as I no longer have any lace. I sewed the lace using white cotton thread, and attached it to the bottom and around the sleeves.

Headband:

Any proper Alice needs accessories and these came in the form of one headband, previously owned with the leftover ribbon tied into a bow.

The white rabbit:

The most important accessory had to be the white rabbit, which I must admit was in fact King Kwak's idea. First off I found one white rabbit, a little sad and naked and in need of a makeover. This rabbit was a gift when she was born and I believe was from Gap. After a quick Google of the Alice rabbit, I made this little outfit for him from felt and fabric glue. I was quite proud of my attention to detail, check out the watch and glasses, love him.

Pocketed:

Once he was complete, he was popped into the apron pocket, and fastened with a couple squares of Velcro which were attached to him and the apron. 

Complete:

And that was that. Here is the whole costume together, I am very happy with the outcome, and most importantly my little girl was really very, very happy with her new costume, and attended her friends birthday party as one very proud Alice. Plus she has worn it most days since. The only thing I would do differently, if anyone was to make one, would be that I have since unattached the apron from the dress and it is now fastened with Velcro, sewn to both apron and dress, as this allows for it to be washed separately by hand.

Hello:

And here is one last shot of my lovely little lady, check out how happy she is, what a cutie.

Cost: Dress £1.50 Charity shop. Everything else previously owned.

Supplies: Dress, felt, lace trim, ribbon, white rabbit, plastic headband, embroidery thread, white cotton thread, fabric glue, needle and scissors.

Time taken: 3 hours max. 

So do you like this little Alice costume and have you ever whipped one up yourself? And did you notice she is getting a bit better at the photo posing? Good girl.