After spending some time collecting a bunch of high-res Eric Carle animal drawings and patterns, mainly from his Facebook Page and Instagram, I put together a set of ABC Animal Flash Cards for Lucas. I will add to the set as I collect more resources. 

Here are some printing and DIY tips: each card is 10cm*12cm, so you can fit 4 on an A4. I used a thick matte paper stock (180gsm) and printed double-sided. If you are using normal A4 paper, I don't recommend printing double-sided as the colours will bleed through. 

It's also essential to use a Corner Rounder so you or your bub don't get hurt from the sharp edges. 

I don't know about you, but the Lockdown life has definitely got me reminiscing about all the past trips I've taken. One of the most memorable ones would be the intimate nature-based experience with CABN.  

Late last year in celebration of hubby and Loki's birthdays, we went off the grid in a tiny house (Allira) hidden deep in the beautiful Yarra Valley. The experience is something between glamping and camping, which offered us the perfect balance to enjoy nature, roast marshmallows around a campfire, and still sleep comfortably (on a Queen-sized bed) and not worry about setting up a tent. The tiny house is wonderfully designed with a sustainable system to include rainwater basins and solar energy. It offers a tiny life with its interior, main floor and mezzanine beds, mini-kitchens, dining area and large glass windows to stay in touch with nature. It even came with an outdoor barbeque! But the most important part is CABN is pet-friendly so we could bring our fur baby along. We absolutely enjoyed the nature immersion and can't wait to go back. We're so glad to also have taken some great family photos there including a special one to announce my pregnancy! (I was 4 months pregnant at the time)

If you are thinking about booking a trip, my recommendation is to bring gumboots/walking shoes, food to cook with, a good book/your favourite board game, mozzie repellant and a sense of adventure!

Long time no see.....and SUPRISE! I AM A MOTHER!! I had my baby Lucas on 1st April and I can't believe it's already been 3 months with bub. Motherhood is so much more exhausting, rewarding, confusing and amazing than I could ever imagine or prepare myself for, and I'm loving this new role. 

Without getting too much into my pregnancy and birth stories, I really wanted to share some of the awesome baby products that I lived by and really helped me get through the first 3 months. I'm not going to cover things like diapers, baby formula, dummies or bottles, although I'm more than happy to share those if anyone's interested. I understand every baby is different, so what worked for me might not work for other people. But here are my Top 10 Holy Grail Baby Products (Newborn 0-3 months). Everything is outlined below including the reasons for choosing each item and where to purchase them.

With more than 1 billion monthly users – 500 million of which are on the app every day – Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Personally, I use Instagram almost on a daily basis. Even when I'm not posting content, I like to jump on that platform to look at and appreciate all the creative designs, amazing travel photos, pets and product content shared by the people I follow.

Throughout the years I've found a way to curate content for my own feed and my audience, and I've rounded up some of my top favourite apps for editing photos and videos for my Instagram posts and stories. I will show examples of how I use each app myself from the different features offered with my own images. I've also included links where you can download the apps to your phone.

Try out this app and experiment with the countless face filters and stickers it offers (there are also many app updates with more filters added on a regular basis)! I promise you will have a lot of fun with it!

I enjoy this app so much that I'm actually a paid user so that I get access to all the pretty pre-built templates it offers. It saves me so much time just adding my own photos to these templates to create collages without the need to think about layouts, sizing, positioning, etc.

All you will need to do is importing all the photos and videos you want to use, the app will do the rest as it offers great options of pre-designed themes/transitions, syncing everything to the beat of the music of your choice. It can also edit videos down to the length of an Instagram story (usually 15 sec) without the need of you having to manually trim down the footages. I call it the idiot-proof video app that saves my life!

There are also other apps I use that are good for specific things when it comes to editing photos and videos, but I wanted to keep this post short and maybe I will do a 2nd edition expanding this list in the future. I hope you find this post and these apps helpful. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @sidneyyao.

Wedding invites are important as they were the 1st thing our guests received about our wedding (since we decided to skip sending SAVE THE DATE). I really wanted the invite to bring consistency and contain elements (e.g. colour palette, floral, etc) from the style of our wedding so it sets the right look, feel and tone for our wedding when our guests receive them.

Step 1 was deciding the format, and oh boy, the amount of options! I’ve looked at and seriously considered many trendy options, including tri-folds, acrylic, letterpress, round card stock, handmade paper, but in the end decided to go with a more traditional format with a twist. Well...I have to admit, I still went overboard with foiling, maroon full-colour print, line map, cursive font and everything else, but the elements that really made my invites unique were the venue graphic, floral pattern, tri-fold translucent sleeve and wax seal.

The challenge I had was finding/creating a floral pattern that represents the modern romantic Victorian style and yet doesn't give the vibe of a garden tea party. And between myself and my design team, we tried and vetoed so many designs (15 be exact!). In the end, it was this Pinterest post that saved me. I loved the floral pattern and especially the vintage feel working with the deep reds...after some digging, I found that the pattern was from a 15th century oil painting done by Melanie de Comolera. And from there, I started looking at more vintage oil paintings and finally set my eyes on one done by Jan Frans van Dael in the 17th century.

The painting had everything I was looking for - the arrangement, types of florals, style, tones and colours - it was perfect! With some 'magic'...I mean Photoshop, this quickly became the floral backing on my wedding invite.

Wax Seal

Wax seals are always the right decision! We went with a custom seal design, which was our initials combined, and 2 colours of wax - red for the invitation and gold for the placecard. I have to be honest, it wasn't an easy task doing the wax seals ourselves on the translucent wrap (it's a very slippery material), and I had tried both the glue-gun and traditional dripping methods. After practising a few times, we finally got the hang of it and nailed the timing, position, wax amount and bubble control (yup it's a thing!), but it was definitely a two-man job plus I highly recommend using baking paper as the base.
Anyways, this is how it all turned out in the end and I couldn't be happier! :)

Inspirations

Design Notes

It's official. Vincent and I tied the knot in December at a beautiful ceremony, held at Quat Quatta in Melbourne. We had the most perfect day getting married surrounded by our families and loved ones! After 8 months in the planning, Vincent and I tailored a day that worked perfectly for us. Here is our big day in pictures:

I found wedding dress shopping to be one of the most pleasant experiences of the whole wedding. Even though it seemed overwhelming at first with so many designers, styles and silhouettes out there; after trying on a few gowns from various boutiques, it didn't take me long to make the decision to go with a couture designer and custom create my gown from scratch. There is such a big difference between machine-made and hand-made - and I am all about the details!

The moment I met Ines and Mario from the Crocé & Colosimo Couture I knew I found the perfect team to make my dream gown! Ines and Mario are well sought-after designers in the industry - featured in the Foxtel TV Show 'Meet the Frockers' and are chosen designers for many celebrity brides!

I knew I wanted a transformation element in my dress (for a wardrobe change) with an edge of femininity. I was greatly inspired by the Grace Kelly-styled Dior wedding gown that Miranda Kerr wore when she married her Snapchat-founder husband Evan Spiegel. Ines and I took our ideas to the drawing board and quickly sketched up the design. In the end, we landed on a fit-and-flare silhouette and a detachable outskirt with a long train, embellished with intricate French laces on the top while keeping the skirt plain - it was absolutely perfect and everything I ever wanted for my wedding gown!

It was also a very special moment when Mario came out to dress me on my wedding day to make sure everything was perfect! The whole creative process and fitting service provided by Crocé & Colosimo Couture were 10/10 amazing!

I have always been a huge fan of Jimmy Choo, especially his stunning collection of wedding and evening shoes! His shoe designs are timeless but most importantly, they are comfortable too - I lasted from 10 in the morning until 11 in the night, even I was impressed!

I wanted a design that would work with both my wedding gown and Chinese tea ceremony outfit, and I couldn't be happier with the option I went with - a pair of ROMY 85 Platinum and Flamingo Ice Glitter Dégradé Fabric Pointy Toe Pumps. The glitters were surprisingly not loud; they were elegant and wedding-appropriate;  the hint of pink gradient also brought out the red from my tea ceremony dress, which I also wore at the after-party. The shoes also paired seamlessly with Vincent's black pair of DERBY shoes in burnished leather from Boss.

I don’t wear much makeup day-to-day and wanted my makeup to be as natural as possible for my wedding. I know warm nudes compliment my complexion whilst still giving depth and tone. My make-up artist, Beatrice Wang from Claxy, did an amazing job keeping things as natural as possible whilst making sure everything is budge-proof. My makeup held up for the whole day with minimum touch-ups, which was quite impressive considering I have oily skin.

I had previously done a trial with Beatrice so she knew exactly what I wanted in terms of my eyes, and was also totally understanding when I wanted to do certain things different like my brows. For hair, we had tried 3 different styles and it was obvious that a loose up-do suited me the most and shaped my face the best. I didn’t want to look back and regret doing too much with my make-up and hair, so we created a look that I loved whilst still feeling totally like myself.

The Chinese Tea Ceremony (敬茶) is a tradition that Chinese couples go through when they wed. We had a tight schedule but made sure that we could fit the tea ceremony in the morning.

It is a tradition for the couple to give tea to the elders in the family and receive red packets; and for the mother-in-law to give the bride gold jewellery for good luck and prosperity. Our tea ceremony was truly a blessing with Vincent’s 90-year-old grandma flying all the way from Malaysia to join us.

I decided to not go with a traditional Chinese outfit (旗袍) but still wanted to wear red for my Chinese roots. I ended up wearing a design from an Australian label, Keepsake The Label, and couldn’t be happier with the outfit!

I am very lucky to have the most awesome bridal squad ever! Katherine and Priscilla stood by me, laughed with me and went above and beyond to make sure the day was perfect!

It was important to me that my bridesmaids were comfortable and happy with every aspect of their looks on the day, so I pretty much gave them free rein. They picked the dress design between them from Forever New; shoes from Carvela Kurt Geiger; and I arranged for customised robes and accessories for them. I still can’t get over how stunning they both looked in the blush and rose gold attire. Their hair and makeup were also done by the talented makeup artist from Claxy, with colours and hair accessories complimenting my look.

Flowers are absolutely the highlights of my wedding! When I booked the venue, I knew I wanted to decorate the space with lots of fresh blooms, and my talented friends at Bespoke Botanics had much bigger plans and what they created was more than my wildest dreams!

The flowers were wild and perfect in shades of white, blush and red, cascading down the entire wall on the dance floor, and filling every corner around the venue. The altar was lined with fresh white Singapore orchids draping down to create the most beautiful backdrop. I can still remember how it felt to see and breathe it all in for the first time - it was heaven!

The bridal bouquets were made of beautiful garden roses, dahlias and peonies; they were delivered to my hotel room along with the buttonholes for the groom party and dads, corsages for the mums and collar flowers for my dog who was my ring bearer.

Bespoke Botanics did such an amazing job turning the venue into an ocean of flowers and my guests were in awe. At the end of the wedding, the guests were gifted the flowers and bouquets used for decoration. They all thought it was a nice touch to be able to take away a centrepiece of the wedding and enjoy the beautiful blooms for longer.

You just gotta love a vintage two-tone Rolls Royce Silver Dawn - it makes such a classic wedding car and went really well with the style of my wedding.

Our lovely driver from Triple R was so kind and experienced. He picked up my parents and me from the hotel, drove around the beautiful Albert Park and escorted me safely from the car into the bridal suite. The service he provided was outstanding; he was even giving the photographers tips on the best angle to shoot the vehicle.

Ok, I was a little nervous about this one. Vincent and I consider Loki, our chocolate Labrador, as family, and wanted him to be part of the big day. We wanted to give Loki the ring bearer duty for our ceremony, but we weren't sure how he will cope with being around a big group of people and loud music. I ordered a special wedding dog collar, in Tiffany blue, and a ring attachment for him to carry our wedding band securely on his neck.

Luckily Loki acted like a champion, happily strutting down the aisle with a big smile on his face and delivered the wedding bands successfully. I will cherish this memory forever and am so glad he played such an important role on our wedding!

For our wedding food, we wanted festive and give our guests lots of options, so we provided cocktail bites, roving options for the main and sides, as well as a whole dessert table full of little desserts, including cake popsicles, chocolate pyramids, cake squares, macrons and mini doughnuts. They were prepared along with my strawberry and buttercream wedding cake by Pretty Sweet Cake Design.

The creative Moonshot Balloons also created an awesome balloon garland to frame the dessert table. The desserts were a big hit with the children (and adults) at the wedding.

Quat Quatta provided the most beautiful Victorian-era architecture and landscape for our ceremony and reception! Because we did a lunch reception and the venue was so close to the St Kilda Botanical Gardens we decided to go there afterwards when the sun is still out for another photo-shoot, and it was the best decision!

The St Kilda Botanical Gardens offered the most stunning backdrops for our photos. From the Rose Garden to the Glass House and lush lawns and palm trees, every corner we turned had a romantic and unique setting.

The advantage of doing a lunch reception is that you will have time for an after-party in the night, and that is exactly what we did! There are tons of good restaurants and bars around St Kilda, and we found the most relaxing place upon my best friend's recommendation, right by the beach.

We kept our after-party an intimate event with just family and our closest friends. Captain Baxter, offered a great tapas menu and a huge range of beverage options.

Vincent and I felt extremely lucky to have had the most perfect wedding and got to celebrate with the most loving bunch of people! The day couldn't have gone any better and I already miss it so much! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who helped make our big day so special and memorable!

For more ideas and tips on how to plan for your wedding, check out the previous posts in my WEDDING series, here is the link.

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