Photo Post: Back to the Philippines Vacation 2008!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Sunday!  Hope you’ve all had a great week!

 

For this week on the blog, I fancied doing another wee ‘hashtag throwback’ photo post!  But, this time would be about going back to the Philippines for a visit in 2008.  As I said in my first post, I’m a hapa - my wee mammy is from the Philippines.  Every 5 or 6 years or so, we go over to visit her side of the family, and while we are there we get to do touristy things (which I love, obviously) and go and visit all these new places, some of which you will see in this post!

 

So, I’ll just get started then…

 

 

 

We began the touristy stuff in Cebu City!

 

 

 

Jeepney.

The most popular of public transportation vehicles in the Philippines!

I love travelling on a jeepney!

 

 

Street art in Cebu. 

 

 

 

 

Visiting the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño (Sto. Niño church)! 

 

 

 

 

 

Billboards on the highway (motorway?).

 

 

 

Visiting Mactan Shrine with the statue of the heroic chief Lapu Lapu who defeated Ferdinand Magellan!

 

 

20 metre high bronze statue of Lapu Lapu.

 

 

Painting of the Battle of Mactan.

 

 

 

Tribal Art.

 

 

 

 

Visiting Fort San Pedro!

 

 

 

 

Walking around with brollies because the sun was beating down on us

(…and it was roastin’!)

 

This lovely wee man was singing at the fort.

Such a good singer!

 

Sampaguita!

The national flower of the Philippines!

 

 

 

Visiting Cebu’s architecturally amazing Taoist Temple in the Beverly Hills subdivision of Cebu!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Photos!

 

 

I love this photo!

Took it while driving past the shop.

 

 

 

Going on the ferry to get to Bohol!

 

I think it took about an hour to get to the island.

 

Ako (me).

 

 

Lunch at McDo’s (obvs!)

 

 

 

Visiting the Chocolate Hills!

 

 

 

 

214 steps to get to the top! Oft!

 

 

 

Visiting the Hinagdanan Cave!

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to go on a floating restaurant/river cruise on the Loboc River!

 

 

 

I love how people are so smiley in the Philippines!

 

The ‘Tinikling’ dance performed by a group, as we passed on the boat.

Tinikling is a traditional Filipino dance using two bamboo poles.  

The poles are used to tap a beat against each other and on the ground,

and the dancers jump between the poles.

I SO want to learn this dance, but I have a feeling I will have quite a few bruises on my wee ankles.

 Ouch.

 

 

 

Hitting the beach!

Not sure what this beach was called?

But it was near the place we stayed overnight at.

 

 

 

 

Visiting the Baclayon Church in Bohol!

 

Feel quite lucky to have got the chance to see this old church,

as the earthquake in 2013 caused a lot of damage to a lot of the buildings in Bohol.

 

 

 

Visiting the Sandugo (Blood Compact) monument in Tagbilaran!

 

 

 

 

 

Going to visit the Tarsiers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and the world’s largest python!

 

 

 

We took the ferry again to get back to Cebu.  Then we travelled from there to Tacloban City!

 

 

Wee photo before we left Cebu!

 

 

 

Bye Cebu!  See you next time!

 

 

 

Tacloban!!

 

The San Juanico Bridge (on the way to Samar, I think?)

 

 

 

Visiting the little piggies at the Piggery!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting the Macarthur Landing!

 

 

 

Some more random photos!

 

 

Tricycles and motorbikes.

Manok (Chicken).

 

 

 

Hitting the Beach…again!

 

 

 

 

Sun + sand + family + games + swimming + lechon (spit roast pig) + pancit (noodles) = Good times!

 

 

Then it was time to leave L

 

 

We managed to pack a lot into the month that we were over there, and we all had a grand time seeing the family and visiting new places!

 

 

 

Wee airport photo before leaving the Philippines!

 

 

 

Until next time Philippines!!

 

It’s quite sad to think of all the damage that the typhoon did to Tacloban two years ago!  As I said, these are photos from 2008 and I haven’t been back since then, so I’m not sure what it’s like now?  A lot of things have changed, so the next visit might be a wee teary one L

 

Anyway guys, thank you SO SO much for reading!  I hope you enjoyed this post J and I will catch you all next time!

 

Have a fab week and take care! Xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

 

Mactan Shrine

http://www.fabulousphilippines.com/mactan-shrine.html

http://explorephilippines.org/destination/mactan-shrine

 

Fort San Pedro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_San_Pedro

http://www.aroundcebu.com/tourist-attractions/fort-san-pedro.html

 

Taoist Temple

http://www.excitingcebu.com/taoist-temple-cebu-philippines/

 

Chocolate Hills

http://www.bohol.ph/article6.html

 

Tinikling, Filipino Dance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinikling

 

Blood Compact Monument

http://www.bohol.gov.ph/index.php??=boholHistory

 

Macarthur Landing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Landing_Memorial_National_Park

 

DIY Macramé Bracelets!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Sunday!  Hope you’ve all had a great week!

 

I thought that this week I would do a wee post on making macramé bracelets or friendship bracelets!  These little gems are easy and fun to make, and make funky and quirky arm decorations!

 

This easy technique of cord/string knotting can also be used for things other than bracelets!  You can see what I made using the macramé square knot in my ‘What you can do with leftover bits ‘n’ bobs!’ post, where I made wall hangings and wind chimes using this technique.

 

 

 

 

These are a few bracelets I made last year, before I started up my blog.  And, since I have come up with a few other ideas recently, I thought I’d do a post and show you all.  I did have to refresh my memory on how to do macramé and, as usual, I will show the link to the video at the end of the post.

 

I'm not going to go through all the steps in detail, as the video is pretty explanatory, but I will show you photos of the material I used and the end results of this DIY!

 

 

 

What I used:

 

·       A variety of bits ‘n’ bobs: beads, rings and studs.

 

 

 

·       Cord, or 100% cotton yarn in my case.  Jewellery cord is probably better for these kinds of bracelets though, but the yarn worked quite well.

 

 

 

·       A sewing needle, glue and a glue spreader.  The needle is needed to sew the ends of the yarn into the strap - PVA glue would probably be better for this just to keep the yarn from coming out of the strap then you wouldn’t really need a glue spreader. 

 

 

 

·       A ruler for measuring the yarn and masking tape to keep the bracelet secure while knotting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Finished Bracelets!!

 

 

 

 

I more-or-less just followed the steps from the tutorial to make the bracelets.

 

 

 

 

The only thing I did differently was to make just one long strap for two of the bracelets and use some fabric studs to hook the stud onto the bead/ring, therefore creating a fastening.

 

 

 

  

 

 

Below, are two of the most common types of fastening for friendship bracelets - the adjustable strap with the charm/bead/design in the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said at the start of the post, these are the wee gems of the bracelet world!  Like the name says, you can make them for your fabulous pals!  For yourself too…you can all have matchy matchy ones!  Or, just make them for yourself if you want some quirky arm decorations!

 

I really love macramé!  I actually have this old watch with a broken strap and I think I might make a macramé strap for it…that’s an idea!!

 

Anyway guys, thank you SO SO much for reading!  I hope you enjoyed this post J and I will catch you all next Sunday!

 

Have a fab week and take care! Xxx

YouTube source:

 

DIY ♥ Adjustable Macrame Arm Party Bracelets! ♥ by Katrinaosity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJo4k7Tp1XQ

Funky nail art design!!

 

 

Hiya guys!  Happy Monday!  Hope the bank holiday is treating you well and you are out enjoying the nice (dry) weather!

 

Totally gutted that I couldn’t do my usual Sunday post to my blog yesterday!  L  I’ve just been super busy this week with work and starting a new job that I just ended up running out of time!  However it’s all published now and up on the blog, so…better late than never, eh?

 

So, as I said, I’ve not had much time to do a mega creative DIY project this week…however I did manage to do a wee nail art design!

 

If you have seen any of my photo posts on here or on Instagram, you might have seen that I quite like taking photographs with the whole focussed/out of focussed thing going on!  You can see this in my Earth Day 2015 post, where I took pictures of the sky and tried to capture the wee blobs of light caused by the sunlight.

 

Well I just found out this week (in a nail art video) that it is called bokeh – where you take photos with purposely out of focus little blobs of light.

 

 

 

 

This is a photography style which I guess many photographers use.  If you Google ‘bokeh’ photography you’ll see loads of lovely photos!

 

I really like bokeh photography!  Every time I have put up my Christmas tree in the last few years, I always take an out of focus photo of the sparkly lights (example above).  So, I guess I have been using this photography style all along without actually knowing what it’s called!

 

As I have said, I saw a nail art tutorial by a well-known YouTube nail artist cutepolish, where she creates this bokeh design on her nails!  I’ll include the link to the video at the end of my post.

 

So, this week I thought I would try to give this nail art a try and this is my recreation.  And, I got to use my practice hand!

  

 

 

To be honest, I got in a bit of a pickle because I’m not sure how to stick the nails onto the practice hand?  So, I ended up using small bits of folded up masking tape.  (I’ll have to work on this!)

 

 

 

 

I then just picked the polishes I wanted to use – mustard yellow, terracotta, mossy green and a wine red.

 

 

 

 

Before the colours were applied to the nails, I applied a base coat of white.  Then, once that was dry, I took turns to sponge on the colours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is what it ended up like!  I decided to have one of the nails just plain, so I used the mustard yellow colour for that.

 

 

 

 

For the next part, I followed the steps from the video, so I won’t go into detail.  See the photos I took when I was doing the nail art and watch the video for more info!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the final completed look!  Quite cool, isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and as always thank you SO much for reading!

I’ll catch you all this Sunday for my next post!

 

Enjoy the rest of this week and take care! Xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YouTube Source:

 

Bokeh Nail Art! by cutepolish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2_m_In694&sns=fb