Another great idea for Dol-Korean Cupcakes!

I came across this pic on allthingscupcake.com and thought what a great idea for a dol! Instead of a cake, you can create custom cupcakes and it looks fairly easy. If you're not good at baking, you can ask your bakery to create them for you.






The cupcakes were made by Hyeyoung Kim for Cake Girl in Korea. Check out her site for other amazing creations!

Baby of the Month Contest

Still taking entries for August Baby of the Month. Remember this month the age limit has been raised to 7 years old as the prize will be a children's chopstick and spoon set.

Please send us a photo, consent to use the photo for our website, address, name of child and age to: contest@littleseouls.com

Chicago 14th Korean Street Festival

August 8th, Chicago, IL will be having their 14th annual Korean Street Festival. The festival is held on the second weekend of August and is a great chance to immerse yourself in the Korean traditions and culture. If you are in the area, check out the Korean Street Festival and enjoy the best that the Korean community has to offer whether it is the traditional folk dancing, k-pop music or the wide variety of Korean food. So check it out!

WHEN: August 8th and 9th, 10 to 10pm
WHERE: On Bryn Mawr Ave between Kedzie and Kimball
CONTACT INFO: Korean American Chamber of Commerce
Tel #: 773-583-1700

Little Seouls 1 Year Anniversary Sale!

Custom Little Seouls Girl Cake Topper and Cake

One of our customers had a custom cake done for her daughter's dol with our Little Seouls Girl character on top!* It's just the prettiest looking cake I've ever seen! The company that made this is pinkcakebox.com. They are in New Jersey.

*Please note that if you plan to use our image for anything, you will need to obtain permission.

Make your own Modern Korean Table

If you've watched Korean dramas, the coffee table is like the main piece of furniture. It's where they have their meals, coffee, eat fruit, study or just talk. Unlike the standard coffee tables, the Korean ones are much shorter. They are about 12 inches high. It probably won't go well with american furniture unless you have a low profile sofa.

My sister has one, the foldable kind, that she uses all the time since she has small kids. The kids love using this table because it's just their size. Usually on regular coffee tables, kids have to be on their knees to use it which is really uncomfortable. It's difficult even for me to eat on a regular coffee table.

After seeing how much the kids use this table, I was on a hunt to find one for my son to use as a craft/play table. The ones I found were all so tacky. They were either too ornate, too small, too red, or just looked too cheap. It didn't quite fit the look I had in mind for that area.

So my husband said he wanted to make one with parts from IKEA. We went and got a table top for $19.99 and legs for $20, a round light for $14.99. We went home and my husband cut the legs to 12 inches and made a hole in the center of the table for the light. And this is the final product! We love it and it's been working out great! My son uses it all the time to build Legos, play games, draw, etc. Just thought I'd pass along this idea!

i-Clay

i-Clay is all the rage in Korea. It is made of non-stick clay which is soft and will not stick to anything except another i-clay piece. Parents like it because it does not stain and keeps the kids entertained.

The set comes with pictured instructions. i-Clay will harden when left out to dry.

Available for $19.99.

Kid's Face Mask

As some of you may or may not already know, Korea has really bad air quality. The air quality there is so bad that the face mask industry is pretty big. Kid's face masks comes in all sorts of designs and characters! Here is just a sampling. They advertise it like it's a fashion must-have! So many designs including Thomas the Train, Hello Kitty, Pororo, and many more!

I'm thinking with the swine flu scare here, maybe we should start selling these! ;-)

Korean Jibbitz!

Crocs...I remember when they first starting appearing on kids feet, I thought they were just ugly...but when they added Jibbitz to them, I could see why kids would like them. After about 6 months, I finally gave in and bought my son his first pair. He loved Crocs only because of the Jibbitz...he wouldn't have been interested otherwise. After his first pair, I probably got another 6 more pairs in different colors with different Jibbitz. As a parent I actually grew to like Crocs since my then 2 year old could actually put his shoes on by himself...that sold me.

Anyways, I saw these and thought how cute! Korean Letters!
I just read in the news that the Crocs company is not doing too well and that the Crocs fad is pretty much over.

Pororo Sun Caps for Kids!

A little while back I wrote about the Korean ajummah Sun Caps and here are some children's versions. As parents we're all about making sure our kids are protected from the sun, this is a cute way to keep their little faces from getting burned. The visor is also adjustable.

Little Seouls New Website

Hope everyone is enjoying our new updated site! If you have any feedback, please feel free to post!

We wanted to thank Jennifer Natera, our web designer, Wendy Chan, our logo/character designer, Tim Park the photographer, and last but not least, Min and Cindy Kim (dad and mom to baby Cameron).

Girl's Wooden Cake Party Set

I am always looking for cute toys and gifts for Little Seouls and came across these darling wooden dessert sets. So cute! I love the cute case it comes in. They're Japanese-made. I love the little roll cakes and mochi! So asian! If you're interested, we can special order it for you. They are pricey. I'm guessing for one set, it'll be about $99...yikes!

New website design

We will be updating our website so if you encounter any issues when you log into http://www.littleseouls.com/ you will know why. You can always go to here and not have any problems logging on there or email us at help@littleseouls.com.

We are really excited about our new website! It's to commemorate Little Seouls' one year anniversary which is July 29th. The site is enhanced to make your shopping more enjoyable, which will include a Gift Registry, option to purchase online Gift Certificates, instant access to our Blog, Twitter, etc. Much more user friendly and easier to navigate!

Hopefully the transition will be smooth. There might be some kinks that we need to work out the first week or two, so please be patient with us.

UPDATE: It is now up and working! YAY! Our old website is no longer accepting orders.

Baby of the Month Contest

We are taking entries for August Baby of the Month Contest. Please send us a photo, consent to use the photo for our website, address, name of child and age to: contest@littleseouls.com

This month contestants can be 7 years of age and under. This month's prize is a spoon and chopstick gift set! Your choice of pink or blue.

Benefits of Boricha

It was not until I brought my daughter home from Korea did I realize how much Koreans consume roasted barley tea, otherwise known as "boricha." My daughter, who was adopted from Korea, came home with a bottle full of boricha. It made me wonder if there was some nutritional value to this popular drink and sure enough there is!

Barley tea is apparently packed with antioxidants. It is also known to aid in digestion and the cleansing out of your systems. You can easily find barley tea at a Korean or Japanese market. They even sell a mild version just for babies. This tea has no caffeine.

Growing up, I always enjoyed the refreshing taste of a cold cup of boricha on a hot summer day! Koreans like to drink it either hot or cold. They drink it regularly in substitute of water.

Doraemon

If you haven't heard, Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon that is hugely popular in Korea. There currently is no DVD available in English, just in Japanese. We can get Korean but it's only Region 3 (must need Region All DVD player). I've heard kids love this show. I personally have not seen it but it looks really cute! You can youtube it and see some clips.

There are tons of merchandise of Doraemon in Korea. If you're interested, email us!

Site Maintenance Issue

If you've tried to log onto our store and had problems, we are changing to a new server so please hang in there and check back regularly.

Have a nice 4th of July weekend!

Baby of the Month Winner!

Chloe is our July winner! She is 13 months old and she is 1/2 Korean and the other half is Filipino/Chinese. Love her big round eyes!

Congratulations to mom and dad! They will receive one of our Korean cookbooks.

To enter for our next month baby of the month, send your pics to contest@littleseouls.com. Please include your permission to post it on our site. Deadline is July 31st. Winners are randomly chosen.