Hunting...

I am hunting for my camera cable. Got loads of pictures but I can't offload them because I can't find my camera cable. The studio got tidied up while I was away and now I have no idea where half my stuff are.

Things I want to write about with pictures:

• My first male bookmaking participant.
• The youngest recorded bookmaking participant.
• Brunei Resources limited edition books.
• The post valentine book.
• The custom greeting card book.
• Long stitch soft cover books for next class.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head right now. I want to go diving tomorrow, but I still have a commission to finish (told client she can pick them up tomorrow) and I might be pulling an all nighter (I hope not) and if I do go diving tomorrow, I'm going to be shot from lack of sleep. So I asked my dive instructor if we can go diving next friday instead, and he said yes, yay! (my weekend is a friday and sunday, I work on saturdays)

Am addicted to playing that scrabble game, Lexulous, on facebook. I've started up games with complete strangers just so I could play.

My cat's gone missing. I hope he'd come back soon. He's back!

Got to make a visit to the framers... Done.

Post Valentine...

This year, I was busy completing a commission such that there was no time to fit in my valentine's book for the fiance. He told me to concentrate on doing the commission first and he can wait. He knows he's getting a artist book you see, because I told him last year, heh. I finished that commission 4am valentine's day morning.

Valentine was spent having a little family party, my dad's birthday falls on the day with mom few days before and my nephew before that. Three birthdays and the table was filled with cupcakes, cheese cakes, meringues, pavlovas, and pies. Fun evening it was as we organised a lucky draw. Microwave oven, dinner sets and DVD player were the most sought items that night! Everybody went home with something.

This image on the left, was something from my archives, it was back in art school, I made my own pen and was trying out a little calligraphy using paint. It was part of a translated poem from the Tao Te Ching. Took a detailed shot and played it up on Photoshop. I think I vaguely remembered how I did that...

Oh, I had a class yesterday, and an 8 years old girl was one of the student. Her finished book was so sweet! Will post about it after I'm back end of the week, I'm flying off in a few hours *wheee!!*

Making Someone's Day

Met up with Izan for lunch to catch up, and I made her this little concertina flag book as a 'Just Because...' to lighten up her week. She loves purple and orange and the orange paper with colourful spots were just so her, a very bubbly exuberent character. Check out her hair, freshly done! Heheh, oh and the ring she's wearing was mine, I was wearing it that day and it flew off my finger while I was talking, gave it to her since she likes it. One of my favourite rings, it reminds me of kisses xxx.

You can see the snakey pattern paper I used for the flags, the other side of the flags I used plain purple paper and during the lunch we wrote down things that is just Izan on it. Some other friends came to join us and they contributed too. The covers are transparent purple schiffon with glitter. I'm still trying to finish off the material, I've used it on so many projects already... We all had a great time during the lunch, laughing our heads off and swapping stories. Great energy.

Izan is a DJ on one of our radio station Pilihan FM. She attracts a great number of listeners and she host as well on numerous occassions. Fantastic to listen to on my morning commute. If you happen to listen to her on air, tell her you saw her purple orange book and what you think of it.

I have a beginners class tomorrow, two of them will be from Belait district. Ever since we've been having floodings and landslides I'm not too sure if they will be coming because yesterday the main artery road that connects that part of the country was completely blocked by a landslide. I can't call up their guardian because I lost my black book! I've been hunting for that book for the past few days, it contains commissions that I'm suppose to do, class lists, their contacts, more book ideas... So not happy. Apologies in advance if I'm suppose to get back to you but haven't.

Where is that damn book...

Found it!!

What I Did Today

I spent all afternoon looking up for pop up books I'd like to add to my library...

I LOVE pop up books! Good pop up books. Paper engineering is such a skill. Creativity in engineering.

Have to start finalizing on the pop ups I planned on making this week, plus a piano hinged structure to house them in, 3 to 4 commissioned books to finish, and prepare for the next class before mid month... Oh dear... :-s

Kreativ Award

Fantastic! Thank you Doda for the award. I never thought of myself as a 'kreativ' blogger. I just keep on trying to make the stuff I create to top the last one I just did. Things can only get better. Woo hoo! Happy happy joy joy! Right, I am to list out 7 things I love and the 7 people this award will go to...

I quite like how Doda did her layout so I'm gonna follow suit.

I love... (in no particular order)

My sense of sight and touch, without them I wouldn't be able to see the beautiful colours and feel the wide variety of textures, especially papers, with my finger tips; the feel of stroking my cats; the warmth of holding hands.

My country. I get to... ride a sports bike on full throttle legally, being a certified scuba diver, a former aikidokai, and a jungle hasher (so far)...do all the above in my own back yard. I love the greenery, great place to retire, peace and quiet, no taxation, and Singapore is only a two hours plane ride away if I need a change of pace and visit friends overseas.

How fortunate I am. Very grateful for all the good that had come and is coming my way.

My Sweetie. 'Nuff said.

Very good chocolate.

Stop-motion animation. I absolutely adore stop-motion animation. My whole dvd collection is on stop-motion. The amount of time to shoot something frame by frame, let alone a movie length. Moving the models a fraction at a time. Blood sweat and tears but the results are fantastic. First stop-motion was the claymation Morph, it made an impression on me. I thought he was absolutely adorable! (may Tony Hart rest in peace) I didn't know what that kind of animation was called back then. Then I saw an american version in the form of Gumby. I knew of Aardman Animations from Creature Comforts, for English when I was in year 9 in school, now they're famous for Wallace and Gromit which I gladly watch over and over again. In art school, I was introduced to the surrealist works from the likes of Jan Švankmajer and The Brothers Quay. I was blown away. Right now, I'm trying to get copies of all their works. Then there are the main stream ones such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride that everybody knows... right? I used to make models and storyboards with the intention of doing stop-motion animation while in art school... damn, I was such a wallflower... Maybe it was meant to be... Who knows... Not too sure if I do have the patience to make one, it's very challenging, but I do know I absolutely love watching them and I appreciate those who took the time to do it.

I can't think of a 7th one... I'll come back to that later...

The Award now goes to...

Astrid
I really admire her work, there are no words to describe how I feel about her creations. How I look forward to the day when I can meet her in person. I'll probably have stars in my eyes...

Shayne and Kelly

These guys go together, so much fun to read their crafty adventures and they live at opposite ends of the States.

Dang and Blast!

I have yet to find out her real name. But I like her.

Rhonda

I love her books. She specializes in historic leather bindings, I'm seeing books which I've never seen before, and she recreates them like a forensic scientist.

Patricia

When she has a knife and paper in hand, a magic kingdom appears.

Caroline

She was a scuba diver turned baker. I love the little fondant decoration she does. Will be ordering soon!

Cathe

This is one cool lady.

My Engagement Folders (Buku Permintaan)

Option A

Option B

You got that right, it's folder with an S.

When I got engaged several months back, I was in a dilemma... and a bit stressed. More along the line of what my folder is going to look like than anything else (everything else was great) my folder was nonexistent until the nth hour. 

After all these times of making custom orders for other peoples' engagements I was stuck with mine! I didn't know what colour scheme I was going to do. I didn't how I was going to design it. Most important was the colour scheme, it wasn't until the week of the engagement function did I finally decide on the colour scheme, more along the line of the fiance decided on the colour scheme, I just ran with it.

Option A was a bit ostentatious for me, I was just trying to make the feathers work because I already bought them. I thought it'll be something different. 

Option B is more classic. More me, but of course this was THE function wasn't it.

In the end, on the day itself, I asked the family, and they chose option....

Which one would you have chosen?

My 5th Beginners Group

Explaining how the corners should be cut. 

Apparently, I got three cameras pointing at me....

Happy and proud: Renee, Shao Ling, Maya, Suzy

My 5th beginners group for stab binding. Reason why I've only been teaching stab binding so far is because it is a versatile binding. It is also the same binding used for when they get to the level of making their own albums! So the next step they'll be learning is tabbing pages... As soon as I work out how long that is going to take, because a beginners class can go anywhere from the 3 hours I allocated to them finally deciding it's time to go home 2 hours later. You can see why I don't do night classes, we'll end up going home by midnight! Goodness knows how long the intermediate class is going to take...

I'm taking a two weeks break after this. I need a sunday for myself, I got a valentine's book to do, not to mention a few others...