Thursday 27 December 2007

more tatted bookmarks...

did these bookmarks sometime back... the green one (named as Two Shuttle Bookmark) is for the bf, coz he was sitting for his final acca papers... wanna show some support lar! hehe... the pink one (Simple Bookmark) is for myself

Saturday 22 December 2007

amigurumi angels!

remember my post abt N's birthday present? took me such a long time to do it, coz of work, orchestra and so many other things! but it's finally done, just in time for N's birthday! they're Angie and Elvis Angel amigurumi! for those of u non-craft ppl out there, amigurumi is the japanese art of knitting or crocheting stuffed toys. anyway, i first saw this pair of adorable angels in Julie's blog and i fell in love with them instantly! so even tho' i've never completed any crocheted project before in my entire life, i decided to give it a try. so i clicked over to saplanet's 'shop' on etsy and bought the patterns...

well, needless to say, it was quite difficult to grasp at first, but Lis of saplanet was very helpful. i kept e-mailing her to ask abt tiny details and her replies were always prompt!

anyway, after a few false starts, here's the finished result... i can't find a cream colour in the 'aminah made in japan' yarn series that the shop lady insisted is the perfect yarn for dolls. so i ended up using a light brown, which the housemate said made the amigurumi looked like 'afro-angels'! hehe... and i'm not so good at sewing, so my amigurumi's smiles are a bit weird!



i did the Elvis Angel first, coz i know i'll make lots of mistakes and i wanted the 'girl' angel to look really nice. so i decided to practice with the 'boy' angel and i did make a huge mistake! my Elvis Angel was made inside out! compare the stitches between the 2 angels in the top pic and u'll get what i mean. luckily Lis e-mailed me another additional file later on and i was able to make Angie Angel the right way.

Elvis Angel hanging...


back view of Elvis Angel...

i think i stuffed Angie Angel with too much fibrefill, coz her shape turned out to be like that of a bee! and she looks much bigger than Elvis Angel, which is so wrong! girl angels should be smaller than boy angels... ok, i'm stereotyping, but what the heck!

Angie Angel hanging...


Angie Angel side view...


back view of the wings...

this is how they're supposed to look originally... so cute rite? but compared to mine... *sigh* dun laugh, ok?

after finishing the angels, i put it into a box and fashioned a music box out of it! i found a shop selling those raw 'wind-urself music box' thingy some time back, so i got the idea of creating a music box with the angels inside. then i covered the box up with a piece of hard plastic (those that we use for book binding) which can be slipped in and out. that way, N can take out the angels to be used for ornaments or hang them somewhere if she doesn't want them to stay in the box. and i can still use the box cover to cover over the plastic and tie it up with a ribbon.

ta-dah!


N loved it!

weekend getaway

went for a weekend getaway with the bf to cameron highlands last weekend... well, one thing i learnt from this trip is:
NEVER GO ANYWHERE ON A SCHOOL HOLIDAY WITHOUT PREBOOKING YOUR ACCOMMODATION!

looking for a place to stay was hell! we arrived quite late, abt 6pm and all the places in brinchang were fully booked, be it hotels, inn, guesthouses, motels etc... in the end, we found a yucky room for an exorbitant price of RM150!

as it was a saturday, a 'pasar malam' (night market) day in cameron, we went to have a look. well, most of the stalls there were catered for tourists... if i were a local there, i dun think i'd buy anything there! but since i'm the tourist, i went ahead and parted with my money! hehe... bought some fresh vege, for goodness knows why, since i dun cook at all! but they were really cheap, prices ranging from 4 - 12 packets for RM10, depending on the size of the packs.


nothing like a pot of steamboat to warm one up in the cold! but the shop that we went to (aiya, forgot the name of the shop!) only served us a few slivers of cuttlefish, 2 miserable fish balls, 2 pitiful meat balls, a bit of 'tao-kee' (bean curd skin) and lots of vege, for the cut-throat price of RM36! that's RM18 per head! >:(



after an unsatisfactory steamboat dinner, we headed over to this shop "Strawberry Moments" that we spotted earlier for some strawberry desserts. their menu were mouth-watering and i had a hard time deciding what i wanted. in the end, we shared this "Melt-in-Mouth", which consisted of 3 scoops of ice-creams (strawberry, raspberry and chocolate), strawberries coated in white chocolate, marshmallows and fresh strawberries. other than that, i ordered a cup of strawberry tea while the bf had some hot chocolate. hmm... at least the dessert did not disappoint!



early the next morning (believe me, for someone who usually goes to bed at 5 or 6 in the morning, waking up at 7am IS VERY EARLY!), the bf drove me further up the mountain to watch the view from Equatorial Hotel... it was lovely!


from the front of equatorial hotel, there's this little trail of steps overgrown with bushes, trees and plants leading down to the plantation below... it was really beautiful and fun, but the overprotective bf would not allow me to venture beyond the steps to the mud trail further below :(

after a bit of exploring and picture taking, went back to town for breakfast... we've deduced that food is quite expensive there! then we checked out and went strawberries hunting! ok, not really hunting... plucking!

ripe strawberries waiting to be plucked...


1/2 kg for RM20... and these proprietors are really clever, i tell u. u not only buy their strawberries, u need to do the work for them too!



on the way down, stopped by the roadside to take this spectacular view of the tea plantation... then since it's still quite early, we decided to go up another road to the Boh Tea plantation. boy, the road is really narrow and winding, just enough for one car to pass at a time!



yikes! saw this gigantic millipede crawling along the path at the plantation... scary!
we decided not to track up to the very top of the plantation, coz it's so tiring! so we went to visit the Boh factory and see how they process the tea...



after that, we rested for a bit in their tea shop... i had the Boh green tea (yucks!) and the bf had the Boh camomile (nice!). and so, our weekend getaway ended with 2 mugs of Boh tea! and i'm gonna be sick of strawberries for a very long time!

Wednesday 12 December 2007

latest project...

preparing a birthday surprise for N. watch this space for my completed work!