American Designer Pre-Order

Wow, 4 months since my last entry. And I still have readers bumping into my Feel Station. And to summarize, the 4 months were all spent at Fabric Fanatics.

Here's some updates on Fabric Fanatics. Pre-order calling for American Designer fabrics. See below for sneak preview. :)

(ok, I promise to write more bout personal life on next entry.....)

Michael Miller's Collection

Alexander Henry's Collection

Kokka's Collection

Robert Kaufman's Collection

More Art-Venture

Sorry for not blogging more often lately. Have been getting my hands busy with arts and crafts. Don't know what hits me and I'm back to the crafting craze again. I remember the last time I hold the brush was in 1998, when there's still art classes in our education syllabus. Wish I had learn more about arts and crafts during the young and carefree time. And I was among the few that enjoyed art class so much.

Crafting really could kill the boredom, loneliness and stress in me. Am so happy to see all my cute creation. ^_^

Little toothies.

I made this from a Craftster tutorial. I love Craftster. There's so many cool ideas and tutorials. I never get tire browsing the forum and was always so impressed and absolutely awestruck with those amazingly creative artists and crafters.

Tracy Goh's Washi Ningyo's Kit

Received my Washi Ningyo kit from Tracy Goh. She made a really comprehensive kit for making washi ningyo and it even comes with a nicely printed tutorial booklet. I'm soooo excited to try my hand on making my first washi ningyo. I can make 4 cute ningyo from this kit.

And taa-daa........

My first washi ningyo and I want to call her Midori.

It was so much fun making the ningyo. Although a bit tedious and meticulous with the small details but it was so fun especially when styling the hair. It took me 2 hours to finish my Midori. Need more practice >_<

Bought my first set of acrylic paint.

Every artist should get a set. I got myself a set of 12 basic colours. I don't know whether I will need so many colours or not but looking at the colour tubes lining before my eyes, it already makes me very happy.

I'm getting impatient and greedy. I wanted to learn and make so many things.

More ideas and inspirations.....

Clay + Felt = Cute to the max
From powa*powa* (really love reading this blog, although it's all in Japanese)

Unazukin
Clay + Acrylic = Magical!!

MAUstudio bunny
Looks easy to make. Yay, I have white and red felt. But I need to buy red threads.

Home alone

I'd been left home alone for two days. My parents and aunt went to my uncle's wake. Am a bit uneasy with the silence. Even Nici is gloomy with the quiet house. Kin Fai suppose to come back this weekend but he was being held back by his work. Sigh....What a boring weekend.

I'd been surfing the net for almost the whole day, researching on more crafting that amuse me. Found some really talented crafters:
Powa*Powa* - Japanese site. Luckily Google translates this page for me. A lot of cute felt and polymer crafting. Really really interesting and inspires me alot.
Dieva's Craft Store - Indenesia Washi crafter. I can understand a bit of Bahasa Indonesia, so this is not much a problem. But she did not offer any free or online tutorial and all her classes are in Indonesia. But great ideas for washi paper art.
Patricia Rose - A very very talented fantasy doll crafter. I was totally awed with all her sculpture. Doll sculpting is very very tedious but they can sell for a very good price in ebay. Being a crafter/artist, you can actually become rich....if you are really good.

I decided to start with something simpler and not that expensive. I paid another visit to Craft Workshop to buy some felt.

But end up spending RM60.90 on craft supplies.
- 5 pieces of felt (RM3 each)
- All purpose glue (RM15)
- Pebeo metal touch paint writer (RM11)
- 60 Crystal brads (RM19.90)

This hobby ain't cheap. I know I bought a lot of unnecessary things but everything is sooooo tempting and I wanted to try everything.

Bought a felt crafting book from Popular.

Well, at least buying a book is cheaper than signing up for classes. I can learn and experiment this on my own. Felting doesn't seem too difficult. But the book were all written in Chinese....tried so hard to understand the tutorials, some tutorial is a rather difficult and I need some felting needles. Perhaps I can try to find some in Yik Foong complex.

Scraps from my previous felt cake.

Since I don't have enough resource to start any serious felt project, I tried and practiced my sewing skills on some of the scrap felt from my previous felt cake project. I tried sewing some of the different type of stitches from the book, and I learnt French knot and how to stitch really cute eyes.

And I made this...........

A cookie ornament.

Soooo cute. I should make more to give away.

I should give a kawaii name to my creation. Kin Fai keep saying cookie monster but it's too cute to be a monster.

I just realized that felts are realllllly expensive. RM3.00 per piece and not any larger than A4 paper. If I want to play felt, I must source for cheaper material. eBay, here I come.

My first art-venture with polymer clay

I always have a thing with art and crafts. KL has a lot of arts and crafts supplies store, especially at One Utama. I always wanted to try those many many different variety of arts and crafts. I always wanted to learn about oil paint, acrylic paint, glass paint and etc. Yes, is an expensive hobby but compare to photography, philately, golf, antique collecting, art-venture is not expensive at all.

I'm sooooo happy that finally in Ipoh we have a craft workshop and it's so near my place. Yayyyy. They are selling a lot of arts and crafts supplies such as acrylic paints, glass paints, fabric paints, clay etc usually not found in Ipoh. They are also offering a lot of classes such as polymer clay, Folk Art (painting on wood using acrylic), glass painting, glass etching, fabric painting and decoupage. I can't wait to learn all of them. And to my surprise that this kind of craft shop could actually attracts quite a lot of customers and I have to call to book a time for their classes. Although some are just inside the shop to look at the wonder work of crafts and the art supplies that we never knew existed but quite a number of them were actually buying!

Ok, so I start my art-venture with polymer clay. RM80 for a 2 hour class and I get a Sculpey Activity Box Kit worth RM60. I wanted to get the Clay Bear set but the last box were reserved. What a disappointment, the Clay Bears were really super cute!

Sculpey clay and tools.
Actually there's 7 colours but I finished using the brown for making the very cute bear.

My first clay babies. Aren't they super cute?
Am I talented or what? Hehe...

I still have many leftover clay and I will make something else. ~woohoo~

(And I'd waste a lot of money paying for yoga and gym classes. I never enjoy as much.)

Useful link for clay crafting:
Free polymer clay tutorial
A talented and resourceful clay blogger from Indonesia
Sculpey - Materials for polymer clay craft
A talented crafter from Malaysia

Books On My Shelf

Am I having too many hobby? I know I'm always buying books and not reading them. Since when did my love of reading turns into love of buying books?

I always love reading and I still am. But now I'm more into reading online articles, blogs, forum, reviews, magazines, and sometimes newspapers. In this cyber era, many of us had lost touch with paperbacks. I do not want to let go of this, so I keep buying book, knowing/hoping that I will eventually find time to read.

During our last visit to MPH bookstores, while paying for another book for me, Kin Fai asked, how many books did I really finish reading in the pass 2 years. Erm.....one and that's during my bored-to-death 3 hospitalized days. What a satisfaction when I finished a good book and I did not had such feeling since.....I don't know when.....I think since my schooling days when I have no dates and plenty of time in the noon digging in Dean Koontz and Judith McNaught. It's a weird combination of reading preference but I need some historical romance when I had too much thrillers.

I had two Ikea shelves full of paperbacks and hardcover books. I excluded those recipe cookbooks, travel guides, dog behavior guidebooks, arts and crafts books, and some work related reference books, I came up with a To Read List.


To Read What's On My Shelf List:

• Marley & Me by John Grogan : I'm half way through this, I'm confident that I can finish this.
• The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw : I'm proud of the Malaysian who got his name by writing this book. But unfortunately I'm giving up on this. Too many narration. Will be giving this to Kin Fai.
  
• Bridget Jone's Diary by Helen Fielding : I searched high and low for this book and finally got it at Kinokuniya, KLCC but 3 years later, I'm still at chapter 5. Why? This is a good read! Witty British writing.
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown : I bought the book way before the movie was filmed but...I still at chapter 3. Sigh
• Angels and Demon by Dan Brown : Already gave the book to Kin Fai which he made into his loyal toilet companion. I don't think I'll get back the book. >_<
• Harry Potter and The Order of Phoenix by J.K. Rowling : Stopped at Chapter 6. Why can't I even finish a children's book.
  
• Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling : Seems like I'm collecting the Potter series, not reading them.
• If Tomorrow Comes by Sidney Sheldon
• Are You Afraid Of The Dark? by Sidney Sheldon
• Train Man by Nakano Hitori
• Memoirs Of A Geisha by Arthur Golden : A gift from an ex who doesn't know the type of books that I like to read.
• The Memory Keeper's Daugther by Kim Edwards
• PS. I Love You by Cecelia Adhern : Will definately finish this before the movie comes out.
• A Place Called Here by Cecelia Adhern
  
• A Spot of Brother by Mark Haddon
• Once Removed by Andrew Leci : Kin Fai's book and I will make this my loyal toilet companion. haha
  
• The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
• The Complete Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilheim Grimm
• The Holiday Present by Johanna Lindsey
• Home For Holidays by Johanna Lindsey

Ok, I'm not buying anymore books until I crossed out at least half of the list.

Getting Myself Busy

I joined gym and has been working out a lot since Saturday. I never exercise and sweat so much....since...I don't know when. Yes, I never exercise and never do have any sports talents, I doubt that I ever kick inside my mom's womb. And I just hate sweating. But I just can't ignore how unfit I'd become. At 26, I tend to lost my breath walking a few flight of stairs. And despite some ppl still saying I'm slim, but there are certain parts of me getting out of shape, namely the abdomen. You ppl call it spare-tire. And I'm tire of being laugh at by my (idiot) colleagues. >_<

And so I joined Fitness Junction, RM123 for the first month and RM80 for every following months. The gym is kinda small and pack with equipments, much smaller than The Gym at Bercham but since they open till 9.00pm and also on Saturday and Sunday, just right for my schedule. They offer a whole lot of different classes, aerobics, yoga fusion, steps, rotates, cyclerobics, kickboxing, barbell, jazzercise and even tae-kwan-do. Some of the classes starts as early as 6.15am....*whoa* Lots of aunties rose really early and has time to stretch before going to the market, really healthy and must learn from them.

And so I joined two of the classes today, in one stretch which made me really really exhausted but felt so good and alive. The first class was Steps, where I step up and down using a raised platform and perform aerobic moves with it. And also stretching on the big exercise ball, which I had a hard time trying to balance but after awhile it was kinda fun too. The Steps exercise got me sweat alot. Phew... but was really fun. And after that the following class was Yoga Fusion, fuses between Pilates and Yoga. After 2 hours of exercise, which was too much for me, I felt kinda dizzy and toooooo hungry. And I forgot to mention my instructor for both classes, Fay, is a really pretty Caucasian.

I just hope I can keep up my enthusiasm in exercising for a better fitness and tone up my bod.

And lately I'd been doing some artwork too. I'm sorting out my old mags and found some really interesting and pretty advertisement and quotes. So I made some posties....So you don't know I'm into this handcraft stuff? Well, now you do. I even kept an artblog and joined a lot of art swap groups (used to). Hehe....

All torn out....pretty bits and nips.

Some of the posties I made. I made a total of 10. To view them all, go to my artblog.

And I joined Postcrossing to send and receive posties from all over the world. I used to joined Postcrossing and received some really nice cards from places as far as Estonia but I'd slack off for too long and my account was deactivated. If you're looking for a hobby, pick this one up, it's so cool to communicate and actually receive something from ppl around the globe.

Postcrossing postie.

I love my handmade posties too much to send them all out. So I only sent 3 out. >_<
Sending out to USA, United Kingdom, China, Finland and Germany.