This is an incredibly pretty shop just outside Bras Basar Complex along Seah Street that sells gorgeous crafts & charming wooden knick knacks. People who love natural material & guileless designs should check it out.

When I went there, they were having a kind of local exercise books exhibition where they display (& sell) modified rustic excercise books that comes in all shapes, sizes & lining. (OoOooh, I remember the dreaded gridded ones with paper so thin you'd never fail to rub a hole everytime you attempt to erase something)

Supermama

Transportation woes & a dreary wet week has kept me in the house, really. Now, all I want to do is snuggle in my bed & read a good book.

☆

There is something about Thailand - its superb food, rich culture, great scenery and also some of the friendliest people this side of SEA - that makes it such a lovely country.

I absolutely adore this artist's works.
Especially her artwork novel series, My Way (我的路), filled with stardust & sorrow.
I can't find her books anywhere in S'pore except in the library & the China publisher doesn't ship to S'pore *heart breaks* - so now I'm contemplating on borrowing the book, never return it, pay the fine & live happily ever after.

*Oh, dear. Lydia resorting to robbing libraries?! Tsk tsk.*

寂地

Oh those psychedelic moments when you look through your baby photos & go 'the hell...' at the ridiculousness of the poses snapped. Yes, that's me being used as a human mop.

Mum to Grace, "Look at the camera, act constipated & Smmiiillee!!!"

Why am I looking through baby photos when I'm supposed to be studying for painful exams?? Because the number of days to the exams are inversely proportional to the rate of procastination. That's why.

Time to plug in my wires and oil those brain gears. The ritual cyborgdization every semester will commence!!

Making of the hard cover book:
Hardcover books has always been nerve wrecking affair for me. From the point you smear glue all over your cardboard pieces to the dastardly in-pages *I truly revile in-pages*, the risk of a badly done book casing or the odd air bubble is always imminent.
But, I'm glad this turned out ok!

Above: While I loath gluing in-pages, I'm really please with my water droplets pattern! *blush*

That's the hard cover all done & ready for the book block!

Voila! Muahahaha!!
Couldn't stop touching and admiring my book after it's finished. Stroking its smooth cover and giggling insanely to myself of a job well done. Yes, I'm a book pervert. A mighty proud one.

这几天超级无敌忙!! Pardon me, so here is another ultra lazy post with more of the stuff I'm doing.
Mui fan & Tom Yam soup that looks nothing like it! Whoo hoo~
I realise my scanner saturates the colours of anything I scan, even after correcting the settings. This gives my paintings a more vibrant look & washes out the minor flaws. On the flip side, I notice many of my pastel watercolour details are lost.... Oh bugger!

This is the current project I'm working on, among other things. Will be busy busy busy.

I love siblings. I really do.

Granted they are quite horrible when young. I remember when my big sis loved stabbing me with a mechanical pencil, with the lead out, that little brat. And when my younger brother twisted staple bullets into barb bombs & stuffed them into my pillow, redefining how sadistic stationery is deployed in family warfare.

Now, they are all grown up & smelling of roses.
In fact, my sister bought me a beautiful grand bag the other day. Oh thank you! Hard to imagine her as that fiendish terror she was a decade ago. I cringe to imagine what kind of annoying monster I most definitely took the form too.

Above is a painting I made for her that is now gloriously framed up above her bed post.

Another picture of the week is this.


Boats made out of the aluminium wrapper of a square of chocolate, populated upon by tiny tiny people the size of your thumbnail. Yes, shoo is at it again. Carving out humans from microscopic bits of clay. 'Ware the rise of the tiny people! They'll be up your nostrils in a trice & pulling your brains out through said orifice!

Also, MAAD!!!
Yes! More fabric goodness brought to you by the dexterous duo!

Momshoo & their knitted wonders of yarn.

Ok, I guess I'd better go do homework. Yes, blogging is a delightful way of procastinating work. Oh yes, let me type a bit more.... oooHhhfksafalbf ad fkahsdf fkjshdfa fjahsfhjaj ahahaha..... OK okaaa---aaaaay..... dragging myself to work now......! TO WORK!

The weather these days is searingly hot in the day & bitterly cold at night. Singapore must be turning into another Sahara, I'm sure.

With inflation going up, I wonder how living in sunny island Singapore will be like in the coming years. I remember back in Primary school, my parents would snidely observe how our generation has gone all soft & easy. We are a molly coddled age of internet and instant gratification - fat with too much food & love.

Yes, we are. But we face a tougher world. A harsher future. Where once what made a good employee was hardwork, punctuality & obedience, now we require creativity, lightning fast adaptibility & constant upgrade.

This makes me wonder how the hell the next generation will cope in such a pressure cooker & hugely expensive society. I guess sooner or later we'll all forget what it means to be human - running this absurd rat race of the 21st century.

pic via ffffound.com

All I want to do is to sit back in some worn out plastic chair, infront of some place old and nostalgic. A place filled with memories & stories & grime & listlessness & wistfulness & age.
Some place without shiny chrome finishings or pompus minimalism or any of that Apple-age crap.
A place filled with vegetation & dampness & decay. Full of wrinkly old people sitting on their personal worn out plastic chairs and glowering at any passerbys.

Youth is wasted on me. I should have just transitioned between adolescence & senior citizen without having to grow into an adult. Being an adult is one tough job. Argh.

... he looked inscrutable, I have said something alien.
Anything he doesn't understand is alien.
Anything that is alien is bad.

You know what? It could be bad.

It could be the worst decision I've made in my whole entire life.
But you know what makes a hero a hero?
It's that he did the stupidest thing, like jumping into a churning river without a life jacket, and lived.
If he died, he'd just be another stupid crazy man who should have stayed ashore.
But he lived. So he's a hero.
Let's see if I survive, ok?

I've never before in my life as an art student slept over in school because of homework.
What??? Never? Sacrilege! An art student should be the most unkempt, zombiefied and sleep-deprived being that roamed the earth.

Well, now I join the ranks of wretched children whose unwashed bodies permeate the air of ADM. That smell of sweat, blood & maybe tinge of soul-sucking despair.

I'm glad it's over. Almost.

Long long long years after everyone jumped onto the Tumblr bandwagon, a hibernating reptile, me, has finally gotten its blood warmed up to start an account.

Well, technically I have blogged on Tumblr last year. But that doesn't count because it was done under duress & excruciating unwillingness.
Relax, I won't be shifting my blog over to Tumblr just yet. Blogger, despite all its inadequacies still holds a special place in my heart. Yadda, yadda. Yes, I'm an rusty dinosaur *call in the museum & take away this social media fossil*

My Tumblr: salty-radio.tumblr.com . Do check it out.

This Tumblr gig will be my 3rd active blog (together with blogger & wordpress) & the Flickr. Whoa, I impress myself.

Trudging 4 hours to & from school, yet again.
I remember before I entered uni, I used to balk at the idea of any journey around Singapore taking more than 70 min. Now I do it everyday lugging a bedamned laptop.

Well, what can I say about my life?

I'm taking Asian Horror Film *alone* on tuesdays & Forensic science the next day. Nothing more refreshing than getting your wits scared outta you by blood-splattered avenging female spirits one day then fed a boat-load of decomposing carcasses the next.

Well, I asked for it.

MAAD bazaars are great places to find quirky, handmade thingys comparable to the eclectic tosh we find in Haji Lane or lifestyle stores.
I went there yesterday to visit my ultra-talented friend, Momshoo, who can shoot laser beams outta her eyes & make stuff that I like.

MAAD is at the Red Dot. Balloons and vodka galore.

The bazaar also houses an exhibition of *I'm guessing* German publication design. Or Norwegian interior design. Or something. Hugely interesting, a pity I couldn't read a word.

Momshoo here with her booth stuffed with craft goodness. In my personal opinion, has some of the most interesting wares next to the mohawk shaving barbers & psychedelic guache paintings.

I remember coming to last year's MAAD with the gang to sell notebooks & stickers. A financial disaster of hilarious proportions that taught us perhaps sticking cigarette butts on bags would have been a better investment.

Take a gander at them cute cotton creatures! Rabbits, owls & cats & monsters! Yes, all the stuff I love best!

This Add/Drop period is sapping my life juice.
That creeping feeling of hope you have when catching the off chance a seat appears, then the cruel wrenching despair when a fat '0' appears the next time you refresh the page.

Anyway, I've been hooked on Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame ever since I saw that part of Frollo, the insane judge, singing menacingly at the fireplace.
Truely, this is one of the most underrated Disney films ever. That sequence alone deserves a standing ovation & a few Academy awards.

A good-looking man with amazing cheekbones.

Phoebus? Blah! What's he got but blond hair & an awful goatee? Even Quasimodo was a tad bland in the story. Esmeralda should have gone with Frollo, I think. He has both pathos & good looks & man alive, can he carry a tune!

My opinion, the best Disney villain ever.

Watch (click)

School is drawing nigh. It's time to grow up, be a Year 3 - pass, be a Year 4, graduate, go to work, start a family - grow old.

At least it'll get my dad off my back. My dad absolutely hates people who don't work if they are free. Well, I'm slightly guilty. But honest, I don't spend - so I don't need to get money! Income output, remember? Doesn't matter if you earn a million but spend a billion. You'd still be poor.

Ok, I'm not all that idle.
These were some stuff I did in the hols. click to enlarge.

Bears & penguins. With water colour. After reading Oliver Jeffers books, I had an inexorable compulsion to draw more penguins. & more!!!!

This was a set of 3 badges for a gospel rally. I love the 'hope'~

If you are already sick of reading about my self-aggrandizing attempts at baking, have fear. For this is another one! *enter chicken pot pie*

The recipe came from Nigella (here), it's really hard to concentrate writing down the recipe with her sultry looks & smoldering eyes boring into my brain. You watch & you try. Shan came over to help, because I make a total mess of things if left on my own.

Pies ready for the oven! (Puff pastry is store-bought because, curiously, while you can't find normal pre-made pie crust anywhere in S'pore, frozen puff pastry are everywhere.)

20 mins baking.


Out they come! All golden brown & crispy.

If you're wondering why some are bigger than the others, it's because I only have 2 ramekins in the kitchen. I used rice bowls for the other 2. Still works!

Tasty, steamy fillings. Yum!