WIP #1*

"Randolph! Sit! Stay! I need to take your photo!"

Y'all know I love my dog, right? I mean, you've seen the "I love my dog (and yours is cute too)" tee that I wear to death. For the past couple of weeks, I've been half-heartedly trying to snap a photo of the silhouette of my dog to then blow up and cut out on coloured paper.

Today, I stumble across this photo from Cut Arts. I'm now even more determined than ever to make this work.

*WIP = Work In Progress

printed matter

So, I'm torn. Which of these should I get?


The snoozing bear in the bottom right corner just did it for me. From Apak


Heart-broken pink bear, who can resist you? From Ghost Ghost Teeth


It's not a coincidence that all the prints I've chosen are sorta this shade of sea foam. From Alicia Bock


I used to doodle stuff like this, before I was convinced that I couldn't draw. Maybe I should just draw something on my own instead of buying. From Benben

be nice to the little people

My love for all things miniature should be well known. Check out this Little People website, where little handpainted people are left in London to fend for themselves. At 150 pounds for a print, though, the price tag is a bit too large for me.

feeling it

I love it when you call
I love it when you call
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
So what's the complication it's only conversation
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
~ Love It When You Call, by The Feeling

The upbeat soundtrack to my Sunday, which played on while I placed bricks in semi-parallel lines in my front yard in the morning, watched sweaty Ikea men wrestle with a Klippan, a Lack, a Lindved and an Expedit in the afternoon, and endeavoured to paint a hospital green wall butter yellow without success.


It's incredible how many books one Expedit can hold. Good thing I bought more shelves, much to the dismay of M. Now that doggie has graduated from obedience school, I can get him to stay down and pose for photos.


Round 2 and 3 of painting tomorrow after work. After an exhausting Round 1, it was still greenish. My room is filled with fumes so I have to share M's bed tonight.

smell the roses

I have so many items on my To Do List, it's crazy. It's my own undoing of course, since I elected to repaint one wall of my room, have new furniture delivered and write a procrastinated travel piece all on the same day tomorrow.

But in the meantime, I'm taking time to stop and smell this website, with its smells of the beach in summer, the field in winter, even the musk of libraries.

This is what the perfume creator wrote about Winter 1972:

A field of untouched new fallen snow, hand knit woolen mittens covered with frost, a hint of frozen forest & sleeping earth

I remember, one December when I was much younger, sitting alone at night in a field. There were no tracks in the fresh snow other than my own and no sound but my own breath. Occasionally I heard a twig snap in the pine wood that bordered the field.
The air was perfectly clear and nothing was visible except the small cloud of my own breath between me and the infinite stars. All of them were visible, sparkling silently against the endless blue of space. I can remember nothing in my life so beautiful as the sight of the sky that winter night.

I recall clearly the scent of that winter air. It was not at all a pine scent and had nothing to do with cinnamon or spices. It was the blue frozen scent of fresh snow and silver stars. It was a scent that spoke to my young brain of remembering what was and realizing what will come. It was the sleeping scent of spring now frozen beneath the snow.

Winter is still like that for me. It is a time to rest, a time to remember and to look forward. Winter is a quiet time to watch the stars and have hope.

Christopher Brosius 1994 (Revised 2005)

I'm so intrigued by this blend of scent and prose that I'm tempted to order it, just to smell if it lives up to the beautiful promise.

fabricated

Excursion to jersey warehouse last week. Pancake stacks of cloth, noisy graceful forklifts, and doing business with a bare-bodied man for the first time.

top dog trainer

Doggie came in third in his class, beating three golden retrievers, one husky and one border collie who was having a bad day. All credit, however, goes not to Randolph but to the top dog trainer who woke up at 6am every morning to whip him into shape.

As a reward, I took doggie to his fave park, a derelict [say it like Zoolander!] playground with stone tunnels and slides from the 70s, this morning.

He loves to frolic in the overgrown grass when I take off his leash, but today, he just sat attentively next to me, running around only when I did. He's so well-trained now, he doesn't remember how to play.

pink prank project

203m of pink wrapper was used to transform a messy apartment into a pink oasis. More photos here.

happy belated birthday

I'm a bit late. But you can read all about Tony's birthday here and here.

return to owner

ME: I have something of yours. [Returns him a tiny car]
HE: My god. I'd forgotten about this.
ME: I don't need it anymore.
HE: [Knowing look] Why?
ME: [Bright smile] He got married.
HE: [Exasperated] Who, the bastard? I hate it when I'm right.

It seems a bit meta to refer to my own post but the date is sort of relevant. It's been almost a year.

missing

我懷念的 是爭吵以後還是想要愛你的衝動

The best line in the Stefanie Sun song now on repeat mode in my head.

P.S. Would any one care to translate for the monolinguists among us? WW? CO? MS? I'm not up to it!

who cares about hello kitty?

According to the cat with no mouth, I don't care about other people. But the caring test is fun nonetheless. Try to better my score of 40%.

just shoot me

I've always liked the combination of polka dots and stripes.

After shooting some photos in Provence which I thought "well, those didn't turn out that bad considering it's a crappy one-mega-pixel camera", I've been feeling a little trigger happy. So, my fave photog is gonna lend me one of his many cameras -- the damaged one with 5% LCD not working, but beggars can't be choosers -- and hopefully impart some skills.

Be prepared for more rubbish pseudo arty shots of carpark ramps from now on.

look at the size of that

time for luncherooo

I'm blown away by the obento sets that this mother [I think, not sure, cos the site is entirely in Japanese] comes up with on a daily basis for her kids. The angry octopus above just cracks me up.

pay attention during class, randolph

This Sunday is doggie's final exam for obedience school. Will he emerge as the Top Dog? With this sort of lousy attention span, I think not.

i like pink i think

With my big-ass crochet needle -- it is the size of an Oral B toothbrush, and made of the same acrylic material too -- and some big-ass yarn, I made a big-ass granny square. Yes, the stitches are indeed so big-ass, and not enlarged due to macro photography skills.


Product photography is so much tougher than I'd imagined. Posing a pink baby blanket took me a good 15 minutes, but I was determined to do it before giving it to Y for her soon-to-be-popped baby.


So you get an idea big it is. And how much I like pink.

proximity to the next big things

Sadly, the Swirl Girls have not been chosen as one of Fred Flare's the Next Big Things.

But the good news is, two of our dear friends made it! Well done, Kookii:Kooky and Maki Squarepatch. We're so happy for them! Do vote for them here and here or just drop by our boutique to check out their adorable goodies. We can safely say we discovered them before Fred Flare did!

As for our ingenious, quirky and surprisingly useful entry -- the alice band clutch! -- we're in the process of fine-tuning it, so watch out for it!




Not only does this clutch hold your lipstick and spare change, it also holds back your hair. The alice band is made from lovingly salvaged vintage fabric, while the clutch itself is made of canary yellow satin charmeuse.

one, two, three

Three little things that may make you believe in love again. Possibly. May be. Perhaps.


One. Who cares if there is a scientific reason for the otters' hand-holding?

Two. I tear up a little every time I read this engagement story. I'm a sentimental fool.

Three. This lovely story was posted on a particularly forlorn day, and a blithe "Happy Valentine's and all that jazz" text message only made it worse.

open and shut case