girly key cozy

nothing much to blog about this other than its very fun to make :D so here are the pictures...hanging on my fave bag of the moment :D

its pretty matchy !

patchwork pouch

its been ages since i made these. the last i made was in Dec-07 when i was selling my handmade goodies on etsy. now, i am doing these for Belle Maison Zakka. :D

anyway, i prepared the hexagon pieces for 6 pouches during my last shanghai trip. its now work in progress waiting to be finished. each of the hexagon pieces have been individually made, then handsew together into a patchwork. here's the first one of it....

everything is perfect way until the last part - the ZIPPER! somehow, i cant zip it fullY!!! grrrrrrr!! i could re-do the zipper but it involves alot of unstitching and stitching.. soooooo .. instead of selling it, i will use it for my own!

handmade bolster pouch & my best buy of the day!

i was at liang court as i wanted to drop by Geraldine of Belle Maison Zakka - she's having a week long fair this week. and cheryl happened to be around the area and so we met up for coffee - and gave her one of my handmade goodies. :D

that's cheryl posing prettily with the pouch

and that's the pouch up close. i use it for holding one of those aromatherapy burners which i got from daiso for $2 and candles and lavendar essence oil. its good as its slightly padded which will 'protect' the burner from breaking. I will usually bring it out for my holidays esp to beaches where i anticipate musky smelling rooms. the burner will come in very handy! well, its also good for as a pencil case or make-up pouch.

after chatting with her, i popped by Geraldine's shop and got myself some goodies. amongst the many stuffs i got, the happiest buy has to be this Cath Kidson bag! i have been thinking of ordering one online for myself but the shipment cost is too high. was happy to see her selling a variety of Cath Kidson's bags.. I would have bought another one in different prints , but i have too many bags at home already :(

look @ the pretty floral prints! it makes me happy just looking at it!! its roomy enuff for my stuffs plus more! and yet, its light enough not to weigh me down. i am resisting to go down to get another one as i type! :P

and this stork scissors has to be my next fave. i have seen this type of scissors around in jap magazines but never know where to get it. well, now i have it ! :D yay!

mini broke down

just when my dad was singing praises of how hardy the car is, how dependable it is, IT broke down! yes, the tyre was puncture!

i am totally baffled how it could be so. just the very morning, we sent it for car inspection and it passed the test. and the very evening, it broke down! wat a bummer. and that's not the worse - dad wanted to change the punctured tye himself but there's no tools on the car. and so we had to call AA to the rescue.

Real lucky we are members of AA, cuz they provide unlimited roadside help from changing tyres to towing for a flat subscription yearly fee. Only glitch is they take darn long time to respond. we needed to wait 1-1.5 hrs for their help to come along. So no choice, have to wait.. we sat on the payment waiting.... so embarassing :P

after 1hour, help finally came. this unfrenly, unsmiley guy came, efficiently took out his tools and changed the tyre. we prob spoke less than 10 words in the 15 minutes he was there

and the culprit! its a long piece of blunt wood! duh!

3d flower pouch

made this during my last shanghai trip. a typical night in shanghai would be one where me and my parents squeeze onto the couch in the living room to watch pirated HK drama serials. it would be like a family activity which starts from about 10 till 1am. and during this time, i would watch tv and craft at the same time. and then mummy would make us supper which is usually either 'jiu3 niang4 wan2 zi3" (which is fermented rice with glutinous rice balls - sounds yucky but its actually yummy) or dumpling soup!

this time, i made this 3D flower pouch - entirely handstitched since we do not have a sewing machine there. its 3D cuz the flower pops up. its a pretty roomy coin pouch and i gave it to my cousin (who happen to visit shanghai from HK) . i also made alot of hexagon shaped patchwork which i intend to sew into padded coin pouches. will take pics of it the next time.

side view of the pouch to show how that the flower pops up.

LA!

for our LA trip, we had 3 full days which comprises of 1 day for disneyland, 1 day for shopping @ factory outlet and another for the official engagement shoot!!! yes! we are taking our engagement shoot in LA!

the shoot was sort of a last minute thing which we decided about 1 week + before the trip. so we spent the rest of the time searching for photographer, cute/casual 'engagement' dress, buying make up.

we started with idea of doing in in LV cuz its sin city with its colorful lights, casinos, energy..but photographers at LV are very pricey for those which we like and those commercial ones which are slighly less pricey are very outdated in terms of their shooting styles. so.... very extremely lucky, i manage to chance upon Marilyn!! it has to be the best thing i did for that week!

her style was what we liked! she's a wonderful and talented photographer and she realli helped to make us feel comfortable in front of the lens. it helps that she speaks fluent mandarin (her mum's from taiwan teaching in LA and they have been staying there since forever!)

really thank my lucky stars to have found her (by accident) online :D so next time if you happen to be in LA, it may be worth considering spending a day doing a photoshoot. Make it an activity by itself. Its fun plus u get to explore non-touristy places. :D - she brought us to a local neighbourhood with pretty architecture, a place filled with pretty cheerful yellow flows and a not so touristy beach.

here's a group pic of us after the shoot was over (taken by younger bro)... too bad it came out very very blurry but that's the onli one i have :(

and here's one of my favorite pictures taken by her.

more of these pictures can be seen on her blog and the rest are currently on snail mail over to me ! :D

custom order bendy pouches

did these custom order pouches right before my US trip a couple of weeks ago. could still remember rushing it out the night before the trip all the way till almost 4am in the morning and i had a flight to catch @ 10am! so just for fun in order to remember this , took a pic of the finished products together with the clock to remind me not to do things last minute in future, esp not crafting cuz it takes time and there are no shortcuts :D

i love bendy pouches for its so easy to use. use fingers to snap open and release to close. there's no need to fuss around with any zippers or buttons. will do more after i stock up on the frames. the next favorite type of pouches has to be those metal frame ones where it clicks/twists open. i did some back in october last year but they were snapped up. will do more later this year :D