Sick Leave

It's the flu season here, some schools actually had to be shut down for a while because the number of sick students. Unfortunately, I am sick too, sore throat, headache and cough, the usual drill. -_-
I'm moving next week also, so there are many things to take care of, the amount of things 2 persons can accumulate in a tiny apartment is quite astounding, just the thought of packing frightens me. So I am taking a break from today till I settled in to new place.

Hopefully I come back healthy and happy with new things to share. ;D

photo credit: Jason Nicolls

Paper Towel, for real.

You know I'm a lover for little clever ideas, it's also reflected, I hope, in my own design. I usually keep my product find largely in my ThisNext account, as you can see the gadget all the way to the bottom, but I can't pass this up without saying a word. A tea towel in notepad pattern, it's aptly named "Paper Towel" designed by "I saw it first", a studio based in London. It's fun, green, and clever all at once, what's not to love?

via noquedanblogs

Flickr Find - Colorful Mistake

Just found these 2 colorful Polaroid from Flickr. Love the color. I went out and bought some colored paper yesterday as my inspiration, and I created something which I think is quite good. I will share with you once I have good light to take picture with them. Today, the sun refused to shine on my tiny apartment.
The top one according to prettypertelote actually got stuck in the camera and she had to pull it out with force, but I like the streaks on the top. Mistake isn't always a bad thing.

Wednesday Inspiration Day

I'm off today to deal with some personal matter and walk around to find some inspiration, hopefully. The Internet is a wonderful place, but I need to get in touch with real life also, going to post office and then home doesn't count. ;D

In the mean time, enjoy this wonderful photo from riot jane.

I hope you are inspired too, by something you see and hear today. ;D

Fifi Lapin Giveaway

The famous fashion bunny illustration blogger Fifi Lapin is having a giveaway. I just entered...I hope is not too late. Seems like competition is fierce since there are already more than 100 comments. I hope I can get her 1st one and hang it in my new place.

Clipper Tea

Sometimes, I'm glad I live in a former British colonial city because we get lots of UK imported products and Clipper Teas is one of them, and Green and Black organic chocolate...wooo...that's one I can't control myself most of the time too.. Clipper teas are fair trade tea bags, and I love, love their white tea blend. They just have their package redesigned. I have to say I like their new package. Can't wait to see them in my local supermarkets.
I'm more of a tea persons, my husband is more of a coffee person, but he loves the Clipper, and finished my boxes all the time. ;( Please drink your coffee and leave leave my tea bags alone...

via design:related

Esty Front Page

This morning, I check my Etsy shop, my "Good Time Ring" 's view count gone from 200 range to the 900 range. I knew something happened. There are only 2 reasons that a particular product can go up so fast in view count. 1. You get featured in a popular blog, which happened to my "A Perfect Match", thank you Ez for Creature Comforts, I'm eternally grateful. (Sounds cheesy, but I am) 2. Get on the Etsy Front page.

I always thought Etsy front page is kind of mystery and wonder, it's sort of like a Holly land of sort. I didn't know how can one get on to the front page. Now I figure is by having a unique product and being active, build your network, get your words out there. There's no secret, just hard work. Time I spend in front of this laptop typing, is countless. I actually work harder then the time I have a full time job. I spent all my "leisure" time at work browsing online shop and reading design blog back then, sort of like what I'm doing as work now these days. :P

I recently also join VeganEtsy team and I have to thank fellow team member Emma of Emma's K9 Kitchen for helping me out with finding my front page in flickr. I knew there's a group, I didn't know there's a flickr account just for Etsy Front Page, then I realized one of my Objectication product was on front page on the 12th this month! I'm clueless, I just thought it's a nice growth for me...little did I know. I chose to join this team, because I want to be associated with people who share the same compassion I have, for all living beings and they're doing a great job of helping to promote their team members.

Today, is my happy Tuesday and I'm going to have a veggie barbecue this evening, even the humid and rainy spring weather won't make me stop.

So Happy Tuesday to all my readers too! I hope you enjoy life, today, and everyday.

Soup Time

Hong Kong's food culture revolves around soup, the long boiled with many exotic ingredients kind of soup. I'm originally from the northern part of China, back in the days when regional cuisine stayed in their own region, the soup you could order in a Beijing restaurant was a cucumber and egg in salt water quickie. So the milky, thick and muddy colored soup here was kind of a wonder when I was young. Not that I will have any of the meat based soup these days, but this free standing ladle designed by Japanese designer Mikiya Kobayashi kobayashi reminds me of moms everywhere in Hong Kong, laboring for the soup to serve to love ones, it's their way of showing affections.

It's a very clever and simple design. If it does goes into production, I think I may buy one.

via designboom

Between the Folds, a movie about Paper art

"Between the Folds" Looks like an interesting documentary about origami. Paper art is actually getting more attention these days. It's a medium I love and I wish I can experiment more, I just borrow 2 books from the Library by Michael G. Lafosse which is very interesting and inspiring. The books are a tip from a blog post by Oh Happy Day. She's so lucky that she get it as a present for her birthday, but I have to say, I love my Hong Kong library system, all I need is my ID card to reserve and borrow books.

news via twitter by dexigner

Monday Find - Brown For Home

Instead of doing Monday Etsy Treasury, I decided to just do Monday Find instead, so that I'm not limiting myself to find stuff only in Etsy and can start exploring more different fabulous things on other sites as well.

I'm inspired by brown and home this week since I'm looking for decoration ideas and items. I seek out to find things for home in general at first, and I was surprised by some of the things that I found in etsy, like an Eames lounge chair which for a second I thought I was browsing ebay. Anyway, this week's selection is:

1. Large Forrest Wall Decor Kit from vinylwallart
2. 1923 Brown Egg Beater from Mina180
3. Mid Century Copper Cake Carrier from ModishVintage
4. Vintage Brass Dish from gogoabigail
5. Wooden Bowling Pins from sweetshorn
6. Circles Table from Michaselarras - This one is my fav, I wish I live in US, because it's free shipping.

Since poll was not very active, so I cut out the poll idea. If you guys still like having a poll, let me know.

A new bit of adventure to Europe

Unfortunately, it's not a trip to Europe, that's on my list of dream vacation though. ;D Just to let people know, I'm starting to expand a little bit and putting my eggs in more baskets. I started to list on DaWanda, for the European crowd, I know some people reach here from France, Germany, Spain and even Finland or Norway, admittedly rare, but still! I've only listed 3 items so far, I will eventually add more, but I'm testing how DaWanda works out for me. Euro's exchange rate can be a big fluctuation, so I'm not really sure how to price in comparison to my USD listing, but I try to keep them about the same, considering the different costs they charge.

So, if you're from Europe, and don't want to go through Etsy and USD exchange rate, here's a choice for you.

Good Time Ring

I've been working on this ring for some time now. I was avoiding making rings as products, I don't know why, so this is actually my first ring for sell. I named it "Good Time Ring", because it gives you the ability to show your good time and photos right on your finger. ;P When you don't wear it, it can act as a small photo frame, put it on your desk as a decoration. The other idea is that you can print out graphics you like, then this ring instantly become your own design. I'm loving this idea quite a bit, because there's user interaction, and you can get a bit crafty to print and cut your photos or graphics. ;D

I hope you guys like it. The hardest part for this project is to cut all the straight lines. It took me some time.

Awesome enhanced IKEA lamp

Have to love tissue paper and some patience. This definitely gives me ideas.

via IKEA hacker

Happy Loved Valentine's Day Weekend

This is honestly the first year I take Valentine's Day very seriously. ;P Since my birthday and Valentine's Day is close enough, usually we just celebrate my birthday. We buy flower on normal days, because flower value on Valentine's Day increase exponentially.

This year's Valentine's Day happened to be on weekend, I'm sure all the love birds will be either out to celebrate or cuddle up at home. What about you? If you don't have a special someone this year, and I've been there, and for a long time too, ignore what I said above, just have a happy weekend, and love will find a way to get to you. That's what happened to me. :)

Photo credit: ilmungo

My Kind of Book - K

I instantly fell in love with this book when I read about it by just looking at the black and white illustrations. This book is illustrated short stories of K (Kafka)'s childhood. The text is in Spanish though...I want Google to be able to translate a real life book, not just online text. Please take my suggestion Google.

via Book by its cover

Illustration Inspiration Mash Up

The weather is grey here in Hong Kong, so is my mood, because I'm not feeling particular well, or as perky as I was. Maybe it's exhaustion, I'm not sure, so I've been kind of lazy posting here which definitely means I'm really tired. I love blogging.

My inspirations today reflects my little moody sentiment here. I've been saving up all the nice illustrator's bookmarks and mental image of their illustrations. This is what I picked today. Look at the expression on the woman of no. 3 by Lethorama, that's how I look like for the past couple days and I wish I can go on a boat trip somewhere, so I included some color as in No.4.

Here's the link to their website:
1. Merci Washington
2. Audrey Kawasaki
3. Lethorama (I'm not sure it's the illustrator's name, but that's the website)
4. Rachell Sumpter

Wall Decoration Ideas

I'm moving to a new place pretty soon, and as sad as I am to part with my Domestic coat hanger wall vinyls. I'm at the same time pretty excited to find new ways to give a blank wall some spicing up, and on the cheap also. I'm looking at all the blog posts today and all I noticed were the one with wall decoration/paintings.

I'm not sure I want to paint the wall black as in the top picture of Ramses restaurant, Spain by Philippe Starck, but it'd be nice to get the green chalk board paint (I wonder if they sell it in Hong Kong), add in the picture hanging (my husband has been nagging me about hanging our fisheye honey moon pictures), and add a bit of nature graphic painting in the mix....

My head is spinning with way too many ideas and the above are just today's blog posts find only, imagine I dig through all my bookmarked inspiration......

Image via designboom, sfgirlbybay and coco+kelly

Simply Fab

I've been meaning to post about mrs. french's photo for a while, somehow it always just sort of slipped me, her kind of feminine simplicity is very darling, even though that's not very me, but I do want a small print to spice up the apartment. She has new prints in her shop blissfulimage. Check it out.

Kitty Cuteness

I've always wanted a cat, but then whenever I really decided to get one, there're always different things to hold me off.
This is a very funny drawing from Monstro-Draw.

Via Likecool

Gone in 120 seconds

I finally get around to make my birthday ultimate indulgence, the vegan chocolate truffle I've been talking and dreaming about.....It's yum yum yum.....and yeah, the two of us just consumed this plate in 2 minutes, with some sips of coffee. It's dense and very rich, but cholesterol free. There's no better treat for a chocolate lover.

I use the recipe I found in Vegweb which was adapted from Vegan Chef:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup cold water
16 ounce vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
chopped nuts (almond/walnuts/cashews)
cocoa powder

Directions:

Puree the cashews and water for 1-2 minutes until they make a heavy cream consistency.

In a saucepan heat the oil and melt the chocolate over medium heat until smooth, turn the heat down until the chocolate is cool enough to work with, fold in the cashew cream. Don't let it bubble!

Pour into a fridge friendly container and let the mixture chill until it's easy to work with, about 2 hours.

Form into balls and roll in whatever garnish/topping you prefer. I used half with the chopped cashews and half with cocoa powder, refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Makes: 40 truffles, Preparation time: 10 minutes, Cooking time: 2 hours for cooling


I did use a double boiler setup, so that the chocolate won't burn too easily. It's super easy with very impressive result.
Make this for your lover as Valentine gift this Sat to ensure wild kisses and more.

Cute book for handcrafters

Love this book found by Elisabeth over at fine little day. She's an amazing photographer, and her dialy blog photo is really a inspiration. I want to sew the hand puppets, the illustration in the book is very adorable.

Gift Guy

Valentine's Day sometimes is all about the girls, but men need loves too. It's always kind of hard to find things for them because they're not the main focus.

I was digging through some of my favorite on Etsy and blog posts, my guy decided he loves the 2 above me. The ties goes very well with his pacman ring and he gave tumbs up for the colorful sweatshirt.

He also loves some of Objectication necklace too, but I refuse to just give him my "merch", but he's wearing his fav vintage TV silver edition necklace daily which I made for his birthday not so long ago.

Tie found via likecool

A Perfect Match - Silver Edition

I made this custom silver edition for A Perfect Match. The result is wonderful, and I really didn't expect the silver edition to turn out looking so good, now I really want one myself. The person who bought it currently lives in Hong Kong too. So, a little shout out for supporting local handmade artist. ;P

My birthday

I got my fix for my tofu burger & fries craving today for my little birthday celebration. We indeed went to Bookworm cafe on Lamma island. This little cafe hosts some of our greatest food and fun memories. It's Monday, so it's very quiet. We opened an old Hong Kong travel guide from the cafe's book shelf and had a little fun read about the sections called "Cooking style of Hong Kong" & "Etiquette". It's funny to see how people perceive certain things that's foreign for them, but a culture of mine.

I didn't make any chocolate truffles, because I was kind of tired after our trip, I took a nap instead. I needed the rest, because I've been working non-stop for 7 days last week. Having your own little business is a blessing and a curse in terms of work and R&R schedule, but I'm not complaining. ;P

Looks like I'll be making more people's girlfriends happy for the coming days. As Kelly of Design Crush put it, the guy can definitely get lucky. haha...Oh, and thank you Kelly for writing about my necklace. I missed all the blog posts last week, so I only find things out much later.

BTW: A little bit of promotion here, it's my birthday sale for one day only. 5% additional off for my Objectication line. That's 20% total with the on going 15% off Valentine Special.

Eco, Chic and I want to be in a paper ball

Just have dexigner newsletter in my mailbox. This caught my eye among all the other design items. It's from Polish Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design's two day eco fashion show. Love.

This inspires me to make some eco recycled piece, so I will start watching out for what can I use creatively. I have a teddy bear print cookie tin box....

image and info. source: www.dexigner.com

Sugar, Spice and Everything nice

My original idea was something different, but similar, that's called Salt and Pepper with two shakers with stamped letters, but I figure their forms are the same, then I remember this catch phrase of Powerpuff girls, and I just decided to go with it. Resulted in Sugar and Spice.

My jewelry making week is not over yet, I will need to make some more to fill a/two orders which is not entirely confirm yet.

On the other note, there will be no Etsy Treasury Monday the coming week, because Monday is my birthday, and I'm giving myself some time off for a day. I've been working hard, so I think I deserve a little break, probably want to make myself some vegan chocolate truffle and stuff my face with them like a all I can eat buffet. ;P

A special thank you to Ez at Creature Comforts

I cannot describe how much I love Ez over at CreatureComforts. She seems like she have all this amazing energy because her tremendously brilliant work on her blog and her photograph and she's really quick on replying emails.

I emailed her about my "A Perfect Match" last week, and she instantly replied back and say she'll do a feature for it. Then she just did!

Thank you Ez for being such an amazing person, even I've never met you in person, but I sure love to.

Happy Weekend

I'm craving for some french fries and a "couture" veggie burger, even I just had this big dinner, and it's nearly 1 in the morning. It can only be found in Bookworm Cafe on Lamma island for Hong Kong residents.

So it's officially Friday now, but I will need work this weekend because I received a custom order, making jewelry the whole week made me very happy but hungry, often time I just kept working and forgot meal time until my stomach yelled at me and called me names, so I will just indulge a little this weekend, and eat some sinful trans fat.

I found a lot of really nice flickr food shots by following Kasi's Tumblr page. I basically like all the photo she posts.

Photo by maurice flower

What I have been working on

Apart from trying to find a new apartment, I've been doing more creation lately as opposed to updating blog frequently. My routine has changed a bit. The reason being that since I'm very behind on reading people's blog and design news, the number of unread posts scares me. So I just went straight to sketch pad and drew stuff.

I love my recent creation Vinea, even though it falls into the flower and leaf kind of category which I tried to avoid, but sometimes I like some nature and more feminine kind of stuff, so I made Vinea 2, and named it Vinea & Folium. It's a variation of my previous Vinea and added a little piece of leaf with each earring.

That said, I can't resist objects, and silly ideas. I also made "Rocket Science" earrings today. It's a rocket, and a lab flask. You can see that I'm exploring different techniques and form. After my "A Perfect Match", I have more confident in working with brass, and soldering in general, so I'm making some different stuff that require soldering and precise cutting. I gave myself a pat on the shoulder today for my cutting job with Vinea & Folium, I follow the line drawing to the T, which is quite amazing, considering how many lines to cut in just one piece.

Ok. all the cutting and typing results in tired arms and bruised chest. I should go to sleep, it's almost 12pm. I hope you enjoy the new stuff I'm making. I will catch up with my blog and flickr reading and hopefully I can post normally next week.

Guess the Title for this graphic

If you guess the name for the graphic is "Hot Chick", then you are in for a prize...which is my virtue kiss. ;P

I have nothing much to post today, because I went out the whole day looking at different apartments. I can no longer afford to live in the convenient city center, partly because I started full time writing blog and my Etsy shop, since it's not paying out as I had expected, and the economy is quite uncertain and honestly quite bad, we decided to move to cheaper places so that we can breath easier financially. I have to tell you, apartment hunting is extremely exhausting. As for where are we going to move to, you will find out soon, and I probably will constantly bombard you with all my decorating my new apartment posts.

So about "Hot Chick", I had this idea for more then 2 years, back when I had a full time job, a coworker bought a laser cut brooch from Etsy, and some of the art directors in my office gathered and discussed how we can actually all set up similar shops and use their design background. I went home and cooked up some stuff, one of them is hot chick. It was in my sketch book, buried, until I flipped through it recently.

Flash to now, I made this graphic and test out my design, then I found this lovely little piece, and I figure my design concept is too close for comfort, so I drop this design, and decided not to list on Etsy, but anyway, I made one for myself, because I think it's pretty funny and I like to think I'm hot. haha.

Vīnea Earrings - New Product

I made this pair of earrings after my visit to Tai O (see a couple posts below). It's a wonderful old fish village, and they have a nice little museum with all sort of really old, and some nice vintage stuff in there. I saw some old locks, which I found quite interesting.

Then some of the houses has a thick layer of Flaming Trumpet Vine which is in full blossom. Yes, the village is full of 2 to 3 stories houses instead of skyscraper apartment buildings, people shouldn't really live on 60th floors, that's just not very natural.

I love my time there, so I just cooked up this earrings in the morning, I named it Vīnea, Latin for Vine. This is my first shop items that's not really an identifiable object, but I like it, I think I will do more of this kind of just design/abstract/graphic kind of jewelry.

It's listed on Etsy already, so you can check out here.

What do you guys think?

Friends around the Globe

The good thing about writing a blog to me is to meet people around the world, everyday there is surprises waiting in my inbox. Like I got a message from Sabino Aguad, Chili that he read my blog, and today, I got an Etsy convo from Ellie of Mint Design Blog that she wrote about my blog. She sure dig deep through my posts, because she found the Yellowgoat headband I made a while back. I haven't been blogging for long and I have a tendency of short interest span, but I wrote some 150+ posts already, which I surprise myself by sticking to blog writing.

Thank you so much for all the support. You guys make me feel special today. It's the best feeling to have.

The Alphabet Killer - Etsy Trasury Monday

It's Monday, it's another edition of my Etsy Treasury Monday. I named this week's treasury "The Alphabet Killer", inspired by the movie.

I've been asking if anyone has something they want to feature that's with theme at etsy forum, all of their suggestions were great but drippyice's suggestion matched the color tone.

It's been fun making this treasury, I hope you enjoy it.

If you like this one, check out my past treasuries, (if you haven't already):
Last week: Bring Color Back
Last last week: Be My Vintage Valentine

My Mischief Weekend

Originally our weekend plan was for our friends to come to our apartment and hang out, but then the plan changed, and we went to Tai O. I'm so happy that we actually went out, because the weather was absolutely nice, and Tai O is one of those places it's kind of far off that we don't normally go unless someone drag us out.

If you ever come to Hong Kong, Tai O is a fish village worth visiting. We didn't get to see the dolphins, but I heard you can see them during warmer weather, so we will definitely go there during summer.

The above is a sequence of my little mischief. We saw some fruit on the tree, since no one is there, I tried to poke it with a stick, failed, and got a large bamboo but the fruit still refused to get down. Eventually I saw a easier target, so I went for that instead. Of course I didn't actually get any free fruit because people were staring at that point...but we did buy some organic lettuce straight out from a small front lawn garden, and it's delicious. I had tremendous fun, how's your weekend?