Cherry Bomb

Hello there, everybody. How's things? Coming back from a weekend in Melaka made me sick T_T. It was windy at the bust stop and the rain was splattering right in my face. Yesterday night was teh shitz- all I could do was toss and turn and alternate from a human broiler to a refrigerator. Hope tonight won't be as bad, or better still be wonderfully refreshing.

Anyway, the weekend in sunny Melaka was pretty all right. Went shopping and bought things. And, amongst them is the new addition to the growing camera family. Yeap. Here you go:

Presenting baby Chewwy, or Cherry for the conformists, lol. She's your regular Canon A2200 compact. Seriously, after experiencing the load of the DSLR, one will definitely realize that a DSLR is completely out of the question when wanting to go for casual shopping and snapshots. It's heavy, cumbersome and annoying in just so many ways. Unless you were planning on going for a photowalk or taking more than just snapshots, just...don't bother. Really. Kids, you think it's all hip and cool to be toting a 600g+ camera with a bigass lense (or lenses for those who don't deserve to be rich =P) but really, it's just a show-and-tell contest, maybe with no tell and just all show. 

Anyways, the A2200 is a really nice, lightweight (120-ish g, almost featherlike compared to Dee) with almost all the functions you could ask for in a compact. It has a semi-manual mode, where you can adjust settings like ISO and white balance. There's your auto mode and even an easy mode, though I can't quite tell the difference between the two. Then there's the regular lot of scenes to choose from aaaaand, my favourite feature: the funky effects =D. You can choose from lomo, miniature, poster, monochrome and fisheye. Not too bad effects, I must say. 

I went about Melaka town with Chewwy and managed to get a few shots along the way. Here they are:

This is the lomo effect. It really just darkens an image and adds a vignette effect to it, but it's pretty cool.

Miniature effect blurs the top and bottom areas, besides brightening the overall photo.

Fisheye bulges the photo, though I can tell this photo is not too good an example, lol. I'll take another when I've the time.

And here's a happy family photo! Deedee unfortunately could not be in the photo, since she was the one photographing it =P. And, yeah. It's been less than a year and yet Esmond and I have collected a pretty substantial amount of cameras, new and old. Oh, the joys of life. 

That be all for now. Happy days, everybody. Have happy days.

Sherbet Dreams

While I was still in the swing of things and I still have time to breathe, I decided to make my sister a dreamcatcher. And here it is!

I found a gorgeous string in a paper craft store. It's made of twisted tie-dyed paper in this gorgeous pastel shades of pink, yellow and blue. So pretty! My sister likes a lot of white (think Ayumi, hence the previous almost-all white collage I made for her a few years back) so I decided to use white embroidery yarn instead of the blue cotton I used for myself. The white feathers, silver and white beads go perfectly with it =D.

This one was fairly easier to do, but a more fiddly because it is an inch smaller than the previous one. Somehow or other I still messed up the middle a bit, and the whole weave is slightly off centred from (what I believe) pulling the yarn too taut. The next one I do I'd like to try waxing the thread before weaving. I hear that it will strengthen the thread as well as make it less flexible. 

  I still couldn't find a pretty enough bead for the middle. I'm trying to find a gold star bead, but though it spawns aplenty in my imagination, they appear to be scarce and almost impossible to find in reality. Does anyone know where I may find them? I've tried searching most jewellery and bead stalls in shopping malls, but with no luck. 

I did find a pretty stall in Mid Valley that sells vintage-ish  charms, but talk about pricey! They seem light enough for dreamcatchers, though I don't believe I'd get them unless it's for someone really special =P.

The little blue beads I bought from Daiso are lovely though! I love how they look so pearly and iridescent; they remind me of mauve bubbles. So pretty <3 And this time I stuck three gold stars on the middle feather just for additional magical luck =D.

These past few weeks have been so full of events I can barely remember what happened. But it's been fun and annoying and frustrating and silly altogether so yeah. Story of my life =P. 

I wanna go shopping and give my wardrobe a makeover. Which reminds me I have a blog makeover that is long overdue and I should shoot myself for procrastinating, lol.

Have a good weekend everybody~! *waves*

Catcher in The Night

Good morning everybody =D. Today I woke up exceptionally early- 9.30 am! XD. I usually sleep in on weekends, but somehow I woke up today and all the things I need to do were already booted and running in my mind so I just couldn't get back to sleep. I always have a hard time sleeping, and dream-filled nights and waking up at odd hours at random intervals throughout my sleep is not something unusual. So I decided what I really needed was a dreamcatcher!

Dreamcatchers are of Native American origin, and in the original name for them they are known as spider or dream snare. They look like spider webs, and usually a bead would be strung in the middle of the web to represent a spider. They are hung above beds and are thought to protect the sleeper from nightmares. It is common belief that good dreams would pass through the dreamcatcher and slide down the feathers to the sleeper, where else bad dreams would be caught in the web and disappear at the light of day.

I actually wondered where to buy a dreamcatcher, but upon running the search engine in my mind for any relevant shops or stalls, no results were found =P. So, I thought of the next solution: make it myself. And as you can see from the photo above, I actually did it. I made myself a dreamcatcher =D. I Googled and followed a couple of tutorials, and I bought the materials and went straight into it.

The feathers, beads and light blue cotton thread I got from Daiso (yay for five ringgit items! =D). I still have plenty left over even with all the first attempts. The suede laces I found at some random jewellery stalls in malls. I searched hardware stores for metal hoops/rings, but was unsuccessful. I almost got Esmond to make one for me in the workshop, but surprise surprise I found just the very thing I wanted in Art Friend =D. All things considered, I think this little baby was constructed under 20 ringgit =D.



It was so much fun to make =). I had a hard time at first, having to cut away the thread and start over a few times before I got the hang of it. The thread had an annoying habit of getting all tangled up even if you barely touch it and it got fiddly as I went closer to centre and the loops became smaller. I would actually like it to be a bit finer, with more loops, but for a first time this one seems intricate enough =). I'd like to get some waxed thread for the next one I make and maybe experiment with different laces for the frame =D. I saw some online that used yarn instead of suede or leather and they looked more contemporary and colourful.

On a side note, Copic provides a .ase file for Illustrator. You can now have the entire colour swatch of Copic markers to use for your digital works =D. Just download the file and drop it into your Presets > Swatches folder. You can download the file and other Copic thingies at the Copic website.

I'll stop here for now. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everybody =D. A new week of work and play ahead of us! Here's to sweet dreams and good days =).

Going Green

 

Badly taken shot+photobomb Elmo = dafaq?

Introducing the new addition to my cuddle-farm: Cauliflower! Yes, yes, I know he doesn't look like a cauliflower, and honestly if you really thought he was a cauliflower you need to spend more time doing groceries and eating your vegetables =P. Cauliflower is his name, broccoli be his species =3. Anyway, little Cauliflower hails from the faraway farm of IKEA. And I was joking about the little part. He's of a pretty decent size to be cuddled. But due to his odd shape and being top heavy, you'll most probably end up with your arms around his tufty brains while the rest of his stalk body dangles at the bottom. He's awfully cuddly though. He and Blooworm be very good friends now, and keep each other company when I'm not sleeping 8D.

Oh, and one very cute thing about baby Cauliflower: he wears a sarong! I don't care what it's meant to be: a blue checkered waistcoat, a dishcloth, a picnic blanket. It's still a sarong to me. And he looks fweaking adorable in it >w<.

There's also a dancing strawberry and a bright orange carrot in this Torva series that should be collected. Must be collected. Will be collected. The broccoli should have friends! That way when I'm not around there will be a lively vegan party on the bed, lol. Kids, if you wonder whether your toys come alive when you're not in the room: it's true. It's true it's true it's blue glue true.

I shall leave now. Farewell. 

It's over

It felt like forever when it first started, now that it's the end it felt as if hardly any time went by at all. Ridiculous, how time is. It slows down during shyt times, and it speeds up like fuck when you're all bubbly and happy. Why oh why.

So I shall leave. Go far faar away. You shall hear me screaming about the broadband yet again. Which reminds me, does my broadband even work? Meh. I'll just wait and see tomorrow. If all else fails I'll just sit somewhere and scream into a paper bag. Lol.

Farewell people! A new semester and a new load of experiences to come. Bring it on, yo.

Sho....

I never mentioned I completed Brotherhood around a week ago...XD. Must say, it was pretty darn awesome. It's not really like AC2, where the places are brighter and more colourful. Yé olde Rome seemed a bit more poverty stricken in most parts, or maybe I didn't do too good a job restoring it, lol. The whole Brothahood thing was a bit of a disappointment, though. I kinda expected calling on your brothas (or sistas) to be something more exciting than calling in a sidekick during a game of Street Fighter or something =P. But there was just so many things to doooo @_@. So many things to find, so many things to restore, so many achievements to unlock, so many things to collect O^O. I can't even say I completed the entire game...I could say I completed it, but I didn't complete eeverrryything, lol.

Anyways, things have been going on, this and that and bla bla bla. And suddenly it's almost the end of the holidays and a new semester is about to commence! Brace yourselves, everyone! A new beginning shall arise!

I need to work on that blog makeover. 

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Tune in till next time folks! =D.

Awkward

Awkward is the moment when you are walking up the stairs and you see a blank wall in front of you and you resist the urge to run right into it.

Yeah, it's that time of the mind again.