Just Keep Swimming…

Ever watched Finding Nemo? I’ll always remember catching this film with my nephew and the Beloved and how much fun we had…While Dory is so absent-minded, I like her philosophy of just forging ahead, in spite of all circumstances…. These days have been exciting, but tiring too, which numerous activities packed in, like having an all night scrapathon from 6pm – 6am at Yommie’s Place, my LSS where I teach classes. It was fun hanging out with the ladies, dressed in our PJs, having a sizzle, singing crazy songs and scrapping into the night. That certainly helped me completed numerous pages! Here are some for Pink Sketches that have been fun to create:

Just Keep Swimming, a personal reminder not to fear anything, anyone or any circumstance, but to always stay afloat…we all need that at some point in our lives, don’t we?

Then here’s the next, which again shows how much I miss all the lovely food I can find readily in Singapore and Malaysia…. An ode to all the cravings I have. Only that, I have to do all the cooking of the dishes when I want to eat them, instead of happily skipping downstairs, to the eateries near my home to buy from uncle a packet of chicken rice, or from the lovely Malay auntie, my sambal goreng (veges fried with chilli)…

I’m slowly learning to slow down and smell the roses…Admiring the beauty all the around and gasping at just how creative God is… The Beloved and I love driving home and just taking in the skyline and the beautiful trees and blooms that surround us…Of course the birds here are also more aggressive. I always revel in his stories of how magpies and ducks attack him when he’s out cycling…Must be quite a sight.=) Thank God for His protection however, given how common a phenomemnon this is, that cyclists here are often attacked. In fact, most cyclists here wear sticks in their helmets, in a bid to scare off the birdies, though I think they still try nonetheless, but fewer attempts are made. So here’s to God, the Creator, who’s 100% original. See the word “Bloom”? I ran out of “L” and “O”, so “1″ and “0″ replaced them, making them a lovely touch in capturing the essence of this page.

More on life soon to be posted, while I continue to happily cook, create and celebrate life…Ta!

I Love My Mee

One of my earliest memories from my childhood involves noodles, otherwise known as mee back home. To be specific, fishball noodles. Back then, a bowl of mee would cost $1.50 and the uncle that prepared the mee would always add a hearty dollop of ketchup to my bowl. I’ll always remember the day that my nanny praised me when I could actually finish eating an entire bowl of mee! Till today, mee one of those things I I love eating and since arriving here, I’ve been missing my wanton mee. So, the challenge was to create my own. Here’s the result of my hunger and craving:

How’s that? I was delighted that I managed to have some char siew(roast pork) in it too! All created from scratch=) So much for tooting my own horn… Just wanted to remember this moment that really, the most important ingredient in cooking is passion and nothing will be impossible… Ok, being hungry helps too…One of these days, I’ll be doing my own laksa…Me want mee!

If You’re Happy and You Know…

…take a pic! Salutations! Today I’m in a really happy mood as I spent the whole day creating – cooking and crafting. First up, a bright and cheerful page for Pink Sketches this week, capturing my love for photo taking. That’s me being Shutter Happy!

 

Love all those bright colors=) We also had a hearty lunch, one which I’ve been longing for – Seafood miso noodles.

The Beloved loves salmon head and me, my prawns. So this was a meal featuring our favourites with a load full of veges. We enjoyed our trip back to Asia today=) Truly, being happy is taking pride in what we do, regardless of how simple or crazy they may be. So go on, be happy!

Created for the Creator

Last week is finally over… My body can finally take a break and I need to catch up with all my marking! So the school event went well and I need not fret over rehearsals anymore=) That’s good!

What I’m amazed by is how the Beloved and I found the strength over the weekend to host a group of our friends. We cooked loads (fried bee hoon (vemicelli), chicken curry, baked chicken, salad, cocktail, jelly, green bean soup and baked some cookies phew!) but had a superb time catching up with some friends from our youth ministry whom I grew up with. That was fun. We used to be a bunch of girls yet today, we’re all married, some with children of our own… I will certainly miss them when the nect chapter of our lives unfolds… Yup, things are about to change here and I will be writing about it soon…

On the creative front, have you ever come across a sketch that you are absolutely excited about, that you dream about it for a while and in the process of creating, the juices flow over and it gets all the more enjoyable? This was exactly how I felt when putting the following page together for Pink Sketches.

 

I throughly enjoyed the process as it’s not my usual style to scrap with loads of white space. However, when I first saw this sketch, this picture came to mind as I felt that the white spaces will heighten the grandeur of the church we got married in. “First Kiss” is also special because it records the very time my Beloved and I exchanged affections with our lips. When we first started our relationship, we decided that our very first kiss will be at the altar before God, as our way of honouring Him, as well as keeping ourselves for each other till this very special day. It’s a personal conviction we had and truly it was well worth the wait! What was really funny was Pastor. Knowing that this was our very first time, the actually made us do it a second time in front of everyone, claiming that he had “missed the first”. When the Beloved asked him “Are you serious?” Pastor replied with a straight face, “Of course!” This’s what memories are certainly made of! Journalling on the layout reads: Both our us decided that our 1st kiss will be at the altar. When the moment finally came, it was it was humorous when Pastor called for us to kiss twice!

If you notice, an attempt was made to mimick and draw focus to the picture – 2 birds, 2 butterflies, 2 circles, 2 brads… I enjoyed creating the border around the page using only coredinations. The technique was to scrape the paper off where I wanted the lines of the sqaure to be, using a ruler as a guide.

Before this post ends, may I say that I’m humbled by many of your comments and I’m truly glad that through this meaningful hobby, I’ve been able to proclaim the goodness of the Lord in our lives. Thank you fellows sisters in Christ who have been so kind to leave comments here. It’s certainly a delight to know that you have shared in the joy the Lord has graciously given me. May we continue to create to honour our Creator!

When Papers Come to Life

On our usual walk to work in the morning, the beloved told me this story about Khing, a master carver, who was asked to create a bell stand for the Emperor. Khing decided to fast to focus only on the craft ahead, instead of considering if he will receive praise or criticism, nor desiring to live up to the expectations of others. After some time, Khing went out to the woods in search for the right tree to use for the bell stand. When the right tree appeared before him, the bell stand also appeared, clearly, beyond doubt. All he had to do was to put forth his hand and begin. When the bell stand was completed, it was so beautiful that the entire city suspected that it was the work of spirits. Yet to Khing, his response was, “I’m merely a craftman who loves what I do.” The Beloved said that seeing me create this week reminded him of Khing. Truth be told, I enjoyed tremendously what I created this week because of the absolutely beautiful papers I had from Graphic 45.

The women on the Fashionista collection spoke to me, as if they were waving, inviting me to join them for an adventure. So this card says “Hi! It’s Time…” The inside says “…to Celebrate!”

 

I fell in love with the rich colors of the flowers for this layout. The blues and reds were a joy to work with and I’m glad they complemented my wedding bouquet. Had fun placing all the buttons on this layout and thereafter sewing thread through them. The vintage feel of the papers made these pictures pop!

 

This now hangs proudly on my kitchen wall – both as a reminder of why I cook, as well as our calling in life to serve and feed those around us – be it physically or spiritually. Just like Khing, these projects came easily because I felt a strong connection with the products used. I simply could not stop creating!

Today also marks my first official layout for Pink Sketches, after being told last week that I’ve been selected.

Continuing with our wedding pics, this was created to remember al lthe heartwork that went into decorating for our special day. These included the church, wedding favors, to my bouquet for the reception up North.

The joy of creating continues this wonderful week, when I checked my email and saw that Shine has been selected to be up on Basic Grey’s Gallery! What a thrill! With that, I’m reminding myself that truly, creating is a process that is regenerative, one that makes me truly, truly happy. Always create not because I have to, but because I love to…

Have a great and sun shiny week! I love sunny side ups (one of those meals that is created because I heard the eggs calling my name=)!

Beautiful Weekend

This weekend was fruitful. Saturday saw my youth ministry heading to the local park for a prayer retreat.

This was the view of my estate from the park. Lovely, isn’t it? So we spent the day in prayer, seeking God and reflecting on our lives. For me, it was a good break from the hustle and bustle of work as I give thanks for His goodness, as well as consider where my life is heading. In the midst of writing while enjoying a picnic, this little guy joined me:

Incredibly happy that the camera was good enough to capture the details on this little friend. When the day ended in the evening, we were thankful that the Lord held up the skies and though there were times where it threatened to rain, it did not. Instead, we got a gentle breeze blowing through the afternoon (it should have been real hot!) and the Beloved even spied a white hawk (I think) catch a fish from the pond. Wow! We must do this more often. Gives me reason to use my dear picnic basket too=)

On a side note, my new friend, Sophia, who was generous to give a RAK (read this) sent not only what was promised, but took the time to create a card and to throw in some other goodies too! Thanks Sophia! You are a gem! These greeted me when I picked them from the post office:

So my dear Sophia, expect this to reach you soon, as I return your kindness:

This is what I really like about the creative world, where the heart is in the art we create, and we get the prvilege of blessing others. Similarly, part of our daily blessing is the joy that we get to cook our own meals, to know that we are actually provided for my the Lord. So this week’s lunch box stars my first humble attempt at chicken curry.

 

This was prepared on Sunday, where amazingly, because the Beloved and I are learning to sleep early and wake up early, got to cook, clean, read and even go to the park in the evening to cycle! Wow! It was absolutely fulfilling! I’m working on improving my cycling skills and plan to do so in the next few months. So no pics of our cycling trip for now. Instead, as the Beloved would say, “Enough pics for now!” Poor thing, my sole target for shooting!

 

So here’s to a great week ahead and I hope you have one too! We are looking forward to yet another creative and satisfying weekend!

Now there’s a great crunch…..arggh!

The last few days have been rainy here. As much as I have set my heart to running home, dear Mr Sun decided to hide behind his blanket of clouds… So when the working pants showed signs of being overstretched, I decided to do a series of crunches at home. The Beloved must have found it amusing when he saw me at it, grinning occasionally, when he finally told me that “you need to curl yourself as you come up, not lift your torso.” So that meant that all the great satisfaction I felt of having been doing the crunches religiously were thrown out of the window! However, under his guidance, it all soon worked out and oh boy, did my abs feel the strain! It felt good at the end though=)

In this cool weather, it was a treat being able to eat a bowl of yummy snow fox dessert!

   

This is a dessert which some call hashima. Boiled this in the slow cooker with red dates and dried longans. It was certainly refreshing after a hard day’s work.

On the scrapping front, been doing a layout of my nephews. Been having fun playing with my sizzix to create these titles. I like how the colors mimic those on a pizza.:

Weekends & Hols

The Beloved and I enjoy cooking together. This weekend was no exception. For us, part of living simply include preparing healthy meals for ourselves. We pack our lunches for work and eat a light dinner. As such, the menu varies from pasta salads, curries, to soups. This week was good as there was the additional public holiday that resulted in Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes being baked. We adore them!

  

Don’t you just love those strawberries? These used to be the answer when I was asked “What’s your favourite fruit?” These days ,they make a very, very rare appearance at home only when the price is right. I wanted to capture their beautiful color against our kitchen floor tiles.

Last week’s menu was passion fruit pasta salad, after our grocery shopping saw us giving a go at passion fruit that were everywhere! These lunch boxes were accompanied by grilled chicken which I experimented on by marinating them with mustard, a current favourite of ours. Yup, that’s our week’s worth of food all lined up. I used to think that the food will end up not being fresh, but was proven wrong when I learnt that the trick was proper refrigeration.

 

As for this week, it’s back to once again trying out fish head curry. I have slowly learnt to eat the head, but nonetheless will prefer the meat anytime. So what you see in the picture is actually my share of the meal.

 

So with all these yummies coming out from the kitchen, I guess it was worth it bringing the cart with me to Orchard Road. It naturally led to weird stares from people wondering what is this “Auntie” doing with this frumpy cart in Singapore’s popular shopping district! Haha…In any case, I had fun on the train capturing our trusty cart that returns home with us every weekend filled.

 

On the line of food, we are working with our youth ministry to raise goodies for a project called “Rice to the Occasion”. In our bid to reach out to the poor, we are collecting items like toothpaste, oil and washing powder to give to needy people in the community. The original idea was to give rice, before we were informed by the family service centre that the families needed other items more than rice. On our planning trip yesterday, it was certainly a humbling experience looking at the conditions fellow Singaporeans live in. This was my favourite shot for the day:

 

Just as the Lord has blessed us, we want to bless others. So here’s to continually taking good care of our healths, eating healthy and living a life that is a blessing to others! Looking forward to many more creative Weekends!