ABC Waters @ Alexandra Canal, ArtScience Museum and Of Course, More Craft Works!

In conjunction with the World Water Day, the Tanjong Pagar GRC held a Family Day Carnival by the Water-cum-Opening of ABC Waters @ Alexandra Canal last Saturday. It was pouring pretty heavily just an hour before the start of the event, but the weather couldn't be better after that - a cool fine evening just great for taking a stroll by the nicely done-up canal. BTW, ABC stands for Active, Beautiful and Clean!

We were even greeted by an Indian with a handsome snake to pose for photos! With free flow of snacks like popcorn, candy floss and malt candy on stick and even burgers good enough for dinner, the good number of crafting activities kept children and even adults and old folks occupied.

MM Lee Kuan Yew accompanied by the other MPs of the GRC.

Then on Sunday, I brought the whole family to the newly opened ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands. Even at 20% discount for the tickets, it was a whopping $97 for a mixture of 5 tickets, but well-worth the price walking through the four opening exhibitions -

(1) ArtScience: A Journey Through Creativity,

(2) Genghis Khan: The Exhibition,

(3) Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds, and

(4) Travelling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World.

Personally, I enjoyed walking through the Genghis Khan exhibition most. A good flow of easy info displayed at every turn intertwined with the display of more than 200 authentic artifacts and weaponry from the conqueror’s reign, you are guaranteed to walk out knowing a well-rounded story of one of the world’s greatest leaders - his background and family, the wars and warfare, weapons and tactics, the influence of the Mongol empire on culture, law and finance.

The dim lights in the Shipwrecked exhibition added to the "at the bottom of the sea" feeling when we walked through the some 60,000 objects carried by a ninth-century Arab dhow. Lying undisturbed on the ocean floor for more than 1,100 years until its discovery near Indonesia's Belitung Island in 1998, the collection has been kept intact as one entire collection to reflect accurately the assortment and magnitude of the find which is the single largest consignment of Tang Dynasty export goods ever discovered - thousands of glazed bowls, ewers and other exquisite ceramics. The highlights have to be the several gold and silver items with such fine intricate details.

The journey through the Silk Road immersed visitors in the sights, sounds and smells of the bustling marketplaces in Asia and the Middle East - yes, you could smell the spices and hear the stimulated sound of the marketplaces at Xi'An, Turfan, Samarkand and Baghdad which were part of one of the greatest trading routes known to Man. The Silk Routes were crucial paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, soldiers and nomads from Ancient China, India, Tibet, Persia and Mediterranean countries a millennium ago.

Back to crafts. This month, I managed to complete my artdoll and ATC dolls very early, as inspiration came just so suddenly. I mixed and matched, cut and joined, modified cut-out from my QuicKutz dies to assemble this "By The Seaside" doll - see the waves and sequin seashells. Added a nice piece of fabric for a wrap around the movable hands, she sure would make heads turn!

I was also just as pleased with my ladybirds/ladybugs ATC dolls.

I used paper napkins I bought with this theme in mind, placed on painted watercolour paper to stiffen it up and add more interesting dash of colours. Can you smell Spring in the air? Little Ladybird boys and girls look like they could almost fly (or perhaps they really do fly)!

These following 3 fabric ATCs came in the mail this week. The lady on the beautiful blue background and all the fancy trims and ribbons was done by Lisa Maria (USA). See all those holes on the background - it is what is left over from when they make sequins. There is a big name to it - Punchinella. I learned something new :) And Google is acting up again, I just can't load the photo in the correct orientation

The other fabric ATC is Sharon Scothern (UK)'s Z is for Zip.

This green piece is done by Debbie Baker (Australia). She used a bright green stretchy sequin fabric (mostly used for dance costumes) which she toned down by painting it with a few coppery and olive shades of Lumiere paint, and layered with a felt backing. The embellishments are beads on metallic wires and squares of copper sheet that she heated, cut, embossed and distressed with black paint.

Thank you, ladies!!

The Lion King

I mentioned in my last post about the OWOH giveaways I won. This is the 2nd one - a set of floral stamps, complete with a piece of acrylic block handle and a stamp pad, from Gail's Card Cafe. Thanks, Gail!

This artdoll is overdue, but nevertheless, she's completed and on her way to Amelia Ruscoe (New Zealand). The theme was Goddess, but I wanted to create one closer to heart, so I found a Goddess of Mercy picture and drew on parchment paper to create these dolls. The colours of the variegated paper and the embossing done on the paper created a lovely surreal effect. Had to add a touch of my tatted flowers ;)

I was unsure if I should jump in on this Metallic swap, but I couldn't stop myself. I created, in a way, a personalized fabric ATC for everyone but all based on the same concept - embossed metal foil coloured with black Indian ink, with a hint of Spring in the background colours and the rolled fabric rose. The surface was touched up lightly with metallic crayons and the border finished off with a metallic thread.

Pauline Mackenzie (Australia) was the first to send out for the swap, but she mistakingly made a postcard instead of an ATC. Of course we won't mind the mistake, and it's certainly a well-composed one - the embellishment was done with model magic then painted, and rubbed and buffed to give the metallic look.

The 2nd piece of metallic ATC came from Kim Young (USA), she textured the metal foil and sewed over them onto handmade silk paper. Love the bright, yet at the same time, warm colours!

The last 2 ATCs came from Germany by Ann Seidel - I is for Inchies and a Valentine Heart (for the F card I sent her mistakingly). Ann's I card with all the inchies came just when I'm going to do an inchies swap, I couldn't stop smiling at the coincidence :)

S$10 million musical, The Lion King, is the inaugural theatrical event at the new Sands Theatre, which can seat 1,627 people. Stunning costumes - the giraffes and zebras are my favourites. Of course the mask of Scar and Mufasa and how they hang over like real lions (photo above) are simply fantastic. Kristine, who went to the musical with me on Friday night, felt that the all the animals look so real like. Indeed!

We didn't manage to explore the whole Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands on Friday, we went a second time today and also to the ArtScience Museum. More in the next post!

Leaving The Garden - A Custom

Survived another week without a maid, but hope a new one will be coming real soon, sigh. I was too busy to participate in this year OWOH giveaway. I did manage to visit some of the blogs though, and was lucky enough to win 2 giveaways. 1 is this black and silver stone bracelet from Anna McCurdy in Western Canada. Anna arranged the stones in such that the length will fit me and it's just perfect. I'm not a fashion guru, but I do think it's chic. Thanks, Anna!

My J cards revealed .... they are ... jellyfish! I'm not sure if they look like the real thing, but I'm happy with the tatted design and the whole card in general. Hope my recipients think likewise.

The theme for this month ATC session in Bishan Library was "March". Let's see - we have March starting on the same day of the week as November every year and February in common years only. International Women's Day is marked on the 8th of March every year. Pi Day is observed on March 14 because of the date's representation as 3/14 in month/day date format. This representation adheres to the commonly used approximation of 3.14 for π. World Water Day is observed on March 22 since 1993 when the United Nations General Assembly declared March 22 as World Day for Water, and the theme for 2011 is "Water for Cities". After doing so much homework, I decided just a simple "March Marching In", and well, they do really march by pulling the 2 plastic strips.

We also learned to draw the Ed Emberley way using his books available in the library. Some are quite simple, but some are pretty complex pictures, he is able to show step by step drawing with just simple shapes and lines which will lead to the all sorts of pictures. You can see for yourself what we managed in the half hour!

I drew this scarecrow with highlighters following one of the books. Not bad for someone who don't draw :) The green hexagons piece was traded with Vicki, who painstakingly cut and pieced every piece by hand, while the ducks were drawn by Lyn.

出花园是潮人一种特有的成人礼俗。家中有15岁男女孩子的家庭，要为他们办出花园仪式以表示他们已经长大成人。出花园当天清早，要为孩子备办三牲果品拜别从小守护他们的公婆神，表示孩子已经长大，可以走出园，不再是终日在花园里玩闹的孩童了。其仪式是将三牲果品合凑成四件或八件或十二件，陈置在俗称“胶掠”上，请出公婆神的神炉，由出花园的孩子跪拜，拜毕，以后就不再拜了。出花园的孩子要穿红皮屐，吃公鸡头，所有食品都要吃一点。

Here's an attempt to translate the above Chinese text. "Leaving The Garden" is a traditional custom unique to the Teochew (which is one of the Chinese dialect groups). When a child reaches 15 years old according to the Chinese calender, the child goes through the garden ceremony to indicate that the child is already grown up and may go out the garden, and is no longer the noisy child who would play all day long in the garden.

Well, my boy just went through this today. I guess my mother-in-law has simplified a lot of things already. We went to the temple in the early morning to pray. As the child cannot meet any strangers (and so not go out of the house) throughout the whole day of the ceremony, we brought his new pyjamas, briefs and shoes to the temple instead. Back home, he then bathed with the flowers offerings and wear the new clothings. After that, offered tea to parents, and everyone sat down for lunch, eating a bit of every item of the temple offerings. This is the first time I know and went through such a ceremony (cos' I'm a Cantonese and we don't have such a custom).

Have You Watched Emily?

Another week passed without a maid :( Only consoling thing is that I have lost a little bit of the weight I gained which stubbornly would not go down!

I finished "V" finally! V is for victory, but alas, I'm resolved on tatting animals, so it's V is for Vampire Bat. I came up with a little black critter with bloody red eyes, but I think it looks more cute than scary.

Another set of animal done - I is for Ibis. Since they look like flamingo, I modified Martha Ess' flamingo design to come up with this. I'm designing and working on J now, and is pretty pleased with the J********, can you guess!?! Stay tune!

Here's my set of complete H - my tatted hedgehog, hats from Mari (South Aftica) and Norma (USA), and a house that Sherry Dreier (USA) just built with needle-punching.

V is for Veggie and W is for Weaving received from Lyn Strauch (USA) and Y is for Yarn from Sharon Scothern (UK).

Sharon explained that she laid organza over the background fabric and sewed the channels to make the Y. Frizzy yarn were then inserted into each channel. Ingenious way to make up the Y!

Last night, my boy and I were at the Esplanade to catch Ivan Heng in his role of Emily of Emerald Hill, a finale to W!LD RICE’s 10th Anniversary season of smash hits. A one-woman play, Emily is a Chinese Peranakan, who by dint of her native wit and cunning, emerges as the matriarch of a large and distinguished household, but only at the expense of her son’s suicide and her estrangement from her husband. The end of the play sees her alone in a much reduced mansion. She is old, and wistful, and the remnants of her family have moved to the suburbs while she is surrounded by the urgent hammering and pounding of an expanding inner-city construction.

Since 1999 when Ivan Heng became the first male actor to play Emily, he has performed a total of 98 performances as Emily to date. “A moving, funny and accomplished piece of theatre.” – The Age, Australia - this summed up nicely my sentiments too.

I Love Flowers, Do You?

No. 15th day without a maid when she had to go back to Indonesia because of problems at home. Now I have to find time to do more household chores, but luckily with much help from dear Mom. So things are going slow.

These are private swaps that I finally finished. The first one is an ATC for Lisa Alff (USA) with her name sewed on the basket, filled with flowers done with creative tatting.

"What is creative tatting?" non-tatters would ask. Well, it is a way of tatting realistic flowers with the creative knot. They are pretty and with much room for creativity, but tedious if you want colours - I have once used 4 shuttles concurrently in order to get 4 colours. That's the time you can't tat just about everywhere but to sit down in a quiet corner and concentrate or else, you'll be busy untangling the shuttles more than you tat!

This second one is a fabric postcard for Lynn Hodge (USA). YES, a fabric postcard of size 4" by 6" and this is the FIRST piece of postcard I sewed! I'm ready to tackle fabric postcards, but I don't think I'll do a lot as they do take much more time to hand-sew. I expanded my "Floral Bliss" motif to fill up the whole postcard with sweet pink blooms.

Beautiful Chinese paper cutting. This is a gift brought back by DH who is outstationed in Guiyang, China, hand-cut by a co-worker. She has lots of credit to her name, winning numerous paper-cutting competitions. Can't wait to meet her in person!

I'll end with these real blooms received from DH who is now back to his job in China. Thank you, they are lovely <3

Lot of Fishes for CNY and Lot of Hearts for Valentine's Day!

The ATC A*Live session this month coincided with the Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day, so Moses planned for us to do a collage fish (年年有余）.

We also had Yusheng (捞鱼生) arranged in a most ingenious way in the shape of a bunny!

The theme for the ATC swap this month was naturally "Heart", I did a heart pocket with teabag folding "Having Lot of Love in the Heart", and "Popping Heart" - a smaller Heart popping out of the weaved Heart by pulling the golden string.

The bottom left ATC is my collage fish done during the session. The top left is a stamped piece I received from Rita, the Heart of Gold is drawn by Sor Huan and the last piece, Kokoro, by scrapbooking expert, Vicki.

Amy McDonald (USA) did a very different Queen for a Day doll for me. With a paper body base and crown, everything else is non-paper - a clay face, yarn hair, fabric cloak, glass crystal choker. Well, I'm inspired to try more types of materials for my subsequent paper dolls too. We'll see!

I'm still trying to tat up the animal for my V cards, but in the meantime, more alphabets arrived: H is for Hat from Norma Mason (USA), T is for Triangle from Hetty van Boven (Australia) and U is for Underwear from Lyn Strauch (USA).

My boy is in his 2nd Year Japanese language class. This is a A4-size Spring poster he conceptualized and printed (the words and photos), while I helped him to complete the piece using die-cuts and hand-cutting. Really hope that we will have a chance to visit Japan in spring to see her famous Sakura!

We have another colleague resigning. I tatted yet another leaf bookmark for her, I just love this particular design!

We had lion dance (舞狮) in our office yesterday, accompanying our bosses' walkabout.

This is a traditional dance in the Chinese culture - performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume. The story goes that once upon a time a monk combined all the lucky magical animals he could think of to made a lion to protect the people from evils plaguing the land.

During Chinese New Year, lion dancer troupes from the Chinese martial art schools or Chinese guilds and associations will visit houses and shops of the Chinese community to perform the traditional custom of "cai ching" (採青), which literally means "plucking the greens", a quest by the 'lion' to pluck the auspicious green, usually vegetables like lettuce which is called 'cái' (菜) in Chinese that sound like 'cái' (财) (fortune) and auspicious fruit like oranges tied to a "Red Envelope" containing money; either hang highly or just put on a table in front of the premises. The "lion" will dance and approach the "green" and "red envelope" like a curious cat, to "eat the green" and "spit" it out leave it in a nice arrangement, like a auspicious character but keep the "red envelope". The lion dance is believed to bring good luck and fortune to the business and the troupe is rewarded with the "red envelope".

I'm ending off with these quick sketches done by my youngest girl, Kristine, just before she went off to sleep. I love the children's doodlings done without pressure and without any restriction - give a most carefree feeling to them. These are to the theme of love - a TV and TV controller loving each other, while the basket and vegetable are not too sure of their love for each other! Cute!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Pongal Festival and Chinese New Year

Singapore is a multi-racial country, so we get to interact and share festivals and participate. Here are some photos I took at a little Indian gathering at our neighbourhood last Sunday.


The event ? The Harvest Festival, or the Pongal Festival, which was originally in celebration of a good harvest in South India, where farming is the main form of livelihood. Here in Singapore, the Pongal Festival welcomes the beginning of the 10th Tamil month, called Thai, which falls in mid-January each year.

At the gathering, we saw how Pongal rice, sweet sticky rice where milk, rice and sugar are boiled together, was prepared. Also, a number of Indian families were patiently drawing Pongal Kolam designs using coloured crushed rice (I counted, they used 5 to 6 colours only). I couldn't resist doing a little research into these pretty drawings. There are line kolams, using free hand drawing of lines to make geometrical pattern, and pulli (dots) kolam, where dots are arranged in a specific sequence and order; these pullis joined to make pictorial designs. In the pulli kolam type, there is an another type called Chuzhi kolam, where twisted chains are formed by linking one loop with the next and forming designs with the basic pattern.

The other highlight was the presence of a cow, Letchmi, and calf, Veena. Adults and children alike were excited and all went up front for a close encounter and photos, it was really a rare chance to be up so close with farm animals in an urban place like Singapore!

If you are interested, this website has quite a bit of info on the Pongal Festival: http://www.pongalfestival.org

Following closely after the Indian festival is a Chinese festival - the Chinese New Year or the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is the longest and most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is known as the "Spring Festival," the literal translation of the Chinese name 春节. The festival begins on the first day of the first month (正月) in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with the Yuan Xiao Festival (元宵节) or Lantern Festival on the 15th day. Rice dumplings tangyuan (汤圆), a sweet glutinous rice ball brewed in a soup, is eaten this day. In Singapore, this day is celebrated by individuals seeking for a love partner, a different version of Valentine's Day.

People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in the hope to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". On Chinese New Year's Eve (除夕), Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers (not in Singapore though since it is banned). Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile; forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

According to legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nien (年). Nien would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nien ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nien was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nien was afraid of the colour red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nien. From then on, Nien never came to the village again.

Wow, I have written so much, I'll keep the rest short, just eye candies. Here's my W is for Whale ATCs with tatted blue whales.

I received more ATCs than I'm working on! First is this pair of Time/Watches/Clocks dolls from Margie Diamante (USA).  BTW, I just changed to a new blogger editing format and just don't understand why my portrait photos are turning up the wrong way, and it's so frustrating :(  Do you have the same problem? 

Here are U for Upholstery, V for Violet and W for Winter from Jenna Louise (USA).

And last but not least, a pair of snow angels from Lynette McNamara (New Zealand).  Lynette stamped, embossed and coloured her cards so well, her cards are as good as printed ones!

Thank you gals, I love all these arts in the mail!