Quote of the Month: November 2014

There are times when one needs to be still to regroup and strategise. 

And then there are times when you've just got to pluck up the courage to get shit done!

Chalkboard Paint & Jam Jars

Hi, I'm Ink and I love glass jars. 

Who knew that all those glass jars Dad never threw out could be used in like a million awesome ways other than storing manageable portions of condiments?

And I also love chalkboard paint. 

. OMG something that can allow me to write on just about anything! Beware all surfaces in my personal space! To do lists for every room, here I come!

Here are just some of the awesome ways both can be used.

Image from Pinterest: http://goo.gl/uN10kc

From really pretty ways to serve dessert

Image fromn Pinterest: http://goo.gl/lchndY

To a very cute way to pack prezzies (or, you know, pack your own stuff, or the stuff you were supposed to buy as prezzies but decided you liked them foryourself). 

And chalkboard paint!

Image from Craft River: http://goo.gl/grMU1N

Oh, to be able to label everything!

Image also from Craft River

Really, I mean everything!

Another beautiful image from Craft River

And scrawl my to do lists and random ideas just about everywhere.

But I get ahead of myself. 

My first modest experiment with chalkboard paint: 

A bunch of old jam jars lying around the house.

Mac's can of chalkboard paint.

Some old newspapers. 

The pesky duo: Dog and Baby running around the house. 

The result:

 4 glass jars with lids ready for the scrawling on; one of which had to be re-painted.

One Baby who spent a good 20 minutes having paint rubbed off her palm with baby oil. Yes, Mac, that's your baby for you.

And a curious Dog circling the lids drying on the porch.

And here's one of them - finally a way I can store some of my scented tea lights..you know, other than in the partially opened packaging, on the bottom shelf.
To figure out next - how to actually write/draw anything on such a small space!

Quote of the Month : October 2014

My mantra of the month, I need to leave all that negativity behind!

Gifts: Time to Read

Three months ago, I had a couple of pretty harrowing conversations. 

One with the impressionable new intern who called me boss. At which point I responded that my boss is our boss. I'm just the one who has to guide him along the way.

And the other one with my boss, who told me here's my chance to learn how to be someone's boss. 

Gah.

I've always been the baby, the one being mentored, the one getting advice. 

What the hell am I supposed to do when I'm supposed to actually be a mentor?

Three months down the line, it's time to bid adieu to the intern who almost seems like a permanent part of the team.

And, as part of his farewell present. here's how I've framed up what I think is the most important piece of advice I'd given in the past couple of months:

Along with the book I'd been talking about which had gotten a blank stare along with the answer 

"I don't have time to read books". 

Here's the whole set of things.

In case you're wondering, the orange thing is a "keep calm and" notebook. Wish I'd had time to go have a "Keep calm and WRITE THAT DOWN!" notebook made. That would be the second most important thing I've said to him the entire time. 

And yes, if you think that top item looks a little familiar on this blog, you're spot on. 

I love that stuff. And so does he.

Don't judge us.

Sunshine and Fresh Air

There's no doubt that I'm a city girl. But it's always nice to have a change of speed once in a while.

For me, that usually means going to a different town or city, and getting lost amongst buildings, random markets & museums.

So, imagine my trepidation at having to go on a more nature-y trip. For the entire week preceding this trip, I was whining about not wanting to go. But that's as far as my wet blanket tendencies go. 

So I went along.

Below, the continuation of my whining, laced with omgthisplaceissoprettywhydoesithavetobesohardtogetto?

1. Waking up at 5am so we can take a two hour bus ride and be dropped off at the side of the road? Gahhh... Okay I'm exaggerating. This is the beautiful spot where we got off the bus to continue on by lorry. Yes, by lorry  - which was both terrifying, and awesome.

2. OMG it's a winding road with loads of sharp bends. The kind you have to blast your horn as you approach because it's a blind corner on the side of the hill, with a huge drop off the side of the road. At one point, there was a huge, oil palm filled lorry coming from the other direction and we had to pull over to let it pass. And most of us city folk did what everyone tends to do when someone says "ooh...pretty" - go over to the side of the lorry that offered the better look. That would be the side that was on the edge of the cliff, of course. And of course, yours truly was the one who was in the opposite corner going "Whoah people...back on the safer side of the lorry, please!"

Otherwise, there was lots of clinging to the lorry, and being too worried about losing my phone over the cliff to take any photos. Until we arrived, of course.

3. But the place is so pretty! I don't really get the decor. But it's a nice place!

Gosh...gosh why do hotels always do this? I hate it when they have creepy paintings in the room.

4. More importantly, the food was uh-mayyyy-zinggg. Again, I probably exaggerate. But I've definitely had worse in fancier places. Definite thumbs up on the meals. And here are a couple of highlights that I bothered to take while we weren't too busy digging in. 

5. And now, my favourite bit - the slightly less terrifying lorry rides to and from some of the activities. 

Note the bangku in the corner - for those of us who can't figure out how to get on and off the lorry without one. 

This is one of my favourite shots from the trip.

6. Outdoor activities?! *cue frightening montage in my head of the thousand and one ways I could get injured* So while the rest went white water rafting, me and a couple of others stayed behind to chill out.

I can't help but hear the soundtrack from the Lord of the Rings play in my head while they head downstream. 

I'm a nerd sometimes. I know.

So it wasn't so bad after all. It was great just getting out of the city and soaking in some fresh air and sunshine.

Quote of the Month: September 2014

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein.

Just for fun (no pun intended!), here's also one of my favourite videos of all time.

Bonding with Food & Drink

One of life's pleasures I enjoy the most is catching up with friends over food and drink. 

It's one of the best parts of going home.

 

There's nothing better than a nice iced mocha while you catch up with a girlfriend on a hot afternoon.

Except maybe also being able to appreciate the quirkiness around every corner in Penang. 

Spot the blue heart?

All those desserts!!! Definitely want to come back again, preferably not right after a heavy meal so I can try these. 

These were taken at siTigun on Nagore road.

Moodboard: Modern Rustic Guest Room

After having so much fun creating the baby room moodboard, I just had to make one for the new guest room too.

For this design, I decided to set myself a little challenge - minimum cost and maximum reuse of furnishings and decor I already own. That included set of Mum's old curtains she insisted I use. A  once-over of the apartment and I quickly identified the items I had to reuse:

1. Mum's set of beige curtains (notice how this is the first item on the list)
2. White chest of drawers
3. Bluish-white queen size bed
4. White side table
5. The Ikea rug we bought real cheap a long time back but still sitting in the storeroom wrapped in its original packaging.

So, the task was to design the room by reusing all these items. Put together, I was left with a beige, gray and blue colour scheme and quite a predicament.  I hadn't the faintest idea how I was going to tie those colours together. Naturally, I looked to Pinterest for inspiration - and then browsed around for something I could get my hands on locally.

Surprisingly, it was Ikea that came to my rescue. They have a set of quilt covers which is primarily brown-beige and gray with turquoise accents. 

image source

That would instantly pull together the beige and grays I was struggling to match and also dictate the accent colour of the room - turquoise! Incidentally, I have a pair of turquoise owls in my stash of decor and bang, I had my fundamental room design!

To add a little interest I'll be looking to add a few accent pieces....a turquoise chair, mirror with metal frame (not sure if I'll be able to find a similar one) and a rattan laundry basket. Finally, I included the set of paintings and a wooden based table lamp, also from my existing stash. Out of the 12 items on the moodboard, I already have 8 of them.

Taa-daa... mission to design a guest room with minimum cost and maximum reuse accomplished!

Moodboard: Light & Cheery Girl's Room

After lots and lots of delay, the renovations on the kitchen are finally underway at the new house. It's been months of negotiations, paperwork for extension approvals, insurances, building permits....i.e. stress and headache. We're not nearly done, after building there will come more paperwork, inspections and I don't know what else. The unpleasant side of renovation. Sigh...

Last week I decided I needed a break form the tiring renovation stuff and skipped ahead to a bit of fun. I stated planning out my daughter Kitty's bedroom. Kitty's still too young to choose so mummy gets to make all the decorating decisions for now!

My vision was an all white room with pops of colour, not too pink princess but still feminine. All movable furniture, nothing built-in and nothing too expensive so that when Kitty grows up decides she want to make decorating decisions of her own, the entire room can be easily changed.

Putting the board together has made my upcoming shopping trip easy. I now already have an accurate estimate of the cost. More importantly, having seen everything placed together, I won't have to second guess myself when actually going out to buy the furniture and choosing textiles for the room.


The satisfaction of completing my very first moodboard for the house (albeit some struggle with Adobe Photoshop and all) was very rewarding. It was a great decision to take a break from the heavy stuff and work on something dear I love and enjoy. Now I'm itching to put together a moodboard for the guest bedroom too.

This little project just brought back my enthusiasm to get the house done. Hurray!

Quiet Time, It’s A Luxury These Days

Took a day off from the office for a much needed ‘quiet’ day to myself. 

The hubby has left to drop baby off before heading in to work and I have just finished my morning yoga. The plan for the rest of the morning is to sit down with a huge cup of hot chocolate and enjoy flipping through Abigail Ahern's Decorating With Style and some magazines.

There's a stack of books I’ve been wanting to read; Jeffery Deaver's The Broken Window, Elenor Brown's The Weird Sisters and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. Perhaps watch some telly over lunch, hmm… Sex and the City? Love Actually? Oooh, I know… Under the Tuscan Sun!!

Then maybe take an afternoon nap before I head to the pool for a few laps in the evening before dinner. If I’m lucky I’ll get the entire pool to myself.

It’s going to be a heavenly day….

Breakfast for Two at 67 Coffee Mansion

It was one of those rare days when the hubby and I had no errands planned...and so, we decided to treat ourselves to a leisurely breakfast at 67 Coffee Mansion. The cafe is housed in a pre-war bungalow on Irving Road (just off Macalister/Anson Road).

The parking was relatively easy. Plenty of parking along the road and we were able to get a spot just a short distance from the cafe.We were the first customers at the shop when we arrived about 15 minutes after opening time.

After placing our orders for 2 Belgium Chocolate Sticks (yes, Belgium. That's what they called it on the menu), a Mushy Piggy and a Pork & Roll at the counter, we sat down at a table by the door and took their cute decor.

 

"I love this wall decor with the words spelled out using coffee beans. So cute and so true!

We thought the way the Belgium Chocolate Stick was served was cute. Stirring the chocolate block into the steaming hot cup of milk was fun and to our delight, it dissolved easily.

Soon, we could smell the wonderful aroma of bacon frying coming from the kitchen and shortly after our food came.

The Mushy Piggy...cute name for Eggs Benedict.

Pork & Roll.Yum...

The food was good although they seemed like rather small portions for us to big eaters. We managed to have a quiet and enjoyable meal before other customers started to file in - there seemed to be more of a lunch crowd. Overall I'd say the place is worth a visit and I'm personally keen to go back and try their main courses and desserts for lunch or dinner.

Happiness is to enjoy the little things in life.

Gifts: Live Learn Laugh

Farewells are always a little bittersweet. But when you know the person in question is heading towards better things, the best thing to do is to wish them well and, of course, give them a kick-ass farewell gift. 

  

Decided to do something a little different this time What you see here is the envelope instead of the card itself. 

Live. Learn. Laugh. Kind of sums up the friendship. 

Here's my card on the inside. A hopefully useful reminder while a new day-to-day routine is being developed. :)

So, what was my kick ass gift?

This super cute travel journal from Typo, RM 75.

Spent a good half hour just browsing all the designs they have. Mostly because I was struggling not to get one for myself, too! So pretty, I just want to quit my job and travel for a year just so I have an excuse to use one of these.

But no, I just got the one. And gave it to someone who will actually have use for it in the immediate future. Yay!

Weekend Project: Quick & Easy Magnet Update

Last weekend as I sat looking at the inspiration board hanging in front of my desk, some old magnets (I've had since my school days) caught my eye. I suddenly had the impulse to give the boring and tired looking magnets an update. I decided I wanted a little "bling".

Blah to Bling in under 15 minutes!

My little craft project took me less than 15 minutes to complete. Here's how.... evenly spread craft glue over the magnet, sprinkle a generous amount of glitter flakes to cover the entire surface and let dry. Finally, seal the giltter onto the magnet with some nail polish top coat. My old bottle of top coat didn't work so well on the nails but I found great use for it for crafting!

Easy peasy!

Quote of the Month: August 2014

When I picked up the violin again for the first time in six months.

Beauty Newbie: Oooo Shiny!

My makeup shelf hasn't seen much excitement lately. Until I got these! :)

Girl Meets Pearl
Liquid pearl for face by Benefit
Now if there's a bunch of people who know how to name and package their stuff, it's Benefit. It's so fun just going into their stores and browsing.

So, my tube of Girl Meets Pearl came out of the I'm Glam Therefore I Am kit. Haven't tried everything else yet - had to crack this open really quickly when I decided to quit trying to make the little bits I had left in my Too Faced palette work.

Image from benefitcosmetics.com

I was smitten from first dab. Really love the way it is so easy to use. Was a little worried that it would be a little harder to apply evenly than the palette one I've been accustomed to. It is, a little. But nothing one can't figure out really quickly.


Nail polish in loads of awesome colours!
I've got this whole love hate thing going on with nail polish. I spent my teenage years (and actually, to this day), struggling with getting a decent coat of nail polish on, and keeping it on in perfect condition for at least 24 hours. Yes, even with proper use of a base coat and top coat.
Admittedly it's usually because there isn't a manicurist who's telling me "No, stay there at the blower" every time I go "Are we done yet?". Tsk tsk. Impatience, I know.
These days, I usually get frustrated and either go to a shop to get it done, or just go without.

BUT I couldn't resist this set of really awesome colours when I came across it in Sasa.

All my favourite nail colours in one set - each bottle is 4.5ml (the typical size is around 15ml). Perfect for my sudden bouts of enthusiasm to try stuff I see on Pinteret.

Bad Hair Year - Part 4: Shiseido Fuente Forte Scalp Care Shampoo

Having not much success from the past 3 shampoos I tried (from Kheils, Burt's Bees and L'occitane) to fix my post-natal hair loss and itchy, flaky scalp, I was desperate to find one shampoo that would work for me. So when my hair stylist recommended the Shiseido Fuente Forte Scalp Care shampoo, I said "yes"immediately. At that time I was about ten months post delivery. The itching and flaking had gotten worse and I found myself having to dust off the flakes on my shoulders ever so often. Honestly it had gotten embarrassing and I had hoped that this shampoo would be the solution.

Description:
Eliminates sebum and impurities that cause scalp problems, leaving hair and the scalp clean, while maintaining moisture.

[*This was the only description I could find on the shampoo but hey all I read from that was "eliminate scalp problems, leave scalp clean".
I was sold]












My verdict:
Like a lot of Shiseido hair and body products I have used, I can only describe the scent as fresh and green with a tinge of a herbal smell. Wasn't crazy about the scent but did not dislike it either. The shampoo lathers very well with just a small amount. What I didn't quite like was that there was no conditioner in the same product range. The other 2 products in the range are a scalp treatment and a scalp serum. The stylist recommended that this shampoo not be used on a daily basis so I alternated it with the mud shampoo from Seacret (More about that in part 5). And for the most important part, did it help with the itching and flaking? Sadly, the answer is no. I really didn't feel the shampoo make a difference for my scalp. Second strike on scalp care shampoos. They just don't work for me.

By the beach

Another weekend of my continued effort to keep weekends interesting. This time, to a new place (for me at least), with good company.

This short weekend trip finally allowed me to check Port Dickson off my "places to go to" list, and also just chill out with a bunch of really fun people. Wasn't all that much to do there - which was exactly what we wanted. Strangely, a road trip with a killer playlist & fun people in the car doesn't happen as often as one would think.

Once the actual road trip part is over, other things to do were:

Stay in and play charades - another simple thing we don't quite do enough.

Go grocery shopping - we were supposed to stop by to pick up mixers. We ended up with a whole trolley that looked like full on stock-up-the-household groceries. We're weird shopaholics, I know.

Enjoy a sunset by the beach and then go for a swim, in the pool, of course.

Take silly photos with friends

And then stay in and play more games. Plus eat all that food we bought.

Then wake up the next morning to go food hunting.

Vintage Mini Album

I finally finished my very first mini album...a project of mine which has been almost 3 years in the making. I started this after having watched one too many mini album reveals on youtube.  All the gorgeous, intricate and detailed projects made by so many talented ladies out there really got my crafty wheels spinning. Think I completed about 90% of the project when I was pregnant and then came baby. After that my almost completed project just sat on the shelf till this month when I told myself I had to finish it, part of my resolution this year to try to complete the many unfinished projects I have lying around.

My "Memories" mini album will be a collection of great photos & some small souvenirs hubby and I have collected across the decade we've known each other.

The cover has fabric and paper flowers and the title Memories. The album is held shut with a magnetic ribbon clasp.

1st page: Simple distressed page with vintage dress form stamp.
2nd page: Small pocket for a pull out book, with embossed vintage stamps and tags. The little pull out book flips open has pockets for tags and lots of journaling space.

Close up of the stamps and embossing. The bird cage and journalling spot at the back of the pull out mini book.

3rd page: A little envelope page with black ribbons & flowers. The scalloped ribbon on the top of the page is handmade.
4th page: Photo mat which opens up.

The envelope containing sparkly black photo mats is held shut by magnets.

5th Page: More pockets for my many vintage tags. The front of the pocket with the beautiful red flower I'm also going to use a photomat. Also added some bling swirls for some interest.
6th page: Little flip open library pocket with more tags.Simple paper lace on the pocket is from the 100 Yen shop distressed with glitter mist.

7th page: Flip open mini book with lots of empty space for journalling.
8th page: Big pocket for more tags and a place to store sore souvenirs (movie tickets, entrance tickets from our travels, photos etc.)

The insides of the little mini book is sprayed with glitter mist and with its embossed flowers for a little more vintage feel. Edges of the book are scalloped with lace and tied with a simple white ribbon.

9th page: Vertical pocket to hold tags are lined with lace paper and ribbon and layered with a row of bold red 3D roses.
10th page: Beautiful vintage paper at the back will be a great journalling page. Also added a small pocket to hold another mini book.

The lace flower here is handmade and some stamping details on the mini book.