Photo App from A Beautiful Mess

I wrote about my favorite photo apps last August and 1 year later, I am still using Labelbox and less so of the other 3 apps.

I am in love with the photo app from A Beautiful Mess right now. I love the very unique and handmade fonts that they have.  They turn normal pictures into something meaningful for people to remember. I love jazzing up my pictures and send them to my friends for a good laugh and smile. =)

Till my next blog post, be creative with your photos! =)

Making more rubber stamps ...

I discovered the joy of making rubber stamps a few months ago and am still loving it. I am still doing letters and words. Sharing with you some of the rubber stamps that I have made ...

Set of alphabets from A to Z.
Now I can stamp my own name on everything. =)

Till my next blog post, do some rubber stamping! =)

Making your own rubber stamps and loving it!

When I am stressed, I find working with my hands to be very therapeutic and relaxing. It takes my mind off my stress and I just concentrate on getting my piece of craft done. I get a sense of happiness and achievement when my craft piece is done. My latest craft / hobby is making my own rubber stamps. 

I started off with craving on soft rubber blocks or erasers with a regular pen knife but that did not turn out well. I can only do straight lines and that is quite limiting. So, I ordered the Speedball Linoleum Cutter from Amazon and now I am really enjoying the craving! =)

My first home-made rubber stamp!

There are numerous blogs and youtube videos online that can show you how to make your own rubber stamps. And I am going to add to it by sharing my easy steps:

1. Have an idea of what you want to make. I am starting off with simple words like 'hello', 'OMG!'and 'xoxo'. I have also made a checklist stamp to stamp on every page of my notebook and that would be my checklist of things to do / buy, summary points of my meeting, etc.
2. Draw your idea out onto a piece of tracing paper with a 4B pencil.
3. Stain your rubber block with an ink pad. This will make carving much easier because you can see that areas that you have craved out. Allow time for the ink to dry or you can stamp the stained rubber block on a piece of paper a few times to fast track the drying.
4. Transfer your image from the tracing paper to the rubber block. You do this by laying the tracing paper faced down onto the rubber block and rub the back of the paper with your finger tip.
5. When you have the whole image traced onto the rubber block, start craving with the linoleum cutter. Start with the #1 cutter (the thinnest cutter) first to carve out the lines of your image. Follow with the thicker cutters to complete the rest of the carving / stamp.
6. Ink your completed rubber stamp and start stamping! =)

My rubber stamping equipment. I bought everything locally in Bangkok except for the linoleum cutter.

I love rubber stamping!

I have my very own checklist stamp now! =)

See more of my rubber stamps here!

Till my next blog post, do some stamping! =)

Coke and its sharing can

I love this! Can't wait for it to come to Bangkok! Must try when I get back to Singapore next. Hope they have it in my favorite Diet Coke and it is here to stay, not just a fad!! =)

Check out their video here and my visit to the World of Coca-Cola here.

Till my next blog post, have a Coke!!
 

Skiing at the Phoenix Park

The day after we did some trout fishing in Pyeongchang, my girlfriends and I had ski lessons at the Phoenix Park Ski Resort. We signed up for the 'family package' for a full-day lesson with a English-speaking instructor. Cost Won330,000 for the 3 of us, including the rental of equipment. Lessons were in 2 two-hour session, between 10am & noon and 2pm & 4pm.

 

It was about 3 degree Celsius that day and the ground was somewhat icy which made it more slippery than usual. I did not mind skiing (or sliding and falling, for me) down the slight slope but the walking sideways up the slope in those heavy boots and skis killed my knees. It was an exhausting day! My back and knees hurt like hell but it was a good experience and we had fun! =)

 

The resort is fantastic. There are several slopes for different levels of expertise and there are lots of people there .. and they are looked like experts! I am so envious! 

 

We were taught to make big A and small A with our skis to slow down and speed up respectively. And the following conversation went on for a few times ...

 

Instructor: Make big A. Make big A.

Me stretching out my legs to make a big A as per her instructions.

Instructor: Make bigger A. That's small A.

Me: This is my biggest A!

Instructor shakes her head ....

Till my next blog post, take a ski! =)

Pyeongchang Trout Festival

In January 2013, two girlfriends and I did trip to Seoul. I have always visited Seoul in the fall and winter is so different. In Seoul itself, there was no snow towards the end of January and everything looked quite brown and dull. Shopping is also not as lively. Shops at Myeongdong were closing at about 10pm. So, we ventured outside Seoul for some winter fun! We booked ourselves at the Phoenix Park Hotel in the Pyeongchang district for some skiing and ice fishing.

Phoenix Park is easily accessible to and from Seoul. There are buses that run from the hotel/skiing facility several times a day. When we arrived, it was too late to participate in the skiing lessons and so we went off to Jinbu for the Pyeongchang Trout Festival for an afternoon. The annual festival takes place during winter and for this year it was opened between 22 Dec 2012 and 3 Feb 2013. Other than trout fishing, there are also other activities like  sledding and 4-wheeled ATV rides.

Pyeongchang Trout Festival

The festival is held over a frozen stream. The ice looks like it a about a foot thick to me, so it is very safe to jump and stomp around. =)

This is our first ice-fishing experience and there is a LOT to learn. I learnt that there are different types of bait. The people there gave us some plastic fish and worm baits. For different baits, there are different techniques to move your line and bait. For the worm bait, the up and down movements have to be short and fast . For the fish bait, the movement has to be a slow, long dip followed quickly by a quick jerk upwards. Of course, we were NOT aware of this and we went around just jerking our fishing line up and down randomly for the first freezing hour. Mistake #1. Then a very kind chap came and enlightened us. Also he said that we are fishing at the wrong area. We should be fishing near to the banks of the stream, not in the middle, as fish swims closer to the banks. Mistake #2.

The equipment

As advised by the kind chap, we then shifted ourselves closer to the bank and started using the right technique. But I think something is still not quite right as we still did not get any fish. Oh well! It's our first experience. No fish, no big deal. But it hurts a little when I see other people have 2 or 3 fish in their plastic bag. I reckon that if we have more time, we might be able to get something but we are frozen after about 2 hours and decided to call it quits.

See! They have trout!!

When you do go the festival, dress very warmly. It is freezing and you will be out there for a long time. Jerking fish lines up and down isn't exactly a cardio activity, so there is no chance of your body warming up. =)

Till my next blog post, have some winter fun! =)

Bukit Timah Hill, Singapore

Took a short hike at the Bukit Timah Hill in Singapore last month. I think this is the only hill in flat Singapore, standing at a hight of about 164 meters.

Relative to the Achasan and the Bukhansan, Bukit Timah Hill is a baby. =)

The map. We took the blue route to the quarry and also the yellow route to the summit.

A warning about feeding the monkeys. But I did not see any monkeys at all.

Steep slope at near to the start of the trail. Really steep. You must be really stupid to run.

Nothing much at the summit. Just a pavilion for people to catch their breathe and a boulder for picture-taking.

Short hike. Easy climb. Good workout. Suitable for all ages. Fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning! =)

Till my next blog post, go hiking!

Thai Cooking School

I have been living in Bangkok for more than 14 years and I still do not cook Thai food and have not attended any Thai food cooking class. Lots of tourists come to Thailand and other than eating, shopping and relaxing at the spa with facials, massages, manicures and pedicures, they also attend cooking class. So, why not me?

Thanks to my sister and my 10-year-old nephew, I finally attended my first Thai cooking class in December. I must admit, it is kind-of fake but a jolly good way to spend a morning or afternoon in Bangkok. I say this is kind-of fake because we probably did about 50% of the work and the instructor and his assistant did the rest. And this is what made it 'jolly' since I did not have to do all the work. =)

Name of the cooking school on my apron. Love the batik and quilt work on it!

The cooking school is located at the Silom area. We visited a nearby wet market and learnt about the different types of chilli, eggplant, ginger, basil leaves, etc that we have in Asia. Great knowledge for me! We took some ingredients back to the cooking school.

Learning about ingredients at the wet market

First thing that we did when we got back was to use lots of running water to wash the ingredients - carrots, spring onion, lime, shallots, tomatoes, etc. As we were doing that, the assistant helped arrange them beautifully on a round netted flat basket.

The ingredients that we used. A bit of an overkill as we had a lot of leftover ingredients. But it provided a great photo opportunity. =)

Now, please remember that I am an amateur cook, so I still have a lot of learn. I learnt that in Thai cooking, the meat, seafood and vegetables can be changed to your liking. But the seasoning and key ingredients are critical as they add aroma and flavor to the dishes. So, we absolutely cannot leave them out of any Thai dish.

Our cooking instructor. He not only taught us how to cook the dishes and he is the cameraman as well.

We cut and prepared the ingredients in a room, all seated on the floor and in a circle. A tip: please come in pants or bermudas and not a short, tight denim shirt. Th actual cooking / stir frying is done outside, along the corridor. Then there is another room, where there are tables and chairs for us to sit down and enjoy what we have cooked. 

We went on a Sunday and the dishes that we actively made were: chicken in coconut milk (tom kah gai), red curry with chicken (kaeng ped gai) and chicken with cashew nuts (gai pad med mamuang). I say 'actively' because these are the dishes that we actually did the chopping and the stir frying. The other dishes that were demonstrated to us by the instructor and we made limited effort are glass noodle salad (yum woon sen), fish cake (thod mun pla) and banana in coconut milk (kluay buad chee).

Chopping, stir frying and tasty chicken with cashew nuts in just a few minutes. It helps when you have all the ingredients and equipment ready at your arm's length. =)

There are different dishes planned for different days of the week. Maybe next year when my sister and nephew come to Bangkok again, we can go on Monday and learn how to make red rubies (my favorite Thai dessert) and green curry.

Some of the dishes that we 'made'.

Like I said before, this cooking class is a jolly way of spending an afternoon with your loved ones and getting some knowledge and hands-on experience on Thai cooking. And it is Baht 1000 for the experience, food and a recipe book. Try it! =)

Till my next blog post, cook! =)

Art or disrespect?

Spotted at Samcheongdong, Seoul ....

Till my next blog post, attend an art show! =)

Skyline Luge at Sentosa, Singapore

Another post on Sentosa. Like I have mentioned before, there is more to Sentosa other than Universal Studio and the casino.

There is also the Port of Lost Wonder and the Skyline Luge. My family and I have been to the Skyline Luge twice before and it is good fun. First you take the 'Skyride' up the slope to the top and then your take the 'Luge' down. There are 2 Luge trails - the Jungle trail (aka the easier one) and the Dragon trail (aka the slightly longer and more challenging one).

Kids who are too young and cannot control the Luge on their own will have to ride with an adult. The staff will check if your children can manage the luge, if they cannot, then they will not let them ride the luge by themselves. Wearing a safety helmet is a must. Safety first!

The Skyride. Look back on the way up and enjoy the good view. Leave your crocs and slippers at home, they may fall off during the ride. =)

The Luge - good fun for the kids!

Till my next blog post, go luge! =)

Port of Lost Wonder at Sentosa, Singapore

It was Singapore's 47th birthday last week and since school was off on the 9th and 10th of August, I decided to bring my son back to Singapore so that he can spend some bonding time with his 3 cousins. I have only one son and it is important for him to spend time and bond with his cousins .. they will, afterall, be his family when my husband and I are gone. I should have heeded LKY's advice of having more kids but ... never mind, that's another long story altogether and I wouldn't bore you now.

We did the usual stuff like shopping, watching movies, eating, swimming, etc in Singapore. We also went to Sentosa.

There is more to Sentosa other than Universal Studio and the casino. There is a new water play park called 'Port of Lost Wonder' at the Palawan beach and my son and niece spent a morning there.

The park is really small. It is essentially just one 'pirate ship' with 3 mini-slides and a lot of water splashing around. Nevertheless, the kids had a great time. They went on the slides for like a million times and sprayed each other numerous times with the water hoses and water guns. Kids are so amazing, they are very simple people ... it takes so little for them to have tons of fun.

I would recommend this place for young kids below 6. The area is small and parents can sit under the shade and still keep an eye on their kids. =) Lots of families brought their own picnic mats and lazed around on the lawn.

As usual, some form of price discrimination is practised at this place. Weekend entry is S$15 a child. During the weekdays, it is S$8. Adults can enter free if they have a child with them. No time limit imposed. But after 2 to 3 hours, the kids will be super-tired.

Obviously, it is best go in the morning. We went on a Sunday and arrived there at about 10am. There were not that many people at 10am but by noon, the place was quite packed.

There is a super-big bucket of water that tilts and pours water down every 5 minutes or so. The kids love it .. you can hear their joy from their squeals of delight! =)

This pirate ship is the centerpiece of the whole play park

Till my next blog post, go and make some babies! =)

My favorite photo apps

Everyone loves taking photos! I love taking photos too! When my company runs a photo contest for one of our brands, we see record-breaking number of people signing up on the brand's website and Facebook pages to submit their photos. Everyone is obsessed with taking photos and sharing them.

Some people are very meticulous and have multiple photo editing apps on their smartphones to create the perfect photos. They crop the photo, adjust the exposure, saturation, convert it to black and white, sharpen the image, soften the focus, etc to create a masterpiece. For me, I do not have the patience or an artistic eye to do all of these. But I do really want my photos to tell a story or share a moment with my loved ones. So, my favorite photo apps are not the editing ones but those that let me add in my thoughts and share that 'kodak' moment with my family and friends.

As of today, my top favorite photo app is Red Stamp. This app allows you to personalize your photos into fabulous-looking postcards and share them with your friends via email, Facebook, etc. The templates are very modern-looking and there are lots to choose from (range from just saying hello to your best friend to thank-you notes for the cupcake your colleague gave you for breakfast to announcing engagements and new home address). The app is free but some templates cost money to download.

Red Stamp - beautiful templates for personalizing your photos!

My second favorite photo app is WordFoto. It brings your photos to the next level by giving you the option to integrate your own words into the pictures. I have to play around with it for a while to learn what kind of photos works best so that the words will be of a decent font size for reading. You have to use close-up pictures. You can choose from different preset styles or customize your own. Costs US$1.99 from the App Store.

WordFoto - power of photos and words together!
My niece drew the hearts and I added in 'love of my life'. I showed it to her and she gave me her most beautiful smile. =)

Before Red Stamp came along, I Labelbox a lot. I still use it now. I add thoughts to my photos and also label them with details of when and where they are taken but the output are just not as pretty as Red Stamp. A big plus of this app is it is very easy to use. The app is free but you have to pay for some of the nicer-looking labels. I am a cheap-skate at heart and have not bought any of the labels that cost money. =)

Labelbox - extremely easy to use

Last but not least, this Lego Photo app is for entertainment purposes for me. I enjoy uploading a photo and just trust Lego to transform it to a 'mosaic photo' in various colors. One of these days, when I am really free and have nothing to do, I will order some Lego pieces and make a photo mosaic of my own face. =)

It is free entertainment for myself and little kids to enjoy.

Lego Photo - free entertainment

Till my next blog post, have fun with your photos! =)

Draw Something

Draw Something is my latest addiction. It is so much more fun than farming. Have you tried it? =)

Draw Something. Give it a shot!

Till my next blog entry, play something! =)

What boys want ....

If you have a child in primary school, you can definitely relate to this blog entry.

Every half a year or so, my son will came back from school and request that we get him the latest craze in school. I call these crazes ‘toys’ but he calls them ‘cool gadgets’ (Sigh! Generation gap.). These crazes include:

Bagugan: I still clueless about what these small but heavy ping-pong balls do. They pop open to expose something when thrown to hit something. What exactly are these things?!?

Nerf: These are scary play guns for adults. They range from some small ones that hang onto a key chain to machine-gun-looking ones that fire out a string of ammo darts to motorized water-blasting ones. I strongly resisted getting any Nerf guns for my son but a friend of mine from the US bought one for him and he was ecstatic. =(  

Small pocket-sized Nerf

Beyblades: You spin these things off to a ‘stadium’ hoping to knock some other beyblades off. What is the kick here?!? The beyblades come in fighter-sounding names like Storm Pegasus, Dark Wolf, etc. These things are so popular that they even have competitions at shopping malls in Singapore.

Beyblades with the launcher

Match Attax: Soccer players trading cards. I would give away all the bad-looking players and keep the good-looking, yummy ones but that is not the way it is done. =)

Match Attax trading cards

And the latest that my son is into – Yo-yos: Do you know that there are responsive and unresponsive yo-yos? When I was a kid, there is only one type of yo-yo and they cost about S$1 piece. A few weekends ago, my son spent Baht395 on his yo-yo. That is S$16. 16x more than what I spent on my yo-yo! I should go and work for a toy company like Hasbro. I hear they made about 20% operating margin last year.

Blazing Teens Yoyo

One craze that I am all-nuts over is Cabin Fever. This is the latest installation in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. This sort of healthy reading crazes, I like and can support. =)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Cabin Fever

Till my next blog entry, stay young always! =)