yelp for help

Help! I’m looking for a good work bag and I can’t find anything I like.

The problem is that I’ve never really been a really big bag person. I rarely buy them, and when I do find something I like, I wear it almost everyday till it falls apart.

I kind of know what I want – something with a structured shape, preferably leather, big enough to fit some A4 files.

Help! Do you know of any online sites with a good selection of bags? I’ve checked Queen’s Wardrobe and Asos.com without much success.

Or maybe there’s a shop in Singapore that sells nice, unique bags?

I’m quite picky so it’s driving me crazy that I don’t have a proper workbag yet. Can you believe that I’m using the $2 cotton on bag as my work bag? Madness!

So far, bags that have caught my fancy are:

This bucket bag from Asos.

Or, this book bag.

Or maybe go totally the other way and get this handmade canvas bag instead?

Yelp!

sun’s in the sky, it makes for happy endings

Had a nice, sloth-y weekend which I spent mostly on my sofa, watching tv and relaxing. ‘Twas pretty nice after a hectic week.

Finally hit the gym after one month of not working out. Eek – it was not pretty! Remind me never to miss out on my regular exercise again.

Random snaps taken over the weekend and this morning.

Photos taken at Tanjong Pagar, the last 2 are the outside facade of my friend Malcolm’s new restaurant, The Candlenut Kitchen. Nice isn’t it?

Photos taken after the Zee Avi showcase.

Can you see the tiny orange kite in the right hand side of the sky? I live on the 13th floor so that kite was pretty high up!

Photos from my morning commute. I love that I can take a bus to work!

Hope you had a good weekend!

*Title of post comes from the song “She’s Got You High” by Mumm-ra, off the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack.

NOS-MO-KING

The other day, I wrote that the Ramona and Beazus book series are a great inspiration to me and are some of my most loved books from my childhood. I just found out that the movie’s coming out later in the year! Exciting!

Many big names in the movie.

I don’t know if casting Selena Gomez as the Beazus is such a good idea. She really wasn’t how I pictured Beazus. The actress who plays Ramona looks spot on though!

a moment, a love, a dream aloud

Two weeks ago I had a really awesome picnic with my friends, it was a surprise party for one of my best friends, shal. We had yummy food cooked by my friend and soon-to-be-restaurant-owner, Malcolm, lovely balloons and party hats and everyone came in happy bright colours! And we managed to surprise her! 🙂

Her birthday’s actually today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHALIE!

Photos below:

The pretty birthday girl!

Walking to our 2nd picnic of the day – hosted by sarah and melly!

All photos not by me *blush*

Lovely day – I had to leave early for work but still great day nonetheless.

Like Farah says, it was EPIKNIKKK. 😛

stop and stare

Two weeks ago I did something new and exciting!

I let strangers stare at me, pore over every feature and flaw as they tried to capture my likeness on a piece of blank canvas.

I posed for Portrait Day. It was fun!

I settled on the ideal expression to present to the artists, then quietly cursed myself as I struggled to hold a smile I was sure looked as pretty as that of a scary clown, and thought about whether I should have worn something different.

It lasted all of 20 minutes, and at the end the portraits were so pretty that I ended up buying 6!

Shyam does really good watercolour portraits!

The different interpretations of me.

One of my favourites, done by Evan. Highly stylised and quite sexy (haha!) I asked him why he didn’t draw me with eyes but he said he just felt like it. Heheh.

Having a hard time choosing!

Me with Don. He made me look like Veronica from the Archie comics!

Photos by Zinkie

Love this last one. The artist, Drew, has amazing style and his illustrations are the kind that you can really picture in a storybook.

Portrait Day is organised by OIC, it usually happens every first Sunday of the month at the MAAD market. I highly encourage you to check it out! I think if I would like to do it again but with erfen. Think it would be really nice!

Now I have 6 portraits of me and I don’t know what to do with it. I wonder if hanging them up together would make me appear egoistic? Hahah, I don’t know.

like a kid again

I had one of those weekends where at first I think, I’m just going to be staying at home and watching tv, generally wasting my weekend away and then something happens and it’s suddenly madcap and full of adventure.

On Saturday we went to Arab Street for dinner and while enjoying the hummus and chicken kebab, we got a call from erfen’s sister who tells us that she was giving us 2 tickets for a sneak peak of Universal Studios, which had just opened in Singapore.

Of course we said yes! And so we had an amazingly awesome Sunday. Photos below!

Sunny-side up!

We’re obsessed with being number one when it comes to parking. Ichi ban!

The perennial breakfast.

Being arty with the lemon tea.

Nothing says happiness like a jump!

you just can’t help the silly photos!

happy birthday brother!

my favourite – I love shrek!

The rides in Far Far Away wasn’t great, but I loved the movie characters!

Man, I love them peanut butter cups, don’t you?

Lunch!

And lastly, the regulars.

Phew! Hope you like the photos!

Overall the Universal Studios experience was above average – there are some truly scary rides, the staff did a commendable job of being positive and happy and we really felt happy being there, we even ran and sang and shouted like kids, it’s a bit like being in Disneyland!

The best ride was in Sci Fi City, two duelling rollercoaster rides which had the Battlestar Galactica theme. On one rollercoaster, we are supposed to be the “humans” and on the other we were robots called “cylon”, and the two rides would start at the same time and you could see your enemies zooming past you, there’s even a near collision!  Even the safety messages were different depending on which side you were on! Like for the humans, the message would be “remove your hat, glasses and loose objects before riding” and for the robots, it would be the robot’s visor, helmet and some weird robot accessories, etc. The sense of humour behind every part of the theme park was really impressive and made the experience authentic!

But I’m not sure if the $68 entrance fee would be worth it? There didn’t seem to be that many rides available. Hard to say though since we got in for free! 😀

Hope you had a great weekend too!

things that inspire me

My Blog It Forward post, finally!

Dear friends, about a month ago I saw that Victoria from sfgirlbybay was doing something called Blog It Forward, got a wee bit curious and decided to go check it out. Turns out that she was organising this great blogger chain letter-like thingy majiggywhich involves about 300 million bloggers*, so I decided it would be fun to join in.

* a gross exaggeration, but you get the picture!

Well, fast forward one month and a gamut of different emotions – From “Oooh I got a great idea for my BIF post” to “Wow, the other bloggers’ BIF posts are so impressive!” to “Ohhh, my ideas suck” to “Oooooh I have a great idea again, I can do this!!” to “Uggh, work sucks, when’s my turn to do the BIF post again?”, suddenly it’s D-Day.

And I’m kind of freaking out (call it blogger envy or something) and hoping that by typing this whole wall of text I’d distract you and make you forget that I actually need to do some special post called Blog It Forward or something?

Gah.

So…Here it is:

THINGS THAT INSPIRE ME:

1. dysfunctional families

Royal Tenenbaums, Arrested Development, C.R.A.Z.Y

2. quirky love

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie, Anchorman

3. books from my childhood

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Beazus and Ramona (series), The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (series), Nancy Drew (series)

4. socks

Source: weheartit.com

5. the beautiful (and furry) ones

Source: weheartit.com

Hope you enjoyed it! I could have gone on and on, but I’m stopping at 5 for your sanity! 🙂

And with that, I bid you adieu.

(Oh and remember to check out Old Sweet Song for her amazingly awesome post yesterday and check out One Blue Wren who will be posting tomorrow! These are the other lovely people who also posted on March 12 : beauty designed, Coeur de la, every little wonder, jetkat design, max and ellie, red bird style, sparker, the penny has dropped, whitney english.

things which never end

Just some of the things that happened last week.

My sense of humour (and very bad drawings)

Sherms, ever the one who spoils market with her awesome talent.

Spending my day off with my girls.

My breakfast this morning. Never underestimate yakun kaya toast breakfast sets….never.

Had a great picnic on Saturday and sat for my first portrait drawing today – story and photos next week! 🙂

I hope your weekend was good! I had to work for a bit so I’m all tired out, but tomorrow’s an off day, yay!

if you feel like it

Hi all! Turns out that my Blog It Forward post is next week! Sheesh-kebab!

Anyways, I wanna blog a more proper post but wanted to let you know about this event I am working on at the moment.

Noise Talks is a creative conference for anyone interested in advertising, design, music or just creativity in general. We’ll have excellent speakers including Zee Avi, the hilarious Rob Campbell and our homegrown Kelley Cheng. Info below!

I’ve been working on this since last year so it’d be great if you could support me (if it’s up your alley, of course!) 🙂

plork and way

Yikes-a-bee!

The past weekend has been about work, work, work. Fortunately, there were some moments of respite and fun, which I thankfully managed to capture in pictures. Yay!

Photos from Portrait Day, organised by Organisation of Illustrators Council specially for Noise Singapore. The boy in the first photo was our first model of the day.

I love how each artist has a different style and choice of medium and different way of capturing your essence in their work.

We’re doing this again this Sunday from 3-6pm! I might just do it, it’s so fun and you can get your artwork of choice for only $10, which goes to the artist. Such a lovely concept by OIC.

Fishman. Artwork by ANTZ.

Wall of free expression. The one that says Meow is by me!

Dinner buffet with the family on Sunday at Furama Cityfront Hotel. First time wearing my Where The Wild Things Are dress.

This was taken today, a goofy kind of photo.

Catbag.

And that pretty much sums up my weekend. I have two days of leave starting tomorrow which I haven’t decided how I will spend, but I’m hoping to wander around the island a little bit and take photos, so here’s to that!

I’m hoping to do a few things this coming weeks which I’ve always wanted to do but never did.

This includes catching a movie by myself, yep I’ve never done it before! I can do lunches alone but somehow could never go to the movies alone…let’s see if I make it!

Top 2 photos shamelessly pilfered from the noise temps, the rest are by me (well except the one of erfen and I, of course)