Le ramblings of such and suches

Yeah, I know.. It's been sometime since I've last blogged! Life has been somewhat busy I suppose, well I have this crazy family (Correction, crazy MOMMY.) who enjoys planning for way too many field trips and outside-the-house-days and it kinda drains your energy and at the same time makes you value your at-home-time a whole lot more and since the boys and crazy Mommy are at the pool, I shall use this "Apartment alone" (Yes, we have been staying in an apartment for about.. 4ish or so days now, I can't remember cause time seems to be rather draggy here in this very small space! Ah well, at least I can get online!) time to blog.


Oh right, before I forget I might as well tell you what we are doing living in this tiny apartment that's located somewhere in Damansara..
I signed up for the 3 month City and Guilds patisserie diploma and the start of that three month course/diploma/thang starts on March 1st (Just a day before my fourteenth birthday!) and have I told you how much I love attending courses/diplomas/thangs?!
I mean.. It's always nice being surrounded by people who share your passion and being the youngest in class!
And by being the youngest you are usually-ish in the spot light and who doesn't enjoy getting attention, eh?
Oh yarh, that's basically why we moved down to this tiny apartment and I can hardly wait for March 1st to come! Even though I'm a teeny bit nervous on starting this super long course..
I think I read something about a uniform being included.. I hope a toque (I learnt what that white fluffy hat was called from Ratatouille! That show is AMAZING! My favorite line is probably Anton Ego's "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from ANYWHERE.")  is included cause I've ALWAYS wanted to wear on and one of those white chef-y uniforms with them big, black and bold buttons and whipping up patisseries everyday for 3 whole months!


ANYWHOO.. Let's start this post of with some cakes!

I am pretty proud of this cake, well not exactly the cake since it's just a regular butter cake (The birthday boy's favorite!) that's wrapped in a layer of butter cream and grey fondant.. So let me rephrase that, I am pretty proud of the CAKE TOPPER/figurine/sugar thang since this is my very first mythical creature and it turned out WAAAAAAAAAY better than I expected it to look!

Oh righty and it's my first time using a 'Wire armature" (A metal skeleton in other words.) for my sugar figurines and definitely sticking to them! How on earth could I not have thought about using them before?! I mean they are SO easy to make and they support the figurine SO well! Mr Infernal (Apparently my brother is quite alright at naming stuff to and I wonder how on earth he knew what an "Infernal" is.. Eh, strange person.) is still sitting in my cakery with all limbs and stuff intact, well the ants are slowly eating it's toes up but it is overall still in good condition! Usually gum paste stuff in my cakery that's left without a dehumidifier (A dehumidifier is a caker-who-lives-in-a-very-humid-part-of-the-world's bestfriend!) would turn into a pile of sludge overnight, it's a wonder how he is still standing on his own four feet.. Maybe I have to thank luster dust a bit too, hmm..       

Oh, speaking of luster dust.. I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINALLY USE THEM AFTER LIKE.. 3 YEARS! 

Long story short-

One day after reading some Alan Dunn book, 11 year old KCC decided to go get some PETAL dust to dust her rather ugly so-called "Gumpaste flowers" and she went to the only cake decorating supply shop she knew and it was called "Cake Connection" ANNND too bad cause they only had LUSTER dust left AAANNNDD she bought the luster dust dust cause she thought it would work only too bad cause the LUSTER dust was quite glittery and she ended up with glittery leafs and flowers.. THE END.

So yeah, I had absolutely NO use for them.. Until NOW! *Insert evil maniac laughter here* 

But before I splashed the "Holly green" luster dust on something told me to use a "Base color" and that base color (Speaking of color.. I asked the birthday boy what color he wanted his dragon to be and he said "Blue and red".. Or something like that, I only recall it as a horrid color combination! So since he has a horrible taste of colors I decided to make it MY favorite color, turquoise! I think I am a horrible sister.) was SK's "Hydrangea", one of my favorite dusting colors next to this deep, dark purple color which sounds a bit like "Aborigine"only it isn't and I can't believe I actually forgot what it is called! And a light pink called Tangerine, only I think CK labeled that dust wrong cause aren't tangerines orange? 

The most tiresome part of this particular figurine (My inspiration for Mr Infernal was from EVERYWHERE! I literally pieced together all my favorite parts of dragons I found on the web into one and he turn out looking quite handsome! Not Frankenstein-ish in anyway!) was probably the skin.. Each scale on that monster's body is HAND-POKED! ..With a Wilton 1L piping tip cause I was WAAY too lazy to actually cut out scales! Thank goodness I didn't do that or the cake would NEVER be done on time! 

The reason why Mr Infernal (I think I have got to stop calling it that..) has "Battle wounds" are because the birthday boy wanted him to be like you know those, errh.. Victorious hero from battle thingmajig, umm.. I think I'm ain't a very good explainer but basically Mr-Ahh I mean INFERNAL just won the battle!

One of the things I was MOST worried (Actually I was kinda worried about EVERYTHING since I have never made a dragon head to well, any part of a dragon before!) about was probably the claws and the muscles (I know them muscles are pretty minimal! I'll try to make my next dragon buffer! Hahaha!), only somehow they turned out the easiest to be made and I REALLY enjoyed making the feet! I make TERRIBLE human hands and feet but good dragon ones.. I think it's because the human hand and feet making was TAUGHT to me, I usually do better when I invent the whole thing and not to mention it's funner and free!

Zed Dabaliewee (She's one of my best pals!) came over to our Port Dickson place for the very first time on Fai's birthday and we made this poster together on the day after the party and now it's up on my cakery's wall! 

Okay, MOVING ON!

Equally as proud of my garbage truck! It's my very first pair of gumpaste "Wheels"!

It was rather exciting, getting an order for a gumpaste garbage truck topper (Unfortunately it wasn't a cake!)! Well, aren't all "Firsts" exciting?!

Never made SO many templates for a project before and never appreciated my craft knife this much too!

Again, it was interesting.. Exploring new techniques!

Since it was a garbage truck I decided to go ahead and paint garbage juice all over it and it made Mommy and Papa scream but I think a garbage truck with sludge all over lets the truck have a little more "Character" and after all, it's a garbage (Speaking about garbage.. I think I need to make better garbage bags next time round! These look a little like wontons.. Omnomnom!) truck and I doubt you have seen a squeaky clean one!

Making the maggots (Yes, that's what those mysterious white spots that are on the garbage are!) were fun since I had actual maggots to look at!

The day before making the maggots, Papa and I were plucking some weird fruit thing from our garden because he wanted to try to make wine out of them and MOST of them were crawling with maggots! I think these turn into fruit flies..

And I kept them in a container like I usually do when I find snails/slugs/maggots/other creepy crawlies in the fruits and vegetables! Oh lookie here! I actually found an old post of my no-need-to-look-after-muchie-pets: My arys

So.. Sometime a month back or so, I suddenly fell in love with YouTube again! And this time.. With fashion and beauty videos! Yeah, that's my current secret, I mean not-so-secret-anymore obsession (Speaking about obsessions.. I am officially a scarf freak! No thanks to those "Forgot-how-many ways to wear a scarf video"!) !

I don' know why but I think playing with fashion is fun and I DO feel like I want to go into the fashion industry, it sounds fun!

And along the way I also found some jewelry making and re-vamping/re-using old stuff videos, I guess you could say I was pretty inspired by them and decided to try some stuff out by turning that old t-shirt to an off shoulder half top AND making bows..

Only I don't recall watching a bow making video but one day I just sat down making cloth bows and soon moved to ribbon pinwheel bows! 

As the days passed all my plain hair clips and hairbands has bows stuck on them and soon ran out of stuff to stick them on!

So one evening while we were out we went to a "Pasar Malam" and I stumbled across half a dozen hair starf-y shops and went on a buying frenzy! Who knew it was so fun buying plain hair accessories?! 

Making your own accessories is a pretty fun way to pass time I suppose! And not to mention you can wear what you made out!

Above: My re-vamped ballet flats!

Below: More bows accessories! The white cloth is from a long pant lining!

Above: Made this today after watching a "How to make a bohemian wrap bracelet" (I LOVE bohemian stuff! I mean, I have ALWAYS loved them since they are so "Island/vacation-ish"!) about a week back, only I made it without that troublesome threading!

-Karen Cuppy Cake

Hairpee shoes

Mwahahaha! Before I say anything else I MUST say that, I am SO super happy right now!

That's kinda why they are called my "Happy shoes" (You get instantly happy when you put them on, may only work if you are the owner of thy "Happy shoes", unfortunately.).

I started prancing around the house like a fluffy rainbow unicorn once I was FINALLY (I took 3 lazy days, maybe around 4-5 hours per day to complete them! Huff-puff!) done and Mommy called them "Happy shoes" so that name got a bit stuck and after all they ARE my "Happy shoes"! *Insert humongous smiley face here and by here I mean right HERE*  

So, long story not-as-short-as-I-thought-it-would-be-short..

One fine afternoon in Klebang, Ipoh we decided to have some Indian banana leaf rice.

While waiting for the "Other" (Sorry, I don't enjoy using too many names in my blog posts.) people to arrive we found this oldish antique shop, the oldish toys caught Parpar's eyes so we decided to take a look inside and guess what?!

We ended up going on a crazy shopping spree! And most of the things (Correction, EVERYTHING.) we covered in dust! We bought anything from pink flower umbrellas to err.. Ultra-man figurines. I told you it was crazy..

I bought a HUGE red-ish (Not to be mistaken for radish.) wood "Congkak" (I have ALWAYS wanted a congkak set, I just love feeling the marbles in my hand and the sound when you drop the marbles into the wooden holes! Me and Fai spent the entire night playing Congkak once we got back home!) set complete with dusty marbles, a pair of cloth cutting scissors (I have a thang for cutting up old clothes and it ain't easy with kitchen scissors I might add.), this round wooden thing that is used to stretch your cloth so it's easier to sew (Sewing WITHOUT that thing isn't all that fun.) and..   

A pair of white school (I am wearing school shooooooooeees! ..For the first time in 6 years! Yes, indeed! This is something to brag about!) high-tops.

I never planned on buying shoes, let alone WHITE (I have a tendency of getting white stuff grey/black in no time at all because I have clumsy feet that enjoy kicking stuff or just plain stumbling over themselves..) school shoes..

So it kind of went like this-

Parpar: "Heey! I used to wear these kinda shoes to school last time and they lasted me a good 3 years! What happened to your army (They were my absolute favorite pair of shoes!) ones?"

Me: "I outgrew them."

Parpar: "Alright, Little miss big feet.. Want another pair?"

Me: *Evil-ideas-on-what-to-do-to-them-once-I-get-home-brewing-in-head* "Sure!" *Insert evil grin here, make sure it looks evil.*

And THAT'S how I ended up with a pair of school shoes.

So the moment I got home (Since the trip home was pretty long it gave me PLENTY of time to daydream about IDEAS, only too bad once I got home somehow they were all erased from my head! Drat, shouldn't have dozed off!) I pulled out my crafting tool box (May I add that it can't seem to close since half of the space is already taken up by felt in any color you can think of?) and started digging for materials I could use for my little "Project".

I ended up with black fabric paint (I used this for my Masquerade mask only I have no idea why..) and Sharpies!

I bought them Sharpies to enter a competition only the "Entry" never got "Entered", poo.  

So, since my mind was totally blank (I TRIED doing some research and found some good ones but I didn't use any ideas I found for this project, I am a terrible copycat.. There's something in me that says that every artwork of mine must be ORIGINAL, nothing less. That's kinda why I hate stencils and everything of mine is drawn/painted/molded freehand.) I started off by thinking what I enjoyed drawing and they were basically swirls, curvy lines (I can NEVER, EVER draw a straight line and I absolutely hate using a ruler for my art.. I feel somewhat guilty after using it.) and circles! 

I started of with that little strip at the back first since it was err.. Small and easy to fill up. 

The first thought that popped into my head once I drew my first purdle, I mean purple line was "Oh em geez! Shoooowtt! It SPREADS! *Eyes bulging out of their sockets and starts stomping feet*" so once I finished with all the so called "Rainbows" (Since they are missing a few colors.. I NEED more Sharpies, Humans!) I used the black fabric paint (I diluted it in a little water since I found it rather thick and hard to paint.) to outline (I used just one #1 brush from all the painting and outlining in this project. My trusty #1 Squire's Kitchen brush that could never be qualified to enter a kitchen EVER again!) random parts of the rainbow and VOILA! It's neat and tidy! 

Not  long after I thought it was kinda boring to just have ONE pattern/design (What's the difference, eh?) throughout that little strip and since I liked circles, I painted.. Bubbles! Mommy calls them rocks though..

Then I discovered this two long little strips running down the shoe and decided to highlight one of them lime green and the other purple to make stuff less dull since I hate dull and purple and green just POPS AND it reminds me of a purple monster that has green slime and sliver so.. Yeah!

And after that I asked myself (Since this was MY new pair of shoes, I ask myself kinda a lot of questions on what makes ME happy!) what my favorite Sharpie color was and it was the blue and turquoise-ish color.. So blue/turquoise + swirls and curvy lines = WAVES and the OCEAN. Yeah, I know.. I am a mathematics whiz! So that kinda settled it for THAT side of the shoe and at first I didn't exactly think of drawing/painting (Whatever you feel like calling it.. I think "Dranting" should work, yeah?) the "inner" side but it looked incomplete and since the colorful-ish waves kinda followed the "Rainbows" on the little strip I decided to do some simple Dranting on the inner part so it kinda completes the whole look and makes it come together!  

So for the OTHER shoe I had a tough time deciding if I should copy the EXACT design or do a whole new look!

Copying the exact design would make me die of boredom so that got tossed into the bin and a whole new look will make be rather weird, at least to me so I decided to go for something in between!

The same-ish concept but a different scenery and since I had the "Above water", the next shoe was "Under water" and the only underwater animal I knew that was naturally "Swirly" was a Kraken, no not octopus.. It sounds WAY cooler this way!

Once all the Drantings were complete the white shoe laces (Seriously?! White shoes and laces?! Poor school people.) looked a bit.. Boring.

Sooo, the next day I went for a crazy shoe lace hunt in Seremban and just before I gave up, I found a Converse outlet and my, my there were SOOOOO many colors to choose from!

I couldn't decide between green and purple so I bought both! (Converse shoe laces on a non Converse shoe, hmm..)

And across it was this shop that sold laces too! For HALF the price and there were even more to choose from, so I ended up getting another two from there!

The minute I got home I started lacing my shoes the "Normal" way only to find out that the laces were too short! Urghk!

So I ended up lacing them shoes.. MY way.

-Karen Kraken Kake

Woven anklet

I kinda forgot what made me want to look up "Friendship bracelet tutorials" this morning but I just did, for an unknown reason.

That's extremely strange because.. I REAALLY don't know why I looked it up and ended up on YouTube since the picture tutorials were pretty hard to follow and I soon realized how easy making these were and how much they resembled my favorite "Orang-asli craft" (I absolutely love any "Native" craft, especially jewelry they are somehow a lot more interesting than the usual ones!) ones!

All you need is some "Cross stitch string" and the super ability to tie knots!

I spent about half an hour to forty-five minutes to complete my anklet (It was supposed to be a FRIENDSHIP bracelet but I ended up making an anklet for MYSELF, huh.. Funny how things end up!), my first few rows were VERY jumbled up (This is the somewhat second attempt I guess, I couldn't even tie that loop knot thing-ma-jig on the first one! Thank goodness I could untie it!), not sure how they got sorted but.. They did, strangely!

I thought I had lost a good meter (Of EACH color! I didn't believe the tutorial at first but I am pretty glad I did because the length was just nice after all that "weaving"!) of cross stitch thread!

Alright, enough of the chitchat..

Time to make MOOOOORRREEEE!

Hmm, filling up my limbs (Neck included, I think!) with cross stitch thread is going to be SUPERB!

-Karen Cuppy Cake

Bloom

I have been working on this for some time already, actually ever since the day I got the sketch book (Yes, this  is my very first drawing/sketch/thang I drew in it.) from Kisa!

It has pretty much been an on and off thing, when I feel like drawing I add a couple of flowers abit at a time so yeah.. This is probably the longest I took to complete a drawing/sketch/wachamecalit!

I suppose I am pretty proud of it, I don't think I have drawn this many flowers before..

The flowers are mostly hybrids (There's something about me unable to draw flowers EXACTLY-PATHETICALLY.. And besides, you use more creative juice this way!), created in my mind (Ooh, mind.. What a mysterious word..)..

To name a few there are daisy hybrids, peony not so hybrid (It is somewhat like the one I made in Alan Dunn's flower course.), spider lily not so hybrid as well, some sort of berry hybrid, babies's breath not so hybrid, cosmos not so hybrid, rose hybrid (I am quite proud of this one, for the first time ever it does not look like some kind of cabbage..), poppy hybrid and a ginger flower hybrid.

I kinda forced myself to not go OUTSIDE for inspiration, so it was kinda like a test to see how many flowers are stuck in my head and obviously.. Not many! I think I need to spend more time smelling roses, eh?

I have no idea why but I love drawing daisies (And cosmos!), I love flowers with numerous (Ooh, big word. I don't even recall what it means but I just felt like using it, so yeah.. Plop it right there.) petals!

It was my first time drawing (And in a LOOONG time, without my inky pens since I forgot to lug them to the Comic Fiesta!) the other flowers/berries (I officially love drawing berries, they create a some what nice touch!) and excluding leaves.. 

Excuse the fact that some flowers are drawn in a lighter shade than others, I kinda lost the first pencil I was drawing with..

-Karen Cuppy Cake

How to: Edible paint

Oh hey! Another tutorial, didn't see this one coming! 

Yesterday I was simply browsing (Quite aimlessly I must say, in search for something interesting and surprisingly found that "something interesting"!) through one of the homeschooling group on FaceBook that I had joined and there was just this one post that caught my eye "Homemade cornstarch paint" it said.

(This was where the link directed to: Homemade cornstarch paint. I officially absolutely love this blog!)

So yeah, I kinda tried making my own paint today!

Usually I never start on these kinda projects, kinda like the time when I wanted to try out Alan Dunn's Cold porcelain but never actually did it for some unknown reason.. But the instructions were SO simple and the list of ingredients was SO short that I simply had to!

And since the ingredients were only water and cornstarch that would make it edible, right? (Can't wait to try my edible paint on a cake!)

If you haven't viewed her blog yet this is basically what you need to make your own paint-

1 Cup of water

1 Tablespoon of Corn starch

A tiny saucepan/pot to cook your paint in, hmm.. That sounds somewhat funny!

Food coloring

1st stop (Step, stop.. Same thing right? Just a different alphabet in the middle and a completely different meaning! .. But at least it rhymes!):

Fill ye cuppa with H2O (I guess you could use boiled, then cooled water if you are going to paint on a cake or just plain tap water if you aren't going to eat it!) to thy brim.

Pour ye liquid into ye miniature pot.

2nd Stomp:

Plonk in a tablespoon of  corn starch and mix all the lumps out or you are going to be in BIIIIGGG trouble.

I had to make this twice because I actually FAILED on my first try!

I didn't mix the corn flour in and once it boiled my "paint" had little jelly like lumps in them!  

3rd Storm:

Plop the pot onto the stove, put thy fire on medium and stir like no tomorrow so the corn flour, starch err... Same thing! Doesn't settle and form the very un-wonderful lumps!

Stir, stir, your neighbor may think your mad but CONTINUE, stir, stir, your neighbor may officially think you're possessed but CONTINUE, stir, stir!

Hmm, don't you think that would make one wonderful song? 

4th Store:

If your neighbor hasn't taken you to the nut house, you may continue stirring till some scary bubbles start forming!

The scary bubbles is a sign that the paint shows when it's well, PAINT.

5th Star:

Put the fire off and the scary bubbles will go away, if you don't they would probably over flow and you would have to mop up the whole kitchen and trust me, the "paint" is quite sticky and icky.

You should end up with a thicker liquid from what you started with.

Congratulations, you have made P-A-I-N-T!

Now, whip up, I mean OUT some food coloring!

I just kinda realized I don't own "liquid food coloring"!

So if you don't own liquid food coloring you may want to whip out some tooth picks as well to kinda transfer the gel food coloring from the container to the paint.

And.. I kinda just realized I don't own a paint pallete so I used my gem chocolate/candy melts/gum paste/royal icing instead!  

And.. I don't own proper "paint brushes", all of mine are kinda.. Used for dusting gum paste flowers!

Oh gosh, this is hilarious..

So sob, sob, I had to sacrifice a couple of paint brushes for my edible paint "test drive"!

The results from my five minute test drive!

Err... Not exactly my favorite "paint", I would 100% still buy my favorite acrylic paint for art projects and as for cakes.. I guess I am stuck with my SK edible paint or food coloring!

It was a bit too.. Transparent and jelly like, I would rather paint with food coloring, somehow but I guess if you aren't painting details it's completely fine! 

In other words.. Just make a whole tub full for little kids to splatter about! 

Had LOADS, about say.. 1/2 Cup or so of leftover paint!

Chucked it into the fridge, I wonder how long it would last? Will keep you updated!

-Karen Kookingpaint Kake

Beheaders

I just realized since our move to Port Dickson I have been leaning (Tower of pizza! Yuuumm.. Aish, this random hunger moments are horrible!) toward the "Arts and craft" side more rather than being well, The "Cupcake girl".. Oh well, the name's quite stuck and I don't mind, it would be pretty strange to be "Karen Arts & Craft" anyways!

Oh right, I recently dug up a dusty pack of "Air drying clay" or "Cold porcelain" that was lying around somewhere and decided to turn them into Christmas charms!

This was my little pet project since mid November, I would occasionally make one and forget about it (Or am just too busy with other stuff, like sticking my nose into a book or camping.. And more camping.) for sometime then start again, that sort of thang.

They are roughly about as tall as an average piping tip (Just finished re-watching Smurfs and somehow the "Three apples high" thang just got to me!), I don't exactly bother measuring them but they all end up being the same size for some reason, HAH! 

I have absolutely no idea why I wanted to "behead" them, the idea just came around and.. It got stuck! I guess it makes them more unique in it's own kinda creepy way but I don't mind anyhow.

This project was pretty much inspired by a (Also air dried clay/Cold porcelain.) charm bracelet I received from my Aunt when I was about.. 10 or so, I LOVED it lots but I kept losing the charms (I remember having an angel, mermaid and a.. Chili, that had a face.. I can't seem to remember the rest one way or another..) for some reason.. I would take it out from the bracelet and put it on a key chain, then my necklace.. And the list goes on and on until I lose it that is!

So yeah, the charms on that bracelet look (Except the "beheading" part!) pretty much like the ones I made, only I think I secretly like (Speaking of like, my favorites are the reindeer and snowman! Am not exactly a fan of favoritism but they are just SO cute! Goggled/goldfished eye face*) mine more!

Anyhoo,

MERRY EARLY CHRISTMAS!

-Kristmas Kuppy Kake

Laurel wreath

Apparently that's what it's called, nearly wanted to name this post "Head wreath" but thank goodness for Google, what would I do without it?!

ANYHOO (I just realized I love beginning my sentences with "A" words, strange.), borrowed this very old (Printed in 1993, considered ancient.) flower arranging book (I just wanted to know what the arrangements were like "then", trust me when I saw I could do better with my eyes closed, just stick flowers and foliage EVERYWHERE! Mai gawdt. Your very handy translator when reading KCC's blog: Mai gawdt= My god.) without flipping through much, I have no idea why.. My brain just works funny sometimes, I just can't control it.

So one lazy sunny afternoon when Basil was over I was simple leafing through the book again and something caught my eye...

WREATHS!

I have always wanted to make one, I don't know why but I OFFICIALLY love anything that's got to do with flowers! I just realized how girly I am, oh well *Flip toss hair*.

And it was SO simple, all you need are flowers and foliage and wire, LOTS!

The moment I put the book down off we went flowers-a-hunting, armed with our plant cutter thang, wicker basket and mosquito repellent armor! HAH! 

After possibly pruning the entire neighborhood of weeds, dumping them into pails of water, measuring our head with rather long wire, cutting, twisting LOADS of that tiny leafy plant around, adding random flowers and foliage AKA weeds but just to make it sound fancier.... 

VIOLA! ((Nearly typed in violin..)-

Our "Head, I mean Laurel wreaths"!

Hmm... Hopping around like a fairy princess was definitely fun!

It would be fun having a tea party with our teddy bears next time round... And making little wreaths for them!

-Karrot Korn Kapsicum   

P.S Mommy's version

Squigglies

Cheewiz, haven't blogged in almost a month I think and there are TONS of pictures in my camera, spent the entire evening downloading and editing my favorites, yeesh, who knew it was so tiring?

*Mumblessmulfle Especially with this stupoid  (I don't know why, I seem addicted to the world "Polaroid", adding the "Oid" to everything, hahaha!) cough and mossie's toes hovering around me.  

Anyways (This vord never leafs my aid. Let's hope you can make some cents out of that.), long story short:

Went for a wedding (Was looking forward to it very much because.. Eh.. Well I don't get to dress up in well a dress much and of course take some pictures of the sparkly chandeliers, too bad it turned out to be a "outdoor" wedding, heh.) and it was boring-ish (As usual, I come up with the crazyest stuff when I'm bored, I'm pretty pleased with this one though..) so we went out to the "other" side of the deck and let the boys loose.

Decided to whip out my camera again and take photos of the lovely nighty Putrajaya landscape, too bad they turned out super blur, actually super good because I played with the camera a little more and discovered a different way of taking "pictures (I am not sure if you consider them pictures..).

Kinda forgot how I did but I remember my hands shaking a lot so the pictures were just whatever I was taking a photo of and some colored lines so I decided to go ahead and shake/move the camera even more and this is what I got:

   

Above:

My personal favorite, it reminds me of Han's favorite nickname for himself "Fire blaze"  (When he first said that Papa was like "What?! Fireplace?!". Chee, can't stop laughing my head of!), so I'll just call this beautiful work of art (Pats myself on back*) "Fire Blaze".

This was probably made by moving the camera from side to side.

Below:

Another favorite of mine, can't decide between the one up there and this one.. 

A tsunami of colors, can't think of a name of it but it's basically a rainbow tsunami! 

Love the little "Stitch marks" effect..

Made by moving the camera in circles, hahaha! 

Fai gave me that idea, I wonder how many people stared as I was taking "pictures" this way..

Above:

"China town" (I have a wild imagination, I hope the "names" make sense, I wonder if I'm the only human that sees them this way.. I hope not though.). It just reminds me of all the lanterns and colorful stuff (Basically Chinese new year stuff, I suppose.) you see all around China town, as far as the eye can see...

I think I used the "round&round" technique for this too.

Below:

"Galaxy" (Try looking more to the middle, the swirly part not the "S" stuff.). Or maybe this looks more like a "Aurora", well.. You choose! 

I'm not sure how I took this one, I thinking I was just basically throwing the camera around... 

Above:

"Ghost caterpillar" (Oh, that sounds silly.. I need to drink more creative juice. Hmm... It reminds me of something a Mom would name a piece of kabloob-random-splatter-painting artwork her child did..).

Throwing the camera around technique again me finks...

Below:

"Slinky"! I have no idea why but it just plain reminds me of that toy...

Technique: Vigorously move your camera up and down. 

-Camerarrrr Clumsy cake

Cupcake Tee

It was the first sewing project I EVER completed in my entire life and it turned out pretty well in the end so I guess I am pretty proud to say that I CAN OFFICIALLY SEW WITHOUT KILLING MYSELF! (Although I almost did, read on!)

3 days ago I stopped by one of my favorite places in the world, the craft shop in PJ (Petaling Jaya. I wonder how I will be able to survive without a craft shop in Port Dickson! Nooo!) old town to get some felt for a random un-planned project.

Did I ever tell you how much I LOVE craft shops?

It is like wonderland to me!

All that ribbons, cloth, sequins, shiny embellishments, paint, beads, buttons in all sort of shapes and colors just makes me go all hyper and bonkers!

It is IMPOSSIBLE to choose just ONE project to work on!

I asked for some felt and the sales women pointed me to a tiny closet under the stair case, it was rather narrow and squishy and it was FILLED to the BRIM with felt in every single color you can dream off!

Again... Choosing was impossible!

I decided to choose neon colors since they were my favorite type of colors.

Mommy (She also suggested the t-shirt idea and it was a pretty good one.) said that I had to use cross stitch thread for the felt sewing to make it more visible.

The sales women showed me a huge cupboard that was filled with tiny pull-out drawers that all had different shades of colors in them!

Ugh!

Went with neon colors again!

And the thread I chose was first at a dark color then it went lighter down the thread, rather cool.   

Once I got home I rummaged my drawer for a plain colored t-shirt and started the project immediately (After doing some felt cupcake research. Research makes me feel more confident on what I am doing.) since I got the cupcake idea in the shop already. 

I actually wanted the icing to be purple (If you read my previous post.. I am a purplo-holic!) but it (For some reason) didn't look too good.

So I went with what most felt cupcakes I saw on Google colors was, PINK. (My third favorite color, Turquoise comes in second.)

I guess for a felt cupcake to look good it has to be pink, huh?

After cutting out the templates and the felt, I was stuck on how to sew it on.

I am NOT the best person to know when you want to learn how to sew.

After a minute or two I learnt that I had to start from underneath. (I felt fairly dumb at that point of time.)

Sewing was pretty tough and I had to use a fair amount of strength since the shirt and felt was rather thick and I kept wondering how "those women" sew so fast and quickly and without much of a glance on what they were working on!

Half way through the "icing" I decided to stuff it a bit with some old clothes/rags I found in the storeroom to give it a more interesting look, it was a pretty good decision I think because now I have an instant pillow to hug!    

Oh and the golden butterfly embellishment.. 

It was love at first sight in the craft store!

It came in a pair and it was only RM2.00!

It was a good piece of "bling" to add on to my cupcake!

I was supposed to sew on some VERY tiny black (But with a bit of light it looks rainbow-ish, another cool find.) beads on the icing, it was supposed to be sprinkles but after sewing the butterfly on my puffy icing I decided that I had better things to do with that amount of time!

Once everything was done I found a container full of bonkers eyes and decided to stick some on with a bit of SUPER GLUE!

Worst, Decision. EVER!

The grey felt around it turn ROCK hard and white-ish!

Oh, how frustrated I was!

I took the eyes out and added stripes the next day and while sewing on a strip on the "rock hard" spot, the needle just wouldn't go through!

So I used A LOT of force and it went through the cloth all right..

And my left thumb as well.

Then I felt the sharp metal needle hit something hard (Thunk*), that must have been my bone.

Ouchy-ness.

Who knew that THAT much blood could come out from such a small hole. (I am glad I didn't bleed on the white shirt!)

After it stopped bleeding (And I stopped rolling on the floor and doing some fake crying and real laughing. I love drama-ing a bit when I get hurt.) and the bone and flesh didn't hurt as much., I started sewing again but this time a lot more cautious!  

I would prick it on top first with another needle then go though it from the bottom.

But I completed the sewing project!

YIPPEE!

Oh, and this is me in my new Karen Cuppy Cake t-shirt before I left to Genting Highlands in it!

~K

LOLFCC (Lots of love from cloud city.)

P.S Can't wait to get started on my felt cake tee!

Skritchy Sketchy

It all started yesterday at noon when Mommy decided that in between what-ever-time-you-woke-up-6PM was no laptop-ing or Teevee time, YIKES!

And... Eu Fai (That's my 7 yr old brother, if you are a newbie to my blog.) got me re-addicted (I was a crazy neopet addict until.. I got occupied with cake decorating. It was either cake decorating that stopped me from playing or that my billionth account got frozen because I hacked too many times, hmm I wonder.) to Neopets again! Starts crying*

So yeah, not checking my FaceBook and my Neopets account for 30 minutes was PRETTY tough.

It was once of those rest-doing-nothing days and I was pretty much going insane and while restlessly walking up and down the room I found my sketch books a box of colorful ink pens piled on top!
Yippee!

It wasn't very hard think about what I wanted to draw, I always draw things that is well, ME.
Well let's see I like things CHIC, colorful and with a glimpse of black everything pops, a touch of goth, swirly and it HAS to be UNIQUE and when you add them all up together you get my style!

I started of by drawing some lines with a light yellow pen to give the plain blanko paper a bit of color at the same time not too much, just enough to make the background of what ever I was going to draw more interesting than a piece of white paper and also it had the graffiti/techo look which I wanted.
And I stopped half way because I was getting rather sick of drawing lines with a rather crooked ruler!

I decided to split the paper into 2 parts after that because I only intended to use one half actually, the graffiti name writing thing came up when I was half way through the fantasy flowers. (Love them fantasy flowers! You can just let your imagination go loose with them!)

I am not too sure what the divider looks like to you, it was supposed to be lace (Gothic lace actually, inspired by Raven Madison but black made the lace look very un-delicate so it turn into white-old-grandma-lace, hooray.) and it was VERY time consuming!
The lace alone look a little plain so I added some interesting looking circle/ball thingies. (Have you ever seen those "Me" tees? Like there are say black teddy bears all over the shirt and there is one very bright colored teddy that has a me in it. Basically something that stands out from the crowd. I was inspired by that t-shirt. The red heart ball is the "Me" in my drawing. Check out the random balls at the upper left side of the A4 size paper as well.), I think they did a good job of brightening up the lace!
And the only tool I wanted to use for this master piece (Coughs*) was a ruler so perfect circle balls were pretty hard to draw. Blinks*

After drawing the fantasy flowers (Inspired by some felt flowers and folk art, I LOVE being Innnssspppaaaayyyyeeerrrddd!) and monochrome vines and some crazy lookin' leaves.. I realized I improved quite a lot since the first time I did my lollipop (That't what I call my drawings with the swirly vines for a reason you shall never find out. Evil laughter*) land drawing, soo.. proud.

It took a total of 4 hours or so to complete and I the boredom disappeared, hooray!

~K

Something orange 2

Am playing with my food again!

And is starting to LOVE eating oranges! Just for the peel!

Wanted to make something that look EXACTLY/Egg Zac Lee (I remember once I actually forgot how to spell "Exactly" because I was so used to writing/typing in my own "Language"!) like the the wooden wall decoration mask thingy I saw in a craft shop in Miri town!

I think I succeeded! Except for the painting part (And the fact that it is only 4 inches in length and the one in Miri was.. 1 meter tall!.. Or maybe taller.)! (The mask I saw was black and it was covered with rainbow colored polka dots that had an interesting pattern. Love that mask SO much! Too bad it was like a thousand or something, would have loved to hang it in my room!)    

Couldn't make anymore today because Fai (That's my 7 year old brother.) took the rest of the peel to carve them into a castle, a grumpy face and a skull.

I have to admit they look pretty good! I am VERY impressed.. And embarrassed because there is no way I could carve something like that (Out of orange peel!) when I was 7. 

And he did mention he wanted to decorate cakes with me in my bakery next time, so I guess I will hire him for cake carving since I am completely useless in that!

Can't wait to take up wood carving!

~K

Something orange

Was just feeling rather bored/lazy/tired this afternoon and I had just eaten an orange and there was the peel left over so...

I was just thinking about the wooden carvings (More on the wooden decorative masks and shields.) I saw in the craft shops in Miri/Mulu and decided to carve the orange peel just for the fun of it.

My only tool was my one and only craft knife, love that thingy-ma-jig it's so handy.

For some reason it turned out to be an alien like mask thing... I was pretty proud of it and it was fun playing around with the knife and peel (Even though there are a few holes in my fingers now, thanks to my clumsy-ness.)!

Maybe, I would just take up wood carving one of these days, sounds petty fun and enjoyable as a hobby to me!

Now the orange peel body-less alien is made some sort of wondering spirit and boat (Don't laugh, they have a WILD imagination.) by my brothers, it's nice to know that I am not the only one who likes it!

~K


P.S I have a feeling that I haven't blogged about Mulu yet so I guess I would just do it right now... 


10 seconds later* Or maybe not... The laziness it taking over my body, bit by bit. NOOO!