Finished projects

My new card!!!

Here is an update on my finished projects the last few weeks...

This is one of Peng Peng's pressie.... Made her a pair of earrings you can see on her blog.

A pendant and a necklace I've been playing around with to match the earring on the top right for a friend.

A bracelet I learnt to weave with beads from Beejang's blog.

A set of silvery necklace and earrings for my Coriandr shop.

 

Tried crocheting with wire.

My new winter cap... a bit too big and my head looks ultra big in this!

And this dress!!! hahah.. Peng found me a lady giving away her old sewing machine so I had it a while back. So one day while the husband is away, I went to Fabricland and got myself a dress pattern and cloth to make it. After cutting the pattern out laboriously with my small scissors, I had to fix the sewing machine. Cos when the lady showed me all the knobs and things, she turned this and tweaked hat to show me it worked except for the tension spring. Something was wrong with the tension spring...anyways, can't complain cos she gave it to me for free. Her husband got her a new modern one. I spent hours trying to fix it and get the tension between the needle thread and bobbin thread right... Headache.... I think the spring needs to be changed..but it's still usable and VIOLA!...I made this dress... albeit it being a size 12....heheh I thought I was so fat by now, I'm a size 12....a bit of consolation to me, I'm still a 10 or possibly an 11 ...phew!... and i was so eager to finish it while summer was still here, I was too lazy to try it and fix it...so I'm sticking to the dress being a bit loose especially the bodice. It was supposed to be a strapless but I'm not well endowed enough to hold the dress, I made straps at the end...hehehe.. not bad bah kan.. I haven't touched a sewing machine since collage!

But I'm thinking kan...although I have lots of sewing projects to do and I even got material and patterns already!! hahha... but I'm thinking kan.. I still like making jewellery best cos I can be creative with it. I still love crochet and knitting and even subscribed to a magazine for it. But knitting and crochet take the longest. It takes forever for the project to look like what it's supposed to look like and even longer to finish! Sewing takes a hell lot of preparation but finishes fast. But I find the preparation most tedious. Maybe it's also due to my personality...hahah Nobody can accuse me of being organised and I don like planning either...

There's something about working with your hands and making something that is sooooo therapeutic and soothing! No wonder I haven't lost my temper in a while....heheh although the husband like sto think it's because of him...wakakaka...

Moving House

Yes, we are moving again... it's been a year already here and the lease to the place is up soon and so I asked the Hubby whether he wants to move or stay a month ago when the agents sent us a letter. Hubby, busy with work as usual, didn't even acknowledge me so I thought ok....maybe we'll stay...must remind him again to let the agent know...soon...

Then about 2 and a half weeks ago, when the hubby was free, I brought the matter up again. I said if we want to move, we have to let he agents know and find a place real quick. If we don move, we have to renew the lease. Hubby said let him think about it and started looking at houses in York...(which he does all the time anyways...places in South of France, KK, etc)...cos he likes York. So I looked as well and sent him pics to look at..again just for fun cos by then, I thought we were going to stay. That was a weekend.

Then all of a sudden on Monday I think, he told me to rate the places he has listed down that we have both liked in York. So I did. It didn't cross my mind that he was serious. Then he started calling the agents and making arrangements to view the places we just rated. on Thursday.. wow! I was a bit blur. That was when I realised we were going to move.

But me being me, life is hard!!!! By Wednesday, 3 out of the 6 we planned to view were taken.... On Thursday evening, we drove up thinking we'll book more when we get there. The moment we got out of Reading, it poured!!!! all the 4-hour-way up Leeds where we stayed overnight. At 5 am Friday, some idiot started knocking next door. I assume it's the wake call. It took them 8 mins to wake him up. Sigh.... by then I was awake and couldn't sleep again after that.. Don you just hate it when that happens? And breakfast was expensive and disappointing... Not a good start.

So we drove to York and got to the hotel at about 1030....sat at the lobby and made more calls for house viewings and waited to check in at 12  cos the hotel said it was ok. We deliberately chose a Friday cos it was a working day and hopefully it wouldn't be that jammed...hmmm... nope, it was the end of RaceDay... sigh jammed. and we couldn't see any more places we liked and the ones we liked were already taken... we were a bit depressed by then

At 12, the room wasn't ready yet so we had to leave our things in the car and go to our 1st viewing... fantastic place...so things were looking up. but it wasn't till Sat, we both agreed on the same place. phew! We paid the booking fee. so were happy. 15 mins later, the agent called. said they couldn't charge booking fee was all the rest(booking, deposit, etc.) are done thru another company. OK we had to walk back and refund our money. and wait till Monday fo rthe girl in charge of it to ring us. 

Come Monday morning, the girl rang us and told us that the company put the place up at 2 agents and now, we and another family is fighting for the place cos we both wanted the place at the same time.  so we had to rush home and fill in the application forms and email them to her immediately...Sigh...Imagine how annoyed we both were. Then we had to change our move in date 2 weeks earlier than we wanted just to get the place.... ok that done... after waiting for 2 hours, we finally have the place. Then for some reason, the company couldn't process Hubby's credit card!!! after the 3 time, hubby gave them another card....sigh! finally!!!!

Happily we went our agent at Reading to give notice that we are leaving.... nope,... it wasn't a month's notice...it was 2 months.... sigh... we thought were had to waste a whole month's rent to do both places!!!! Luckily, the landlord has agreed to put the place on the market earlier and if someone wants our place, we could leave next month... phew.... fingers crossed someone will take this place soon!!!! phew!!!!!

Beautiful new things...

This past 2 weeks have been quite productive.. hehe... but then I'm under pressure to make new things to put on my website and actually make a sale...heheh Peng was the first to buy something but then it would be nice to have PEOPLE actually liking my things enough to buy... ... ...

But first, I have to have enough things in my webshop to interest people...sigh... that's the problem bit. O mean I made some really pretty things but why are they not on my webshop??? Because they are so pretty I want to keep them.... sigh!!!!  And I'm the kind of person who cannot make something unque twice! They never come out the same no matter how hard I try... Sigh...

Anyways, enough of grumbling... here are some new things I've made recently that I really like. What do you think?

This is a bangle which I made.. The book called it Grapevine... I actually think it looks really good.

   

I made these yesterday afternoon... Made the white one first... then I got braver... Needs work though but I'm thinking...it's handmade..won't a few smudges and fingerprints be more authentic??? Guess which I'm keeping for myself???

BeaLee's Jewellery & Craft

Finally, I have done something I've been meaning to do the past few months!!!! I have set up my very own BeaLee's Jewellery & Craft on Coriandr!!!

Ever since I started learning to make jewellery, my friends have been very supportive of me saying my things looked nice. And so from all these praises, ( I like to think they are praises!!!!) I have told a few friends about my intention to start a webshop. Their response were good. And my brother helped advice me and did some research for me. Peng helped me design the banner at my webshop and bought my first item from the website!!!!. Janet bought a few things off me. Jo ordered some earrings. And others who said my things were nice....Thank you!!!

Of course, it's only the beginning and things are slow.  But I'm looking ahead... hopefully some people will like my things. I need more things to put in my shop so that there's a variety. But having a design in your head and actually making them is very hard....but perseverance is free and I will have perseverance!

But if you are free, click on the link and go look at it. Tell me what you think of the site or of my things. For once, I don't mind being criticised!!! hehehe... oh and pass the word round, will ya?

Legoland

Finally I went to Legoland... been wanting to go for so long...finally when Janet and Sandy said they were taking their kids, I jumped at the chance too... I have to say though that Legoland Windsor is more like a theme park than what I thought legoland to be. they are lego structures here and there and the sturcture were quite impressive but i exopected more structures built from legos if you know what I mean....imagine half of sunway lagoon with lego structures every 100 metres or so. but I enjoyed myself very very much. So here are some of my fav pics.

first, the entrance. you can't not take a pic in front of the entrance!!! but this was taken at 8pm when the park was closing. Impossible to take a good pics during opening hours.

One of the giant dragons made out of lego blocks. pretty impressive! It was very very big.

farmer's wife and pigs and chicken.

At the lego centre, this pic of the Queen looked really real and the almost full size bike is my fav.

And this cockpit is made entirely out of lego blocks. It's very big.

This is the inside. with real graphics display.

One of the rides.

This section is called the Safari section. The ostriches and lionesses were sooooo real!!!

Pretend Gold Panning

This was a gigantic structure. See the size of it compared to the people sitting at its base.

Games stall. I won the meerkat at basketball and the pig at number balls. No idea what I was thinking. It was sooo embarrassing carrying it home that night cos that meerkat was BIG.

Miniland. My fav section. I mean this is what Legoland should be about! These were mini structures of famous buildings and different European landscapes.

Love the cows in this one.

Wish Michelle, the photographer were in the pic...Oh well....

I think everyone should go to at least one Legoland once! I was a bit disappointed cos I expected more lego structures but I loved whatever was there and we enjoyed ourselves very very much!

Visiting Jo

Here's a belated blog about a visit I should have blogged about 2 months ago... but with constant writer's blog, it's been delayed till now. And while going through my collection of pics, I came across these pics and thought I should blog about this...

We went duck feeding with the kids on this visit... with very healthy wholemeal bread! haha... The kids were so cute. hehe and there was a lone swan amongst all the ducks... wonder what he was doing there.

As some of you know, back in June was Rice Dumpling Festival, or Dragonboat Festival or Tuen Wu Jia (I think), I visited Joanne and the kids. Hehe...I brought with me on the 4 hr long train ride to her place up north 2kg of glutinous rice (cos that's the smallest packet), a whole packet of dried bamboo leaves and 1 kg groundnuts. It was sooo heavy. 

This is a pic of what I took back the last we stopped at Jo's place on the way to Scotland.

So anyways, we made rice dumplings using my grandma's recipe but with modifications cos for some reason we couldn't find 5-spice powder at Tesco that day. We bought a Chinese Spices instead which was the closest we could find to 5-spice. It was different but it was nice as well. It tasted like home away from home.

Kelly helped us wrap the dumplings... haha... I tooks pics of Jo and Kelly wrapping the dumplings but forgot to take pics of the dumplings... ha ha ha...It was fun!

I thought I would have a lighter bag on the way back..... hahhah nope! Everytime I visit Jo, we  go to the craft shop... and I end up buying lots...That time I went home with shoes, yarn, beads, clothes....hehe heavier than when I went with the rice,etc. next time I should take pics of bfore and after.

Sandy's Birthday

My boss, Sandy's, birthday was the weekend before Hubby and I went on our mad cross-country dash to attend our friend's wedding in Wolverhampton and then to a friend's 50th birthday party in Edinburgh. I'll blog about that when hubby finishes playing with his Mac and I can upload the hundreds of pics he took over the week.

Back to Sandy's birthday... right so Janet reminded me about Sandy's birthday but we couldn't figure out what to get her and I was busy finishing up my jewellery to hand over to Cheryl to bring home and pack for our trip... but we decided that we couldn't afford to get Sandy something she would like so Janet's suggested  I baked a cake. I had to finish packing real quick and then bake a cheesecake for the surprise party we planned for Sandy on Friday night.  Sandy likes cheesecakes.

Sandy was surprised when all of us turned up...hehe... and she was doubly surprised when I handed her birthday cake to her... hehe... I think she was real touched because she never expected us all to turn up at the same time and bake a cake to celebrate her birthday with her.

Anyways, I'm very proud of this cake for a few reasons. One, I don't like cheesecakes and so have never baked one. Two, it was a new recipe that I've never tried. But it's one of Rachel Allen's recipes so I figured it would be safe and it didn't take long.  Three, I was coming down with a virus that left me coughing and gasping for air and so wasn't sure I could carry it off.   So yeah!!!! My first Cheesecake! Blueberry Cheesecake!!! Although it could have been creamier but then I had to tweak the recipe a bit cos I wanted to finish all of the soft cheese.

The icing letters melted though before we ate it.  See the 5 blueberries in ta group? heheh it's supposed to be a flower to hide the hole I made while turning the cake over, I didn't have any icing sugar... hehe 

 Note: Use the icing letters just before serving the cake!!! 

 And I didn't really like the cake but my friends told me it's very nice and I was too critical of myself! Ya right!!! I just want things to be perfect!!! hehe