The Fat Flower Bag

I know. It's not exactly the most poetic name for a bag. But it fits, it's fun and it's plum luscious. Yummy!

Hit by the muse of It's-so-totally-fab,-I-just-gotta-make-it, I stayed up the wee hours of last night to get Fat Flower finished (now try saying that quickly). With the company of Minke the terror cat, the girl managed to transform the reversible upholstery grade Chenille into the cutest little bag.

The idea for Fat Flower actually came from an ad in Sunset Magazine for some flooring system. There was the floor and, perched delectably above it, was this gorgeous mustard leather handbag. Inspiration, truly, can be found just about anywhere.

Fat Flower is a lighter cheerful take on that classy leather version.Call me biased, but I just love florals. So I'm making 2 for sale on Etsy and keeping 2 for meself. Sometimes I'm not too sure on the profitability of a business model where you keep one of everything you sell.
But, life is short, and it's a good feeling to like the things you make.

Low Tech Fun

As some of you may know I have an eco blog called Paper * People * Planet run separately from this one.

It's been a tad too finicky to do both so I'm slowly consolidating them both with the last post from Paper * People * Planet here for your reading pleasure.

In the future all my eco & paper posts will be found here.

Enjoy!

" One of the stumbling blocks for those of you wanting to recycle your paper trash is the inconvenience or the expense of getting a mould & deckle. You either have to buy a kit which would set you back by at least US$20 or make your own kit with 2 identical sized wooden frames from an art shop or framers, then staple gunning the mesh to one of them to make your mould.

Well, while I was still waiting for my box of leftover-in-Singapore stuff together with
my Green Bananas Paper Maker that my wonderful sis is shipping to me, I thought I'd try out a simple contraption.

Having read about it on a leaflet at the local library, I figured I'd give it a try seeing that most of what I needed was either in the house or can be got at the neighbourhood hardware store. The leaflet teaches you how to make basic paper without using the traditional mould & deckle. All it takes is some stiff metal wire, as the support and finer plastic mesh (the same ones for screen doors) as a sieve.

You tightly wrap the plastic mesh around the metal wire and then duct tape (fantastically waterproof stuff) the edges to hold both in place.

And bob's your uncle, you're all set!

For my first batch of paper, I harvested from the carpet of cherry blossoms in the garden to add as inclusions into my paper. And I used magazine pages to be blended for the paper pulp.

Blended a handful of shredded paper and added it to the vat. After 2 blender-full of pulp, I sprinkled in the previously dried cherry blossoms, and gave the mixture a good stir. Now was the moment of truth.

Would it work or wouldn't it?

Pulling the first sheet was tenuous. There was no deckle to hold the pulp mixture on the mould while the water drained. Liquid was flowing all over the place. The first sheet was uneven but complete. Phew! Pulling subsequent sheets got easier as I began to get a feel of the Meckle (a name I affectionately call this hybrid of Deckle & Mould).

Couching the paper was a cinch. And the meckle lifted without a problem and, without any serious tearing of the wet paper. Hurrah!!!

When I completed my post of papers, it was out to the balcony for something heavy to squeeze the water from the wet paper. And since I didn't feel like standing on the post throughout the night (yes, I'd put on weight since coming to Canada), the paving stone would have to do. And it worked quite well too. Nothing like using things around the house to complete a project.

The paper dried to a an off-white with brown inclusions. Not the most Scarlett O'Hara of papers but it had a salt-of-the-earth rocky quality about it.

I've made envelopes with it and together with yesterday's batch of basically white paper with Lover's Rose Elixir Tea paper I made yesterday, I've put together a neato notepaper & envelope wallet set. It goes on Etsy tomorrow. Yippee for low tech!!!

When Cousins Come to Stay

The good thing when family comes to visit is not just familiar faces bringing stories from home, and this trip in particular, cousin Diana schlepping in 4 kg of kopi Cap Karpal Tanker (ooohhhh yummie), but that I actually get a chance to visit the sights of Vancouver again.

After living here almost 3 years, I've gotten cynical about this city and have been gradually only concentrating on it's negatives. Like, the crazy road system, with it's wonky inbuilt frustrations every km or so and bleeding heart liberals insisting that hard earned tax-payers money is used to provide safe injection sites for the continuing of illegal drug addiction instead of finding a way to help them kick the habit. Coming from a smoothly run and fairly drug free Singapore, little things like this really began to grate.

So having the cousins visit compelled me to look for places of beauty & fun in and around Vancouver. Places that celebrated the energy & specialness of this city that butted between the foot of the Coastal Mountain range and the Straits of Georgia. And, once I relaxed my prejuidices and looked, these places weren't too difficult to find.

The Van Dusen Gardens for one is my favourite. It 's in Vancouver West and has large grounds divided into plants from different regions, lakes laced with pretty Japanese maples, a funky hedge maze and gorgeous temperate gardens. The garden is in the middle of the city yet, when you sit on the benches by the small lake,under the dappled shade of the willows, you hardly notice the city.

The trip up to Burnaby Mountain help give the girls a view of the city. From mountain to river, from the deep fjiords to the open ocean. Also there were the funky totems donated to the city of Vancouver by a sister city in Japan.


The problem with being a tour guide is that although you can control the itineiry, you can't really control the weather. So, for most of the time the cousins were here, we had the wet & grey Vancouver is fairly famous for. Still, that didn't stop us tough & intrepid sight-seers who picked the wettest day for a hike up Lynn Canyon somewhere in between some of the North Shore Mountains.
The suspension bridge alone was well worth the visit, and that's not counting the spectacular waterfall you get to see while standing in the middle of the bridge. The 20 minute hike to Rice Lake was, however, a disappointment (for me at least). BC hydro was working on a big water treatment plant there and the trail led past it.

Still, by the time we got to the smallish deserted lake, the sky had dried up , at least for a bit, and the view of the lake that unfolded before us was quite magical.

Not too bad for a city of over two million, to be able to feel like you are alone in the wilderness by taking juts a 20 minute hike.

Roadtrip to the Dinosaurs

I always knew that Canada was a big country. Big enough to once have had dinosaurs roaming it's land. Now that's pretty impressive.
The hubby, the station wagon & I just returned from a week long road trip to Calgary & Drumheller (where the dinosaurs are) in Alberta. Took us a good 12 hours to drive there from Vancouver and was somewhat tough on the behind, if you get my drift. Still, the scenery was quite worthwhile. To transverse from the wet & rocky coast of BC to the dry flat plains of Alberta was a lesson in real time as to how wide & diverse Canada really is.

Ok, back to the dinosaurs.

Drumheller is a little town in the valley of the same name. It's about an hour from Calgary if you gun it. You're driving through rolling fields which suddenly give way to steep, dry coulees (or badlands) ridged with the strata of hundreds of years of erosion by time, wind and the Red Deer River.

The cool thing is that there is a dinosaur called the Albertasuarus that was a tyrannosaurid. The same family as the famous T. Rex. and according to wikipedia " Albertosaurus was a bipedal predator with a massive head, jaws lined with dozens of large teeth and tiny, two-fingered 'hands'. It may have been at the top of the food chain in its local ecosystem. Although relatively large for a theropod, Albertosaurus was much smaller than its more famous relative Tyrannosaurus, probably weighing only as much as a modern black rhinoceros."

The Royal Tyrrell museum where I spent the best $10 in a some months was filled with tonnes of exhibits of full scale dino skeletons all hooked up in their larger-than-life glory.
Info on what the planet was like those 70+ million years ago when the dinosaurs ruled was clear and written magazine-like, which greatly appealed to my MTV mind.
Kids must love this place, because when we were there, there were hordes roaming the exhibition galleries. They had magical timing too. Just when you're about to take a photo, they'll step right into your shot. Well, at least I got these that I put here on the blog.

And when we got back to Calgary and went for dinner at a lovely steak place called Saltlik, I got chance to get a picture of another skeleton,. It's my favourite. I think I'll call it DinoHorsey.

Paradise Nearby

How much better can life get?

If you need a place to go to for quiet relaxing off-the-beaten-track getaway. Or a safe place for your kids to romp around getting to know nature. It's much cheaper than the over S$150 a night rooms in most places and definitely more bang for your buck. Because for about S$40 per night, you get to spend lazy afternoons under a dappled sky on an idyllic river, run with Toby (the sometimes guard dog but alltime fun dog, even during sleepy time) round the coconut grove & jump into the blue South China Sea and muck around on a powder white sandy beach.

And, you can have all this breezy coastal space to your own sweet self. No need for sharing and rushing with other guests because most of the times (especially on weekdays) you'd be the only guest in the laid back Mutiara guesthouse set in 8 hectares of beach front on the East coast of Bintan Island.

For those not familiar to Bintan Island, it's about 45 minutes by ferry from Singapore. And Mutiara is about an hour from the Bintan Resort's ferry terminal.

I visited my friend Marc on my last trip back to Singapore. He's the guy responsible for turning this little piece of paradise into a place where city folk can take wander back into the simpler, peaceful & charming kampung days.
Since February, he's added two more fun rustic bungalows to the existing guesthouse. The PONDOK, is built like a traditional fisherman's hut with attap & wood and can accommodate 4 people. It has a generous covered porch in front facing the sea and the most marvelous place for you to hang up your hammock for the afternoon snooze. The day rate if S$80 for 2 persons and this includes 3 meals.

The other addition is just brill. Called The KELONG, it's a unique floating eco-bungalow. Kelongs are traditionally used by Bintan fishermen for extended fishing stays out at sea. They raise anchor & paddle to move to the next fishing spot. This one has been modified to house 4 guests who want the novel experience of sleeping with colourful marine life dancing about under them. I'm told that the sunrises & sunsets are spectacular here. The day rate for the Kelong is also S$80 for 2 people. Since the Kelong is in the water, it's only available during the non-monsoon season from April to October.

If you'd like more info on these hidden gems so nearby Singapore, send Marc an email. He can be reached at dreams@mutiarabintan.com

Singaporean lah...

I had a previous post on an insight to the Canadian psyche a couple of days ago.
Now I find a counter balance to give my non-Singaporean friends a closer look into the Singaporean we all know & love.... with help from Hossan Leong & YOUTUBE.

I saw the clip with Hossan from a Mr Brown post some time ago. But this one's now got graphics. Really attractive to my MTV sensibilities.

Creating this post also forced me to learning how to embed YOUTUBE videos into my blog with which I am very well chuffed. Gonna be doin some more of it.

Enjoy!

Gorgeous Taffeta Summer Scarves

Ok. I couldn't help it. I saw the Eggshell blue one first. But it was what was waiting behind that bale of embroidered blue that truly frightened me.
There were seven other bales all of different colours! Mustard yellow, burnt orange, midnight blue.... Yikes! All feeling so smooth and silky and rich. How is a girl to decide? So many choices, so little space!
Having recently seen "Neat", a de-cluttering show on Home & Garden TV, I just couldn't buy them all. So I did the next best thing. I bought 4 colours. AND, only 2 metres of each. I have been a good girl!
And now, I'm happily sewing and turning them into gorgeous scarves.

This pretty eggshell blue scarf/shawl was finished yesterday. Imagine this under a tough black leather jacket. Rocking or what?

Tonight, I'll making another with both sides of different colours. The blue with the orange. So it's reversible and slightly more interesting methinks.


More will be on sale on Etsy. Enjoy!

If anyone has suggestions on other things to make with this fab material, leave ma a comment.