MY LOOT

All the stuff I bought weighed in exactly 20kg luggage and 7kg hand carry. Next time we'll do 40kg. 

My best buddy and I took a trip to Australia and had the best time ever! I have my friends and family to thank for taking us around, bearing with our constant need to shop and buying our meals T-T 

A trip there would've undoubtedly been pleasant. But I dare say the great company we had made it AMAZING! I never knew I needed a trip until I took one. Now I get why people love travelling so much. 

More Cookies!

Gosh I've been so busy lately, there's at least a hundred things I want to do but so little time for them all :( I've a list of hobby to-dos, which could last me well into my retirement, and I'd probably only have accomplished half of them :D

I can't believe how much time it takes to decorate cookies. Its a lot of intricate work, planning and preparation. I'd be mixing colours one Saturday morning and ziip! It's already Sunday midnight and I'm only just putting on the last bit of details on them :( But its nice to be absorbed into cookie decorating. Its relaxing and therapeutic - only if I'd remember to eat and drink water on time. The last time I was so obsessed that I worked myself into starvation was at age 12 and I just discovered reading manga online.

Anyways here are the cookies :

Green tea butter cookies made pretty with filigree white icing. I had extra cookie dough and felt a little experimenty, so I added a little macha powder. Surprisingly it turned out good! Except I'd have to have less sugar in it next time :D And I'd like to see where I can fit azuki bean somewhere in the mix! Maybe a sandwich cookie with cream and red beans?
Continue to see the doughnut, ice cream and totoro cookies after the jump!

Been decorating some cakes

Made some practice cakes and cupcakes, just to try out some cake decorating techniques. I'm still really green at it, but it was fun. Fondant modelling is exactly like clay modelling, except the medium is simply made of sugar, so its not too difficult for me to get some concepts right, although I think I ought to sit down with a real bouquet of flowers if I really want to get the roses looking better. 

Keep reading for more pictures of the cakes and cupcakes!

Been kinda busy lately

Snow White Themed Mini Cakes

The company's gonna have our own screening of Snow White and the Huntsman at IOI Puchong tomorrow, so I figured I'd make something nice for once, and to dispel allegations that I only ever make nice treats for the screenings of the movies I worked on. Hah!

All the little cakes together, some with a little extra icing I did to experiment on

Making them didn't take as long as I thought; probably about 5 hrs? That includes baking time, cooling time and cleaning time. Inside was a coffee butter cake, with coffee buttercream (although there was very little of it, cuz I kinda ran out) I'd have liked to add more details and fun things to decorate the cakes with, but I needed to be in bed by 1am latest, so I settled with a basic layer, a white doily with a black apple on top and a white ribbon and bow at the bottom to hide the ugly bottom.

Yum.

the anime cookies post

So here're the anime cookies I worked on to sell at Comic Fiesta. I had pretty ambitious plans at first, with great details, more characters! I was pretty much aiming to make a 1000 pieces and laugh my way to the bank. Then the cloud of excitement settled down onto the cold hard floor of reality. So I chopped my plans down to what was actually possible versus what my head likes to imagine. It's not like I'm in it for the money :( if I were, I'd be in a whole different line of work. What I love is doing stuff like these, and if my hobbies can help pay for themselves, that's awesome.

In a msn conversation with Joyce one day and I was wondering what I'd name the range of cookies for sale. "What about Cookie Gundam?" she suggested, "thats like cookie group in Japanese, right?" I fell off my chair laughing. Well, I was pretty sure gundam isnt the Japanese equivalent for 'group' but I googled just to be 100% certain! Trusty ol' google translator helped convert cookie group to Cookie Gumi. Sounds cute enough for CF.

first colour goes on

Making these were pretty fun. A little back breaking and eye straining, and sometimes I'll run late into the night just to get some layers of icing ready before the next day. 

I hold the icing bag pretty weirdly.  Looks like I should work on that.

Of course I wouldn't have been able to do it without talented help! So much thanks go to my mum, my sister, Gianne, Shae Lyn, and Shereendar for coming over to lend a hand T-T (they were duly rewarded, although I still feel like I haven't paid them back enough!) you guys are awesome! 

And for the photo roll : 

Rin and Len cookies with a doily border thanks to Shae Lyn's insistence.

cookies in the works.

food colouring markers!

most of the colours used.

Strength looking cute

I forgot her name.

Elizabeth from Gintama

Domokuns. I just adore how simple yet incredibly endearing they are.

Miku being packaged.

Companion cube <3

 I really intended to make the companion cube 3D, like an actual cube, but I was running out of time so I scrapped that and did something easier :

Totoro cookie standing on grass cookie. 

So thats about it. It was a pretty steep learning curve for me, and there were a lot of "so thats why we shouldn't....." moments. I'm not exactly impressed with myself just yet, I think I could use a lot more practice and experiments, especially when dealing with our hot humid weather which really affects the icing a lot! :(

More cookies to come!

The end

5 months late Comic Fiesta post!

Haha so my last post was 7 months ago, that's more than half a year +_+ I've been extremely busy in those months, from my own projects to extreme overtime at work. When people tell you to enjoy your life before getting a job, seriously,... do it.

One project I worked on late last year was an Artbook x Calendar with my Bus Squeeze mates to sell at Comic Fiesta. We called it 'Yum!', a dessert themed artbook x calendar. When it comes to taste and design, these girls never fail. We handmade 100 copies (built the stand from scratch ourselves) and sold out before CF ended : D

 

Marianne took a really gorgeous picture of the calendar

This is quite a picture heavy post, so don't say I didn't warn you! :D

Nail of the week

Last monday Shae Lyn and I brought out both our nail polish collections and had a nail art session after work. I didn't take pictures of the nail art I did for her, which I'm really proud of  :< But here are mine :

right hand

I recently bought nail art pens through Groupon, and while they sent me the wrong colour set, I didn't totally mind, after all I am an artist and I should be able to make rainbows out of poop. Above is what I did with my right hand. Its a lot more elaborate than my left hand of course - I am but a lefty and I have very little precision control over my right hand. Though I aim to be ambidextrous eventually if I want the nails on both my hands looking a little more together!

left hand.

I'm not sure why my left hand was pretty shaky with it. So it got me worried about how my right hand would fare with the pen D: So I was a little nervous, and I wondered if I should even bother trying it out, because utter failure meant a mess on my nails and a complete REDO. But I had faith..  :D My right hand did pretty well! Although it was a little bit of a cheat : I held the pen in my right hand steady and still while I had my left hand do the moving.

And thats it! I've been pretty busy lately. Got some awesome personal projects on the way :D and I'm pretty stoked.

Made a noticeboard!

noticeboard of all the pretty crafty inspiring things I found online.

I came into possession of some picture frames that once held painted portraits of Andrew's grandparents. He was about to throw them away when I begged him not to! How could he!

Now they're all mine :D a storeroom full of picture frames holding portraits of old people I'm not related to. Its pretty awesome! I can't wait to work my way through all of them.

My own union jack themed cupboard :D

Finally! I've been lusting at every furniture I've seen with the Union Jack painted on it :D This is one of my favourite pieces I saw on Design Sponge :

Image Source

I knew I just had to have one in my own abode! I saw one 3 drawer chest with the union jack on it selling in SSF for about RM700ish - and thats after the discount. With very little money to toss around, I decided I'd make my own :D  And here's how it turned out !!

Not bad huh : >

Read more to see my work in progress!