I'm designing my wedding invites, it's more or less done. Just need to talk to the printers and look for the right paper. I'm going to fold and cut up 500 pieces of flowers. Between me, my cousin and several other people, it is possible. I just need to find the right paper, cut up into squares and fold them up into triangles.

Mom has been reminding me to keep the card simple. Just make it a regular card she said. No need for the fancy shmancy pop up she said. I'm not going to make a fancy shmancy pop up. Even I know I don't have the power to make a fancy shmancy pop up in the time that is left. My cottage factory only exist when the need arises and even then they can only do so much.

I made several mock ups. The first one, I was like, yeah, this is it. Simple, nothing to it. That was the inside, open up the card and a heart pops out, text all laid out on either side. Then I did the outer part of the card, family list, cover. Thought I was being clever with the rounding off one end of the rectangle. Then I stepped back and realised it looked like a giant silhouette of a tampon  

Scratch that.

Fortunately, the fiance's invites were already done. They were lucky, the place where they're having the do is packaged with the invitations. I like the typeface it had. I went back to mine and rid of the fancy shmancy curly type I had earlier, it was just messy as there was so much text to fit in. The malay language just have too much protocol.

Following the steps of the other half I did a simple layout with an overhead fold (A4 folded in half). Arranged the text to one side leaving space for the flower. Made a mock up and it worked. There's an empty space at the top left corner and I don't know if it's something I should fill in...

I tested out the mock up and my subject, aka sister, was suitably impressed. Hence, the plan will continue. Meeting printers next week, in the mean time, will look for suitable paper for flowers. It has to be red, as the card will be on pearliest white with black print. I shall live up to my motto, make do with what's available locally and maximise on it.

There are also mini invites for the other two functions, since those will be in a smaller run, I feel that it's easier to print them out myself. And it's designed smaller still, it'll be on an A6 format. So 100 pcs = 25 print outs... (4 per sheet of A4).

and the other one 50 pcs = 13 print outs on A4.

I just need to buy a pack of scented rose print on white for about... how much did I buy for a pack of 100... less than 40 bucks that's for sure.

If I buy them 40 cents per sheet that's... 25 + 13 = 38... multiply that by 0.4 = 15.20 bucks... oh, much much cheaper... if I buy stack, I could always use the rest for other projects... will have to think about that one.

Still have to factor in how much the printing of cards is going to cost at printers and how much the sheets of red paper is going to be. I'm aiming wrapping paper, that'll be about a dollar per sheet at the most. Just need to know how many squares I can get out of a sheet. A ballpark figure of maybe 12 squares at a dollar per sheet will give me.... 40 bucks! That's a lot to spend on wrapping papers...

And if the printers are going to charge me say, $1.50 per card that's another $750, 500 invites. Shit that's expensive...  works out each invite is going to cost $1.58. And if it's the one with the extra invites that'll be $1.78. When you break it down to unit cost that's cheap.

But I haven't factored in the, will we be using envelopes? Are the envelopes thrown into the price or is that an additional price? The pizza to be ordered for the flower making crew and assembly? And the glue used for assembly, not counting time and effort put in... My cousin and I have been brain storming this, when it comes to the planning and doing, she and I are gold.

I think I can keep it well below $800.

Must take pictures of mock ups and final pieces when ready... if I remember to charge up my camera.

This is going to be fun

I'm curious, how much did your invitation cards cost?

Oh gosh, I just remembered, I have to do 50 handmade invites for a friend's wedding!

Intermediate / advance stab binding class.

This is just me musing here...

Yeah, I had to make two didn't I. I just had to make my life that bit more complicated didn't I. I just had to doubt myself didn't I. But hey, it was worth it, because it went to two extremes. Over ostentatious and subtle classic in my view.

So far to date, I like this particular commission. The client, Ellen, had bought some of my books before and I was honoured that she had me in mind for this project. Her son got married in Germany and she had the pictures developed here, had some of the prints framed at my favourite frame maker Alley's and she had these 8 by 12 inches pictures as well and wondered what to do with them.

She contacted me asking for a book to be made for them and told me that she wanted it for Christmas. This was around the beginning of December, and I knew my deadline was less than three weeks, must be in their hands before they flew off for the holidays.

Looking at the pictures I felt it would be a shame to just put them in a book only to be seen when it's opened. And I thought of a structure that would allow for the pictures to be displayed as well as work as a book with pages and a front and back cover.

The pictures were divided up into portrait and landscape and it was ideal how all the portrait images just showed the couple and all the landscape pictures were the wedding party.

My next decision was how much of a border am I going to give? How am I going to fix the pictures in position? How am I going to construct this plan? And am I happy with the plan? I sketched out what looked almost the same images over and over again, with minor changes here and there. I needed to know the details and how and where everything was suppose to go. How am I going to make the book look more exciting when opened and also how to store the hanging pieces.

At the same time I had to hunt down the items I needed. Part of the work was sub contracted, I decided I don't want the headache of cutting the board and got the people at Alley's to do it for me. My next worry was whether the board I chose was strong enough for the structure and was the border I gave too wide? Should I cut it down? These were just some of the blocks I had to work through because even though I knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it, my mind was still looking for the best possible solution and at the same time practical, that it can withstand the stress it will be under. Oh, and still look pretty.

Finding the right material was another thing. I was hoping to find a more opaque colour but there were dull, boring, there was nothing exciting about it. I found this white semi transparent organza material with white glitter dots all over it. Perfect. Good thing the boards had a white ground so it was alright. That took over several days to cover all the boards and making and attaching the spine edges between 'pages'.

The next part was making the cover. I used a thicker board for the covers as it is a large book and it would need to protect and securely hold the pages. For the portrait version the ribbon was attached at the spine of the book. For the landscape version there were two points of attachment. So the ribbon holding the book closed is practical and decorative. The ribbon I used was 2 inches wide, it was the last four odd bit meters of it. I panicked a bit when originally I wanted six meters and I wasn't sure if the four odd was enough. It was just enough. Phew. Because it was just the right ribbon for it. And I couldn't find another alternative.

I edged the spine between the boards with a skinny white satin with silver edged ribbon. The same ribbon was used for the hanging roses on the side. The numbers of roses were placed randomly and the roses were glued back to back. I never expected to be using that many roses. 78 to be exact. I didn't expect that it took that long either to glue them all together. It took half a day.

Fitted in the pictures was the last part and I had already put the ribbons in the corners and all I had to do was slip them in.

As an extra I made Ellen a stab bound book using the same materials for the album.

When I delivered the albums to Ellen, her and her husband were well impressed when I presented them. They were keenly watching how I tied the bow of the ribbons and asked me to demonstrate twice how to set up the book for display and storing away. They were very grateful that the albums came out the way they did and after they came back from Germany Ellen informed me how delighted her son and daughter-in-law were when they opened up their presents.

Contest was narrowed down to two, Lubna from Singapore, or Doda in UK. After much deliberation and consulting with the various panel of judges, it came out that DODA IS THE LUCKY ONE with her entry...

It just so happen, there is this little blue and orange book, that requires a good home to go to because all of it's other cohort has gone off to various places after their graduation. One of it's member had gone off to become a poet, where in its life time will be filled with original poems. Another had gone to become an artist, it will be filled with sketches it's owner would have decided is worth putting on paper. Another fellow member has become a personal diary, where it lives a double life and the twin is filled with words of inspirations and thoughts and dreams.

What does fate have in store for this blue and orange book? Ready with the matching orange glitter pen attached on its spine, slightly different from the crowd it hoped to be. Little windows to peek into its soul mayhaps? Proudly displaying the exposed binding that holds the content of its inside, showing it's vulnurability yet strength to face the world.

An opportunity has risen! Lo, and make haste, write in what dreams and aspirations the book can turn into in your posession. This book will travel over land and water just to be by your side.

Two weeks this will last, and at the end of two weeks it will be decided to whom the book will go to...

Contest is closed!

PS: Mom just told me the silk material offcut I used for the cover came from one of the Royal Family member who gave it to her back in the days... My response was, "...oh..."

I got an email from the Animal Shelter asking for a unique pop up thank you card that can fit 12 signatures to be given to one of their patron of the shelter. I was like, oh, this is a good opportunity, and wondered how I could justify the time and cost of making the card as well as having only a week to come up with a concept and make it cos I said I'll do it in a week. It's a card! I'm not going to bat my brain because of it.

Unfortunately or fortunately, regardless how big or small the commission, I still put in a lot of time to come up with a concept. I don't think there is such thing as doing things simply for me, deep down, everything just has to be 'wow'.

I went online for thank you pop ups inspirations. Found lots of the actual 'Thank You' words in pop ups. But not wow enough. While browsing and reading blogs of paper and card makers I came across this blog which talks about a 7 flower pop up. Instructions looked simple enough, and I tried it out.

First of all was that I had to cut up 7 pieces of 8 petalled paper flowers using the origami paper that Lin got for me over a year ago. Then following the steps on the blog, by removing 1/8 of the flower and gluing 1/8 and 1/8 on top of each other, it turns into a 6 petalled flower which can't be opened flat. Repeat on all the flowers.

Following the instructions still, it showed you how to put the flowers together. Ok done that. Simple enough. When dried opened it up. Not to bad. But! because I was cutting the flowers individually, and when joining them up some of the white part of the paper was showing, and out came my cutterbees scissors and trimmed the petals. That was kinda tricky to do, managed it anyway.

Before I made the actual flowers for this card I made a mock up. The one thing I didn't like was that when the flowers were attached to the card, the card can't be opened flat. And I was trying to figure out how to solve it. Extra tabs maybe? I don't know yet. I just have to try it out another time. Anyway, with the flowers all done, now to match up the background to put the flowers against.

I didn't want to go for white, and pulled out all my card stock. There was a scrap of gold which matched well, and had a scarp of the white and purple striped card I used for Lin's card and that was perfect! Only it was a scrap. So went out to get some more. I went to several places and came up nil.

Damn...

Went back to card, everything else just didn't seem to match and I felt I had to resort to plan B ('Thank You' word in pop up) and left it.

The next day I was still brooding over the non available purple and white stripy card and I couldn't bring myself to start on plan B and was just staring at my work table, the flowers against white. In the studio that time was my sister and significant other. She asked him what background I should use for the flowers, and he said, "I don't know why she's (referring to me) asking cos it staring at her in the face."

White.

Hmmm...

It is a 'card'.

Card's got white insides.

Pulled up more paper for the cover and started making.

I don't know why but that night everything was wrong. I couldn't get the paper to square up. I couldn't get the board to square up. Nothing wanted to get 90 degrees at the corners! This messes up the calculation and the look of the card when it's closed. And then after making the cover I realised I did another classic mistake, not taking into account of the cover when opened, I didn't make the gutter between cover and spine deep enough! I did not want to remake the whole cover plus it would mean ripping up the paper I had used for the cover which I have a limited amount of.

Managed to fudge a bit on the spine part and just hope nobody noticed. Well, I bloody well noticed because as a book maker to me that is unforgiving. Mental note, must practice more hard back binding. Anyway, continuing on...

I stuck the white down onto the cover only to realised I forgot to put the ribbon ties in! I wondered if I could do it without having to remove the white paper. Careful... careful.... careful... *RRRRIIIIPPPP*

Damn!

Had to rip off the whole white part and remeasured and re-cut, still not being able to get the corners squared up.

But at least it was easier now to insert the ribbon in cos I had to cut through the front cover.

Lined up the white paper and finally glue the flowers down. And the way luck was moving that day it wasn't centred. Swore.

I just had to call it a night. I was pushing it far enough already. Plus I have to figure out the next part, how to decorate the front as well as where do I put the word 'Thank You'? Initial concept was that the word 'Thank You' emerges from the flowers on a pivot when the card opens up, but that's engineering I didn't want to think about.

I thought of a tag with the words 'Thank You' attached to the front. And I wasn't so keen of black text against the colours I was using. Plus it wouldn't look so good. In the end, used the printer to print out the words and stuck it reversed onto the card backed same origami paper I used for the flowers and took out my sharpest pen knife and started cutting. The straight lines were easy. The curves were not. I don't remember how long it took me, I rather not know. When it was all done, Attached a clear plastic on the back and stuck the 'o' for the letters 'o' and 'a'. Vowed will not do that again until I have a cutter machine that can do that for me.Cut a slot in the tag for the ribbon to go through and padded up the tag so it stood out from the cover.

Ta-da! Yay! Finished!

Then I busied myself on making the envelope. Used up the last bit of embossed green paper for it too. So happy when everything was finished.

Photo-shoot of the 'card' here.

Delivered and it was very well received. So happy. It was from there when I got my next order to do. One that can fit at least 70 signatures! Eek!

Got an email.. a couple of days and a couple of emails and sms exchanged later, confirmed order, I only have 3 days to conceptualise and finish a buku permintaan for delivery because she was having the function that very week.

Fortunately I didn't have anything pending so I slotted the order in.

Raided what I have since there is no time to go out and look, with the key words in mind (purple, hearts, ribbons) I came up with this.

I hate cutting out the large heart, but if I don't, the design wouldn't be so great. So sacrifices must be made and cut out it was. Slow and tedious process, it's not easy to cut a curve on a hard board. And the next bitchy thing is cutting the end sheet making sure there is enough border showing all around.

I actually OD-ed on the ribbons and had to cut some of them out.

Then I also OD-ed on the ribbons themselves, originally I attached hearts at the end of the ribbons, but it got too bottom heavy and was clashing with the hearts that outlined the bigger heart. Had to chop them all off or else it'll just topple over.

The purple cover is two layered. First layer is the raw silk purple thing like the one on the inside. And then I overlay it with a deep purple chiffon with sparkles on it. It made the 'book' look very rich in terms of colour and accents from the sparkles when it catches the light.

The very day I finished it late afternoon, I arranged to meet up with Alin that very evening who came with her significant other and she was very happy when she saw it. Her guy was pretty pleased and said to her it got all the colours she wanted. We chatted a bit and they left very happy and I felt really good for being able to give what she wanted.

After they left, I stayed on and with my significant other, played Soul Calibur (sp?) on the PS3 til the wee hours of the morning. Just chillin'... aaahhhh...

I was just looking at pictures of past works I've made and done, and it's just bizarre that I ask myself the question, how the hell did I make that? And that one? And that bit? Ironic. I came up with the structure, I'm the one who had to resolve the constructions, I'm the one who made if from start to finish. Mind boggling that I actually don't remember how I did that bit with that thing and into that piece and how it joined to that whatcamacallit without it overlapping...

I think it's along the line of when putting the pieces together I'm constantly looking for ways to improve on the previous one. The next piece of work always turns out better than the last one. I'm happy with it when its all done, then when the next commission comes along and I finished making that, I'm like, oh, this one is even better. Funny eh...

No, not funny. Just continuous improvement. Always room for improvement. I strive to make my work better and better every time. Aren't you the lucky person to receive it

Still, how did I glue that thingamabob without the seam coming off...?

It was Lin's birthday last month, and  the brain scratching routine of what to get for her... Well, her brother came up with the present and I'll do the card. So I figured the card will be my present only it has to be more special than just a card. And knowing me, what else would it be?

When I was designing and experimenting with the ideas,  it was while in front of her, hehe. Good thing she was too occupied with her drawings. I only started making the card on her birthday itself after work and knowing there's her birthday dinner to attend to that night as well, time was very tight. Fortunately I already picked a colour scheme and bought the papers already. If any of you guys are stuck for a present, there is nothing more personalised than this... here comes the tutorial! 

Total work time, 2 hours give or take...

1. Take 2 A4 sheet of card and concertina fold evenly.
2. Count out the spacing, you need a single spacing for the front and back, and every letter will take up two spacing. (I needed to use 1.5 sheets.)
3. Line up where the letters are going to go, (in my case it was a straight line). mark the centre of each already cut out letter and line it up with the middle line of the two spacing per letter allocated.
4. Glue letters down.
5. Cut the outline of the letters that are on the right side of the two spacing to create a pop up of the letter.
6. Make covers for the front and back. (I used a hard board, covered in the same paper used for the letters of her name, and overlay a chiffon material with  silver dots over it)
7. Attach any embellishments like ribbons onto the cover before sticking the ends of the concertina down.
8. Decorate the inside pages. (I used a flower shaped punch outs and glued down).
9. Write birthday messages in 'book' with matching pen, (I used white).
10. Bring book and pen to said dinner and pass book around for everybody to sign.
11. Present book to birthday recipient as a memento for her birthday.

Happy Birthday Lin! Have a great year ahead of you! More pictures of the book here

A couple of things about orders, as much as the customer is trusting me to make the item for them, thank you for your faith in me, it also makes me nervous because I want to give the best for the customer who is placing the order. And like how everybody is different, so are their taste in what they want. And I have to figure out how to meet their demands as well as putting in my style into it.

That's why I like to either meet the customers when they place the order so I can get a feel of what they are like, or they have provided me with an idea of what they wanted.

With Rona I met up with her and she also came along with a wrapping paper which got the colours she liked. And the big big big thing it must be pink. Pink. Pink. Pink. Pink. I lost count of how many sms I got from her reminding me it must be pink. Yes dear, I got that impression already from when I first met you   Rona also text me on other occasions when she saw some stuff I did which she liked. So with this client, what she asked for is pink, hearts, girly, flowers, and curly ribbons!

Using the wrapping paper as a guide I picked out how the colours worked together and chose the pink, lavender and blue theme for Rona.

Structurally I always hate the initial part, cutting up the board down to size. That takes up time because everything must be square (90 degrees at the corners) measuring and remeasuring. Then it stops there while I go and play around with the colours and materials available to see which combination is pleasing with the eye and what do I need to do with them.

After several weeks of that (I don't know why it took me that long for this one, there was just nothing that I liked that time) I finally decided the design would require for me to cut through the boards for the heart shaped window. Checked out what templates I already have, turned out they're a bit too small for it and have to create a whole new template. And then the slow process of carefully cutting out the shape on the board.

Gluing the three pieces of board (back and two doors) down to the material must be done carefully, the glue can't be too wet or else it'll seep through the material and you get ugly wet spots coming through and it can't be too dry or else the board and material won't stick. and then you have to make sure there is enough gap for the doors to be able to close. The gap is all dependent on how thick your boards are in the first place. And...

The inside of the folder. What do you call that thing...? Let's just call it the centre piece. I have used various materials for that, thick paper, thin card, thin board, all depends, because sometimes I find no matter how carefully you measure for the allowance for the gap between the door and back, once the material and board and the end paper is stuck down you realised you can't have too thick of a center piece or else the doors won't close properly. In this case it was just right and the centre piece I covered it with the same pink material and a layer of netting of a sort with the gold design to make it stand out. Not forgetting the ribbons at the corners.

The end paper that are stuck on the doors of the folder have to be measured and cut carefully for the space the heart left behind. The end paper is always slightly smaller leaving a gap of about 3 mm all around to make it look neat and tidy.

When both end paper are stuck down only then the centre piece gets stuck down.

Back track a bit, before the insides of the folder gets stuck down, I have to figure out how to 'lock' the doors. Where do I put the ribbon ties? Spent a while coming back and disappearing off working that part out. When I hit on something and idea or a solution, it plays out in my head until I decide if it works or not. Then it was fingers crossed and stuck down. Only then you stick on the insides of the folder.

Then spent a good half day and more just sticking the flowers down to outline the heart shape. Oh darn, back track again. Before sticking down, the flowers were arranged first for a dry run to see if they worked. Originally the pink flower was the same type as the lavender and blue. I swapped it with the pink roses instead and it looked way better. Dry runs always good. Takes longer but worth it.

I had trouble after that. What do I do with the empty spaces at the top and bottom of the heart? More dry runs. Decided to sleep on it and come back to it the next day. Good thing too cos I think I would've over done it and I still have to figure out how to add in the curly ribbons.

Well, needless to say they're in and curly ribbons too, but I do feel I kinda overdid it. Ideally the curls would trail towards the other side but if I did that, the doors won't be able to open. Well, when I think they're done, they're done. Oh, times two because Rona wanted two of the folders.

Then it was just a matter of doing the photo shoot for the record, wrapping them up and making an appointment to meet up with Rona.

Rona loved the folders and I showed her how to tie up the ribbons nicely, I'm not too sure if whoever will be handling it will know how to untie it. Shouldn't be that complicated. And I also left her a bunch of other instructions like if somebody's hands messed it up and what she should do. I was very concerned that the folders look as pristine as possible for her big day which is in 2 weeks time. After that, she could use them as photo frames!

Another happy customer and a happy me for a folder well made  it turned out much better than I anticipated for them to be.

I got comments of them being very diabetically sweet. Yup, but also got that neat and tidy style of mine. I'm starting to become really aware of that. More pictures in the photo albums.

On top of this all, I got a wedding photographer who contacted me to make an album. But I already had a lot of things on my hands and I didn't want to take up such an undertaking especially when he's talking about 60 to 80 (8 by 10) pictures. Talked further with him and they say the albums off the shelf are not attractive. I gave them the option it'll be easier for all of us if they ask for a recover job and he accepted.

Didn't take a picture of it but I used up the last bits of my purple stripy material for the cover and the purple embossed hearts paper for the end paper. The trouble spot was the spine cover because it was an expandable album, I had to recover it as well as cutting out the holes for the screw posts to go through and I didn't have a material big enough to cover it and had to piece them together. Then it was trying to figure out how to hide the seam.

The album came out really good and I was well pleased with it too. So this week has been very good and I hope to continue this, I got a painting to finish and as soon as that's done it'll go to the framers and delivered to a yoga studio to be hung. Yay!

Lots of things happened. Yes, lots. I'm currently at my other site at the moment. I post there cos I only put in a short paragraph and a couple of pictures, with the intention to do a longer post here and lots of pictures.

Then my machine died a few months ago and all my images was on it. So didn't do much posting on either sites, and I started working out with a personal trainer during that time, so wasn't making much either. I was just too tired all the time.

Finally gotten around to getting my machine fixed and made new stuff as well and posted up pictures after pictures on the other site thinking I'll elaborate that here on a later date. Was still hitting the gym and feeling tired.

I stopped having a personal trainer and did my own workout and continued blogging workouts. So now I have three personal sites to upkeep. Workout site is a daily thing so couldn't miss that. The other arty site are short stuff so that didn't matter, don't have to say much. Still looking for time to blog here. And I also have my group site to take care off.

Then when I log into multiply I'm like, not today.

I dive quite regularly now, I'm having conflict with my aikido training, I'm also trying to be good with my workouts, doing early morning yoga is no joke, I'm also trying to get through all the backlogs of commission works just so I can move on to my next big project or else I'm just piling up one thing after another on my plate without me actually having a break break.

Oh, and work too. Will be flying off to Bali for a conference for a week in July (wonder if I could fit in a dive trip ). There is a big project I'm working on right now. And all this on top of my regular desk job. Oh, and been going on for training every months it seems past months. Mainly personal development for some reason.

I did a trial book making workshop, it was a success, took pictures and realised afterwards I forgot to put in the memory card. So smart of me. But it's one step closer to having a book binding workshop people. Early notice, I can only have five participants at a time.

I moved out of the studio and into the dining room for more space. Studio was getting a bit small. Also need bigger surface space to work on.

I broke almost all my needles for book making. Realised I had majority of them eight years ago. I'm down to one now. Need to go look for them again soon. Probably when I realise I don't have any left, hehe...

Oh, and then there was that whole episode of being flamed. Bizarre...

So what I gotta do is like Lin does, is list out all the pending blogs... Sheeeeeeeeetttttt, that'll be alot. Ok, I'll save that for the next posting, hahahaha....

 My notebook is in stasis due to the adaptor not supplying power to it. Therefore, there will be no pictures for a while until I get a new adaptor. And a new camera while I'm at it.

& I have done lots of stuff. A pinata that got aborted cos it didn't develop like it should.

 Lots of stripy pink and purple themed A6 books using fabric and paper. One of them got sold less than 5 minutes from when I finished binding it. That was good.

& Tried out new binding method for me. Catapillar binding. It looks like you got something like a centipede more than a catapillar crawling on the cover of the book. Took me two nights to finish it. Not bad for a first attempt. Posted up queries on the book arts forum regarding the binding this morning. Wonder if I should do another cos my neck hurts from all the bending down while sewing. Fortuately my darling sweetie was around to massage some of the tension out. I'll post up pictures of the book next time.

 I have been commissioned to do paintings to hang on the new walls of my brother's new extension to his house.

 I haven't painted anything in a while...

 I got commissioned for a photo album and the client loves that thai handmade paper which I got tons off, great opportunity to use them up!

& Art night have not been working well as a group lately. Distraction always seems to happen to the rest of them. Oh well, I still do it anyway regardless if anybody is around or not. Anyone is welcome to join. It's easy to spot me, I'm the only person with a paintbrush in my hand and a canvas in front of me or sewing a book. Unlike the others who are on their machine photoshopping their work, I'm non tech. I like the physicalness of mine, I like to feel the different textures. I was told photoshop is safe cos of the Ctrl+Z option, what I'm doing is dangerously brave. Everything are just tools for me.

I would like more weekends please...

It was art night, of a sort, at Canopy. Also a belated birthday celebration for Jam Jam. It was that time of year where it was time to do another life board as ours had all expired. For some it was their first time, for others their second, for me, this was my third life board. We booked the tables and even though some of us couldn't make it, it was meant to be cos we took up alot of space! And the flurry of activity! The wait staff were watching us with really perplexed look on their faces and the other customers walked in and out pretending they never noticed a thing. Heh, like people always do around here, yet when there's a road accident, they slow down like hell. Go figure.

Life boards are done annually. It's a subconscious way to show what's in store for you for the next twelve months. You have a set time limit to how long you should spend on it, in this case, twenty minutes to hunt and cut your images out, and twenty minutes to stick them down. It's all to do with instinct, no thinking involved. Well, not over think it. And because of the time limit you can't really think of your layout too much or else you wouldn't have a chance to stick down what you wanted to stick down. You can pre-cut your images prior if you like but no guarantee that you'll stick them all down. The images you selected go by what you like, images, colours, words, those that appeal to you.

Comparing my first life board to my second and third, mine just got more wordy. First one, no words, second got some words and third, I couldn't stick them all down. And then in all the mess of mess some of the words and images I had cut up earlier disappeared! There were those that I thought I was gonna stick in but decided against it at the last minute. There were bits that I glued up and stuck down and a second later ripped it off again. And there were others that I stuck over.

The base colour of the board have meanings to them. My choices for the first life board was orange (communication), second was dark blue (peace, serenity) and now my third, pink (love) I honestly never thought I would've chosen pink! You only get to choose the colour of the board on the spot. Even though I had prepared my images I was still hunting through the many stacks of magazines that we had out because you never know what calls out to you.

Everybody came out with their own life boards, it's now just a matter of interpretation. All I can say about mine, I'm gonna have a very busy year cos that's a lot of goals to cover.

Yes, I like hearts.

you are khaki #F0E68C

Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definately not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling". Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Well, the strange part is that I have no affinity with the colour khaki but what it says are true, so I feel... go figure. It's all psychology isn't it...

As valentine approaches, I've been pondering on what to give to my wonderful guy. There was this one book structure that I've been seeing which was called a 'star book', so named because when the book is fully opened and the covers are placed back to back it resembles a star.

Looks like a pretty fun structure to work with but I wasn't very keen on the way the structure was used, it has three layers yet only the outer most layer was decorated as a book.

When February turned up, I decided I will make him an artist book, several actually. There was suppose to be three different ones. I ended up spending way too long in the planning and conceiving stage I ran out of time and figured I could make two instead of three. Planned out when and what I was going to do. I had a big picture idea but not the little detail cos I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it . I had an idea in my head but I can't see the details.

Like all things I just need to start working on it regardless if I actually planned it through or not  cos the nature how I work is that as I progress I'll know what to do next. Just not before.

How I decided on the colour... I like red, he likes black and I got him to give me the third colour by asking 'what would be a good third colour if the first two are red and black?' White. And he did the colour order too

Next step, to look for those colours and on what size I'm going to be making this into. Combed all the usual places I check out for my paper and in the end it's always this one place. It's the best so far I can get in this country, it's not fantastic but it'll do, plus I believe in make do with what's available.

Initially I planned on looking for black paper doilies, in my head I believe there is such thing, unfortunately they don't have such thing here. Ok, play with white doilies. I must've stood in front of that rack filled doilies of various sizes in that bake shop for a good ten minutes before I decided against it and to not over complicate the design and keep it minimal. I work better that way. And it did. Because I decided to keep it minimal I needed to figure out how to make the white windows look interesting.

I can't remember how I ended up using my craft punch. I think I was thinking of putting heart shapes and must've looked for the heart craft punch. And picked out the star and teddy bear punch as well.

I cut out the windows for the white layer and used the discarded part to get the punched out shapes. Don't like wasting perfectly good paper. White on white looks so good. It gives interest to the outline of the window and there's detail but not, know what I mean, probably just me... Spent all afternoon just doing that and sticking the shapes on the window. I worked on the first window one way and by the time I was on the last window, used a completely different way. Interesting how the work progressed.

For the black layer, at first I thought of just a single heart per panel. But there was too much black and you can't see the red so much. And if I'm going to put text on the red, it's going to be difficult to read it. With my trusty wooden heart shape template, I had cut out twelve hearts outline.

I decided not to put the text on the red because it's just too far back in there. I thought of putting the text on paper strips that'll attach onto the red but it just didn't seem right, thought of this while I was sewing the layers together, thinking there must be a better way for the text to be seen. I sew cos I didn't like the 'original' way which was to stick them together so we're talking at least six layers stuck together at six ends.

Since I wasn't sure on how to do the text part yet, I didn't want to delay time, I decided to do the covers for it by cutting two squares of chip board which I thought I'd cut slightly lager and recovered it. I've been thinking on what to put on the front cover and I figured I'll glue on the back first, only after I pressed it down to realise that it was the front part of the book. Damn! To remove it I might accidentally rip up the book! I rather not risk it and just glued up the back and think about what I'm going to do with it later.

The next part I can't remember how I got to, all I do know was that I made a mock up of the pop up hearts component, I think earlier on in the day I was looking at Robert Sabuda's tutorial on Martha Stewart site on making a pop up valentine card and my subconscious mind must've picked up something from there. Well, the component worked, proceed to make six of them.

I decided to write in the text by hand, had to practice a couple of times to see which one looks nicest, I could've printed it but I didn't have the time to fiddle around with the computer to do that and I figured it's very personal that I'm using my own hand writing, he got nicer hand writing than I do, very neat, mine looks hurried, so I was writing on the hearts real slow. And even then I had to discard a few and make some more cos it wasn't centered, smudged, pen gone all funny... and cut up more red strips for the arms of the pop ups. This was when I made the mistake of using double tape. Because I already stuck on the covers, it was a bitch trying to stick on the components, it just got really fiddly to do and I couldn't apply pressure on to the glued up part as much as I'd like to. By the time I stuck hearts to book and thought I finished and feeling very pleased with myself that it's complete and played with the book, shock and horror the components was coming lose! By then I only had an hour until he was coming over to pick me up for dinner. Panic!

Somewhere along the line I decided to keep cover design simple, two teddy bears representing us and a heart to write the year on.

I re glued the lose parts with a stronger adhesive and just as when I stuck on the last piece his car pulled in the drive. I prayed I managed to get to all of the bits that needed gluing, including the tiny red confetti hearts and nothing is going to fall out and was glad I stitched up the folds and know for a fact that's not going to come off anytime. The choice of wrapper was also significant, it came from the first bouquet of roses he got me earlier on the relationship, I thought it was appropriate to use. Wrapped it up and off we go.

I got a dozen large head red roses from him and I presented my gift to him before dinner arrived. He appreciated the effort I put into making the book and I decided to make a new tradition, for every valentine's day together he'll get an artist book from me. I was glad I managed to complete the star book and happy that I didn't have time to do the second book but very pleased that'll be a tradition so that second book will definitely be made for next valentines!

More pictures of the book are here!