Been a while I know. A full month in fact. Since we last ‘met’, we celebrated CNY, I started on yet another photo a day competition (the instagram one! pretty awesome stuff) and of course, we have been busy crafting new items. The shop has taken on a dreamy mood with pearls and Swarovski bling. Quite the impression I have of Sparkle Thots.

But besides that, we have gotten our hands busy too. The son is down with fever so we crafted. Paper roses, ruffled hearts. Very ‘Valentine’. And for those who are interested, hopefully the pictures help. Pretty simple. Just time-consuming. The perfect thing to keep the kids at bay. Hah.

** What you’d need :- any 6 petaled flower, craft white glue, floral tape (the sticky green ones), chopsticks or dowels

• Step 1 : Cut or punch out at least 3 flowers for each flower. (I used 5. Basically the more you use, the fuller the flower will be)
• Step 2 : Fold each flower in half (3 times) so that you get each petal nicely sectioned out
• Step 3 : Cut a split in 1, a petal out of another and 2 petals out of the last (for my 5 piece I did 2, 2 and 1). Keep the cut outs aside
• Step 4 : Glue the flowers together
• Step 5 : Notch the points off the smaller ‘blooms’. Nestle them, one in each other, glue in place
• Step 6 : Curl the petals to form the bud, notch the tips and glue in place
• Step 7 : Skewer the chopstick through the centre of the blooms and tap down with floral tape

Hope it makes sense. If not, ask away!

Till next time… (hopefully sooner than last!)

** for a limited time, packages are shipping out either in a lovely maroon red pouch or tied with a reddish pink bow. Sweet

Edit to add :- here’s how they look bunched together! A cost free upcycled project. Use old magazines, newspapers (unwanted books) or papers for the flowers. ‘Vase’ is an old reed diffuser that’s emptied out.

Sorry for the blog silence over the last couple of weeks. We have been seriously swarmed with Christmas orders and no time to catch up on posts. I just waded through hundreds of (amazing) posts in my blog reader. Some of them being discovered way too late but still, a visual delight.

All orders (with payment and full details) have been shipped. We hope they’d reach in time to be placed under the Christmas tree and be part of the festivities on the big morning. We hope you’d love them all, each and every piece handcrafted specially for you.

Have a blessed Christmas one and all. Now it’s time for us to get back to business. Our cupboards are bare! Above photo was taken late last night during grocery shopping (thank God for 24 hour stores) where a lone heart shaped potato remained nestled in onion erhmmm, debris.

** for local Singapore customers, our little shop is still open. All shipping will be sent via courier (average $8) to ensure timely delivery.

** for everyone though, is it time to reward yourself?

Shoppity Shop
Happy holidays!

Still around. In fact the shop has been updated pretty regularly. We are currently working on some bridal orders (blessed bridesmaids!) and busy convo-ing behind the scenes. Life has been crazy busy ever since August rolled on by. We took a couple of short trips in the last few months, had a wedding celebration in the family (of course not my kids!) and are preparing for Christmas already.

Yes, Christmas.

But still in the midst of all that jazz, I actually found the time to finish up the photobook. I realised that a number of people were asking and getting pretty darn confused with the wide selection of sites available right now and well, here’s the lowdown on the book.

I went with Photobook Singapore. A gamble of sorts because I am one of the fussiest persons alive with regards to photos, photo quality and print quality. I took a gamble because I hated how the others (like that by HP and Kodak) tended to be really thick paper. They almost felt like the pictures were printed on photo paper and then bound together. HATE. I was looking for the coffeetable book sort of feel. Like what you purchase in stores, heavyweight, about 190gsm papers that last.

all images in this spread taken with iphone 3GS hipstamatic app

Photobook Singapore was ‘selected’ because Groupon had a sale. Hah. And probably the only reason the book is done is because, the coupon was expiring. I sat aside time to select the images and went with the flow. The focus was on the kids, essentially the first 2 years of their lives. I took other gambles and was prepared for a couple of really ugly spreads but thankfully, everything worked out nicely. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my iphone 3GS hipstamatic shots turned out great. Because really, with 2 kids, you don’t always have the hands to lug the DSLR around. (Iphone 4S anyone?)

Here are a couple of spreads I took. The stats on my book are :-

1 x 11×8.5 Medium Landscape Debossed
Paper: 190gsm Photo Lustre Paper
Cover: Japanese Silk Slate 220/361

I ended up with 74 pages. If I went for basic paper, I’d have ‘excess’ value in the voucher that would be forfeited. I could lay additional pages but I didn’t want to disrupt the flow of the book. I decided to splurge on the paper instead, upgrading it to the photo lustre paper. Best decision ever. The result was perfection in my books. (Ok, minus a couple of spreads I didn’t lay too well).

I went for basics. I deleted the backgrounds, resized my photo boxes to whichever size I wanted. And laid them however I wished. Of course there was the ‘auto lay’ format or ready book formats but I liked the freedom to do whatever I pleased. Plus, I wanted something ‘classic’, that in time to come, I won’t go “what the heck was I thinking with this colour scheme / layout / accents / design?”

And so… that’s the story of my photobook.

** I have since learnt that Shutterfly also does books with this sort of thin pages. I do think Apple in house software also has this sort. A slightly thicker paper though and they have a logo if I am not wrong. This comes completely erhmm, ‘plain’. You can add the details if you’d like as an image or text.

There’s something lovely about the leaves as they turn red. I’ve been really busy on the personal front to be blogging as regularly as before but this cheerful sight popped up in my pinterest stream and I could not help sharing. I wasn’t able to trace the source of these 2 images so if you do know where they are from, do drop me a note and I’d give due credit.

I stumbled upon these via OhSuzyQ‘s collection of autumn leaves. Charming.

And perfect for today’s cool rainy weather. This is probably as close as we can get to autumn in tropical Singapore.

Have a lovely day!

And now, back to prepping orders for today’s postal run. Shoppity Shop.

❤ shadow

Mention Chanel and a world of luxury comes to mind. The iconic C’s speak volumes and the advertising is always alluring. But it doesn’t always have to be advertisement spreads that tempt. These pictures of the perfume made famous by Marilyn Monroe are tempting to say the least.

Evocative, sensual, sophisticated, haute couture and ultra feminine. Just the sort of mood I’m sure the company themselves envisioned.

❤ s. a.

❤ sudha prabakaran rao

❤ cindy

❤ chiho fukuda

❤ miss-you

❤ fofo

❤ pink bow

❤ victoria c.

❤ Passionné de Sara

❤ heikki luhtala

❤ krazewerks

❤ Håkan Dahlström

I’d admit, I’m not totally crazy over pets but these cute lil puppies are too charming to pass up. Say hello to some of the most adorable best friends you can find. Of the furry kind that is.

❤ hao xuan

❤ nicholas gore

❤ cees

❤ veryvivi.com

❤ iggy

❤ mikaela

❤ stox

Awww…! I hope they made your day.

❤ chetumz

If you didn’t already know, Singapore’s national flower is the Vanda Miss Joaqium. An orchid. So this week being our National Day (happy birthday!), we’d focus on the colourful flower.

❤ claire h.

❤ cscjanni

❤ todd f.

❤ buster&bubby

❤ rajesh vijayarajan

❤ chetumz

❤ adrian greig

I love that there are so many variations but hate that they are somewhat difficult to care for. Still, beautifully gorgeous, they are increasingly used in bouquets. Locally, the potted plants make a lovely home decor piece and all sorts of merchandising featuring the flower has been created to highlight this flower. Think… goldplated flowers, pins, dresses and shawls…

run away with me?

by lisa.anne seen via simply hue

❤ Cascio Photography via Utah Bride Blog

Now tell you that didn’t make you smile… Cheesy? Maybe. Charming? Extremely. Have a lovely Friday. The weekend is near!

❤ chloe price

Christmas in July is almost over, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not dreaming any less of Christmas. I love the pinecones, I love the christmas-sy scent and feelings they stir. And I wish we got to see them more often. *sigh*

So bear with me this not quite floral floral Monday. (I do have a small lil treat at the end. Not to mention, the storewide discount is still on).

❤ cindy

❤ rob

❤ kuang woo

❤ moa maria

❤ al richardson

❤ simone raspino

❤ distopiandreamgirl

Would you believe these are edible? These are chocolate almond cakes with raspberry filling. Makes for some awesome Christmas snack don’t you think?