closer to vanuatu than answers

i'm no closer to any answers on my can i live in the mall that is singapore if i have a really fulfilling job, make tons of money, can bring my family and use it as a jumping off point to vanuatu dilemma, but i'm having a fabulous time.

1.  i've eaten sushi (and botched up photographing it because i was deliriously tired).

2.  and some other really gorgeous food.  those little golden rectangles are delectible pockets of mango and thinly-sliced scallop that were light, crispy and quite simply heavenly. the veg is rather spinach-like and is stirred together with a gorgeous sambal olek chili sauce and garlic. totally awesome and a good alternative to sushi if one must.

3.  and wondered to myself whether i could actually allow myself to eat sushi at every meal while i'm here (i chose something else tonight, as you can see, so i did not go with this option, tho' there's still a lot of sushi left in this city and i will have more before i leave).

4.  i wondered what the heck this was:

the waitresses were using these, i think it was some way of communicating to the cooks what had been ordered because they would come, stand in front of it, select a few and disappear around the corner.  fascinating, in any case.

5.  i've marveled at the sheer number of people wearing false eyelashes (i will try to surreptitiously take pictures of some of them tomorrow). 

6.  i've visited two scrap supply stores (read: heaven) and bought a few cool things (read: stamps, rub-ons, something fabulous called washi tape and yes, pretty papers). and i've spread it all out on the desk in my hotel room:

7.  i popped into the gap, bought a great dress (follow link to the very dress) which i already wore today and got a $10 (SGD, not US, tho' they're worth about the same these days what with the utter collapse of the US economy under the stewardship of the republicans...but i digress) gift certificate, which means i will have to go back.

8.  i viewed the new nano, but they were out of purple, so i restrained.

9.  i bought the new issue of martha stewart living. (sigh, i do love martha, despite the damage she's done to my psyche (what with the ironing the tea towels and all) so much that i paid $13SGD for it.)

10.  i bought thomas friedman's new book, hot, flat and crowded (tho' my version looks nothing like this picture on amazon) and listened to him being interviewed about it on CNN. it sounds like it's gonna be great, but i'm finishing this first. (my version looks like the one in the picture.)

11.  i've memorized the piece on CNN about whether or not south africa will be ready for the world cup in '10. dang, they repeat themselves a lot.

12.  i have yet to lens-shop for a macro lens for my beloved D60.

13.  and for the past couple of hours, i've been working in my art journal for the fabulous online course i'm taking.

i did a page called someday which listed all of the things that i will do someday (you know i'm a procrastinator):

and this one called need more, which listed all of the things i need more of (counterintuitively, not all were actual things, but stuff like patience, discipline, creativity and ideas):

and this one too which had only a little bit of journaling starting with i wonder...:

loving the SteadyHandFaultyHeart online art journal course (it's round 2) and it bodes well for singapore that i've had this spurt of creativity while i was here. and of course its proximity (relative to denmark) to vanuatu, where i will someday run away to. (in fact, i'm going to add that to my someday page.)

and now, it's ridiculously late here, so i'm going to go. catch ya tomorrow...do you think it's ok to have a list of 13 things? oh well, too tired now to care.

on stashing the stash and never actually using the stash

my scrap stash continues to grow and i still don't really use any of it, except to make the occasional card. why is that? what is it that drives me to buy pretty paper and embellishments like a woman possessed? and why don't i sit down and use it? some of it comes in kits i subscribe to, some from shopping online, others from visits to craft and scrap stores.

speaking of scrap stores, the one i know and like best, scrapshop.dk, in roskilde, is closing at the end of this month! so, yesterday, i went there and finally bought that QuicKutz squeeze in pink that i've had my eye on for a long time. i've managed to restrain from going back today. i also stocked up on bazzil basics paper, since i find myself using that as the base whenever i make cards. i also discovered another scrap store in høje taastrup--dream papers--but didn't get to properly explore, as the woman who owned it was on her way to a craft show in sweden and had everything packed up. i did score a couple of sassafrass lass robots papers and one of the sets of owl stamps, also from sassafrass lass. i'm still obsessed with owls. i discovered that shop through this fun blog, the first blog friend i've made who actually lives in the same country as me! :-) imagine that!

my dozens kit also came yesterday. it has some super fun little pink plastic alfas by heidi swapp. they may be what makes me scrap something. i got my label tulip kit this week as well and it has some inspiring bits in it--especially a prima adhesive black felt that looks like a city skyline. i love that so much i put it on the inspiration board beside my desk.

best of all, at the scrapshop, i finally scored one of those little 7 gypsies ATC carousels. there's something about the playing-card size of ATCs that makes it seem less overwhelming than a big 30x30 sheet, so perhaps i'll find my scrap groove doing a few of those. it's a bit silly NOT to scrap when i have so much beautiful stuff to use and because i have tons of great pictures and i really enjoy the pretty paper--wouldn't i enjoy it all even more if i actually used it and had it right in front of me on the little card carousel? one would think so.

i think part of the problem for me is that scrapping is so about squarey edges and perfection, even when people are "distressing" their paper edges or ripping them, they do it just so, all perfecty, perfect. i feel constricted by that. and although i have lots of words in me, i freeze before the scrap page. i might have the perfect photo, and tons of cool ribbons and buttons, but then i never really know what to write in my journal spots (and believe me, i have lots of those) or what to write with my cool thickers and other alphabets. am i the only one who feels this way? in love with the supplies, but paralyzed before them?

does anyone else have issues like this? do you also collect and collect art supplies and then finger them lovingly and look at them, but not really use them? how can we get started? maybe if we promised one another to make and share something, that would kickstart things? anybody up for that?

we've been busy

it's been a creative weekend thus far and sunday still stretches luxuriously before us.

sabin and i have both been scrapping and we made these:



sabin's mini book about herself
two fun matchboxes made by me.
a funny page about monica's escapades in manila in '07. that's limoncello she's licking up in the top picture.
very picturesque blue ice cream from ljubljana. it seemed like the papers i bought made it absolutely natural to make this page!
such a deep, thinking look on her face, it seemed perfect for the question she asked at dinner on her birthday. "what is the difference between princeton and berkeley?" pretty cool question for a 7-year-old.

we're going to continue making pages today, now that it's started, i don't want to stop!!

more evidence of creativity

i did it!! this week i:

1. made a very nice pair of earrings



2. learned something about painting



3. and finally made a scrapbook page

yeah me!!

i think i'll give the earrings to moneek

what i learned about painting was something about colors and the difference between treating the canvas with linseed oil before beginning and not doing so (can be seen in the attached picture--the one on the right was treated, on the left, not so much). when you use plenty of linseed oil, the paint becomes more transparent and glides onto the canvas. for me, it almost sings beneath the brush. but there's something about the vibrancy of the colors when you DON'T use it that's also intriguing. i used these blues and greens because in my synaesthetic moments (which i'm working on expanding), these are the colors i usually see.

another thing i learned from painting today was that the best canvas i made was actually the one i was using to dry off my brushes on. so, there's something to not trying too hard.

as for the scrap layout. it was so liberating to finally begin after days and days of looking for inspiration on blogs around the world. now i finally made one myself and the ideas for more are tumbling in my head. i have two kits on their way...label tulip and red velvet girls. i can't wait to dig into those materials, together with the 134 pictures i had developed today. yeah!!

hoorah for creativity!!! it feels like a real breakthrough. and now i'd better go knit! :-)