Dinner Date in Carlton

Can't believe a year has passed since the last Valentine's, since those lovely cookies that Jon's mother baked for me for Valentine's. If you read my valentine's post last year, I would proudly say that we didn't resolve to just giving hi-5's only, we actually went out for a nice dinner at some restaurant in Carlton! I'd say that's 100% my dearest's efforts. He made the reservation, drove us there and paid for the meal. Thanks sooo much hun! You rock!  

No presents, coz we decided to save. No cards, coz he left it at home and I was worse, I didn't even get one coz the shop I wanted to go into was closed for refurbishment and I didn't wanna spend 5bux on a card in Coles. So I bought some raspberry friands so we could celebrate three years being together.  That plan, however, fell through as my two horrible sisters, tired from a full day at work, ate both up!  

The interesting thing was the thought of one of them eating it, I won't name which one,  did come to my mind as I intentionally placed it at the corner of my bench top. Maybe it was God warning me bout it. But I took a chance coz I vividly remembered I said to myself, what are the chances of them spotting this brown bag here, piled on top of a bunch of stuff already? They'd be so hungry they'll just have dinner straightaway. So I placed them right there and without another thought, got upstairs to get ready. 

Guess I should have at least told my mum to keep an eye out for it. When I heard one of them running up and shouting "OMG are those friands yours????". I already knew what happened. My sister kept apologising after knowing that the friands were for that night itself. She felt so bad about it that I didn't have the heart to be annoyed any longer so I just told her to finish it. The other sister just capitalised on this opportunity and ate the other remaining friand.

So that was the short and tragic tale of my friands, which I never ever got to taste.

Anyway, I haven't done an outfit post for a long time so here's what I wore for dinner :)

 

Black mini dress worn as a top and belt from Supre, H&M maxi skirt, Bardot tribal necklace, clutch from Gina Tricot, black platform heels from Urban Originals

Black, White & Red

Just yesterday I had received a package from my Forever 21 order from the US! Excited excited. 

Wanted to do a simple outdoor shoot but the rain came pouring down. Hence, decided to stay indoors. 

Shoes here are the ring are from the package received!

Wearing my thrifted acrylic sweater from Savers ($7!!), Bettina Liano skinnies, F21 wedge boots and ring & Moucha black faux leather bag.

This pair of shoes is the main reason why I was even thinking of purchasing online from F21, despite the expensive shipping and handling cost. Nevertheless, it's so much more affordable compared to the real deal- Acne 'Atacoma' or the aussie knock off- Tony Bianco's 'Nemesis'. 

Acne 'Atacoma' Lace Up Wedge Ankle Boot approx. AUD $710

Tony Bianco 'Nemesis' AUD $189.95

Forever 21 Wedge Boot

 Mine now for approx. AUD $30.00 only :P Hehe.

Making of the Baba Nyonya-Inspired Shawl

Hi!! I'm back to blogging now after a month of neglect. Too much to do, too little time.

Here are images I've taken of my shawl, a design project based on our personal interpretation of 'Happiness'. What's my security blanket? What makes me happy? I wanted to make a shawl that was all black/ white with different fabric manipulation like gathering, puff etc.  Looking at them may make me happy. But I thought about my travels back home to M'sia, which I look forward to most of the times, and I remembered how Grandma used to always wear her kebaya. Never had my past projects any cultural references. They've always been inspired by catwalks or contemporary Western art. They definitely had nothing at all that told a story of my background or heritage. So this was the perfect chance to showcase the art of the kebaya from the hybrid culture of the Baba Nyonya! Instead of embroidering the motifs, which I definitely can't do (yet), the scarf was silk-screen printed by myself. Motifs were inspired by typical Chinese motifs of the peonies and butterflies, each with specific meanings behind them.

Corner design

The scarf is to measure at 1m x 1m, making it a square shawl.  However the stretchiness of the fabric made it into a rectangular one! The design process was not that bad. I only had to design a corner and have them repeating and mirroring at the other 3. Hence the challenging part was only to make it as symmetrical and as perfect as possible. Motifs of the flowers and butterflies were all hand-generated, scanned, enlarged, printed, laid on corner design and traced. The in-betweens were filled with leaves, stems and the cut-out webbing so commonly found in kebayas.

Five colours were used: 2 tones of porcelain blue, 2 tones of brown and 1 pink, which I gave fancier names in the resource book. 

Outlines of the motifs were all screen printed and the gradients of colours were filled in by hand. Petal by petal, leaf by leaf. All in all, a super labour-intensive process, from coating and exposing of screen to the painting of the motifs. Not to mention stupid colour testings. This doesn't even include fabric tests, samples produced, steaming, bloopers and....omg, the sewing. Nearly killed me and cost me a few precious tears. It was such a soft and delicate fabric to sew (wool/ viscose blend), which makes it extremely hard to sew to the ribbonned border. 

 Close-up of freshly handpainted butterfly with a brush and handpainting solution

Now, washing out of the shawl was vital to ensure all excess colours are taken out of the printed fabric, before sewing. I nearly got a heart attack when the dark blue kept washing out and I came back to my bucket of Mesitol (this liquid fixes the dye even more) being totally dark blued, when there was only dark blue at the outlines of the motifs!! Fading or washing out was my enemy :( 

 Photo taken before shawl was washed and soaked in Mesitol

Anyhow, boring bits aside, somehow, the shawl did transform into something really beautiful and I've already worn it out once, though the colours faded a fair bit from washing. Had to do a photoshoot for the project so I've asked some help from David. All I could remember was him asking me to roll my shoulders forward, chin lifted, and lips parted, man! We ended up mucking around with the scarf towards the end of the photoshoot, which in turn STAINED my scarf with my lippy. DAVIDDDD!!! Hope it is still washable after I get my scarf back from marking.

Here's the result of the photoshoot :)

Resembling some Indonesian Tai-Tai?? (meaning a lady that lives a pretty well-to-do lifestyle with much financial support from husband)

Here's a shot that may jeopardise my image. An attempt looking like Audrey Hepburn in the 50's with her huge sunnies and sun scarf which failed dramatically. Faux sunnies actually was David's 3D glasses. How glam.

Oh well, in the name of fun and a bit of a laugh, it should be worth it, I hope. :P

 

A bbq on the 30th

Was over in Wantirna the other day for a friend's birthday bbq!

Wearing Dotti's short jumpsuit that I just got from DFO for only $5.95, Diva necklace for $5, belt from Temt or Valleygirl, Scooter embellished sandals that I got most probably more than 2 years ago that I never wore til now.

Happy 2010 to you all!! May this year be a year filled with sheer goodness and blessings :D

Trip to South Wharf- DFO

Recently I've just been looking at lots of fashion blogs and I found myself more inspired by entries of girls that basically just celebrate their own unique sense and taste in fashion. Some like it real loud, dark, black with silver studs and spikes. Some like it softer, more feminine and many even slide in a taste of vintage in their choice clothes and jewellery. Some want it all branded with big names like LV, Gucci, Prada, Miu Miu, Alexander Wang etc, whatever that's on the runway, that'd be the look they're after. On the other hand, there are also thrifters or even tree-hugging shoppers that prefer to look for their treasures buried amongst good quality second-hand or vintage stores. And of course we got the in-betweens, those that mix and match high end items with those that could have just cost a couple of dollars. THIS bunch is the group I love most coz their styles are just so effortlessly gorgeous. Some of them could even be minimalistic but their shoes, for example, could have like the 'KAPOW' factor! Or it could be the bag, or maybe just the nail colour. Whatever. I like them too coz at least there could be something that I could afford from their assemblage, hehe.

As for me, casual is good, whatever that's comfortable yet presentable. Dressy is good too! Hence am a flats person but heels do many times look better. Not a very huge brand person since first of all, I'm still a student and can't afford it at the time being *chucks it to back of my mind*. Any generous givings would be happily accepted nonetheless :P. Haven't you heard that it's more blessed to give than receive? :D :D

Anyway, back to the reason of this post. So today went out with Jon to DFO in South Wharf and got these two peach coloured babies from Forever New. LOVVVEE IT!! And it was on sale. Score! Love the beigy *bling* there. These photos were taken using my wonderful SLR but blogspot really crapped up the resolution when I enlarged it (default size too small!). Meh. Any tips would be great!

Wearing Cotton On striped tee, Sportsgirl coral-coloured shorts/ earrings, BW bangle, Vincci sunnies, good ol' Longchamp bag, Urban Original platforms.