[No Stress Book Club] - Week 1

It seems I'm all about jumping on board with things lately, and here's another one! As soon as I heard about Bassability's No Stress Book Club I knew I just had to do it. It's No-Stress because, instead of having to read a book and then discuss it, each week there's a question about a book you've already read. So there are no deadlines, no hassles, and if you follow the link-up, you can find out about potential new books to read. I'm in!
This week's question is:

What book turned you into a reader?

I've always been a reader, there's no question of that. I've been reading books for longer than I can remember. Literally. I suppose for the purposes of this discussion, I probably should pick one, shouldn't I?
My Mum tells me that I read my first proper novel at the age of 4, and it was Alice in Wonderland. I don't remember this, but I must have read it, because later in my childhood I came across the story again and I mysteriously knew about it already. At the time I was mystified about how I already knew the story of the Cheshire Cat, and the caterpillar and the Red Queen. When my Mum happened to mention one day that it was the first book I read, it all suddenly clicked. Knowing that made me want to read books even more!

If you want to join the No Stress Book Club too, click on the logo!

I'm art-journalling again!

Just before New Year I was thinking about How I'm Doing, as I often do at that time of year. I become open to Change and Difference. One thing that I really missed in my life was art journalling. It was like a spiral growing out of my core - I art journal when I feel good, and doing it makes me feel good, so it's like a positive feedback loop that keeps on making me feel better. I hadn't done anything artful in such a long time, it made me sad. I won't go into the reasons why I stopped today. I want to talk about how I started again.

I had all this in the back of my mind when I was reading my favourite blogs one day. I saw that Journal Girl was hosting a year-long e-course, Creative Warriors. A year-long journey to document your health and happiness. It sounded perfect! Not only would it be a gentle pathway to get back into art journalling again, but in a space with like-minded people. People who may not have time to create regularly due to illness or lack of energy. People who may not have a studio and may not be able to work with paints at every session. Me, basically! So I went ahead and spent my Christmas money on it.

One of my first pages was to write the Creative Toolbox list.
(I blurred most of them - I'm not giving it all away!)
One of the concepts that really drew me to the course was that of Couch Art. I don't have a studio, and my hobby room is filled up with other stuff. I don't have a space dedicated to making art. Couch Art says that you can make art wherever you happen to be, with whatever materials you happen to have (wet paint or not), and it's real art! This, finally, was the permission I needed to go for it! I had fun picking out some of my long-neglected supplies and putting them in a Couch Box. I thought that having just a small array of materials to choose from would feel restrictive, but it was actually freeing. Not having to make so many decisions. Plus, using the same papers, tapes and colours regularly saw themes and motifs emerge - a style I can call my own.

I tested out my old textas, and glued on a sticky note with brainstorming ideas.
Yup, that's real paint on there!
I haven't actually finished a page yet. My way has always been to work on many pages at once, inching them all towards completion together. Already though, I'm seeing elements that I'm proud of, and motifs that I used to consider part of 'my style'. I guess they still are!

Long, narrow collage pieces form a border around this page.

Glitzology Glitter Nails from Etsy

Update: Unfortunately this Etsy shop is now closed.

Before Christmas I decided to treat myself. After reading a blog pot on independent nail polish creators, I somehow got the idea into my head that I didn't have enough glitter nail polish in my life. After a lot of backing-and-forthing, I finally decided to make my purchase from Glitzology.

There's such a huge range of polishes available from Stacy's shop, that the only thing I could do was get the 6-bottle bundle. And then spend another half an hour deciding which colours to get! It was a lot of fun, though. These are the polishes I chose:

Normally I don't like cheesy names for things, but I found these variations quirky and fun. They are (left to right):
Nebula - a black jelly base with blue, purple and silver hologram pieces. Reminiscent of the night sky.
Cotton Candy - a subtle lavender base with pink, purple and silver pieces in a mixture of shiny and matte textures. A cute and girly look.
Blue Lagoon - a clear base with a mixture of different shades of blue. Like swimming through the ocean.
Sherwood Forest - a blend of green, yellow and brown pieces. This makes me think of looking up through the forest canopy on a sunny day.
Bad Things - a deep red base with silver, pink and black pieces, and red hearts. Inspired by the TV show True Blood.
The Island of Misfit Toys - red, yellow, blue and green pieces set in a clear base with silver micro glitter. It's like an explosion in a toy factory!

I love these polishes so much! The suspension of glitter is extremely generous. Making the purchase was easy, and my parcel came fast. The bottles were carefully packed, and included a page full of tips with a discount coupon for my next purchase. I've decided to showcase each glitter in a separate post. So here's the first:

Single coat; under daylight lamp.
The Island of Misfit Toys is set in a clear base and features the primary colours - red, yellow, blue and green - in various shapes including large squares, medium-size hexagons and small dots. There are also a few pastel yellow squares thrown in. The whole is set on a background of silver micro glitter. As I said before, the inclusion of glitter is much more generous than other brands I've tried - I only used a single coat for this mani!
I have presented the polish here over a neutral-ish base: Adoree Brown Gaucho. The photo was taken indoors under my daylight lamp.

I'm not sure when I can show you the other glitters in detail. My nails are pretty weak at the moment and need a rest. I hope it will be in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, look out for more haul posts and perhaps a review!

Angoo-Mart Washi Tapes Purchase and Review

Hi all, sorry for the lack of posts recently. Just before New Year I came down with a flu which took me about 3 weeks to recover from. In fact, even now I'm still feeling a bit tired and lacking in energy. But still, today I wanted to share my Deco Tapes / Washi Tapes haul with you!

Angoo-Mart is a deco tape manufacturer and seller based in China. I have placed 2 orders with them so far, and was very pleased both times, so I thought I'd share my experience with you. The first time I ordered from Angoo-Mart, about 2 years ago, it was very difficult to find deco tapes in Australia, and most overseas suppliers were very expensive. When I heard about Angoo-Mart, of course I was attracted to their cheap prices and large range, and wanted to place an order. The big drawback with Angoo-Mart (but the only one, really) is that their website looks a bit dodgy:

Screenshot of front page.
It's basic and and the design is very old-fashioned looking.There's a bit of 'Manglish' on it, too. Normally these things set off alarm bells for me when placing an order online, but I decided to take a chance when I placed my first order. The site accepts payment by PayPal, which is safer than entering your credit card details.

Screenshot of category page.
There is a huge range of deco tapes and washi tapes to choose from, as well as kawaii stationery, stickers, pencil cases, mobile phone charms and similar items. The site is organised by type of tape, then by width (large, medium or small) and sometimes manufacturer if the category is very large. Many styles are represented: Disney, Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma, Shinzi Katoh and other characters; generic kawaii; patterns like polka dots, stripes and checks; punk and goth styles; elegant French styles; and traditional Japanese styles. And many more! The Decorative tapes are made of plastic with a shiny look, similar to Sello tape but thicker and stronger. The Washi tapes are the traditional Japanese style, with a texture similar to masking tape. I have never ordered the paper or fabric tapes, so I can't comment on those.
Angoo-Mart have a Flickr account, if you would like to see good quality photos of the products.

The check-out process is very fast and easy. I placed my order on 6th January, and I was notified that it was posted on 7th January. The notification email had some personal touches that you don't always see when ordering online. I received it on 25th January, which I think is quite standard from China to Australia.

The items were packed into an amazingly small box. I was surprised at how they managed to fit everything in there! Yet nothing was squished or overcrowded. Everything was safely packed in with no gaps, and the box was lined with batting to protect the contents.

2 free kawaii notepads were included with my order (presumably because it was so large!).

As for pricing, the cost was extremely reasonable. The narrow deco tapes were AU$1.10, and ranged up to AU$1.99 for the wider ones. The washi tapes were a little more expensive at AU$1.99 to AU$2.99. The mini sets-of-3 were AU$1.50 per set. The stationery, pencil cases, etc. are also very reasonably priced. Shipping was a bit more than I would have liked though, at AU$17.20. (Bear in mind it was a large order. The fee is scaled by weight so it would be less when ordering less items.) I had a 15% discount voucher for being an email subscriber, so all up this haul came to AU$61.70. In my opinion this is a lot less than what I would have paid on Ebay or Etsy. Even at Daiso this number of items would have cost AU$78.

The complete haul!
Here's a shot of some of the deco tapes in action in my art journal:

Page is unfinished, obviously!
I have found all the tapes to be of very good quality. The glue will stick well on plain paper, as well as paper that has been painted with watercolour or acrylics. Even the tapes I ordered 2 years ago still stick well in my old art journal:

Clear tape with red grid; black tape with text/shapes (left-hand page).
I've painted over the tape in one spot and the paint sticks no problems!
Overall, I was very pleased with my purchase from Angoo-Mart. The tapes are cheap but good quality, and there's a huge range to choose from. My parcel was posted quickly and customer service was friendly. Even though the website looks a little dodgy, it's easy to navigate. The manufacturers welcome international orders, and are obviously trying to reach a world-wide market, with translations into 22 languages available on the site. I receive the email newsletter once every 3 or 4 weeks (not so often that it becomes annoying!), and there are regular offers and discount coupons.

I will definitely order from Angoo-Mart again!

(Belated) Christmas Gift Share, Beauty Edition!

I can't believe Christmas was a month ago already! I'm probably the last blogger on earth to share my Christmas receipts, but as I mentioned in my last post, the flu got me down for a long time. I'm grateful for everything I got though, so I wanted to share it. The photos also feature Kapibara-san, whom I've had for years, but he just felt like posing in the photos, so who was I to stop him?

[above] From my parents-in-law I received a Cellex-D Eye Serum. I've never used this brand before, and I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

From my Mum I received a Sukin Body Lotion, and three Max Factor mini Nailfinity nail polishes, in Opal, Boji and Onyx. These weren't actually Christmas gifts - sometimes Mum gets gifts with purchase, etc. that she doesn't use and passes them on to me. I used the Boji on Christmas day and it came out a nice lavender/taupe colour.

From Husband I received an Almond Candy Milkshake Body Butter and an Etude House Shini Star Lip Balm. I must confess, these are things that I bought and then gave them to him to wrap and give to me. A friend told me that she does this a lot, to make sure she gets presents that she really wants. Thankfully Husband is very good at coming up with gift ideas on his own, but sometimes a girl's needs can be very specific. I doubt he'd know intuitively that I was pining away for something from Etude House's collaboration with the K-pop band SHINee.

It was a complete indulgence buy. Saving Husband the trouble of having to think of more stocking fillers for me made me feel much less guilty about buying it! The pot is so adorable, and the scent I chose is Onew / Peach. (Onew is the one on the right in the band photo.)

[below] I also received these gifts packs. The Palmer's Purse Essentials was from Husband. He thought of this one by himself and I'm very happy with it. I love Palmer's and I'll definitely use all of these products - soon! Also in the picture is a pair of earrings he gave me (again, a self-purchase).

The other gift pack is the Burt's Bees Head to Toe Kit, which I received in the Kris Kringle I have with my group of friends. There's a little bit of everything in this pack. Another one that will go to good use.

2012 In Review

How funny it is that everything seems to change, yet everything seems to stay the same. Looking back on my 2011 In Review post, it seems that I could write everything in it over again for 2012. This year the changes were fewer, but had more drastic results. And in the end they turned out to be positive ones.

The year started off with a bang. I got married! I got a new job! It was a ninja marriage and a surprise job! A lot to take in and a big change for me.

My self-made ring cushion.
I finished a big project: a Harry Potter scarf for a dear friend to give to her dear brother. I double-knitted the scarf, meaning it took twice as much work, but it was really important to me to create a quality product. I literally spent hundreds of hours on it. I took it on holiday with me to New Zealand. I'm so happy to see how the scarf has been loved and even used in costumes. It's the best a crafter can hope for!

The Harry Potter Scarf.
I learned when to quit, even if it's painful. I started working on this baby scarf using the same technique as the Harry Potter scarf. But it was the wrong technique. The scarf just didn't feel right. Yet still I continued on it, blindly hoping that it would somehow come good. It just got worse. Finally, when it was even longer than in the picture, I bit the bullet and ripped it. Another lesson in knowing when to admit defeat.

Rip-worthy scarf in progress.
I started a third blog. Because a girl can't have too many blogs, right? I had a sudden and uncontrollable urge to write reviews about beauty products and do all the other things that beauty bloggers do. I don't see myself as a "Beauty Blogger" (my photos are too bad for a start!) but it's a fun side-project. And it gives me an excuse to buy lots of beauty products. Ahem.

Click the picture to go there.
I discovered Hama Beads! (AKA Perler Beads or Fuse Beads) They're ones of those crafts I've vaguely known about for years, but suddenly one day became completely obsessed with them. I made a rainbow, an 80s style cassette tape and a mini perfume holder for my dressing table. I suppose my obsession intertwined with my interest in Japanese Fairy Kei fashion which I had for most of the year. Which was obviously a reaction to the formal corporate dress code at my work and my feelings of restriction and not being able to express myself. Normally I save that kind of morbid over-analysing for my Path blog, so let's move on.

Perfect for the job!
Then two of my friends had babies, so I was focussed on making baby things for a while. When I say 'focussed on', I really mean 'made one pair of booties and spent a lot of time trawling through Ravelry and saving patterns'. But still, the intention was there.

Booties in a stereotypical colour.
Then, half-way through an accidental hiatus, I had a sudden and brief urge to write haiku. Very sudden and very brief. However, it's interesting to note that, on my list 40 Things To Do Before Age 40 which I drew up in late 2011, one of the items is to write a haiku a day for a month.

Meditate.....now!
More recently, I felt a sudden hopefully more permanent need to reach out to people via penpalling. I discussed the pros and cons in my blog before finally compromising and joining PostCrossing. Baby steps!

Some postcards I sent out.

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2012 Statistics [2011 statistic in brackets]
Books finished: 43 + 17 short stories (70)
Books currently reading as of today: 11

Blog posts...
I'm A Table: 27 (51)
ShyCat Beauty 79 (n/a)
My Path: 94 (n/a)

PostCrossing...
Cards sent*: 8
Cards received: 5
* This only includes cards which have been received at the other end and registered.

Craft items started: ? (~11)
Craft items finished: 5 (~8)

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Some of those statistics are very sadly low. But they do reflect my 2012 accurately. When I got my new job, I threw myself into it and had no energy to do anything else. Then I found myself in a position where my fitness/energy level had dropped dramatically, and I wasn't being creative at all. I had no inspiration. I was depressed for a long time. All I felt like doing was coming home at night, flopping on the couch and staring at the TV. It's only in the last couple of months that I've managed to haul myself out of that couch-hole and take back some of my old self.

I'm not going to make any resolutions for 2013. No elaborate plans or lists of things to do or monthly check-ins. I'm just going to see how things go. I'm going to be kinder to myself. Let myself be. A few days ago when I was sitting on the tram in a moment of quiet, a phrase popped into my head. It's one that really resonated with me, so I'm going to share it:

You can be free, if you want it.

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More Sent Mail!

Well, I couldn't resist sending out another batch of postcards! I figured I may as well use up some of the Christmas stamps instead of buying extra postage in the New Year. I hope they arrive to the receivers by Christmas!

I really love reading the recipient's profiles, choosing a card that I hope will suit them, and writing a note on the back. It all adds to the fun, I think. I haven't received any more postcards since the two from my last update, but I know that things are slower this time of year - I'm trying to be patient!

I've done some other crafty stuff too, but haven't had a chance to take any photos yet. Maybe tomorrow!