So incredibly stressed

I've got so so much on my mind now, I kind of feel like I'm bursting. I found out yesterday that I'm one of the finalists for the travelling scholarship I was applying for. If I win it, I get 10k to go to Paris, london and New York. So I am really really excited. And because I'm a finalist, I will be in a show along with the others, and it opens in two weeks. I was going to print my Marshmallow Lollie pictures as part of the show, but just found out moments ago that the pictures were not shot on high resolution. So I have to do a whole re-shoot.

I have so so much to do right now, it is not fun at all. I've been staying in the studio to work my butt off till 8pm the past two nights. I'm kind of tired but have to keep going. I have 3 group shows in the next two weeks. They are all big student shows, so I'm scrambling to finish off as much as I can. I am going on a ski trip on Thursday to Saturday. The trip was booked and planned long ago so I can't change it now. So I just have to grit my teeth and finish whatever I can. So I have decided, to take a little break from blogging and concentrate on finishing as much work as I can, and then having a little holiday and get my act together again for all the 3 shows. So yup, I will be back sometime mid next week.

Till then, enjoy the little drawing up there! I did it last week but haven't gotten any chance to show it. You can try working out the order of the ingredients, and perhaps make yourself a nice Spaghetti dinner.

{ Sorry about this rather gloomy post. I can't help it. }

Giveaway Winner!

Hello everyone! Thank you so much for joining in my little handbound book giveaway. So many of you took part and I had so much fun reading everyone's comments. Did you try the crepes? I made them again this morning for breakfast. They are so fast and easy to whip up! Anyway, I've randomly picked a winner this morning and she's the lucky Miss Pepper! Did you know she has a cute etsy shop too? My favourite is this antler boy she's made. isn't he adorable! Oh Miss Pepper, you are so clever!

Anyway, since so many of you liked the books, I've listed them on my etsy. I only have 7 books available. One they sell out, there won't be any more. So if you like it, feel free to hop on over here. I'll be sending some free buttons along with all your orders too!

Outfit of the day

Supposed to be doing work. But instead, I ended up spending too much time on Polyvore, dreaming of cute nice things to wear. It is addictive, and does bad things to your wallet! Above would be my outfit for the day if I could afford. I would spend my day lying in an empty wheat field, drawing and eating cheese biscuits all afternoon long. Ah! One can dream.

Anyway, have a great weekend ahead! I'm going on a ski trip next week, so this week will involve lots of packing, waterproof disposable camera hunting and glove buying. Can you believe it? Darren and myself have never experienced snow before! Well, I have, but it was just a tiny little bit of snow. Not the sort I see in pictures and on National Geographic Channel ( Which by the way, I kind of love ). Not the sort that covers the entire ground and leaves everything white. So we are pretty excited, we cannot wait! I forsee lots of snow tubing and snowdawn building.

Alright, see you on Monday, and don't get yourself addicted to Polyvore too! Haha

Thank you!

I was reading a friend's blog and she mentioned Sweet lorraine by Frank Sinatra. And now I can't stop listening to it. I love Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. There's just something about their voices, their songs that makes me wish I was from their era. But then again, if I was, I would be a really old lady now. And I probably won't be blogging. Which is kind of weird, considering how blogging has been part of my life for so long. I was just counting the other day, can you believe I've been blogging for almost 10 years now? That's crazy! I don't know anyone else who has stuck on with blogging for so long. Do you? Maybe you have been blogging for as long as I have too! It'd be nice to know someone else who blogged on diaryland-x before it 'died'. Haha. I think it was called diaryland-x. Was it? I can't really remember.

I think blogging is just wonderful. There's this niceness that comes out of it. I started blogging because I thought it was kind of cool, and at 13, it seemed cool to blog. But my blog was all about this and that, everyday rants mainly, with the occasional gushing about certain cute boy crushes. Funny, I know! No one read my blog, I think. But I just kept blogging. Strange. Maybe because I was a diary-writing sort of girl. I remember writing in my diary and blogging all in the same day and I would repeat what I wrote and I found that really silly. I ended up deserting my diary. I think it felt two-timed!

Anyway, over the years, as I moved around from different blog hosting sites, I realized my blog became more about my art, about my progression in life as a creative, crafty-type girl. I never expected all you readers to come read my blog, but somehow all of you did and I'm glad many of you enjoy what I write. I always write straight from my heart and just say whatever I want, without holding back. I share whatever I fancy and show pictures I take, outfits I wear, things I made. And I am so thankful so many of you enjoy what I do and leave such sweet comments and emails. So thank you so much! I always try to reply, but sometimes I get too busy! But do know I still read and smile at every single one of your comments!

As a tiny thank you gift, here's 2 little things I'd like to do:

First up, a little recipe for you, for some lemon and sugar crepes! I made them this morning, they are kind of yummy!

The recipe makes about 10 crepes!

And a little giveaway of one of my hand bound books, along with a little print from my shop.

All you need to do is to leave a comment with your email address! And I will pick a random winner next Tuesday morning, on the 27th. Now go have some fun making those crepes and entering you name for the giveaway!

Thank you!

Daily Wear

In a bid to dress better and stop wearing shorts and baggy shirts all the time which I am kind of guilty of, I've started a little 'daily wear' set on my flickr. I won't be posting all the time, but I'll try whenever I can! In other news, my hair is finally long enough to be tied up in a tiny weeny ponytail! It took me forever to grow it out!

Drawing and cooking food

I spent my weekend eating, enjoying and shopping for good fresh food. My kitchen is now all stocked with so much goodness now, it makes me happy. Oh and I scored a brand new Jamie Oliver cookbook on Saturday too! It was at one of those discount book stalls. I love watching Jamie Oliver's cook shows. When I was in high school, I remember running home everyday from the bus stop, just so I could reach home in time to watch his 2.30pm cook show. Strange! I remember trying to follow his fish and chips, mash potato and pasta recipes. They were good and so easy to follow. Till today, I still use his mash potato recipe. I think it's the best! Anyway, I can't wait to try making pasta from scratch. I made it once, I think 8 years ago? So I will try it again.

Apart from all my cooking, eating adventures, I've also been busy working on painting food again. Just thought a little sneak peek above might interest you. More on what's to come soon!

Have a nice Monday evening. Go enjoy some good food!

Work In Progress

Wish I had a fancier title for this post. But nope, no fancy title, not today. Haha. This is the Muesli Bar soft sculpture I was talking about when showing you my Marshmallow Bag a while ago. I'm way too short to stand in this Muesli bar bag. So Darren had to help me out with it. I've yet to sew the end bit and make it into a bag. Will do so perhaps next week. For now, I have to sew more marshmallows for my marshmallow bag.

I'm thinking of making a Spaghetti pack next! Not sure yet. Making all the strands of Spaghetti might be fun, but at the time, crazy. Haha. Well, I'll see how it goes.

In other news, I just found out the chair I wanted to buy myself, costs over a thousand dollars. That's just crazy. I've been having a sore back, neck, shoulders for so long and the other day at work, my chair was so comfortable! It was like for that few hours, the pain was all gone! I went home and sat in my old lousy chair and immediately, the pain returned. I had no choice but to ask my boss where the chairs were from. Well, she emailed me this morning letting me know that they're from Herman Miller. No wonder the price! Oh well, my poor back will just have to put up with all the pain! : (

Look at what's been growing!

My very first attempt at growing French breakfast radishes! These are incredibly easy to grow, and look so cute. I pulled three out this afternoon, out of the 20 odd I planted. I am not very sure how big these are supposed to be. But the packet says it's ready. I think they are a wee bit skinny and tiny still. But I'm presuming they are of the right size? Not sure. Do you grow French breakfast radishes? Do you like eating them? How do you cook them, and what do you eat them with?

I was reading Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, and she said it's really yummy, prepared the french way, with just butter and sea salt? Or as the Italians like it, with a dash of extra virgin olive oil. Sounds easy! Do you have any ideas how to go about preparing them? if you do, I'd love to hear from you! I've never eaten french breakfast radishes before so all your advice would be super!

Things

Spending my entire morning and the past 2 days writing and rewriting a proposal for this travelling scholarship I am

applying for. I want to go to Paris, London and New york. I hope by some miracle, I get shortlisted. I spent so much

effort on it so I hope that will pay off. Anyway, now that I'm done with my proposal, I'm spending the rest of my time

staring at my art. I'm in the midst of making/completing my giant Uncle Toby Muesli Bar. Thinking of making it into a

sleeping bar, duvet cover. Doing a sort of performance piece in it. Then sewing it back up into a soft sculpture. I was

lying on it this morning. And it is so soft, squishy and comfortable. Makes me want to go on a camping trip or picnic

of sorts and use it as a sleeping bag. Ahhh. So much thoughts and art ideas in my head!

Shop Update!

My little range of French Macaron plushies are now stocked in my shop. Do hop on over and take a peep if you like!

Do note that there are only a limited amount of these plushies available. To be exact, only 5 of each colour is available. I've placed half a bunch of what I made on my shop. And will place the next bunch up, probably end of next month. Once they run out, I will not be making anymore. I would love to be able to make more of these mini ones, but they hurt my fingers so much, it's no joke! It's like blisters and callous have have somehow become best friends with my index fingers. Each Macaron takes quite a while to make, and a lot of hand sewing goes into each and every one of them. So I hope you like them!

Thank you!

Heads up to a mid-week shop update!

It's 4 and I just got back from school not long ago from an intensive figure drawing class. To be honest, I'm all knackered. Not sure if you've gone for any figure drawing classes before, but staring at a nude figure, doing drawing after drawing using disgusting charcoal sticks can be quite tiring. Especially when the class runs from 10 to 4pm, for 2 straight weeks. I dislike charcoal a whole lot, and I find it tough to use. I'd rather play with it than use it for drawing.

Anyway, reason for the post being, I just wanted to let you lovely people know about my little shop update, which will be taking place middle of this week. Maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Not sure yet. But I will be stocking my shop with a limited number of macaron mini plushies and teepee brooches. I am so glad many of you like them! Do check back here for more updates.

PS: My poor oxfords are wearing out. The hole by the side of it is getting bigger and the soles are coming off! I've been thinking of getting a pair of saltwater sandals. Anyone of you have a pair? I've heard a lot about sizes running bigger/smaller, I'm all confused. So if you have any advice for me at all, that would be great! Thanks!

Hi all, the shop update will be taking place tonight, at 10.30pm Melbourne time! Cheers!

French Macarons!

These takes forever to sew. But I think they look kind of cute when placed to form a little Macaron tower. I made these for Craft Hatch, which will be happening later this morning. I woke up extra early today and went to bed extra late yesterday just because I had to keep sewing these to make a nice enough little tower. This photo was taken late last night, when my fingers were all painful from sewing 3 days straight! I am still sewing as I speak. Haha. But yes, do come along to Craft Hatch! I'd love to meet you!

Have a great weekend! x

Tiny teepee brooch and the most amazing pair of gloves

After months of experimenting, finally a brooch I'm happy with. These come with a nice clear acrylic magnifying cabochon. Will list them in my etsy shop soon. But first, they will be making their first public appearance this Saturday at Craft Hatch. Along with some of my new little feet-less macaroons. Will you be coming? I hope you do! It's always nice to be able to meet new faces!

Oh and my new gloves arrived in the mail today. They came in a nice box, with a cute ribbon too!

These are the most perfect gloves I've ever worn. They are beautiful and so soft. It's made of both rowan scottish tweed and alpaca. So nice and so sweet. I am in love with it! I can't help but think of Scotland and rolling hills! Thank you so much Helen!

PS: Helen makes beautiful scarves too!

Bits of stuff

Too much art making going on. So I had to reorganize my room a little, and am now using two desks, side by side. one for sewing, another for painting, emailing, blogging. So far, it's working out to be a much better system. A lot neater than working off the floor, which I actually still do sometimes. I've also been making more macaroons. My macaroons are a little different from the usual ones. They are feet-less, if you know what I mean. Oh and I went to the forest yesterday with a nice friend. We had scones, quiches and bits of nice walks. But it was so cold, I ended up buying a nice blue grey pair of handmade gloves! They totally saved my frozen fingers! I know this sounds silly, but these are actually my first pair after living in Melbourne for almost 3 years now. I bought another pair off etsy a week ago. They are nice lovely gloves. Handmade too. I promise to show them to you as soon as they arrive in my tiny mailbox.

Now, back to more macaroon making! I'm having a little stall this Saturday at Craft Hatch! And I'll have some macaroon soft sculptures/plushies for sale. So I'll be home all week making a bunch of them. Mint with vanilla ganache ones today. And if time permits, some lemon ones too!

PS: Did you watch Masterchef yesterday? The macaroon challenge was absolutely hilarious I thought. Poor guys though, they suffered so much! Who do you think will win Masterchef? I kind of like Marion because I think she's kind of innovative. Callum's a nice hardworking guy. His macaroons were so beautiful! I like Jonathan too, ever since that crazy egg beating elimination challenge, he's like the official 'eliminator'! And Alvin and Adam! Aren't they just like the nicest contestants? I think they both are really hilarious, they say the funniest things! Ah, I can't decide who should win. Haha.

Weekend

Not sure about you, but I really love grocery shopping. This weekend, I went to an all-organic farmers market, a supermarket and a fresh food market. I think the farmer's market was the best. I got some nice beautiful pumpkins and a leek. Great for roasting and soup making. Apart from all the marketing, Darren and I ( mostly me ) went a little crazy at the Borders 40% sale. We bought Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion. We have been eyeing it for the longest of time. While Darren loves the how - to grow your own produce bits, I enjoy reading the recipes, so it's great that we can both benefit from the book. It's such an awesome book, especially if you like growing and harvesting your own produce. We do. But living in a walkup apartment is a little difficult to do so. So for now, we just grow some herbs, beans and radishes, spring onions. The next time I have a proper home with a garden space, I'll be building an apple-crate garden I'm sure. They sure do look kinda cute!

Anyway, I've been making some macaroon soft sculptures. These are not done. But just thought a little picture update might interest you. I've still working on making some lemon, mint, blueberry, strawberry, lavender, green tea ones.

More marshmallows

I realized I forgot to upload this picture the other time. So here it is. I actually like this picture because it's kind of simple, and I like the lines in it. But the lack of marshmallows in the bag kind of spoils it for me. I went to school today to get some fabrics and guess what I saw? My lecturers left me a funny post it note. They stuck it on my Marshmallow bag ( The real edible small packet, not the big sculpture one ) On it, they wrote: "Dear Dawn, to celebrate your achievements this semester, we have decided to open your bag of marshmallows and enjoy it amongst ourselves. Ooh Yum! xx All of us!"

How funny! To think that the bag has been left unopened on my table for 16 weeks, and throughout the weeks, they have been coming around into my studio, commenting on how weird the bag looks and if it's still edible and that I should throw it away. And now it's all in their stomachs. Hmm. A little strange but yes. They're funny. I think my giant marshmallow bag sculpture made them too hungry. Anyway, I'm working on making some macaroon mini sculptures. My first try at it was kind of horrible. I wanted to sew 'feet' for them, but I think they would look yucky with the extra bit.

Also, I was too stingy with the filling, But it's alright, everyone fails at making macaroons the first time too anyway. My second and third one turned out much better. I think practice makes perfect. I'll show you more soon!