DIY: Christmas Wreath

My parents are moving into their new place very soon and my mum is excitedly and enthusiastically buying stuff for the house: crockery, cutlery, appliances, Christmas decorations etc. So far the family has made two trips to IKEA and each time we haul back so much stuff they fill up my dad's MPV! I gotta admit, I add on to the haul each time cos everything in IKEA is soooo cute, I just needed to get some of their stuff cos you know, just in case.

Our most recent crazy spree at IKEA saw us looking for candlelebras and scented candles for my mum to decorate the new place with. I must say, the Christmas stuff available at IKEA is simply incredible. We also ended up buying some hanging star lights for the balcony, red napkins for our Christmas Eve dinner with our extended family (a tradition we've had since I was a little kid!), silver and gold baubles for the Christmas tree, and a lot of other stuff that I can't remember.

But somewhere along the way, my mum asked me to make her a mini Christmas tree (!) with chocolates and candies (!!) for the kids to eat (!!!).

Actually, mum, I rather eat the chocolates myself.

But even though I had no idea how in the world I was going to make a Christmas tree, I said ok. Maybe I thought I had too much time on my hands (which I actually don't), or that I liked a challenge. Anyway, to make my Nov/Dec life more challenging than it already suddenly is, I decided that heck, since I'm going to make the tree anyway, why don't I make my own Christmas wreath too! 0______0 Very smart, Jo.

But I gotta admit, when I went shopping for the materials, I couldn't help but feel excited. I'm quite a make-it-yourself person and in my perfect world I'll be getting my hands dirty with crafts every day.

Shopping at Art Friend is really an experience in itself. I was gaping at the variety of art stuff sold there even though I didn't have a clue as to what most of them are for. LOL. It wasn't my first visit to Art Friend but I gape every time I'm there. At both the variety of products they have and at the prices. Irresistible items at totally resistible prices.

Anyways, instead of making my mum's mini tree, I made my Christmas wreath first cos a. it's easier to make, and b. I wanted the wreath to be ready to surprise KU with when he gets back from his work trip.

DIY Christmas Wreath Tutorial

Things you'll need:
- styrofoam wreath frame (I call this a styrofoam donut)
- florist tape (or green ribbon, tape will do as well)
- pine cones
- poinsettias
- cranberry branches
- wide ribbon (optional)
- white glue



Poinsettias from Daiso; everything else from Art Friend

 
To start off, wrap the florist tape around the entire donut, at about a 30-degree angle so that the wrapping action flows.



 You may wish to overlap the tape slightly to give the donut abit of texture, but once you do that, please ensure that you do it for the entire donut. Otherwise, it is obvious to the eye if some parts overlap and some don't. Similarly, if you choose not to overlap the florist tape, be consistent about it.

Keep wrapping the donut, bringing the roll of florist tape through the donut hole, under and over the sides. Please don't be lazy and unroll the tape and try to wrap the donut without bringing the whole roll with you. You will just end up with a tangled mess.


 Finish off the end with double-sided tape/glue.
 





The wrapped donut: your canvas!



And now comes the fun part - putting the details on your Christmas wreath!

Let me just say that it would be helpful to eyeball your materials and picture how you want your completed Christmas wreath to look like. If you realise that you may not have enough materials after all, just take note of what extra stuff you need to get and make space on the wreath for those stuff - you can still continue making the wreath. If you prefer to wait til you have everything on hand, by all means do so.

Cut the stalks of your poinsettias/pine cones/cherry fruit, leaving an allowance of 1 inch so that you can secure them to the donut.



If the stalks are thick and hard, you can stick it directly into the donut. 



If the stalks of your flowers and other decor are flimsy, use the thickest sewing needle you have to make a small hole of about 1.5 inch deep and stick the stalk in. For extra security, apply a small amount of white glue on the stalk before sticking it into the donut.




Make a small hole using a thick needle

 

If the stalk is very thin, fold it into two and stick it into the donut

 Keep repeating the abovementioned steps until you have filled the wreath, or until you are satisfied with how the wreath looks.

To finish up the wreath, I twisted wire around the back of the bow so that the two ends of the wire come out the top and the bottom of the bow.


Then I attach it onto the wreath by securing the wire around it.

And I'm done!! *beams*



Ta-dah!!!


To celebrate your great work, take loads of pictures and upload them on your FB (or Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram) page for the world to admire! That's what I did, though I'm not sure if anyone really admired it. LOL. But I did. I'm narcissistic like that.

The Wedding Prep Chronicles II: T-3

So, this is it. We are now just 3 days away from the Big Day and I'm having mixed feelings. In the sense that I'm really looking forward to it, yet I don't want the day to come so soon cos I'm afraid the day will pass by too quickly. :x The going-to-be-a-Mrs feeling is rather surreal now. Nonetheless, I'm sure the day's gonna be a fab one. :)

KU and I spent the past weekend working on the backdrop for our church wedding. Thank God I had KU to help me cut out the letters from the styrofoam board and he even sewed them onto the tulle using fishing line.

On Monday, I met up with SST, Marie and Joyce to go through the programme for the wedding day and their duties over dinner. On a sidenote, I'm really loving the fish masala garam crepe from Out Of The Pan at Raffles City Shopping Centre! Loads of kick in the spices and the fish meat was quite fresh - no wonder it's a chef's recommendation. Plus, the DBS/POSB card promotion (1-for-1 main course and sweet crepes) got each of us our meal at only $9! Ahem.. Anyways, it was great meeting with them and feeling excited about the wedding. :) Thank God for the help of my bridesmaids!

Then yesterday, we had our wedding rehearsal in church. I'm extremely thankful to have the support of the musicians and worship leader who arrived early to practice Canon in D for our processional and the two worship songs. It's really important to me that we have close friends to help us on our wedding day as it's a really meaningful way to share the day together. (though said friends may or may not agree with me. HAHA!) I'm glad too to have my dearest sister on first key and bridesmaid Joyce on second key. :)

The march-in practice was rather nerve-wracking cos I had to keep reminding myself not to walk too quickly. Dad even had to mutter to me, "Left, right, left, right.." while staring down at our feet. Too hilarious! :P And just seeing KU waiting for me at the end of the aisle, while the band played beautifully, almost made me tear. I have a feeling I will cry on our wedding day! Then we worked out the standing/sitting/kneeling segments, and practiced our vows. During this whole time, Andrew, Ron, Joshua and Regina were hard at work putting up our backdrop for us. :) And we are really really REALLY thankful for everyone who came down to help us and be there for us yesterday.

I said before that the wedding has taught me some lessons and has showed me how blessed we are to have all these friends come together to support us for our special day. And this, we can't thank God enough for His grace and love for us. :) Thank you, dear friends, from the bottom of our hearts. We hope that we can one day bless you and others in the same way you have blessed us. :) *million hugs*

Marriage Prep + Arabic 101

Last night, KU and I had round two of our mentoring session with Uncle WM and Aunty Kat, and I gotta say that I do look forward to these sessions cos they comprise great advice from our mentors and good food! :P Yesterday's topic was on money, a topic which I've always had a problem grasping. :x I love love LOVE shopping and my family and friends can attest to that. Sometimes I love shopping so much that I think I need to seek medical help about my condition - it's that serious!

But I digress. We talked about our perspectives towards money and did a quiz about how we view money and thank God we were on the same page about it. :) The quiz asked questions like "You look up to people who are financially successful", "You really enjoy spending money on yourself and others" etc, and we had to give each statement a score of 1 to 5, with 1 being strongly disagree, 2 being disagree, 3 being unsure, 4 being agree and 5 being strongly agree. Then Aunty Kat asked us why we scored some questions in a certain way and we really went into details of our thoughts.

After going through the quiz, we went through our monthly budget before marriage and after marriage. I totally suck at planning my own finances and yesterday proved it. :x I don't know how, but our combined budget for after marriage gave us a $300 deficit in our accounts. :( So we either gotta redo the numbers or find the $300 from somewhere else. The budgetting also made me realise that I really had it good as a single living with my parents (and still having it til end of the month) - no worries about paying for utilities, housing, conservancy fees, no worries about doing housework - and it also made me realise that I need to start appreciating them more!

Further to this, Uncle WM and Aunty Kat advised that we need to discuss and decide how the financial responsibilities are going to be like even before entering into marriage cos then we ensure that we are on the same page and it will lessen the probability of us quarreling about money. But above this, this sentence struck a chord deep in me: "Never give up dating." After the wedding, many things can and will come in to crowd our lives as husband and wife, and to remain strong in our relationship, we need to always communicate, understand each other's views, be on the same page as far as possible, and keep the romance alive by dating each other. I guess so far we are very appreciative of one another and we try not to take each other for granted, no matter how small the gestures or things we do for each other. Even though I'm rather stressed out about our wedding, I'm still in a state of bliss cos I know deep down that I'm marrying the perfect guy for me and I can't thank God enough for blessing me with KU. :) And I pray that I will feel the same way about him and hopefully feels this way about me 5, 10, 20 years down the road. :) So, T-18. I'm crossing out the dates on the calendar every day. :D

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Today, our HR organised a culture awareness talk on Arabs and Oman for us to get to know our Omani customers better! Our company had recently won a massive (by our terms) contract from Oman and we'll need to interact with them quite regularly for the next couple of years, hence the need to know about their culture.

The talk was boring at the start, but towards the end of the session, our mudaris (that's 'teacher' in Arab) taught us simple Arabic words which we can use to communicate with our customers. By the end of the entire talk, my head was swimming with so much knowledge, but I couldn't remember anything except that 'thank you' is shukran in Arabic. :x

This is strange, but when I was in the shower just now after my gym session, I was remembering some random Arabic words which we learnt this afternoon. So, feeling rather impressed with myself (HAHA), I'm going to show off some stuff here. :D And I'm not cheating, cos I left my list of Arabic words in the office, so yes, I'm impressive after all. *pats self on back* :P

Thank you -> shukran (pronounced shu-ker-ren)
Five -> khamsa
Fifty -> khamsiin
Three -> thalaatha (pronounced sa-la-sa)
Excuse me/pardon/sorry/don't mention it -> xafwan (pronounced ah-fwan)
Hello -> ah-sa-lam-ah-lee-kom
How are you -> kah-ee-fa anta (for guys); antee (for girls)
I don't understand -> anaa la afhan
Goodbye -> maa selamaa
June -> yunya (pronounced you-new)
July -> yulya (pronounced you-lew)
Teacher -> mudaris

And that's all I can remember. Going to learn more tomorrow. Who knew learning a new language could be so fun! :D

Painful

For the first time in a long while I feel utterly and completely alone in my pain. I can't even begin to describe how I feel.

The only thing I take solace in now is that Aunty Shirley's condition has (thank God!!) improved tremendously and visiting her is a much more joyful affair as compared to before. That, and the fact that I've lost weight - previously used to be able to wear only L and XL sizes for bYSI clothes, and now I'm an M-size, and the occasional S when the cutting's slightly bigger.

Sounds frivolous, yes, but if these are the only things that make me happy now, then I'll take whatever I can get thank you.

The Wedding Prep Chronicles

The wedding is just slightly more than a month away and I realised that I've not immortalised the wedding prep process in any way! O.O I mean, my wedding will happen only once in my life, and I really don't want to look back on 2012 when I'm 60 years old and think, "What did we do for our wedding?" Such things are nice to reminisce about with your spouse when you reach that age, aren't they? :)

So, KU and I are extremely blessed to have Josh & Regina be our church wedding coordinators cos honestly, they are two of the most organised people I know and I know our church wedding is in good hands! We had our first meet up with them in March/April to go through our rough programme for the first half of the day, and boy, were we overwhelmed. I seriously felt abit demoralised at the end of our almost 4-hour long discussion cos there were so many things to do and so many details to see to which we've never considered before. :( So we went back, looked through our scribblings and worked intermittently on them. Unfortunately, I'm ashamed to say that we weren't very diligent about it though. :(

Our second meeting which took place 2 weeks ago went slightly better, even though I forgot to bring all our wedding materials. *sheepish* Thank God my super organised fiance had his wedding folder with him! By then, more details had been addressed - for example, I had my full band in place, and the caterer was booked (though in the end we decided to look for more catering options). I very thick-skinnedly asked Josh & Regina if they could settle the RSVP of our church friends for us and they very kindly agreed. And with that, I felt a lot better. I guess my biggest concern (and hence, headache) was the RSVP of the guests and cos our church guests formed the bulk of our guestlist, having the RSVPs taken from us was a real relief. I was a lot more diligent this time - I've revised the programme further, created the contact list of helpers (both categorised by duties and by surnames) and updated the RSVP list with contact numbers. *proud smile* The only thing left to do is to email the documents to Josh & Regina!

Then recently, KU and I went down to our hotel to meet with our coordinator to talk about our feedback for the food-tasting session. Sidetracking abit, I'm sure our guests will enjoy the food cos the seafood was fresh, the portions were huge (coordinator said the actual day's portion would be the same) and the food was really generally delicious. From the bottom of my heart, we have no regrets booking this hotel for our banquet! :) Anyways, we also chose our wedding theme, table linens and wedding favours. The whole experience was a rather exciting one for me. Our coordinator brought us to this room which had all the available wedding favours, guestbooks, angpow boxes, table linens and fake wedding cakes on display. I went crazy looking at the shelves of wedding favours and I think we chose really interesting and cute wedding favours for our guests! Can't wait for everyone to see them. :) I think it was on that day when I really felt the excitement for our wedding. :P

Then just this evening, KU and I met up with Rev Ong and Rev Luke to discuss our church wedding programme. It was helpful to have this meet up to get to know Rev Luke, who will be marrying us, and to get feedback from both pastors about our wedding programme.

And the thing I'm currently most excited about is my hen night! *beams x 10000000000000000* Supposedly it will be happening real soon and it's gonna be a full day thing, so yes, I'm super super super excited and totally looking forward to it! :)

Time's passing really quickly now that I'm counting down to the actual day. There are many more things to be done, but I don't feel as stressed as before. I'm just trying to delegate the tasks so that there's minimal stuff for us to worry about. Hehehe.. :P On a serious note, KU and I are extremely grateful to God for blessing us with wonderful friends who have volunteered to help us prepare for our wedding and to be on duty on our wedding day. I promise we will return the favour in any way we can. :) Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

And I know this is mushy and all, but I simply can't wait to get married to KU and start our new lives together. As cliched as it sounds, I wanna grow old with him. Whenever we hang out with more matured, married couples and I see the loving looks they give each other, I just feel this sense of bliss on their behalves and I pray that we will be like them in future too.

There is hope and despair

So I've started counting down to KU and my wedding cos it's only 1.5 months away. There's quite a few things left undone or half done which I will address closer to the date. :x

This should be a happy time for me I guess cos I'll be embarking on a new life with the love of my life, but I have another loved one who is not well, and I really don't feel like celebrating our wedding. I mean, of course I still want to get married but in my fantasy wedding, I have every single member of my family with me, and now that fantasy seems rather far away.

My aunty has been in and out of the hospital for the past month and a half and her condition doesn't seem to be improving. On some days, reports on her condition are good, on other days, the reports leave much to be desired.

We went down to see her on Wednesday and her helper told us that she cried quite abit during the day. My aunty asked to see our wedding invitation and I showed her our church wedding invite. While holding it, she read out the words on the invite. The most heartwrenching part was when she started weeping and she told me, "I may not be able to see it." And it really did break my heart at that thought, cos honestly, part of me was afraid that it would be true. All we could do was comfort her, but our attempts sound hollow to me cos she's the one who is suffering the most, and who are we to say "No lah, you'll be fine?" But comforting words are all we can offer right now, no matter how feeble they sound. We can't even give her a hug like we used to, cos she's hooked up to machines and in pain most of the time.

So for now, we can only keep praying to God for mercy upon her. And to spend as much time as we can with her so that she knows that she's not alone - her family and friends love her. Very very much.

Something New

Yesterday, KU and I finally went for our first moviemob session together! *beams* I know many people would have most probably been to many moviemob or outdoor movie events, and it's no big deal to them. But this is something which KU and I have thought of doing together since some time back and it just so happened that the previous few moviemob sessions were either at super ulu places or on dates when one of us had something important on. :x

But anyway, FINALLY this moviemob session was at an accessible place (Asian Civilisation Museum) and the movie shown was rather okay (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), so we decided very quickly that we were going. :)

And I thought that this came at a really appropriate time cos just on Thursday, when we had our marriage mentoring session with Uncle WM and Aunty Kat, I mentioned that I want to do new things with KU so that I won't feel that our relationship is bland. Anddd.. tadah.. new thing done together on Saturday! :)

One thing which I would do differently the next time we go for an outdoor movie screening together though, I will make our own picnic food. I saw quite a few families bring food and drinks from home and I wished that we had more time to prepare for it. But it's ok - something to look forward to again for the next session. :) Just gotta standby a picnic menu and some recipes for the day!

Krabi Pre-Wedding Shoot

On Sunday, KU and I went down to our bridal salon to go through the layout of our pre-wedding album and got the softcopy of our pictures at the same time! :D I gotta say that, even though I'd loads of complaints about the salon, the pictures turned out really really nice and that we really had good make-up artists and good photographers who cracked jokes to relax us in order for us to pose naturally.We actually had our pictures taken in Krabi this January, and then locally in March. It was my first time to Krabi and I loooovvvveeed the place!



Road leading to Ao Nang Beach





Just for laughs: check out the name of the clinic!



Thailand has no lack of beachy areas and many people usually go to Phuket when they are looking for a beach destination in the Land of Smiles, but Krabi, in my opinion, is more beautiful and raw than Phuket. Even though we were there for a short 3D2N trip, I completely fell in love with Tup Island, which was our first shoot location for the day. It was a pity that we did not extend our stay in Krabi cos I would have loved to explore Phi Phi Island too. But I guess that means that we'll be going back some day to settle some 'unfinished business'! :D

Upon reaching Krabi in the late afternoon, we took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, which was called The Small Hotel. (I remember asking our studio coordinator which hotel we would be staying in and she was like, "Oh, the small hotel." And I thought, "Ok, she doesn't know the name of the hotel so we'll just look out for a small hotel." Then, as though she read my thoughts, our coordinator said, "The hotel is called The Small Hotel, but it's not really that small." And I was like, "OH! That's the name of the hotel!") The Small Hotel is this orange building located along a small junction, only 2 minutes away from Ao Nang Beach. As the taxi turned into the junction, my greedy eyes spotted a pancake stall just outside the hotel! *salivates*



The Small Hotel





The list of hotels along this street



After checking in, we went up to our room and were greeted by a really big and clean room, with an ensuite washroom/shower that was about one-third the size of the room, and really luxurious and clean too! Yes, clean hotel rooms with clean toilets are very very important to me.



Towel swans and rose petals on the bed





Clean washroom/shower!



Mini pantry of sorts



Our cosy balcony which we had no time to utilise. :x





Voyeuring our neighbours across the building :P





1st floor rooms with their own pool right at their balcony



Spacious corridor

 After setting our things down, I insisted on visiting the pancake stall I had spotted earlier. And well, what was sold were not soft fluffy pancakes, but roti prata with all sorts of sweet sauces on it, which I really preferred over pancakes! :D


Pancake menu





Pancake uncle



Our 'pancake' with condensed milk and chocolate sauce

 With our tummies happily filled with chocolate sauced-prata, we decided to explore the area near our hotel and scout for potential dinner places at the same time. Walking in the direction away from Ao Nang Beach, we were led to a street of dilapidated shops which were mostly selling groceries. :( Was disappointed cos I thought I could buy some Thai knickknacks to bring home. So we headed to a beach that was just across the street. 



Tiny translucent crab scurrying across the sand with its prey in its pincer

 We had an early dinner so that we could sleep early cos we had to wake up at 4am the next morning to get our hair and make-up (more like my hair and make-up cos the make-up artist spent less than 30 mins on KU!) done for the photoshoot. Dinner was at this seafood restaurant by the beach that we were at, and the food was -___- to say the least. Ambience was nice though with the strong seabreeze that came in. The service staff was abit weird though, cos we bought a 1-litre bottle of mineral water from the restaurant and she kept topping up our glasses even when they were still about three-quarters full. We asked her not to refill our glasses cos we couldn't finish the water and wanted to bring the remaining back to the hotel with us. And she kept nodding and saying, "OKAY!" really loudly, but she kept doing it anyway, until we resorted to covering our glasses with our hands everytime she was near our table. :S

So while eating, I saw this man walking along the beach with a large plastic bag in one hand and he was waving a large paper lantern in his other hand. After some discussion (yes, it was serious), we bought a paper lantern from him, wrote our wishes on it and sent it into the sky. On hindsight, it was a really environmentally-unfriendly thing to do and KU did highlight it during our 'discussion', but I wanted to do touristy stuff and I promised (I think) that this would be our first and last time. We stood there for a long while, watching our paper lantern fly higher and higher until we couldn't see it anymore. The uncle who sold us the lantern also stood beside us and watched the lantern with us, which I thought was really sweet of him to do so. :)



Writing my wishes



KU writing his wishes



Lantern uncle lights up the solid fuel in the centre of the lantern base



Flip it over carefully



Let go with mouths wide open



Byebye lantern!

 The photoshoot took the entire second day and we were sooooo tired after all the adrenaline rush of posing together and seeing beautiful new places in a foreign country. I had a total of 4 outfits, KU had 3, and we went to 4 different places to shoot. Such an awesome experience which made me feel a twinge of sadness when the day ended. :x

A few of my favourite shots:

On Tup Island:

At a rubber plantation:

At the National Park:

Near our hotel:

To end our last night in Krabi on a high note (sort of), we decided to have seafood for dinner. Our make-up artist recommended this place called Aree Baba, which she said was approximately 10 minutes from our hotel by car. Well, we were going by foot, so it took us wayyyyy longer than that. Best of all, she couldn't remember which side of the road the restaurant was on and she said to just keep following the path from the hotel, past Ao Nang Beach, and further down until we see it. 0___0

So we walked, and walked, and walked. Somewhere around the 15 minute mark, I started grumbling. Hehe.. Thank God the route was interesting - there were shops selling sundresses, straw hats, bikinis, string bracelets, diving bags, and restaurants specialising in all sorts of cuisine - and we could people watch - so many Caucasian tourists around. After trudging along for more than 30 minutes, KU spotted the restaurant across the road and I was jumping for joy in my heart (finally, FOOODDDD).

And I gotta say, the food was somewhat worth the long walk there (and back). The fish was super fresh and it was drenched in spicy and tangy sauce that just flooded my tastebuds with bliss. The phad thai was to-die-for, fried slightly wet (as compared to the Thai Express one in SG) and just really really delicious - I don't even know how to describe it - and awesome.

 Aree Ba Ba menu	 Fresh seafood displayed at the shop front 
 Grilled fish with Thai sauce; BBQ-ed king prawns  Phad thai Beautiful Ao Nang Beach	 Fried asparagus with tofu  Last 'pancake' for the trip 

Just a short trip, but it was a really meaningful one. :) Now everytime Mum suggests going to Phuket I cringe and go, "I prefer Krabi. Let's go to Krabi!" Hehe.. But really, we'll be back someday.