My BFF's 20th Birthday! Ideas for your own Handmade gifts.

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY 

HONEY BABY YZ

Here are some possible inspirations or ideas for your friends.

Trust me, you don't need to throw money around for an amazing gift.

IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS

So, I live in the Southern part of  the banana shaped section of Malaysia, really near Singapore. Yeah, you might be wondering why suffer over getting presents for a friend when I could just get my ass over to Singapore. First, I can't freely go into Singapore without apparently my parents permission. Second, it's expensive especially when you factor in the 7% GST. 

My dilemma might seem pretty unfortunate plus I can't drive to the big city which is Kuala Lumpur ( for non-Malaysians ease of understanding) as I do not have a driving licence yet. The story behind that is pretty funny and I shall not delve into it.

  

THE JOURNEY INTO MY IDEA

Hence, I got her this bunny soft toy which I love too.

Then I envisioned the bunny holding colourful balloons at both its' bunny hands as it held a big red board which will be her birthday card.

We will both be parting ways, living a life of a university student soon at possibly either different countries or the same country. This itself, gave me the idea of printing out Google Maps of the places we will be furthering our studies.

The flower background was handmade by me too. Just use your average A4 paper, then use your water colours to randomly paint shapes of haphazard circles, the important part of this is painting dark strong parts of a colour than mixing soft delicate parts naturally with it together.This helps to create the effect of a more 3D flower since nothing has just one monotone colour. Then take a standard ballpoint pen to sketch , roughen up the flowers, thereby creating necessary shadows on its petals.

The colourful printed tapes and the old-ish ,hipster-y stickers you see were bought and collected over time by me. The brown string can be bought for RM 5 for 120 metres at Daiso.

So I made a pocket envelope photo album. It isn't hard. All you need is some coloured paper, double-sided tape, some decorations even magazine cutouts and lastly, print out pictures of important memories.

I love quotes especially from books ,hence I choose my quotes online and just wrote them with a standard black Sharpie.

I initially thought of getting her real flowers but since another friend was doing that, I just found a tutorial on how to make these big beautiful paper flowers.

This was by far the hardest part of her gift as the hot glue gun I bought was broken.

I actually had to unscrew the whole thing and try to fix it.

It was a failure , hence I came up with an easy, transportable and safe method of melting my glue sticks in the comforts of my own room. The method didn't require me to contaminate the metal pots used for cooking with glue. I was worried if it could be poisonous even if I made sure to wash it well.

After thinking it over and remembering how a woman melted her MAC lipstick on a spoon over a burning candle, I carried the same procedure out except with glue stick and a small sacrifice of getting burnt from the hot sticky glue from time to time. 

The end results of all that, sweat, brain cells, glue stick fumes and glue burns was these flowers.

Sorry, my room is very windy,thus the position of the petals are as such.

Once again, these are some of the ideas I did for my BFF. You may modify it for your own use. 

The true happiness of all these hard work is the smile I was able to make on her face.

ITS THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS.

NOT MONEY

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

MY BFF YZ, THANK YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME.

FOR THE MANY TIMES WHEN I NEEDED YOUR HELP

FOR THE TIMES THAT I WASN'T SUCH A GREAT FRIEND

FOR THE ROUGHT TIMES WE HAD

FOR UNDERSTANDING ME AND 

FOR BELIEVING AND FOR NOT GIVING UP ON US.

HERE IS TO US

I AM PARTLY EXCITED TO START UNIVERSITY

YET SAYING ALL THE GOODBYES

MADE ME THANK GOD FOR MY LIFE IN MY COUNTRY

THE PEOPLE I MET

I FELL IN LOVE WITH

GOT MY HEART BROKEN OVER

THE FRIENDS  I LOST

AND BEST OF ALL THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHO STOOD BY ME 

AND LOVED ME DURING THOSE LOW MOMENTS.

LET ME BE YOUR BRIDESMAID AND I SHALL BE YOURS TOO!

Love you. 

A Sophisticated Lady Must Have Culinary Skills!

How to Be a Sophisticated Lady

(p.s. This is utter bullshit by NaomiNaoko but good usable bullshit)

I come from an all girls high school  which automatically gets girls like us into a mental category of "prim and proper possible lesbian girls" in a dude's mind.

When guys meet us, especially ones which are drop dead gorgeous with every perfection of their dream Barbie girl, they assume we can cook, be all womanly and sophisticated.

Let's laugh together.

We tend to act like we have 10 brothers before our birth. Not exactly gentle.

An apt example would be me.

I am a clumsy fool who can't cook.

Lived as I was until I turned 19 and felt---------- heck, I need to be more womanly.

Exude that sophisticated , not overpowering but subtle sexiness every confident woman owns.

Here in lies my journey into burning some vegetables, over adding salt, sugar and wine into my dishes.

Couple of times I almost tripped myself on the kitchen floor. Couple more I almost dropped my bowls.

If someone took a video of me cutting my vegetables, let's laugh together again.

Thought I am looking more like Masterchef Australia each day.

I am more of  'Unexpectedly clumsy chef '

My ego got hurt by  my Masterchef Grandma.

In a way, the perspicacity of her remarks will teach me not only to be a good cook,but a highly tolerant person towards insinuating people.

I will cook my following meal, solo. Without the grandma eagle eyeing my cooking style.

This is my grand master plan :

To learn and change profoundly for the better good of myself.To move forward and never look back and live in the present. I must achieve this once my newly short hair grows out back to Sleeping Beauty length and before my parents pack me away for university.

The following are the vegetarian dishes I choose to cook over the weekend.

I will take pictures of the outcome.For now, let's preview what I will cook.

Yes, I am ambitious but I also won't give in to negativity.

Being in an all girls school specifically mine, we are trained to go after dreams in life. We won't back down.

Plus, I really need to mature into a sophisticated lady with good culinary skills.

I doubt there are any guys  like my dad who would accept a lazy rough wifey.

The essence of my being and character are still there but self improvements never hurt.

Ingredients for cooking Western food are very expensive, so choose receipes within your budget and capabilities.

Thank you weak buying power of  Malaysian Ringgit.

I plan to calm my nerves, increase level of swag-ness by playing my favourite playlists in the kitchen as I cook.

Preview of my playlist

1. II Mundo -Jimmy Fontana

2.Riptide-Vane Joy

3. La Valse d'Amelie - Yann Tiersen

4.Sur le fil -Yann Tiersen

5.Naomi - Yann Tiersen (Cascade Street )

6.J'y suis jamais allè - Yann Tiersen

Walking through Graffiti Street in Melbourne,adventuring into Indie Land

Saturday Indie Art Market

At Rose Street in Melbourne

 

 

 

 

Passed by many buildings with walls acting as a white canvas

for graffiti

This was the best day and part of Melbourne to me

Seeing the sights of street art as I walk down a street where therein lies a weekend market.

A small market within a neighbourhood where people lived and artistic cafes thrive.

It's a market where you meet and talk to artist who sells their work in a place called Rose Street.

The whole area was magical to me

I love handmade stuff and art.

I love quaint cafes with inviduality obvious to even a toursit like me

These places arent publicised.They lay hidden from foreigners unless if they try to look up on such markets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Rose Street Market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Haul

I got myself a few quirky cards, a Girl Calendar and a tea towel by a design company called Able&Game, a scented candle in a beaker, two handmade rose earrings ,a handmade ring and a necklace with a red rose trapped in a small around transparent ball that looks like a bubble.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

The Lemonade After the Heat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Exit

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the Streets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Next Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Walk Home (Hotel)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIN