Fat Owl

After my first attempt at making owls, I saw some cute little owls at a shop and at my friend's house..... so it was time for mini owls!!  They were quick to sew on the sewing machine, but the hand sewing portion was finger-cramping.  The felt pieces for the eyes and beak were so small.... but they looked so cute and chubby =)  This little red fellow is available at my Etsy shop.

Happy Girl Bag

This made me smile =) Simple design that brings out the inner child again.  This talented mum cooks, sews, blogs and looks after kids -- Super Mum!

Craft It Forward!

Recently found out that my friend has a green blog (Green Issues) and that she was participating in crafting it forward:

"I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment here. They in turn must post this statement and send something they make to the first 5 people who comment on their blog post."

"The only other rules are that (i) it must be handmade by you and, (ii) it must be sent to your 5 people sometime within 2011."

Thought it was pretty cool!  Reminded me of the movie Pay It Forward and really like the idea that there are people who just want to spread the word about crafting.  So here I am, I'm now part of crafting it forward =)  So, if you are interested in further spreading the word of crafting, please leave a message and let me have your name and email so that I can get more details to send my little craft to you.  (Drop me an email at nueyerdua{at}gmail.com)

Craft It Forward receipients
1) Agy
2) tweal
3) ?
4) ?
5) ?

Dolphins!

Such adorable blue dolphins with a sunny yellow background!  Got this cute fabric from Ang Mo Kio Central to make a passport cover for my son, but project passport covers for the whole was abandoned due  to 2 failed attempts and the realisation that light fabric was not suitable to protect passports from moisture (or anything else).

Seeing that my son's bolster only came with 1 bolster case, and the previous one that I made was plain and dull (black & white), I decided to make another bolster case and hopefully a matching pillow case. Alas..... there was insufficient fabric to make both.  Oh well, at least my son likes the cheery bolster =)

Changing Direction

Stock photography was what I started with..... no matter where I went, I had a camera in my bag, just in case there was something interesting enough for stock.  However, not being a professional photographer had it's downside.... lots of photo processing.  Almost every night, I would scrutinise my photos, looking for "noise" or purple streaks.  More time would be spent on correcting the lighting or colour or cropping out an object from the messy background.  I started to feel that this was not going to work. Thus, a change in direction.

I moved on to creating my own graphics and cartoons.  Discovering Inkscape was the best thing for me -- it was an open source vector drawing software, totally FREE!  Step by step, day by day, I slowly learnt the ropes..... of drawing, of Inkscape..... I was hooked.  From cringe-worthy products like this:

to my only piece created from a photo below. 6 solid hours over 3 nights with my fingers curled over the mouse and eyes glued to the monitor.  It was well worth the effort I think =) What do you think?



How it all started.....

About 5 years ago, there was a period in my life that was dead boring and depressing..... boring to the point that I could feel my brain cells dying from lack of use.  Before this period, I was one to fill my life with activity, be it learning a new instrument (and forcing my brother to escape to his office while I screeched my violin), or trying to learn and memorise new piano pieces, or cycling for hours on end alone..... giving me lots of time to think, reflect, plan....

Thus it was during this boring period, one boring day, at a boring internet surfing session that I found this -- stock photography.  This was something I never heard of before, a place where normal folk (and not professional photographers) could sell their photos and there would be people interested in buying them. 

iStockPhoto was the 1st site that I joined. I spent night after night, reading all about stock photography, how to submit photos, what the approval process was about, how much commission do I get, how can the money in hard cash that I can actually use......

This was one of my first uploaded photograph:

I started off with photos that I had accumulated on travels to different parts of the world.  Submit..... wait..... and wait..... and wait...... until finally "Your photograph has been approved" came and I was jumping for joy!!!  Silly as it sounds, just having my photos accepted made me very happy =)  Of course, after much more waiting, my first sale really made my day.  All I earned from that sale was US$0.20, but it felt so good that someone was willing to pay for something of mine!

My Little Music Girl is on youtube

Someone left a message in my iStock mailbox.... one of my illustrations was used in this youtube video. My little music girl is on youtube!!!!! =)