23 Jan 2012 Chinese (Lunar) New Year Celebration

狮舞龙腾庆丰年
福禄寿星来报喜

祝大家 ：龙年行大运，恭喜！恭喜!

Chinese New Year Festival is based on the lunar Chinese calendar. It begins on first day of the first month in the Chinese calendar and it ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day of the first month. Chinese Zodiac (Chinese: 生肖 / Sheng xiao ) relates each Chinese calendar year to an animal, based on a 12-year cycle, and this year is the Year of Dragon.

Chinese New Year is the biggest annual event for the Chinese where families would gather for reunion dinner on the eve, children would collect (Hong Baos /红包) and friends would visit each other. Markets, shopping centres are abuzz with activities and many beautiful ornaments weeks prior to the festival.

In Singapore, in addition to the sumptuous food, we celebrate this beautiful festival with performances including lion dances, acrobatics, enchanting Chinese dances; fireworks, Chingay Parade - A Great Street and Float Parade.

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year 2012 (Chun Jie / 春节 2012) and I would like to wish all a Happy Lunar New Year fills with bountiful Good Fortune, Good Health and Abundant Wealth ! Gong Xi ! Gong Xi ! ^_^

2012 - New Year New Start

December has been a wonderful month ! A month that has lots of fun, lots of presents, lots of delicious food, lots of meeting up with friends; had an enjoyable and memorable trip to Dubai with my parents, my sister's family and my family and lots of hand-made stuff for Christmas :) It has rounded up 2011 nicely..

And yes, 2011 is a busy year but a great year ! A year I started with a new job, new experiences...meeting new people and picked up a new craft => "Le Cartonnage".

Cartonnage is the French Art of crafting Boxes, Folders, Picture Frames, Trays and a whole list of creative and functional items from Carton or Cardboard. It can be from a basic square or rectangular boxes to more complex octagon boxes with drawers etc.. the possibilities are simply endless.



Inspired by the Japanese teacher who taught this craft at the "The Art Republic", I improvised the technique learnt and tried to incoporate photo frame with handmade card and these items will be available at The Art Republic .

Entered into 2012 without much preparation... still making plan for things to be done or achieved in 2012 -> polish my skills on miniatures creation, more handmade cards etc etc.....Hmmmm, I think I really need time to think about it :) .. I will signoff for now with sharing of the following quotation I have read from the newspaper:

"One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this : To rise above the little things." ~ John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist :

Have a good week ahead and may your dreams come true in 2012 ! Cheers ! ^_^

Handmade Cards - Chinese New Year

I was glad to learn that the first Chinese New Year card I have created was featured in "Made With Love Blog" 4 Dec 11 Layout of the Week. I will be working on more Chinese New Year cards, tags and miniatures in the coming weeks. Do drop by to take a look ya ! Have a good week ahead ^_^

Handmade Cards - For Multiple Occasions

Engrossed in cards making recently... created a mixture of birthday cards for friends, family members who are celebrating their birthdays in Nov/Dec; and Xmas cards / tags too to go together with the Xmas presents. Hope you will like them ya ! And have a good week ahead !

Cheerio ! ^_^

A Gift ...

This little crochet rabbit was given to my nephew to wish him well in his PSLE.

My sister brought this up recently and asked if I could make another one for her ? ^_^ Hmm... perhaps as Xmas present ? Maybe I should consider to do a few more in black, pink etc for sales ? ^_^

Water Colour Painting

Started with Water Colour painting for about 2 months, this is part of the NAFA part-time Western Art Certification curriculum...but somehow, I'm still unable to pick-up the basic water-colour techniques even though our teacher Mr Chng Chin Kang has been very patient to impart the water-colour skills to the class.

He is encouraging and assuring ...He will tell us to focus on colours mixing and not to worry too much on the composition or sketch at this point. And to improve our skills, there's no fast track but to keep trying and practising.

Below are my baby steps trying to achieve water colour painting ^_^

Still Life (1)

Still Life (2)


Landscape (1)

Let's Celebrate (1)

Time flies...is Nov, Christmas is just around the corner, and Chinese New Year next in Jan 2012....to celebrate these joyous occasions, I have created some Xmas and Chinese New Year cards, crochet key chains, glass pendants. They are available at "The Art Republic" and "Beads and Crafts"... do drop by if you are around Novena Square or PoMo to shop for Xmas presents...

Planning to do miniatures in the next few weeks and do come by again ! Thanks for browsing and have a good week ahead ! Cheers ! ^_^

At The Art Republic - Located at Novena Square



At Beads and Crafts Located at PoMo


* Cards are in 3.5" x 3.5" and 4.25" x 6" and they come with matching envelopes