Waiting Girl Art Rectangle Glass Pendant

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This is made from the Waiting print of a rectangle glass pendant.

We will have a count down to Christmas shopping in our shop soon. If you would like to purchase some special gifts this Christmas, please drop by Lily Pang Art and Design shop.

Poppies and Birds Laptop and Wrist Area Skin

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This is a set of laptop skin and wrist area skin made from the design Poppies and Birds. The touchpad of the wrist skin is cut around the white line by die-cut machine.

I'll outline the white board from the numbers given by the customer. For details of how to measure the wrist area, please read Order the Wrist Area Skin.

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Waiting Art Laptop Skin

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I changed a bit of the Waiting print to be horizontal oriented. This fits into a laptop skin.

The horizontal oriented image

Baby Owl Green Laminated Print Mounted on Wood Block (LPWB) for Children Birthday Gift

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My baby daughter had a wonderful time yesterday at her friend's birthday party. This is one of the birthday gifts that I made for the part. It is a baby owl green Laminated Print Mounted on Wood Block (LPWB).

It is written in the back "Sweet dream, baby owl".

I hope it made a special birthday gift!

Waiting

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I finally finished the "Waiting" print. This is a project that I created following the song with the same name. You can click the image to see details.

" I don't know why I am still waiting
 and Why I am still so obsessed with your love
I know that when splendid moment is over, what awaits me
is the long plain life 
But I still want to live it over again...."

The Girl Details

I try to dramatize the beaut and glory of life once you have lived with peonies. The black and gray flowers symbolize the long plain time in your life.

  I like the Large Laminated Print. It is very glorious.

Cherry Bird Turquoise Color Elegant Glass Pendant

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I have a customer request to make the Cherry Bird or Twitting among Cherries  into a turquoise back ground glass pendant.

The glass pendant is in Elegant Glass Shape with Size: 1-1/4" x 7/8" /3.2 x 2.3cm.  It is a bit longer than a square one. Very nice shape for the tree.

Waiting - Work in Progress II

I made a bit progress on the project "Waiting". I liked the song:

" I don't know why I am still waiting
 and Why I am still so obsessed with your love
I know that when splendid moment is over, what awaits me
is the long plain life 
But I still want to live it over again...."

It is my interpretation or translation of the Chinese song.

I made the peonies in the upper right corner to represent the splendid moment and life once existed. The left corner with black and white flowers as the plain and dull time that dominates most of your life.

Cally Lily Round Glass Pendant

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I just made this pendant and is packed to go out today. It is made from the Pink Calla Lily  Original Water Color Painting.

The round glass tile is hand made beautiful crystal clear tile with a dome by Annie Hows. I only buy the best glass tiles for my glass pendants.

Waiting - Work in Progress

This is a new project that I am working on these days or whenever I have time. Too bad too many small things distract me these days.

It is named "Waiting" after this beautiful song with the same name.



Let's see how it goes. Hope you enjoy the song!

Dawanda Creating Love a Dawanda Community Film Project

Dawanda recently created this project that everyone of us can participate if you are able to get a frame out of it.

I got a frame and it is no. 629. I have a lot of fun to participate in the project.

The film is cool, isn't it? Hope you enjoy!

Plumbing Fiasco Causing by Water Heater T & P Discharge Overflow

In Chinese, we have saying "Disaster doesn't come alone". It means that when disasters come, they usually come together. I just had problem to deal with later payment tenants. Now my bathroom had plumbing problem that the walls between the bedroom and the bathroom have water leakage.

If comparing a house as a person and plumbers as doctors, I would leave my house problem to the plumbers and entrust that they will do the best for it. But plumbers are not doctors, houses are not a human beings.

I had only small plumbing problems with choked pipes before. After changing to new better sinks, I had no plumbing problem for a very long time. I am totally a dummy about plumbing.

I called a team of plumbers to take a look. They came and quickly took a look and told me that they need to cut all the pipes connecting to my basin, show point, bath tab and build new sets of cold and hot pipes outside my bathroom wall. They asked, can you accept it? Wow, I said, how much. They told me $2500.

Not only $2500, my beautiful marble wall bathroom will have ugly pipes exposed. I immediately refused. Although I am a dummpy in terms of plumbing, I know it is ridiculous. Imaging your blood vessel is wrong somewhere, doctor wants to cut all your vessels and build new sets of them out of your body.

Someone introduced a plumber for me. He came and he said he needs to knock the wall where most probably the buried pipes are leaking. I agreed. After knocking the wall with a round hole, there exposed three pipes, the brown cold, hot copper pipes and one white PVC pipe. The plumber was very sure that the copper pipes are leaking.

But I touch the copper pipes, not wet at all. He told me that he needs to knock a bigger hole so that the copper pipes will have no wall attached. The water will be dripping down from the copper pipes. To do this, it means that the other side of my bathroom marble wall will be spoil a bit. Since the marble wall is hidden inside the basin cabinet, I agreed.

But after knocking the marble wall, the pipes still had no water dripping down. The plumber told me that, there must be a very small hole leaking on top of the pipe, we need to wait to tomorrow to feel the dripping.

But I already sensed something is not right. The bottom of the wall is very wet. There were three times, water gushing out from the bottom of the wall after taking shower. If there is small hole and dripping of water, how can water gushing out? The plumber refused to listen to all these evidences and told me that water can travel and hide somewhere.

I notice the white pipe near the copper pipe, I asked him, what the white pipe is.  He told me it is linked to the water heater. My water heater is installed in the bathroom ceiling. The PVC pipe is buried in the wall. I asked if it is possible that this pipe is leaking. From the position, if this pipe is leaking, it explains very well why both sides of the corner of the wall are wet and the knocked part of the wall is highest point that is wet.

But he said that the pipe is only for steam to come out when water heater is hot. It goes to the main drain hole and will not leak.

We called off a day. The next day, we checked the copper pipes and they were still dry without any trace of water. But the most ridiculous thing is that the plumber wants to anyhow cut the copper pipes from where they are exposed and build a new set to connect to the ceiling part of the pipes as if there is leakage in the pipes along the way. I immediately stopped him and asked him to wait. He somehow accused me of not trusting him and didn't want to continue the job.

The next day, I asked another plumber to take a look. I especially asked him if there is problem with the white PVC pipe. He said, nothing is wrong with the water heater and the PVC pipe will never leak. He also said that the pipe is terminated ad the floor drain hole. He said the water will travel, the place you see water may not be the place the pipe is leaking. He needs to use some equipment to check where the leakage is. It costs $200 for him to do the check only.

I told him to wait for a while because I have strong feeling that the PVC pipe connecting to the water heater may be the problem.

I started frantically searching of information about water heater. I had never know there is a Temperature and Pressure (T & P) safety valve in the water heater. A safety device called a temperature and pressure relief (T&P or TPR) valve, is normally fitted on the top of the water heater to dump water if the temperature or pressure becomes too high. The T & P safety valve is connected to a PVC pipe which is called overflow discharge pipe. The T & P valve will open under such circumstances to let go of water to the PVC pipe to easy the pressure of the tank. Without the T & P valve, the water heater tank could possible be a steam bomb that may explode sometime.

I also understand, that the PVC overflow discharge pipe must terminated 6" above the floor level and cannot be at a drain hole. The reason is that when hot water comes out, it need to be flush out quickly and cannot be too close to the floor level. Also if siphoning occurs, the liquid (be it dirty water, household chemicals, oil, etc.) will be drawn back into the water heater tank, thereby contaminating the household drinking water supply.  If PVC discharge pipe terminate at the drain hole, if your drain hole is choked and full with dirty water, your water heater tank will be contaminated.

I can image how the PVC pipe terminate in the wall now. It is not at the bottom of the wall, but 6" high above floor. This explains well the highest point where the wall is wet is near the PVC termination point.

This also explains why sometime there is gushing of water because overflow discharge from water heater can be very strong sometime.

I believe the water heater has problem. The water heater is Ariston brand and people advise that the new Ariston water heater normally has shelf life of 5 years. I made a decision to replace the water heater to a new one.

But I still need to make 100% sure the problem is due to water heater. I turned off the water heater for a few days. The walls were no longer wet.

I immediately called one water heater store recommended in a forum and they changed the water heater for $375. $245 for a Joven 30L water heater and $130 installation.

The problem is solved with total cost of $575. I paid the plumber who knocked the wall $200,

The whole fiasco is now finally over. The lesson I learned is that you need to find a good plumber. If you cannot find one, you need to be one yourself.

Spring and Magnolia Bird Large Laminated Print (LLP) and How to Mount a Print

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These are two Large Laminated Prints (LLP) of size 16 x 20"/40 x 50cm. The customer requested to print them on vinyl sheet with one side is sticky so that she will mount them on a foam board to hang. Since it is quite big, I think it will be very heavy to be framed.

Some customers asked me where to buy board for mounting of the prints. You can buy them from your local advertisement material shop such as one ArtGrafix.You can buy a foam board or gator board from them with the size you like and mount it your self.

For mounting a board, it is exactly same with applying a laptop skin. You can find out more from the article Applying Laptop Skin.

In the Love Lands Laminated Print Mounted on Wood Blocks (LPWB)

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These are two lovely LPWBs ( Laminated Print Mounted on Wood Block) I made today. They will be out to a German customer tomorrow.

 They look very lovely together, don't they?

Problems as a Landlord and How to Deal with Non Payment Tenants

I encountered the worst thing as a landlord these days that my tenant didn't pay the rent after it was due.

I have been a landlord for quite a long time. It has been breezy to me all the time that all my tenants are polite, nice and never fail to pay their rental. This is the first time such thing happened. I guess later or soon I need to face this kind of unpleasant situation if you choose to be a landlord.

I think it is time to equip myself with strategies to deal with such things and also the legal knowledge of Singapore Land Laws regarding remedies for landlord of non payment tenants. I spend most of my time to find related information these days.

Same as many people claim, I do feel that Singapore Law is rather landlord friendly comparing the laws in other countries. The following is what I found these days. If you are landlord, hope you will find them useful and will not be panic when you are unlucky to have similar situation.

1. Late Payment. The following articles NON-PAYMENT OF RENT explains how to be alert to the non-payment tenants and how to deal with it when you notice the late payment. Although it is written by people from UK, but it is applicable to everyone in the world. I believe that in any case, it is important to understand the tenants situation, maintain an amicable relationship and try to seek win-win solutions. In most cases, the problem will be solved in the first stage. The tenant may voluntarily move out or make a payment plan with you and show sincerity to carry it out.
2. Legal Action. If nothing can be achieved in the first stage, you may pursue legal action to solve the problem. According to your objective you may take the corresponding action.
1. Re-Possession of Land. This is the action you may take if the tenants are still in your property and you need to recover your rental arrears and take back your property.
2. Sue the Tenants. This action applies to the situation that tenants no longer stay in your property, but they own you rentals or damage your property. It can also be applied if you do not plan to take your property back and just want to recover the rental arrears.
3. Distress Act. This is the action  you may take at the same time with [1] or [2] (provided the tenants have assets in your property) to the demised premises to impound goods up to the value of the rents owed, so as to compel the tenant to pay up and recover your rental.
4. For how these actions can be carried out, the detailed procedures and general civil law and procedures, please refer to the following documents   
• Civial Procedure
• How can landlord reclaim house when tenant fails to pay rent?
• Remedies for A Landlord, 
• Landlord-Tenant : Remedies for Non-Payment of Rent,
5. If you like to read original legal documents and get more prices informaiton, you can read, Conveyancing and Law of Property Act (Chapter 61).

I do believe that in most of the cases, tenants have really encountered some genuine difficulties. There will be a better way to solve the problem instead of legal actions. The landlord may suffer a bit loss, but it is worthwhile if it can avoid the legal procedures which may bring even bigger damage to the tenants during their difficult time.

But to those who have ability to pay and just want to get free lunch, the Singapore Law is not something they can get away with.