Moonlight Owl Anitque Silver Necklace

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It is just made from the Moonlight Owl print today for a customer order.

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Can Money buy Good Quality Products?

Philips Customer Car Center with the Problem Vacuum Cleaner on the Bench

Finally I have settled down after staying in north America for a long time and be able to concentrate on some art work, but yesterday, my routine suddenly got disrupted.

I bought a SGD$500 Philips vacuum cleaner at the end of May. It was only used for about 15 days considering the long absent in between May and now.  Yesterday, while I was enjoying playing piano with my daughter and planning to do some painting after that, my maid came to told me: "Mame, the vacuum cleaner is not working". I checked the machine and hope to find that there was no problem, only that she forgot to turn on something. But after tweaking here and there, I realized that it was spoil and my whole day was ruined.

Because it is a fairly expensive machine and it was used only for such a short time, I cannot just through it away and buy a new one. I need to send it over as instructed by the customer service officer from Philips and get it repaired. It took me 3 hours to carry the heavy machine to the service center.

There are so many types of vacuum cleaners in the market from about SGD$100 to SGD$600. I thought if I buy expensive one, it will perform better. But actually I found the logic doesn't hold any more now days. Here is another example.

Silver Titus Watch With Crystal Dropped Off

I like Silver Titus watch very much. If I need a new watch for gift or for my own use,  I usually just went to City Chain and got a Silver Titus watch. But last year, I bought a about SGD$250 Silver Titus watch from City Chain and a crystal dropped off and crown became loose only after one month. I couldn't adjust time back to Singapore time after coming back from Germany. The ridiculous thing was that when I went to City Chain store the store men told me that the crystal and crown were all outside parts and they were not included in the warranty. Only after I argued with them for a long time, they agreed to send it to be repaired for free.

Now the watch has 2 more crystals came off and 3 crystals turned to black. I feel so sick to look at it and I just through it away somewhere so that I will never see it again.

It is very confusing now days as which brand is good or bad and who can be trusted. You cannot buy good products just by paying more money.

Luckily Singapore has introduced so called "Lemon Law" and will be effective by September 1. I hope by then, things will get better.

Summer II Reductive Linocut Print

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I am surprised that I have managed to make three prints after coming back from vacation. I love cutting the lino mat.

I worked till 10:30pm last night to finish this Summer II print. Once start working on a piece, I have the urge to finish it. Otherwise, it is very difficult for me to go to sleep.

This is a a long version of lotus flower. It measures 6 x 11.5" /15 x 30cm. I find that the size is very nice for printmaking.

I made four editions of this print.

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Summer Reductive Linocut Print

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I am quite pleased with the result of the prints. The deep minty green is very pretty full of life of summer.

with signature

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Summer Work in Progress

Summer is the time when Lotus are blossom and in their most beautiful moment. I love the minty green leaves with the deep purple and pink flowers.

I made four editions in these reductive lino cut prints. I managed to complete two rounds of color today before it gets too dark to work any more.

One important factor about printmaking is to get the contrast of dark and light color right. The process of making reductive print is normally to print rounds of color on the same image from light to dark. If you cut too much in the beginning, the image will have too much light color. If you didn't cut enough, the image will have too much dark color. It is important to control the cutting while applying the corresponding round of color.

Sunset Lino-cut Print

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This is a reductive lino-cut print. I made limited 2 edition. I love cutting on the lino mat and apply colors one by one. You are looking forward to to see how the image transformed from simple to rich.

First layer of color Yellow

With final black color

 I could have made four editions.  But my working table is a bit small, I am afraid it may not work well on extra editions. I shall try four next time.

Poppy and Lotus Print, North America Trip

Finally it came to the end of the long north America trip for us. I feel so relieved after a really long 20 hour flight. One thing makes me extreme happy is that the two prints Lotus Pond and Poppy were sold while I was in the planes.  I really wish I could have time to concentrate on printmaking. It is such a magical art.

I have been visiting America and Canada for almost 20 days. I have studied in US and went back for numerous business trips and vacations. Every time I went there, I learned and discovered so many new things. We met friends and visit attractions. The trip was full of fun.

One of my friends' beautiful big house.

Very touching Princeton Commencement (Empty seats waiting for the class 2012)

I have never attended a full fledged commencement. This was the first time I attended the 3 day Princeton 2012 Commencement. It was very touching and meaningful experience. I believe wherever the young people go, they will always remember and cherish the blessings from their school expressed in these commencement days.

My Samsung Galaxy Tablet

The rest of days we visit Maryland, Seattle and Vancouver. The difference of this trip from the last ones is that we made all travel arrangement in this Samsung Galaxy tablet. We book hotel, rent car and navigate through America airport, streets and places through the tablet. We no longer make phone calls or look at maps.

The great offline GPS navigating system

The driving is so much easier with GPS system in the tablet. We download a free offline GPS system called Navfree. Google Maps is normally the software for GPS. But it needs constant contact with Internet. Navfree is an offline system. It doesn't require an Internet connection which my tablet doesn't have in USA.

The Internet bookings all worked smoothly except some small hiccups. But they were also gracefully solved by the service providers. I will definitely use Internet to arrange travel next time.

Last but not least, all my shops are open now. I got some new laptop skin materials. I will try to make a new round laptop skin printing test. If everything is fine, the laptop skins will be available within few days.

Some Important Announcements

Cotton Rose Large Canvas Print

If you notice that I have not been updating this blog frequently, one of the main reasons is that for the past few weeks, I have been preparing a big trip to America and Canada. I will spend a few weeks there. All of our stores will be closed from now till further announcements are made. If you need to buy anything from us, you will be prepared to wait for couple of  weeks for it to be delivered.

Another important announcement is that we stopped selling Laptop skins temporary. We have some issues with supply of skin printing materials. We are not very happy with the quality of recent new batch of printing materials and would like to stop selling decals at the moment. We will resume once we get satisfactory materials for printing

All about Mint

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Plants are so magical, especially the herbal plants. I am amazed by the various kinds of fragrant they carry.

In searching of  some healthy snack for my 4 year old, I come across the mint plant and some healthy snacks and drinks it can make. I planted some in my garden from cut out that I bought from supermarket that are meat for cooking. I just insert them into port soil and magically they grow.

Mint in Balcony

Now they thrive in my balcony. They need only a lot of water and sunshine.

Afternoon Snack

This is a healthy, delicious and easy to make afternoon snack with oat cracker, low fat high calcium cream cheese and mint. The strong taste of the peppermint I pick from the balcony somehow disappear when mixed with cheese. The mint makes cheese very fresh and not so sticky in your mouth. My daughter loves it.

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 They are also so pretty to paint with bluish green, golden yellow and dark purple stems . I painted two today.

Laptop and Iphone Decals

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These are some of the fresh printed laptop skin and iPhone decals. I really like the Tropical Paradise. It is very pretty when printed out in large.

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I have been very busy with my daughter's activities recently. There are so many things a 4 years old needs to do such as outings, piano lessons and practices, ballet lessons and other enrichment classes. She enjoys learning new things and that makes us very happy.