Finding Inspirations: New Potted Plant and Frankie Magazine

Nature is one of the best sources of inspiration. I absolutely love gardens, flowers, and different kinds of plants. I've grown up in a house that's surrounded by fruit bearing trees, flowering shrubs and beautiful orchids. Being around nature brings me peace and ideas.

In an attempt to make my work area more 'nature inspired', I bought a little potted plant from a local mall. The store claimed that it's a self-sustaining hydro culture plant and that its a cleaner, safer and better alternative to traditional soil-based indoor plants.

It's quite pretty. The plant came with a pink ceramic pot that blends well with my study table. The plant itself is quite tiny. It's hardly bigger than my table top calendar. It needs to be watered just twice a week. The instructions say that I only need to put 2 tablespoons of water. The special water-absorbent pebbles keeps the plant alive and keeps it pest free. What a wonderful and stress free way to take care of a plant! I'm thinking of buying two or three more to put around my room.

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Magazines are a huge source of inspiration for me. I'm an artist by heart and by career choice. As such, I need a steady supply of inspiration inducing materials around me. Most of the magazines that I collect are published in Japan. But these were brought from Australia, Singapore, online stores and even from some local stores.

Even if a lot of the magazines that I own are written and published in Japan, I still do have a one or two that are in English. One of the magazines that I really love is called FRANKIE.

Frankie Magazine is an Australian based publication that tackles design, art, photography, fashion, travel, music and crafts. It's a really pretty magazine that is filled with a lot of pretty pictures and interesting stories. 

Frankie is really different from the magazines that are sold here in my country. It's more artsy and, if I dare say, a bit more tongue and cheek. The pages are filled with wonderful commentary, beautiful artworks and even some recommendations to where to buy vintage and hand made clothes or crafts.

What I love about Frankie the most are the wonderful pictures. I love how the pictures are composed and stylized. I love the feel of the magazine. The magazine itself gives off a vintage yet modern aesthetic. With its clear cut layout and zen like photos, Frankie Magazine makes me think of care free summer days spent taking pictures with a camera. 

If you can buy Frankie Magazine at your local bookstore, please do so. Its a wonderful publication and I hope that it can inspire others as much as it inspired me. 

Amigurumi: Cute Chick

Today was such a lazy Sunday so I decided to do crafts once again. I took out one of my favorite Japanese crochet craft magazines. I bought this at a local bookstore for a really great price. 

The magazine contained pictures of different crochet projects. A lot were about Amigurumi (the Japanese art of creating crocheted stuffed toys). There were also projects about how to make really useful objects like containers, wallets, hair accesories, and even kitchen related items like pot holders and such. 

I decided to make another Amigurumi chick. I already made three before but I gave them away to some friends of mine. I believe that Amigurumi should be shared or gifted away. I like making people smile using my crafts. 

The process started by crocheting the body. I used the pattern included in the magazine. Japanese patterns are quite easy to understand once you get the gist of it. Even if I had limited knowledge in Japanese, I was still able to create the base.

I filled the base body with fiber/cotton and then I crocheted the wings and the cute top next.  The parts are to be sewn together to create the completed chick. It took me an hour and a half to finish everything. 

I added a triangular orange felt cloth for the beak and sewn two beads for eyes. The end product looked really cute. Although I think my chick was a little bit too obese compared to the ones featured in the magazine.

After I finished everything I took it outside for a little photo shoot. I've named it 'chickidee'. That name is quite dear to me since my mom used to call me that when I was kid.   

The long vacation is ending soon. I'm quite sad that the Holy Week has come to a close. I still have one day of vacation left. Even if I dread coming back to the office I am still happy. This long weekend was my most productive yet. I was able to relax, do a lot of crafts and also was able to clean my room. I guess I'm improving bit by bit. 

Sewing Adventures: Creating a Cute Pouch

I inherited a sewing machine from my grandmother a year or so ago, It happened just a few months before she passed away. The machine runs on electricity and is about fifteen or so years old. It is a SINGER sewing machine. One of the most trusted brands when it comes to sewing tools. 

Today was such a lazy day but I wanted to something creative and productive at the same time. My digital camera needed a new pouch and I wasn't in the mood to drop by the mall and buy a ready made one. Instead, I opted to make my own.

I inherited a lot of cloths, laces, ribbons, and threads when I acquired the sewing machine. I chose a pink cloth for the pouch and the a light yellow cloth for the lining. I also chose a cute lace little ribbon to create some added details.

I love the colors that I had chosen. And I think my dog loves it too. Mellow suddenly sat on my materials as soon as he saw them on the floor. I guess he wanted to help me sew my little pouch.

Or maybe he just wanted to sleep on it. Lol! I had to carry him away so I could retrieve my materials. Thankfully none of the cloths were soiled and the laces got away without a scratch. 

Sewing the two cloths together was quite an uneasy process. I'm not used to this sewing machine yet. I had only used it twice since the time it arrived in my home. It wasn't a surprise that I could barely sew a straight line. But I did manage to create something beautiful despite the crooked thread lines.

I finished sewing the pouch in an hour or so. I think this is the smallest item I had ever sewn. I attached the lace into the upper edge of the pouch and attached a lavender colored ribbon to heighten the kawaii feel.

Isn't it cute? And it fits my digital camera just right!

I'm a bit happy with the result. Although I think I can do better. I need to practice sewing more. As they say, practice makes it perfect. But I'm glad I was able to create something. Today was a great start!

DIY Chocolate

Mai gave me this really cute DIY Chocolate kit a day before we journeyed to Singapore. Since I love making crafts, I was really excited to make this once I had the time to do so. The packaging is quite cute and colorful. Although I find it funny that it claims that its contents are made out of 99% cacao when its clearly a lie. 

 

The pack contained four sheets of felt cloth, different colored threads, a needle, and a container for the finished 'chocolates'. It also included an instruction booklet that was written in both English and Japanese. A paper guide helped me create the shapes that I needed to cut out of the felt sheets.

The cut outs are then sewn together by hand. It took me quite some time before I finished the shapes needed to create the fake chocolates. These are then filled with organic cotton stuffing and decorated with thread or or different colored felt cut outs. 

There were six chocolate shapes all in all. My favorite would be the one with almond/pistachio 'nuts' sewed on top. Making the fake nuts was quite a challenge since it was so small and I had to also fill it with stuffing so that it wouldn't be flat.

 

It took me about three hours to finish everything.I'm quite happy with the result and the 'chocolates' are now proudly displayed in my room. 

Thanks Mai for giving this to me! I really appreciate it.

Breaking Free

I have a confession to make. I have been suffering from Depression for quite some time. I don't know when it started but I do know that I was on an all time low last year. 2011 hasn't been a kind year to me. I lost a lot of important people in my life. Loved ones died, friends came and went away. Everything made me feel miserable although I was blessed in a lot of ways. I was always unhappy. I lacked energy to do the things I loved. Then it dawned to me that my depression was something that I can fight against. I needed to fight it. I was just 27 years old. I had a life in front of me. I didn't want to waste my life feeling down in the dumps all the time.

Looking back at my life, I realized that I am experiencing an imbalance. I am caught in a destructive chronic cycle. A product of years of abusing myself. I didn't eat healthy foods. I rarely slept early. I lost my sense of self by following what others want me to do rather than what I wanted to do.

Lack of sleep led to me feeling cranky and depressed the following day. This also leads me to eat unhealthy foods that were high on sugar. I guess it was my body's way of regaining the energy that I needed for the day. Eating sugary foods contributed to my weight gain... which also contributed to my self-confidence taking a nose dive.

For years I had the perfect figure. I didn't need to worry about what I was eating. Suddenly my metabolism started to slow down. I was getting fatter around my midriff. I couldn't fit in to my favorite pants anymore. I'm not fat - yet. But I'm starting to go on that road. I need to stop it.

Not sleeping early also meant that I lacked energy to do the things I loved to do. I wasted my time on things that did not matter. I hardly did the things I loved because most of the time 'I didn't feel like it'. Losing the energy to do what I love led me to have feelings of frustration. And it made me feel even more depressed.

This was the cycle that I was whirled into. Its hard to break from bad habits that were forged from years of self-neglect and self-abuse. But that doesn't mean that everything is going to stay that way forever.

I am lucky to have a supportive and loving family. I am lucky that I have friends who care about me. I am lucky that I have two dogs who act as my stress relief. And I am lucky that I know that I have the power to change my situation. Its not easy but I guess I'll do it one step at a time. Then maybe one day I'll become the person that I really want to be. Some day soon I will seize happiness.

Salad and Yakult. Yum Yum

I'm starting eat more healthy foods. I eat more salads and more fruits. I heard a saying that our bodies respond well to 'good food'. Food is like fuel. Give the wrong kind of fuel to your body and it will feel  'wrong' too. Its a matter of giving my body what it really needs. I really should stop snacking on junk foods too. Its not healthy and I think that I crave it not because I am really hungry but because of the psychological effect it gives me. I'm still struggling with this though. But someday I might be able to proudly say that I'm junk food free.

My Current Desk

I also realized the importance of having a clean environment. I read an article somewhere in the internet that our environment is only a reflection of our psychological state. Yesterday I took some time to clean out some parts of my room. I threw out a lot of trash, used toiletries and dusted off my furniture. I oddly felt a sense of relief when I finished doing that impromptu spring cleaning. And I also felt the urge to keep it that way, clean and dust free. There's still a lot to do though (like cleaning out my closet and letting go of clothes that no longer fit me) but its a great start.

I also took a trip to Singapore with my best friends since High School. Mai, Emille, Katlee and Rhea are one of the most important people in my life. Being able to take an out of the country trip with them really made me feel happy. I'm planning to post pictures from the trip in the next few days.

Visiting another country also widened my perspective. Now I want to travel more. I want to be exposed to what the world can offer. I know I want to travel back to Japan one day and I will do so perhaps next year.

Life is starting to be great again. I'm starting to find my balance and my worth in the world. I feel better than before.