Of Ladybirds and Lace : Card Exchange 2009

I received my card from Ciyou yesterday. Look how beautiful this handmade card is...

Nigel showing off the card and a pack of buttons! Thanks Ciyou.

I love the ladybirds on my card. Look at all the tiny details, the sequins and the embellishments.

Visit her blog here...http://ciyoucolorscity.blogspot.com/

Finally Open!

I've been keeping this a secret. But here it is...click here to go shopping! http://studioshoppe.blogspot.com/

It's my little studio shoppe featuring my favourite fabrics, buttons, ribbons, bagmaking supplies, scrapbooking embellishments, crafting & sewing notions and in the near future - crafting books too! I'll be making things to sell on my studio shoppe too - So check back often!
A sneak peek of the sweet things you'll find at Yoonie's Studio Shoppe!

Card Exchange 2009 & April Stitching Bee

It's a freestyle theme Card swap, with one condition and that's to have stitch or faux-stitch on the designed card. And since my partner was Tini and we were to meet up last Saturday for one of our stitching bees - I hand delivered it! Here's the card and photos of our April Stitching Bee.

I dug out my wallpaper samples for this card. I've been keeping them for something special. You can hear me praying, "Let the sewing machine sew through this....!)

With a rough design in mind. I punched some butterflies out of the wallpaper and started sewing on a trail of fluttering bugs. It was really fun sewing on paper - most surprisingly easier than on canvas!
The finished card - Front.

Before I packed it, I folded the wings a little bit. Look at the 3D effect.

The back of the card.

Inside the card, I slipped a bookmark inside with the message. Here I went crazy with the stitches.
Pull out bookmark. I love velvet ribbons!

Looks like Spring is here already!

This is Tini's favourite phrase. You can visit her blog here - http://www.snazzynsuch.com/

Photos featured on our April Stitch Bee is courtesy of Nik!

We learned how to make beaded pins. I made one just for my new crocheted bag. It's an elegant touch to a handmade bag! Thanks Sabariah!!
Rose looking at the card I made for Tini. Look at the mess on our tables!
Jo posing with my crochet bag. And Anna modelling for Paul's crochet needles. We can never have enough crochet needles. I so want to get a set too!!!

That's me inbetween 2 cool friends! Paul and Tini came in matching pink shirts!!! I was giving out my crochet pattern and the magnetic clasps during the stitching bee. Thanks everyone for being such good students! LOL!

The pattern and the base of the bag done by Nik. This colour combination is so cute and yummy!

What started of as a stitching bee, became a crochet bee! Thanks again Nik for organising the stitching bee. Can't wait to see you guys again in June, hopefull this time it'll be a fullhouse when we all get to meet Shanny from Swissyland! And Thanks Ying for organising the card exchange.

A Sneak Peek! & April Report

Miraculously, I finally got my camera to work back again. So here are some of things I've been wanting to blog about.
I received my pincushion from Wah-ah before I left for Bangkok. Isn't it beautiful. It's a simple cross-stitch pincushion with a chrysanthemum motif.

The pincushion with the some lovely cross-stitch stash! Thanks Wa-ah!!!

This was a mistake - I'm thinking about undoing this. Sometimes things just don't go they way you want them too. Sigh!

This is a sneak peek for an exchange!

I'm beginning to like granny squares!

My Afghan needle scarf - this is a test-run. Turned out quite nice. I didn't know that a skein can make a single scarf!

My beautiful bag is taking shape. It's a new design from my usual totes.

Close-up. I can't imagine writing instructions to do this bag. It's become quite complicated to explain in words.

We celebrated Easter last week and Nigel's Sunday School party theme was 'Bible Heroes'. Who's his hero??? (Besides Ben10) DAVID the shepherd boy!!!
I made the top, the sandals (yes! I did!!!) and the harp. My dad made the sling shot out of motorbike rubber tubes and a Y shape branch! Cool!!!

My little David won 2nd prize!!! 1st prize went to Job - He's my hero too!

My brother - The Tax Collector!!! OMG - He looks ridiculously funny, I dare him to go to work like this!!

Our Adventure In Bangkok

We went on a holiday to Bangkok last weekend for five days and this time we took off without Nigel. (He was pleased to be staying over at my mom's place for the whole 5 days!) Instead we went with Stan's best buddy, Edmund. He was our tour guide, he speaks Thai and knows Bangkok like the back of his hand!

DAY 1 : Arrival - Shopping in the City!

Here's the both of us posing like a bunch of tourist! Central World is a shopping haven. Classy place for some branded goods. I love the bookstore, It's actually connected to Isetan and another mall with really nice ID shops. I bought lots of cotton fabrics here. There are a few quilting shops in Central - very pricey!
In Bangkok, shopping centres are located in clusters. Here you can walk over to the next mall with the pedestrian walkways right beneath the light railways. I think that's what KL is trying to do.
Everything is jampacked and chaotic in Bangkok. You'll see double rows of light railway tracks. See the traffic below! Traffic is the norm here. I hate say this - it's a great place to shop but definitely not my kind of city to live in. The drivers here are crazier than KL drivers.

Siam Paragon - the height of shopping at Bangkok. Very fancy designer shops and this is one mall you have to visit to experience the materialistic city-side of Bangkok! Everyone is dressed to the nines and I just love the supermarket and the food court!!


You can catch a train anywhere to everywhere. Beats having to wave down a taxi. Remember to emphasise that you want to use the meter everytime you catch a cab here!

Our first dinner in Bangkok has to be local. This is a restaurant called ' Mom's place'. Good food and good company. That's Edmund being a good host. My camera is acting up on me this trip. So some of the photos don't do any justice to the culinary delights we're about to dig in.

When in Bangkok, these are the dishes you must try...seafood curry in a coconut, cashew nut with meat & papaya salad, green curry, phad thai and my absolute favourite - Mango with sticky rice.

Of course we had to take a picture in front of Hard Rock Bangkok! Quite small compared to Bali Hard Rock. Nice location though!

DAY 2 : Going around on my own. Bangkok- here I come!

My first ride on a tuk-tuk. Quite a scary experience, since our hotel advised us against taking any tuk-tuks (apparently they'll con and take you around to routes to make extra money), but I was extra careful and of course, ask first before you get onto any ride. It cost only around RM3, so I decided to go for a short trip to a jewellery gallery (here, he tells me he gets free petrol even if I don't buy anything.). So with time on my side, what the heck. I had a thrilling ride around the area, visited the jewellery gallery and got back to Central for some shopping on my own. The boys have gone to visit a tackle shop 2 hours away from the City.

The tuk-tuk driver took a picture for me too.

I met with the boys at the Suan Lum night bazaar. Yikes, the jam here is horrific! But worth it, lot's of nice shops.

Shopping!
Shopping & more shopping!


DAY 3 & 4 : Chatuchak MarketThe canals around the city. The water is pretty murky and choppy. This was on the way to the money changers.
Oh, I forget to mention that outdoor advertising in Bangkok is big business. Here, you can rent a truck with a digital screen to park anywhere you want! This was outside of Pratunam centre - a silver wholesaler and semi precious stone mall.

Chatuchak is a big market place. When I say big - I mean HUGE! They have around 26 sections, and each section features fashion streets, homeware, second hand goods, antiques, crafts and whatever else Bangkok manufactures! Ice-cream stalls are everywhere. Go ahead, you can try some. I didnt have any tummy problems.

Looks like even school kids are trying to make a living here. It's a colourful, noisy, crowded and very very hot market. But I must commend Bangkok on their 'CLEAN' toilets!!!

School children doing a street performance.

This was around 11am and the crowd is pouring in already!

Food stalls are everywhere.

We walked.
And walked!
And we saw this Information buggy going around picking up tired tourist! How nice!! Anyway, I forgot to mention that you should probably get a map at the office before venturing into this massive maze of a market!

Coconut ice-cream is a must try! The roast pork too!






We had lunch at this cute little stall. It's called the boat house restaurant. Fantastic beef noodles. See the 2 huge cauldron of soup!

This stall is so crowded, my seat was bowl-to-bowl with the opposite diner!

We were sweating like crazy in here. The noodle bowl serving size here is pretty small - so you'd probably go for a few servings.

I love this little cafes around Bangkok, DoiTung. It's Thailand's version of a Starbucks. Good coffee slushies and blenders topped with cream and yes - MACADAMIA!

Our last dinner was at Chinatown. My camera actually died on me. So very little pictures of a very very good dinner. So sad!

Anyway, we had tom yum, crab in creamy coconut sauce, grilled aubergine salad, minced meat in basil, Thai otak-otak and ahhh ...mango with sticky rice (translucent ones!!!)