My Bizarre Two Days

Yes I know I've not been updating due to some curses I was having for the past months. I was literally artistically incapacitated, creatively constipated. I wished for a potion that I could just flush all my creative juices out and be able to function well like a human. Seriously, I guess it has got to do with my ultra long working hours, late sleeping and waking up late that's causing all these curses. 

Well, in order to get rid of those evil curses, I've been trying very hard to sleep early and wake up early. Sooo, I bought myself a physical alarm clock from Ikea and started to train myself. Because of this physical clock in place, I can't snooze the alarm. I always do that on my iPhone! Good initiative. The earlier I wake up, the better I could get my day started correctly. While I'm struggling to get this new routine in place, I'd like to share what had happened during the past 2 days of my life...

ErmM... (*pinch, shake and clear throat*)...

DAY ONE (1)

I was trying to off my alarm clock this morning but to no avail. I called in my assistant to help me turn off the alarm but no matter what we did, we just couldn't off it... And the alarm went louder and louder!!! 

Suddenly, I jumped off the bed and got to realize I was actually dreaming and the sound of the alarm was actually coming from my real life Ikea alarm clock which I placed it on my desk. No wonder my assistant and I couldn't shut the bloody alarm up 'cos we are just a dimension away!

... ...

DAY TWO (2)

I was at my friend's place watching TV and fell asleep. Then my iPhone alarm went on. My friend's wife tried to off it for me but to no avail. She called her husband (my friend) for help and couldn't off it. And he tried to pry open my iPhone to off it. Still, the alarm went on and on till I got up and wonder why is he doing that to my phone! The alarm just couldn't get turn off!!!! 

Suddenly, I jumped off from my bed and got to realize it was my real life iPhone alarm and I was dreaming. We are a dimension away! 

Yesterday my assistant and I couldn't off my Ikea alarm clock and today my friend had to pry open my iPhone! 

Lesson learnt - Get the butt off the bed immediately once your alarm clock starts ringing!!!

Indeed, the past 2 days have been bizarre to me - traveling between dimensions of reality and dreams. And this reminds me of sharing another altered mobile case project for both ScrapFX and Shimmerz Paints. Just couldn't get enough of phone covers I guess...

A Lovely Romantic Death

Allow me to present something a little off, perhaps quite dark to some. My youngest sister has been swearing on the kind of work I've been doing up lately just because she suddenly finds me too morbid and depressing. Haha... As I promised that I'm still in my most right sense of mind, I'm just trying to bring some sweetness out from the very dark - a lovely death...

I was on the papers one fine afternoon, a wedding picture featuring a couple using coffin as part of their wedding photography concept caught my attention. They are undertakers by profession. But hell, I love this very cool idea despite of it's morbidity! With my admiration of Tim Burton's melancholic fantasies, I started to have this wild idea of doing up a skeleton wedding couple. 

This piece is available for sale HERE...

Who doesn't want to die romantically with your loved one? I bet most of us want that. Till Death Do Us Part. To be able to be embraced as such till point of death is seriously the most romantic thing to do, even we ended up as pack of bones. But how many of us are actually blessed like this? I wish and am always fantasying in my lala-land...

A pledge of love, stands firmly above. Coffins are not that bad. While it's only natural for most homo sapiens to take it negatively, I just want to dismiss this morbid notion by injecting love. Not trying to encourage death and lead a tragic love life like Romeo and Juliet, but to show the other side of how love can withstand death. 

A coffin bed with a bed of roses. Life is not always a bed of roses, but it's definitely beautiful the way it is. The real essence of true love is always evident when both is able to go through thick and thin together on all circumstances. That's definitely the most beautiful thing of all.

Supplies List

• Tiny Little Coffin Boxes – Decayed Collage Sheet
• Tiny Little Coffin Boxes - Newer Collage Sheet
• Paper Mache Coffin Box
• Clockworks Laser-Cut Wood Embellishments
• Wood Skull Cut-Out 
• Plastic Skeletons
• Acrylic Top Hat 
• Jeweled Oval pendant Frame
• Die-Cut Chipboard Clock Hands Set
• Black Mini Paper Blooms
• Half-Round Dresden – Black
• Thin Looped Dresden Borders – Black 
• 19mm Fancy Metal Drawer Pull/Box Feet
• Rosary Chain – Jet 
• Mixed Silver Filigrees
• Silver Stickles
• Tim Holtz Flourish Stencil 
• Gilder’s Paste – Silver
• Molding Paste 
• White Gesso
• E6000
• Graphic 45 Mon Amour 8” x 8” Paper Pad 
• ScrapFX Chippies (Chain Corner Collage, Mini Cogs, Micro Cogs, Steampunk Heart, Mini Alphabets) 
• Mixed Media (Shimmerz Paints, Clear Snap Smooch Pearlized Ink Accents) 
• I Am Roses 2 tone black/white mini roses 
• Own Stash – Wooden Box Frame, Black Satin Ribbon, Black & White Tulle, Prima White Mulberry Mini Petals, Rhinestone Crystals, Off-White & Black Wool (skeleton bride’s hair)

Keep Calm and Dance On

Altering a mobile case is probably one of the most practical projects. And it can be easily accomplished by using various elements. ScrapFX has a huge range of chippes which I find them interestingly very easy to use. Over here, I altered a plain plastic mobile case into a dance theme mobile case using the various mixed media goodies by Shimmerz Paints and the various dance and music theme chippies from ScrapFX...

I started by giving the surface a good prime with generous amount of Gesso prior to misting. Love contrasting colours! I created a gradual blue background filled with musical notes and contemporary dancers, and placed the message right at the centre. This makes it stand out. As it meant for a daily necessity for a mobile phone, I decided not to build up the design too much and sealed it with 3 layers of PU varnish so that the colours won't run that fast...

This makes a great gift for any dancers and this mobile case is available HERE for sale in my Etsy store...

List of Supplies:

• Gesso
• PU Varnish
• ScrapFX Chippes (Contemporary Dancers, Keep Calm and Dance On, Record; Life is a Song)
• Shimmerz Paints (Coloringz - Heidi Ho Blue, Well Blue Me Down, Spritz - Rock-a-fella Blue, Dazzelerz - Sea U in the Mornin', Creameez - Ride the Tide, Inklingz - Sheer Bliss)

Dr. Drake's Lab Oratory

During my entire collage years, while struggling hard to complete my Bachelor of Science, I was once very fascinated on the various colourful chemical reactions in the Chemistry Lab. One ultra boring subject - Inorganic Chemistry was one of my most hated modules. Yet making crystals and forming beautiful chemical reactions were one of my most look-forward Lab sessions. That was the only "colourful" hands-ons I could ever get throughout my entire Biomedical course. Haha! I just couldn't get enough of such hands-ons, just for the sake of viewing colourful chemical reactions. I think I can literally burn the whole Lab down if I wanna go crazy. My Prof would probably bar me from the Lab and fail me!

After I graduated and started to work in R&D, I never became a Chemist and was working on boring colourless, tasteless biological stuffs. Proteins, Bacteria and Viruses became my most best friends and they stinks! You bet on the kind of food e.coli eat, they smell and vomit proteins. Mind you, some of the drugs you are probably taking are spilled by these creatures. Oops! Not meant to freak you out, but some of them are just too good in making such stuffs and Scientists love them deeply. And could you imagine, I was making them vomiting proteins almost every week! 

This piece is available for sale HERE...

Alright I digress... So out of inspiration with my little Chemistry knowledge, I decided to build an interesting Lab Oratory owned by this freakish Professor, Dr. Drake for Graphic 45, Alpha Stamps and ScrapFX. It's a little Lab Chapel where he concocted all of his finest herbal and insects poisons. Beware as you enter his Lab and don’t get too freaked out by the huge Exhibit A entrance! He has most of the deadliest delights, charms, potions, herbs and notions you could ever think of. 

As you tour around his Lab, you will be amazed by this gigantic Sands of Time in his movable herb garden. Flip to see how those minute orange sand falls to time; a therapeutic way to keep your mind off. Beware! Evil hypnosis will take place when you stare of it too much. Before you could realize it, your brain will be hijacked!

Indeed a little freakish Lab Chapel! The Exhibit A speaks it all! Who would place such a display to freak people out? You bet, that's Dr. Drake...

Supplies List

• Secret Spell Book Part One Collage Sheet 
• Tiny Magic Books & Potions Labels Collage Sheet
• More Witchy Potion Labels Collage Sheet
• Tiny Little Books Collage Sheet
• ATC Book Box
• Graphic 45 Rare Oddities 8” x 8”Paper Pad
• Graphic 45 Rare Oddities  6” x 6” Patterns & Solids
• Metal Door Pull – Antique Brass 
• Antique 3D Gold Crown
• Halloween 3D Skull Cameo
• Small Hinged Tin
• Blank Altoids Tin
• Amber Resin Potions Bottles 
• Ghoulish Green Mini Resin Jars 
• Green Resin Perfume Bottle 
• Mini Clear Resin Whisky Bottle 
• 1½” Glass Bottles 
• Tiny Round Bottles
• Amber Even Tinier Bottles
• Wooden Doll Stand
• Pumpkin Pods 
• Large White Turquoise Skull Beads
• Tiny White Turquoise Skill Beads
• Round Antique Broze Filigree
• Funky Bronze Scissors Charm 
• Hourglass Charm 
• Acrylic Die – Pre-Drilled in Black  
• Clock Face Buttons
• 12mm Glass Cat Eyes 
• Small Ceramic Horned Owl
• Tiny Green Leaf Garland
• 10mm Clear Glass Marbles 
• 5/8” Bronze Skull & Bones Charms 
• DIY Tine Bottle Stoppers Mix
• Bronze Pentagram Charms 
• DIY Potion Bottles Bead Mix 
• Set of Miniature Books 
• Word Bands – Observations  
• Tim Holtz Gothic Stencil
• ScrapFX Chippies (Clockface, Steampunk Frame, Mini Feathered Wings, Mini Alphabets, Baroque Frame, Flourish Diamond Mini)
• Gina’s Design Steampunk Dollies (black) 
• Mixed Media (Shimmerz Paints, Clearsnap Smooch Pearlized Ink Accents) 
• Own Stash – hourglass, twigs, miniature wood pieces

Melancholic Lamentations - A Salvaged Love Bride

Not very long time ago in a far away City, there was once upon a Bride whom had a heavy heart filled with enormous amount of salvaged love; yearning for her Man's love and desire. For her Man had promised to love her till eternity at their wedding night, she patiently awaited for his return...

As she sat by near the window each night, glaring out towards the deep dark sky, the moon was her only everlasting light. Each night passed by, she felt solemn and sorrowed. Yet her love for her Man was so great that she could only salvage in despair. Her Man, had yet to return... 

The glaze of her eyes filled with hope and desires. Her heart, felt burdened and heavy; as if it weighed a few tonnes worth of Silver. Though she felt warm at heart as she waited for the love she had for her Man was so generous, her heart was tearing. Drop by drop, she salvaged...  

She lamented in despair on each drop of love she salvaged. She felt pain; a pain so immensely deep that she could feel pricks of sharps piercing through her heart. Her Man never returns...

"Oh! How long more I would have to wait? For my love has left no more to salvage yet I yearn and desire for your everlasting love..." She withered as nights went past. And goodbye... My love...

As such is life, the Bride died with a grieved heart filled with pain and sorrows in her wedding dress, unable to wait for her Man to return... 

About the Project

The inspiration behind this project is based on an actual real life account - about a wife endlessly trust and await for her husband to return home every night. There's a little social context behind, mainly on the constant vicious cycle in an emotional abuse family. While physical violence in domestic abuse is more evident, the psychological impact and damage for emotional abuse is often more severe and harder to be seen by the outside world. The whole essence of this entire project gears towards an overview inner emotions of a lamenting Bride; a confusional contrary mixed feelings of love, pain and sorrow.

The Scene

A Salvaged Love Bride in this scene was set in a more melancholic setting, denoting the constant love-pain relationship the victim faced living with an emotional abuser. It's more towards a way to "recycle" her love, trapped within a small cubicle unable to leave. Yet on the contrary, her love for her Man was so salvaged that she always trusted and truly believed he would return one day to fulfill the love and desires she yearns for.

Elements within the Scene
A mixture of heart gears and metal embellishments were used for the flaming heart to create some form of salvaging mechanics, just for the sole function of "recycling" the love drops. The Bride's bunch of flowers consists of 9 roses; a meaning of Eternal Love denoting her Man's promise to love her for eternity. Those 2 suitcases represent the separate livelihoods of the Bride and her Man. Though stacked together as "one" union life in a marriage, the actual life between the Bride and her Man is often distinct and one-sided. In order to create a more contrary melancholic mood, various small details such as a solemn black umbrella, a Jane Austin's Pride & Prejudice novel and a stack of newspapers with the perish of the Titanic are added.

List of Supplies:

• Vintage French Ad Collage Sheet 
• Haunted Ship Travel Collage Sheet   
• Little Library Collage Sheet  
• Plastic Skeleton  
• Relic & Artifacts – Flaming Hearts Ex Votos II  
• Gold Mini Rosette Dresden Borders  
• Fuzzy Black Fibers 
• Mixed Silver Filigrees
• Set of Miniature Books  
• Miniature Umbrella Set 
• Word Bands – Observations
• Flower Stamen – Ivory  
• Gilder’s Paste – White 
• Gilder’s Paste – Silver
• Gilder’s Paste – Patina
• Tim Holtz Gothic Stencil
• Bride of Frankenstein Stencil
• Molding Paste
• White Gesso
• Black Gesso
• E6000
• Glue N Seal
• Prima Finnabair’s Vintage Mechanicals (Leaves 2, Small Flowers, Roses) 
• Prima Ingvild Bolme’s Junkyard Findings (Heart Gears) 
• Prima Mulberry Flowers (Rose Buds, Mini Petals) 
• ScrapFX Mini Alphabets
• Shimmerz Paints (Vibez – Egg Noggin’ & Snow Storm, Shimmeringz – Baby’s Breathe, Inklingz – Sheer Bliss, Tarnished Treasure, Freshly Minted, Blingz – Pixie Dust, Texturez – Patina) 
• Own Stash (white tulle, rhinestone crystals, dollies, wooden window box)

The Mermaid Museum

For this month Alpha Stamp's kit is all about Mermaids... And I'd think most of us have probably watched Walt Disney's The Little Mermaid movie but how many of us actually read the story of The Little Mermaid written by Hans Christian Andersen?? While everyone of us familiarly referred the little mermaid as the red-haired Ariel and her happily ever after ending with the Prince in the movie, the actual fate of the mermaid's life in Hans' story was her ascension into the air where she dissolved and became foam...

For over 300 years since the day The Mermaid's ascension, historians and archaeologists are very curious about her afterlife... Although the marine and human life of the mermaid are pretty well studied by the experts, the aftermath after she became foam and varnished into thin air are poorly understood... For she had forsaken her lovely mesmerizing tail for a pair of human legs in order to live as a human, we thought the tail had indeed vanished... It was till very recently, a group of archaeologists discovered her tail, foam ashes and various marine and human artifacts at the Northern celestial pole of The Meridian, providing an insight story of The Mermaid's life; a series of mysteries therefore gradually unfolds...

This entire museum is available for sale HERE... 

It seriously took that much amount of effort, with so much special tools, chemicals and techniques to sort, restore and preserve the mermaid tail, her foam ashes and other discoveries which ultimately exhausted an enormous amount of energies and years... As much as we think we know this much about the marine and human life of The Mermaid, much of the discoveries reveal much more details than we ever thought of... With all the accomplished effort by the experts, The Mermaid Museum is finally fully erected, available for public viewing for the very first time in history...

Walk into the aftermath story of The Mermaid's life and experience the journey like you've never been before, for she has forsaken her tail for a pair of human legs in exchange for a human life... It's also for the first time, a treasury chest of her various belongings as a human are revealed...

Click here to get your entrance ticket to the museum...

The Mermaid's Marine Palace...

Painting of The Mermaid and her sisters...

The Forsaken Tail...

The Mermaid's Foam Ashes...

The Mermaid's treasury chest of artifacts from her human life...

The Mermaid's human artifacts...

List of Supplies:

• June 2015 Kit – Mermaids Kit  
• Mermaid #3 Collage Sheet  
• Seaside Slides Collage Sheet 
• Coral Chipboards 
• Seaweed Stem Chipboard
• Artsy Large Chipboard Frame Set 
• Iridescent Glass Micro Beads in Bottle
• Wooden Knobs
• Brass Box Feet
• Brass Shell Scroll 
• ½ inch Bronze Starfish Charms
• Golden Rod Sticklers
• Sea Glass Sticklers
• Waterfall Sticklers
• Twinklets Diamond Dust
• White Plastic Pearls 
• Iridescent Plastic Pearls
• Cheetah Shell Mix 
• Paper Mache Treasure Chest 
• 3cm Glass Bottles 
• Sea Glass – Green & Yellow 
• Shabby Chic Tart Tin Frame  
• The Sea Fiber Set
• Carnival Scrapbook Paper – Big Top
• Fancy Gold Buttons in Tin
• Fancy Bronze Hand Mirror
• Acrylic Clear Sheets
• Melissa Frances Mirror Resin
• Fimo Polymer Clay
• Shimmerz Paints (Shimmerz - tickle me turquoise & candlelight, Blingz - pixie dust, Texturez - patina, Inklingz - miner, miner, 49er & freshly minted, Creameez - ride the tide)
• Martha Stewart Craft Paint (mother of pearl)
• Prima Finnabair ArtBasics (soft gloss gel, 3D gloss gel)
• Glitter Dust Powder (iridescent white & aqua)
• Own Stash (large starfish, miniature starfish chair, mirror, anchor & heels metal charms, wooden windows, plastic sundae cups, plastic pebbles, rhinestones & crystals, blue felt, polyester filers, floral cameo and filigree setting frame)