House moving has started

It has been a while that I do not post any new post. Please accept my apology as house moving has started since few days ago. We were so busy in the last few weeks planning what to pack, how to pack — and the worst is, still having all the messy thought in mind without really carry out the planned work :/

The house that we are going to shift in is an old house that needs a lot of repairs. Maybe should blame to our inexperience in purchasing an old house. If I’m not wrong, it is more than 36 years old!!! Every single corner needs touch up or repair. My husband is busy painting the bedrooms, at least there are some ‘livable’ corners to place our stuffs and at least our bed. Looking at the kitchen, initially I thought it was reasonably ok, but after the mopping and cleaning yesterday, I realised the oily smell couldn’t go away eventhough I cleaned with dish soup for several times. I wonder how the previous owners could live in in such ‘not so hygiene’ condition. There were ‘dried & cracked’ cockroaches living under the kitchen cabinet and drawers!! argghhh!! I have a bad habit where I don’t feel comfortable wearing glove when I do the cleaning. So, imagine with bare hand cleaning all the oily and smelly cabinets, sigh!!! And, as usual, using the same two hands cooking dinner for my family hehehehe

We guess we can only tidy up things inside the house, and leave the outside as it is for at least a month or so. As usual, to save up money, we cannot hire people to mow the lawn, we cannot have people help in house painting. We just have to do it all by ourselves. The only thing which is out of our ability is the repair of two bathrooms. We need licensed plumber to do the piping and water leaking. Also we need professional and qualified people to help check the underground of the house and the roof. So……all the hassle may carry on, I think, till the end of the year. Are we able to enjoy the festive season, I mean Christmas? For Chinese culture, I don’t really celebrate Christmas in the sense that we don’t have decorated Christmas tree at home, we don’t sing Carol and we don’t do gifts exchange; but I like this season as I like people cooking different foods and of course I like to eat – Turkey!!! hehehe….Thanks to his aunt who used to invite us to her house on the Christmas season to enjoy the food.Instead of having my so called ‘Christmas food’, I will have steamboat normally on the new year eve, which is the night before 1st January. Chinese used to have steamboat on the night before the first day of Chinese calendar, but for myself, I prefer on the night of 31st December as I will always be back to my hometown during Chinese New Year.

Alright, I am getting out of the topic I have attached two pictures from some of the corners of the house, so that you can imagine how many things need to be repaired.

overview of some wooden bars connected from the roof at the backyard

close-up wood need to be replaced

I hope everything will be back to shape as soon as possible. Wish us luck!!! I can’t wait to have a proper corner to come back and get start with my work.

Getting nearer to the time…

House moving is ’soooo’ near now and I still haven’t really pack my things. I choose to give away a lot of clothes. I am a person who can keep my old clothes for at least 10 years or so, which means those that I had when I was in my early 20s are still in my wardrobe till now. Due to this ‘problematic’ attitude, it has created a lot of hardwork for myself and my husband, and of course the moving process.

Recently I realised those really old clothes just couldn’t fit me anymore – I think they are shrinking tremendously within these 10 years or so. Don’t be surprise, I always believe clothes can shrink as well as our body can expand. Whenever I can’t wear any piece of my clothes, I will start blaming the shrinking materials..haha…this is so unpractical I know..but what to do, I am thinking….

I am still very very keen to list up my left over nice quality beads – glass pearls or what people call ‘faux pearl’. I have them in several colors that I found them look so ‘fresh & lush’ (how to describe that? I hope you understand what I mean) They are indeed very nice in colors. Oh yes, I also have them in different sizes.

But the thing is, I should concentrate my time on packing and moving, rather than taking the nice faux pearls picture. This is a hard decision to make. Besides, I am very keen to continue making some premade items NOW; but again, I know, I have to set them aside till after I settle down in another place, sigh..sigh..sigh……

I hope time flies reasonably fast so that I do not need to live in such unstable and undecisive situation.

Figure and bead charms

I have listed some GLASS figure charms such as Santa Claus (perfect as Christmas gifts), little mice and red chillies. You can have them as a pair of earrings or maybe as some adds-on to your key chain. Putting a lot of charms that you found meaningful to your key chain would definitely brighten up your day!

All Glass charms are available to purchase from Orrkiki s’Crafty Shop.

Santa Claus Glass Charms

Two little blue Glass mice

Red Glass Chillies

bRush,floSs,sMile by Billy Boy & Mia

I wanted to blog about it for so long but kept delaying. The first time I saw this, I was attracted to this simple toiletries pouch. I used to buy toiletries pouch from IKEA several years ago when I was in Singapore, and also used to use a free gift toiletries bag, but never spend money buying expensive toiletries bag.

But some toiletries bags just look too ‘real’ to be toiletries bags, where once people look at yours, they know you are bringing your ’stuffs’  heading to the restroom, especially when in the airport. I used to travel at least once a year to my hometown, so transit is a must for me. I always feel lethargic after taking long hours of plane; so once I reach the airport, I can’t wait to go to the restroom, at least to brush my teeth and wash my face – refresh, refresh!!

This ‘brush, floss, smile’ toiletries pouch looks just like a normal pouch, but with the inner layer made of plastic, it just looks too good that we can throw in all the small tiny bottle of moisturizer, lotion, toothpaste and tooth brush without much worrying of wet leaking. (make sure you bring just very small little bottle as we are not allowed to bring liquid, but very little portion of course is acceptable).

Toiletries pouch::brush,floss,smile

Friends visit

Looking at my postings, you will realise that I have been away from writing my blogs for more than a week. There were several reasons to be forgiven

My ex-colleague, and now became very good friend and his friend visited me last whole week. We were busy chit-chatting, eating, cooking, and went to several places for shopping and site-seeing. Very luckily they booked two days tour with a friendly tour guide so that I do not need to bring them around everyday. While they were here, I was still busying packing at home preparing for house moving.

I do not understand what reason makes my friend so keen to see wombat. So in order not to disappoint him, I brought them to Healesville Sanctuary. My friend mentioned about wombat before he arrived here. He wasn’t sure which place to see wombat – Melbourne Zoo, Healvesville or Ballarrat, finally he decided on Healvesville. That was a sunny day which was just so good for photo taking. They were busy taking photo while enjoying themselves very much. But one thing that they never expect was…haha….the one-and-only-one wombat was resting under an aged log that visitors can hardly see him. Oh!!!!!!!!!!!! My friend’s heart broken!!!! In fact, I felt that was real funny as he kept mentioning about wombat for several weeks to months but not even could he take a peep of it.

Of course I snapped some pictures too. But currently I am pretty busy with house moving things, hence can hardly arrange my photos. I tried to pick some which I gave them some priority here..hehe…all the logs…the aged logs that I found them real ‘beautiful’ in Healvesville.

Here is one of them I like. I also uploaded the ‘logs’ pictures here.

“Unique U Christmas”:: New Items Greetings :)

I have just listed up some new items on Blackiki s’Crafty Deliveries Madeit store. They are all under “Unique U Christmas” range.

Why “Unique U Christmas”?  This name came to my mind when I created all these lovely antiqued look chandelier earrings. They are indeed unique and beutiful (I seldom describe things beauu-tiii-fulll). Each piece of chandelier is either in antiqued silver (matte finished look) or antiqued brass. The special part of it that I would like to point out is, each piece has at least one rhintestone or more, they sparkle beautifully!

I’ve matched them with glass pearls, faceted Czech glass beads in matte finished, or Czech glass beads in fire-polished finished. All have created wonderful look, of course when you wear them

Kindly visit them at Blackiki s’Crafty Deliveries on Madeit

"Unique U Christmas" Chandelier Antiqued Silver Earrings with Rhinestones & Glass Pearls

"Unique U Christmas" Chandelier Earrings with Rhinestones & Czech Glass

Flannel Fings – Here you go nappy

Came across with this website in the early morning when I browsed through Madeit Forum. Oh hoh Flannel Fings…first sight I was caught by this Denim Recycle Nappy. Of course couldn’t deny it is so cute!! This is made of recycled denim, flannel and towelling.

Older parents 20-30 years ago, they used nappy wrap and secure it by using baby safety pin. But do you believe sometimes it is not very safe when a parent is in panicking especially his or her baby was crying the lung out due to some unexplainable reason? After years, people came out with button-on nappy wrap where it works as a cover only, and then a white nappy cloth can be inserted as a layer of absorption. This is still an economical way, however it is not a good absorption choice. At time, the nappy cloth can just slip out and that will look real funny and cause different kind of troubles.

I am happy that Flannel Fings has such nappy wrap and also it is so fashionable and cool. I am thinking whether I can layer up another thin cloth just to protect the nice inner fabric

Denim Nappy by Flannel Fings

Denim Nappy - inner layer

Besides Denim nappy, they also created other products such as Recycle Bib Gift Pack. They are all cute and well made.

Recycle Bib Gift Pack

If you want to  know more about who is the lady behind all these cuties, visit her blog on Little eco footprints.

Melbourne Craft Expo

Melbourne Craft Expo will be held at the Royal Exhibition Building on the October 8 – 11 this year. I wish I can visit the expo this year, however I have several things on that I ‘might not’ be able to make it.

Besides Beads&GemShow, I also enjoy myself at craft expo. There are just loads of arts&crafts activities, exhibitors and some lessons and seminars going on as well.

If you are not quite sure where the Royal Exhibition Building is, here is the picture of the building – the oldest and most grand building in Melbourne city.

Above, I’ve also attached the route map that I extrated from the newsletter. If you’re one of  the IMAX theatre fans, then you will be able to locate this building which is just opposite IMAX theatre.

As usual, I like the ‘Free Bag!’ idea. As a visitor, sometimes we won’t know what we want to get from the show or expo till we go in, get ourselves involve and quite a lot of time one side of the brain keep saying “Don’t spend, be wise..”; but on the other side of the brain it keeps saying “I want this, I want that..and I want them all!!”…..Oh well, if your budget allow, then ‘Free Bag’ is the best idea – dump all in at once and go back with satisfaction!

In fact you can book your ticket for some hands-on workshop through online. I should introduce their website earlier, here it is www.thecraftexpo.com.au, and also the transportation detail you can find from this link at www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au

For the seminars, they are all FREE where no booking is required. Each seminar will run for approximately 30minutes. I am attracted to one of the seminars – ‘Picture Framing’, as I have taken a lot of photos that I really like to put at home, but I’m lousy in framing my pictures. If I can get some insight of how to frame tidy and presentable pictures that would really nice for me.

As for workshops, you have to book a place and that incur some fees too. Each sesson is approximately 50minutes. Do check out their website, there are a lot of workshops listed.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is Chinese calendar Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Mooncake festival. Chinese people will celebrate this day by eating mooncake and kids will carry lantern.

Previously, people have traditional mooncakes which look light brown color, but now you can have what they call ‘ice-skin’(direct translate from Mandarin) mooncake where such mooncakes need to be kept in fridge. Hehe, the correct name to call this type of Mooncake is ‘Snow Skin’. For the traditional mooncake, if still in sealed, can last for a month (through my experience) as mooncakes are sweet stuffs.

What is Mid-Autumn Festival? You can check out here from Wiki

In Melbourne, we are lucky that we have the chance to eat mooncake, even from the ‘brand’ that we prefer. This year, not only the ordinary mooncake, but we can also taste the ‘ice-skin’ as most Asian grocery stores have already imported these. How lucky we are, I wonder!

The only thing that I miss is the lantern. I still miss the traditional lantern that we need to place a small candle in between the lantern. I always enjoyed making lantern at school during the art&craft lesson, although what I made wasn’t the ‘professional’ one

Here is a picture of the old fashion lantern (from google searched image)

This is the type that I miss so much! My mum used to choose ‘fish’ lantern for me as ‘fish’ lantern was the most common and cheaper compare to other animals such as rooster, dragon, butterfly and etc (couldn’t remember really well). I got grumpy whenever my mum didn’t ask for my opinion but straight away she said “one of the fish lantern please..”..haha….well, carrying lantern is a ‘one day task’, how wasteful was that actually for young kid to waste parent’s money each year – I would say it is a ‘one day toy’. The next day, kids used to forget and just left their lanterns at home without bothering them. There is a belief about keeping lantern for the following years – kid will become more stubborn  if a lantern is kept for another year…hoh hoh…believe or not, ermm…

So, here is the traditional mooncake (also from google searched image)

and the fashionable mooncake > 冰皮月饼’snow-skin mooncake …

Buy Australian Handmade :: Madeit Great Gift Guide

Buy and Sell Australian Handmade by Madeit has recently created a blog, introducing gift ideas especially for the coming Christmas season. I am supporting this and hope you too.

There are a lot of new stuffs coming up from Madeit online every day & night, all year long.

Visit Madeit Blog for Great Gift Guide

or, you may visit Madeit Online

and most importantly, remember me –> Blackiki on Madeit

or Blackiki on Etsy