35 | project update: design domain

Goal: Make 21 objects
Criteria: Has to fit within overarching theme of Order/Disorder, and within my research theme of Kids. All items have to be no larger than the size of your palm.

I had a consultation with Maisie Broadhead for this project, and she gave me one of the best advice I've ever gotten in terms of designing jewellery. She said "You don't have to be polite about this, it's okay to be brash." It worked really well for this project, I must say.

Here's the catalogue of items. They're meant to be able to be worn individually, or with a few of the items, or with all of the items. We had to write a bit about each item, so what I wrote about each item is the handwritten bits in the catalogue.

34 | project update: mapping the body

Everyone had to pick a body part through a pin the tail on the donkey method and I got the part just below the knee. We had to research that body part and make something wearable.

Fun fact: here is no name for that part of the body!

Anyway, I made a mermaid tail that is heavy and has spikes in the metal band, with the cloth bit being removable.

This came about when I read a story of a person stranded at sea who morphed into a dolphin, and a separate illustration of different kinds of mermaid tails. So I thought, why not make something that can help make the transitioning process of a human to a mermaid a little bit less painful (assuming it is painful). House (the American drama series) taught me that without the brain, there is no pain. So it is possible to inflict a sharper pain to distract the brain from the original pain. Thus, the spikes. The weight of the tail is just to train the person's core muscles in preparation for the massive amount of work it has to do to swim with a tail.

33 | project update: text in form

For this project, we had to design and create a wearable object with text as the central conceptual theme. We were advised to look at the historical and contemporary use and significance of text in jewellery.

I made a modular charm belt. Kind of something like a charm bracelet, but in the form of a utility belt of sorts. Everything is made of fondant and icing, and the idea is that it has to be consumed for the charm to work (you can share it with other people too). And once there is nothing left of the charm, it ceases to exist.

Here's the catalogue I made to document it.

32 | project update: 6x6

6x6 is about thinking through making. We started out with a folding 3 lines on paper, and basically, work from there. We could do anything, as long as the resulting 36 items were a mix of 3D and 2D objects, each fitting within 10cm by 10cm.

I folded, drew, coloured, arranged, and folded even more stuff, before deciding to make 36 images from 3D objects. So I guess I fulfilled the brief by having 3D and 2D stuff even though I presented in its 2D form.

30 | cny cny cny

Facebook had a "on this day" notification. This photo was taken 2 years ago by Mark. Can't wait to be playing mahjong with the games gang soon!

ps. slightly sad to miss all the steamboats in singapore.

029 | supermarkets give me a sense of security

and bookshops and stores like Tiger give me a sense of wonder. Maybe that's why Tesco was the first place I thought of going when I felt I needed to get out and go somewhere. There's something about how the shelves are almost always stocked, and how you know where each item is roughly going to be. It just gives the world a bit of order.

There's an unsettling feeling at the pit of my stomach and I don't know why it's there or how it got there.







I need to put something up on tictail within the next few days.

I need to finish this school project.

I need to scrape off the burnt sugar in the oven.

I need to check all my past work before submitting them for formative assessment.

I need to reply emails.

I need to take Mark's advice -

I need to stop.

028

Gasps, check this out.

027 | 2016

This is me feeling really happy that there is sun out today. It's a gift when the sun rises at 9 and sets at 3. (Also, I think those eyebrows are pretty on point) Anyway, I'm not usually one for new year resolutions but this year felt different. It feels huge. And exciting and it makes me smile and gives me goosebumps. So I'm going to use the hashtag from church here.

#thefutureishuge

Is your 2016 going to be a breakthrough or a scrape-through?

I intend for mine to be a breakthrough.

026 | 2016 Digital Planner out on Tictail

The tictail store is up and running! It'll be updated whenever I have something new (won't be too often, but hopefully, it'll get more frequent). Anyway, here it is: 2016 Digital Planner.

Here's a quick walkthrough.

If you decide to download it, please share your thoughts about how you used it or how you intend to use it, or if you have anything you think I could improve on. I would really appreciate that!

025 | happy holidays

Was originally going to post a diy for my door wreath hanging thing but I decided it would be cool to try out using Adobe Premiere to edit it. It's done, but I have no idea how to export it to the correct resolution so it's all blurry now. Slightly frustrating. But I'll get to it once I'm done celebrating christmas. Anyway, I'll be back with the new year. Or something like that. We'll see.

In the meantime, merry christmas, and happy holidays!

024 | journey home

I'm back home! My recent travel journeys have been somewhat chaotic. Nearly missed the connecting flight back here and had to run past about 50 gates in the airport. Reminds me that I need to work out more.

And my journey to London was nuts too. They cancelled the train because of Storm Desmond and omg it is an experience I would appreciate not experiencing again. This is basically what happened:

1. Direct train got cancelled
2. Take a bus to Preston station
3. Pass by 3 overturned lorries because of the weather
4. Have the emergency exit of the bus (on the roof) open several times, also because of the weather
5. Pit stop to buy first 'proper' meal of the day
6. Bus refuse to start up
7. Wait 40 minutes in the bus before it starts
8. Get to Preston
9. Get on train
10. Realise it's the train that goes on the longer route to London
11. Get chased out of my seat
12. Find another seat
13. Worry about luggage getting stolen
14. Reach London in one piece
15. Feel bad Ping and Clara had to wait so long
16. Buy a pie to munch on
17. KO at Ping's place

Yupp, the best part was definitely seeing Ping and Clara in person after so long.

023 | Daniel goes to prom

#proudsistermoment

022 | getting into the mood for christmas

We set up the tree yesterday. It really feels like christmas now. And it also really feels like home now.

(Ripped this off snapchat again)

(Heads up, I might not be posting anything other than christmas-related stuff for the next few weeks. Except maybe about Daniel's prom.)

021 | this planet is gorgeous

Just got this Chrome extension on Saturday that shows you a part of earth every time you open a new tab. It's so cool!

How nice that the first place it shows me is Austria (link to the exact view I got). Austria is where one of my hostel friends is from. She does boxing and football and is very happy to eat pizza (but then again, who isn't). She also gets bullied by "the German" fairly often.

Hmm I need to take some portraits of them before I leave. Yes, that's going to be number 2 on my list for this week. (Number 1 is to finish this assignment, and number 3 is to pack everything) oh my, I'm going to London in 4 days, and landing in Singapore in 10!

Also, while making this GIF, I accidentally found out that pressing command-shift-3 on the mac automatically takes a screen grab of the entire screen!

020

I played poker for the first time in my life on the 20th of November, in the year 2015. It was interesting. I barely knew what was going on but I was winning the first round (probably beginners' luck) so that was cool. Then I was third last to be out in the second round (there were 7 to begin with). The chips were all just colours to me so it was kind of fun to just whack and #yolo.

That night was also the second time I was having any form of alcohol since being here. And it was the  first time I had rum and coke (I think?). So yeah, it was a night of firsts, and a pretty great way to celebrate the end of the third assignment in school (submitted earlier that day, and which I am not very satisfied with, but very glad it's over) (but not all assignments will work out the way you want them to, right?).

Thankful for the fun palz in this hostel.

019 | strawberry smoke

Story time

I was walking home one day, carrying all my groceries and being distracted by lights, slightly regretting not paying for an extra plastic bag, when suddenly there was this cloud of smoke that appeared out of nowhere. And it smelled really, really familiar. But being more concerned about my immediate surroundings than the smell, I tried to locate the source of the smoke. Turns out, a man just brisked past me. And there was a cloud around his head. Kind of. He was just vaping (smoking an e-cigarette). Then I realised it was the same smell as the Strawberry Shortcake doll. It was slightly bizarre.

gif by me, images from:

background | dude | smoke 1 | smoke 2 | smoke 3 | strawberry shortcake

018 | Edinburgh

Do you pronounce "Edinburgh" as 'eh-din-bruhhhh' or 'eh-din-buur'? Anyway, I went there during reading week. It was a really short day trip. It honestly felt like I was planning an entire getaway because it was a whole new city. But in reality, it's really quite near. It's like, 1.5 hours by bus.

Travelling has always been such a huge thing because it was more difficult to do in a lot of ways back in Singapore. But this trip made me realise that it's actually fairly accessible and not that out of reach here. (That means I'm probably going to travel more hehehehehehe)

Okay, so, anyway, here's a round up of the trip.

I went to the Scottish National Gallery, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Good stuff, cool place.

the place

the works

017 | What is Jewellery?

I finally got access to the course community on my school portal! So yay for that. For our first project, we had to make 3 wearable items that were autobiographical. After crit, we had to wear them and be photographed. I was not anticipating that and didn't wear what I thought should have been worn underneath. Either way, I'll probably still do a shoot to document all the stuff. That'll either be in Singapore (if I can transport the head thing safely), or here in Glasgow, but a lot later, when it's a lot warmer.

But I guess it's not too bad. Here's the photo that they uploaded of me to the portal with all our work.

1. drop cloth cloak

2. necklace bib thing

3. flower head piece

016 | yasssssss

During reading week, I went through all the posts I've ever posted on this blog, and removed all the tags, and then put new tags on everything to make things neater. It was difficult at first. But once I got the hang of it, it was not too bad, and it was like

And then when I was done, the feeling was more

hehe okay, check out the Topics page for more details about the tagging system I've used. Also, looking back has made me realise how far I've come. I haven't blogged much for someone who started here at 17. But -

ps. I didn't make any of these gifs. They can be found on google.

015

christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming christmas is coming

and i'm celebrating it at home