[sleepless in punggol]

It's been a crazy week, rushing around on site, working on a competition dateline, producing some pitches (thanks to my parents and inlaws for the help with the girls)..... so thankful it'll be over soon! Hopefully we get to enjoy a proper weekend next weekend with the girls.

K is getting so mobile now! I'm surprised she's not walking yet, but she scoots around and climbs just about anything....
Here's how she does it:
Checking out if it's possible to climb the ledge
Climbing up and making lots of noises so that big sister G gets out of the way
Going straight up!
Looking around to see if anybody is chasing after her to get her off the ledge
Finally spotting mummy with the camera
Deciding that mummy seems like a fun target
Climbing down and it's the calm before she grabs something that i have
Looking around me for her sister
Success! mummy's camera cover is a suitable 'non-toy' toy.... sigh.
G in her cute outfit all dressed up for the lantern festival.

HAPPY LANTERN FESTIVAL! *i'm totally maxed out on all that mooncake eating.... :P

[as it were]

Somebody once said - "even though architecture is complex and full of technical issues, if there is no poetry in architecture, it will be merely construction"... It brings to mind what we're trying to do in our work, in our practice, in our general sensibilities. Also, as this blog is about my 1st and now the 2nd daughter, it is about how our work and our way of life influences their outlook and their sensibilities. Me and V have often talked about this, about how it is such that our work is so all consuming. It is not just about doing a 9-5 sort of job, it represents who we are. This is even more apparent right now, where life and work just fuses together in one big blur. Not in a bad way. I have not felt this excited about work for too long.

Our inaugral project for our firm was a little installation piece that is now opening in Venice. It is really exciting, and you can all visit it at www.supergarden.sg :) There's even a portrait of us in the book that can be downloaded.

G loves being part of our work. I still remember her when she first started speaking, she will always point to us and say - Mummy Architect, Daddy Architect, and then to herself - Baby Architect. So true! We showed her the project that we have at Venice, immediately she identified it being the stump from our apartment. Also, she listened to the recordings, and asked us - that's you! Are you talking abt your work? I love that she is so involved in all the things that we do. I love that she takes an interest in what we draw, what we design. I hope this will never change.

On other notes, i've just completed 3 very different looking, yet similar bespoke bible / album covers. I love the new fabric that has just arrived! I'm currently doing more notebook covers for a shop update soon!

[K's almost 1!]

Gosh, time really flies by for #2. She's almost 1 year old soon! As i put the invites out in the post for her coming birthday...... I still remember, this time last year, when i was 37 months and on a strict "no sugar" diet due to gestational diabetes. How the Mooncake festival was such a torture! Not to be able to indulge in my favorite mooncakes and other sinful glutinous foods. Now this year, not only am i able to do so in abundance, i've 2 really wonderful little people to raise a lantern with, share a mooncake with, introduce the joys of 'real candle' lanterns to!
Just read this, and it was SO true that i can't help but share it with you all here. I need to paste it onto my bedside table so that i'm constantly reminded of it:

On Being A Mom

By Anna Quindlen

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language-mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

[this and that + the big change]

I often wonder how life runs it's course. It is very strange how we find ourselves at a particular moment in time, i often wonder how it would have been different if we had just made a different choice at various stages of our lives.
Although it's an exciting time for us right now, as with all changes, it is also a time of disquietness, it's a time of stress, it's a time of unsettlement. We've premeditated about this change for such a long while, that now that it is Actually happening, it seems like the huge load of expectations and the drive to succeed has come up to the fore. From the moment we met in school, all the way through our various career paths, we have always had this dream of creating our own practice. Finally, we've decided to just take the plunge and do it. As with having a child, there is no such thing as a good time... It has been something that we have deliberated about for many many years, whether we are ready, whether it will be unfair for the kids not to have the financial security of our corporate careers, whether we are prepared to be always working, chasing our dreams. But, we are happy that we have done so, it has been (and still is) a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of worrying and speculating, a lot of sacrificing. On the flip side, there is an immense sense of fulfilment, of finally doing the right thing, of pursuing that holy grail of being the creator of our own works. Wish us luck!

On the kiddies front, it's amazing how things change so quickly, K's more and more mobile now, although her gamine smiles are still as readily available and so forthcoming. We're very thankful for the girls, for being able to come home to their really wonderful company. Even though sometimes all we want to do is to crawl into bed and sleep for a full 10 hours! I do hope that even with all these changes on our work lives, we'll be able to maintain our commitment to them as parents.

A little funny one to share:
G in the car one day -
Mummy, teacher says that God is in our Heart.
Yup, that's right, i said
Ya! But teacher also says that our Heart is where the blood comes from! ....
So, does God drink up all the blood? Is he drowning in the blood?
..

heehee. how to deal with this one!

[O! MY! GOODNESS!]

A wonderful email was waiting for me when i got home! I took part in this contest, inspired by the amazing iris from the Phillipines, who was an MMM winner last year. I had no idea i will get anywhere with it, and I only submitted abt 1 week to the dateline (knowing the last minute me!). Thankfully it got there on time and I've been chosen as part of the 10 runnerups!
Gosh, such an honour.
Go HERE to see the list of people who are the winners this year, and also congrats to another fellow Singaporean runnerup, E, from my local LSS DT! So proud that there are 2 of us there!
O, and the little minialbum thats on the tab "online gallery" is of my 2 girls, made with the latest OA products :)

Thanks all!!!

[cottage industry]

My largest order to date has been confirmed, so i've been furiously sewing away..... i love how they look all lined up together....some more pics of the blankies:
and the peach ones...
both together - this shot took quite long to take, as little hands kept grabbing the blankies!
So, now for some more updating of my shop!

[who inspires you?]

It's an interesting topic, something that i've always pondered over. I would love to hear who inspires you to continue pursuing life the way you've led it - be it in the creative line, or just on the homefront. 

In the meanwhile, gotta post some pics! :)

Some blankies on order and a little sneak peek at a recent layout using the latest CHA papers for OA. 

Here's my take on my inspiration:

Being half of a creative duo, i've always been inspired by couples who are both in the creative line. I loved reading about how the worked together, how they kept the creativity alive, how they talked about their work together, and most of all, how they inspired each other. The most famous of these creative couples whom i'm greatly inspired by has to be Eames. This legendary modernist couple were inspiring to me, not just because they produced seminal architectural legacies, but also in the way the approached design. They were not just architects, they embraced design in all aspects - the eames furniture range, the eames playcards etc.... The best thing about them was how they brought design into their household as well. How Charles Eames used to design little games for his daughter, how they would travel widely and document all that they saw, how the little letters to his daughter demonstrated his love for design and also fun. Design wasn't just a job to them, it was their life. Their quirky approach to design and life is best represented in their most famous video clip "Powers of 10". 

So, i would love to be like the Eames, surrounded by creative people, living and breathing art and design, having creative experiences with my girls..... :) 

[shop update]

Some work in progress:

More lavender satchets with sayings :)
a very belated w-i-p for a camera strap
some gift bags - stamped and ready to be filled!
Finally finished up these albums to stock up my SHOP. 
nice leaves motif
i did a few of these - HAPPY is embroidered on the bottom left corner
more tree/leaf motifs

Posting more regularly now... hopefully once a day?

[sleep patterns]

For a just turned 10 month old, K sleeps really little! She's been napping only about 45min blocks twice a day (if i'm lucky, otherwise it's only once in the morning), and just today, she just refused to fall asleep at night, even after 9! (this is really unusual as she normally goes to bed without much fuss around 8ish). As soon as we go into a slightly darker space, she will start protesting (loudly!) and will only calm down when we move her out of the bedroom. She's been also really vocal at demanding whatever she wants - be it things that she wants to grab, or just places that she wants to be carried to. I do hope it's a phase, as i didn't remember G being the same way. 

I'm scrapping madly away with my new OA papers, but in the meantime, also found some time to make the following for my local LSS - MWL :

i love the deep black of the hambly papers - and that felt matte- isn't it gorgeous! :)
a little shiny silvery LO - lots of hambly, lots of flowers. Just the right balance for a girly dressy LO! :)a few quickies - ATCs that had the chipboard shapes as accents. I love how the little red button looks like the owl's 'heart'!

Lots more to share on the scrapping front soon. 

[new october afternoon]

Been busy creating with the new hometown range that arrived late last week..... no sneaks to show yet (they are all off for pub calls) but, to whet yr appetite, here are some images of the full range released at CHA, courtesy of fellow DT - thanks emily! :)

[vocabulary is]

.... to know what are the words to say

Design is ..... to choose which colours to use

Digital Clock is ..... the long rectangular one with numbers on it

Irritated is .... when you don't like something

Love is ..... when you like someone very much and always kissing them

Dilly Dally is.... when you do things really slooooowly

- words as understood by gracie, age 3 yrs 4 months

Over the weekend, we visited the newly opened, award winning, Hort Park. 

It was really enjoyable, being in modern, yet not overly done up spaces.
G loved being able to play with her skipping rope. She didn't want her photo being taken, but didn't say no to her belly button being in the pictures... :)
happy smiley K, who would be content as soon as we are out of the house and car!
Map reading
posed- sibling rivalry?
G with her 2 litle ponytails and a clip. She insists on this hairdo everyday now, sometimes with 2 clips.
Love this shot of K

On the scrapping front - OA released some new lines at the recent CHA - don't you just love the fall colours!!! :) Images courtesy of Katrina Simeck's blog :

Can't wait to play with them!

[back to paintpots]

 for 2 pieces of commissioned artwork by a customer for her bestfriend's wedding - completed over the weekend:

the bride is a fan of 'sex and the city', the quote on the upper left reads - "ever thine, ever mine, ever ours" - beethoven
a little 'tree of life' at the bottom.
the 2nd piece is inspired by mondrian's colour blocks, the concept was to 'house' each of her favorites in each grid - the 2 guinea pigs, 1 poodle, and of course the wedding couple - silhouette with their prize scooter. 
I love the look of a painted piece of work. I remember how much time i use to spend at art classes, mixing paint, choosing the right paintbrush, pencilling the rough outline and then finally painting in the colours. There was something in the smell of oil paints, the decadence of sloshing on a huge dab of paint onto canvas, the knowledge that it's the most primary form of art. All these sentiments came back to me over the weekend, when together with my 3 yr old helper, we did 2 large wedding artworks that were delivered today :)

Little things G said over the weekend:

1. when i asked her who was her favorite friend in kindie - "mark.... because he is so cute, he will always ask me if i love him".... awwww....

2. when she was doing a #2 in the loo - "wait, lemme check and count how many poo poo i did - 1, 2, 3..... " all the while squirming about in the seat and looking into the loo - sigh, the disgustingness of toddlerhood

3. when we have our nightly pre-sleep conversations - "you know mummy, you're my favorite mummy" (me - i'm your only mummy) "but you're still my favorite!" 

[it's up!]

Always excited to see the gallery up HERE :)