Right. I'm doing this for the first time. Participating in a 'meme'. Lauren from lauren williams handmade has tagged me. It goes like this...

The rules are:

1. Link to the person who “tagged” you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Here are six random things about me.

1. Yesterday evening as I walked to the supermarket to gather food for dinner a man on a motorbike yelled out to me, "Hello, nice dress!" I was too bemused to yell anything back. I wasn't wearing a dress.

2. I am going to commit the Malaysian word bodoh to memory. It means idiot.

3. In the town where I grew up there was a shop called 'Bali Bagus'. I used to spend a bit of time there, looking at the exotic housewares and batiked clothes. They had a novelty section. You know, rude novelty. There were also lots of framed prints of Bob Marley and traditional American Indians. It was the only place in town that sold incense. Malay (with dialect variations) is spoken throughout Indonesia. In Malay bagus means brilliant, cool, fantastic. Fantastic Bali! Naff shop!

4. I am home sick.

5. I am working on a series of paintings called 'I Dream of a Beautiful Home'.

6. I have an etsy shop. I set it up a little while ago. I should have told you I know, but I was waiting until I got more products on there. You can have a look, just don't laugh at the lack of variety, ok?

Hey Lauren, I know it's illegal, but I'm not gonna tag anyone. I uh, don't know enough bloggers...Is that sad? Maybe if your a blogger and wanna be tagged let me know, I'll tag you.


I can, however, introduce you to Frank and Iris. They're finger puppets, although here they're featured as pencil warmers. They're pretty versatile. You'll find them at my etsy shop soon.



edit: LilliEve has been tagged. I'm gonna tag you too Thistler.

We go here...

(This is a street in Damansara Utama, a suburb of Petaling Jaya. PJ, a city in it's own right, is next door to KL.)

to get this...

(this is a 'cuppacake' from one of our favoured cafes, wondermilk)

Mid Valley by Night. You don't get a sense of the size of this place from the images, but it's big. Heck, it's a suburb in it's own right. Thistler works in this district. It's basically two malls (one of them the MEGA MALL) joined together, with a few other buildings scattered around. You work here, you eat here, you shop here, you get your kicks here. Some people live here. You can even get a tattoo here. I'm yet to do that though...

Pinic At...

Lake Titiwangsa! Try saying that with a straight face. We surprised Thistler's Russian workmate with a picnic at Lake Titiwangsa yesterday afternoon for his birthday. It was a lovely Sunday, potato salad and all. You can see from the photos below that fake wood made an appearance that afternoon. The fence posts around the lake were cement, fashioned to look like logs. We also had some chocolates that were made to look like tree stumps. You know, after the forest has been cleared. They're Japanese so we don't know what they're called. Lumberjack Sweets?



Down at Lake Titiwangsa they have something called "They Eye on Malaysia". You've probably heard of it. They have one in London. It's a glorified Ferris Wheel really. But a ride on the Ferris Wheel is always a treat, so we climbed on board. Here's what it looked like out of and in 'The Eye'.



Actually, the very first photo in the above collection has nothing to do with 'The Eye'. It's a small section of an outdoor netball court at the lake. Tiled too! We nearly had a round robin...



You can see the mountains behind the endless high rises. KL is situated in the Klang Valley. It was drizzling that afternoon and the habitual dark clouds of the valley were hanging out with the mountains.

As we were calling it an afternoon I spied this lovely scene across the road.

my neigbourhood

This is the 'hood. It's nice and shady and cool. The photos show our street and the high rise in our compound, and palm trees, which I never tire of looking at. There's a highway one block away. There are three malls in our suburb. There are two more where Thistler works (his office building is attached to one). From my bedroom window I can see 'Bangsar Hill', which is littered with high rise condos and HUGE houses. The footpaths are often un-walkable or non-existent here, so everyday there are residents walking dogs or getting exercise around the compound. Swinging arms and sweaty foreheads, they look like they are enjoying themselves.

Drip Dry

Thanks to Sam from AprilMay for the lovely blink designs tea towel. 'Tis awfully nice getting parcels in the post and even better when the contents are so good! Will I dry the dishes on it, or will I just hang it on the wall?

There I am preparing for the masquerade ball tonight...No no, obviously not. I'm at the Butterfly Park in KL. We went there Sunday afternoon, and what a lovely afternoon it was. A real treat, though even more hot and humid than the city! I never ever go in for butterfly things, but boy, those little flying insects sure are beautiful as they go flitting by. We also saw a snake swallowing a live frog, some rabbits (bunnies + butterflies = happy tourists I guess), loads of scorpions, hairy spiders, rhino bugs, leaf insects and dead, orderly pinned and displayed butterflies and insects (all behind glass).
The butterfly park is situated in the Perdana Lake Gardens not a ten minute cab ride from our place. The Lake Gardens is also home to the Bird Park, the Orchid Garden, The Deer Park, the Hibiscus Garden, the ASEAN Scultpure Garden and the Malaysian National Monument. Whew!! Next time we'll take a packed lunch and see them all.

New Softies

Here they are, my new softies. This is Rabbit. Golly, I like this fabric. Unfortunately I only had enough to make a rabbit, dog and bird. Oh well.



Here's Rabbit in two sizes. Big Rabbit is dressed in Falling Leaves fabric and Small Rabbit is dressed in Sunny Day fabric.



Now this is Cat. Cat is turning out to be more troublesome than Rabbit to make. This version of Cat has a straight tail that I just didn't like once I'd stuffed the fellow.



This version of cat has a curly tail, which is much better. However, somehow Cat ended up with a big head and, when hanging out with Bird, Dog and Rabbit, it looked silly. So Cat's head is going to be a bit smaller.



Here they are, sleeping on the job.

It's Been Raining All Day

It has. It's so nice. Things have been a little slow here lately. Or, well ordinary. As in I don't have any ker-azy KL adventures to report. Thistler had a cold/flu thing, so our last few weekends have been spent at home, snuggling up under the air conditioning (?!). I've been expanding my softie family though and now have a rabbit and cat to add the made by maude gang. I'll show you later, ok? July has started off in a technology loving fashion. We've got an XBOX 360 and a camera now! Wow! So, no more phone camera shots. We have a boatload of games also but that's not really my department. Ahem, I only play the cute ones...
Anyway I know I've been absent ALL WEEK from this blog but I have been looking at other nice things. Here are two that made my heart beat a little bit faster...



cabin and cub made this beautiful mixed media collage, 'girl and bird'. Is it the pink gingham that got me? The cabin and cub etsy shop is full of more of these sweet, funny, beautifully designed pieces.



This is Raspberry Beret by truffle. Apart from making me hum the song, it reminds me of a piece of vintage cross stitch Thistler gave me the very first Christmas we had together. I sewed that piece onto a vest and it's one of my favourite tops. I can't wear it here cause it's too warm for woolly vests, but I could hang Raspberry Beret on my wall. Of course it helps that it's a blooming great piece!
Have you seen or experienced anything that has made your heart beat a little faster this week? Too much coffee, great art, labour pains, good cooking, paint fumes?