Necklaces

I made these necklaces cause I wanted to experiment adding little buttons as danglers and see how they look like. I love colorful matte plastic buttons... they are like tiny candy drops. I am gonna give these to my girlfriends/bandmates as little random gifts! I hope they like them...

Flower Bookmarks

Here is a batch of flower bookmarks I made over the weekend. The possibilities of mix-and-match of different patterns, shapes and colors are endless and they are just so much fun to make!

IF: Zoo #2-The Elephant Train

I did the sketch for this one last week, but then the fun train soon derailed and I started to make brooches instead of doing the illustration... What can I say, it's too much fun. Oh well, here it is, the original illustration intended for this week's topic.

Birdie Necklace + Brooch

I couldn't help but make more of these really fun wooden accessories.
This batch of goodies includes a necklace and a brooch. The brooch has the same scalloped copper foil tape that I use for soldering, and I applied black patina to it so it looks old. I use the black patina on all the metal parts of my design cause I like the worn-out feel that it gives. I am gonna try to make some bookmarks later as well, but I need to run to the craft store because I ran out of the wooden nickles... It's so addictive!

Yumminess report for you who live in America:
If you have a Border's near where you live, you have to try the "Coco Trio" from its coffee shop. Oh my, it's super delicious! It's like drink clouds that are made of chocolate!!! Mmmmm... Also, IHOP's stuffed french toast with blueberry sauce is so sweet and good, I am off to have one right now! Lucky me!

IF: Zoo #1-Brooches

I started doing some doodles for this week's IF. And one thing led to another, I began to make tie tack brooches instead of doing the illustration... I first did little drawings of animals in stripy shirts on punched-out circles using the paper from an old book, but then I just couldn't help but make them into little wooden+felt brooches! (By the way, besides polka dots and scalloped edge, I also LOVE stripes, too.) I think they turned out quite fun. I am still planning to do another illustration for this week when I have time, but I want to share this one with you first!!

IF: Superstition

I've been really busy plus I have guest in my house (it's the Thanksgiving week over here!) But finally I managed to have a little time this morning to make this collage for this week's Illustration Friday and I wanted to do something related to my culture. For Chinese, it's a big NO-NO to give clocks or umbrellas as gifts, no matter how cute they are. Because in Mandarin, "clock" sounds similar to the word for "death" and "umbrella" sounds like "separation" or "splitting up". It's very important to remember this if you are doing business with Chinese, or even just casual gift-giving between friends. If you want to learn more about what to give or what not to give in Chinese culture, here is a good link to visit!

Tree #2

Here I am sharing my tree #2: the big wire tree in my living room. I like it so much I want to keep it up year round. It just makes me really happy. The colorful ornaments are from The 12 Days of Christmas Collection by Crate and Barrel. They are handpainted and are like little pieces of artworks! I wanted to buy another box from my local shop this year but they were all out... Sign.

I've been tagged...

...by sweet Christine to write 5 random/weird things about myself. Even though I have posted 7 random things about me before, I decide to do this one again with 5 more facts to entertain you. Here they are:


#1: I have taken flamenco dancing lessons for more than 2 years, and I have danced in front of people in a restaurant...
#2: I have a lot of grey hair (I started turning grey since high school) and I don't color my hair because I am too lazy to maintain it, plus it might takes me 5 bottles to color my giant head...
#3: When I use a straw to drink, I always bite the tip of the straw until it's totally flat.
#4: I love polka dots and scalloped edge, as you might be able to tell already.
#5: I love to know how things are made. I would learn it, and then I move on to the next thing.

Now, here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well
as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The following folks: Aspa, Maura, Kelly, Amy and Mush, get ready to be my next victims...heehee...

My Mini Christmas Tree

I can't believe it's this time of the year again! I have a thing for rustic wire forms and I love Christmas trees. I added this little 17" tree to my collection last night, and it is perfect for my office! I got a box of cheap little ornaments from Target (and they look like chocolate to me somehow) and made some paper garlands to drape over it. I will share more photos for my other much bigger wire tree later. Will you let me know if you have some pretty tree photos as well? Let's share!

Polka Dot Hat Baby

Here are the brooch and pendent I made using the collage of my recent IF entry. I took a really quick photo this morning... It's not the best shot because I was freezing outside and the camera battery was dying. But you get the idea. By the way, I finally got a flickr account and I am posting from there, so it might look a little different (I noticed the image is bigger)...

PS: Do you see the thick layer of leaves on the ground? I don't even want to think about picking them up later... I get so much leaves every year from my 7 huge old trees and my neighbors' trees; it's insane.

More soldering experiment

Today I took a much needed day off from work so I made two more brooches and a pendent. This time I used handmade images instead of computer print-outs. Do you think they work better with the rustic black metal?

IF: Scale

Paper collage and pencil drawing on 5"x7" stretched canvas.

Finishing touch

This morning I woke up with an idea to dress up my soldered Fall Fairy pin a little further so it would look more finished. (I got so excited, I didn't even wash my face yet...) I cut a piece of felt and glue it to the back of the pin and it hides all the messiness of the backside. And I really like the look of rusty black metal against the soft wool, plus it shows the pin better against black fabrics since I am almost always wearing black. Ah... I am happy and I can go brush now!

I love black patina...

I've been so busy at work and I am just really tired everyday after I get home. But I'd still like to do a little soldering experiment when I have time. I got a big bottle of black patina solution and tried it on the stuff I made. I love it!!! It gives the piece a nice dark antique black finish (which doesn't really show well in the photo; it's actually not as shiny as it appears to be). To me, the black finish has more personalities and charms than silver. But I am still facing another problem... when I use images printed out from a color laser printer, some of the ink get greasy and makes the art looks oily under the glass... I guess it's because the soldering iron is so hot, it made the ink re-surface to the top of the paper. I guess if I can't get it solved, I will have to do little collage art for every piece by hand (like the "Dairy Queen" in my earlier post) which I enjoy doing it anyway. But I'd love to know if there is any solution for my problem...

Another Try on Soldering

After I came back from my Sunday soldering class, I tried to do another one at home, but my brand new soldering iron just didn't want to behave for me and everything looked like a big mess. I got black goo-goo all over my iron, the solder was not melting nicely and I burned the wet sponge... I was really discouraged.

Last night I decided to give it another try. My friend at work told me how to get my iron clean and it really made a huge difference. Suddenly the solder flew nicely and everything was fine. So I made another one using one of the little collage I did during the class. I need a lot of patience and practice, but knowing that I can do it makes me feel a lot better...

Thank you all for your nice and warm comments on my posts!! They really mean a lot to me!! XO

Soldered Away

OK! I just came back from my soldering class... I didn't realize that more than half of the class was actually for making collaged images and the last 2 hours were for real soldering works, and I really only got to solder for like an hour cause we had to share tools. But I had fun and I do think taking the class is necessary (at least for me) than to learn it from book myself, and it will probably save me a lot of trail and error down the road. Even though I didn't make pretty charms like Sally Jean's (I'll never know how in the world she makes her edges so smooth), here are my very first attempt, front and back... Please don't laugh...

IF: Hat

I love drawing hats but I've always had a really hard time finding cute hats that fit my giant head. My co-worker actually measured my head for me long time ago and it was a whopping 23" all around... not good for a lady at all. Well, what can I say? I even had a really cruel friend told me that my head needed its own zip code because if its size...

Here is another little illustration I did couple of weeks back. I think it suits this week's topic as well.

My New Old Chandelier + Some Other Thoughts

YAY!!!!! I finally got my oldie chandelier installed this morning. For the longest time I don't have proper lighting in my dining room and I've been searching for a fancier (but not too frou frou) old chandelier over my table. I saw this wood/brass fixture in a local antique mall for $225... I LOVED it but it was too much for me. However, couple of weeks later I was lucky enough to see someone was selling the exactly same one for only $35 on eBay. Well, not exactly $35 cause parts of it broke druing shipping and I had to take it to the lamp maker to get it fixed, plus I hired an electrician to install it for me this morning, which leads to another story: after the guy left, I changed the light bulbs to chrystal ones and I tightened them up a little too much, and as soon as I flipped the switch on, my dimmer got burned. I had to call my electrician back right away and he got me a new dimmer and fixed it for me. The lesson learned here: don't tighten the light bulbs too much when you deal with an antique fixture... it might cause a short in it. Now I know...


I've been trying to only post about my own works on this blog and keep all the other stuff (like this post you are reading) on my sleepyjellyfish blog, but I am wondering maybe I should just keep everything on this blog since it's all about my life anyway plus this one has more visitors... Perhaps you can give me some suggestions!

I am gonna take a soldering class all afternoon tomorrow. I've never done that... this should be interesting! In my perfect fantasy world, once I learn it, I can make beautiful charms like what Sally Jean make... Of course, it's not that simple and easy but I am still really excited! I will keep you guys posted! XO