Hooray!

Happy to have a break from everything. Yes! Could not wait to sleep, rest, watch tv, have more times with family, feast and everything that goes with them. Lol!

So, not want to rant too much, I would like to wish everyone Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Chai!

My Incredible Instructables Son

It’s time to share the creative genes with you all. This entry is all about my incredible son, Logan. He and his dad have a tremendous amount in common. Let’s just say the apple, it’s right next to the tree. Oh, he gets a little from yours truly, but his amazing ability to engineer with such precision, his attention to detail, the ease to which he can visualize, all comes straight from his dad, not to mention his capability of writing with such accuracy. This he does with the ability to come across with the aw shucks, anyone can do it attitude.

He has been making three dimensional paper crafted art for some time now. It started with a miniature model of the house from the 2009 Pixar movie Up (made from index cards). Then he moved on to a paper model of a cryptex, which Logan explained to me is a mechanism in which a word is spelled out to unlock a chamber that holds a secret object.

He created a prop Dagger of Time (from the movie Prince of Persia) using materials including paper, chipboard, and a light bulb. The light bulb was used for the handle with the sand of time inside. He has also made numerous other items such as a paper gun and cross bow, miniature chainsaw, and the key from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He is the constant 3-D producer in the family. I don’t think there is ever a time when a project isn’t under construction in his room or on the workbench.

Now, what makes this incredible son also an Instructables contributor? One of his latest projects, a corrugated cardboard shelf (shown in photo at top). Logan built the shelf and then posted a how-to guide on the popular website Instructables.com. Soon his Instructable became popular and is now listed in the featured section. So far it has been viewed and commented on many times. The Instructable can be viewed at the following link. Amazing Cardboard Shelf!

Logan also likes working on animation related projects and has a love of movies and their production. You can view one of his animations here: A Tiny Animation.

Whatever my incredible thirteen-year-old becomes one day will likely have something to do with what he enjoys now. What he has become so far amazes me and makes me proud. And it’s not even his creations, it’s that he is such a great kid. Thanks Logan, you are my #1 son!

Good friend

There are many nice customers I met in the shop and one of them is this 70-plus uncle. Probably he is a lonely man as he does not get well with his son and daughter-in-law, he will chat with me on almost everything from his family, beauty regime, health and current issues. Believe me, he has been one of my loyal customers and bought a lot of beauty and supplement items from me. Every time he dropped by, my staff will automatically gave him a glass of water and a seat. First time I met him, we chatted for more than 2 hours! So, you can said our friendship started from that 2 hours.

Just this week, he unexpectedly dropped by my shop and passed me a pack of dried bacon! Ooooh! My favourite. I have just finished the pack my cousin gave me last month, and another one just came in. There goes my diet! *wink*



It is very thoughtful of him. Thank you, Mr H!

How To Have A Scott Pilgrim Garlic Bread Dinner

I've mentioned before that one of my favorite parts of Scott Pilgrim is this exchange between Scott and Ramona:

Scott: Garlic bread is my favourite food. I could honestly eat it for every meal. Or just all the time without even stopping.
Ramona: You'd get fat.
Scott: No.
Ramona: You'd get totally fat.
Scott: I don't think I'd get fat. Why would I get fat?
Ramona: Bread makes you fat. Butter makes you fat.
Scott: Bread makes you fat??

 My boyfriend and I had a similar conversation at the beginning of our relationship when we bonded over our mutual love of garlic and garlic bread. One of my gifts to him for Christmas was a full garlic bread dinner and I promised to post the menu and the recipes I used. So, here they are...

First I made a silly little restaurant menu:

The menu wasn't just garlic bread it was actually:

• Salad With Garlic Salad Dressing
• Garlic Soup
• Open Face Steak Sandwiches on Garlic Bread
• Garlic Chocolate Chip Cookies

I didn't follow the recipes for the salad dressing or soup exactly but I used those recipes as bases. Definitely try out the chocolate chip cookies if you like garlic and are feeling a little adventurous. They're really pretty good. The dinner was really fun and I think it'd make a great date night idea for Scott Pilgrim fans and garlic lovers alike :)

A week away...

No more shopping. Everything is pretty expensive. Can see, cannot afford to buy. I am talking about the vegetables, CNY goodies and Mandarin Oranges.

Since I started my business I hardly have time for myself. So yesterday, I had my facial done. Tried out the new beauty centre and the result? I requested no redness and hard pinching, so my face turned out great after a thorough cleaning. Lol! My hair? Nah. I think I shall leave it as it is. Could not think of what to do with my hair. I done my straightening last May and it still look straight, so I shall leave it for time being.

One more week. Counting down to my holiday...could not wait to sleep late, wake up late, and most of all, lazy around with my 2 kids. After all, it has been a week since my Indonesian worker left to celebrate CNY with her family. Since then, I spent more times at shop as the other staff are newer. So did not have times with the kids, either than morning and late at night. Even my little gal is commenting on my late coming back home. Sigh!

She has packed some stuff in her favourite Barney bag last night, but it was not the stuff that you would pack for vacation. What else, other than her stationery case and colour pencil case. Lol! So got to start packing for the kids one of these nights. Myabe hubby can help out since he will start his long holiday this Saturday. Gosh! I hate packing, because I will end up with so many stuff, especially when you are bringing kids along. Could not afford to bring this and that while away from home. It will be Baby Jay's first trip away from home. I already started to dread about the 3 hours long express ride with my boy.

My Quirky Life: Looking Forward to February

(source)

Sorry I didn't post at all last week. I was feeling super out of it and when I feel that way I get a bit afraid to write posts. My brain feels like such a scrambled mess that I'm sure I'll write something equally disorganized and confused. I've also let my 365Project slip to the wayside. I'm aiming to pick it back up at the beginning of February. I think February is going to be a really fun month; Gaga's new song is going to be released, my boyfriend is going to be participating in the RPM Challenge (you make an entire album in the month of February!), and of course there's Valentine's Day. I'm working on some Valentine's Day inspired nail art along with some other Valentine's Day related tutorials that I can't talk about just yet (I don't want to ruin the surprise!) so be on the lookout for those shortly.

This post, brought to you by the letter “M”

How do you encourage college kids this time of year? They have just had a month off, the holidays are over, and they are now on the second semester, at the halfway point. It is the dead of winter and summer seems forever away. It’s not that anticipated beginning of a new school year, and it’s not the end they are so relieved to reach. It is the middle, and that’s where they are stuck. Thus, the postcard of the week.

Well, I realize now that I grew up being stuck in the middle of most things. In fact I was even born right in the middle of the United States, just a little south of where I live now. When I was a kid in school, and we had to line up alphabetically, I was always right in the middle. With the last name McCulley, that is where you would always find me.

I wasn’t a middle child, however. There are only my sister and I, so being the younger one I was not the middle, but the little one. This too had its way of ensuring a middle position in my world. I was always stuck in the middle of the back seat with a car full of people, usually having to sit on someone else’s lap. And then there is the yearly class photo. Every year the littlest one in the class was stuck sitting on the floor, in the middle of the front row, holding the class sign. Every year that little person was yours truly. Need I say more. The evidence is here. The clue ~ pink has always been my favorite color. :)

Well, as I am now middle-aged and can look back on it all, I realize that being stuck in the middle isn’t such a bad place to be after all. In fact it is a very happy place to be. There is a security and a peacefulness about this place in life and I welcome it happily.

So, if this time of year makes you feel like you’re stuck between the excitement of the holidays and the activities of the summer months, or if you’re right in the middle of your school year, take heart and remember that nothing has a beginning and end without a middle. As the song says . . . stuck in the middle with you . . . I think that’s a pretty good place to be.

For the love of color

Can color alone make someone so happy? Well, yes, I think it can. I can stand for hours in the paint store looking at paint chips, fanning them, arranging them, rearranging them, refanning them, restacking them and then happily leaving with them. Then I get home and start the process over again.

Two of the four people in this family do not understand that at all. And well, I feel sorry for them, I really do. Oh, to be missing out on the love of color. I have the daughter though, and she’s right there with me in a wonder-spectrum-land. We’re a little like Alice in her wonderland, but with the drug of color pulling us down that rabbit hole.

Many times when I start a new collection I get out the trusted paint chips, deal out the colorful cards, and see just how that hand will play out. It’s just as exciting as beginning new sketches, playing with shapes for the patterns, and wondering just where the collection will end up. I never have the entire design in my mind, but I have a very good sense of what I want it to become.

Here is a little study in color I’ve added to the Beau Nouveau collection. One of my all time fave color combinations is using the warm and cool blends of a color together. In that I mean, a coral (pink-orange) with a bubble gum (pink-purple), or a chartreuse (yellow-green) with an aqua (blue-green). When I can mix colors in that way I am in my wonder-spectrum-land of happiness. That’s all it takes.

Over the weekend

Spending almost 2 hours in The Spring on Saturday afternoon. Result? Spent slightly over RM1000.00 on shopping. I got a pair of Lee jeans.

Our shopping bags. Talking about shopping bags and plastic bags, The Parkson has started the "No Shopping Bag" on every Saturday, so if you forget to bring your own bags, you can always buy at price of RM0.20 each and all the monies will go to charity. As you can see here, we forget to bring ours and spent RM0.40 for them.

After the shopping, we settled down at Sushi King. We ordered its Hotate promotion> Does not look that appetizing to me. Picture can be deceiving sometimes. Lol!


Why the empty plates picture? Just to show you that I finished my Unagi set and hubby just started to eat his tempura set. Slow services even not many customers. Lol!

What goes around, comes around

Do you ever see a new dress, or tea towel, or umbrella in the store and think, where, where do I know that print? I could swear that I had a skirt out of that exact print when I was a kid. Well, more likely than not, you may actually be seeing the same designs coming again thirty years later.

I have been working on a collection for quite some time now and remixed, recolored, renewed and rejazzed it up to become a fun, floral, feelin’ free group of prints that fling me right back to high school mini skirts and neck scarves. Get ready to step back to the past, or if you’re young enough to find it brand spankin’ new, enjoy the trip, but know the style wasn’t first with your gen.

I present Retroflection, where we reflect on the past with a renewed spirit of style!

TIme to shop

It is time to shop. Hubby and I will go hunting for his clothing as well as Baby Jay's CNY clothing. We have not get down to shopping for the celebration as both of us are busy at work. Just few hours to spare this afternoon, hopefully we would have some great purchases.

I have bought 2 dresses in KL and my mum gave me one dress. Little gal also have her share of new wardrobe. It is always easier to buy clothing for girls compared to boys, don't you think? Girls have more varieties and patterns. So that is why most of Baby Jay's clothing are bought by hubby, not me. Lol!

365Project: January 1st- January 12th

The Widening Gyre

My Birthday Cake

 Tokidoki Planner

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Heart Of Light

Lady Gaga The Remix

Jack Skellington Lunch Box

Caffeine Molecule Mug

Footprints In The Snow

Icicles

Fairytale Pictures

Bad Romance Cookies

Nouveau, Nouveau?

When something is even newer of the new, what do you call it? The collection I have shared on another occasion or two is called Beau Nouveau, or New Beauty. Well, I have just remixed the collection once again and now it’s New, New Beauty or in French maybe it would be called Beau Nouveau, Nouveau. Whatever the case, here is a reblending of a favorite floral collection that I have designed.

Some of elements within the collection will be showing up on my new website. Yes, my “nouveau” website is on its way and hopefully I will be able to “sher” it with you by Valentine’s Day. That would make my heart happy, anyway. This new website is way overdue and hopefully it will provide the opportunity to see more clearly the collections I am working on, the products that are being produced and latest news and information about Sheri Berry Designs.

I have been in the design stage of a number of new collections over the last few weeks, months even, and plan to share sneak peaks of many of them over the next month or so.

Stay tuned, and share the news with your peeps when the nouveau website is up and running. Let’s just refer to that as SherWhere, so when they say “where do I find Sher?” You just direct them to my SherWhere site known as Sheri Berry Designs.

Happy New Year to all. May your nouveau year be filled with many blessings. Sher

My Quirky Life: Snow Days

 (source)

We've had quite a few snow days here recently. The first one was on Christmas. It was the first time we'd had a white Christmas in Georgia in over 100 years. It was really gorgeous while it lasted. We've been hit by snow again and are currently snowed in. I'm not sure when it's going to melt away. I was supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow but for now I'm waiting to see what the weather does. I doubt I'll want to try to venture anywhere on the icy roads tomorrow. It's a very strange feeling when everything gets put on hold. It's so quiet outside.

The Winter holidays were all really lovely. Christmas was especially fun. It was really nice to see family and hang out and joke around with them. I'm really lucky to have the family I do and I'm reminded of that every time I get to spend time with them. New Year's was a tiny bit stressful but it all turned out ok in the end and it reminded me of how lucky I am to have my boyfriend. It's nice to know that there's always someone there who has your back no matter what. My birthday was very relaxed and cozy, which is how I prefer it.

I'll be posting some more Scott Pilgrim goodness in the form of How Tos shorty but for now I'm off to work on thank you notes.

Crazy

I could not stop ranting to my hubby since yesterday but I have still did not get it out from my system yet. So I have to rant it over here to you. This is not the reason for my sleepless night last night. Could not have eye shut till very late in the morning plus the kids putting me much awake the whole night with one loves to kick her blanket off and another keeps rolling around the bed. Sigh!

I confirmed that I have met a crazy boy. He could not stop bugging me over the phone for past few days. Now I regret helping him out. Actually the story started a month ago.....

A boy around 19 years old approached me and hubby at the shop asking for any job vacancy. I do not employ a male worker so I told him directy no vacancy. But he sounds and looks so desperate and sincere so hubby and myself told him we will look out for him if any.

Since then he did called up couple of times to check on any vacancy until last month when my dad told me he is looking for a general worker for his shop. A worker that able to deliver stocks to customers and do some repairs and servicing.

So thinking of the boy, I recommended him to my dad. He did came last Saturday and after work for a day only, he smsed me yesterday that he could not work anymore. Reason? Because he has no job experience and no driving license. What reasons are those? No experience, I give you a chance to work and gain one. It is not like you can walk on the first day you were born. Experience is gained as you work. No license? Then go and get one. Gosh! I lost count of how many calls I received on Saturday night and Sunday. One SMS he told he cannot go so I told him off that if he thinks that the job does not suit him, then I will tell my dad accordingly. However the subsequent sms I received saying he has something to discuss with me. Geez. What is wrong with this guy???

My mum even commented to me this morning that he is not of sound and right mind luckily no sight of him today. Otherwise my mum will also ask him to leave with immediate effect. Lol! So that is it! Just hope he will not disturb us again otherwise .....So much for helping people out but never know that person till it is too late. *sigh*

How I Stay Focused

STEREO - RETRO : BW

Music, especially trip-hop or industrial music. Something about driving electronic based music just helps keep me moving forward.

First week

First week of January has been good. Today is the 7th, if you do not realise it yet. So far everything is in track.

Every morning, I woke up before 7am as we need to leave the house around 745am. If not, I will get complaint from my little gal on being late to school, bla bla bla. She is getting very naggy lately. First day of school was not so fun for both of us, as little gal did not want to go to school. But after dropping her off in her class and spending half day there, she is doing fine. Now without hesitation, she will call on everyone to get ready and off to school every morning. Lol!

CNY is less than a month away. We will be going back to hometown as usual. It would be Baby Jay's first trip; as he has never sit in plane or ride an express boat before. I start to have headache thinking about my naughty boy in the 3 hours plus express boat ride. Lol! But the feeling of going back hometown is just great. The reunion dinner, the fresher air and greener landscape of small town makes me counting down to the day.

My Quirky Life: Winter Break Update Edition

I guess I'm still on Winter break right now. My boyfriend heads back to school on the 10th so I suppose that's when it will end for me as well. I felt a bit guilty leaving my blog unattended to so I figured I'd stop by for a short post. Sometimes you just need to escape for awhile, and that's what I've been doing. Thing will be back into a more normal state of being shortly and I'll post more about what I've done and everything that's happened and is yet to happen over this lovely vacation. This year I'm going to strive to make my posts here much more focused. I've been so scattered for so long that it's difficult to pull everything together but I feel like I'm finally ready. Growing pains, everyone has them right?

I hope everyone had lovely holidays and amazing New Years! I'll be back super soon!

Good night

Just out from shower and having both kids fall asleep, I would have a little time for myself in front of pc before hubby ask my help to finish up his powerpoint. I could not remember when the last time I have to sit in front of pc at such hour doing office works. Lol! If I do not do it, I will not have a good night sleep tonight.

School starts tomorrow. So I have to get up early around 7am, getting myself and the kids ready before going out from the house. Since she is back from her holiday, my girl has been telling me that she did not want to go to school. Sigh! All sort of reasons given by her,i.e. teacher always scold her, school not good, not fun. I hope no big crying scene from her tomorrow morning. She always like that after a long long holiday. Sigh!