Amour Chaleur » Chewy

The idea behind “A world with only pandas”

Dayna — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:57:55 +0000

I submitted an entry for a drawing contest, specifically the Pandas and Friends Contest held by #welovepandas on DeviantArt this afternoon. It’s the first time I’m entering a drawing contest and furthermore, it’s a topic I really love – Pandas. I thought I would share my inspiration behind this drawing.

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This was suppose to be a panda island and not the entire globe but somehow I feel that showing the whole universe in the drawing gives a stronger appeal than just an island. The globe was inspired by the illustration used in my previous post, fishing for designs kills all the creativity. The rest of the ideas came from the fictitious panda stories created by Chewy.

According to Chewy, there’s an island owned by the panda clan and on this not-so-little island lives all the pandas in the world. I kind of change the island to world in this case. While I was drawing, I am thinking what would a world with only pandas and no humans look like? Would it be the same as what we are looking at today? City? Cars? Computers? Or not? I remembered Chewy once told me that pandas are peaceful and quiet animals (though I’m not sure if that applies for the real ones). I’m pretty sure a place with pandas wouldn’t be too developed so no cars nor computers. A boat sounds like a good thing to have to visit the neighbours?

On this island, there are 4 main characters, the panda flying the kite who lives in the blue tower is Pete. His house reminds me of the Weasleys’ house in Harry Potter, he spends most of his time keeping the orange kite flying. He doesn’t really do anything. Pete lives with Farmer Fred, a gardener who enjoys spending his time in the fields. He doesn’t get tan though. Fred has a gluttonous brother (surprisingly, he’s not a pig) who spends 24/7 in the bamboo forest not far off from Pete’s island. We also have Mary (a very uncreative name, I know). Mary loves pink. She lives in the candy house and travels around via the boat. She doesn’t own the boat, it belongs to everyone. The pandas community is full of sharing, care and love. She is easily recognise by the big pink bow on her head. Lastly, the huge one doing the introduction is Gem (he’s a male).

The end. Have you felt asleep? I think I can start writing children story books in the future. Check out my entry at DeviantArt and if you love it, please favourite the entry and show your love! All comments, suggestions and favourites are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading this story!

Chewy is not a good online alias?

Dayna — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:08:45 +0000

Chewy has been hinting to me lately that he isn’t too fond of the online alias I have for him – Chewy. I thought Chewy sounds pretty unique but he just doesn’t like the sound of it. Chewy is conveniently derived from his surname – Chew. I haven’t actually used his given name in any part of my website/blog but people on my Facebook would know his name since it’s listed under my profile.

Those who aren’t familiar with my blog will wonder who Chewy is. That guy is the second most important man in my life after my father. I used to have a page dedicated to him on this site but I removed it during the major revamp last year. We have been together for nearly 5 years. In short, he’s a really simple and honest man. He always put me before himself. Rain or shine, he will be with me unconditionally. Though of course, there are times I feel like strangling him but those stories will be for another day.

Back on topic, he was convincing me to change a new alias for him but I’ve been using the alias Chewy for the past 1 year or so that even some of my frequent readers also refer to him as Chewy. The last time I talked to Terry in person, both of us refer him as Chewy too! I have thought of using part of his given name, Loong. Or maybe DD (Dear Darling)? Any suggestions or should I stick with Chewy? I really like the alias Chewy though.

Transforming a book in 30 minutes

Dayna — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:30:47 +0000

I have been thinking of making, creating or drawing something for Chewy for his belated Valentine’s Day gift. I know I’m extremely late in preparing a gift for the occasion but time has been running away from me recently. Chewy has started to enjoy reading so I thought it’ll be useful to give him a book. Honestly speaking, the original cover of the book looks pretty elegant and tasteful but being a DIY-loving person, I decided to personalise the entire book cover for him.

Original cover of the book

It didn’t took me long to “transform” the cover since it’s a simple design. I bought a set of scrapbooking materials and picked out a few items to be used for the cover. The entire process is basically just gluing and sticking the decorations and letters so it took me about 30 minutes to do that! The flowers look kind of girlish, hopefully he wouldn’t mind. This is how the new cover looks like. What do you think?

I bought the materials from Papermarket at Raffles City. Speaking of Papermarket, I went with James yesterday and I find it weird that even though both of us bought approximately the same value of goods, he got the VIP card while I don’t. I checked out their website about the VIP cards and it’s only given to customers with accumulated purchases of SGD 300 and above. Both James and I had only spend SGD 40+ each and it’s our first purchases so the question is, why does he have the card and I don’t? I don’t really need the card to be honest but I just find it weird. The only reason I can think of is because the female cashier has a preference towards male customers. Is it because she thinks he’s tall and handsome and hence the special privilege or is it just a genuine mistake?

Materials from Paper Market

I made use of these stickles which are basically glitters with glue, fabric flowers, ribbons, alphabets stickers, scrapbooking papers and a piece of rainbow artwork made from polymer clay. The rainbow was made a long time ago when I was still playing around with polymer clays. I love the glittery stickles because they make anything look great! It glitters a shade of rainbow under the light. Absolutely gorgeous! I’ll definitely be investing in more of these when I’m making my own cards in the future.

Diamond Stickles - SGD 5.90

Fabric flowers and buttons - SGD 12.90

American Crafts Page Kit Backyard - SGD 22.90

Exploring Iluma II

Dayna — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:38:46 +0000

Chewy and I enjoy looking out for new places¹ to visit but due to the “supposedly” raining weather² today, we decided to head to the mall. It is not our first time at Iluma but surprisingly, we still manage to find out something new about this place. The top level has an outdoor garden which I felt was it’s a good place to chill out since it was not chocking with cigarette smoke and the green grass was lovely³.

The construction of the bridge linking Bugis to Iluma has completed and is open to pedestrians. It is a smart move to build a bridge connecting the two malls since they will be killing 2 birds with 1 stone. The constant human congestion at the other traffic junction outside Topshop was absolutely horrible and dangerous. Most of the time, the pedestrian walkway in the middle of the 2 roads would be so packed that I’m afraid someone will fall over. Moreover, it’s bringing a lot more human traffic and business to Iluma. There is a reason why I named it the ghost mall in the past. It’s now buzzing with activities and shoppers. I even saw the God of Fortunate today! Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to shake hands with him⁴.

I shall end this post with a perfect shot of Chewy in his “Twist” pose and I am giving 101% of credit to the photographer for this awesome shot⁵.

We love to treasure hunt!
It didn’t rain in the end due to our inaccurate prediction
It was fake plastic grass actually
I hope to get some luck for buying 4D and TOTO
Are you still guessing? The writer of this post is the the photographer

4 days getaway to Kuala Lumpur

Dayna — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:30:35 +0000

I have finally finished uploading all the photos to my Flickr from the trip to Kuala Lumpur. It seems like I visit Malaysia every year in December. I love their Christmas decorations too much to miss any of it. Of course, it’s pretty obvious I love their sales from the look of my shopping haul. I regretted not getting a few more Etude’s products to try. Anyway, I place all the photos under the cut and there’s also a juicy breakfast video of Chewy.

Our hotel room at Times Square

Our rooms are on the highest floor at the 43rd level. This is our window view. Kuala Lumpur looks beautiful at night when all the lights are brightly lit.

Times Square Shopping Mall

I saw Santa at Times Square! He was giving out candies to the kids with his uhm, wife? Santa has a wife right?

Huge rotating Christmas tree at Times Square

Chewy in front of a gingerbread house

Mid Valley Mega Mall

These are some gorgeous Christmas decorations at Mid Valley. I couldn’t think of any malls in Singapore that’s comparable with this. Somehow, it reminds me of Harry Potter. The castle, the fir trees and especially the floating candles! I guess it’s a Harry Potter inspired theme?

Fooling around in Toys R Us

Saw this toy on display, it's pretty cute!

The Garden Mall

I think this mall has a white Christmas theme. It seems to remind me of England in the 90′s and gives off a very elegant feeling. It’s simple but it does have very eye catchy decorations.

KLCC

I think I just arrived at Candy Land when I saw the Christmas decorations around me. Lots of candies, colours and the ginger breadman family.

Chewy and I in front of Candy House, notice his Threadless tee

Michelle and Te Wei

Pavilion

It was snowing when we left

Food food and more food

Before

After

I tested the video function on my Canon SX10 IS for the first time. The funny thing was that everyone thought I was taking photographs of them when I’m actually recording a video clip. I uploaded this short clip of Chewy during breakfast when he thought I was taking photos of him. It’s hilarious but cute at the same time.

On a side note, I think the videos taken with the Canon SX 10 has a pretty good quality. Perhaps I should start taking videos more often, it’s really fun! I feel that moving videos speak a lot more than still pictures.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out the rest of the photos from the trip in my Flickr album.

My first Christmas gift of 2009

Dayna — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:55:36 +0000

Samsung Corby

I received my first Christmas gift of 2009 – A Samsung Corby from Chewy. It was an early gift as we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas together this year. He’s going back home to Kuala Lumpur so I’ll be alone during Christmas. Chewy seems to like the touchscreen of Corby. I can’t remember how many times I’ve said this but I am not a fan of touchscreen phones. I think I’ll need some time to get use to using such phones again because I spend 10 minutes trying to send an SMS this morning. I know I fail.

My friends from school highly preferred the Corby over my INQ mini. They are like “oh my gosh Dayna, your new phone looks great. Glad you decided to get a new one.” when they see me with my new phone in class. By the way, my INQ mini is still alive and I gave up my LG Viewty for adoption today. I’m going to miss it. So, back to the Corby… there are 3 colours – white, yellow and pink. There are also green and orange in Korea but somehow they didn’t bring those into Singapore. I like the orange and yellow one but Chewy is a fan of white and black phones so I got the white one. Even though I’m a huge fan of pink, I decided a universal colour will be better. It’s easier to sell it off in the future since not everyone is a fan of pink like me. On a totally random note, according to the korean drama, You’re Beautiful (which I’m so in love with), white stands for purity. It’s not a bad choice eh?

Close up of Samsung Corby

Each set comes with 3 covers – plain white, white with prints and a plain black. I like the plain white one because I was going to get some pop-up stickers to decorate the phone but Chewy prefers the one with prints. I’m still going to get the stickers though. It needs something to be branded as “Dayna’s mobile”.

Back cover - White with green and grey prints

Side buttons - I always press the wrong one when I'm unlocking it

Default wallpaper of the cartoon theme

Animated main menu

I was quite wowed by the google maps. The location shown wasn’t exact but it was within a 1 kilometre radius of where I was so I guess it can be considered pretty accurate. For someone who has a poor sense of direction, this will certainly comes in handy when I get lost.

Google Maps

Wallpaper from my own illustrations

After playing around with it for a day, I think it’s not too bad. The set doesn’t comes with a data cable which may be quite troublesome for some. However, I use bluetooth more often so it doesn’t bothers me much. Similar to the INQ, the camera of the Corby is 2MP and takes quite decent shots. The quality is slightly better than the INQ mini. It isn’t a 3G phone and does not have Wi-Fi. Internet speed is a bit slower but it’s not a big deal to me. I don’t surf the net often with my phone. Most of the time, I use it only for twittering and twitpic-ing.

The Corby also has the smart unlock feature which is really cool in my opinion. You can set the phone to unlock by writing any one of the alphabets on the screen. I tested quite a few letters and I think V is the easiest to unlock. This feature is more convenient since the “press side button and hold” option is slower. There are also 3 types of fonts for users to choose from. I’m using the cartoonish font (type 1) and it’s really cute.

How do I like this phone? Quite a lot, considering the fact that it was a gift from Chewy. Hopefully, it will be my trusty phone for the next 1 to 2 years.

I’m still alive

Dayna — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:45:23 +0000

I’m still alive and kicking in case anyone though I’ve gone missing. I’m extremely slow in replying to emails these days because I’m busy catching up with my “offline” life. I faced my computer nearly 24 hours a day except when I’m in school. My dad even told me I could just get married to the computer. Of course I’m not going to do that. Chewy wouldn’t like that. Chewy came over for dinner and he waited 3 hours while I messed around with the new navigation today (yes, there’s a new design, did you not noticed it?). Hence, I promise I will spend my entire Wednesday with him!

Mini layout redesign

Speaking of the redesign, I redid both the main and footer navigation and added new panda prints to the footer. I noticed I’ve been using rounded corners for my layouts since last December and thus I removed all the round corners as well. Check out the new post meta at the end of every post if you have not. I’ve also switched to a new plugin for sharing posts and redesign (again!) the list of tags, related and popular posts. In addition, I make a small change to the background of the header, no more fluffy white clouds now and it’s a lot less cluttered. Phew! Yes, that’s all the updates I’ve in regards to the layout.

Voting for the Site Glamour Contest has closed and all the articles written by the wonderful participants have been published here. Please feel free to leave any comments or join in the discussion.

Twitpic of my busy week

Dayna — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:50:59 +0000

I have almost forgotten to post my twitpic photos from last week. I had an extremely busy week and wasn’t online most of the time. Anyway, here’s a short recount of what happened last week. I received lots of goodies in the mail and am absolutely in love with my new cosmetics products from koreabb.com.sg. I found a new online shop, Beauty Carousel in Singapore selling lots of Japanese cosmetics. It’s so tempted to try some of the highlighting and oil control powder but I’m trying to put myself on a shopping ban to save up for Christmas.

Twitpic of the week

I also went Haw Par Villa & Vivo City with mum. We went on board the MV Doulos. I found a Chinese craft book with lots of pandas artwork at PageOne and I took a few photos of them. I was so afraid the loud shutter sound of my mobile will alert the staff on duty. Anyway, the pandas were so adorable!

Some day later, Chewy and I went shopping at Orchard. I brought my panda and pooh bears to guard the car again. Notice the claypot rice with abalone? We had dinner at Ah Yat Tian Xia Restaurant at Orchard Central. The abalone cost an additional SGD 7 and taste okay, for the price I can’t complain of course. Chewy had pork chop rice and he finds it delicious. I tried it and it’s also so-so in my opinion.

The rest of the week was spend on spring cleaning my room, playing bridge at home and having dim sum at Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant. I still think the dim sum from Imperial is better. So, that’s how I spend my entire week. How about yours?

Ultimate Blog Awards

By the way, Tiff’s holding her first contest, Ultimate Blog Awards at JynxedPanda. There are lots of attractive prizes, such as WordPress themes, illustrations, t-shirts and even cash to be won. There are also many mini contests for all her readers. She is also trying to raise donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy amd Pepeng via the contest. It’s an all rounded contest for everyone so please join in the fun and head over to her website for more details.

The voting for the Site Glamour Contest will close on 30 October instead of November because I hope the contest will be focused on the discussion of the articles instead of the voting next month. Please vote for the website which you think deserves the award and don’t forget to participate in the contest article discussion next month.

Twitpic of the week

Dayna — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:30:17 +0000

I decided to start “twitpic of the week” posts with a photo collage as a summary for all the photos I’ve tweeted in a week. I’ll try my best to post every week. Since I’ve tried Terry’s Photo Collage’s tutorial, I’m addicted to making photo collages now. So, we brought our little Porky out last weekend. No, I wasn’t hugging him at Vivo City but he stayed back to guard the car.

Twitpic of the week

Exploring Iluma

Dayna — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:04:50 +0000

Thanks to everyone who voted for me at the WordPress Best Design Awards, your votes are very much appreciated. If you haven’t, please drop me a vote if you like Amour Chaleur’s design and help spread the word around (twittering, blogging about it, anything!). Every single vote would help to make my goal of opening my own e-shop closer as mentioned in my previous post.

I’ve been busy mugging¹ for my upcoming final UOL examinations so I wouldn’t be very active until the end of May but I’ll still be on twitter and flickr. Sorry if I haven’t been visiting for some time. I have huge plans for Amour Chaleur in June. I will be making a new layout and will try to “pull away” from the current style. I want a new break through in my layout designs! I also plan to revamp 60% of the content – higher quality and quantity (in regards to my visitors content). Hopefully, I will be able to finish it during the first 2 weeks of June before moving on to my client’s project and other side projects like my e-shop.

Chewy and I

Mr Chewy

So, Chewy and I went to “explore” Iluma, the new shopping mall located at Bugis. If you have been following my twitter, you would have known that there were some small hiccups along the way. Nevertheless, we made it safe and sound home. The shopping mall is open but most of the shops aren’t, thus if you plan on going, wait till June when most of the shops would be open. The cinema and the arcade fills up the entire top floor and there is this “secret” rooftop area. It overlooks Bugis and the entrance is hidden inside the arcade so do remember to check it out when you are there. But some people take it as a smoking area and it totally spoils the view. I meant with a wonderful view but the air is filled with cigarette smoke.

I’m mentally exhausted so I’ll let the photos do the talking again today. They are cross posted from my flickr so you can click on them to view the full size photo from my flick account.

Roof top view from Iluma

Another rooftop view

Love the colour of the sky in this one

Rainbow buildings

Building structure and design of Iluma

It can be used to describe someone stuffing a great deal of information from the textbook into his head, meaning tons of mere studying for long periods of time. This word is very common in countries like Singapore.