While in Penang....

Been wanting to post pictures taken while we were in Penang (Island) but didn't realize I took so many of them.
I ended up spending way too much time choosing and editing these photos.

While in Penang I also realized the StatCounter on my blog shows the figure 300,000 +.
This generally means my blog been visited/hit for more than 300 thousand times!
Thank you to all my readers and followers (new, old, not yet discovered, etc. :) for being so loyal and for reading my blog.
I hope you bare with me as I have not been able to post as frequently as I like.
Got to think of something to celebrate this :)...Soon.......

That aside, here are highlights of our Penang Trip.
First and foremost - FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! (click pic to enlarge)

Whenever people say they are going to Penang, they are (always!) reminded to EAT! EAT! and EAT!
So! dear hubby and the boys started eating while on the plane and at the Penang Airport while we waited for our transport on arrival.

There are varieties to choose from, either at home or outside home :)
Hawker food is very popular in Penang.
You find them in every available corners.
We were told half of Penang's population (out of 800k, density of 2.5k every km square) is involve in food business/preparation. So, you can imagine, practically surrounded by food.

Be brave and adventurous with food and you will not regret.

....ehm...I don't mean adventurous with these dead lizards though (bottom right pic)
This street vendor is selling lizard poison at Air Itam. Lizards anyone?....:D

One of the places we visited - must visit is the Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist Temple in South East Asia. Few weeks before our visit, there were reports in the paper that there is terror plot to attack temples including Kek Lok Si Temple. Anyway, I am not delving into that, it just news.

Penang also has many old historical buildings.
Many of them are "Heritage Buildings", left by the British Empire about 200 years ago, restored and turned into tourist attractions.

Last but not the least are the "People" of Penang.

After all, this was our main purpose for the trip - visiting and getting to know the families and relatives.
This is our boys' first proper introduction to them...ermm actually mine too...ops!

The boys really love their "Chek Kong" (middle bottom pic).
Overall, it was a fun, too short trip, great food and AWESOME "People" :)

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Outing With the Boys - Prawning

We took the boys out for their first prawning (fishing for prawn) experience today.
The spots we went to are several irrigation canals in Samarahan, about an hour drive from the city.
Because the area is low lying, the water is brackish and subject to tide movements.
We used to frequent these places before the boys came along.
Now that they are older, we are introducing them to this activity that we enjoyed so much then.
If they like it, there will be many more weekends like this.
There goes my time for wire jewelry.......
We left at about 1pm and it was a hot! hot! day.
Here are pictures of their/our first prawning experience.

Waiting patiently.

William with his first fishing rod and reel.

Can you believe it? He is so scared of this small little prawn....LOL..
This is the only prawn we caught this trip!

 His first little fish.
We caught few of this but we released them.

The bait! Only hubby dares to touch and handle them. Yucky!

More waiting.

Look familiar? Yeah, wire wrapped rod tip guide...at least my wire wrapping skill still required here...LOL

 Henry

We met these two boys at the same spot.

Both are only 11 years old but they are expert fishermen.

At the end of the day, they say Yes! they love it and would like to do it again.

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All Gone!!!

My sixth sense is playing trick on me.
Right now I feel like screaming at the top of my voice.
I mentioned about the TAW Bracelet tutorial and
how my sixth sense whispered that I should start doing it.
So I did! Last night and this morning.
This morning I was taking the last picture.
I was saying to myself while positioning the bracelet - last pix and off to download and editing.
Switch on the camera and what did I see?
"MEMORY CARD ERROR"!!!!!!!!!
Huh! what's this? On - off, on - off, on - off still there!!!!
It won't go away and the camera won't snap.
What have I done wrong?
PANIC! Sweating!!! switch on the fan still thinking what's wrong.
Took the SDHC card out and try to check with the computer.
It says "The disk in drive E is not formatted".
Can't even have a peek at all the pix taken.
Call a friend and he said its a 50-50 chance to recover....duuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh

Feel very tired and frustrated.
Don't know what to do.

New Layout, Logo and Adjustable Ring

By now you must have noticed what I did to my blog - a complete makeover. Something I have been thinking and wanting to do for a long time.
Its been almost a week but I am still tweaking here and there trying to clean up the site whenever I have the time.
You might not be able to access the site sometimes for the last few days but it should be ok now except for a link that is still not working at the time I am writing this post ;)

I gave up on Internet Explorer. I think the problem is IE and not my blog.
I tried accessing with IE and it got stuck halfway and just hung.
If you are using IE, I expect you'd be facing the same problem.
So, PLEASE change to other browser such as FireFox.

 

 

Oh ya! I got my new logo as well :)

Planning to make one with real wire and see how it goes.

How do you like this heart shaped potato? Love is great! even with potato :)

If you have the time, I would like to hear what you think of my new blog layout/design and logo? 

No worry, I can accept positive and negative comments. 

There should not be any problem with the comment box!

Thank you for your time in advance. 

If you would like to know the creator of this new template layout/design, check out Derek at BlogerSkinz. I discovered him by accident but at the right time :)

Chinese New Year Pics

CNY holiday is coming to an end for me. Its back to work soon. I was hoping to do a lot more during the hols especially you know what - Wire Jewelry!!!

But it didn't go according to plan.

Anyway, I managed to snap some photos here and there and here are some of them.  

Happy viewing and enjoy the rest of the holiday.

New light for the New Year!

Visiting the temples for prayer is a must every year.

Henry is growing up fast. He is not scared of the "Dragon" anymore.

William and Henry

Its been raining everyday since New Year's Eve

William with his favorite Cece (sister)

A surprise find at the mall - wire flowers and vases!

Close-up of the wire flowers.....getting inspired already?

This is very precious - a gift from Ami (Aunt in-law)

Another one from Ami - do not know what beads are these. Any idea?

Shopping and Chinese New Year

It’s the time of the year again. Chinese New Year is just around the corner and this year it coincides with Valentine Day. Wonder how often that happens?

As usual it is spring cleaning time and shopping time at home front. Spring cleaning means we shall be cleaning the house inside/outside, top/bottom or wall to wall. Everything must be cleaned. Sometimes it involves painting but we did that last year so no painting this year. Phew! The important thing is that everything should be spanking clean and if possible, new. Yeah! If you can afford it, everything new would be the best.

That’s when the shopping comes in. Top among the list is buying new clothes including underwear (yeah!...don’t laugh..we go for red). This (new clothes) is very important and is the highlight of the year for some. My mom used to tell me when they were young, they worked hard the whole year to save up enough money so that they can wear new clothes during Chinese New Year.

Different generation, different thinking I guess. Personally I don’t worry if I have new clothes or not during CNY. I buy new clothes whole year through, so some of my clothes are still quite new for the New Year. Got to get myself a new pair of shoes though. Further, over the years, I seem to do more and more online shopping. It is more convenient and with online coupons there are great bargain without the hassles of driving to the mall, got caught in a traffic jam along the way, looking for empty parking lot and later in the mall struggle with other shoppers especially for items on special offer.

Wire jewelry will slow down just a little bit but who knows because its an addiction...LOL...

Way Behind and my Plans

Right now, I am way behind on a lot of things that I have been planning to do in early 2010. I am well behind in finishing several commissioned pieces. I am lucky so far, as my clients have been very understanding and flexible. Thank you for that.

I have wanted to create a free tutorial for a while, but looks like it will not happen yet.
Now, I am thinking and planning for a giveaway instead. That will be the next best thing, right?
I have been planning to change the logo of my shop since last year but still haven’t gotten around to it.
I have planned to create my own banner and still have not gotten to it.
One of my friends has been asking me to print my own brochure so that he can market my creations but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I have planned to design and print my own business cards but right now the idea is still floating inside my head.

Well, that is the problem with a full time working mom with a hobby like this.
Right now, how I wish if printing company like PsPrint is nearby. Why? Because they provide online printing services that let you create and customize your own business cards, brochures, catalog, postcards, posters, stickers and many more in a matter of minutes. You don’t have to be a professional or hire a professional designer as their free online design tool, Design It! will help you create a professional looking card, etc.
Hmmm….if they ship to this part of the world (at the moment they only ship to Continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Canada), I would have tried out 50 business cards for a start - now only for a fee of $11.93.

They say internet makes the world small; ordering is accomplished with a click of a button. However, I will have to find my own ways with my logo, business card, banners and brochures for now.

What's Keeping Me Busy?

Finally its the end of the week. I can breath a little and look forward to the next 2 days where I don't have to rush from home to school early in the morning. Rush back home to pick up the small one to his kindy and I to office. At noon, I rush to pick the both of them from school/kindy to home and rush back to office, all within an hour. Sometimes missing lunch. DH works quite far from home so I have to be the "bus driver" for now. 
Our life would not be the same to pre 2010. With William in Year 1 and Henry in kindy, everything is now centered around their schooling and activities including extra classes. He is already talking about joining taekwando classes on Saturday. There goes half of my Saturday. But I wouldn't want him to miss anything while growing up.
Parents would sacrifice anything :)
Overall, its been a great week for William and us. For weeks we have been wondering how it would be like for him. Is he going to like it, hate it, scared, cry, shy, etc. etc?
It is a relief to see him enjoying himself and making new friends.
Very happy to get his first tie.
He loves his school uniform.
No teary eyes when we left him on the first day.
On the second day, he told me not to walk him to his classroom. But I insisted :)
He loves his Transformer school bag...always insist on pulling it himself.
What can I say, I am very proud of him! :D and want the best for him and Henry.

OK, its late and very tired. Time to get some sleep and tomorrow I shall post some pretties.

Happy Christmas from WireBlissMei

Here is wishing you a  Very Happy Christmas!
To both you and your families, my greetings and best wishes for the Christmas period. 
For New Year 2010, may you be blessed with good health, prosperity, happiness, abundance creativity, inspiration and beautiful wire jewelry creations.

This wire wrapped cross was completed recently for its tutorial. Since its almost end of 2009, I will bring this project to next year :)

Here and There

We were out and about for the last two weeks. First mom, sis, nieces and nephew came visiting for about a week.

Henry (right) and Brian (cousins) really adore each other :) Can't bear to let Brian go home.

 

Earlier, they were at the crocodile farm - more pictures here. It was really hot and humid so we didn't really stay that long and the boys were restless almost immediately wanting to go to the next stop.

Pink face due to the heat.

Notice William's new teeth. Hope they are not "wai wai" one.

Then, last weekend, me and hubby went looking for fresh fish...

No! not on this boat...Am just playing around with the camera..

 Stop by the jetty at Kpg. Rambungan and have a 'long walk' right to the end of the jetty.

Several people were fishing there and one of them caught a kilo+ fish.

 

  There were lots of fish at Kampung Sempadi but not our type of fish...catfish...yikes!

Still at Kampung Sempadi, we met an old man busy building this long boat.

Talked to him for a few minutes...hmm...hubby likes to talk to strangers who turned out to be his friend's uncle...small world...

Then, its home sweet home without fresh fish.

Purple-Themed, Net Connection and X'mas

The net connection was really bad for the last two days. It was down on Sunday and when it got back on, it seems to have slowed down a lot. It was down again last night so I went to bed early. Maybe it was back in the middle of the night, dunno! but it was ok this morning.

If I delayed on emailing tutorials to you for the last two days, I apologize but I am blaming Telekom for the delay. I hope it will get back to normal soon.

To perk up the day, here is another purple-themed bracelet to share with you.

Since X'mas season would be here soon, I will be announcing X'mas Sales for items on my Etsy Shop very soon.
So, keep posted. 

Finally Here!

I have been neglecting my blog for almost a week. Been busy with work, went for a short course (work related) and sat for an exam. Feel very drained after that but the arrival of this "baby" two days ago really made my day. One of the happiest moment in my life....a bit exaggeration here but I am extremely happy and please.
My own Canon G11 camera is finally here! Been waiting for it for the last few months and finally its here.
Haven't really got the time to play around with it yet but I will this weekend and shall learn to take better pictures with it.
Here is a quick experimental one taken early this morning, outdoor near the pond, cloudy and overcast.
The left pix was taken with G11 and the right one with my old Cannon Ixus 850 IS. Opps! Old Ixus :) Been good to me though. Really loving my G11. Notice how close I can get to the object - almost touching actually. With Ixus, its about 3 cm.

No cropping involve except for reducing picture size and combining them. Any difference? There should be but I am still getting use to G11.
Have a nice weekend all and if you are curious about the camera, follow the link below.

Canon PowerShot G11 10MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Stabilized Zoom and 2.8-inch articulating LCD