Tag Archives: Marine Parade

My Spooky Chinese 7th Month Encounter! >.<

Tourists-walk-through-an-alley-decorated-with-red-lanterns-for-the-Lantern-Festival-in-Beijing-on-February-6-2012.-AP-PhotoAlexander-F.-Yuan-650x433
I associated Chinese with Red Lanterns, yes seriously. Image Source: WuDuMedia

So on Tuesday night while on the way home after my dinner with Sandy, just as we were parting which is close to Katong plaza, the one next to Roxy, in between marine parade road and Katong, I got serious creeps that I have never gotten before because there was a mini (1/2 the size of what you’d see the normal stages) ge tai with a toy puppet show and a cast of elderly behind singing and playing Chinese instruments and of course coordinating the puppets.

As you might know by now, I Rebonded my hair (been announcing it on Twitter and Instagram I think) on Sunday so it’s now silky smooth and bounces off my back when I walk.

So as I walked off from the mini ge tai I couldn’t help but look because the entire crew was playing to – get this – no one at all. It was an empty

Audience, but we local Chinese know its not for the living that they are performing.

And as I turned around, I felt like someone or something was brushing against my back.

Logically it is my hair that is bouncing off my back.

But it couldn’t possibly be that l didn’t notice the sensation from the past two days and this one felt different.

 

If it isn’t my hair that’s causing the sensation – I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!

 

So immediately I picked up my pace , and I also held my hair in place and walked quickly to my bus top opposite the place.

And I said a quick prayer. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus who is in me is greater than he who is in the world (or netherworld for that matter). And I immediately felt better.

Texted my tummy Sandy and told her the place gives me the creeps! Told her that I’m also gonna avoid all these stages for the entire month! While waiting for the bus to come it started to drizzle…

 

Have you ever had any spooky encounters before?

Xo

My Business Ideas

It’s no secret that I aspire to be an entrepreneur some day, and hopefully soon.

Here are some ideas that I was telling, albeit jokingly with my tummy/PPG aka friend Sandy after dinner while shopping around Marine Parade, on Tuesday night.

1. We walked past this Chinese pastry shop at the basement of Parkway Parade right at the entrance of the Food Republic and I bought a red bean pastry which is relatively tiny at $1.60. So I said in future I also wanna open a pastry shop and asked Sandy, who is great at contemporary designs, to help me design the store.

Traditional Teochew bakery Thye Moh Chan
This one: Traditional Teochew bakery Thye Moh Chan

2. Then I also mentioned to her that I always wanted to open a cafe and a tuition center.

Cafe
People with Caffeine Addiction = Money Making Cafe
Tuition Centre
Kiasu Parents + Competitive Culture = Money Making Tuition Centres, seriously.

3. So maybe I will open a designer cafe that sells Chinese pastries for parents to eat and chill while their kids are studying or having tuition at the tuition center next door. Idea? πŸ˜€ Of course the kids themselves can use the place to study and chill.

Light-Bulb
Chinese Pastries + Cafe + Tuition Centre = Innovative IDEA

4. Then while waiting for Sandy when she was in the rest room I took a look around the Γ‰tude house shop which is a permanent stall near the atrium and I had SO MUCH FUN testing the lipsticks and pore eraser gels and blushers and what nots.

I want to buy them all!!! I want to be able to wear a new lip colour everyday, seriously.

Lip Colours
I tested more than these. TOO MANY COLOURS. A girl’s spoilt for choice!!!
Etude House Lip Colours
Grabbed this off somewhere else online, pretty sure they have like at least 3 different series of lip stick colours in store, 5 if you count in 2 lip gloss colour series. #Mindblowing #TooMuch #ConsumerismCulture

So I also wanna have my own cosmetics line! πŸ˜›

A girl's dream
A girl can dream, right? πŸ˜€

We also went shopping at Marks & Spencer and I discovered that they now have much nicer and younger stuff under the line “Per Una” and some of the perfumes smell really good!

This one is sweet but not sticky. Surprisingly affordable at S$25 for smaller bottles/vial, might also make sense to get a smaller bottle since perfumes take super long to finish.

5. The last business idea I have is one that I’ve thought about recently and wondered if I should really just give this a shot, which is to start giving small and casual talks on personal grooming and fashion tips since I graduated with a degree in Fashion Media & Industries (read marketing & management). It is definitely a topic that I am enthusiastic about and would love to share about it naturally and it also seems to be like a ready market where people would like to learn hands on and practically how they can improve on their personal style and pick up some fashion tips, right?

Fashion Styling & Grooming
Will you trust me to dish fashion styling advice & grooming tips?
MAC-by-Carine-Roitfeld-Collection-1
Can I be the next Carine Roitfeld?
anna-wintour-1
Or Asia’s Anna Wintour, maybe?

So with 5 good business ideas and the first three can be related…

Does anyone want to open a business with me? I do not have capital to offer but I have many wonderful ideas, an energetic youthful passion and a believe that with excellent products and stellar marketing, we can change the world (see Apple).

You may email me at enabalista@gmail.com, for serious offers only please. πŸ™‚

Call me
I’ll be waiting for your email. πŸ˜‰

xo

P.S. I’ve been writing blog posts while traveling commuting, can’t wait to share my other posts.

<3 Scrapbooking for Family and Friends <3

I have always liked scrapbooks and I started with doing decorated mini name boards for friends and family as farewell gifts about a year back.

Recently my primary school friends Jonathan went abroad to UK, London to study so I made him this:

I bought the materials from a paper craft store at Simei, East Point Mall on the second level but very unfortunately the last time I went back this week, they either closed or moved! :'( But it is also ok… because I can buy materials at another place which I will tell you in a bit. πŸ™‚

Basically the set I bought was a ‘Travel’ set meant to create scrapbook for your travels but it also makes sense to create paper craft gifts for friends going away. πŸ™‚ I also bought the buttons from the same store. The ‘thickers’ alphabet stickers were bought at Spotlight if I didn’t remember wrongly. The coaster looking cardboard piece was also bought at Spotlight about a year ago. I went back wanting more but unfortunately it was either out of stock or discontinued. :/

The set comes with ribbons, papers and alphabet stickers. I bought them on offer for about $15. πŸ™‚ Here you can see that I have cut the paper and stuck them on the cardboard.Β Scrapbooking tools, pencil for outlining on special papers before cutting with scissors. πŸ˜‰

Next you glueeee!

Add on more decorative elements and some personalized message and Voila~! You’re done! πŸ™‚ Heavier items will need to use liquid white glue which will become transparent when dried.

Another friend Wei Ren also left to study abroad… This time it was a bigger card to contain messages from other friends as well. πŸ™‚

Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to develop the photos professionally so it was from my home printer. Thankfully Wei Ren liked it nonetheless. πŸ™‚

The next series of works are made using materials I bought from PaperMarket at Raffles City basement! πŸ™‚ Surprisingly, students only needed $30 on a receipt to be members, so I was given a members card (yay!) after the purchase of two sets, one with a Baby Girl theme and another for a Girlfriends theme.

I belatedly realize all my best girlfriends are born in the last quarter of the year! September and October! Hahahah! And yes, all these paper crafts are like really belatedly birthday cards. πŸ˜›

For my girlies in Lasalle… Kat & Bini. πŸ™‚

If you noticed, yes I did mix materials from the Travel set as well! I do take note of my friend’s personalities and preferences before I make the cards. πŸ™‚

All these photos were printed professionally at the Kodak store at Marine Parade near Watsons. Only 25cents per photo! πŸ™‚

For my bestie Ming~!Β And bestie YL~~~

And for Justin and Kim’s baby girl who just turned 1 month old, congrats! Baby Keren is so pretty! πŸ™‚ It’s meant to be like a group card, the second page for cell group members to sign. πŸ™‚

Then I made for my lovely sisters as well!!! I <3 my sisters. I am very blessed. We are very blessed, too blessed to be stressed! Hope you two are reading this! πŸ™‚ <3

This is for my sister who graduated… not so recently. πŸ˜› And enjoying friendships at work, yay!

A close up of the border, which is an original idea! πŸ™‚Another for her more ‘private’ life. πŸ˜› I was quite sad to find that I don’t have a recent picture with her.. But then belatedly realize there is one but it wasn’t on facebook so I forgot about it… πŸ˜›
For my sister also abroad… in UK.. (Seriously so many Singaporeans studying abroad, hahaha.) This is supposed to be a secret/surprise… Wonder if she will read this then it’s not so secret anymore! Hahahaha πŸ˜›I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did creating all these paper craft / scrapbook layouts and writing about them!

My advice for anyone who wants to start scrapbooking would be to buy good materials, preferably those pre-packed ‘sets’ for a start, as they come in co-ordinated colours, patterns and design theme. Some even have layout ideas at the back to spark your creativity! Honestly, as you go along, it’s very easy to then go free-style and design as you like.

If you are stuck for ideas, just google! Whether it’s “Best Friend Scrapbook layout” or “Birthday Scrapbook layout” or “Baby girl scrapbook layout” there are tons of ideas and inspirations online! πŸ˜‰

Next up, I will post about the ICB styling event I attended last Saturday!

I also filmed a vlog…which I will post soon! <3

God bless!

xx