Oren Sarsi

I drive an auto car and sometimes I drive with a bare-right-foot. Whataver it is, I'm so happy that I'm on the road now! I don't listen to music in the car, but I sing when I'm alone! And I sing loud!

It really ease my work as I don't have to commute by public transport or waste my time waiting to be sent or fetched anymore. Since last week I had been in and out of office because I'm trying to sell shoes!! Safety shoes, to be precise. If you are wondering, our company also supply safety and personal protective equipment. Hope that explains!

I'm grateful that I can draw, because by drawing a picture, I can save a lot of time to describe an item verbally. There was this request for quotation with no diagram or sample. The spect mentioned "tricoat" but since I'm unsure how a tricoat look, I called the lady from the procurement department to ask her if vest is what they mean. She said, "jacket". Ok, this can be confusing you know. To avoid quoting the wrong item, I made a sketch and showed it to them. This was the respond I received, "Yes, that's the one". Hohoho...luckily I didn't quote for jacket!Isn't this called "vest"? I scanned the sketch and labeled it with Microsoft Paint, and email it to our contact supplier right away. Today, a picture has made my job, that easy.

Ok..ok, these things might happen everywhere but have you ever heard of toothpaste being called "Colgate", no matter their brands are, and canned food other than sardin also called Sardin! I remember when I was 5, my grandmother told me and my brother to go to the shop and buy "Sardin Bilis". Hahahaha. Both are fishes but sardin is Sardin, and Bilis is Bilis! *(Bilis=Anchovy)

Another one, have you ever heard of "Oren Sarsi"? Hehe, this one probably endemic to Sabah.

Enjoy this conversation (at coffeeshop):

Father: Apa ko mau minum? (What do you want to drink?)

Kid: Oren (Oren=Orange..but she...ehem! he/she means any colored drink)

Father: Oren apa? (What kind of Orange?)

Kid: Pause.

Father: Oren merah (red orange?), atau oren biasa (or ordinary orange?)

Kid: Oren Sarsi (Sarsi Orange).

Kuang...kuang...kuang...

Hm...What do you think? Same thing happened to "jacket"?

Business Card

I feel sorry to Rani because she has to wait so long for her business card. No shame here, I admit that I am so outdated in terms of design software and to be honest, I never design anything for anyone before, except few humble handcarved rubberstamps and stickers. Recalling back few months ago, I have proposed quite a number of design to Rani, but it is truely understandable why most of them failed to meet her preferences. If I was her, I might reject too. I must highlight that Rani is, however, such a lovely, supportive lady as she continues to believe in me eventhough there are plenty of more established, talented graphic designer out there. Thank you so much, Rani! The kind of trust and opportunity you given me are priceless.

So I was so desperately wanting to finish this job, that I had to borrow my hubby's laptop to install Coreldraw. I created my own brush, which is my first time ever, trying to use this software. Time is too little for more experiments and improvise it to perfection but I enjoy the quick process so much, as I learnt a lot in that very short time.

Actually I am very shy to share the look of my first customized business card, but what the heck...everything got to have somewhere to start, right? I cross my finger that it is going to be okay with Rani. She have not seen this card yet.

Double-sided. Printing is done by local printing shop.

Finishing the cards with round corners.

I am so grateful that I bought this corner rounder before, eventhough it is a bit expensive, but I am sure it gonna be useful for years to come.

Proud of My Chipped Edges

I enjoy making stamps for other people as much as I enjoy make one for myself. I love the carving and stamping-all-over-the-place process, but I am not that efficient when it comes to wood cutting. It is common that I spend more time on the mounting than the carving itself. Sometimes I have to make more than one trial just to produce a piece of wood for one stamp. For example, if the edges too rough it can't be fixed just by sand-papering, I have to toss it away and start making new one. However, I also think a slightly chipped edge, unperfect square or saw blade marks emblem the unique touch for things made by hand.

I have been resting from making stamp since September last year and below are the first few stamps that I manage to mount recently.

Custom made stamp for Gula dan Mentega.

Second eproduction of Soulie's panda stamp.

Custom made for RestnRileks.

Terrarium stamps. Sold to Bethany in US.

Batik Rooster. Sold to Jombolom in UK.

Safety First set for my personal collection. They may go to my etsy shop.

***announcement***

In case anyone aware of my Birthday Challenge post, I am regret to say that I am already beyond the deadline and still owing 8 more stamps to complete the challenge. Nevertherless, I will continue the quest and once I manage to complete it, I will select one person to receive a free personalized handcarved rubber stamp. The winner may choose one design of my existing single stamp featured in this blog or my etsy shop and add your own name to it, or a customized stamp of your name. I assure you the stamp will come complete with its wooden mounting. Simply leave comment in any post labeled "Birthday Challenge" and I will randomly select the winner later.

A photo...

...speaks a thousand word.

So I hope these pictures will speak for me of how much I love going back to the place where I grew up.

The only blue (flower) I know.

Belong to the passion fruit tree.

Map of the road to my house. From the highway, 2km turn right.

Morning dew.

Smaller than my finger tip.

A black panther. Size reduced and domesticated by regurlar feed of cat biscuit.

Locally called "pokok duit-duit" (coin plant).

I climbed a tree for this shot.

Seedling! Looking cute and innocent.

Fungi. Before being ruined by my thoughtless hand.

Posing for my camera before he goes lalala.

Plenty of space to grow.

Holding me tight.

Sweet, and sour.

From Bookplates to Andy English

As if I was only born yesterday, I am very curious when I found the word bookplates for the first time. I happened to stumble upon the word when surfing for rubber stamp carving on the net. It is very common to find a bookplate written with the words "Ex Libris" and a name, or a blank space to write a name on it. "Ex Libris" simply means "from the library of" in Latin, and the name as to claim an ownership of a book. So I thought, a bookplate must be a stamp (because my mind still bound to my earlier search), used to stamp on books like what we always see in books borrowed from the library, but I was wrong. It is actually a piece of paper, often pasted on the inner side of a book cover.

I remember my father taught me to write my name on my school books, but I don't remember seeing anyone using bookplates before. So this is new to me, thus I googled for bookplates and find myself awed to see all the amazing detailed bookplate designs. And this search led me to a site, owned by Andy English. There is where I learnt about letterpress! What a coincidence, I have always wanted to know about letterpress since I found some letterpress products in Etsy. What a cool finding! I know the world nowadays are into computers and printers but, I don't know, I find myself hooked with this letterpress thing. Having seen all the letterpress machine, it must be expensive right? Hoho~ nevermind, I'll be just happy with my acto knife and linolium carving tools (am using sharpen wood carver anyway).

Speaking of Andy English, I'm totally stunt to see his engraving work. Check his blog if you want to know what I mean! Eventhough I can draw quite well, but I admit I would feel like killing myself to draw something so perfectly detailed like his engraved art. The shading, textured and details are perfect. Gosh! I had goosebumps. His work is scary! Tabik spring la Andy!

Look! Look! A finished engraving.

I know you've been drawing err..carving lots of trees here Andy. But leaves and grass too?!

Mr. T

Mr. T - watercolor pencil on paper (8 x10 cm).

I want to, but hardly have time to draw now.

Mr. T is made few months back, and only finished just before last year's Christmas. Dedicated to all children out there. I know you would want a teddy as huge as Mr. T, right!