Grocery shopping

The contest is over, and here are the winning entries. I don't like the entry that got 1st. I saw the pic of the second prize winner on flickr, and it looks significantly better over there, not all blurred and stuff. I think of the two, the 2nd prize winner has the nicer pic.

Anyway, Ai Li's insane textmate session resulted in a blindboxed Re-Ment prize that she gave to me ^-^ Thank you Ai Li!



After picking up the prize and shopping a little (I spent the most money ;_;), we ended up doing this:



L to R: Me, Mur and Ai Li

Mur: I come bearing Bizkits! And an empty bottle! :D
Pei: Why do you have a cat in there that is giving us the finger?!
Ai Li: ... haiz...



Everyone: Hi, Amal!
Amal: Hiii! Oooo, what's that, lemme see...CHOCS! :D



Mur: :D
Amal: :)
Pei: >:o
Ai Li: :|
Cat: _|_

The voting page is up

Well, it's been up since the 3rd actually. Anyway, here's the link to the voting page, feel free to vote for which ever you like! May the best pic win. I know my entry is too pink for some tastes (it nearly sent my bf into diabetic shock, it's the one with the Pinky St and the red tv), so I don't expect to win anything.

Also, cuteminis.com's method of voting is really open to abuse. All you need to do is create several new emails for yourself and you could put yourself in the lead. And I see a rather suspicious number of votes for one particular entry. Could be just my jealousness talking.

There is a rather large disparity between the prizes, the first prize is a miniature toy combo pack worth RM150 and a cuteminis voucher worth RM100, while the runner up gets a cuteminis voucher of only RM80. Seriously, what's up with that?

Strawberry House

I entered these pics to the cuteminis.com photography competition. I hope I made it before the deadline. The house is a repaint of a Willow Hall Conservatory bootleg. This thing's actually been an on and off project for nearly a year--it's pretty hard to paint since all the pieces are glued in place and you can't pull it apart without breaking it. I've also made a huge ton of mistakes (bubbles, paint runs, you name it and I've made it) since this is the first thing I ever tried repainting. That means more time consuming paint removal and redoing.

This house was also not meant for the pinky doll in it. The Sylvanian bear I wanted to put in was unfortunately too dirty and I didn't have time to clean it.

Anyway, here're the pics. Don't die from the pink overload :P

Scenes from the house

Butler Cat trains one of the girls as a maid. The road to good cooking is a tough one!


Aya: Don't take pictures! Grrr... GET OUT! *throws soap*

Modding Pinkies

I've stripped the paint off and primed Evangelion Asuka's summer outfit. I've also stripped the paint off Yoshiko's head and tried to carve her mouth open. I don't like Yoshiko's face mold, so now she's mod fodder. I need sandpaper.

Bread and Baskets

Here are some baguettes I made with polymer clay and painted with acrylics. The tutorial actually called for using chalk pastels to brush the colour on, but Brunei doesn't have cheap chalk pastels apparently. The only place that sells them is Active Art, and those were like $3 or $4 when I went there last time.

I was also lazy so I just used the dark brown paint out of the bottle and the bread now looks slightly overcooked, but I'm pretty pleased with they way they came out, especially when compared to my past attempts.




Here's a comparision of the baguettes with the first loaves I made when I was just starting out. The baguettes are basically Bread Attempt #3.


I've also 'repainted' the Sylvanian Families basket holding my oranges. I wanted to make itlook less plasticky. I had only intended to dry brush it but I apparently suck at dry brushing. I have mixed feelings with the result. Should I strip the paint and redo it?


Also, bonus pic: Re-Ment flowers!

First try--polymer clay oranges

Dug out my clay and made some clay oranges last night. The idea was to make oranges that would look like oranges on the inside as well. Here you can see the clay before it's been baked. The clay is rolled out into canes first then cut and molded into balls. I've made the orange skin too thin so I have a few oddly coloured ones.




Here's the end result: Misshapen orange slices and too orange oranges. Let's just say this has been a learning experience :) I'll do better next time, but I'm pretty sick of oranges right now.



This is the main reason I decided to make oranges. On the left is a Sylvanian Families basket with Sylvanian oranges and a lemon (?). It's all one ugly piece of badly painted and moulded plastic. The right features my too orange oranges taking over.

Repainted dining table and chairs

I got this at Giant last year. Fake Sylvanian Families dining table and chairs! The colour is really just atrocious.




Primed and masked and ready to be painted! The primer's actually gray but it loks kinda brown in the pic.



And done! They've been painted with black and red spray paints and given a glossy finish. Seats painted with cheapo acrylics. Still need to seal and touch up those parts.

Maid Yuki and some new Pinkies

This is for Oxba, who requested Maid Yuki. Here, have some cake too!




I got some new Pinkies from Chong Hock the other day--the Sky Crawlers Pinkies (strange choice of anime to Pinky-fy) and the last of the Range Murata Pinkies.
From lef to right: Kannagi Suito, Kannami Yuichi and Caine.




After some mixing and matching of parts



I quite like that combo on Caine (R). Makes her look like a little dictator. I think Yuichi looks good too, sort of like a little business man. No briefcase alas, so he had to make do with the repainted luggage case from the back of the red pinky car.

Coffee and Desert

Cakes and coffee for desert and the butler's left his cart unattended. I wonder if he'd notice if I took a muffin?

Hmm, Oxba, you'll have to wait for the Yuki pics. I'm not satisfied with the way they came out.

Beach!

My course mates probably think I'm some kind of freak now, taking toys on photoshoots during a picnic :x Sandflies are also a horrible blight upon the earth. I got 23-24 bites at Muara beach last week, and the ones I got in December haven't disappeared yet. Ugh. Anyway, this time we went to Tutong and the beach there really has no sand flies. Seems to have less wild life though, we didn't manage to see or catch as many lil crabs.

Anyway, the results of said photoshoot:

Here we have Ohara sporting Agito's front hair (the paint on which is rubbing off, much to my chagrin) and modelling Asuka's sundress.Should have gotten the morning glory in the photo as well.


I nearly lost the greenish-white popsicle. After bringing the pinky back to the picnic area I realized she wasn't holding the green one anymore. Cue O_o. Good thing I found it a little while after, half buried in the sand... Also, when I got home I found that the bottles of drinks in the bg, the some of the paint had been scraped off the package ;_; It seems pretty easy to scrape off the paint now and I'm wondering if it has to do with the trip to the seaside or whether it has always been like this... The pinky holdig the ice cream is Wild Arms Rebecca.



Crab hole!


Ker-thud


Without hat


Watching the sea


Edit: haha, my flickr badge now looks like it has a few little yellow UFO's on it.

Series 9 teaser

Well, finally Vance has put up teaser pics for their next series! According to Suemomo of Plasticpop, the new series girls will be released in August.

Pinky Street is also gettin their own website, seperate from the Vance main site.

I'm rather excited for the twin pony tail pieces. There just have not been enough girls with hair like that!

:9

Hungry and unscrupulous enough to kidnap the Puddleford ducklings for the pot.

Mayura is hungry

Mayura looking for dinner.




Miiko: Why are you looking at me like that? Stop it! It's creepy...


I got Range Murata's Mayura pinky from Chong Hock XD. I've put her in Mikuru's maid uniform and swopped her hair with the alternate colour ver. of the sitting Yukata Pinky. Her eyepatch is from the Agito Airgear pinky and the knife and plate are from Sylvanian Families

New Pinkies huhuhuhu :D

I blew quite a bit of $$$ today on toys. Finally, a local place that sells these lil gals! Too bad they only focused on the girls with anime and game tie ins though, none of the regular girls were available. Eh, those'll probably be the only ones that sell...

Here's Mikuru from the Haruhi series. I haven't taken photos of the other girls yet, perhaps tomorrow when there's good light.



Giant ladybugs are swarming, and Mikuru is stuck--how do I start this car?




Mikuru: Maybe this button? Ah no, that's the radio. DX

Late nights, early mornings

Currently printing all my lesson plans so I cna meet Sue tomorrow. Haha, serves me right for not printing themout earlier.

Also, I hope new Pinky St will be announced soon :s I hope they're not going to shut down and stop production due to the economic woes and the decline in both quality and popularity of the figurines. Ah well, all things come to an end someday, even cute things.

Still. Boo.
I'll probably move on to Sylvanian Families or Obitsu if that happens though. Hahaha.

Chun Li has Eye Shadow

TP sucks. I feel like an idiot most of the time and a bloody whiner the rest. I'm so disorganised and I dread what Sue will say when I meet her to get my evaluation on Monday. I also feel like a student abuser.

In other news: Chun Li has eye shadow.

Teach everyday till you die 2

April and May are now "Pei will not sleep" months. TP sucks your soul out and turns your hair white.

My photography skills are lacking...

Rui repaint ver with Re-Ment puppy. I want try my hand at repainting and customising some Pinky St figures, any one have spare parts they wanna sell? :P

Strawberry Tea

I hate teaching. I want to be a writer. But I suck at writing. I don't know how to write. :s

I don't actually like any of the photos I took today.

Sacchin and Sacchin repaint release. I guess they could be twins or something :P


Table and chairs from Sylvanian Families, Green leaf plate from Megahouse, everything else from Re-Ment. I like Re-Ment.


The tea inside the cup is removable.


Hmm, this picture reminds me that I have to paint the little flowers on the table white or somekind of creamy colour. Brown is too plain, and the picture of the table on the original packaging had white flowers...

Phew

Awful memory is right. Turns out I hadn't lost any of my students' work like I thought I did, half the class just left them on the wrong table, that's why I hadn't received anything. :/

Wanted to take more photos today as it was nice and bright but decided a nap was more interesting.

In other news, there are too many toys I want and too little money to buy them with. At the moment I want this table and chair set so I can repaint it.


Image taken from here.

I love low-quality or broken toys that I can fix up. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and I feel that customising something makes it truly mine, something that no one else has. Well, if anyone has old Sylvanian Families or just general doll house furniture, tell me :P I may decide to buy it off you if it's the right size.

I also took the personality test linked in Muaz's blog, and it's eerily accurate. Except for the first bit. And the being reasonable and giving good advice part :P You can try out the test here.

---
Your view on yourself:
You are intelligent, honest and sweet. You are friendly to everybody and don't like conflict. Because you're so cheerful and fun people are naturally attracted to you and like to talk to you.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You are a true romantic. When you are in love, you will do anything and everything to keep your love true.
Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You prefer to get to know a person very well before deciding whether you will commit to the relationship.

The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.

The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don't focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.

How do you view success:
You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:
You are afraid of things that you cannot control. Sometimes you show your anger to cover up how you feel.

Who is your true self:
You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.

More ladybugs

Ladybug, ladybug, ladybug invasion~



Aya: What the heck...they all came after I baked these ladybug cookies! Hey, you two on the leaf--these cookies are mine! *looks up* Oi, you! Stop mucking around and help me get rid of them!

I am an awful teacher

I think I may have lost some, if not half of 4A's essays. Either that or half the class didn't pass them up. The problem is, I can't remember a lot of things. Also, my HOD found two of the essays I accidentally left in admin while signing out or in. She also told me this fact when I was talking to my CT. Terrible. I am slowly any good impressions I may have made on them due to a combination of my own laziness and carelessness. And my awful, awful memory. I cant remember things very well :(

Urgh, what am I going to do? I really hope I haven't lost any of 4A's essays *cries*

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home

This is actualy a miniature sugar bowl from Megahouse's Forest Teaset miniatures series. The top bug is a removable cap. It comes wth two tiny plastic sugar lumps! This was the only photo that came out okay in today's photoshoot. All the ones featuring to full tea set were pretty unsatisfactory.

A little background: The Forest Teaset is Megahouse's last miniatures set--they decided it was not profitable enough. Too bad really, they make so few sets and they always get sold out really fast. Their sets are wonderful looking, quite on par with Re-Ment's miniatures.

Thursday was one of those days...

...where almost everything that could go wrong did. First thing that happened wasa that Greg booked the projector for use during the last two perods just before I could. He told me that he might not need it and to see im during break to confirm. Bugger. My whole lesson was based on a video on my laptop.

The next thing that happned involved relieving a teacher who was sick. Now, I don't mind helping her out, but due to my horrible lack of preparation I was desperately trying to finish some of the stuff I had to do for my lessons after break. One of these things was taping newspapers together to cover up 4A's curtainless classroom so I could use the projector.

Oh well, I decided to finish what I needed to do in 3J, the class I was to relieve for her. In my infinite wisdom decided to let this class have a 'free' period where they did not have to do anything as long as they did not make too much noise. Some of the boys decided to sit on the ground at the back of the class. I didn't tell them to get up, because, hey, they were just chatting, right? No harm done if they just wanted to sit on the disgusting floor and chat right? Wrong. The principal came in and asked me if I had asked them to sit on the floor. Er... no (I just hadn't told them to get up) She then to the boys out of the class and scolded them for what seemed like a good 10 minutes. Uh boy...

I also found out that the newspaper coverings I had made were too small for the windows. And that there were 8 windows in each class, not 4. I spent the relief class using up all the newspapers I had to make the coverings bigger. I couldn't finish my lesson plans either.

After break was the start of 4E's periods. I orignally wanted to finish modelling essay preparatory work for them in the first half hour and leave the next half hour for them to start their essays. I ended up modelling for the next 40 minutes or so and helping most of the students do their essay preparatory work for the rest of the period. I think only one or two of them actually started any real writing. Also, 5 boys came in 15 minutes late. I did not know what to do with these people. :(

Class management is going down the drain. I could get along with the class during the first few periods, and then my CT decided he could leave me alone with them nstead of watching from the back. That was the day I got quite cross with them. Uh boy, big mistake. One of the boys told me that I was cute when I was angry. I think getting angry with them actually accelerated their bad behaviour. Now they are always loud, noisy, they sing in class (what is it with noisy kids and singing?) and rap out tunes on the tables. Sometimes I have to scream at the top of my voice just to be heard. Then they tell me to calm down. I think a different strategy may be in order for this lot...

After this class was 4A, the class I wanted to use the projector in. Greg had given me the go ahead with the projector during break. Yay, right? when I got to class, I realized there was no electricity. I ended up asking all 27 of my students to gather around the laptop to watch the clip instead. Good thing I have a big screen.

After school, my eyes leaked in front of my 4E CT. *face palms* Shiiiit.

Oh well, I guess it could be worse. It probably will get worse, but meh, one day at a time. A good chunk of it was my fault anyway, at least I know some things can be prevented next time.

Teach everyday till you die

TP = repeated cycles of exhaustion and freaking out

I don't have time to do anything else anymore, the other half of my dollhouse is lying in pieces in a box. I also wanted to drybrush the wicker furniture to make it a tad more realistic and less toyish, but I'm afraid I'll ruin it. That shit was expensive yo. Meh, not like I have time now anyway.

New Pinky House Pics

I've sort of finished half the house. There are a few things missing still, like the front door and a proper ceiling instead of that ugly thing where you can see all the lines. And curtains. Haven't got time to sew proper curtains. Anyway here are the pics:

The living room.


Yuki: "Care for a spot of tea?"


Radish with a gardening mag. One of her hobbies is gardening :D


Radish's back


Becks reading to Rui in the bedroom. Probably some dry history text. It's not shown here but Rui's expression doesn't look too happy. All the books in the shelf have "Sylvania" written on the covers. I aim to change that eventually.


View of the bedroom + bathroom. Wish I could show a higher res version of the pic but the width of the blog is on the small side for that.