Jersey Boys

Yesterday hubs took me out on a very expensive date. We went to see Jersey Boys at Marina Bay Sands.

Just in case I didn't know it was a real date, hubs splurged on ice-cream before the show.

The money spent on the tickets could have bought me a year's supply of fabric! But I enjoyed it very much. And I was a little worried I would not enjoy it because many years ago when we were dating, hubs took me to see a musical and halfway through I fell asleep. Not the vague kind of sleep but a deep, deep sleep. I think I even drooled a little. Since then, I've had a phobia of musicals.

Jersey Boys is a different kind of musical. Hubs call it a jukebox musical. I thought it meant the music came from a jukebox. It just means the musical uses songs from a specific band. In this case, the songs are from The 4 Seasons. Thankfully, the Jersey Boys has dialogue as well. I think a musical without any dialogue is a little weird for me.

no photo taking allowed during the performance

If you've never heard of Jersey Boys, let me tell you a little about it.

Or you could check out the trailer.

It tells the story of the rise and breakup of The 4 Seasons. The story is told from the perspective of each member in 4 seasons - you know, Spring (Tommy DeVito), Summer (Bob Gaudio), Fall (Nick Massi) and Winter (Frankie Valli). So clever right? I like Summer and Winter best as I knew all the songs. I only knew some of the songs in Spring and Fall. And the opening and ending songs? I totally had never heard of them before.

if you are capable of going to a cinema or theater and not take a photo of yourself with your phone, i salute you.

After the show ended I had 1 song playing in my head - Sherry. However I think I like to watch Walk Like A Man more. Walk Like A Man is visually more arresting as I really dig the way the singers danced when they sang - how do I describe it? It's like a shoulder shrugging with some leg movement done in unison.

The only thing that spoiled my enjoyment of the show is the couple of guys behind us. They came in a huge group, talking extremely loudly at the beginning - just in case no one could tell how uncouth they all were. Both guys behind us kept kicking at our seats. I turned to glare at my kicker a few times but he just looked stonily at me. I'm familiar with this tactic. It's called Act Blur. Finally I discovered that if I put my huge bag between me and the back of my seat, I didn't feel the kicks so much. And the guy behind hubs kept on coughing. Cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough. Freaking non-stop like a million times. I fantasized lunging at him and hitting him over the head with my umbrella. Over and over and over. Psst.. the cough medicine's been invented you big goon!

If you have money to burn, you should see this musical. Just try not to sit in front of the kickers and coughers.

Paper Fold It

During my Christmas craft market, I was asked many times if I provided gift wrapping. The thing is I already knew that during Christmas, many of my items are bought as gifts. Yet I was once again unprepared and forgot to look into having some gift wrapping supplies on hand.

via*

Anyway, I was at the library a few days ago and I saw this book Paper Fold It by Steve and Megumi Biddle. I took a peek and saw a few projects which could serve as a gift box for my brooches. I usually sell my brooch attached to a piece of card stock. Now that's fine if the customer buys it for herself. But if she wants to gift it, I thought it would be nice to provide a gift box, something that doesn't cost too much. Also, if I were making them myself, they had to be easy to make because for some reason which escapes me, I am just terrible at paper crafts. Hubs is a genius when it comes to paper folding.

This is supposed to look like the sachet on the cover of the book. But I used a craft paper that had the same colour on both sides.

This is another project I tried. The image above is taken off the book. (bet you could tell)

This is what I made. I made the one in green and son did the one in red. I used very thin paper so I'm not sure if this is the best option. If I could get thin but stiff paper, they'll work better.

Oh, you know what's another use for these square boxes? Hubs has an aunt who uses magazine pages to make these boxes, maybe twice the size of mine. She uses these during meals to keep food scraps! My MIL has these as well so it's quite strange during meals to have your own little paper box to keep your bones and stuff you don't want to put in your mouth. Chinese dishes, particularly the meat dishes, aren't always in bite size. So after you're done gnawing away at the chicken/fish/pork, you drop the bone remnants into the box. At my home, we just leave them on our plates.

There are a few other projects I want to try from the book but first, I'd like to get nicer papers. Will need to make a trip to the Paper Market. (it's a very dangerous place in case you haven't been - sure to come out poorer)


US Amazon


UK Amazon

*I am a amazon associate and will get rich if you buy via my links.

My wishes for 2013

It's the first day of 2013 and I am all hopeful and excited for the new year ahead. With a whole 12 months to spend, I feel like a child, happy with anticipation, yet impatient to begin. I have made a short list of what I hope to work with in 2013.

In the last few months of 2012, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do, what direction I want to take. And it occurred to me that I often moan and groan about how I don't have time to do this and that. "I wish" is often what I start my sentence with. Well, this year is going to be the year I fulfill all my "I wish". Maybe I won't be able to satisfy all my wishes but I'm going to make a good attempt.

There will be more applique (more than the running rabbit) and yes, quilting. 

There will be beadwork. Maybe it won't be possible to do the complicated items which require a lot of man hours. But there will be beadwork in one form or another.

There will be crochet and there will be knitting. Bear is wearing a crochet "basket" and attempting to knit himself a long skinny scarf.

There will be lace. And if by some miracle I can pull it off, there will be beaded lace.

There will be more drawings. Some of them will find their way to my pouches and bags. Some may find other mediums.

There will be embroidery.

There will be felt. I really want to combine felt with other mediums like beads and fabric.

 
There will be stamping.

There will be a few silk-screen totes. I haven't decided if there will be birds.

And just for fun, there will be paper crafts.

And finally, there will be running. Lots of running.

For as long as I can remember, I have always run 3km(1.8 miles) or less. The one and only time I ran 5km (3.1 miles) I was a student at 18 and at my ahem, athlete peak. Anyway, I had never felt motivated enough to run more than 3km. It was what I was comfortable with and I stuck with that for decades. Then last year things changed. Hubs and I participated in 2 group runs. I guess I needn't do it but you know the saying: the couple that does stuff together stays together. So I did my first group run for 3km. Hubs did 6km. Then hubs upgraded and signed up for a 10km run in November. He trained like crazy for it. I stuck to my safe 3km as my excuse was my left knee had been injured. But the organiser's shabby treatment of the 3km runners really frustrated me. We were like nobodies. So I made up my mind that I would never run in a non-competitive run again. I decided to upgrade to 5km or 6km.

Most of November and December, it rained horribly and I'm someone who doesn't like to run on wet grounds. Hubs just merrily carries on with his 10km runs. I don't know how he does it. But I need dry tracks. Finally after my Christmas craft market ended, I decided to once and for all make an attempt to run 5km. After all, if I can't hit it on my regular runs, there's no way I can do it in a competitive run . So last week during periods when there's no rain, I ran 3 times. Each time I increased by 0.5km. I didn't care so much about the time it took to finish it. I just wanted to do the distance. This week I ran twice. Today is the day I ran my first 5km in decades. It took me 42:42 mins to run 5:02km. I know. I ran like an old lady. But I'm so happy because I finally did it. It means that from now on, psychologically I'll be able to do 5km. But let me tell you this. My last km? My legs felt like iron. My aim is to run 5km in 30min. But one thing at a time.

I know what you're thinking. I forgot about bags. There will always be bags and this year I hope to make 2 to 3 patterns for my faithful followers and 2 for beginners.

On the home front, I'm not going to try and cook more or do housework more frequently. It's super useless. I'll just do it whenever I have to!

Oh, I almost forgot. I promised my girl I'll make her a pair of shorts! hahahahahaha