Dull.

I wish that at least tomorrow's sunny! A pic of my frosty window [not taken today]. I think it's quite mesmerising:

Teza

A drink that caught my eye the other day was Teza. They make green tea. 

Their bottles are very pretty. 

And - if you're concerned - they're into "the green thing" too. Just like Lush.

This is what they say on their site: We compost all our tea leaves, use green energy, and drive small tea bushes.

The tea bush part is indeed true, for I was lucky to snap a pic of it once:

It's entirely New Zealand made, and I don't think it's being sold out of NZ. I'll review about their teas after I try it!

The first two images are from the Teza website, and the last one's mine. All pictures are copyright.

And then there were five.

Five followers! Thank you all!

[This must mean I'm doing something right!]

I've been drawing ...

Actually, these are random bits from my drawings that I did last year for a project. We were to make a calendar using Photoshop only [I know, absolutely no InDesign!]. I came up with a series of whimsical characters, and made a calendar that you rotate each day. It's kind of hard to explain, but expect some pictures tomorrow.

Then we were supposed to design a campaign. I thought, why not go on with these characters? So I vectorised them, named them, gave them an identity. That was most fun. I also wrote a book about them.

Well, here are small bits of the drawings I did [I still need to refine the main characters, which is why I'm not posting them here]:

Today I am Thinking ...

Isn't it funny ... that whenever someone mentions the word joker [and by this they may mean a jester, a clown, the card ... the wise fool from King Lear, even], the first thing that comes to my mind is The Joker from The Dark Knight [one of my most favourite movies!]? This happens to quite a few people that I know as well ... I think that our perception of the joker is changed forever [well, I think mine is, anyways].

Do you think so, too?

The Dark Knight poster copyright imdb, I'm not going to be using it for personal gain.

Today I am thinking ...

No, scratch thinking. I learnt something new today. That in blogger, you can change the colour of your font ["typeface" for Graphic Designers]. That is so very exciting. Though I certainly don't mean to change any colours; the colours I chose represent my blog well [...brown and gold ... bees ...].

The Arnolfini Portrait

I promised someone that I'd post about The Arnolfini Portrait. So here it is:



This painting was done by the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, in 1434. It's supposed to be a portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini, and his wife [who was deceased by the time this painting was done]. It is a very complex painting, full of symbolisms. And no, Giovanni's wife was not pregnant, what she is wearing was high fashion of that time.

That's just the painting in a gist; there is so much more meaning to it.

Image taken from our faithful Wikipedia.

Around the house

I've been photographing around the house. What d'ya think??

I really like this one ...


I've been told that some of the crayons look like ice cream sticks. Do you think so, too? Oh, and one melted because I left it in the sun.


Just like an iMac wallpaper! This is a new shoot of Aloe Vera [which is a beautiful red now; might photograph it later].


More Aloe Vera!


I did a whole A4 page of doodles last year.


If you want to use these pics anywhere, please just let me know beforehand! You can leave a comment on my latest post.

40th post.

This is my 40th post! It surely doesn't seem like it!

p.s.: 50 days till the Half Blood Prince!

About cooking

I should probably reveal now that I am not the best recipe-explainer, and if you think my recipe's hard to understand [the spring roll one, or the blueberry pie one], please do comment, I promise I'll get back to you!

Spring/Summer Rolls

I did talk about making these rolls earlier. Here's the easy recipe:

What you need to have:

Water, in a bowl that you can dip stuff in.

Rice paper roll kit.



This is how the rice paper looks.



Tissue paper.



Filling. Here I have vegetables.



And of course, a spoon and a plate!

What you need to do:

Take one sheet of rice paper out, and dip it in the water.



Keep it in until it goes soft, like in the picture. This may take about 30 seconds.



Pat it dry on tissue paper, and spoon some filling in the middle. Cover it from all the sides. The rice paper becomes quite sticky, so you just need to press it down a little where you cover it.



And voila! Summer Rolls! Awesome if you want to impress your guests but don't have much time, because these don't take long to make at all. The sheets I got cost me about 8 NZD, and you get 40 sheets, which is quite a good bargain.



Oh, also, the rice paper rolls taste quite bland without the stuffing, but if you're like me, you'll like it anyways, and will make some of these [which is just basically dried rice paper (wet it first!) without any stuffing. But bear in mind that they are very chewy].



Lemme know if anyone decides to make them, and how they go!

Can I get more euphoric? Can I get more followers? Yes, I can.

Oh, one more follower! Thanks, Aparna!

[You think her name sounds familiar? Well, she's the one who I designed the birthday card, envelope, tags, etc. for. If you missed that, you can find the link right here. Handy, eh?]

And to the other followers, well, thanks again, and keep reading!! You guys are ... supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Okay, I'm going to go drink my awesome Vanilla Coke now [and dig through the pile of stuff on my desktop and search something good to post here].

Euphoria.

Yay! As of today, I have three followers to this blog! A big thank you to Stephanie, Kunal, and Ruthie [I hope I spelled that right]!!!

Please continue reading, and I love hearing from you; it encourages me to post more awesome stuff!!

And would you look at this: More soap.

I have had so much soapy stuff here for the past couple of days, I couldn't just leave the topic without posting how to actually make soap. I think I've found a good website in Teach Soap. And it doesn't just have soap, but lots of other things as well, such as scrubs, lotions, lip balm recipes, fragrance stones, skin softening powders, solid perfumes, etc. Here's a link to all the fun recipes.



This is an example of their recipe:

Chocolate Lipgloss Recipe by Rachel and Jennifer:

2 tsp. Petroleum Jelly
1/8 tsp. Honey
10 mini Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips (any brand will do though)
1/8 tsp. Shortening (Crisco)

-Carefully mix all ingredients into a microwave safe container.
-Make sure they are all clumped together.
-(Do not put lid on) Heat at high power for 20 seconds, stir, then repeat until fully melted.
-Then pour into a small bottle, and freeze for 15 min, or until solid.
-Then you can apply it on your lips!

Sounds awesome, and I cannot wait to try this out as a vacation project! And what a fun gift to give to your family and friends! Even better, you can gift it in the Hermes bag you made that I talked about here!

And more on soap.

On a much lighter note than yesterday, have a look at this image:



Apparently, Martians are in dire need of soap. Oh, and look how cleverly the soap company is transporting soap. Cables from Chicago to Mars. Why didn't I think of it before?!

Okay, sorry about the sarcasm. I really like this ad; it's vintage Graphic Design. But come on, they could've had a better tagline!

More on soaps.

Well, following the tradition from yesterday, when I posted on the hand-made soaps, etc., here's more soap for you. Only difference? You might not like to use it. I wonder how it smells?

Lush Times

I have recently discovered Lush. Walking down Queen Street, I never really paid much attention to the sweet smells coming out of that store ever before. Now, I hardly ever pass Lush without peeking in. I also got the massage bar that I mentioned earlier. It has real cocoa [the stuff chocolate's made of] in it, and it smells very, very chocolatey. It's hard not to just gobble it up. This is what they say on their site: "The chocolate is the finest Belgian and has to be hidden until the last moment to ensure that it gets into the Massage Bars!"



Also, if you care, Lush products are handmade. The bars are hand-moulded, soaps are poured out by hand, and are hand-cut. Bottles are hand-filled. Their stores are lovely and almost everything has a tester, so you know exactly what you're buying [although, I was a little hasty with my massage bar, and I didn't expect it to be quite so oily].



Their packaging is different too. It's simply wrapped in a piece of paper, and cleverly packed away in a recyclable bag. The bag also advises us to re-use it and keep it in our sock drawer, because it's had lush things in it and will make your sock drawer smell awesome.



Lush is in over 25 countries.

These pics are copyright of Lush, and have not been taken by me, I am merely using them to inform others of Lush, and I won't be using them anywhere else of course.

A Birthday

It was some painter's birthday, so Google customised their logo. Awesome, as usual.

The Queen Of Hearts, She Made Some Tarts.

Mmm, tarts. But what about this shoe? Isn't it just awesome? I'd love to own it [I know, I know, I can't walk in heels]. But still. It's absolutely beautiful.

Things I am loving at the moment ...

This chocolate mousse I made:



Lush massage bar [more on that in a later post]:


These sweet chocolates. Flavours included are Liqueured Cherry, Ravishing Raspberry, Mocha Caramel, Limoncello, Hazelnut Corbielle. Mmm. I am wanting the Lemon one:


Yep, they're from Devonport Chocolates, which I mentioned earlier:


Bath set from The Aromatherapy Company:

Gift Set Thingy

This is a little late, but YAY! The card I designed and talked about here reached my friend safely. Without it getting crumpled too, I might add.

Here's the pics!!

The card itself:


The envelope:


Sellotape would look bad, so I made these:


I had some white space in some of the card so I made these sweet labels:


And these:

Mumbai Meri Jaan

Okay, I know I'm being digressive these days [don't let that fool you; I've got heaps of cool things that I haven't been uploading due to .. er, laziness?]; but hey, I changed the secondary title thingy, so it's about everything ["the big picture"] AND Graphic Design.

So I watched Mumbai Meri Jaan the other day. Good movie, nicely shot, if a little slow sometimes. I generally cry while watching movies, but I didn't cry during this one. Then I saw the original song Mumbai Meri Jaan. Now that was something that definitely brought tears to my eyes. Originally from Mumbai, I saw just how much Mumbai ['Bombay' in those days] had changed. The roads were so clean, people-less to some extent, and people were so carefree. And then this movie, which shows how the train blasts back in 2006 had rocked Mumbai. Of course Mumbai, being Mumbai, steadied on in a day and people jumped on trains the next day [this is all from what I've heard; I was (unfortunately) not in Mumbai at the time] to go to work and college and to all those places Mumbaikars go to. All this made me realise how much I really love Mumbai, and that Mumbai is, indeed, my jaan.

This is what I thunk today. I'd love to hear your viewpoints.

Today I am thinking ....

These colours have these 'smell' associations [I think so, anyways. They're from my glitter pen collection]:

Violet: Grape
Dark Blue: Blueberry
Blue: Soap/freshly washed clothes drying on a line [mmm ...]
Dark Green: Melon
Light Green: Lime? I'm not too sure ...
Yellow: Banana
Orange: Orange. Duh!
Red: Strawberry
Brown: Chocolate [I was pleasantly surprised to find this out]
Pink: Candy Floss!
Black: Liquorice [and it honestly smelled like it too!]

So ...

Why does Silver smell of Watermelon? I really don't see the connection. Probably the makers couldn't come up with a silvery smell. Can you think of any?!

Prince Madness!

This has nothing to do with design, but ...

AAAH! Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is releasing in June! Exactly two months from now! Honestly, it's so exciting, that I am going to put a Death Eater's pic here, and not of the Golden Trio, because I want the DE's to know as well how eagerly we're expecting them!!

William Morris

So our seminar at uni was on the Pre-Raphaelites and I got to talk about William Morris. Good, too, because he was pretty much the best designer in the whole world. He could do anything; he could carve, cast, sew, print, dye, etc. He was a social campaigner, a poet, a businessman, and much more ... whew! His wallpapers such as The Strawberry Thief, Honeysuckle, etc. are popular even today, and look what I found! A shoe with The Strawberry Thief on it! I wonder where you buy it from?!

Gummi Fun

Yes, yes, I did promise some gummi pics. Well, here they are. Vegetarians, don't eat them like I did [but they were yummy. And shaped like bears, too!]! They contain pig skin. LOL.

Autumn!

Autumn's coming, my friends!



These images definitely prove that!



These sad trees [haha] are from our backyard.



Nonetheless, our grass seems to be greener and lusher [if that's even a word] than ever.



Aah, the Daisy. My favourite flower.