.: recipe, illustrated :.

So happy when I found this site through Creature Comforts. You can search the recipe by ingredients, meal type (and if you're like me who only care about how pretty things look: by illustration style) and you can submit your own. Here are a few of my favorites:

by Wilma Sanchez 

by Sara Zampedri

 by Fabiana Attanasio

.: Gift Guide #3 :.

1. Olivia Headboard Decal from Blik

2. Pretty pillow by Sukan Art

3. Batik Tea Towel by Tulisan

4. Laser Wall Clock by decoylab

5. Red Riding Hood tea set

6. Heart cup & saucer set

.: Gift Guide #2 :.

I want to give these to myself, really. Not that I'm claiming that I'm an artsy gal, but with these I can pretend to be one.

1. Spotted Clutch from Anthropologie

2. Orla Kiely Scarf from Pop Deluxe

3. Work/Life from Uppercase

4. Dottie Angel from Uppercase

5. Leather Satchel from Cambridge Satchel Co.

6. Chains watch from La Mer Collections

7. Mini purse necklace from Kiko's Attic

8. La Sardina camera

9. iPad Sleeve by Clara Uribe (store temporarily closed)

10. Brooch by Yoshie Watanabe and Yayako Uchida

.: Gift Guide #1 :.

While the argument goes on about the true meaning of Christmas, bloggers around the world stand corrected: Christmas is for shopping and gifting. Almost every blogs that I haunt published their own version of holiday gift guides. (All of them makes me want to shop, naturally). My favorite is still Ez' Gifted Magazine. It's free, full of pretty goodies and you get printable gift tags. I'm trying to compress the gift guides into my own fave selection of goodies that I may want to get for myself (ha!). Today I have the girly girl gift guide:

1. Handmade bangle by Sara Kim

2. Lace & bow by Juicy Couture

3. Knitted lace scarf from Shop Ruche

4. Glittery bow flats from Elle Shop

5. Tokyo Milk soap from Anthropologie

6. Cabuchon Resin necklace from Nest Pretty Things

.: beautifully shot video :.

this is just amazingly meticulous!!

.: afternoon snack :.

.: Sing Off Wednesdays :.

Sing Off has replaced Glee from my watch-list. It's just so much more realistic and fun to watch the arrangements. I think Pentatonix did a great job last week. What a fun performance!

.: persistent summer :.

Aargh, summer has returned. Why?! It's October dammit. I really despise summer; the one season I never look forward to. And our bedroom seems to absorb all the heat it can get; no air circulation whatsoever! I hope summer ends soon and never to return again. Ever. Good thing I got this from Dogster's newsletter: a blog about one traveling shih tzu named Raja. What an appropriate name for a shih tzu! He's super cute and has seen so much of the world. Read more about Raja here.

.: Rain, rain don't go away... :.

It rained almost all day yesterday and I was ecstatic. Finally summer is over, and with it goes all my woes (sorry). Finally I can sleep throughout the night without having to wake up every couple of hours drenched in sweat. I went out to my porch and took a deep breath of fresh, cold air. Don't you love the smell of wet ground mixed with cool breeze? I love Fall. Time to make warm milk tea and wear my boots again. Hope it rains again very soon (today, perhaps?) and hope the weatherman is very wrong; it WILL not be 90º next week.

.: The Great Missoni Race :.

I've never owned a Missoni before; aside from their products are ridiculously expensive I also don't think I can pull off wearing colorful chevron pattern all over my shapeless body. There's a possibility that some lines may look über-stretched in several areas and I don't want to risk it. Then Target announced a collaboration project with Missoni. Suddenly I'm crazy about zigzags. Since my sister-in-law and her mother are big fans we decided to go on Missoni hunts, or shall I say Missoni race. It did feel like a crazy race. I woke up at 4AM on Sept 13, went on target.com only to find that the site was down. We went to the store at 8AM and the Pasadena location was practically raid. In another location, women ran from parking lot to the store, knock each other over a pair of shoes. Hoarding of zigzag stuff everywhere. There were some women who form a coalition and only trade stuff between themselves. A woman left her son with a complete stranger while she was trying a cart of clothes, and ended up buying clothes that are 3 sizes too big. We haunt fitting rooms and customer service, digging on stuff that people returned. I went to Target in cities I've never heard before. It was madness. I wasn't planning to get a lot of stuff but in the spirit of the day ended up with tons of Missoni goods. My Missoni fever went on for a couple of days, but thankfully I'm quite recovered now. I'm returning most of the clothes (or eBay...) and will only keep the home goods.

.: the bakezilla returns :.

I was feeling rather under the weather after we went to Disneyland last week. Can you believe it? I need a week to recover from a one day trip to Disneyland!! What a total grandma. (I think even my grandma was a lot stronger than me) My back ache, my feet sore, and I couldn't get up because all my bones hurt. As I was lying down on the couch while waiting for the pain killer to kick in, I turned the TV on to Giada's Sweet Treat episode. She was making scones for her husband and the inner bakezilla in me thought 'I can totally do that!'. So I did. And they turned out so yummy I can't stop eating them. 

Testing my new measuring spoon

I got it right this time! Super cold butter and heavy cream are the keys!

et voila: strawberry & rosemary scones. yum!

.: Wedding Shtuff! :.

Our wedding video highlight & photos are ready! So happy to be able to see the day from a different perspective. Nick & Wilson from LT3 Productions are amazingly talented, we're so glad we chose them.

.: button cookies :.

I found this posting through my endless blogventure, fell in love with the illustrated recipe and declared that one day I will make them.
An opportunity presented itself: after a super failed attempt to bake strawberry macarons.

{macaron-wannabe turned into almond-flavored cookies} 

I have too much egg yolks waiting to be turned into something edible. And I refuse to make another egg foo young.

Somehow an image of the gorgeous button cookies appeared in my head. I switched the shortbread recipe into Emeril's butter cookies. I don't have food coloring so the cookies stay natural-looking. They tasted pretty good and they're just as cute as buttons (ahaha... sorry, can't help it) Wish I have food coloring so they look prettier.

.: vegas gluttony trip :.

I'm not a gambler at all, so when I go to Vegas I spend my money on the real deals: food, lots of them. On this trip we went home with so many sugary treats and very bloated tummies from the buffet. I also tried Payard's macarons because I failed his recipe. Want to see if he really know what he's talking about. Heh. I was disappointed because the packaging was so lame. For $8 surely they can come up with a nicer box? The macarons came pre-packaged in a thin plastic bag and taped with the label. That's it. I prefer Paulette's macarons because theirs are less sweet, but that's probably just my personal preference. Plus their box is nice. We also went to Wicked Spoon. The food was okay, but the dessert section was to die for. We probably tried 8 flavors of ice cream there and I ate almost all of their pretty desserts.

Yummy macarons.

Assorted dessert from Wicked Spoon

Payard's macarons.

Payard's meringue. Love the mint.

Dunkin Donuts

Bouchon's Croissant

.: singsong :.

Back to my Youtube Wednesday. I do want to be sent away with words of a love song and I'll be wearing white. Hope someone remember me liking this song when I die old.

.: relentless baker :.

The barely edible scones didn't squash my baking spirit (well it did for a few hours...). If anything, I wanted to tackle a slightly more complicated baking project: macarons. A bit ambitious for someone who can't bake without disaster, but what the hell. Never know until you try it, right? This time I made sure I have all ingredients are available. I got the recipe from David Leibovitz' website because he already tried several baking techniques and this one was the no-fail-guaranteed-it-will-look-like-macaron-so-help-me-God recipe. I did switch the cocoa powder with Starbucks' mocha powder. (caffeine+sugar! woohoo!) At first everything fell according to plan...

Then I bang my head on the cabinet door and drop my egg yolks into the bowl of egg whites that I separated earlier. What a coincidence that the egg whites bowl was just right there?! So I redid the egg whites and that was why we ate egg foo young for dinner that night. :p

I used double layers of parchment paper because some people commented that their macarons stick to the parchment paper and cracked when they tried to remove it. My piping job was inconsistent so the sizes sort of varied. After a few minutes in the oven I was so pleased to see the 'little feet'. However this was done closer to 10-12 minutes as opposed to 15-18 minutes as mentioned in the recipe. I tried leaving one batch for 18 minutes and they cracked.

I use the chocolate ganache filling using Ghirardelli's bittersweet 70% chocolate bar, but maybe next time I'll use the 100% cacao unsweetened because it balances out the sweetness of the macarons (5 cups of sugar is too sweet for my taste)

And voila! The rugged, natural-looking macarons.

.: clueless housewife chronicle :.

I'm trying to see if being a homemaker is my calling, since the graphic-designer thing didn't seem to work out lately. So far it's been quite interesting; try to take care of cactus, cactus dying, replace dying cactus with new ones to calm my conscience, trying new recipes, meal planning, change meal plans because I suddenly lost my appetite for a particular meal... You know, the usual wifey-duty. I originally thought that cooking and baking will not be super hard. I am a woman after all, supposedly it's in my genes and whatnot, right? Wrong! Cooking I'm quite okay with, but baking requires patience, organization and precision; all of which I don't have if you know me quite well.

So it all started on a bright, sunny day. All is calm, so I decided to bake scones out of the blue. I have flour, sugar, eggs, salt and milk. Yup, scones coming right up! I was confidently whipping the dough, quite happy because it smells yummy.

While comparing my dough with the picture on the recipe book, I realized my dough is too soft. I transferred it to a floured surface anyways and it became this piece of disaster:

What makes sense in my head is to add more flour. Then I realized I used up all the flour. Then I begged my beloved husband, who didn't ask for scones in the first place, to get flour. My husband, the flour-bearing hero saved the day!

After I got almost-unlimited flour, I went nuts. I put flour everywhere. When it started to resemble the picture on the recipe book, I was so relieved. And after 15 minutes there were scones to be had:

Not the best scones I've ever had, but it smells like them. Good enough for now.

.: introduction to domestic life :.

(the happy, healthy cactus the day we brought it home)

So I'm not built for domestic life. My baking skill is lacking (a blog post will follow); I prefer Swiffer for cleaning as oppose to manual, down-on-four-knees sweeping (and the dust return in the morning, wth?); and I can't even take care of a freaking mini cactus. It sorta died on me in less than TWO weeks!! A cactus!
That's one thing to add to my series of failures this year. Maybe I'm one of those people who just can't do anything right, so that someone (aka husband) can step in and become a hero. Right?

.: instagram :.

The very important reason i bought ipad is because i love instagram. I have very serious iphone envy everytime my friends posted their instagram photos. I absolutely love my ipad, although there are times I sort of wished I bought the 3G instead :p My academic career has been ignored for quite sometimes, but now that I got ipad it's been completely abandoned :p
So many games to play, books to read... If only I can do my homework on ipad...

.: I am ... :.

.: i hate school :.

I really do. I'd rather browse youtube.

.: pin it! :.

I thought I'm already in big trouble when I can't stop playing facebook games, then after I reduce my game time, I found pinterest. I can't stop browsing other people's boards, browse for inspiration to pin on my own boards, and admiring my virtual mood boards. I can pin almost anything on the boards, make it a lot easier than collecting images on tumblr. It's addictive! Any of you pinning? Can I follow you around? :p

.: OWLY! :.

 image belongs to Andy Runton

My favorite book character is now animated! Visit Sprite Animation here. He's just as cute in 3D as he is in 2D. And so flufffyyy!

.: wise words :.

Found this through Unstitched blog (another amazing find!)

Excellent advice from John C Jay of Wieden+Kennedy:

1: Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.  2: Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.  3: Get off the computer and connect with real people and culture. Life is visceral.  4: Constantly improve your craft. Make things with your hands. Innovation in thinking is not enough.  5: Travel as much as you can. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to learn just how much you don’t know.  6: Being original is still king, especially in this tech-driven, group-grope world.  7: Try not to work for stupid people or you’ll soon become one of them. 8: Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.  9: The Golden Rule actually works. Do good.  10: If all else fails, No. 2 is the greatest competitive advantage of any career.
via Edwin Himself

.: confession :.

6AM in San Francisco

I want all these to stop; thesis and portfolio and the likes.
I want to like graphic design again. I don't want to be a typezilla.
I like hand-written fonts. So sue me.
I still hate Comic Sans and Papyrus. And Brush Script. And those curly fonts they use in boutiques.
I want to sleep less than 7hrs again and still feel the world is okay.
For one day, I just want to create meaningless design–graphic design for design sake. Pure aesthetic, with no purpose at all. No smart concept behind it. Just something nice to look at.
Screw grids and gutters.
Just give me the freakin diploma already.

.: on blog hunt :.

These two Californian gals got me on a non-stop blog reading. Both of them have share my love for vintage goodies and homemade crafts. Katrina from Pugly Pixel lives in San Francisco, and it's very surreal to see SF from a different set of eyes. She went to places that I've been, too (Starbucks @ West Portal) but to see her photographs it looks like a fancy coffee shop in Europe. Danni from Oh Hello Friend is so crafty, and her wedding is amazing. I wish someone can make me the photo wall her father made :)

.: feeling lyrical :.

.: a trip to remember :.

It's been a while since I went on an all-girls trip. I usually shy away from such trips because I fear the drama that usually pop-up between some self-proclaimed divas and there's also the bathroom-sharing dilemma. So when my roomie/maid of honor planned this Vegas trip for 6, I got nervous. However from what I've known, the other 5 are sensible grown-ups who aren't known to create live soap operas. And my roomie found an affordable room with 2.5 bathroom so we should be spared from the bathroom drama. I thought to myself, so far so good. My roomie and my other friend planned everything from spa, dinner, etc beforehand so I felt relaxed & sure that this will be a smooth trip. That was before we missed our flight and my roomie lost her ID along the way. It was president's day weekend so all flights were fully booked. The only way we can go to Vegas was to hop on a much later flight that had one stop in Phoenix. The fun started immediately after we arrived in Vegas 6 hrs after our original plan. We all had amazing experiences at the spa. Then much later I was willingly violated by a hot Colombian by the name of Carla and her Czech friend whose name slipped my mind right now. We drank, ate in bed, share ghost stories and laughed carelessly. We begin with minor drama but left in such a high spirit. It was a perfectly girlie trip; we had lots of fun and we left Vegas feeling much closer to everyone. Now I have to recover from cough and return to my thesis, both are not fun. :p

.: rain :.

warm milk tea. good to the last drop.

As if I haven't said this enough, I love the sounds of rain. The smell of fresh ground. And to be indoor under my blanket with a warm cup of milk tea within a walking distance :)  It has been raining for two straight days and I love it.

.: lucky girl :.

I'm loved.

Happy Valentine's Day

.: an anthro wedding :.

Oh dear, oh dear! If only I haven't got my dress I would totally go with any of this wedding gown from Anthro! They will complete my dream Anthro wedding! (Images from A Million Little Pieces)

.: a house is not a home :.

As my sleeping pattern is still irregular, sometimes I took an hour (or two) nap in the afternoon. It's like a sneak preview to my later years, perhaps? Because since I hit 30 I desperately need that 8hrs sleep. I can't stay awake as long as I used to do when I was, say, 29. Weird huh? Anyway, in one of those naps I dreamt of my childhood home and how happy we all were. My home was a cozy, warm, welcoming kind of home. In the afternoon we opened the double door to let the cool breeze in. We had a small koi pond and a big mango tree along with smaller plants and flower bushes. It was a decent sized house, with decent sized bedrooms. I loved it so much although it looks super dated (1950s). I loved my bedroom and my 31 yrs old soft bed. I woke up feeling so very sad that we don't have that house anymore. My parents want a nicer, bigger and more modern house, a decision that I did not approve even until this day. I know the old house is falling apart, literally. The bricks were moldy and the wooden stairs gave up a while ago. But it is repairable. Now I even refuse to call it 'my' house because I feel like I don't belong there. The new house is modern, luxurious looking and a tad pretentious, I think. With its marble floor that drives people crazy whenever there's spillage, and how Chester always slipped when he run around the house. We need air conditioner all the time now because the house gets super hot & suffocating during the day. My mom built the rooms to resemble hotel rooms with its amenities: private bathroom, a tv in each room. It's just missing a maid services because I made my own bed and clean the room+bathroom myself (unlike other Indonesians with their army of maids, we do things ourselves) It feels exactly like that; a temporary room. Cold, uncomfortable, and impersonal. I tried to put most of what I had in my old bedroom to recreate the feeling but I failed. I really miss my home, and I can never get it back. I guess it is a part of growing up. Now all I can do is move on.