An 'Aaloo' literally means 'potato' in Urdu... but commonly used in the Air Force as a pun, it gains another meaning which does not ascribe to its vegetable nature. It infers the 'peeling of potatos'; doing a job that is not yours to do, and possibly one you will not get credit for. Mundane drudgery generally piled on top of your regular duties... like sifting through a sack of tubers, dusty, mottled, humongous, untouched. 

So sometimes, when I help out my hubby with his relatively artistic endeavours, I jokingly call it my ' aaloo' although, i mostly look forward to the challenge, because i find my creative instincts spurred on by the delegated task, and i assume it to be  non pressured practice for times when i work for clients. 

And so, I took a day to some photomanipulation using random images off the web, and we were both pretty pleased with the result...I don'nt want to put the entire project up for privacy's sake, but I really wanted to share this vintage version of the display, only coz i'm kinda proud of it:

Though he really made a face at my signature at the bottom, coz it really wa shis brainchild. 

Besides that, I'm happy that Jin Yong of Underacherrytree.com agreed to help me out by testing my first attempt at designing svg  print/cut files. So hopefully we will be seeing some reviews on that soon. But for the next few days until Monday, we're plannign a Road trip to California, taking our little boy out to Disneyland,  Universal Studios etc. Although I have to admit i am more excited about the whole trip than him and my hubby! :D

Until next time~

If you ever happen to come to Southern Arizona, you should definitely visit The Mini-Time Machine : Musseum of Miniatures.  For one reason or another, we seemed to have only ended up there last Saturday, (Yes, this entry has been sitting here unfinished for almost a week! The Horror! ) one of our last weekends here in AZ, but once inside, we immediately wished we had come here sooner with more time on our hands.

The museum features a few different collections and displays, who's level of detail and craftsmanship is hard to imagine. Take the images below for instance... A photograph doesn't do justice to the intricacy, nor is it evidence of the fact that this particular ornate room takes up less than a square foot of space.

Needless to Say, my favourite part of the whole tour was the enchanted realm, featuring Disneyland, wintertime wonderland, sleepy hollow, fairies, dragons, trolls, and critters etc, all perfectly enchanting and impressive within their own magical settings! 

I came back from it all kinds pf inspired! i felt like i could do all sorts of imagery! I had all these ideas bubbling through my head. I've been meaning to start practicing and making cut-able designs for when i eventually get my Silhouette CAMEO end of this year... and I wanted to build up a personalized image library to use until then, for which I've been seriously attempting anything i'm designing from the POV that it needs to be cut and layered on paper. Which is probably where the problem is, because i'm probably thinking too much in terms of construction that the actual design is neglected in retrospect.  But I'm still hopeful that i will ultimately get the hang of it. Hats off to all those seriously talented people on the web, who's turn to do's to done's every day!

Here's what I thought I will do. Each weekend, until October, I will put up a package of things I've designed up on the site. These will constitute of 1 freebie, which will be available for download to anyone who drops by on the blog, and 1 giveaway, a singular or set of digital graphics which maybe both clipart or svgs, whatever tickled my fancy over the week. More details tomorrow when we visit the Orient!

As always, leave a comment if you're reading this!

I know, i know. You must be thinking... this is yet another ambitious pursuit that Embee Arqam has taken at blogging... and one like the many prior ones, she is NOT going to follow through....
What can I say? You have every right to think that given my previous blog history... but you know what, I have a good feeling about this one!  So while I'm not going to mark a goal here... I'm just going to leave the impending sense of one! 
I really think, one good deed deserves another came into play here. I'm usually the kind with big ideas and little action ultimately. And I'm also usually too preoccupied in my own personal whims to actually ever do much philanthropy, etc. So when i volunteered at "Unearth the Gems!" I must've been doing something right, coz it led me to Weebly, and now, half a day later, i have this site up and running! And I have to say for a fact that i like this layout and colour scheme much better than anything i've thrown together previously!  Check it out... They have tools to help, n00bs like me who have no clue about html, flash etc. And then they have capacity for non n00bies too! Now you can make a page fr just about everything and anything!
Go like their FB page!  Coz I said so!

I've always been fascinated by the world of blogging... i guess there is something very self flattering about having something that you do, that you can share, and that people appreciate. Its also a link to other people who have the same likes and interests as you.. which is sometimes hard to find offline at times.

My previous attempts at  craft related blogging can be found here and another travel journal here.