I was itching to do something crafty and at the same time wanted to go window shopping and also wanted to bake, so I did something in the middle.

I made flour beads!

OK...more like pendants.

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If you want to make them, it's easy.Here's the recipe which I found online, and made a few adjustments.

1) Mix 4 cups of flour with 1 cup of salt and 1 1/2 cup of water.

2) Knead together and then put in the fridge so that they are easier to form.

3) Form the dough into your preferred patterns. Poke a hole in them if you want to use as pendants or beads (I tried twisting a screw through one of them after baking, but that broke the pendant)

Also, I recommend only taking out a little dough at the time from the fridge, because the dough softens quickly in room temperature. If you want to make more complicated designs, coating the dough with flour makes it less sticky and coating it with water makes it more adhesive.

4) Put the finished designs on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius and bake for around 20 mins, or until they are hard.

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Here's how they look like after being baked. They look and smell like cookies. I was so tempted to eat them.

And here they are after being painted.
Closeup on a pair that I want to make into earrings, if I can find those sterling silver hooks. Unfortunately my ears are sensitive to the standard hooks (or else I would currently be owning a few dozen of those made-in-Korea dangly stuff).

I wrote the starting few lines of Little Red Riding Hood on this pair. Bad handwriting, I know.
Some that look nice, eventhough by accident. The grapes got that gradual shading because of uneven heat during baking. The heart is crackled because the wet paint warped the dough, so it cracked when it dried.
Mini doughnuts! These were fun to make. Made using gesso primer and gold dust.

This is news to me...

On a weathervane, North, south, east and west spells 'news' at an angle.

I'm so proud of myself !!

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OK, fine, that was pretty jakun.

BTW that texture's not finished yet.

Now these are what I call box toys!!

Incidentally you can download and build this Bumblebee model from here
This one is from Howl's Moving castle. Damn cool...the people who worked out how to build this stuff must be die-hard fans.

Looks like I won't be going to watch Gidon Kremer's performance tonight. Nevertheless I'm subconsciously counting down the time until his performance, damn MPO website for putting the countdown timer on their main page...makes me feel regretful for not going for the performance.

I kind of decided the show wouldn't be worth it with Igudesman and Joo distracting from the performance, I think it's more of their show...but Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica orchestra should have a solo show...they're here anyways. It's not that easy to find musicians of their standard performing in Malaysia you know. Perhaps the Kremer team realised that as well. Most Malaysians have a culture of 'junkfood music' so they might as well perform in the US or Europe where they certainly can get more audience and people are more willing to pay for the tickets.

Oh well...until we meet someday, goodbye, Mr. Kremer.

Nevermind...I'll keep track of the goings on at the orchestra halls in San Francisco when I go there. I'm hopeful that I can at least catch a performance by Itzhak Perlman sometime in the future.

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On a side note, my parents are surprised that I like classical music. I'm sure they think I just simply love junkfood music which is all we get on Malaysian radio.

Ah, at last i found a site where i can watch The Cell.

Now time for some sick twisted entertainment. I know a lot of people don't like this movie(people who have watched it will typically either give it a 10 or a 0, nothing in between), think it doesn't have a plot(what small brained idiot said this?) and is all about sadism, but I think differently. After all a movie that makes us sympathise with a serial killer is a rather refreshing take on the theme and not glorifying violence like what others would say. And as usual Tarsem elevates the show to an artistic level, which is the main reason why I like his works. Yes, Tarsem does get inspired by Marilyn Manson videoclips, but you gotta admit, disturbing as they are, they are actually kind of beautiful. Also, I kind of forgot that Jennifer Lopez is a surprisingly good actress.

BTW I found out that there's a sequel to this movie, but not directed by Tarsem Singh. Wonder whether it will be as good...

AAAAAAAAVuibhklnjmk;klokijhhcgvbjk;lvbhjnkl!!!!!!!
Gidon Kremer is coming to KL for a performance!! Siapa nak pergi with me?? Mari kita pergi!! The show's on Monday.

Only thing is it's too bad that he's not having another performance with only himself and the Kremerata Baltica. I know Igudesman and Joo are like famous as well, but all that humour distracts from Kremer's full potential, I would think. So should I go or not?? Dilemma...

Damn...so close but yet so far.

Anyways, here are 2 pieces performed by Kremer.





And one more from Being Gidon Kremer:

OK, here's another advertisement for my graduation batch. We are currently selling a collection of cute stack-able box toys designed by our graduating students of various majors.

Those are the designs that we are selling.(Lion dance heads, monsters, owls, Japanese warriors, Japanese girls, chibi expressions and a black and white sumo) Each toy is 8.5cm tall. We are selling them flat and you can enjoy assembling them yourselves ( but if you don't like assembling, I'll gladly do that for you, I like that kind of stuff in a weird way) Each pack consists of 3 toys of the same series, as above. Btw the black sumo next to the caption is for sale too, also in a pack of 3. Each pack is RM5. So please tell me if you want to buy any of them. As usual, proceeds from the sale will be going towards funding our graduation exhibitions (which we have to raise ourselves, all RM15,000 of it)

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Also, because our lecturer, Mr Caringman told us that the 2 most powerful words is sales are sex and free, I will be doing a bit of promotion of two delightful designers of the box toys. Pictures stolen/taken for promotional purposes from Facebook of course.

First up, Warner Wan, who is also our vice-president of the graduation committee. He designed the first batch of toys as seen in the above picture (the lion dance heads).In this picture, Warner seems to be promoting the Batch 71 logo against his shirt. Hidup semangat 71 ! Of friendly and outgoing nature, Warner is also currently single(i think).

"Lion dance head" box toy. RM5 per pack of 3.

Warner Wan is intended for illustration purposes only and is not included in pack.

Next, Tan Zi Hao, who is also our Art Director for the graduation committee. He came up with our concept of "Link" which is about keeping the arts relevant to the public. He designed the second set of box toys as seen in the first picture, which is a set of monsters. In this picture, Zi Hao is...er...eating something. Nvm. Hidup semangat 71 ! Of great intellectual and creative spirit, Zi Hao is also currently single (i think).

"Monsters" box toy. RM5 per pack of 3.

Tan Zi Hao is intended for illustration purposes only and is not included in pack.

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Well, goodnight. And let me know if you want to place an order. The students of Batch 71 greatly value your kind consideration.