We have newly launched the 1″ pin button in our store. They illustrations are based on our saplanet’s doll designs. Pin buttons are very versatile, you can pin them anywhere, anyway, and anyhow you like. Believe me, this adds instant cuteness to wherever you choose to pin them on.

Every character in saplanet, has a role to play, and an unique personality that tags with them, they have grown to be very dear to me. I am someone who dreams too much, and in my simple planet, it’s a world of unbelievable fantasies evolving around me. In this small planet, they come to life and are my best companions. (^_^)

Also, a reminder of the no shipping period in our store(s). It actually applies across all the stores we are selling, if I, the ‘planet’ keeper is away, who else is going to pack the orders, make the cuties, and have them shipped?

I ordered this stamp from merrygolucky. I am absolutely pleased with the product and her excellent customer service!

I am definitely back for more whenever I need another stamp. Stamping is just too fun, oh well, it could be that little child in me that misses the fun stamping.

It’s been an unbelievable year in 2008. Despite the global gloom that affected and still affecting most of us in 2008, saplanet had a fun year, because of you. Thank you!

Looking back on the events that took place in 2008, we had taken on quite a mega roller coaster ride too. 

+ our ebay store was closed down by ebay due to their unjustified mistakes
+ we opened our very own proper webstore built on zencart system
+ we had to deal with unethical webmasters, and buyers who posted our patterns on the internet, for the first time, we had to file in a report for copyright infringement. We had dealt with China websites, microsoft website, and a bunch of foreign forums, that was quite a bit to deal with in a year, wasn’t it?
+  we received more compliments and invitations to be featured in respective publications, blogs, and website (thank you so much!)
+ we had so much fun with the brides whom we worked with for their wedding orders
+ my parents are officially retired

I am sure there are more to add to the list, all the goodness took off a large portion of the heavy greys that surrounded all of us, I am truly thankful.  

In the year ahead, I hope to fine tune my personal mindset towards people. I could use more forgiving and letting go techniques so that I can continue to enjoy my work.

The contradiction in crafting business, is that crafting is mainly handmade, that means that there is a real blood and flesh person behind the product that the you buy, not a giant corporation. Personally, that is kind of personal to me. On the other hand, in any transaction, it’s really just business. Unlike the standard businesses, indie sellers have the opportunity to develop an informal personal connection with the buyers.

I believe that it is alright for buyers to want to interact more with a particular seller, because they truly appreciate the works and efforts. It is alright to communicate ideas, it is alright to suggest. It is alright to attempt a negotiation for bulk discount.

It is however not alright to order and not pay. It is not alright to not respond to seller’s reminders, emails pertaining to the order. It is not alright be rude. 

The latter, is what I need to let go. I have to stop trying to understand the poor behaviors of non-paying buyers. I kept asking myself, what is so difficult for the buyer to contact us to tell us that she changed her mind about the order, and that she would like to cancel that order, since no items were shipped or made yet. Quickly, I found myself trapped in a circling path of thoughts and left me frustrated. I tried to make sense out of someone’s fear, but maybe it’s just a personal issue of fears, maybe it’s just a deficit quality in a person to communicate effectively about her problem. Sadly, 90% of such bad customers are my fellow Singaporeans, that added to the frustration, really, because for a moment, knowing that I share the same nationality with these people, made me feel ashamed and disgusted of being one. 

Then again, I think, it’s ok to not always understand the rationale of poor behaviors, it’s ok to just let it go. 

Life is such that it works wonders to make things right in one way or another, eh? My best and worst buyer comes from the same place…hahaha. 

This has not changed my way of doing business. I just need to separate things a bit. We all have this similar problem, don’t we? The one key thing we so love about our work, might just be the same one thing that we hate about our work. hahaha. It’s the friendly and informal amazing seller-buyer relationship that makes this crafting business purposeful; it’s also this same relationship that is often being taken granted for that makes this business crappy at times. 

Most of my buyers understand that we are just a small tiny business, this is not just a past time hobby for us, this is what pays my bills, and support my retired parents. Most of my buyers are really wonderful, some simple lines of encouragement, and appreciate had helped me move on more steadily. 

Overall in 2008, through saplanet, I made some really good friends (both buyers and sellers) and they are like precious gems; and lose some bad apples. Hopefully 2009 is a nicer year.

Oh well, I guess we just really need to strike a balance in matters, and we will all be good. 

Have a really wonderful year ahead!!! Thank you all, once again, it’s been my pleasure!

You already know that I am obsessed with drawing lately. I really think I am making some small progress since the first sketch I did. I learn new tricks each time, and it is very satisfying. 

I spent 3 days on this drawing, it’s quite a bit of work, or let’s say I am still learning. Unlike the dolls, life sketch has too much details, and I want to included as much as I could. 

I decide to make this into a magnet. Considering the high consumption of time to produce just one sketch, I may not offer this service, and I think the pro can do a much better job than I. I have received countless requests for caricature illustrations, and personally I still love PJ’s works to bits, too much cuteness to resist. I am doing this up so that the couples can visualize how it may look like to have their life sketches made into magnets. 

This wedding magnet set tells a story about Mike and I. I chose to use the image of a bus-stop as our backdrop, because our relationship began at a bus-stop, although neither of us could remember which bus-stop or the day we were trapped at the bus-stop, but it’s the magical bus-stop that sealed our fates together. (^_^)

I would imagine the fun to tell everyone who receives the favor (oh no, we are not re-doing the wedding, I wouldn’t change a thing about our wedding, it was perfect) the story of this composition. We had our wedding magnet for our wedding too, and it was nothing but fun when we were dragged aside by guests about the magnet images. 

It’s interest to imagine that the story embedded into these magnets would be told by guests to their friends. It may not mean a thing to them, but they are provided with a personal love story of the couple, isn’t that nice? When asked by friends, they now have an option to tell the love story behind the favor, rather than a standard ‘Oh, this is the favor I received from a friend’s wedding’.

I’ll be traveling on the following dates:
+ Confirmed schedule: 25 Jan to 06 Feb 2009
+ Tentative plan: 10 Mar to 20 Mar 2009

March plan is tentative at this point, but I am very likely to be away for at least 5 days to 10 days in March.

All my online shops will still be kept open, but shipping out of physical orders will only be possible after I return. I will have access to internet connection, from the places I am traveling to (that is what it says in the hotel website), so patterns can still be purchased through the shops. I would really appreciate a little more patience for the e-pattern delivery while I am traveling. it may take slightly longer to send out the pattern since I am unlikely to be online all the time. (I’d better be!!)

Do send in your inquiries for wedding favors early, if your big day falls on those days that I am going away. Design work and correspondences take time, so do drop us a mail early.

 If I can manage, I will see if I can come up with something for Valentine’s day theme, I have never done anything for V-day, since I always travel during that period, or near that period.

Maybe I really should be spending the time drawing to design new amigurumi patterns, but I really want to put that on hold for a bit until the new year begins. 

Meanwhile, I have a new banner up in my etsy shop and dawanda shop. I am also using this same banner for this craftblog. I merely made some small changes to the arrangement of the little ones. 

Year 2008 has been a year of purchase for me. I have to say that the best buys would be the laser printer, and the wacom tablet. It’s really a lot easier to work on the vector with the tablet, I could get really frustrated with using the mouse to catch the anchor, or working with the smooth tool, with the tablet, it’s been a breeze…. 

This banner is more colorful, and let’s hope that Year 2009 would be a brighter and more vibrant year.

Sure, I really can’t get enough of this. I am not going to hide the narcissistic quality in me too..hah!

I used to have to spend 3 hours every week to do water color paining, sketches etc. It was very pressurizing when you were the only girl in the class and the teacher just glued his feet on the floor just behind your seat. He was literally breathing down my neck, while I merely breathe in sheer stress. 

It kind of hindered my judgement and decision making, because when I was aware that the eyes were affixed to every move I took, I was awaiting for affirmation. Then again, life wasn’t that easy, if I were to hesitate for long, or to wait for the teacher to acknowledge my next step, he would say with a husky yet loud voice, ‘What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for me to spoon-feed you? Make your own decision, I cannot be guiding your every step, can I?’ (something like that, he was a really strict teacher)

We had to prepare our own water color palette, brushes, water, and other tools. Back then, the one thing that I thought about most was the expenses. We were asked to use premium brushes, and the full set cost a bomb; water color paper wasn’t cheap too; so are all other arts tools. I felt really bad to have to keep asking mum for money to buy arts materials, we weren’t rich, so I knew it must have been tough for my parents. I didn’t buy the whole set of brushes though, I only got the essential sizes, really it wasn’t affordable to me at that time. 

Mum didn’t understand why I was required to buy expensive brushes, unfortunately that wasn’t a choice, it was a ‘requirement’. Anyway, I showed her the difference between a good brush and a normal brush. She didn’t object to buying them, she just felt it was very expensive. 

I kept my tools for many years until I was moving house. 

Now, I draw for leisure and fun, I am not a professional. Drawing is equally therapeutic as crochet, it’s the process of beginning something from the scratch, to the end of the finished result. For many of us, art course is a luxury that we can only afford, perhaps in our dreams, so we do it for fun, hiding under the shadow of the professionals. For some of us, we are only trying to fulfill this small desire inside us.

I bet everyone is now excited about Christmas, and I didn’t even know it is already the Christmas eve until I heard the Radio DJ wished the listeners a Happy Christmas Eve!

I have been working my fingers crazy with crochet works for months, now that almost everyone is rushing out to get their last minute shopping, or excitedly whipping up the Xmas feasts, or getting to party the night out, I am here enjoying the cool weather, and still meddling with the tablet. 

I am still trying to work around with various softwares, to achieve a more desirable result of the artwork. I think I like drawing with Corel, and prefer to paint with Photoshop. 

These are created by toggling between Corel Paint and Photoshop. The more graining background of the angel of balance (2nd image) is done using the watercolor from Corel Paint. The cat is sketched out using Corel Paint, and colored fully with Photoshop.

Sarah made this pair of wedding couple for her neighbor (lucky neighbor!), she used a net fabric to sew in for the veil instead. Don’t they just look so happy?

This is the dragon that Sarah made. She chose to use cat’s eyes instead of the clear craft eyes. 

Thank you Sarah, for sharing!

I have my eyes on the Wacom Intuos3 tablet for the longest time, and during one IT show, Mike helped to check out the prices and all, and we went to get it the following day.

I hadn’t had the time to play with it, until now. As the Christmas rush winds down, I am getting more of my well deserved Lis’ time and can go ahead and play with my new toy.

I am only beginning to get a hang of the tablet and pen flow, but as you may see, I am still not that good, but I will continue to play with it.

This is a sketch of what my room looks like, day.. and night. On the extreme right, would be crazy crafter - Lis; in the middle is professional newpets gamer - mum; on the extreme left would be the serious warcraft gamer - Mike. 

There is actually a small fan in between my mum and I, but since this is the first serious sketch I did, I took that out. Mike’s hair is a little overgrown now, so it’s kind of long, his desk is now packed with lots of documents = mere mess! (I left that details out too). The bookshelf in between Mike and mum is covered with my crocheted piece which adds some colors to the room, most importantly, this is an open bookshelf, so the books get quite a bit of dust, so this helps to minimize the dust sitting in onto the books. 

When I am done with my share of fun with my new toy, I will take some quieter time to ponder through what have been done this year, as 2009 moves in.