Saturday 28 August 2010

Lagerhouse


Was exploring the places around my student accomodation/ uni just beginning of this week. I walked past the huge ICA (huge grocery store like Safeway and Coles) that my student host brought me to and behold, I found Knalleland! One of the stores that they have there is Lagerhouse. Once inside the shop I didn't really get out of it till at least 45 mins after. So much to see! Totally LOOOVED the prints, designs and the prices were reasonable. The Swedes seem to put much thought in their designs and they're so adorable!

I couldn't help myself but to take a few snaps from the shop whilst people weren't noticing. Really wanted to share it over here with you guys! :)


Rubber duckies for 99kr, around AUD$15. Okay these ones are steep.


Cute Aprons! Good present for mum :) If you look carefully, notice this apron is a slip-on!




Tin cans


Crochet and woven blankets


This would by far be the cutest marshmallows EVER! Look, even the marshmallows are cloud shaped!


Teeth in your drink. Yum.


Candies and chocolates! The green jelly beans on the right said "Eat your greens or else you won't have your candy"


More candies...


A Hello Kitty lolly that also spells fat. Cute to see but I wouldn't eat it.


Couldn't resist myself. I felt like I had to get this place when I saw it there. Approx AUD$6 for the plate. The red plastic one was from here too.


The pillow case that reminded me much of Sam's band, Bus Company. These are VWs and caravans, close enough to a bus haha


My AUD$3 pillow case!! That's around 20kr or SEK




Another 2 items I bought were the green/ dark blue printed cushion (shown in previous post) and an umbrella with the same prints as the VWs and caravans. 

These little prints, colours and designs make me real happy :)




Tuesday 24 August 2010

My Room In Borås

Hej San! As some of you might have known, I'm am currently in Sweden on an exchange program for about 5 months. I've just arrived 3 days ago in Borås, a small but comfortably sized town that has a history on textile design and production, after spending about 2 first nights in Stockholm. I have already got some photos posted on Facebook of Stockholm but I thought I'd make my debut entry of Sweden of my room here! 

My arms and legs must be quite toned now for literally being trained from 3 full days pulling, tugging and carrying heavy loads and walking about the town, frantically looking for shops that would have what I needed.

This is how it looks like after 2.5-3 days of full-on cleaning, washing, scrubbing and shopping for household items including bedsheets and linen.

My room door with door to the bathroom on left. Yes, I only brought 2 pairs of shoes from home

What you'd see when you open the room door. I love my red floor mat. Makes my new abode a little homier

If you wanna go on a diet by having poor appetite, that sucker of a drainer on the bottom right corner of this photo can certainly help when you turn it upside down

I always imagined mops as the big and wild hair of rockstars when I was little. I always liked taking mum's mops and swinging their 'hair' about. Swoosh!

My beautiful and bright bed!! You got no idea how these colours cheered me up whilst not having my loved ones around

"Looking out my window, I see the trees, blowing in the breeze"- Praise Him, by Ps Sam Evans
I've got a street view from my window. I rather be living in the apartment opposite haha
I found this cushion selling for 39kr or AUD$6 from Lagerhaus. I love the print, colour and how it makes me feel- happy :)


For those that are curious, here's an unintended long entry of my account of my first day in Borås.

It was the worst compared to the other subsequent 2 days. I woke up before 6am, took a train from Stockholm to Borås, changed 3 trains whilst having to carry a handbag, a 10kg camera & laptop bag and pulling 22 kg of luggage. If pulling the bag and walking about searching for my way didn't leave me panting already, I had to fight with the other commuters for space to put my bags. With a small designated luggage area crammed with bags of all sizes already, I had to resort to putting my TWENTY-TWO KG bag at the overhead compartment. That was madness. Wouldn't have been possible without the help of another girl, who laughed when I said my bag's too fat when it becamed jammed halfway after we shakily brought the load up to the compartment. I was amazed that the women were more helpful than the men I've seen. No guys offered to help in that train. 

The thought of doing this for another x5 times, up-and-down thing, was like....OMG, in the span of 3.5 hours. To make things worse, the intervals between changes were short, which meant I had to rush. I found out I had to rush even more when my first train arrived late at the station that I needed to board my 2nd train at. And guess what, I had to change platforms while carrying that stupid fat junk around, which involved taking the escalators WITHOUT even having any extra hands to grasp on the rail. Same rush happened when I arrived at my last change but now with a lift :), though a very slow one. 

Arrived in Borås FINALLY with shaky hands and wearied arms and legs from all those load carried. Walked a bit to locate my accommodation.

Got to my room. Very different from how the website showed. A little disappointed. But got over quickly and got my hands on cleaning my room. Several trips later of getting all my cleaning mates like the broom, mop, brush, detergents etc from Ica, I spent nearly the next 5 hours cleaning my 19sqm room. 

Though my bathroom constitutes to maybe 15-20% of total area, I spent the longest cleaning it. You name it, I scrubbed it. Heck, I even wiped some walls and mopped a part of the ceiling. What left me most traumatised was the shower drainer when I took it out and turn it upwards. THE GAPS OF THE DRAINER HAD ALL THESE SUPER GROSS PURPLE FILM ALL AROUND IT that I literally had to turn my head away while scrubbing it as I immersed it a shallow bucket filled with mostly detergent. Had dinner and a shower past 10pm. 

At least I knew the room is clean. I could then sleep in peace :) :) I must say I got this cleaning trait from mum. She's most pedantic bout details when cleaning. 


Enough of venting. It's time for some sleep...

A cute VW and caravan printed pillow case from the same shop I got the green printed cushion. I got an umbrella from there in the same print as well. Reminded of my friend's band, Bus Company.

...my bed is calling me!



Wednesday 11 August 2010

Dreams Can Come True


An illustration of a bird that I did since 2008 that I totally forgot about posting up till now! 

I drew this bird in a few hours one Saturday morning at the end of that year, primarily for a short screen printing course I did with CAE, which required us to get a design photocopied onto a transparency before exposure on the screen. Instead of getting an existing photo or illustration by others, thought I should draw one myself, for this blog. 

I love her :) She was first drawn with black ink fineliners and texta on paper.



Tuesday 10 August 2010

Something That I Considered Doing...

...approximately two weeks ago was: sewing my very first skirt. A fifties inspired swing/ circle skirt. Which didn't quite happen as the fabrics that I scouted around Lincraft or Spotlight weren't as fancy as I thought they would be. This was for the event that planetUNI just had. I was playing as a Martin Luther King supporter and had to be dressed in fifties attire. Instead of just buying the circle skirt I thought of making one myself, which is way cheaper than having one made by a tailor, who quoted me $200 for ONE skirt. 

Though this didn't quite happen, here are a couple of treasures I found on etsy.com, which I find quite inspiring. I'm definitely gonna give a below-the-knee circle skirt a try in the future!














Monday 2 August 2010

Diana + Holga


Lomography. A word that I've come across quite a few times on Facebook. I knew it was something related to photography but I didn't really knew what it really was. Until I checked out an old friend's blog. It was Emily Ding's. Knew her since my PLC days and just found out that her cousin and I actually go to the same church.  What a small world. Anyway! She listed some of the cameras and lenses that she takes photos with. One of them was her Holga or Lomo. What the heck's a Holga or Lomo? But with both words combined it became....... Anyway, hopped onto lomography.com.au and from then on, I knew it. You know those feeling of warmth that slowly bubbles up from the inside and a sense of euphoria soon overtakes. It was love at first sight! They're the coolest chunkiest and functional plastics I've ever, ever seen. 


Mine sure did! A range of Holgas


Here's my favourite. The cutest Holga. The colours are just so fun! 



Another one that I like. Diana. The predecessor of Holga. 

Miniature version of Diana

The photos that lomographic cameras capture are pretty rad. 

Here are some example from Google with their sources linked under them. These photos are taken from a pool of lomographic photos. Therefore they're are not confined to those that the Dianas and Holgas could produce and are certainly not mine!





Here's a mag website you could go to for more photos!