Lord of the Rings Fan Art

It's funny that when drawing in pen and ink, I felt like drawing them in cartoon style which automatically make the character's eyes much bigger than normal... It's not a good practice but just cannot help it... Pen and ink style with lots of lines is always my favorite style. I usually will spend lots of time drawing people's hair, mustache, tree trunks or anything with lots of texture... Lord of the rings series inspired me a lot in fantasy drawing. The characters and backgrounds, costumes they wore and weapons they carried were all wonderful study materials in fantasy art. Thanks to the marvelous novel and wonderful movies that make our imaginary world comes true... =)

Fun ACEO

Just discovered the fun of ACEO - the original art card creation. The tiny size (only 2.5"x3.5") art card creation is really interesting~ What interests me the most is: I don't have to use my big easel to paint them! Just my ordinary one foot desk is more than adequate... Ha! I feel like creating hand-painted Pokemon cards or something... But it's great practice for my illustration career... Cheers!
ps: Great for mailing too!!! Save lots of money...

Pingu candy land...

Yesterday when me and my husband took my boy to Bloorview kids rehab for semi-annual check up, we saw this funny balloon creatures scene on the side road while we are coming back home. It's really cute. My boy love the Pingus the best and the snow globe too. Too bad that the traffic was so bad on bayview ave at the rush hour that we cannot stop by and have a closer look... It was just around Bayview Avenue and Lawrence in Toronto. North of Sunnybrook hospital (where Bloorview Kids Rehab is). Such a Christmas cheers! Ya... today's last day of my kids' school... We will back on track when New Year comes! For now, we are going to EAT, SLEEP and PLAY! Merry Christmas! and Happy New Year!

Snow Snow Snow

It's another snowy storm day... on my birthday! Hahaha! I'm the snow child. Every birthday is a snowy day! I'd received my Mario Cart Wii game from Amazon.ca today which we placed the order 2 days ago. We'd tried to find this game at bestbuy and walmart but all sold out! Amazon is really good. Shipping is super fast even in this crazy shopping Christmas holiday! Anyway, my holiday for this winter break will be playing lots of Wii games and do Wii exercises!!! We also got the Wii my personal fitness couch and Wii Gold's Gym Cardio~~~ Burn the extra Body Oil!!! HAha! So Happy!

Last day from Retail

Today we got the first snow storm warning. Everything is frozen outside. The wind is blowing like crazy but I'm enjoying my day playing with my kids at home. It's almost Christmas, but my son just got a fever yesterday. I was suppose to work yesterday, but I had to call in sick (not me, but because my boy is sick). And Today I got a call from the store saying that my work schedule for tomorrow has been cancelled. My reaction from receiving this call was very happy! XD No kidding! Most people must have felt frustration because of work schedule being cancelled. However, I'd gave them my resignation since 2 weeks before, I'm much happier to leave the crazy retail store and leave the torture chamber due to crazy holiday hours. I'd been in retail business since my daughter was born (back in 11 years ago); and I'm totally DONE with it. Hope this will teach me a lesson that don't let me go back to my old road.
Got some free time to spend with my kiddos and hopefully I can catch up with some paintings that I'd always wanted to do but no time before~~~ Lots of time now! I mean we cannot always have the world. You lose some and you gain some~ Cheers! and Chills... (Cold Winter...)

First Day at the New Store~

I think I'd been self-employed for too long that I'd forgotten how stressful to work for someone else... Anyway, as long as it pays the bills at the bottom line... First day at new place, I felt like it's Valentine's day or Mother's day for me. Customers lining up in front of me all needs to ask/pay something. Sometimes I asked myself that if I look more friendlier than other workers that why they all want to ask me but not others... >O< I even cut my finger by accident with the broken glass from the popped frame that I was going to put back to shelf. Luckily it was not major and other staff help me to clean up quickly and first aided me with something. Hope that today I made all the mistakes and next time I won't make them all..... hopefully... let's cross our finger. Why do I switch from self-employed florist to other people's employee? I guess the main concern is I don't have to worry about the business after the hours are done. I can be with my kids and family and not to kill my brain cells off with all the other stuffs I have to deal with related to business. Just work and get paid. easy and simple... hahaha for now... maybe I'll change my mind again; but at lease let me try this one first and see how long I can stand it for.

Need Time Off...

Sometimes you will feel that you are so tired of everything... Tired of work, tired of your lifestyle, tired of the things happening around us, tired of the same O same O... No motivation of doing anything... I really think that we all need some time off to do things we like to do... But when is my turn to have time off for myself? Good question... While we are making other people happy from what we do, who is going to make us happy? Hope my tiredness will go away somehow; otherwise, it's not healthy... *cranky mood*

In picture<-- a handtie bouquet for graduation that was requested to make it look like a bridal/presentation bouquet. Flowers include 1 doz red roses with baby's breath and some lily grasses.

Time is limited... Just be Happy~

有了小孩(s)生活起了很大的變化，我都覺得自己與世隔絕‧成天不是工作就是帶小孩，自己也沒私人時間去做其它事。朋友只能電郵，覺得少了聯絡太久就快失去聯絡‧大概也是跟自己不積極的性格有關…現實太多不成文的因素造就了許多無法實現夢想的理由，有時覺得身不由己啊…不過自己要學著在有限的環境中，創造自己的快樂

Create your own happiness in your limited environment~

Wedding and Prom Season is Here~

May, June are the 2 months that are mostly busy with Prom, Wedding rush... Right after Mother's day, most florists will get lots of orders for the high school proms for Thursday and Friday; and then wedding on the weekend. Sometimes there are multiple schools having the prom on the same week. Many times that we have to premake the pre-ordered corsages & boutonnieres 2 nights before juts to finish all the orders. The volume is good for business during the economic down time but it gave us lots of green and cracking fingers just to wire all these flowers. Each corsage take about 10-30 minutes depending on how many flowers to wire and how difficult to wire the flowers. Out of all flowers, I love to wire roses or carnations since they are the quickest to get done... Besides the proms, there comes the wedding flowers. Same with lots corsages and boutonnieres making. Other than that, it will have bouquets, centerpieces and the alter arrangements/head table pieces/cake deco arrangement. Sometimes we will have multiple wedding over the same weekend. But most of them are bouquets and flowers to wear. Recent years I found that people tend to decorate the table or the hall themselves with whatever they can found cheaper in price. Sometimes the decoration don't need to involve with flowers. Often time, people can get fabric from Fabricland or some fabric wholesale to decorate the hall with. You usually can get a great deal on Lights right after Christmas. People uses lanterns, crystals, marbles or rose petals to decorate. As long as you can find some friend and family to help and plan them all out, it usually not hard at all. Rushing usually causes a lot of dramas... In order to avoid these dramas, we always stick a big note at the store window to tell the kids when is the prom order deadline; otherwise we will never finish all the orders till morning... And still the kids will come at the last minutes just an hour before they get on the limos and ask if we still make corsages or boutonnieres...

Thanks Mom!!!

Seems before and after Mother's day there was a big gap of period that I don't even have time to touch my computer... Lot's of emails to respond, and lots of junk mails to delete. Updating whatever has to be updated... Lack of motivation to doing anything else but sleep... Oh well, it's just a typical symptom of laziness/recovery right after Mother's day rush. Right before Mother's day Sunday, there was a big prom going happening on Thursday... Good 40-50 pcs of corsages and boutonnieres orders to make right before all the holiday rush... I haven't seen or said hello and kiss my daughter and son during Mother's day weekend. Me and my husband went out to store to get ready for the preparation at 7am and didn't come back home till later of the night around midnight. As a florist after all the years, I really missed all the big holidays. We did work a lot to satisfy other people and customers during the big holidays, but we missed our own quality time with our family a lot. Thanks to my mom (and dad) that they are very helpful to take care of our kids while we are busy~~~ Thanks Mom!!! We love you~~~

Getting Moody...

Recently It was not smooth for me. After watching the movie "The Secret Life of Bees", it made me moody even more... (But I was surprised that the screaming little girl from "Wars of the World" had changed a lot since then. She did quite good as Lily in the Bees movie..." )

A lot of things didn't go the way it should be.

Life is always up and down as a cycle. Just like the orchid plants I brought home from store last year since we didn't had a chance to sell them out and the flowers were gone for a while. Now they are all start to bloom. After almost 4 months, I got 4 pots are branching out and flower buds are on the way~~~ Make me feel much better now. Patient is the key...