See Ya 2015

Hi guys, long time no see! I know it's probably longest time since last post, but I have my own reason. I have this blog as personal interest to push myself to learn more to create more but my day time job has occupied most of time in this season and I seriously couldn't spare any extra energy to produce more. Plus a wedding ahead next year.

I am lucky enough that I don't have a massive wedding, but as headstrong as a stone, I rather have my own invitation which represents myself so I have to manage my invites all by myself after work every day and that was hell of stress. I could have picked some designs from some printers but on the other hand, I thought it would be the best opportunity to practice with professional printers in terms of design formats. And I learnt it in a difficult way with anxiety and tears. Who knows how thin a picture it has to be to get foil stamped properly, who knows how long the turn around really would turn around? So I had to do all the cutting, sticking, and labeling excluding the design, eventually I finally got those raw yet imperfect invitations sent out. The other tip from me is do not underestimate the festive season if you also send out all the stationaries in the same season, because lots stuff you thought it's easy to get would be run out in no time. So at the end of the day, you spend way more at the local news agency who is trying to rip you off massively. C'est la vie.

For last couple of years, I had designed my own Christmas cards, gift wrapping or tags, but look at the dates now, I am too late for making anything but I love making my own personal touches on the cards, so even this costed me 2 hours wright after I finished my wedding invites, I still hope you enjoy my simply yet sincere design. And remember, a happy life is not about the perfection, it's balance, this is one of my new year resolution for 2015. How about yours?

Other wishes on my list will be:

1. Take more photos, especially portraits. I am too shy to ask someone to pose in front of me but I truly love taking photos for people.
2. Make more cards. I have made cards for my loved ones for years, but I want to make more for different occasions. Even business cards.
3. Be more patient. I thought I am patient because I used to teach kids until I realise I am not patient for waiting good things to happen. I need to be more relax.
4. Balance. My parents told me the the stress only made us a more skilled person, I wish I can joggle between stress and productivity better and not to get too upset.
5. Love my self and don't forget that.

Above are my new year resolution for 2015, what are yours? And I sincerely wish you have a lovely time with your loved ones and I will see you next year!


xxx Aka

My Work: Save The Date Card Design

Hi guys, how's your week so far? I have to admit that I have been really flat out at work and I honestly didn't have much time/brain cells to update this tiny little space, and I truly feel bad about myself. But, I also want to defend for myself for one reason: I have tried very hard for my very own design of the save the cards.

If you are/used to be a bride-to-be, you would definitely understand why I am so stressful, especially if you want to design everything yourself. As a creative amateur, with very little knowledge of printing, finding a proper and affordable printer was hard, deciding a certain style was fairly hard, not to procrastinate  from Pinterest was super duper hard, then I was insanely panic by all these time pressures.

Now, voila! Here I represent you my imperfect yet special save the date card, and it wasn't easy for a first timer, hopefully you can learn something from me without costing you too much time and stress. Or you can just have a laugh if you understand what I am talking about:-)

So, here comes my design below:

Why it took so long to make them? Aren't they just printed on paper with foil? Let me tell you why and there are so many factors to be aware of if you want to do your own invitations from sketch, plus  things like wax seal and gold foil stamping. Of course, the basic one would be excepting the colour difference even you have printed out on your home printer million times, it varies on what kind of paper stock and printing companies, try to imagine the worse scenarios. Now here are my tips before you send the files to your printer:


Gold foil:

Every printing company has different standard, but most of them have restrictions of the edges, don't design your design too close to edges otherwise you have to pay extra or compromise the design like me. I have changed my original design( the texts around the borders) and I absolutely hated afterwards, sometimes you shouldn't compromise your own ideas just for saving some extra bucks, it's not worthy saving that money to make you pinch you legs afterwards.


Make sure you ask for the sample first. I didn't so that because I was under the pressure and I realised it would make the whole production way better when you know what kind of material that you are dealing with. Even you thought you are late, the more you try to push it through the more likely you might miss the details.

Wax seal:

To be honestly, wax seal is not like what you saw in the show" Game of Thrones". It's way more trickier than you expected. If you just want to seal the envelopes with a bit significant touch, then don't mind what I said. BUT if you wish to use if as logo, or you actually hate unpredictable designs, then follow up my tips. Plus I will post an ultimate guide about making wax seal yourself without a nerve breakdown, just stay tuned. My general tips for wax seal below:

1. Try to purchase different colours of wax sticks before you decide, sometimes the colour might not look the same in real life.

 2. If you have substantial amount of invitations to do, I will recommend you to purchase the peel-and-stick wax seals. It's easy and save you a lot of hassles and time without tears and broker nails. The only drawback is you normally have to order around 250-500 ones, but you can always use them in the future events. 

Allow dramas: 

Well, besides the usual difficulties of card making, there are always something can go wrong, such as wax seal handle broken when I finally got the right hot glue gun, or burning my thumb by pealing too much wax seals and so on. It took a lot of deep breathes to keep calm, otherwise I don't know how to move on... Anyway, what I want to say is allow imperfections happened while you trying to make every thing perfect and meaningful for your big day, unless you really started very early or really experienced, otherwise there's no need for a breakdown. And if you do have one like me, then it's your other half''s job to calm you down, isn't it? Let him do his job!

Finally, I want to share the quote that I made from the bottom of my heart, I hope all of you like it. And if you think I disappear again, you can always find me on my Pinterest or my Instagram, I will be super happy to see you there!

Paris J'taime Vol.1

Photography and design by me

Hi guys, Sydney has been really cold and wet, hope you guys are feeling strong, unlike me, I've trapped with all kind of sickness since I got back from Europe. Yes, I visited Paris and Croatia about one and half month ago,and the price was a massive jet lag and endless sickness. But I have to say it's all worthy! I generally have no extra energy to write down the details when I travel, just keep going and walking and filling every thing we can do into the schedule.

Somehow, the dream doesn't always go as the way you think it would be. You know why? Because Qantas airway lost our luggage. Can you believe such a big enterprise, Qantas can still cause us traveling without our baggage for 17days? Oh, well I will probably write this part in Vol.2, there are just so much about Europe and once I started I couldn't stop, hahah!

Since this blog is nothing like Lonely Planet, it's just about what I think about Paris and share with you the photos that I took. Hope you would like them:)

Paris absolutely has the the privilege to overwhelm you at every corner of the streets, the historical buildings of course, the alleyways reach to one and another, the tall gates and gentle sunlights, no wonder those photographers adore Europe so much, it's so easy to take the advantage of the natural lighting and have fun searching interesting objects to shoot. In fact we actually didn't visit all the famous spot due to our lost baggage issue, the best day in Paris would be the last day that we finally gave up waiting and just let the adventure lead us to the way it should be. 

I guess this is somewhere Le Marais, great for shopping

The icon of Bastille

Coffee looks very different!

I love observing their chairs in cafes and restaurants

Tuileries Garden

Ouvre Muséum 

Montmartre has lots steps

Sacre Coeur behind

Cut to the chest, here are my top 3 places in Paris:

1. Montmartre, the reason has to trace back into the old days. I took some French courses when I was in final year of university. I watched so many French films and always dreamt about if one day I can visit there because I adore "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain". This place has changed so much comparing to the film but Sacré-Coeur was still breathtakingly beautiful to me. There, you can also have the view of Paris, wandering in those hilly paths, and of course, meeting people in the art market, we met a portrait artist at the bar and he was really good at doing our portrait! 

2. Bastille market, every one looks so happy here, the venders were so energetically shouting and chitchating with each other, we really enjoy the experience in the market. With local produced ingredients and so many delicious dishes would make you drool( good price as well), the only struggle is just too many options in front of you! 

3. Versailles garden, what a grand garden! We were both amazed the design of the garden, you can stay in that garden all day long, just get a bike cruising around, or go on a picnic, rowing a boat and be romantic and so on. And I firstly saw a swan started its flight upon the damp, it certainly wooed me.

Even we had to stay 2 days waiting for lost luggage delivery in the apartment, we still managed to visit some beautiful places in Paris(just a bit short ), we experienced Moulin Rouge, fancy Le Maurice near the Tuileries garden(luckily Louvre was near by or we might miss it as well ), Eiffel tower dinner, river Seine cruise ( thanks god we did this tour, otherwise Qantas's mistake made us miss all the famous spots, and this tour basically tamed my hatred not seeing all the places that I want to see).

It's just so much you can do in this city and I absolutely adore this city, I will stop for now and wish yo guys happy hump day today!

xxx Aka

Hello August

Hi guys, it's August already(again!). Thought I would upload tons of travel photos of Europe that I took   from my holidays but I guess you always need to save the room for unexpected things.  So a quick review about my July:

Came back from Europe with severe jet lag, well, Australia is winter so from lots sun to a little bit sun was big difference to me. But the memory in Europe is too beautiful to regret. Je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing. Even I got horrible cold and stomach problem for 3 weeks. Still, no regret. Maybe I hate my productivity a little. Hahah

Panicked about lots things to organise. Wedding, future, visa and so on. But I have finally leant to choose my priorities in life. I am always greedy, and expect myself multitasking like so many people who I admire. Sometimes you just need to slap your face, both side and hard and then bloody wake up to the reality. It's actually not as hard as I thought it would be, making priority list helped heaps. So if you are like me, want to finish so many things at the same time but end up only achieve partially on each task, this is my suggestion, make a list and try to stick with it. Once you start to stroke out a couple tasks on the list, you will feel so much better and chasing the rest of tasks without procrastination will not be too hard. 

Had some thoughts about my life, good or bad, it's a certain path to grow up I think. Look at myself in the mirror and tell myself what I really want in life, be strong, be brave and have fun.

Highlight of the month would be my snowboarding weekend away, it included lots of pain and chill air and silver white snow, and I absolutely love it. I remember the first time that Andrew took me to the snow, which wasn't a very good snowy winter in Sydney, the snow was really icy and I had so much tears because I hurt myself a lot. I constantly question myself why I like snowboarding, it's so painful since I am still a beginner and my balance is awful and it took my learning curve not so smoothy. But every fall made me less scared about falling, I stand up and try again till I finally have a click. Every single time I finally achieve a turn or run then I am over the moon. It's that simple, and this trip, I finally can do the zigzaging without freaking out. And I slowly feel better about my fear against height. I am on top of the world:) 

So as usual, I made a desktop calendar to kickstart the new month. Download it by clicking the image and enjoy the new adventure. Live a little, Life is bloody beautiful.

Have a good weekend as well guys!

xxx Aka

{ Freebie } Hello July!!

Hello every one, how's your June so far? If you are like me, live in Australia then I know it's getting really chilly now but I kind of cheat it a little bit this year, I am still in Croatia at the moment. June has been a very interesting month to me due to my travel experience so far. Being in Europe during the winter is more than blessing but I do have some no-so-welcome dramas in the trip as well. Maybe I was too lucky to escape to Europe during the best season, and that was my little punishment for our indulgence. So, as usual I made you a desktop calendar and wish you have a nice kick start. Stay warm my Aussie homies, and if you live in a summerish part of world then lucky you! I am actually going home by 4 flights tomorrow, and that's how I started my July. Wish me good luck too, hopefully, no drama during the trip:-) Will post my vacation photos soon when I get back, so ciao for now!

Stay in Summer forever


xxx Aka

{ Blog Update } Follow me!!

Image design by me

Hi every one, sorry about my lack of updates lately. But I have good news for you and me for sure. The good news is  I finally have a new phone, a very fresh and shape good phone that I can't describe the depth of my love to it. Why is it a good news? Because I have been drooling to every one who can share the photos with those beautiful filters on Instagram and of course my big love VSCO. So any of you might be interested, go check my VSCO page. I will have also make the icon for them but I haven't got time to settle them. Need to wait till I come back from Europe or if I have spare time and internet there. 

I use app to collage my images, big time saver!!

I have to be honest, it's way easier to update random photos from the phone as well. If you are wondering where is she, this lazy blogger? Go check my VSCO and Instagram. Now the photos on both of them are similar because I am still testing my filter and the outcome of the images, but in the future I will leave the better image on VSCO due to its vibe and my little lifestyle images will be on Instagram frequently so that you can see another side of my life without waiting for my slow blog updates. Now I am in a mess trying to get ready for my vacation with Andrew. I will try to update as often as possible while I am in Europe and now pardon me, I have a flight to catch. 

Warm wishes every one

xxx Aka

{ My Footprints } A Vivid Day

Image by me

Hello my friend, how's Tuesday survival going so far? This time every year in Sydney has always attracted to million of people flushing into the Circular Quay to witness the magic of lights. Honestly, I am never a crowd person, I would normally avoid the crowd as much as I can to avoid being involved in a mad Sardine storm. 

Somehow, we had other reasons to happen to be in town, so why not try my new 50mm lens? I know it's not the best lens to capture dark  and far objects but I just want to see the difference between my good old kit lens and it. It's a new stage for me since I got my camera last year and I certainly couldn't get over it.  Below are the photos I too last Saturday and i quite enjoy the subtle difference with the new lens!! 

I used the motion technique, half hold the shutter and move along with the sailing boats and it worked a little. 

It turn okay in the end. The ferry rocks too much.

This was the very good reason why we were in town. Sadly that will be the last time of the Quay. I am blessed that I could share this experience with loved ones before it's closed. 

err...another expresso martini....

Every one is going to one direction, the light!

KIi's favourite

Seriously, it's more like a theme park image when the photos turn out. I guess a video will get better credit

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the day!

xxx Aka