Dayna.me » Christmas

Getting into the holiday shopping mood

Dayna — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:04:53 +0000

I went on a major shopping spree with Brenda today at Orchard. We were suppose to go Karaoke but Cherlynn was down with a bad sore throat so there was a change of plans. Hope you feel better soon Cherlynn, we shall go sing again when you are well!

Shall let the photos do the talking as I’m extremely tired and sleepy now.

Lunch at New York New York

Takashimaya Beary Christmas Trees 2010

This is Takashimaya’s “Beary Christmas Tree 2010″. I prefer the 2009 version though. It’s prettier with the golden bells (see photo below taken last December).

Takashimaya Beary Christmas Trees 2009

I was showing the Photography Apps on my iPhone to Brenda and she discovered this “Actioncam” App (which I downloaded but haven’t really played with it yet). Here’s the results of our testing:

Dayna in ACTION!

Brenda in ACTION!

On a side note, Bump is a good app for sharing files, photos etc between iPhone users. Bump your friends! Though Brenda and I were bumping our iPhones together not our hands. =p

Check out Brenda’s gorgeous blogger’s namecard!! I haven’t had time to work on mine yet. I “promise” the next layout I’m putting up, it will come with a matching namecard!

Brenda's Bloggers Namecard

Loots of the day if anyone is wondering: 2 pairs of shoes (including a pair of little red shoes!), 2 tops, 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of earrings and 1 hat. I haven’t been on a shopping spree for a loooonnnnnnggggg time!

Merry Messy Christmas

Dayna — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:33:54 +0000

Merry Christmas to everyone! Did you take part in any countdown events last night?

On a side note, I actually drew the above illustration for my own Christmas cards but couldn’t find a inexpensive place to print it. There’s usually a minimum quantity of 100 to 200 and I don’t need that much. I only got to know of a shop at Bras Plaza that does printing for $1 per card with minimum spending of $30 from Ivy when we meet up for lunch last week. Hence, I will just leave the handmade cards for this year since it’s a bit too late to do that now.

I spent Christmas eve at home with my friends and family. We didn’t want to hang out at the parties due to the crowd. So Dad cooked steak and we had Christmas dinner at home. Michelle joined us for dinner and mahjong session as well. No turkeys on the table though.

We had a small gift exchange session and here’s Francis, Michelle and my sister with their presents. The panda Michelle’s hugging is from Chewy. He bought it in Hong Kong and she’s utterly soft and adorable. Definitely the cutest panda on earth.

My sister showing off her new iphone. She’s been waving it in front of me these past few days! I’m super envy because I’m dying to get my hands on an iphone. I’ll wait and get it next year.

It’s our custom to get a Christmas cake every year. Ta-da! This is our ~~log~~ mango mousse cake from The Icing Room. We couldn’t find a small log cake for 6 so we decided to get this instead. I was surprised when the cashier asked me if I want any candles. Does anyone put candles on Christmas cakes?

Joke of the day:
Mum: Is there cheese in the cake?
Dad: Yes, there is cheese in basement 1 of the cake.
Me: LOL! Our cake has basement 1, 3, 5 – mango mousse and basement 2, 4, 6 – chocolate sponge.

The cake is delicious though. Everyone gave the thumbs up for it.

I received this card from Huaian today. I was really touched. It has a photo of us taken 6 years back and he still has it sent all way from Australia. I love it Huaian! Thanks so much for the awesome card. I hope to see you back in Singapore in Feburary.

This is from my sister and her boyfriend, Francis. My sister gave me a beautiful necklace from Gold Heart which matches all the tank tops in my wardrobe.

That’s it for today. Hope you have fun on Christmas eve as well and have a great Christmas!

4 days getaway to Kuala Lumpur

Dayna — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:30:35 +0000

I have finally finished uploading all the photos to my Flickr from the trip to Kuala Lumpur. It seems like I visit Malaysia every year in December. I love their Christmas decorations too much to miss any of it. Of course, it’s pretty obvious I love their sales from the look of my shopping haul. I regretted not getting a few more Etude’s products to try. Anyway, I place all the photos under the cut and there’s also a juicy breakfast video of Chewy.

Our hotel room at Times Square

Our rooms are on the highest floor at the 43rd level. This is our window view. Kuala Lumpur looks beautiful at night when all the lights are brightly lit.

Times Square Shopping Mall

I saw Santa at Times Square! He was giving out candies to the kids with his uhm, wife? Santa has a wife right?

Huge rotating Christmas tree at Times Square

Chewy in front of a gingerbread house

Mid Valley Mega Mall

These are some gorgeous Christmas decorations at Mid Valley. I couldn’t think of any malls in Singapore that’s comparable with this. Somehow, it reminds me of Harry Potter. The castle, the fir trees and especially the floating candles! I guess it’s a Harry Potter inspired theme?

Fooling around in Toys R Us

Saw this toy on display, it's pretty cute!

The Garden Mall

I think this mall has a white Christmas theme. It seems to remind me of England in the 90′s and gives off a very elegant feeling. It’s simple but it does have very eye catchy decorations.

KLCC

I think I just arrived at Candy Land when I saw the Christmas decorations around me. Lots of candies, colours and the ginger breadman family.

Chewy and I in front of Candy House, notice his Threadless tee

Michelle and Te Wei

Pavilion

It was snowing when we left

Food food and more food

Before

After

I tested the video function on my Canon SX10 IS for the first time. The funny thing was that everyone thought I was taking photographs of them when I’m actually recording a video clip. I uploaded this short clip of Chewy during breakfast when he thought I was taking photos of him. It’s hilarious but cute at the same time.

On a side note, I think the videos taken with the Canon SX 10 has a pretty good quality. Perhaps I should start taking videos more often, it’s really fun! I feel that moving videos speak a lot more than still pictures.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out the rest of the photos from the trip in my Flickr album.

Panda Santa’s Christmas Giveaway

Dayna — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:54:42 +0000

Time really flies and it’s been 5 years since I started blogging. Even though I’ve been around the past few years, Amour Chaleur was only launched last December. To commemorate Amour Chaleur’s upcoming first birthday on the 8th of December and in conjunction with Christmas, I am holding a Christmas giveaway. Panda Santa will be giving away a panda notebook from Artbox.

To participate in this giveaway, you must have a Twitter account. Tweet the following message once or come up with your own creative tweets (which must be relevant to the giveaway). All tweets must contain the hashtag #amourxmasbook and the link to this post http://bit.ly/8pYc6R .

The giveaway has ended. Congratulations to @jadoreivy for winning the giveaway! Thank you everyone for participating. Stay tune for the next giveaway in December.

The giveaway will start on Monday, 30th November at 12 PM (GMT+8) and ends on Wednesday, 2nd December at 12 PM (GMT+8). It will last for 48 hours. A random winner will be chosen when the giveaway ends. I may hold another giveaway again in December to spread some Christmas love. Good luck and have fun!

New layout for Christmas – Zoo Mania

Dayna — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:17:32 +0000

To celebrate Christmas this season, I have launched a new layout – Zoo Mania. I wasn’t lazy this time and drew the illustration from scratch in Photoshop. Perhaps this is to make up for the previous layout where I dump everything from my old layouts together. Zoo Mania took me around 4 hours to draw the illustration and another 4 hours to code it. Did I mention how much I dislike coding layouts? Drawing is a really enjoyable process but coding is totally the opposite. The debugging process is a headache as well.

Even though you can’t see major changes in the style, I did changed the header styles. I left the comments, page navigation and footer untouched because I like it as it is now. I swear I wasn’t trying to be lazy. :P Before I introduce the main characters of this layout, I would like to thank Scholar for giving me constructive criticism and advice on how to improve this illustration.

Edit on 24 November: I ended up editing the minor style details like the page navigation, read more links, comments navigation and the footer etc because I feel that the previous styles didn’t really match the new theme. It’s more colourful now and looks like a new theme.

Let the introduction begins… …

The Zoo Mania Team

I actually like this layout. It’s been some time since I draw in Photoshop and I really enjoyed the time spend on this. I hope you like it as much as I do.

“How do you know Christmas is coming?” meme

Dayna — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:37:47 +0000

Christmas is my favourite festival season and hence I decided to share photographs of how Christmas is like in Singapore. It’s pretty easy to spot the arrival of Christmas in Singapore. The trees, trim shops, sales and special Christmas catalogues will start popping up. Everywhere screams “It’s Christmas!”.

This is a “How do you know Christmas is coming?” meme and I’m tagging everyone who’s reading this post to blog about your personal experiences. I’ll love to know how you spot the Christmas season. Is it the beautifully decorated trees? Turkeys on sale? Trim shops or…?

Christmas in Singapore

Novena Square

Velocity Christmas Party

It's snowing at Velocity

Christmas lightings along Orchard Road

Huge Christmas tree outside Ion

Beautiful Christmas lights along Orchard

Another view of the lights at Orchard

Trim Shop at Takashimaya

Takashimaya Christmas Tree

Teddy bears Christmas tree inside Takashimaya

I love this tree! It looks like a tree from fairylands

Christmas decorations at Hereen

Christmas tree at Paragon

Trim shop at Paragon

Beautiful masquerade masks for sale

Happy Christmas Shoppers

Christmas is coming to town

Dayna — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:09:41 +0000

My Samsung Corby

I finally bought some pop-up stickers from Urban Write to “brand” my Samsung Corby. I didn’t want to make it too fanciful thus I just added 2 little star stickers to brand it as my personal phone. I have to say this isn’t an original idea from me. This idea was from my current favourite show, You’re Beautiful. In the show, the female protagonist has a few pop-up stickers on her Corby as well. I love this idea because I find it really cute.

Mi Nam's Pig-Rabbit

I’m a Christmas girl and I love buying gifts for myself during the Christmas season. I admit I’m a huge fan of You’re Beautiful. Hence, I ordered the pig-rabbit toy from Korea for SGD 39! Mama never fails to get me a Christmas gift every year and this is her gift for me. =D It’s an extremely unique toy since it’s a rabbit with a pig nose. It’s definitely not the kind of toys you see everyday.

Pig-Rabbit

Isn’t it the most adorable bunny? It’s a huge toy standing at 55cm and I’m so excited to receive it. It will arrived in Singapore at the beginning of December. I’ll be posting photographs of my new toy then. I am thinking of naming it “Minami” after the female protagonist in the show. Sounds cute, no?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I shall end this post with my Christmas wishlist of 2009.

Christmas Wishlist

Bod Clarifying Clay Mask – I got this as a gift for myself today!
The BodyShop Winter Makeup – Eye & Cheek Palette
The BodyShop Winter Makeup – Shimmer Gloss
The BodyShop Divine Calm Essential Oil
Eco Tools Retractable Kabuki Brush
You’re Beautiful Pig-Rabbit Stuff Toy – Just ordered this from Korea
Long Bi-Fold Clutch Wallet / Hello Birdie in Almond from Cottonpurr

My first Christmas gift of 2009

Dayna — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:55:36 +0000

Samsung Corby

I received my first Christmas gift of 2009 – A Samsung Corby from Chewy. It was an early gift as we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas together this year. He’s going back home to Kuala Lumpur so I’ll be alone during Christmas. Chewy seems to like the touchscreen of Corby. I can’t remember how many times I’ve said this but I am not a fan of touchscreen phones. I think I’ll need some time to get use to using such phones again because I spend 10 minutes trying to send an SMS this morning. I know I fail.

My friends from school highly preferred the Corby over my INQ mini. They are like “oh my gosh Dayna, your new phone looks great. Glad you decided to get a new one.” when they see me with my new phone in class. By the way, my INQ mini is still alive and I gave up my LG Viewty for adoption today. I’m going to miss it. So, back to the Corby… there are 3 colours – white, yellow and pink. There are also green and orange in Korea but somehow they didn’t bring those into Singapore. I like the orange and yellow one but Chewy is a fan of white and black phones so I got the white one. Even though I’m a huge fan of pink, I decided a universal colour will be better. It’s easier to sell it off in the future since not everyone is a fan of pink like me. On a totally random note, according to the korean drama, You’re Beautiful (which I’m so in love with), white stands for purity. It’s not a bad choice eh?

Close up of Samsung Corby

Each set comes with 3 covers – plain white, white with prints and a plain black. I like the plain white one because I was going to get some pop-up stickers to decorate the phone but Chewy prefers the one with prints. I’m still going to get the stickers though. It needs something to be branded as “Dayna’s mobile”. =D

Back cover - White with green and grey prints

Side buttons - I always press the wrong one when I'm unlocking it

Default wallpaper of the cartoon theme

Animated main menu

I was quite wowed by the google maps. The location shown wasn’t exact but it was within a 1 kilometre radius of where I was so I guess it can be considered pretty accurate. For someone who has a poor sense of direction, this will certainly comes in handy when I get lost.

Google Maps

Wallpaper from my own illustrations

After playing around with it for a day, I think it’s not too bad. The set doesn’t comes with a data cable which may be quite troublesome for some. However, I use bluetooth more often so it doesn’t bothers me much. Similar to the INQ, the camera of the Corby is 2MP and takes quite decent shots. The quality is slightly better than the INQ mini. It isn’t a 3G phone and does not have Wi-Fi. Internet speed is a bit slower but it’s not a big deal to me. I don’t surf the net often with my phone. Most of the time, I use it only for twittering and twitpic-ing.

The Corby also has the smart unlock feature which is really cool in my opinion. You can set the phone to unlock by writing any one of the alphabets on the screen. I tested quite a few letters and I think V is the easiest to unlock. This feature is more convenient since the “press side button and hold” option is slower. There are also 3 types of fonts for users to choose from. I’m using the cartoonish font (type 1) and it’s really cute.

How do I like this phone? Quite a lot, considering the fact that it was a gift from Chewy. Hopefully, it will be my trusty phone for the next 1 to 2 years.

Teddy bear christmas tree and lots of food

Dayna — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:57:12 +0000

Dear and I went to Suntec City and Marina Square today for dinner + movie. We saw this Christmas tree made solely from soft toys such as care bears, pooh bears, tiggers etc and it looks super adorable. I managed to take a few snapshots of it.

Christmas tree made from teddy bears

Made from 3,578 soft toys via a charity drive

Okay, we concluded that there were lucky stars beside us today. Why would I say that? We walked past this shop in Marina Square where they have all these machines for people to win a toy. For example, you put in a dollar coin and will be given a chance to “catch” those toys. Am I talking sense? Anyway, there was this guy who didn’t won anything and just walked off. I saw the cute pink anime toys inside and was tempted. So we walked over and wanted to try our luck. But before we even dropped a dollar in, dear realised that we had 2 free games. We figured that the previous guy won 2 free games but he didn’t realise it and simply walked off. We were so lucky to win one of the pink toys from these 2 “free” games. Presenting the pink doll … *drum rolls*

Pink anime doll - I named it Pinky

We were super lucky, but weren’t lucky enough to win the other yellow one. This was our first time winning a toy via those toy machines. I’m ecstatic over it. :heart: Our first win!!!

Thereafter, we went Tang Dian Wang for dinner. Food was all right. We tried the soup since they were supposedly famous for it (based on the name of the restaurant). It was not bad but dear mentioned that his mum’s soup was better. That says a lot.

Double egg fried rice

This one was good, it taste delicious when served hot. I love eggs.

Bee Hoon with duck meat in some sauce

Dear had this dish and I tried some of it. The sauce taste nice, noodles and the duck meat was average, nothing spectacular.

Glutinous rice siew mai

It looked mouth watering in the photos but didn’t taste good, plus it wasn’t served hot which was weird. It was slightly cold when I ate it and I think I prefer the normal siew mai. -_- This meal cost a bomb but I try not to think about it since I love trying new dishes at places I’ve never eaten before.

Happy Merry Christmas

Dayna — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:52:40 +0000

Missy wishes everyone here a very happy Merry Christmas. May you get lots of gifts, happiness and love on this special day.

Dear came over to have dinner with my family. I got lots of gifts from dear and my aunt also brought us a cake. Not a log cake though, it’s a soccer cake. It’s pandan and coconut flavour and looks cute for Christmas. Dad cooked his signature dish today and it’s simply mouth watering.

All my presents from dear

My favourite perfume

My kawaii panda santa card

Pretty in pink jewellery box

Handsome guy (to me) and my panda cushion

Glutinous Rice

Home made chao siew

Soccer Christmas Cake