Dayna.me » Competition

Twitpic of my busy week

Dayna — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:50:59 +0000

I have almost forgotten to post my twitpic photos from last week. I had an extremely busy week and wasn’t online most of the time. Anyway, here’s a short recount of what happened last week. I received lots of goodies in the mail and am absolutely in love with my new cosmetics products from koreabb.com.sg. I found a new online shop, Beauty Carousel in Singapore selling lots of Japanese cosmetics. It’s so tempted to try some of the highlighting and oil control powder but I’m trying to put myself on a shopping ban to save up for Christmas.

Twitpic of the week

I also went Haw Par Villa & Vivo City with mum. We went on board the MV Doulos. I found a Chinese craft book with lots of pandas artwork at PageOne and I took a few photos of them. I was so afraid the loud shutter sound of my mobile will alert the staff on duty. Anyway, the pandas were so adorable!

Some day later, Chewy and I went shopping at Orchard. I brought my panda and pooh bears to guard the car again. anda: Notice the claypot rice with abalone? We had dinner at Ah Yat Tian Xia Restaurant at Orchard Central. The abalone cost an additional SGD 7 and taste okay, for the price I can’t complain of course. Chewy had pork chop rice and he finds it delicious. I tried it and it’s also so-so in my opinion.

The rest of the week was spend on spring cleaning my room, playing bridge at home and having dim sum at Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant. I still think the dim sum from Imperial is better. So, that’s how I spend my entire week. How about yours?

Ultimate Blog Awards

By the way, Tiff’s holding her first contest, Ultimate Blog Awards at JynxedPanda. There are lots of attractive prizes, such as WordPress themes, illustrations, t-shirts and even cash to be won. There are also many mini contests for all her readers. She is also trying to raise donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy amd Pepeng via the contest. It’s an all rounded contest for everyone so please join in the fun and head over to her website for more details.

The voting for the Site Glamour Contest will close on 30 October instead of November because I hope the contest will be focused on the discussion of the articles instead of the voting next month. Please vote for the website which you think deserves the award and don’t forget to participate in the contest article discussion next month.

Support teddy-risation campaign

Dayna — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:44:30 +0000

Yes! Terry has made it to the finals of the Asia Pacific Blog Awards in the Best Hidden Gem category. I actually nominated a few but only Terry made it to the finals. Anyway, if you don’t know who he is, pop by his site to check out some of his fantastic photographs and web designs. Please support Terry and vote for him if you feels that he deserves it. I definitely thinks he does, even Bim Bim supports him! To cast your vote, you will have to choose a website in each category and you can vote once every 2 hours. Thanks to everyone who voted for Terry and check out his thank you speech.

Vote for Terry at the Asia Pacific Blog Awards!

Join the Site Glamour Contest?

Dayna — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:18:53 +0000

This contest is actually rather similar to the usual Site of the Month contest. However, I didn’t like how the usual Site of the Month Contest is focus solely on the design and popularity of the website. Hence, in this contest, there are some slight variation. It also focuses on the writing aspects. Participants will be writing a short article of a certain topic and then a series of discussion will take place. Although the name of this contest may implies that it’s all about the design but let me assure you that it’s not. I may need to change the contest name in the future.

I hope to get to know more web designers and discover new websites this way as well as providing the perfect opportunity for other web owners to make new friends online. Since this contest is not based solely on your design capability but also on other aspects such as writings, all websites are welcome to enter it and I highly encourage you to participate in the fun as public voting is available as well. Feel free to drop your suggestions about the topics you wish to be included in the contest discussion here.

Do not hesitate to join and if you know a web designer with a website worth mentioning, do spread the word around! There are also attractive prizes to be won. Registration for this contest closes on 30th September 2009. These are tentative dates and may be extended depending on feedback from all of you. Registration is a simple process, just fill up this form on the contest page. I hope to receive your submissions soon.

We need something interesting once in a while…

Dayna — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:43:42 +0000

I was thinking of this contest I tweeted and discussed with Rilla about 4 months back in April.

I’m planning a “Site Glamour” contest. It’s slightly different from the usual Site of the Month, prizes and winning criteria are different.

Every site need something interesting once in a while and seriously, I won’t consider Amour Chaleur as an interactive site at all. The usual SOTM isn’t really that interactive so I thought of something which engages the participants in discussions and other activities. A few things to note is that I’m not fond of pure voting decisions but completely removing the voting part would take away all the “fun” right?

This is what I have plan to decide the winner:

20% based on my personal opinions regarding the website (layout, content, coding etc.)
20% based on personal opinions of 2 random real life friends of mine with no designing experience. I thought it’ll be good to let someone who doesn’t do web designing to look at a website and determine whether they like it or not. In addition, they are independent 3rd parties so their opinions will most probably be fair.
30% based on voting
30% based on their answer/discussion to a web/graphic/life related question.

I actually wanted to add more activities but I couldn’t thought of any. Any suggestions to make it more interesting and motivate others to join?

Regarding the prize, I was thinking there could be a special illustration for the winner on top of the usual graphic award and link advertisements. Winners will be permanently listed on the winners page. =D I ~~may do~~ did a special icon next to the RSS link for the winner and contest page so that their link is on every page of the site.

Ivy’s suggestion gave me another idea. You know I was thinking whether to make this a bigger scale annual/semi annual “event” instead of a quarterly one. For example, there’s a few stages (with different discussions) or maybe different stages have different activities. Maybe stage 1 we have a discussion. Stage 2 could be comic/cartoon drawing (for eg.) or something else. That would something be like a talent contest except that it’s online. Of course, if it was an annual/semi annual event I think the prize would have to be more than just an illustration. Maybe a coded layout/WordPress theme?

What do you think? Tell me what would encourage you to join? I’ve love to hear your opinions and suggestions. :spin:

On a side note, I may be moving host soon due to some issues with the current host. I’ll update again about this next week.

Amour Chaleur has won all thanks to you

Dayna — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:24:01 +0000

Best Hand Drawing Style

I wish to thank all the support, encouragement and votes that everyone have given. I doubt Amour Chaleur could win the race without your support. It has been a tough competition with strong competitors and also a valuable learning experience for me. I greatly appreciate all the help and would like to express my apology for the daily advertisement of the “Please vote for …” tweets.

And so, I will be away for a short 3 weeks break for my final examinations and I promise Amour Chaleur will be back with a new layout (no guarantee that it’ll be good though) with better content. To follow my updates, you may wish to follow me on twitter or my flickr. The e-shop is on it’s way. I’ll be doing some market research first before searching for suppliers. If you have any good and reliable Singapore suppliers for shirts, mug or cards printing, please do let me know.

Last 3 days and I need your votes

Dayna — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:52:18 +0000

It’s the last 3 days for voting (ends on 6th May) and there’s only a very small margin. So please help to vote for Amour Chaleur and spread the word around (twittering, blogging about it, anything!) if you haven’t already. Every single vote is extremely important and would help to make my goal of opening my own e-shop closer. Thank you.

Exploring Iluma

Dayna — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:04:50 +0000

Thanks to everyone who voted for me at the WordPress Best Design Awards, your votes are very much appreciated. If you haven’t, please drop me a vote if you like Amour Chaleur’s design and help spread the word around (twittering, blogging about it, anything!). Every single vote would help to make my goal of opening my own e-shop closer as mentioned in my previous post.

I’ve been busy mugging¹ for my upcoming final UOL examinations so I wouldn’t be very active until the end of May but I’ll still be on twitter and flickr. Sorry if I haven’t been visiting for some time. I have huge plans for Amour Chaleur in June. I will be making a new layout and will try to “pull away” from the current style. I want a new break through in my layout designs! I also plan to revamp 60% of the content – higher quality and quantity (in regards to my visitors content). Hopefully, I will be able to finish it during the first 2 weeks of June before moving on to my client’s project and other side projects like my e-shop.

Chewy and I

Mr Chewy

So, Chewy and I went to “explore” Iluma, the new shopping mall located at Bugis. If you have been following my twitter, you would have known that there were some small hiccups along the way. Nevertheless, we made it safe and sound home. The shopping mall is open but most of the shops aren’t, thus if you plan on going, wait till June when most of the shops would be open. The cinema and the arcade fills up the entire top floor and there is this “secret” rooftop area. It overlooks Bugis and the entrance is hidden inside the arcade so do remember to check it out when you are there. But some people take it as a smoking area and it totally spoils the view. I meant with a wonderful view but the air is filled with cigarette smoke.

I’m mentally exhausted so I’ll let the photos do the talking again today. They are cross posted from my flickr so you can click on them to view the full size photo from my flick account.

Roof top view from Iluma

Another rooftop view

Love the colour of the sky in this one

Rainbow buildings

Building structure and design of Iluma

It can be used to describe someone stuffing a great deal of information from the textbook into his head, meaning tons of mere studying for long periods of time. This word is very common in countries like Singapore.

I’ll love you eternally if you …

Dayna — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:28:41 +0000

I’ll love you eternally if you could vote for me at WP Best Design Award and help spread the word around (twittering, blogging about it, anything!). Your votes would be greatly appreciated. If I really manage to win this, I will be using the funds to start up the e-shop which I’ve been talking about on my twitter for the past few weeks. It would be an “all-in-one” shop with illustrations, cartoons, layouts, themes for sale and I plan to have customised tees, mugs and accessories using my own illustrations as well. We shall not be limited and restricted by our creativity, right? I wish to use my own funds instead of borrowing from my family (specifically my mum and sissy) this time so it would be really nice of you to drop me a vote and help fulfil my dream of opening my very own Amour Chaleur e-shop!

Okay back to my normal blog post now. Chewy and I went to check out the new shopping mall, Tampines 1 a few days back. It was extremely packed and we had a hard time finding the carpark. I felt giddy just walking around as tons of people flew past me. Yes, they literally flew pass me ignoring any obstacles that were in front of them. So I tend to “ouch, that hurts” quite often as people kept bumping into me. :cry:

Chewy showing off his new sunglasses

Clear road all the way

I love the clear blue sky

We had dinner at Sushi Tei and it was all right. It was my first time eating there and apparently Chewy loves the food.

Pan fried bento chicken rice set

Beef

Garlic fried rice with soft shell crab

My favourite photo of the day, taken at the restaurant

Oh and we managed to squeeze into that Japan apparel store, Uniquo or something like that. I like their basic tops but otherwise, it’s okay as well. We didn’t buy anything from there. But I think the men’s tee are good, very soft, comfortable and most importantly they are affordable. I saw a Lycra v-neck men’s tee for only SGD 15.90. It was so packed that we even need to queue to get in, thankfully it was only a 10 minutes wait. There’s also a huge book store selling sketchbooks and other stationery. The sketchbooking items (such as the ink stamps, and DIY sketch books which are pre-designed) are very pretty and unique. I think I’m in love with that shop. If you are in to sketchbooking and DIY cards etc, that is definitely the place for you! But the location is a bit off for people living in the West (like me).

Remember the pretty lilac cup I was taking about? I was trying to take a macro close up shot of it. The first one failed miserably. The second shot wasn’t too bad but I couldn’t capture the actual colour due to the dark colour of the tea in it. But I swear the lilac is extremely pretty.

Failed macro shot!

Sucess shot of my lilac mug from Ikea

We got this mirror the other time as well but didn’t manage to hung it up until last week. It’s super huge and I love it! All girls should have a huge mirror in my opinion. I got it for SGD 45, isn’t it a bargain?

Huge 75x75cm mirror from Ikea

I can proudly say that my Chinese isn’t that bad

Dayna — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:37:30 +0000

Just thought I would draw a different illustration for each of the “vote-for-me” advertisement. Please help vote for Amour Chaleur under hand drawing style in Best WordPress Design Award if you like this design. I would greatly appreciate it if you can drop me a vote! Thanks for everyone who liked this design and has voted.

Cupcake Mash

On a side note, I have destroyed all the previous premade layouts and have added a new one. I feel that the old ones are of poor quality as they were made by me more than 3 years ago and I didn’t liked them anymore. Thus, I decided to revamp the entire premade layouts section. But as I’m running out of time due to exams preparations, I only put up a new layout – Cupcake Mash. There are quite a number of new ones coming in June with WordPress compatible themes as well. Stay tune! Meanwhile, you can check out the preview and/or download it over here. @loveivy also gave me an idea to have a free clipart/illustration section for my visitors. I’m keeping this idea in mind and hopefully add it in during my June holidays.

Chinese sentences written by kids in local schools

I saw this in the local Chinese newspaper yesterday. After reading it, I can proudly say that my Chinese isn’t that bad. Yes, I’m a 100% Chinese. However, my command of the Chinese language (both written and spoken) isn’t that good. I’m only a grade B student in this language as compared to my good buddies like Sharon, Ben and Huaian who are extremely good in Chinese. But the Chinese standards of children these days are terrible. I think horrible would be a more appropriate word. Not to mention how sarcastic the remarks of the teachers are, but nevertheless it’s still humorous to read. I laughed non stop after reading it. I think the teachers who are marking those homework must either be fainting or having heart attacks. No wonder they always say, it’s not easy being a teacher especially a Chinese language teacher.

I think Chinese language is being neglected in school these days. Most of the time in classes are spend on the more “important” subjects like Math, English and Science. I think they are having this “speak Chinese” campaign now (mainly due to the increasing importance of China in the global economy so being able to speak and write Chinese is getting more important). But isn’t it too late? Shouldn’t the change be made in the classes instead?

Translating one of the easier ones (literally) from the news for those who don’t understand Chinese (translation may not be that accurate):

Student: My mother’s leg is slim and thick.
Teacher’s remark: So is it slim or thick?

I am not able to translate the rest because it loses its humour in English. Anyway, it’s entertaining to read such news but I’m still shocked by how bad the Chinese standard of children in Singapore are.

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Vote for me at Best WordPress Design Awards

Dayna — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:28:57 +0000

Vote for AmourChaleur

As mentioned previously, I have submitted AmourChaleur to the Best WordPress Design Awards a few weeks back and it has managed to squeeze into the top 10 for hand drawing style.

Please help vote for me here (and spread the love of Bim Bim around). I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks! Feel free to grab the sweet on the right.