What do you do on a day off?

How about making some “boat cards”?

Matt laminated, double sided boat cards.

Boats cards are useful little things… I didnt know about them until I received my 1st one from Doug. … see, I married the guy that gave me my 1st boat card! There must be some magic in that card.

Anyway, I am badly in need of some cards and so thats what I did today. This time, I decided to make them double sided and laminated. I think boat cards should be waterproof… especially if the ink is so soluable and smudges up immediately on contact with any liquid.

For laminating, I use my clear matt vinyl. Then cut them up with the knife edge paper cutter… but somehow its pretty irregular.. shape and size are not all the same… Thats what you get for making your own cards… At a factory, they’ll stamped it and it will all be the right size. But hey, for professionally made laminated cards, it would cost S$0.25 each and you would have to order 200pcs to get that price!

Maybe I will develop a way to cut it better.. next time..

1 design, many applications

Classic design, praying hands

A friend requested that I make some praying hands Iron-ON for her Sunday school bag. I thought that was nice, so I made the design and the decal for her… I will have to ask her to send a picture of her tote bag with the decal later… 

praying hands in for different look and feel and applications

I thought the design came up really quite well, so what other ways would I use it? Ah HA! Christmas gifts! This year, all my Christain friends would get either a bookmark or car window decal with praying hands. 🙂 Or a different design…. Maybe a Christmas tree or something….

Adhered on left and right sides, easy to peel off if you wish to.

The bookmarks, 1 made transparent light grey and 1 made with dark grey on a piece of cream color paper, are laminated on both sides. I think a flat string or something added to it might be practical. .. Have no ribbon with me right now…

The blue praying hands is for car window. This is not cling on, but it is laminated on both sides with a 1/4″ clear sticking surface for the window. See the window decal, … stuck on a really dirty window, is not looking too nice… should have cleaned the window 1st… sigh…

Any comments and ideas..? I am thinking about making my kitty cat decals into these too! 🙂 I think simple designs work best.

jigsaw puzzle or art?

Before

I am trying to create a scene here… can you guess what it is?

This is going to be a colorful patch, but like the decals that I made before, its making them layer by layer. So this is how it looks before putting it together.

After!

And here is how it looks after completion… … I started with the red 1st, then the orange, then yellow, then white, then blue, and finally green.

so what do you say? like it or not… I thought this was fun!

Reconstructing Ah Ma’s Sweet Pepper pork recipe

This is one of my favorite Ah Ma’s cooking, and is one that I never learned from her… sometimes I wonder.. do I miss Ah Ma or her cooking…?

1/4" slices of fresh pork. Look at that pink!

Its my 4th attempt at trying to make this Ah Ma’s special Sweet Pepper Pork… and yet again I failed. Pretty frustrated! Why I never learn how to cook this when Ah Ma was around…?

Making the marinate.

… but now, it has become a personal goal, for me to discover thru trial and errors, how Ah Ma did it. I think the process will make me learn the ways of Ah Ma.. those that I didnt learn the 1st time around.

The most important part of this cooking process, is making the marinate. How do you make it to taste just right and get the right smooth gravy like texture spread evenly over the meat?

Early in the cooking stage.

Let me see, my mistakes, starting from the beginning… 1st try, not enough sugar, not enough flour. 2nd attempt, sugar was about right, too much soy, and not enough flour. 3rd try, too much flour, killed everything. 4th try, okay I got the taste right…

Done cooking, gravy texture not quite right.

Here is what I got so far for 300g block of lean pork.

1) Slice lean pork into 1/4″ slices.

2) Make marinate with 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp flour, dissolve in 1/2 cup slightly warm water. Add 1/2 tbsp seseme oil, lots of pepper to the mixing bowl. Stir well, add pork. Spread evenly and leave for a few minutes.

3) Mince 2 cloves garlic.

A complete Chinese meal with rice, stir fry veggies and sweet pepper pork

4) Medium heat, 2 tbsp spoon oil in pan, add garlic to brown. Lay out pork slices onto pan, scoop remaining liquid marinate onto the pork. After 1 min, flip over to cook the other side. 1 min on the other side and it should be done cooking.

See! That should be so simple… isnt it? … but why my gravy texture is not right? Kinda lumpy… hmm… too much flour? No, I think flour is just right.. … I dunno… but I will probably get it right on the 5th try… I hope…