Life....or death.

My mind is tussled like the noodles in the teacup.

I choose life. And I choose to surround myself with pleasant things, i.e. people who appreciate what I do. I'm sorry but I gotta say this outright, no custom orders if you're fussy. I'm serious. Fussy Singaporeans, PLEASE stay away. I said my peace. (If you think I'm being nasty, check out ebay singapore, there are plenty of auctions saying exactly what I just said.) Therefore, let me preface by saying, I will not entertain emails/convos like, "can give discount a-not?", "gimmie your best price", "show me everything, i wanna choose the best one" etc. This is not pasar malam for god's sake. Its like scratching on the blackboard to me to hear these things, both insulting and unecessary.

I'm a stuff designer. I make stuff, to my whims, fancies, dreams and desires. I make things to enrich someone's life, to make someone happy. If I have to submit to your ever-changing undecidedness whims, perhaps you should do it yourself. I can't work like this. I have plenty of life on my plate, loads of stuff to do, school and stuff designs to dream about. I have to stop pleasing everyone with requested low prices, great fabrics and lots of work on the bags. Its driving me nuts trying to make everyone happy.

I'm actually really quite free for negotiation on custom orders, and are always up for a challenge when someone BYO fabric or need something I haven't done before. I try my best to perfect something before it goes out. If I feel guilty about sending out something, it'll be so hard to sleep at night. Besides, I never charge before the final product gets ok-ed. I'm still mind-boggled about how much nicer I can be without killing myself.

That said, I'm so VERY grateful for the small bunch of people who make straightforward requests like, I want a bag in this print. See what happens, or something like that. People who know what they want, know the prices to expect (or ask politely!) and send back appreciative messages when they see the final product and, even when I botched up their orders and made something a bit different (you know who you are!).

I thank these wonderful peeps for their patience, their ability to give me space to create, their belief in me that I can make something.


(sorry guys, bit of lamentation there. its been a long week and its prolly gonna get longer with all the tests and assignments! yikes.)

edit: woo-hoo! i feel better after all that lamentations. thanks for listening! (if you are, hehe)

2 years

Its been 2 years and a couple of days. This review is long overdue! Its been a busy time, putting out yummy things for you wonderful people who love us so much and tell us so! I should stop the long ass appreciation speech and just say, you people are everything to us, without you all, we're nothing, literally. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

When I set out for florspace, I really was at the breaking point, fiddling with store-bought bags that didn't really get me anywhere. Like clothes, shoes and everything else, there was always something so wrong with the bags in stores. By 'bags in stores' I really mean the mass-produced kinds. With little income to spare for Chloes and Vuittons and Kate Spades, I have to look at the more affordable range on the floor. I've been a bag lady all my life. When I go to a store, unconsciously, I'll end up looking at bags. Still not sure why, but somehow I'd always end up scrutinizing one or maybe, if I get lucky, lugging one home too! The exhilaration of bagging a new bag is just pure joy. That is until, said bag, has a problem. Size, color, texture, style, durability, utility & sometimes, even overusage disintegration and/or the smell of "vegan" leather can be so 'wrong' that it has to be stuffed into the back of the wardrobe. I feel bad, for the earth really, going thru bag after bag, purse after purse for years and years with the buy-and-throw attitude rolling on faster and faster, more and more. It got worse in the recent years when mass-produced bags started flooding the market from China. I was very pissed when the fakes started flooding in. I have the utmost respect for most designers and feel absolutely disgusted when their designs are simply stolen, copied and sold as if it was the most natural thing in the world. There was even a time when I spend spotting fakes in the street for the sake of it, I still do it now. I even reported a lot of listings on ebay because they're hawking fake bags. Whats the difference between selling a fake purse on ebay and stealing? With imminent depressing factors in the world, I decided I couldn't take it no more one day and decided to make my own bags for myself. Hell, if I'm so pissed with what's available, I should do something about it. After months of trial, florspace was born, as a way to share and as a means to feed myself coz I was sick of the corporate life about that time as well.

And yes, like every other business, we do have ugly episodes. Even though florspace was born to share the love for quality handmade things, like it always should have been, it is definitely tough to please everyone. Its easy to say, I can't please everyone anyways, but difficult to say when to draw the line, which comments are hitting below the belt. We are customers ourselves at some point, everyone is, and recognizing the difficulties in business, we try our best to play nice. It can be taken for granted and thats where things can start to get messy. Over the internet, over emails, words are words. Its dangerous, I think, coz ever so often, it gets misinterpreted. I'm so lucky to have DH who is a wordy expert, a social discourse linguist who deciphers my misconceptions and misinterpretations. I'm lucky to say its still pretty unusual, so I pray it stays that way. Still people can sometimes be annoying, intentional or not, I don't really have an idea. But I do have a natural tendency to make peace most of the time. Everytime an episode arises, I re-read wonderful things so many other people have said and feel better. Its still funny how one bad review can really just cancel out all the good things that have been said.

On business opportunities, we did receive quite a number of requests recently. Due to manpower shortage, the fear of becoming yet another mass production corporation & the desire to keep things smaller, more exclusive and of a higher quality, we've decided not to go anywhere yet. We're open for wholesale orders, not consignment because of a pretty bad experience. Hmm. I'll be happy to work for collaborations too! (silkscreen people, are you hearing this? ;+)

In the next years to come (I hope!), I do wanna strive so much to make better & yummier things, search the world for more yummy fabrics (another japan trip next year!), procrastinate less and take life's lemons and make them into Spanish Fly. Of course, spread the general niceness. ;+)

Hmm.....I need cake & bubbly.

Etsy Finds

Find of the day! Blazingly beautiful Orange Mid-Century coffee/tea set. I really, really want this so bad for myself but I already bought one sometime ago and DH says we're not a warehouse, so thou shalt not have repeats. Damn. From vintagedame, a steal at $32. I wished the cups come with, even though I'm not into matchy-matchy.



I've also been in love with this plate. Pity its ceramic, would be nuts to ship. And my budget's bit bad for scoured treasures. Scandinavian/Danish style. Details of this kind would be tough to unearth these days. I think it'll be perfect on the kitchen wall. From domestikate, $15.



I definitely need this one. Why the hell am I in the far east?! I could have a mid-century home by now. Double damn. A total beaut, not 50-yr-ole musty, she's hand-built by bladmanmod. Beautiful asymmetrical angles, pin legs, cute little corner stowaway! At $350, she's an incredible steal. Try looking for a piece on ebay (like this credenza), it'll hit you way more that that. Blow up the pictures at the listing and check out the knob. Swanky! Now all we need is a good book and a good drink. That said, baldmanmod has wonderful things in his shop plus his avatar is adorable!

Updates - restlessness and boredom

I gotta admit sometime that I'm getting it again. IT being the restlessness, the boredom, the quarter-life crisis feeling. I read that book a couple of years ago and shelved it coz I wasn't quite sure what the book was about. The contents are obviously already fuzzy in my brain right now, but I think I'm starting to feel for the people who accounted for the "not sure what to do" phase. I'm pretty sure what I want in life but because its a bitch and a lot of gruel getting there, I always get bored and restless every 2 years into something. And when something positive happens after 2 years, I diss it and unconsiously try to sabotage my own potential because I get worried about getting there. I am quite a commitment phobe. Its funny to recognize this still. I think the most successful "long-term-relationship" I have with anything is with DH (my education is not counted coz I keep trying to run away from it). But then a crazy amount of things happened between us during this decade or so, and I think I'm still standing on the line and constantly worry about sabotaging myself. Shhh. Its most prolly a 2-year-itch, a perpetual need to shake things up every 2 years. Hmm.

Some updates.

1) I just got a gym membership at California Fitness. Seems like a nice place with generally nice bunch of people. The classes are back-breaking, but considering my popcorn & reeces pieces/nutella spread lifestyle in sydney, I shouldn't complain but just do it for now. My limbs are aching as we speak but I'm determined to make the most out of my membership even if it kills me.

2) Whining. I'm whining again, especially to my friends. I do that when I'm bored and de-motivated. And even more so when people are asking a lot out of me. Assignments, projects and tests are slowly but surely creeping up on me and this is definitely adding up to the stress level. My hair hurts and I complain, a lot. (Sorry TC.)



3) Justin Timberlake (above. my fingers were playing shadow there). I know, I know. Its 2 years old and I'm slow to discover. Hey, gimme a break. I spend 27 hours thinking about bags a day. I started listening to my love a while back and had to come back to it. I'm not sure why but there's something to the combination of Timbaland and Timberlake. At this point, I have to say that I have no interest whatsoever in their privates lives so telling me Timbaland sleeps with Nelly Furtado isn't going to stop me from listening to Promiscuous for the millionth time. *eyeball roll* I can go on and on about his album but I'm putting Until the end of time, What goes around, My love and Apologize (One Republic & Timbaland from his album, Shock Value) on replay a lot. At night before I doze, I like all over again from JT. The hiphop/black/acid tunes really get to me. I'm a mix gal. But I have a preference for stuff by blacks. They are really more honest about life and JT is one exception. Maybe coz he worked with SD? DH still won't shave his head yet but I won't stop trying to ask. LOL The songs' MTVs are really quite mesmerizing too. Can't believe I used to diss JT because he was from N'Sync. Jez.

4) I'm also eating more amongst making stuff. I'm loving the popcorn and frozen yogurt (up there). Maybe the gym thing will balance it out. Phew.

Hope you guys are holding out well.

Friday

Staying in on Friday after a postal run and stealing a bite at the ice-cream stand. That chunk of chocolate was yummo. Of course I had 15 minutes of breather with some cold Oolong and the new Timbaland cd And the new IKEA catalogue before DH called with requests for new soaps. Naiad is having a naked soap sale and I gotta say her soaps are plenty luxurious for your skin! Go get some people.

And then it was pretty much work thereafter. Click, click, click, clickety, click.

There's something about Timbaland and Timberlake. Those 2 people make one of the greatest music I've ever listened to. And yes, I buy cds. I'm old-fashioned and I love album art. Where's the love in downloading mp3s dude?

Off to bed. Have to discuss some project stuff with the dudes tomorrow.