DIY Twinkle Star Pants

Here's a fun project I got up to recently...

 

I bought this fabric painting set from Tchibo. For those of you who don't know Tchibo, it is a German franchise that sells all kinds of cool things from clothing to cooking utensils to fun project kits like the one I got below, and best of all it only cost me AED 35!

 

The kit comes with 4 pots of fabric paint, a paint brush, a sponge brush, and a set of stencils (alpha-numerics and generic icons like hearts, stars, smileys, and even shoes and cocktail glasses).

 

I was really attracted to the lovely mettalic lilac paint, and put it to use.

 

The regular paint brush was useful, but the sponge brush was my main accessory in this project - all I needed to do was dab, dab, dab!

I chose the star motif, maybe because I have 'twinkle, twinkle little star' in my mind so constantly thanks to my little tot! She had a fun time with this project too as I made her feel very important and let her hold the stencil in place!

 

I got these dusky pink jeans from Vero Moda about a year ago. I've worn it heaps, even though I've had comments it looks naked (thanks to its close proximity to my skin colour!).

I think the metallic stars really gave my jeans a face-lift!

 

Here's a pic of my jeans up-close. The trick is to keep the distance between each motif constant so it looks neat. And doesn't the metallic paint have a lovely subtle shine?

You don't have to go buy a Tchibo kit. Create your kit at home!
 

Cut out a motif of your choice on stiff cardboard. Use an old paint brush and the sponge of an old makeup compact. Get creative with colour schemes and motifs. Have fun!

- Big Sis.

Trouble Balls

Yasmin Mogahed’s recent post entitled About a Personal Struggle I had as a Teen has me wearing my thinking cap today. I like the analogy of taking your troubles, rolling them into a ball and tossing it into a pile of other people’s ‘trouble balls’. The philosophy is that we would rather pick up our own ball than anybody else’s.
 

The premise is simple, we might crave to be that other person (the tall, thin blonde who gets everyone’s attention, the wealthy friend who owns a Porsche at 20, or the clever sibling who is the pride of the family) but do we really know the cost of being this other person day in and day out? Everybody has problems, some bigger than others, and everybody deals with their share differently.

I have been a part of the rat race for as long as I can remember. My Asian background meant I had a set of parents who pushed us towards academic excellence. We were taught to keep face in a highly competitive set of ‘close friends’. I graduated from high-school and went on to spend five years in university. I preferred university life to school for its flexible structure and colourful social life; I drowned in this newfound freedom but had to take home good reports. What would the neighbours say?

I was under constant pressure to perform. And then they wanted to know what I wanted to do with my life. I had no answer so I prolonged reality by staying on in the university cocoon and completed a Masters degree. Certificates in hand, I had to jump into the workforce, no breaks. The neighbours would question a holiday (maybe she just isn’t good enough for the workforce?).

‘When are you going to settle down?’ they ask next. Now that I am a working woman, I’m expected to marry. I found a man on my own, got married, and had a child. Yet the questions keep following me like an old nemesis. When will I get a salary hike and be able to afford that spectacular villa? When will I be driving the latest custom-made Porsche? These have not been ticked off my list, and maybe never will.

I meet less deserving people who possess these already. I am being crude and harsh for judging them as ‘less deserving’, but most of these people land into the fancy life through marriage, knowing the ‘right’ people, or were just plain lucky. I am just plain jealous.

Then I read about a very tragic incident in Gulf News today. An Emirati father of an affluent household turned the keys of his massive four-wheeler. It was like any other day, until he felt a bump that will scar him for life. His two year-old son happened to be running past, and got caught under the wheels. He was pronounced ‘spot dead’. How will a father live with this? His fancy car did not have a toddler detector device.  All his money and success cannot be traded for this lost young life.

This story gave me goose-bumps.  It made me realize how lucky I am being me and not this rich, successful man. I have a healthy, happy two year-old and my conscience has not been tainted by a heart-breaking incident he has to bear for life. I am seeing my life through rosy pink sunglasses, and feel blessed driving across town in my tiny Mini. I might have my own inner demons, but wouldn’t trade my ‘trouble balls’ with anyone.

- Big Sis.

Mango Mania

Mmmm mangoes, undeniably delectable! Love them and most foods that are flavoured so.

The mango season I hear has come to an end for the year in the tropics where they boom. New Zealand has world class fruits, but mangoes are sadly just not suited to grow in our climate. Our neighbour Australia though does grow their share.

The amazing Mango (genus Mangifera) is native to the South Asia regions and over the years has been widely cultivated to grow successfully in various other tropics, including regions in South America and even parts of our neighbouring Australia. Mangoes hugely vary in taste, size, texture and colour. This is influenced by the environment they grow in.  

Mangoes from a Farmer’s Market on a road trip to Geelong (Australia) and the resulting smoothies I made from them.

 

Ready for export, Alphonso mangoes are considered one of the best varieties.

I’ve also had the chance a couple of weeks back to try for the first time an Alphonso mango, considered one of the best in terms of richness and flavour. Not to mention price, cost me $6 for a single fruit!







My mango outlets include the supermarket (when exported), tinned purees/pulps from specialist stores and Maaza Mango drink (made in the UAE incidently).

Maaza Mango Drink & two varieties of canned mango pulp

Mango drinks are an awesome summer treat. Here’s a mango mocktail recipe I love. Hope to make it again when the weather gets warmer.

Mango Pina Colada-styled Smoothie Recipe

1 large ripe mango, peeled, seeded and cubed

1 1/4 cup pineapple juice

1/2 C heavy cream

1 (14 ounce/400 g) can coconut milk

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 1/4 cup ice-cubes

                                                                                                                                                              

Place the ice, sugar, pineapple juice, cream, and coconut milk into a blender. Blend until smooth, pour into tall glasses and serve. You could use a drop of red food colouring to draw a design through the glass. This amount makes 4-5 servings.

Mangoes have long had a reputation of being a ‘fattening’ fruit, given its sweetness and heavenly taste. But many findings say contrary. It’s found to be great for clearing skin blemishes, lowering cholesterol and also has a high antioxidant content. Well great reasons to dig in then!

Lil Sis J

Michellle Obama: Decoding the Style Secrets of America's First Lady

America’s First Lady needs no introduction. Michelle Obama is the big sister we all wished we had, a perfect role model. She is smart, witty, down to earth, a perfect wife and mother, and oozes of style and self-confidence.

 

A Harvard Law School graduate with many years of experience as a corporate executive, Michelle is a smart cookie who has also won us over with advocating real-world issues such as child obesity, the need for exercise, and vegetable gardening.

 

She manages to be one of the most famous women today with seemingly middle-class ethos. Here's a photo of her shopping under-cover at Target!

Her fashion sense also has a major influence on the stock market. When seen in a J. Crew outfit for example, the company enjoys a major boost in its stocks and pieces get sold out.

Michelle Obama carries off any outfit she wears with stylish ease thanks to her lithe, athletic figure. Her arms have been the envy of many a fashion editor, and she definately works to keep them in great shape.

 

 

With arms like these, its no wonder Michelle looks so great in sleeveless numbers.

 

Michelle seems to have a liking for the classic empire waistline dress.

 

 

She also manages to look spectacular in her evening gowns.

 

Michelle also dons cardigans when more modesty is called for (like when she met with the Queen).

 

Michelle seems to have a liking for pearls, a timeless accessory, but manages to give it a modern twist with multiple stands and larger beads.

 

 

Michelle also loves statement jewelry, and cleverly chooses one to two pieces that are big and bold and accentuate the overall look.

 

Another statement piece Michelle tends to use often is wide belts.

 

Overall, Michelle Obama encompasses the modern woman of today. Highly educated with experience in the corporate world, mother of two, and wife of the President, she doesn’t look a day over 30 (she’s 49!). She is definitely on my ‘role models’ list.

- Big Sis.

Dilraj Mann's Tribute to the Curvy Chic

I stumbled across this talented young illustrator by chance. Dilraj Mann hails from Dalston (North-East London, UK) and his comic-style creations are taking the London creative scene by storm.

 

Most of his illustrations are based on the Dalston nightlife, and he seems to have a special penchant towards voluptuous women in tight jeans.

 

 

 

His clean sketches of female curves act as the baseline of his work.

 

I also find it intriguing how he manages to dress his characters top to toe in very up to date fashion. He definitely has an eye for fashion and the fuller figure.

 

 

- Big Sis.

Arne Svenson: An Intrusion into Privacy

If you are a New Yorker, you might have heard of the controversy surrounding Arne Svenson. A celebrated photographer specializing in people portraits and an uncanny eye for quirk, his latest collection entitled ‘The Neighbours’ has landed him into a legal soup.

The collection is a series of shots taken of the apartments opposite Svenson’s Tribecca home in 2012. The shots were taken secretly with Svenson’s zoom lenses. They capture mundane but intimate moments of modern domestic life, and each image is now up for sale at prices ranging around USD $7,500.

 

 

 

Needless to say, the collection has been seen as a breach of privacy. Although the shots have been cleverly taken (as a form of art) and disguise the subject’s actual identity, Svenson is facing a lawsuit from Martha and Matthew Foster who claim certain shots of their young children “are clearly recognizable” and pose a danger to their safety.

Svenson’s response to this was “For my subjects, there is no question of privacy. The neighbours don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs.” If I was in his neighbours’ shoes, I’d find this comment infuriating. It’s one thing that space-starved New Yorkers know better than to expect privacy in their glass-and-steel residential boxes, but it’s a completely different ball-game when your daily duties are printed and posted as sellable art for the world to see.

Svenson’s lawyer is looking for solace under the First Amendment of Rights that gives artists a freedom of expression, thereby making such actions legal. But what about the subjects in question? It is a heated debate.

We have read of controversies surrounding celebrities who yearn for privacy. They say it’s the price they have to pay for fame. Now everyday people are entering the same mess. Would you appreciate finding an image of yourself cleaning the toilet (even if your face cannot be seen), and read it’s a hot-seller in a glorified art gallery? Rather disturbing I’d say. Keep the curtains down and beware of artsy neighbours!

- Big Sis.

Why Marketing is NOT Sales

Many people tend to think the two are one and the same, but having worked in the field of Marketing for nearly a decade now, I can vouch to say that marketing is definitely not sales.

A sale is the last process of a business transaction. A sales professional is the face of the business so to speak, as they interact directly with potential customers. I have immense respect for sales professionals. They have to possess a gift of the gab; their role is to foster a relationship with a client on a personal level and seal the deal.

As a marketer, we never have the luxury of meeting our customers on a one-on-one basis. For a marketer, our target market is far wider (think “all women aged 25 to 40 living in the UAE”), and we only interact with them on a subliminal level. We create advertising that talk to the masses; we post comments on Facebook that can be seen by anybody. Unlike a sales professional, marketing is more data-driven than relationship driven. We conduct research and trial and error to foster to the needs of a market.

Also unlike sales, marketing cannot be measured. A sales professional’s success can be judged by the value of sales closed, but marketing works on a cognitive level. A person might be driven to buy a product from seeing a poster ad, but may not even remember this was their call to action.

Sales can therefore work on commissions, marketing is pretty much impossible to measure.

A sale is the end process, the sealing of the deal. However Marketing is business development. Take the traditional 4 P’s of marketing – Product (product or ‘market need’ development), Price (working out profit margins and competitor offerings), Place (logistics and distribution channels) and Promotion (advertising, media relations). Only once these factors have been set can a sale take place. Marketing is therefore a support function that leads to sales.

 

My first full-time job in Marketing earned me the designation of ‘Product Manager’. I had the pleasure of working closely with very talented designers who developed kitchen gadgets for European, American and Australasian markets. I studied how the three markets differ from one another, and how this would affect product development. For example, research showed serving sizes varied greatly between Americans and Europeans so the later got smaller sized utensils.

I also did competitor analysis to understand what was lacking in the current market, how our offering can be made to look more attractive, what customers needed, and what price point would be best. Then came advertising; many people believe marketing is advertising. However, advertising is just a component of marketing. Advertising is the message we put out about a product, but marketing works beyond a simple ad. Marketing is brand management – we need to keep face, continue with more subtle forms of advertising including product packaging, press releases and keeping good relations with the media, try online social media portals, and even use more subtle advertising routes such as social marketing (sponsoring a charity). I also supported the sales team by keeping them updated on new product developments and market trends, and reworked price discounts for special customers. These are just a few hats I’ve worn as a marketer early into my career. Over time many other aspects have been added to my portfolio. I am learning something new every day!

Another aspect of my job as a marketer is training the sales team. In this aspect, the sales team can be seen as an indirect vehicle for advertising. I look after the sales uniform design, train the team on product features and customer etiquettes.

 

A marketer is analytical and looks at the bigger picture. Sales professionals work on developing one-on-one relationships with customers and close the deal. Both disciplines require very different skill sets.

Marketing and sales go hand in hand; they are two crucial steps of the business process, but are two very different disciplines. I am a marketer; I am a vital part of business development but leave the selling to the sales professionals.

- Big Sis.

Keep Calm and Carry On: Where did this all start?

I’d say by now most of us have seen this image and its many variations and parodies floating around.

 

Upon chit chat on a not so sunny Saturday brunch yesterday, I came to learn that one of my fellow brunchers thought it’s a new brand from a T-shirt company. The other corrected that it was one of the many memes originating and popularised by Facebook. OMG I thought!  Well it’s ok if you thought as them too. Both suggestions are not entirely untrue. After I realised the fact that I’m a sort of history geek and how could I expect everyone to care to know, I was less surprised and filled them in. Now let me briefly fill you in.

The original “Keep Calm” poster (pictured above) was in fact a poster released by the British government, commission by the Ministry of Information, during the start of the Second World War in 1939. The idea was to lift the morale of the British public in the event of a large scale air attack or occupation, which at that time seemed fairly inevitable. This poster was preceded by the two others (pictured below alongside the “Keep Calm and Carry On”):

In 2000, bookshop owners Stuart Manley and his wife Mary of Barter Books Ltd in Alnwick, Northumberland, stumbled across a copy of the poster. They came across it in a pile of used books purchased at an auction, liked it and framed it one their wall. Reprints were made due to popular requests and by 2009 they’d sold over 40000 copies. The year 2009 was also the year where global economic crisis had spread across, and the renewed relevance of this poster was reinstated to fit with the current age. Nowadays Barter Books Ltd are no longer the sole source of merchandise.

This whole idea today is a popular meme.  A few of the many examples include Stereophonics, a Welsh rock band releasing their seventh album on November 2009 titled “Keep Calm and Carry On”. Threadless the noted T-shirt company sell a variety of plays on the phrase. Several websites also collect the many variations/spoofs created, with Tumblr and many other popular social networking sites dedicated to the same. Not to mention a New York Times feature.

Here’s my version J

 

Lil Sis x

Dubai: The City of Life

‘City of Life’ is a poignant film portraying three very different lives. A directional debut by Emirati born Ali F. Mostafa, this short film is not just based in Dubai, but is about Dubai. Mostafa has managed to transform Dubai from a backdrop to his plot to a character in itself. City of Life shows us Dubai’s many faces; the opulence of a rich Emirati home, the adrenalin rush of its nightlife, and the heat and dust of its busy, bustling streets.

Dubai is a melting pot of cultures, and Mostafa gives us a taste of this by using three parallel storylines focusing on three different socio-ethnic backgrounds. We meet a young Emirati from an affluent family, and learn power and money does not guarantee happiness. This young man would rather be out about town with his street-smart friend than under the scrutiny of his overpowering father. We meet a young Russian flight attendant looking for love, and see a fairytale go sour. And we meet an Indian taxi driver who has an uncanny resemblance to a Bollywood star and dares to dream big despite his social and financial limitations. Mostafa makes good use of Dubai’s social stereotypes. These might be a little lost on someone who has never lived in the UAE, but the characters are strong enough to leave an impression.

I hope Mostafa does a remake of ‘City of Life’ and explores new storylines. If it were up to me, I would showcase a ‘Jumeirah Jane’, a trophy wife of a highly successful Indian expatriate whose life revolves around socializing and keeping face. My other characters would be a Filipino maid and a Pathan laborer as I feel these are lives less explored by the media, yet newspaper reports give us the dirty picture on their unfortunate living conditions. I also came across a very entertaining blog recently that follows the life of a Filipino maid working in Dubai. Dubai Sally has a strong blog following, and has also come under scrutiny on whether she actually exists or is a clever work of fictioin.

Overall, I would not recommend ‘City of Life’ as an introduction to Dubai. Many issues uncovered in the film are morbid, and the subtleties of the subject matter and how it links to the city may be lost to an outsider. However, it is a beautifully made film and can be considered a masterpiece for those who live in the UAE and have a firsthand experience with the city of life.   

-     Big Sis.