The Household COO

Well, okay, so it’s been in for a while now.

I have to admit, when I first saw the shop Papier in The Curve, I didn’t think this hobby would survive here -especially not when it cost so much just to get the materials. Imagine my surprise when I noticed more scrapbooking shops popping up all over the place, while shops that didn’t normally offer scrapbooking products started supplying them. I guess the whole scrapbooking thing has really taken off…

This is the first scrapbook I ever made after our honeymoon as a gift for some friends in Japan:

Somewhere around the middle of the album, I was starting to lose my enthusiasm for scrapbooking. By the time I got to the end of the album, I pretty much got over the need to express myself artistically.

Recently, after much nagging, I finally developed more photos of Gavin and decided to make another scrapbook of Gavin’s baby photos. I ended up developing so many photos that I had enough photos for three large albums.

Since I had so many photos, I adopted a rather minimalistic approach to decorating my pages. Firstly, I crammed too many photos onto one page.

Secondly, I used very little decorations for each page.

Forgive me for sounding cheap and miserly when we’re talking about happy memories, but when you consider that these sticker letterings cost me RM15,

and these stickers cost anywhere from RM15-25, and add the fact that I have 180 pages to decorate, it is starting to get a little out of hand, don’t you think?

The up side of taking the minimalistic approach was that I completed one album a lot more quickly than it took me to finish the album I made after our honeymoon.

Only in Malaysia does a hobby like this cost so much. I remember being able to buy art and craft supplies from Spotlight in Melbourne for such reasonable prices that it didn’t seem so outrageous to keep such hobbies.

That said, there is a trick to scrapbooking in Malaysia at a more affordable price. Instead of using the stickers and all those fancy supplies, you can buy the decorative cards that they have available for the backdrop and cut out the pictures for decorations. Instead of costing some RM15-25 for 10 to 20 stickers, you can get a whole lot more pictures for RM5-15.

If you really want to go cheaper, just use some cutesy wrapping paper which will give you a heck of a lot more pictures for RM1.50-2.00. I don’t think you can get cheaper than that.

Now I can go back and add some more colour to the first album I made…

That said, though, I have to admit my efforts at scrapbooking are rather lame when you compare them to stuff like this.

Why I love online shopping

Every year, there are two days in the year where online shopping has never failed to save my relationship with my mother. My mother is the sort of person who would never admit that she adores getting presents. She’ll tell you not to buy her anything when in truth, deep down inside her heart of hearts, she’s hoping and praying she’ll get something.

My Dad, my brother and I are the sort of insensitive characters that usually take a person’s word at face value and never dwelve deeper than the surface for the underlying meanings. We don’t care that no one remembers our birthdays and we wouldn’t blink if our birthdays went by without anyone the wiser. Because of that, we often forget that my mother is not at all like us.

It has taken me a while, but I think I’m slowly getting there. I now send flowers to my mother every year for her birthday and mother’s day regardless of whether I think she wants them or not. The unfortunate thing is that I usually only get around to ordering her flowers the night before the actual date. For that reason alone, I LOVE online flowers like Interflora - they are a Godsend for someone like me.

This year, my SIL reminded me that mother’s day was just around the corner when she started asking me for ideas on what to make her Mom (my MIL) for dinner on mother’s day (more on this topic to come). Not wanting to be searching for flowers the night before Sunday, I immediately jumped online and started searching for flowers when my SIL suggested I do something different this year. She recommended I try a chocolate gift from Definitely Chocolate after she received a delicious box of chocolates from them as a gift.

Definitely Chocolate offers luxury chocolates handcrafted using Belgian chocolate and the finest ingredients from Australia and Worldwide. Indulge in a beautifully boxed selection of their most popular flavors - Hazelnut Praline, Honey Ganache, Coffee Cognac, Pistachio Nougat and more. Or you can choose your own selection and they will pack them for you. Definitely Chocolate guarantees the true chocolate lover a moment of unforgettable pleasure. These handmade chocolates and Single Origin pure chocolate bars can be given as gifts or consumed for personal indulgence! They offer next day delivery, Australia wide.

So this is what I’m sending my mother this year: