3=three=twee!!!

forestprints design, our officially registered business, is TWEE!!!
on 8th August, 2007 to be exact :D

it was very very bad of me to have forgotten about it, very kindly reminded by mao, b, and mandy!
things are just so crazy busy, too many things going on, and the juggling of too many aspects of running the label and business, and designing, and crafting, and pr-ing and researching, setting up and managing the home-cottage workshop in the philippines... has left me no time to zen out and reflect on what i've been doing, have and have not accomplished, for the past wonderfully exciting twee years. if i've changed in some/many ways, no thanks to the "craftiness" (in the evil sense) of this real business world, my love for saying "twee" sure hasn't.... hahaha

maybe i shall have the time to muse over the ups and downs for the past years, of graduating, slaving, quitting slavery, then becoming a slave to my ownself, and enjoying the small little fruits of slaving labor.... later, at least when i have to force myself to slow down and have a relaxed enough mind to plan out our ever important itinerary for the not very short trip, b is depending on me for it, ha, so much for holiday pressure.

thanks for all the well wishes people!! for all your love and support!!! nothing would have been possible without you all, because i'm really no sales-person, you all did the spreading of word-of-mouth for me, the praises, the love, and all...... i may not be good at expressing my gratefulness in person, but please know i am beyond grateful. i would give each and every one of you real hugs, i'm a touchy feely person, but i know many who are averse to touching, so if i have never given you a tight-dada-squeezy, please ask me for it. (for those of you who don't have a long personal relationship with moi, my pet-name is dada ;p)

champagne for later, i've to have a clear mind, still in the midst of drafting out an important contract.... fun.....

*hugs and kisses!*

lof loves....

all of you who have emailed, blogged about, or sms-ed me super kind and nice comments about what we do here in this little odd forest! i'm forever grateful.... we all are! sometimes my helpers get alittle bogged down by customers and work and sewing etc., but they tell me their moods perk up whenever they hear or read about people appreciating all that's been done... (^____^)

the following are awesome peeps in the wonderfully big world wide web, who have been showering littleoddforest with their continuing support, i won't have been able to continue doing more of what i love to do without you all!

the bag lady
the ladies behind the bag lady obviously like us alot! eeppp!
they have featured littleoddforest goods not once, not twice, but 5 times this year!!! *hugsss!*
http://www.thebaglady.tv/2007/07/i_love_the_love.html
http://www.thebaglady.tv/2007/07/organise_your_h_1.html
http://www.thebaglady.tv/2007/06/get_festival_re.html
http://www.thebaglady.tv/2007/04/little_mushroom.html
http://www.thebaglady.tv/2007/03/skirt_wristlet.html

cuteable
only cute stuff featured here in the land of cuteable! i bet she is not just a super nice person but a cutey one too! lof goods have been featured 3 times since last year! *hugss*
http://cuteable.com/cuteable-finds-17/533
http://cuteable.com/stumpie-seat/385
http://cuteable.com/an-odd-little-forest/18

scoot on down to our press & praise page to see all our other latest reviews!

and this has been super delayed... but better late than never!
amy, founder of the rockin' remakeables, recently sent me an awesome fungi treasure stash from her trip to japan! jealous, yes? *pokey pokey* hee..... thanks again babe! i'll make sure to put them to good use ;) the mushroom stamp is used religiously on a few lucky order packages everyday by elsie


and now, i leave you with some new soon-to-be-listed additions from littleoddforest's latest collection - petit leaf straplets!

remember, there will be no stock updates in our website for the whole month of sept as the entire littleoddforest crew takes a break! so shop now if you need something to reach you in sept! will update you all with the specific dates as the time draws near. Or if you're in singapore, you can catch us at fashbash, although the stuff i'm bringing will mostly be different from those in the shoppe.

okie doks, i'm off to the pool... to cure my migraine....

xoxoxo

fashbash

and yes. it's official. littleoddforest will be at fashbash!! woohoo!!
this would be our 2nd and final "outing" this year!
so if you miss us yet again this time round, then that's it for now, folks!
we're so right smacked in front, you'd have to at least have cataract to not see us. ha

so what can you expect at our booth?
(don't stop breathing as you read on)
# a range of selected items from our current new collection!
# selected designs, remnant odd-sizes, product samples and prototypes, at up to 50% off their listed retail prices!
# 20% discount if you spend above $200 on lof goods!
# one of you lucky ones will have the opportunity to win a one-of-a-kind lof's Love-Owl Key-Ring Purse as part of fashbash's lucky draw prizes!
# first 300 or so to arrive at fashbash will have a cute little lof goodie in their fashbash swag bags!

if this is not good enough, there will be loads of other fabulous finds such as tskye and dustbunny vintage at fashbash - visit their website and sign up for their email newsletter to find out more!
we'll see ya there! weeee!

check-list

conquered
1. bandit plush couple

2. custom messenger bag
3. spangelina's special felt picture wedding gift for her hubby-to-be














4. custom forest seedlings tote
5. custom hungry monster pouch
6. 1 brand new silkscreen print design (part of brand new collection)
7. making sure becky got seriously tanned(lobsterfied) and wasted before heading back to montreal
8. denna! cheers to a wonderful working relationship!
9. paying income tax (was seriously few hours away from dateline..)
10. new design for a new line of merchandise! (secret. for now. part of brand new collection)
11. bulk order of plushies collection (so stop bugging me to get a manicure, lana. dammit)
12. plush you exhibition
13. harry potter and the deathly hallows
14. paprika (awesome!!) and the simpsons movie (
15. my united mileage points! woohoo! not even stepped foot in the u.s. yet but i can already smell japan? sweet.
16. last minute nyc hotel change. (i'm eternally grateful to you, mao!!!!!!!!!)
17. a gazillion email replies

yonder hills....
1. 2nd brand new silkscreen design (part of brand new collection)
2. other remaining parts of brand new collection (yes. we get it.)
3. 4 yet-to-have-started custom orders... october yo. october. patience is a virtue.
4. high res product photos for mag feature
5. get people who owe littleoddforest alot of $$$ to pay up. shitty.
6. find out what happenned to the 22 missing items at pluck. shitty.
7. teaching application (i don't know what to think of it)
8. dealing with ipos
9. get new investments finalised (thank goodness we sold off in time)
10. prepare trip schedule. i'm b's official tourguide. how nice.
11. 6 birthday presents
12. hire new sewers (headache)
13. finalise new wholesale supplies account (wooppee! getting supplies at retail prices is seriously dumb)
14. look for new embroidery machine
15. look for new space
16. fashbash
17. another bazillion emails to reply (headache)

did you notice??? 17 down, and 17 more to go!!!! totally unplanned. kewl.

we love technology

you know how draggy email liaises can get often times? well.... it has been occurring far too much than desired for the past 2 months or so.... bad. it didn't help that too much has been going on in my life recently.

replied to the other parties involved in various email i had kinda lost count along the way the number of "i'll try!" "why not?" "maybe!" "okay!" "i'd love to!" i'veliaisons..... mostly littleoddforest work related.... which means.... commitments.... promises.... which means.... i HAVE TO do it even if it means i DIE. hah, okay that's exaggeration. but you get the drift. i had put waaayyyyy tooooo mucchhhhh "food" on my platter..... and if only it was just food, i could just put it away, albeit with more than a tinge of guilt, thinking of people suffering from hunger elsewhere, or as i usually do, push it to the unfortunate person eating with moi. but i couldn't live with myself if i had to push away chances of doing up special projects, or fun and cool custom orders i'd love so much to do (super important, as 99% of the time i'll nicely decline requests that i'm not into...) or even just simply because i like that person or for some silly reason blah blah blah..... i can be such an enthusiastic work globbler..... pppfftttt....

so, unknowingly, in just these couple of months, i said yes to more than 9 varying custom requests. and the screwy thing about email is, sometimes, somehow, we'll either not have the chance to reply asap, or just kinda felt that we needed that extra time to take to reply, or for whatever other million and one reasons etc.

and so the dragginess of emailing to and fro goes on..... and then, as funny things occur in this world, every single one of peeps (well, except 2) replied with their confirmation around the same time. just a few days apart. sheesh. thanks ya all. i had SOME weeks to complete MANY requests... fun.

ha okay okay, granted i still had fun and enjoyed every part of doing up all of the special requests!! cross my heart. and plus it's not like they were done for free.... i got paid. so what's there not to love?? ;p

i hope everyone was and will be (for those enroute or still not started on.....bleurghh) delighted with their custom orders! they'd better... ha..

now, if only i could push myself to go on and conquer those ninety bazillion other emails that elsie, my part-time customer service slave, can't help me with....*cry*

Creative recycling.....

A couple weeks ago I was wondering what I could do with some jars I was planning to recycle. I decided to make garden lanterns (hanging candle holders) from them. I did 3 of them and I thought they came out so pretty that I asked my neighbors to save me their jars and I made more. The hardest part is the wire handle. It looks easy but that bit is really tricky and hard on the hands. Luckily Paul helped me with that part! The "lanterns" or candle holders look beautiful hung on tree branches, sat around on the garden table or hung on those iron "crooks" that you can buy at most garden centers and DIY shops. If you like them, there are still some available on our website or if you have some spare time, you can try making some yourself!

I also thought that if you were planning a country style or "shabby" vintage wedding, these would be great hung "en masse".



I have been working on a new style of them which I will try to take photos of tomorrow providing it isn't raining!

If you want to try to make one yourself, please wear thick gloves when it comes to the wire part. It is very easy to break the glass while trying to wrap the wire around the jar! Dont forget to use a clear drying sealant of some sort to add protection to the image and the fabric.

Good luck!

bah!

stop fucking testing our website's system. it is fucking getting on our nerves. especially mine. i'm too fucking busy right now. and we know when you are testing our system. stop fucking placing fake bank transfer orders. it registers in our database. a gazillion times. and depending on how you screw our system, we even get system emails. like a bazillion fucking times. so stop fucking testing it or keep going back to view an order that has long already been cancelled and then keep bookmarking that fucking page and gawd knows what else you do with it. gawd dammit. i'm not in the mood to apologise for my language. so there.