Bottled Sky

Last June my friends and I went on a trip to Cebu, where we jumped off waterfalls and took naps on the beach. The post-vacation high somehow managed to seduce my web design muse out of wherever the hell she’d been hiding for the past year.

When I got back to Singapore, I started working on a remake of the summer-inspired layout that I created back in 2006. (Translation: I was too lazy and not quite inspired enough to start from scratch.) Unfortunately real work got in the way and sent my muse packing. I never got around to finishing the layout.

Well, not until now! You see, I went on another trip recently, this time to Batam, Indonesia with two of my fellow slaves colleagues. We went cable skiing, gorged on surprisingly fantastic pizza, tanned poolside, and spent hours being massaged into blissful, boneless relaxation. The trip gave me just the right amount of juice to finish what I started months ago.

I’m kind of in love with it, if I may be so immodest. I found a few bugs just now that would have normally sent my anal side on a rampage, but I’m just so happy that I don’t even mind. Take that, obsessive-compulsive tendencies! Let me know, if the layout isn’t working right on your end, though. I’m not too far gone to not care about that.

Continue reading Summer Makes a Comeback »

I made the following themes a couple of years ago for my own LiveJournal, but I’m sharing them with anyone who’s interested. I retired the Extras section that used to house these, so I decided to archive them here.

Please note that I no longer provide support for these LJ themes. Feel free to modify the CSS however you want, but please don’t make any derivative works out of the graphics. If you do use any of these layouts, a link back to this post would be nice.

Continue reading Free LiveJournal Themes »

Nothing like exciting news to break a four-month blogging dry spell, I always say. So guess what? Both my blog and my portfolio site were featured in the recently released Web Designer’s Idea Book by Patrick McNeil, the creator of DesignMeltdown.com!

I finally got my copy in the mail yesterday, and I spent approximately four and half minutes giggling with glee. Forgive my excitement, but this would probably be the one and only time my name would be mentioned in a book. I’m allowed to be ecstatic!

Continue reading Excuse Me While I Squeal »

If you have hundreds of vacation photos sitting in your hard drive and want to make better use of them, try turning them into cartoon postcards! It’s quite simple to do if you have some basic drawing and Photoshop skills.

In my aunt’s case, she had a niece with a lot of free time. Below are three of eight postcards that I made for her a few years ago (she needed them for a personal project). Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view.

I used photos from her trip to China, choosing those of her standing in front of different tourists spots with very few other people in the background. Those are the best types of photos for this kind of project.

Here’s a rundown of how you can make unique postcards out of your travel photos. One caveat: This is definitely not a tutorial. It’s more of a detailed idea for you to play around with.

Continue reading Personalized Cartoon Postcards »

I got scratched and bitten by cats many times in my childhood, because I didn’t know that this facial expression meant “Little girl, if you value your limbs, you will immediately cease your attempts to hug me.”

If I had been raised in a Bengal forest, surely I would have become tiger food before my third birthday.

Continue reading Not Amused »