2 worlds

For the countless times, I arrived back home to Jakarta yesterday.

It’s funny that I’ve flown back and forth from Jakarta to Sydney so many times that it doesn’t feel like an effort anymore. And yet, because these 2 places are so different, it’s always hard to come into realization whenever it’s time to go again. I always feel like I’m living in 2 completely different places. I used think that Jakarta is like London and Australia is like Narnia. Now I think more like Jakarta is earth and Australia is Pandora. You get the idea…. 2 completely different worlds! I had my engagement party the day before I had to fly back to Jakarta. My guests were surprised to find out that I’m going to leave at the very next day after I’m ‘officially’ engaged, leaving my fiancé and all. Greg and his cousin kept saying to me, “Are you REALLY leaving tomorrow?” and for the first time since I went out with Greg, I had to take the bus from Canberra to Sydney airport by myself. This is the 6th time Greg and I had to say goodbye. When I had to say goodbye to him for the first time 2 years ago, it was one of the hardest thing I had to do in my life. And now Greg only dropped me off at the bus station and he didn’t even wait for my bus to leave to waive me goodbye. I don’t know why it’s so easy now for us to be apart now. Maybe because we’ve done it so many times, or maybe it’s because we’re engaged. Whatever it is, I just hope that it’s not because we’re losing our spark.

We’ve set a date for our wedding but I don’t know when I’ll be going back to Australia again. To be married to my fiancé, I had to apply for the prospective marriage visa through the Australian embassy. They said I had to be outside Australia when I send in my application and when the application is granted. The application will take 6-8 months to be processed. So I guess I will have to arrange most of the wedding stuff while I’m in Jakarta. This will get interesting!

Whilst in Australia, I attended 3 weddings in 3 consecutive weekends. From each one Greg and I took ideas from them for our own wedding, and from each one of them I learnt an important lesson. I was too slack and had waaay too much fun in Australia to update my blog so, apologies for not posting my stories in real time, but I will have to post those stories after this one.

So now… back at home. My mum told me that she felt like I went away longer than I really should. One big clue is that my cat Mimi had given up waiting for me and decided to meow outside my mum’s bedroom for attention. I know she misses me. She hadn’t stopped following me around the house since I got back home. Everybody should know that dog’s are man’s best friends but cats are a woman’s best friend. Being away from Greg is a lot easier when Mimi’s around. =)

Back to work tomorrow again though… sigh… let me hear it from you who loves to sit on your bum for 8 hours straight! Definitely NOT for me! -_-;

My Etsy Shop New Look

I'm on my last couple of days of my stay in Australia now. After attending so many weddings week after week and organising my own wedding, I magically understood the wonderful effect of logo and branding. I realize that most weddings have a colour theme that plays a big part to the 'feeling' of the whole occasion. In my opinion, the more consistent the theme is, the better.

I had a simple vision that my logo is going to be a picture of a girl with swirly hair. At first i started drawing on photoshop using my wacom tablet, but that takes waaay too long to get done so I end up drawing by hand and then scanning it in. It didnt take me long to come up with a picture a girl with swirly hair who is surrounded by round beads. Her face expression and body language is essentially relaxed and at peace, which is imporant to the theme of my shop.



My previous banner was a simple picture I took of a canola farm growing next to the poisonous yet beautiful "Padison's curse". I didn't think much about the shop's colour theme, but because I'm used to seeing the sky blue, purple and yellow from my previous banner, I decided to keep those colours in my new banner. I also decided to use the same font of writing.



It took me 2 days to design and finish making the banner and print out new name cards. I guess my lack of knowledge in digital art technique affects the amount of time for me to get things done, but it all adds up to an experience so I have no regrets. Plus I really enjoy doing this! My name cards look like this now:



Besides pencil drawing, I use adobe photshop, illustrator and a little bit of paint.net to get this done. I have never ever taken any photshop classes, so I google all my questions when I get stuck- which chews up a lot of time. If that didn't work, I tend to reach out to my super helpful IT fiance who knows nothing about photoshop yet always comes back to me with a solution.

... oh man, all this effort! I am quite please with the result though! It's feels soooo good to have a shop identity! Yay, finally...!!! XD