City in a Garden

NParks wants to hear from us!

At the National Day Rally 2011, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about “building to keep Singapore special and exceptional”. He said, “We’re going to have parks and gardens in the heartlands. And we’ll link them all up to create a City in a Garden”. What are your views? How would your City in a Garden be like?  Hop on over to NParks' website and share your views!

Revamping your old belt!

After finally getting my sewing machine to work I got down to some serious business with my reconstruction. I've taken an old belt that has lost its life and encased it in the jeans material from my hubby's old pair of jeans (the one that became jeans bangles and a tissue case too).


It's an easy project. I think this could work with any type of old material. I was thinking of scrunching up the material but because the jeans material was too thick it ended up really bulky. I guess T-shirt material or some sort of satin material would have been better. In the end, I sewed on lots of old buttons and beads. Happy sewing!

Old belt - this was an elasticated belt and so it was easy to sew through.

Another monkey?

What's up with the monkeys? We spotted one in the playground this afternoon. How did he or she manage to cross the highway a few blocks away? Or did the monkey from Marsiling Lane? That's quite a distance. Hope no one fed it. Anyway, I called ACRES. Apparently they don't have the equipment to catch a monkey and release it back to the forest. The guy said that if we are located near a nature park we could call NParks. Only problem was we don't live near a nature park, so who do we call?

Injured Monkey

We went cycling to Woodlands Waterfront on Saturday. On our way back home, we passed by an injured monkey (monkey on the right of photo). His leg was bloody and we suspected he had been hit by traffic along Marsiling Lane. Apparently, a bunch of them were trying to cross the road. I quickly got in touch with my friend J for ACRES Wildlife Rescue Hotline (24-hour), which I now know is 97837782. Actually, I was wondering whether it would be NParks but ACRES would probably respond a lot quicker!  Anyway, as we approached the injured monkey, a mother and baby (see left of the photo) came out from the forest, and suddenly we heard shrieking and rustling.  My son got pretty scared, and then we realised that there was a whole pack of them in the forest waiting to cross the road. In the end, the whole pack, including the injured the monkey dashed across the road (again almost getting knocked over by traffic) to do I don't know what. So, in the end we didn't call ACRES.   I think we should have traffic signs saying "SLOW, Monkeys on the Road". Hope the little fellow is okay.

CSR - Helping the community

Having been and brought up the in the UK, it was very sad to see the riots and the looting happen. Over 70% of those that have been arrested are in the 11 to 24 age group and there is speculation that the majority of those involved are unemployed.   I don't want to start an argument on why this rioting happened, but I have been wondering:


(1) why the youth did not care for their actions. I actually heard on the BBC radio that teenagers weren't worried about going to jail and there weren't any place in jail for them anyway. Some even said that their parents would just scold them for their actions!


(2) why has society broken down and the individual become so engrossed in consumerism. Did yo notice that those looting were targeting certain stores?


In the aftermath, it was good to see the community rallying to clean up the mess and fight against the "scum". But perhaps they should also reflect on how to get the youth busy and engaged; make them feel part of the community. Government can only do so much. Why not get the business community to be part of the community. It could be starting a programme to get underprivileged teens into activities they choose to like, rather than what we think they like, volunteering, or offering work placements to disadvantaged groups.  I think this is what we should do in Singapore as well :-)

Plants all grown up!!

Bitter gourd!

Tomatoes on the left. Peppers on the right.

Spring onions

My sewing machine jammed!

Have no fear! For the "unjammer" is here. Okay, that was rather corny, but when your sewing machine jams for the second time in the year, you get a bit desparate and not having a working sewing machine is like cold turkey! I thought about getting the repair man to fix it (that would cost about SGD50 inclusive of transport) and even getting a new one which would cost me at least SGD400.

The important thing about sewing machines is that they must be CLEANED and OILED regularly.  I think that means every six months for someone like me. If you don't clean it, all the fluff from your sewing will jam the machine. Sometimes you can't see the fluff, but it's there. 

All sewing machines come with a little brush and a small tube of oil. Use can also use a soft cloth or tooth pick (don't use a cotton bud as it leaves fluff) to clean out gunk too.  Faithfully follow the instructions in the maintenance section of your instruction manual.  I must stress the word faithfully because I missed a step and I still couldn't unjam my machine. I only cleaned and oiled the bobbin and bobbin case, and was lazy to do the same with the feed-dog. Turns out there was fluff in the teeth of the feed-dog.  Don't sew immediately or else you'll end up with oil patches on your fabric. Also, change your needle to a new one as the needle may have been damaged when your machine jammed! Anyway, I hope you find the pics useful :-)  Happy sewing!

1. Unscrew & remove platform  2. Use brush to defluff teeth
3. Remove bobbin; dismantle bobbin case (to dismantle turn the levers at arrow 3)
[use brush to defluff all parts, use a soft cloth too! Oil at arrow 7 and 6.]



Oh behave!

It's been a long 2 weeks since I last blogged, mainly because of work and secondly my poor sewing machine jammed again as I was doing another reconstruction (will blog about that later!). 

I did come across some interesting sites about behaviour though. Nowadays, governments are trying to come up with schemes/programmes that will help "nudge" the public in the desired direction.  A good example is the gruesome pictures on the cigarette packs to deter people from smoking, or placing recycling bins below our housing estates to get people to recycle. It is difficult though - have you ever tried changing the behaviour of your loved ones? hee hee. 

Here's someone who's actually stealing from a recycling bin instead of actually using it correctly - is there something wrong with the way the bin is designed, or are we sending the wrong message?

This is a picture of the recycling bins just outside our neighbourhood shopping centre. I think the reason why they're used incorrectly is that it's more convenient for the shoppers who've finished their food and drinks to pop their waste there instead of the general waste bin !