百变@ X'mas trees

I have a pleasant stroll at several shopping malls recently to "feel" the christmas's celebrities. You can see many people choosing christmas trees and the fancy decorations for their homes in preparing for the merry event.

Christmas has become the happiest time of year around the world including Singapore. Not only home, most of the shops and stalls also have xmas trees decorated with shinny tinsel, ornaments, showflakes, and hand-made variety to attract shoppers. The decor has been very eye-catching than the year-end-sales signages! Guess what? The xmas trees' leaves are no longer green; no bright star on top; don't look golden anymore, Hahaa!

Would like to share some pictures I take at shopping malls. The X'mas trees are said to have trendy design.

Cone-shaped xmas tree (in dark red tip feathers)

Piramid-shaped (with shinny wire net)

Wired X'mas tree (in purple)

Slippery tree (hung with slippers of dif colours)

the Black Gold found at MNG

the Most enchanting X'mas icon at Sunway Piramid, KL

Merry X'mas & A Happy+Joyful new year ahead!

Be Innovative, Go "Vaseless"

Hand bouquet is an arranged bouquet of flowers and foliage that is wrapped with decorative papers and tied with raffia. Traditionally, this creation of design is commonly used in many occations as a gift rather than a display, whereas in modern work there is functional purpose with the design, revealing the beauty as well as the needs in flower display.

Hand bouquet does not come with container, instead, the recipient merely drop the tied and arranged bouquet in a vase. It could trouble the recipient when selecting a suitable container; some people hang the tied bouquet up side down in a bid to preserve each piece of plant material. (I used to do that but I realised that not many flowers can be dry preserved) =P.

The best moment to indulge in the sweeties flowers is when it is fresh and still scented your room! In modern work, the forms of flower and their stems are taken into consideration in the floral creation. Longer stems are kept as to prolong the life span of the flowers.

See pictures (1), I use mottled red-black wrapping paper as "paper vase" for the bouquet I have arranged; by contrast the one with glass in pic (2) looks plain. What do you think?

Top: Pic (1) & Bottom: Pic (2)

We have seen many seasonal floral decorations arranged in containers (vase, pot etc.). Perhaps we could try something innovative -- vaseless floral arrangement?

How frequent do you need to change vase water?

I visited Eco-Product Internatinal Fair organised by SPRING Singapore in Oct at Suntec and found this so-called Pirkare enzyme solution. This product is awarded Gold in the competition among various participating eco-company such as Nippon Paint, Kao, Okamura, Toray and Toyota Motor etc. Pirkare is soup powder culturing fermentation type microbe and is reported to exhibit anti-oxidant properties to prevent electification.

Surprsingly, Pirkare is not only for laundry and cleaning purposes but is claimed suitable for agriculture! It is able to slow down the rate of decay of plants/flowers. It can also accelarate growth of root and stem of plants by minimizing insect damage and neutralizing harmful herbicides.

Experiments were done at the exhibition hall by putting cut flowers into 3 glasses containing tap water, mineral water and Pirkare solution. Many nuisance insects appeared in both tap water and mineral water after few days. The one with Pirkare stayed clear...!

Another thing to mention --Processing this powder to plastic, ceramic, paint and artificial fiber etc. to make food container, can enhance these materials from the electron discharge thus is able to preserve food for longer time. Yes! I tried the mocktail offered by them which is already kept in the bucket 3 days ago...very refreshing!

Pirkare was sold at SGD30 for 2 kg, worth buying or not? Find out more at: http://www.barbarians.co.jp/index.html (only if you know Jap)