This year is it's looking like we've heavily invested in artsy stuff.
Learn a new craft skill, so we decided on quilling. With the aim of putting the skill to some use rather than as something we learn to do and then put aside.
With regards to calligraphy, well, it was sometime early November when we finally found out where to buy flex calligraphy nibs. Our keenness for getting flex nibs to experiment in copperplate writing was due to this particular video:
While we were aware that the pen had some sort of customised nib, we never really did do our homework finding out more about flex nibs, instead learning that most fountain pen brands don't have these kind of nibs. We started off with the Lamy Joy since the italic nib was a good start for calligraphy writing (mostly uncial in our case, the nibs aren't wide enough for us to write copperplate / blackletter properly) and wasn't messy as we used ink cartridges instead of dipping ink or using an ink converter.
Then we found flex nibs. And now, we got ourself a Jinhao fountain pen customised with a Zebra G flex nib installed in. The thing is, re-learning how to write isn't easy at all. Calligraphy is more akin to drawing than writing and is much slower.
And since we got ourself a Midori Traveller's Notebook, there's been some double work as we've made notes, marked appointments and dates, and journaled entries. Things we have been doing on the iPhone. There's just something about actually writing it down, though. Sometimes it's much easier to refer back to a physical notebook, too.
Now the problem is, these things are eating into our time. While this year we've already said we would take a break from the choir, but it looks as if we're taking more onto our plate than anticipated.
Let's hope we don't burn out before the year end.
Bought a couple of iKea CLIPS photo frames.
Print out ambigrams, then photocopy ambigrams onto transparency (because we don't have a laser printer).
Print out photographs. It took some finding our picture archives for them. Here's lad in his Christmas garb when we were in Genting in 2005. Trim photo and cardboard frame to size to match CLIPS frame.
Now the interesting bit, where we make a frame for the photos. Well we could have just left the photo by itself, but the purpose of the frame was to make the ambigram visible and focus on just the subject of the photo. So here we line up the photo and the cardboard and mark lines to cut out.
And how it looks like once it's all fixed up.
Now for this year's wrapping. 
Interestingly we chose to go green after we bought candy canes. Initially, we'd thought since we'd gotten green candy canes we needed to go for red wrappers for the contrast, but we couldn't put down that wrapper and it fit the job perfectly.
And so (this is a tad late but still) Blessed Christmas everyone!
Then we'd picked up some craft magazines from them cheap magazine shops in Amcorp (RM9.90 per mag, old editions of course) to get some ideas for layout and designs. The Chief probably thought that we were going through some creative phase akin to our ambigram phase.
Then we'd run about to lad, Esteban, Puddy, otousan and Germ getting them to write their wellwishes on small pieces of cards.
So we asked at the hotel front desk for scissors, ruler and scotch tape. Somehow we'd thought room service would send some up later, but instead we had the fellow attending to us rummage about the drawers of the front desk looking for the requested stationery, also with a reminder that we had to return it back to the front desk and not leave it for room service to take it back. Very pa pai folks. Good thing when we checked out we did bring down their things too, because they had a note stuck to our account requesting them back. Yeesh.
Pasting card to the cardstock wasn't easy with glue paste. We had to spread glue along the edge using our finger.
With one card down, we then started on the second card. We wanted to make use of the piece of felt that we bought, and somehow decided to make a sort of plant motif. A slight mistake on this was making the photo frames leaf-shaped, as we then had very little space for wellwishing. Still, the basic layout was done.
Only, it felt as if it lacked something - namely decorative text, those letters that you stick on to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY and the likes. That's where we were lucky to stumble onto this shop in Wheelock Place.
What caught our interest was that they had a rummage basket where alphabet stickers that were damaged were sold cheap. We picked up two large alphabet stickers of different fonts for SGD8, with only a few letters probably not as sticky as they used to be. Still perfect for our needs.