Concert For Her Fans

Denise Ho is planing to go ahead with the concert that Lancome had cancelled

Lancome may have scrapped a mini concert for Denise Ho Wan-see this weekend, but the singer-songwriter is determined the show must go on.

She will perform pretty much the same time and same place for not only ticket holders, but anyone who wants to support her.

It will be held in the hipster PoHo area in Sheung Wan

It will be held on Sunday starting at 3.30pm in the hipster PoHo area, or Po Hing Fong and Tai Ping Shan streets, while a five-hour program called "The Beauty of WE" begins at noon.

On her Facebook page, Ho said that she, as well as cafes and stores in PoHo, invited "all daring people who share their belief to respond to suppression and fear with music, culture, individuality and firmness".

Stores featuring leather, pottery and floral workshops would be held on that day, and offering discounts too.

Ho said the program would be "free from politics, slogans, banners, placards, organizations... and big conglomerates".

The original poster with the event sponsored by Lancome

It's interesting Ho is still doing the show, because she probably won't be making any money out of it, though she will be helping to generate business in the area.

However, in terms of public relations, it's a bonus for Ho because she's giving the incident some closure, which her fans, and outraged Hong Kong citizens can participate in and finish on a high note (so to speak).

Making a Snow Globe

My snow globe complete with Santa and panda!

Periodically my company arranges social activities to do after work or on the weekends, and earlier this week there was a snow globe-making class that cost HK$130 per person for materials.

The last time I participated was when we made a leather card holder that ironically wasn't big enough to hold our name cards, but I still use it as a case for my Octopus card...

This day though was probably not as challenging in the needle department, but still demanded flexing those creativity muscles.

Some examples of design combinations by the instructors

In the boardroom was a plastic sheet covering the large table and there were flat plastic boxes filled with small items in it.

The instructors invited us to first choose the "stage" with a rubber bottom that would fit the snow globe on top. Some had a bouquet of stars, another with hearts, or baubles.

And then we were told to pick items we wanted to include in the snow globe. This was the hardest part because there were so many things to choose from! In hindsight I probably should have chosen a more timeless design, but seeing as it was December and getting close to Christmas, most of us were inspired to do a snow globe with a wintery festive scene.

It took a while to decide what to include, but then I managed to gather a number of things and then the instructors told us to arrange these small things and use blue sticky tack to temporarily stick them together.

These are only a few of the small items we could choose from!

We were given tips to put things on top of each other -- so I put my small Santa on top of a present to give him a bit of height, and same with my small Christmas tree. An instructor suggested I cover up small empty spaces by adding flowers or small hearts on the "stage".

Once this was sorted, we were given glue to stick everything together. For my Santa standing on a present, these two had to be glued together first before being glued on the stand, which required a bit more waiting time.

This was the meticulous part of the exercise, and at times I had to use tweezers to place tiny items on carefully.

Finally once these were all dried, the instructor got a glass globe, filled it with water and we were invited to choose the sprinkles that would be floating inside. She quickly took small scoops of each and swirled them in the globe. What fun!

Then my "stage" with the items glued on were inserted into the water-filled globe and secured, with more water added in through a squeeze bottle. He shook the globe vigorously several times to make sure it wasn't leaking and then it was glued onto a stand that  I had chosen earlier.

Couldn't fit the penguin (left) or the star (right) or mushrooms!

Again I waited several more minutes for the glue to set before I was done! The whole thing would be completely dried after two hours.

It's fun to shake, though I noticed that some areas where I had mistakenly left some glue exposed, the tiny snow flakes and sparkles I put in the globe have stuck on to these parts! I thought the glue had dried before it went into the globe, but perhaps not entirely.

No matter -- it was fun anyway to be able to have a creative outlet for about two hours.

Leather Craftsman for a Day

Folds were made inside with the small silver tool on the left

This afternoon I went to a company-organized workshop to learn how to make a cardholder out of leather.

The leather pieces were held together with double-sided tape

There were two shades of leather to choose from -- a tan colour and chocolate brown. I was forewarned the latter was a thicker leather and harder to work with, but it was the shade that appealed to me so I decided to grin and bear it.

All the pieces were cut out for us, though we had to make two folds in the long piece by scraping the fold on the inside of the leather with a small tool.

And then to hold the other pieces in place, typically you should use glue, but since this was a one-day workshop we used two-sided tape instead.

We made holes using a small fork and a hammer... hard work!

Once that was done, now came the hard part. With a mini pointed fork, we made holes along the edge of the cardholder by hammering it into the leather. We made lots of banging noises and it was pretty tough pushing through all the layers of leather. It was tiring to say the least! But it was good to get our aggression out.

Now came the really hard part. After choosing which thick thread to use and threading it through two needles at each end, we now had to sew the leather pieces together. We were taught to poke the needles on each side through the hole and pull the thread all the way to make stitches. This was why it was important to make good holes with the fork earlier...

Then we had to stitch the leather together using two needles

Needless to say this task not only called for strength in the fingers, but also digits that were made of steel. We poked ourselves many times, some fellow participants howling in pain with some blood surfacing too. I was not immune either and at one point even broke my needle as I tried to wriggle it through the hole using pliers. I got another needle and re-threaded the existing thread and plodded along.

I finally finished after three hours! The instructor helped with the final stitch and then cut the thread and used a lighter to melt the waxy thread together. I also embossed my initials on the inside.

My completed cardholder with embossed initials!

It wasn't after we were finishing the cardholder that the instructor told us our company's business cards were too big to fit in the cardholder! Oh well... my Octopus card fits nicely in it though...