Achieving the Dream: Take Me Back to Michael's

Since med school days, I've always wanted to be able to visit this store.  I came to know about it since grade school days, I've watched American craft shows and this store is always mentioned to where you can get your materials and supplies.

As a kid, I've always wished there's something like this one in the Philippines, actually there was one before, I think the name was Craft World, I would go to Robinson's Galleria and SM Megamall just to go to that store.  Sadly it closed down already.

Actually I did not dream of going to Michael's until med school days.  I mean, in gradeschool and high school days, I never fully posted or put into words that I wanted to visit Michael's store.  My desire to visit the place started 2012, med school days.  I posted in social media that I wanted to visit it someday and I wanted something like this in the Philippines.

So last May 2018, when I visited San Francisco, I made it a point to include this in my itinerary.  We checked in a hotel in Union Square, and the branch closest was in Emeryville.  So using Moovit app and uber, we were able to reach this place.

I was really happy and with a feeling of accomplishment when I reached the storefront.  And when I entered the store, OMG! I was in Craft Heaven!!!!  I never thought there were so much types of crafts in the world.  Everything is just there! It's "THE ONE"-stop shop for your craft needs.

There's just this overwhelming joy I can't fully explain.  I bought lots of paper crafts there.  I would have bought some needle-felting also if only I did not restrain myself.  If only I was not worried of having our luggages overweight, I would have bought some craft tools as well.

Below is a picture of my Michael's Haul:

I loved that there were soccer-related stuffs there, I just hoarded!!!  Right now, I haven't used all of it, little by little, tinitipid since it was a really long way there and my 1st time shopping there.

Bucket list checked.

Hope I can achieve more of my dreams.  Dreams are not just for the your younger self, not just in the Disney movies and cartoons.  Even if you're already in Med school you can still dream and even if it took me 6 years I was able to achieve it nevertheless.  And this feeling of achievement is just irreplaceable.

Never stop dreaming, never stop believing.

Creative Journaling

I've been journaling since I was in college, actually I think even as early as high school.  I love buying cute notebooks and I write my diary using different colored pens.  There was actually a point in time when I went into depression and thanks to our college guidance counselor, she suggested journaling as a way for one to get out of depression.  I also had a dream journal. During that time wherein I would write what happened in my dream and would interpret them.

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Giraffe Body Painting - 1st Time Experience

Just finished crying, I couldn't write a blog just a while ago, but after I've found composure decided to write something to lift my spirits up at least just a little.

I've written that one of the induction to PUA as an incoming urology resident is Body Painting.  Here's my experience as the contestant.  Now, I'm sharing the experience, as the painter.  This is my first time doing body painting.  With no experience, without studying about it, just do it, "Bahala na si Batman".

So I was requested by my junior to help him out in his body paint.  I didn't agree at first, well because I've been so tired lately.  I felt blank, unmotivated, tired etc...  Eventually, after around 3 days since he requested, I somehow was able to recover so I found myself in front of his poster paints.

Warning though, DO NOT USE Poster Paints to your skin.  There's a reason why there's such a thing as body paint.  Poster paints were not made to be placed on your skin.  But these were just the paints bought by my junior so I have no choice anyways but to use them.

So below were the materials: yellow, brown and black poster paints, paint brushes, bowls and makeup sponges.

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Trying to be Audrey Hepburn

In our last PUA Midyear Convention, there was a theme for the fellowship night.  Since the PUA is celebrating its 60th anniversary, the theme was "1960s".  I searched the net and searched for inspirations:

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Doctor's Guide to Organizing an Appreciation Party

Whenever doctors have an event, we're challenged to do some event planning, which is not our forte, well, that's why we're doctors and not event planners... But we are usually on a tight budget, so we can't hire an event planner to make our lives easier and oftentimes, we have no choice but to do the organizing ourselves.

This is a resident's guide, since I'm still a resident and I would like to share what I've learned in becoming one of the organizing committee in a mini Appreciation Night.

Disclaimer: Things written here are product of collaboration of all the ideas of residents and consultants and not all of my own...

Two important things in any event are: MONEY & TIME, and more often than not, we don't have much of both. We'll just do what we can with what we have.

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Things to Consider in Planning Costume Party for Doctors

Recently I got a glimpse of what it is like to be a part of event planning service.  Not in a professional sense, but a part of an organizing committee for an intimate party.

There are lots of things I learned from this experience and I would like to share what I learned, and I think this will help event planners as well.

1. Consider the characteristics of your target audience/participants/guests

Guests play a major role in any event.  Consider their personalities in your event.  Doctors in general are very busy people, and when I mean busy, really busy.  Surgeons for example may start their surgeries as early as 6:00am, they also have to take care of their patients in their clinics.  So when they say their busy, they're not lying.  Some may have time to as late as 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm. So if you're an event planner, you have to be in constant communication with the doctor in charge of the event and ajdust to their schedule also.  When I was just a medical student, I don't understand why doctors are always late in some events, well sometimes, they're 'pasaway' but oftentimes, it really is because they're attending to a patient.

2. So if you're planning for a themed party.....

These doctors will not have time to buy the props.  If your budget will permit it, you have to provide the props/costumes for all your participants.

During planning for a theme, think of costumes that are easy to find or already part of their wardrobe.  Like a "Gatsby" themed party, wherein you know that the doctors have black suit already in their wardrobe since they use these in their conventions.

You'll have less chance of succeeding if your theme involves taking time to look and buy for the props and costumes.

3. Offer them to buy their costumes

Since doctors don't have time, and if you can't avoid to have a theme that requires a lot of time to prepare the costume, you can offer your service to look for their costume and I'm sure they're more than happy to pay you for your services.

4. Consider your time frame to prepare for the event

Event planning is not one of the strengths of the doctors, so more often than not, you'll be given so little time in preparing for the event.  This could range from 1 week to days to prepare for it.

5.  Shy guests

Most doctors are shy when in comes to these kinds of stuffs, they're not used to dancing in public, not used to singing in public and they may see games as embarrassing.

6. Elegance and Sophistication

Most doctors prefer the simple elegant and sophisticated themes than wacky themes.

7. Music

Most doctors are at least in their 30s and above, so the type of music should be taken into consideration, music during their generation will gain more acceptance than current trending music.

Ribbon Wands - Tutorial

We'll be performing ribbon dance and I have to make some props.  Ribbon wands of course! What's a ribbon dance w/o ribbon wands?

Materials:

• Long silk ribbon
• Dowels - I bought mine from @binondopabili (Instagram account)
• Washi Tape or Masking Tape
• Scissors
• Lighter

Step 1 - I heated the ends of my ribbon to avoid having frizz mess.

Step 2 - Attach 1 end perpendicular (upright) to the end of the dowel stick.

Step 3 - Secure the end with wash tape or masking tape.

And you're done!

Craft Fail - customized WIFI skin

Learning is a process of success & failures. I think it's time I also place my failures here, so that other crafters may learn from my mistakes.

I made a customized wifi device skin last 2012(Customized WIFI Skin).With the advent of 4g and LTE internet, I bought another 4G compatible device, which did not last long since my senior resident lost it when he borrowed it.  So time to use again my old wifi device.

Now comes how the skin survived the times...

The vinyl sticker is still intact, it still protects the wifi device, but the print already melted. Probably from the heat of the battery when turned on.

Lessons learned: 

Can't use inkjet printer ink, to skins that will be placed to devices that produce heat.

Til the next craft project!

Conquering Fear: Watercolor Pen

When I was a kid, my favorite materials for coloring are: colored pencils > crayons > poster paint > oil pastels.

Watercolor well, it didn't work out. I hated the brush included in the kit, when I was a kid I didn't like the mess I make in my paper when I try the watercolors, and the colors were light.

Then as I was in my 3rd year residency (urology 1st year), adult-coloring is a trend. Then I discovered the water pen. 

To whoever invented the water pen, BLESS YOU!!! You should win an award for your contribution to the arts & craft world. I can was able to color w/ watercolors at last!

This was colored with pure watercolors only! Isn't it great?!

I'll try out more!

Philippine Urology Residency Induction Series

2015 was the year I start as a first year resident in Urology.  I'm in the straight program of UST Urology.  This training program consists of 2 years of general surgery residency then 4 years of urology proper.

When you're 1st year, you're again back to the bottom of the hierarchy.  So you get to undergo a series of induction 'ceremonies'.  For Urology 1st year, this consists of 3 in total for your first year, and another one for your 2nd year.

So let's start with the first one.

This is the PURA (Philippine Urology Residents Association) Induction.  Here they welcome you as a new member of the PURA.  I personally think PURA is a great idea.  If you want to get in touch with other urology residents of other institutions, you just tap into PURA and you're sure to get good results.

For 2015, the theme of the PURA induction is BURLESQUE.  So you have to give a video presentation to introduce yourselves and at the induction night, you have to give a presentation relating to the theme.  There's a video of the presentation which I will not post in public hahaha. It's one of those times you wouldn't want others to see it.  And yes, we had a burlesque theme dance routine, music, and yes again, I took my clothes off literally one by one (but not up to completely off). It was nice that all my seniors were there to support us. I have a batch mate, Ivan (with nickname Yvon) who is in the rightmost of the picture.

The 2nd induction ceremony is from NKTI's Talent Show, they call it Talentadong Uro.  But this year is different, they adapted the Your Face Sounds Familiar format and called it Uro Face Sounds Familiar. This was hard, since none of my talents are in the category of singing or dancing.  But hey, this is like cosplay, you get to dress up and act like someone else.  I consulted my most trusted hairstylist and he said, I should be Vilma Santos since we're both petite and of fair complexion.

For the performance I was able to check youtube and found this Caronia ad by Vilma Santos.  The steps were easy to learn and the performance was short. 

Another great point of this was that I was able to insert some craft project into it.  Her hairpiece, the orange flower, I made my own to match with my costume.

Here's my finished get-up

I won 3rd place in this competition.  Yup, there's a video also of the presentation, which I will not post in public. Hahaha!

For the 3rd and last for the year 2015, it's the Mr & Ms Urology Pageant.  This is the most grand of all induction series.  You'll spend some money and this is to my surprise with legit pageant format.

Of course not always do we have a Female Urology resident, so in the pageant I was the only legitimate Ms Urology.  In other institutions where they have male urology resident, they look for their own partners, either a professional dancer, a beautiful nurse, a co-resident, an intern, a junior intern, etc.

What I love with this pageant was that the theme for the year was "Victorian". It was always been my dream to wear a victorian inspired dress.  And I was given the opportunity for this event.  I was giddy like a child when I was able to wear the balloon dress.

This was our costume for the photoshoot

And then for the pageant proper, this consisted of 4 parts. 1st was the Victorian Dress.

This was my most favourite of all the costume.

The 2nd part was the talent portion.  We did synchronised swimming. =D. No pictures, for this part sorry.

For the 3rd part, it was the formal dress part.

The 4th part was the swimsuit part.  For the first time ever in my life, I wore a two piece bikini.  It was new for me... and I'm not very comfortable with it.

No close-up for this part of the competition.  Of course judging from the tall and lean other contestants, I lost in this competition.  But, my thinking during that time was... Let's get this over with, I'm really tired.  Kudos to the professional models, walking on runway in very high heels is quite tiring.

This year's last induction series will be the body painting contest.  Again, it's artsy so I can't wait for it =D. 

What I Love Bracelets & Earrings Set

For my entry in the beading category, here are bracelet & earrings set.

I think the common theme I have for this collection is what I love.
In General:
Project type: Bead
Project time: 2 hours for 4 sets
Project date: 4/3/15

 Pink Makeup

Bracelet & Earrings Set

Whenever I see the touch of pink, I remember the shades of pink of the makeup I wear.  I really love the color of pink makeup.

 My Love for Tea Outside

Bracelet & Earrings Set

This bracelet symbolizes my love for tea.  The heart symbolizes "love", teapot symbolizes tea, butterfly symbolizes nature.  All the things I love in different shades of my favorite color.

 Lucky Green

Bracelet & Earrings Set

Green symbolizes a lot of things: wealth, nature, healing.  Jade is perfect for good luck companion in your everyday activities

White Grape Cocktail Drink

Bracelet & Earrings Set

Whenever I want to celebrate, I always buy Welch's grape cocktail juice, either in red or white grape, it's the perfect companion for any celebration!

Zombiefied Kitty

This is my entry to my Craft rejuvination for the Lenten Season under the needle-felting category.

I was thinking of a zombie matryoshka, however it turned out to look like a zombified Hello Kitty.  What the heck, I kind of am confused of what it looked like: a zombie vs a monster?

Gelatos card

Craft break, that's what I really needed with all the stress inside the hospital. So with the lenten season, I promised myself craft healing. Meaning, rejuvinating myself through crafts that I missed doing since the start of the year.

I challenged myself to make at least one project in one og the foloowing craft categories: paper craft, needle felting, beading

Here's my entry to the paper craft.  Wait for my other projects.

Here I used my gelatos not only for the amber background but also for the shading and color of the towers. I regretted though me outlining the towers since I think the one without the outline looked better.

Mickey Mouse Tsum Tsum

Yesterday was one of world famous mouse' birthday, Mickey! In celebration of my love for Mickey, I've created a new woolcandie dedicated to him.

At pressent, there's a trend in the Surgery staffroom in playing Tsum Tsum! I learned about this game from Jerrod Maruyama in one of his facebook posts, and I love playing it since the characters are so cute!

Let's begin this tutorial, something unique with this project is that I tried mixing wet and dry felting techniques. This is a first for me to see the effects. 

Materials:

You'll need your basic felting needle, sponge and wool roving: red, black, white, cream, yellow

Hot water, soap for your wet felting

Let's begin!

1. I apologize for not able to take picture of me doing wet felting, living alone in dormitory with both hands in soapy water, I was not able to figure out how to take a picture yet. Anyways, basically you use your black roving and make an elliptical shape with soap and water. Then your let it dry.

2. With your cream wool, make mickey's face. You can use silver pen to guide you in your needle-felting.

3. You cover the lower half of his body with red wool.

4. You use black wool to shape 2 half circles for the ears.

5. Attach the ears to Mickey

6. Make mini tear drop shapes using your white and yellow wool. Attach to Mickey's bottom part.

7. Make a string like shape with black to attach as his tail.

8. Make 2 ellipticals in Mickey's shorts

9. Now make his face

And your done!

I tried attaching a headpin to make it a phone charm

So cute!

Cord wrappers

Everyday When I go to the hospital, I see a man sitting a wheelchair, selling novelty items, like id case, wallets, bone ballpens etc.  I admire his perseverance and his dedication to earn a living despite his disability. Recently, I saw him offer a new product, which is the cord wrapper. It's like a small phone cird which you could wrap around your chargers to protect the ends from bending. It gives it a sturdier support.

You can buy the cord wrappers as P20 per piece, butyou can buy 3 poeces for P50. I don't care if it's cheaper in Divisoria, because I have no plans of going tere this christmas season, it's haywire thre, besides, it's christmas, might as well as help this guy earn his living.

This one I made for Doc Emong

Yeah, I was in the transition of being duty and from when I made this, as evicenced by my ward notes.

Hope you like it doc!

Gatsby Headdress

One of challenges living in a dorm is having the avilability of craft materials for your project. Such was my predicament in my last project, Gatsby/1920s inspired headdress. 

I was invited to a gatsby themed debut, in such short notice and busy schedule, and saving money also, I decided tp forego the flapper dress and just use accessory to give the impression of 1920s fashion.

I bought everything I used in this project from SM San Lazaro department store, lucky halloween is near, so I have more things to work on. Oh yeah, plus additional metal settings I previously bought from Quiapo.

Materials I used in this project:

Feather

Ponytail

Glue gun

Pearl head band

Metal chain

Jumprings

Pliers

Metal extensions

Acrylic crystals

I got my feather from masquerade mask. Choose a pony tail with a vintage feel.

1. Remove the elastic part of the ponytail and attach metal extensions.

2. With your acrylic crystals, string some and attach them also. You could use jump rings and attach them to the extensions.

This is what it will look like

3. Dettach the feathers from the mask, and glue them to the back with glue gun.

4. Glue the pearl headband.

5. Use your large jump rings to attach the chains to the pearl headband.

And you're done!