The Phantom Of The Opera 25th Anniversary Musical Concert On Big Screen

Do you fancy catching a musical theatre performance on the screen of a cinema? I certainly don’t mind, especially when it is only staged in another continent. Since the very first time when Golden Village screened the Metropolitan Opera productions of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor and Mozart’s The Magic Flute in high definition digital format on the cinema screen in Aug/Sep 2007 on the 22.4m wide screen of GVmax, most of us would have hope for more to come.

Last Sunday, I brought my 2 girls to catch the latest exclusive GV’s screening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Cameron Mackintosh’s The Phantom of the Opera, a live recording of a fully staged, lavish production of the timeless classic romantic musical of the haunted stage of the Paris Opera based on Gaston Leroux’s gothic novel of life beneath the stage of the Paris Opera where a mysterious masked man tutored an unknown to become the leading lady and fell in love with her. Set in the sumptuous Victorian splendor of the Royal Albert Hall and directed by Laurence Connor, this is the first staged version of the musical to be screened in cinemas.

This theatrical performance, a celebration of The Phantom of the Opera’s 25th Anniversary at the London’s Royal Albert Hall on 2 Oct, starred Iranian-born Canadian actor, Ramin Karimloo as “The Phantom” and American prima donna, Sierra Boggess as “Christine”. The 201-minute screening included special guest appearances by Sarah Brightman, the original Christine, and 4 Phamtoms of previous productions. Personally, I felt that this particular segment brought the spine-tingling melodies to the highest level! Certainly well-worth the $25 ticket, but a pity my boy is not in Singapore now, he would have enjoyed it too.

First time I did something for the Halloween theme. Can you spot the ghosts in the “Halloween” inchies? The other sets are the “Fall Colours”. 1 of each set is going to Marjorie Grace-Sayers (USA).

These tatted motifs were finally sewed up to complete the hairclips. Joey doesn’t use such stuff, but Kristine will be happy to put them on her hair. Looks so lovely on her :)

Besides looking at the creativity aspect, I love making ATCs with educational value too. Learn idioms the fun way! I collected all those idioms that are related to music and songs and slipped them into a pocket in the ATCs. Hope my children and other recipients learn something from them! These were done for the Nov ATC session in Bishan Library to the theme "Music".

Kristine drew the 3 ATCs on the left below. I love her drawings, they are always so cute! Joey doddled the one on the right "Happy Treble Clef", adding confetti and yarn. Looks like it is having a goood time with a triple ice-cream treat!

I traded for 3 quilled ATCs with Au Siah Huay. Aren't they lovely? The "Cats In Love" looks so romantic! The first piece I received from Jennie Tan - "I Love My iPod" - her series of Music ATCs comprised of doddled heads and limbs with cut-out fashion.

Gifts from New Zealand and Mother's Day Cards

Another one alphabet done, this time is M - M is for Mouse (fabric ATC with felt alphabet, tatted critter and hand-embroidered word).
The theme for the May ATC session was "Mother and Father". I'm not sure what to do for the theme, so this was done really last minute - simple paper cuttings I copied from those we bought in China, but I cut them much smaller, and they looked real cute!

We tried watercolour painting with crayon resist during the session. This piece of sunset by the sea is mine, but touched up by Pei Ling. Pei Ling is a final year student in NAFA (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts), we learned much from her. The bluish 2nd piece is done by Pei Ling herself.

Here are some of the ATCs I received, some from last month swaps - E is for Elephant by Vicki, P is for Pig by Valerie, Baby Bear Misses Papa & Mama by Terence, and Colourful Shapes drawn by my girl, Joey.

My very first inchies swap was with Lynette McNamara (New Zealand). She has sent a lot of my favourite items - flowers and butterflies!
A BIG thank you to Lynette too, for sending all these goodies along for the prize I won! I couldn't cross-stitch well, so I especially treasure this cross-stitched bookmark. By the way, Tiki is the first man in Māori mythology.

My second inchies swap was also in, they are the April Mingle from Rae Ann (USA).
The children made me some cards for Mother's Day. They are so cute to include ATCs inside for me too.

ATC Session and Fried Rice Paradise

Collage is something which I hardly do. That was the main reason why I signed up for this swap - to make myself try it. I didn't know what I want to do and spent quite a lot of time trying to find bits and pieces to put together, and finally, I managed to fix these up. This is the first time I made the dolls sliding - they slide left and right! These pair of ATC dolls went to Gayle Clancy in USA.

Well, after the first try, I feel I can handle collage better now, so I spent another few days going through the scrap pieces of junk mails, brochures, etc. and finally made up another pair of collage dolls. I see an improvement!

This month ATC session at Bishan Library, Moses showed us how to construct a 3d-looking book and box from a piece of paper. Everyone love the idea, and with Sandy's contribution of some scrapbooking papers and embellishments from KCK, everyone came up with such great ATCs within 20 min or so.

Here's mine.

my girl, Joey's (11 years old),

and Kristine's (8 years old).

The theme for this month was Birds of a Feather, so I sewed up some birds in felt, and glued on some junk mail flyers for the background.

These are the paper ATCs I received: Joey's 3D collage piece named "Fabric" (the inside of the folded card is below), Joey's pencil sketch of her toys, Kristine's Evil House in colour pencils and Moses' pen and ink bird "Immovable" - according to Moses in his blog "That look of determination silently screams: I ain't moving. "

For the leaf ATC swap, these are the first 2 pieces I received: Lisa Ahmad's Leaf on the top and Carol Jamieson's Autumn Leaf (hand-painted leaf with machine embroidery) at the bottom.

This afternoon, I brought my boy to the musical, Fried Rice Paradise, written by Dick Lee with a brand new story centring around a girl named Bee Lian, who lived in a shophouse at Jalan Calamansi, located next to a community centre, and had great plans to transform her father’s noodle coffeeshop and attract more customers by selling her mother’s famous fried rice recipe, going on a soul searching journey with her good friends Johan, Girly Danker, and Devi.

Specially produced in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the People’s Association, and with elements of early Singapore nostalgia (1979 to be exact), racial harmony, friendship, neighbourliness, romance, and thrilling drama with several twists, Fried Rice Paradise delivered its promises to be a true blue Singaporean musical that connected emotionally with the audience. With a cast that included the first Singapore Idol - Taufik Batisah, Sebastian Tan ("The Queen" in W!LD RICE's pantomime Snow White) and many more, the 2-and-half hours passed magically fast. I just love musicals! (Speaking of musicals, have you bought the tickets for musical pantomime, CINDEREL-LAH! , a W!LD RICE 10th Anniversary production ? I have!!!) What's more, we had SM Goh Chok Tong with us in the audience - that's the 2nd time I watched the same performance with our Senior Minister, the 1st time was Tsai Chin 2009 The New Endless Love” tour!

ATC On Parade 2010

Received this latest piece of fabric ATC from Linda Higgins of the UK. She used a technique which she has not done before - ironing fresh flowers from her garden onto bondawebb and then ironing a sheer voil over the top and adding stitching. I must say the flowers turned up clearer in the photo, the sheer voil on top adds a mysterious, dreamy effect to the piece. A very co-ordinated felted butterfly is sewn on top with metallic thread!

I really love the reddish paper used for the qipao of the junk mail doll I made for Linda Marino, and hope to try to squeeze out enough of it to make another dress, but it was not quite sufficient, so I went into the red border, and voila, quite a nice effect too! I'll keep this one for myself!

These 2 pieces I took the longest to complete, had to keep repainting the fabric to get the colours I wanted, and black is really difficult to control! The effect of the sky at sunset, and the glowing river turned up lovely.

Now, the ATC On Parade exhibition. What we are exhibiting -

This is mine.

The top 3 with tatting, the middle row are dolls and the centre piece is my first button fairy, the last row are 3 of my embroidered flowerscape showing the progression from just French knot flowers to hills with cut flowers and the latest river banks.

Joey's ones.

Kristine's ATCs.

And my name plate!

The others....

Mainly ATCs

Just received my paper-cutting ATCs - (top left corner going clockwise) from Florinda, Susan, "Bean Sprout #1" from Melissa, and "Wild Hyacinth Blubell" from Edie. Thank you, everyone!

These were what I did and sent.

For this month A*Live ATC session in Bishan Library, we tried perspective drawing. Long time I didn't try drawing! Got the "Kite Entangled" from Rita (middle card on the right) - love the concept and the drawing! The top 3 are from Joey, and the bottom 2 are from Kristine in exchange for my Easter fabric ATCs.

I did these "Eat with the Family" ATCs; we made our favourite dessert, tang yuan, together one afternoon, boiled them and everyone ate and enjoyed them. I don't made them very often, it is a treat every now and then, as I made them differently from those selling outside.

This is a Chinese New Year lantern my boy did for his school earlier in Feb - his concept and work, and with some input from me. Won a prize too!

ATCs Galore and Jane's TIAS 2010

We had our first ATC trading session on Thu at Bishan Library. Moses organised a punch art artivity and these were the creations by everyone. Kristine did the snail and the flower cards (bottom left and the one right above it); I did the flower basket (2nd on the top right corner). I like Betsy's Beary Love - card right in the middle.

A more close-up on my flower basket card here, and 3 more foam flower cards I did earlier in the day.

The theme for the month was "Fabric", so I did 4 of these "Vogue" ATCs. The lady is cut from foam with my newest QuicKutz fashion doll set cookie cutter, and dressed in a real fabric piece. (the 4th card was not in photo as it was traded to Richard.)

Interesting cards I traded with Pei Ling (Sandpaper Flower), Rita (Fish), Richard (Textile Batik) and Betsy (Autumn Bloom).

These were what I received from Kristine. She drew and painted the left one with markers, and needle-felted the right one.

Not forgetting Joey, I got her finger-printed "Occupation" card, a hand-drawn frog, an origami flamingo, a QuicKutz owl and a kirigami snowflake flower card.

The last ATCs I am showing were what I received from Amy in the Dec 09 ATC Doll Swap with the theme "Sun, Moon and Stars". The card on the left had 2 faces: the Sun and Moon. The right one is "Fairy on the Moon". Ingenious and well-constructed, everyone went "wow" over them! Thank you, Amy!

Hotly downloaded from my camera is this tatting. I am so happy I have finally managed to catch up Jane's new TIAS till Day 6. I am using Altin Basak 50 threads. Up till Day 4, I really thought it might be a hibiscus, but now I think it might be an animal with that bead for an eye, but I might be fooled. Jane is so good with designing these TIASs!