 Sunday Stickies is a column where we reflect on the past week and pen those thoughts down on sticky pads. Expect notes to ourselves and others, advice, reminders for the week ahead, quotes, and anything random actually. This week is another mad rush against time as we tried to put together everything for this weekend. All was going well until we received a last minute project with a tight dateline. It was a huge project with many difficult components and it was simply impossible to put it altogether within a couple of days. Our schedules are packed to the brim with backlogs and so many datelines to meet. To make matters worse, our supplier gave us a hard time when we visited them. We wasted a lot of time and yet none of the problems were solved. We walked out of the shop feeling exasperated and angry. Sigh. We have learned that last minute projects and sudden changes to our schedules don't work well with us. Perhaps this is a new learning ground for us as we strive to manage crazier datelines, expectations, clients and suppliers. It may have been a crazy week for us but let's look forward to a happier and better week ahead, shall we? :)  Min: Hello, I am back! A big thank you to Jia for holding the fort for so many days! I am suffering from major post-holiday blues and also, heat rash. The weather in South Africa is much drier and cooler while you know what Singapore's climate is like - hot and humid. The dry airplane air triggered some rash on my arms and by the time I got home, I was scratching all over. I have tons of rash bumps and battle wounds all over my body now, and the heat is really not making me feel better. South Africa is really beautiful and I cannot be more thankful that I am able to visit my childhood dream place! I nearly cried when I stood at the southern tip of Cape Point. I was overwhelmed with emotions and I just couldn't stop counting my blessings. Well, I tear whenever I enter Disneyland too. Haha, very emotional, I know.  Jia: What a week! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the multiple sudden changes and unexpected experiences that occurred throughout the past seven days. I'm not one who always embraces sudden swerves on the bumpy road called life with open arms and enthusiasm, so I'm glad to have made it out of this topsy-turvy week alive and with a surprisingly cheery spirit.
Thank you to all our family members and friends who came down to support us at the DBS Marina Regatta despite the intense humidity and inconvenient location! I am going to sleep Monday away to get my energy up for yet another long work week, which includes the last two days of the DBS Marina Regatta. I can do this! - How was your week? :) With love, Min+Jia
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 We have always been passionate about social responsibility and decided right from the start that honey&gazelle Design Studio will strive to do its part to give back to society in whatever way possible. Therefore, we are super excited to announce an initiative between honey&gazelle Design Studio and VSA Singapore called The Christmas Cheer Campaign!
Let's get into some Q&A fun! What is VSA Singapore? First and foremost, if you have not heard of VSA before, here is a quick introduction to the non-profit organisation. Very Special Arts (VSA) was founded in 1974 in Washington DC, USA to provide art and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increase access to the arts for all. VSA Singapore Limited was launched on 27 September 1993 by Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large. VSA envisions a world where people with disabilities are empowered through the arts, and can contribute to and integrate with the community. As such, the organisation aims to create and provide access and opportunities for people with disabilities through the arts. VSA Singapore works with children, youth, and adults with sensorial, physical, intellectual, learning and social disabilities from special education schools, day activity centres, and homes. The artwork in our blog header image is a combined effort by a few of the beneficiaries of VSA Singapore. Like VSA, we also believe that art can touch the lives of many in various ways, thus we are so happy to be embarking on this special project with them. In fact, we would like to invite you to be a part of The Christmas Cheer Campaign as well! What is The Christmas Cheer Campaign? From now till the end of November, our studio will be compiling hand-written notes on the Happy cards from the Say It With Words Greeting Cards collection for the beneficiaries of VSA Singapore. We will bring the cards with us whenever we have a pop-up event to raise awareness of VSA Singapore and gather well-wishes from the public. How can I be involved in The Christmas Cheer Campaign? All you need to do is look for us at our events and we will pass you a Happy card for you to write your warm wishes. In exchange of your message on the Happy card, we will give you a Thank You card from VSA Singapore that features the artwork above. What happens to my card after I have given it back to you? At the end of November, we will give the collated hand-written cards to VSA Singapore who will then disseminate them randomly to their beneficiaries, just in time for Christmas! The cards will be mailed out by VSA Singapore directly to their beneficiaries' letterboxes as a pleasant and encouraging surprise from anonymous strangers. Do I need to pay to write on the Happy card? honey&gazelle Design Studio is sponsoring both the Happy cards and the Thank You cards, thus you would not need to pay a single cent. All that is required is your heartfelt words! - This is a very simple campaign to share some love and happiness with the beneficiaries who are very often deemed as 'less-fortunate' and judged unkindly by society, just because they have special needs. Together with VSA Singapore, we hope that the heartfelt notes will encourage and motivate the beneficiaries, as well as warm and cheer their hearts during the most wonderful time of the year. Let's make their Christmas just that bit more lovely this year, shall we? (: For more information on our whereabouts (i.e. pop-up events), check out the Calendar of Events page. If you would like to participate in The Christmas Cheer Campaign but would not be able to join us at our events, please drop us an email and we will arrange something with you! If you wish to find out more about VSA Singapore, check out their website here. To donate or volunteer with them, please email them at [email protected]. - Tell us - will you be sharing some love and happiness with the beneficiaries of VSA Singapore this year? With Love, Min+Jia.  Sunday Stickies is a column where we reflect on the past week and pen those thoughts down on sticky pads. Expect notes to ourselves and others, advice, reminders for the week ahead, quotes, and anything random actually. We turned one! Whee! I just realised that in celebrating our first year anniversary this week, we have also successfully completed one whole year of Sunday Stickies! This feels like another achievement altogether. Just for the sake of reminiscing, check out our first ever Sunday Stickies post here and marvel at how far we have come. Haha! So cute, we used to talk so little in our posts. Thank you guys for supporting honey&gazelle Design Studio for the past 12 months and for sticking with us after so many changes and developments. Pun intended as it is after all, a Sunday Stickies post. It feels wholly surreal that we have made it to a year. We have grown from mere dreamers to a fully functioning design studio with the best community support ever. Thank you, thank you, thank you (: We will continue to work super hard to create better and to share an abundance of happiness with you in the coming years! Before I forget, in celebration of us turning one, we are throwing a 10 for 10 anniversary sale! Catchy, huh? In case you missed the details that were featured on the homepage's slideshow, here is it again:  We will also be setting up shop this coming weekend (and the following) at the DBS Marina Regatta. We are super excited for that as the event is huge! Asides from the Shop House (the name for the artisan market that we are involved in), there is also going to be an urban beach with the tallest waterslide in Southeast Asia with a whole lot of activities, amazing food, music, and of course, the dragon boat races. We have friends who are racing in the regatta which makes us extra pumped for this event! Come on down to soak in the festivities and say hi to us. DBS Marina Regatta 2016 Location: The Promontory @ Marina Bay (near Marina Bay Sands) Venue: DBS Shop House curated by The Local People Date: 28-29 May and 4-5 June Time: 11am to 10pm We will be releasing a whole bunch of new arrivals at our pop-up booth, as well as launching a collaboration with a non-profit organisation (: There will be new stickers, art prints, postcards, and a very special concept that was created for the vacation season ahead. We will also be bringing our anniversary vending machine where you can win prizes! Doesn't it sound like so much fun? Please join us there! And finally, for this week's Sunday Stickies. Sadly, there is only my stickies as Min is now somewhere in the safari! I am not kidding. I know her itinerary.  Jia (obviously): If you read last week's Sunday Stickies, you would know that I was completely engrossed in games and trivia quizzes. So, I made it a mission to read more this week and I did! There has been a reading bug going around my home recently and I totally caught it. I have been ignoring my really old Kindle - so old that Amazon doesn't sell it anymore - for a couple of months but I am so glad that I am back in the reading mood! I finished two books and would wholeheartedly recommend you to read 'Please Look After Mom' by Shin Kyung-Sook. It pierced my heart and reminded me to appreciate my mom more daily!
I am now reading something that I haven't read in ages - a crime novel. I usually read historical fiction and family-based drama fiction, with the occasional chick lit, all of which my brother had many times scoffed as boring. He of fantasy and sci-fi inclinations. Thus, I thought I would be adventurous and leap into some crime/thriller fiction by starting with my sister's beloved author, Agatha Christie. It is always better to begin your journey in a new genre with one of the greats, right? I am not hooked yet but the feeling is positive! - Do you have any mystery/crime/thriller books to recommend? Please share them with me! (: <3 Jia.  Time flies when you are having fun... or when you are intensely busy. In a blink of an eye, we are now just a couple of days away from honey&gazelle Design Studio's first year anniversary! Yes, we are turning one! It is so crazy that a childhood dream has bloomed into an actual business and we are not in the red. Haha! We can hardly believe that it has been a year. A whole year of being unemployed in the professional corporate world and a whole year of waddling in the deep but cool waters of self-employment. It hasn't been the smoothest ride but it has been an extremely fun rollercoaster of firsts and a fruitful exploration of faith and trust. As we ready ourselves with new strategies and plans for the second year of operation, we want to take some time to reflect on the most important things we have learnt in the past 12 months. Wouldn't it be enlightening to re-visit this post next year to see how far we have come?  1. It is important to know and trust your partner. Min: We have all heard it before. Running a business with a friend or your significant other can make or break relationships. I love Jia - we have known each other since we were 9 - and after a year as business partners, I can’t think of anyone else I would do this with. It is crucial to remember that your business partner should be someone who shares similar values and goals with you, and someone who will choose you over money. I value our friendship more than any other alluring thing in the world. Fun fact: we actually made a pact that we would both walk away from the business if we notice that it is tearing us apart. 2. It is about complementing, accommodating, and loving each other. Min: We know personally that we are not the easiest to work with but in the past year, Jia and I have learned to work alongside each other. We are both very opinionated and strong-headed. She’s hardworking and I’m lazy. I’m neat, she’s neater. It has taken a lot of compromising to make this work. And all these can’t happen without God being in the centre of our friendship and business.  3. Find a routine that works and stick to it. Jia: "You are self-employed? That is so cool! You get to wake up whenever you want!" and other variations of an easy breezy work life are things that we often hear from others. There are some definite truths in those statements for sure, as I don't have a boss breathing down my neck. However, if I woke up late all the time, go out for long lunches and early dinners, and work a few hours every day, I am pretty sure our studio will be in the dumps. When I first started working full-time in the studio - Min only joined us full-time a few months later - I would sleep in until whatever time I wanted and started work at whatever time I felt like I was inspired. Initially, I felt refreshed at the breeziness of this work arrangement. However, as a creature of habit, I started feeling antsy at the lack of routine and also noticed that my productivity level was terrible. I was turning into a sloth and that will not do! Now, Min and I have created a routine (it is pretty similar to regular jobs) that we feel mostly comfortable in and the results clearly shows. There are still some tweaks and room for improvement in our schedule but we are getting there! 4. It ain't easy being your own boss. Min: honey&gazelle Design Studio is my first business venture, my baby. The past year was all about firsts and making mistakes, and there were definitely times when I doubted myself. honey&gazelle has grounded me in many ways. Being my own boss is crazy difficult. I have to be responsible for my actions, deeds, thoughts, and constantly check if my personal values and company’s values are still aligned to each other.  5. All work and no play gives you a backache. Jia: We created the above art print as an inside joke at first but soon realised that the quote was something that resonated well with so many people. It really is true, isn't it? Min and I are always complaining about body aches and would often fall sick after a particularly stressful and busy period. Running your own business and being accountable for everything (including yourself and your business partner) puts a toll on you. I often feel like I have to work until 4am daily because there is just an endless amount of things that can and should be done. Although it is good to be hardworking, it is also very important to learn to take a break. This is something we are trying our best to do through various methods like setting aside some time during the day to motivate ourselves, sing badly and hilariously at the top of our lungs and also stretch our muscles by going out for a short walk. We have also heavily implemented regular working hours and we try our best not to work overtime excessively. More often than not, the work can wait! 6. The selfless support from family and friends is rejuvenating. Jia: Starting a business is a really difficult journey. The hours are long and the direction murky at times. You know exactly where your destination is but it just seems so difficult to get there. You know what will bring you down even more? Naysayers and haters. Thankfully, Min and I are so blessed to have amazing families and friends who have been with us every step of the way. Obviously, we are grateful for the big gestures but it is also the little little things they do that we cherish endlessly. A little bit of support goes a very long way and can really lift us up when we are feeling down.  7. You are always a work in progress. Min: Well… I am still learning how to survive in this crazy, crazy world. There are plenty of talented designers and perfect business models out there. But I am still learning. honey&gazelle Design Studio has taught me to accept my flaws and work on my weaknesses. I’m glad to have met many likeminded crafters and designers along the way. Just like everyone else, I’m trying to grow and nurture what I love. My biggest takeaway? Patience. Like our art print says, anything worth growing takes time and dedication. 8. It is okay to march to the beat of your own drum. Jia: I have always felt that it is okay to be yourself even though you may not fit into society's mold. It is perfectly fine. Being a design studio, we often have to make changes to our initial creative concepts to suit our client's taste. The client will always want to change the work and even though we think that the changes are unwarranted, we will still do it as it is our job to do the best we can for our clients. However, we need an outlet to express ourselves and create happiness! This is where our retail line comes in. All we want to do is to create 'paper with personality' and products that will inspire, motivate, and put a smile on your face. We know that not everyone likes wordsearch puzzles for example, but we do! Not everyone needs to get us but we are so glad to have reached out to form a community with the ones who do.  9. In every situation, choose to be genuine, grateful and kind.
Jia: Min and I decided right from the start that the business will be a reflection of who we are in order to truly embody our slogan - happiness by design. In our path of choosing happiness, we have also made it a conscious effort to be genuine and personable in our interactions with people, be it through our designs, website, social media, or in person; to always remain grateful for all the things given to us; and to always react in kindness. Of course, there were many instances within the past year that we felt like lashing out at the situations we were placed in, but we always took a second (or like, 10 minutes) to calm down and react with love. Kindness begets kindness, and for us to spread happiness, we need to be happy and kind first! 10. Liberation and happiness are priceless. Min: That’s right. After all the gutsy talk, this is my utmost truth. I get a lot of satisfaction and inner peace doing what I do. I am no longer working meaninglessly at a desk job that drives me up the wall, and I am finally doing something that means more than just being a name on a company’s payroll. I may not be racking in big money but I truly am very happy and contented where I am right now. - That was a lengthy post and if you are still reading this, we just want to thank you for your support throughout this past year (: You have made such a difference in our lives and we hope to do the same in yours too! Tell us - what do you wish to see from us in the coming year? With Love, Min+Jia.  Sunday Stickies is a column where we reflect on the past week and pen those thoughts down on sticky pads. Expect notes to ourselves and others, advice, reminders for the week ahead, quotes, and anything random actually. Happy Sunday! This is Jia and I will be typing the opening paragraphs of Sunday Stickies for the next two weeks because... Min is now in Cape Town. We usually take turns with the opening paragraphs as they are basically updates on the honey&gazelle Design Studio, so you never know who has typed what you have just read. Give Min an applause for rushing out her personal thoughts and reflections of the week below! She completed her stickies and paragraphs mere hours before her flight. Well done, you (: Now, onto our week in the studio... It was madly packed week in the studio with extended working hours as we had to clear some work that Min was in charge of and wrap up the designs of our upcoming product launches. Whoop, we have a ton of special concepts, products, and collaborations set to launch in the coming months. We are so excited and nervous at the same time! In the midst of furiously working, we also had to continue settling into our new studio and sort out some teething issues. The space is shaping out very nicely, but we are far from done with it as we are still waiting on deliveries of furniture to reach us. I can't wait for everything to arrive and for the studio space to be in proper functioning condition, as we have to get started on building some huge event props soon!  Min: Woah, I have girly nails! My nails are pink and slightly glittery. Pink is not my favourite colour and to be honest, I’m still slightly puzzled as to why I chose pink. Don’t get me wrong, I love how my nails look now, but you know, it is very pink and I need time to get used to it. Is this what weddings do to people? All that happy adrenaline pumping through the body, influencing all decisions made and turning the world pink and glittery. Jia has been helping me improve my photoshoot make-up game and honestly, it’s tough. There are many different products and I’m trying my best to remember the purpose of each product. I hope I don’t end up looking like a baboon’s bum with patchy skin on my photoshoot day. Hahaha. I’m beyond excited about my trip because South Africa has always been my to-explore list. I’m extremely blessed for this opportunity! Yay! Dear lions, I’m coming for you! :D  Jia: If you have been following our Sunday Stickies for a while, you will know that I get addicted to games so quickly and lose all sense of time when I am hooked. Oh boy, this was the week where if I was not working, I was consumed by this new mobile game called Super Tribes and doing world trivia quizzes online. I would just like to proudly say that I kicked ass on many quizzes, including this one created by Telegraph. Another thing that reignited my passion was the release of the trailer for the Pokemon Sun and Moon. Omg. November is way too far away.
On hindsight, I think I have been spending too much time in the digital realm recently and really should get back to my reading habits. It has been quite a while since I read a good book and all that is going to change. Once I am done with this post, it is time to hit the books! I know, I know, I definitely don't sound like the coolest person in the world with all the games, world trivia, and books, but you just gotta do whatever you love to do, right? - I hope you had a wonderful week! Were you obsessed with anything in particular this week? Tell us all about it (: <3 Jia |
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