it's red, everywhere I look

Dear friends,
I walked to Chinatown (Petaling Street) yesterday, and all I saw was red. Four more days to Chinese New Year, the old little shops are full to the brim with the brightest decorations!. Flowers, oranges and lanterns, you name it. I got a few shots from the street :).

I wished that these flowers were real.

And I saw handsome birds in wooden cages. I feel bad for them though, but they sang so beautifully :).

This guy moved so much, I couldn't get a good picture of him. 

Then I went into an old book shop and bought me a receipt book, a Chinese calligraphy manual and some kind of Chinese payment cards. I shall like to turn them into sketchbooks!. 

My kind of treasures :).

I bind the loose green cards into a book and embellished the cover with tissue paper, some stamping and decoupage. 

I decoupaged tissue paper roses, added word strips from old storybook and used 1" coil binder (Zutter) to hold the cards together. Trying to make the cover looks oriental :).

I sponged some gold acrylic paint to the sides to make it look like the yellow tussles I often see on Chinese lanterns.

Drew Chinese wooden clogs on the very first page;

As for the receipt book; I applied gesso to the very thin cover, distressed the edges with brown Stazon, stitched pieces of fabrics and added a button. 

A fabric heart for February :).

Then made a sketch with pencil and later finished it off in watercolor.

The thin papers didn't take watercolor so well and my page crumpled so badly. Oh well, life goes on :).

I love the scenery/painting on the cover of the Chinese Calligraphy book, so I didn't do anything to it. Shown here is a lotus flower sketch I did on the first page.

Not too crumpled, good news. I shall paint on them more.

I feel good that my walk yesterday made me pick up some brush & paint again :). At the moment, I'm having too much fun making small fabric-paper collage, which I will share soon :). HUGS.