Valentine’s Day 2020: Little House Of Dreams

“Adventure is out there.”
Ellie, UP movie
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“Falling in love with you is an adventure!”
Celeste Koh
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“I love you like Carl loved Ellie.”
Celeste Koh
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“A house is made of bricks and beams. A home is built with love and dreams.”
Pinterest
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“My dream house is one with you in it!”
Celeste Koh

#200214#

A couple of months ago, when I started planning ahead what I would do for my annual Vday paper pixelated artwork this year, I thought I might have run out of ideas. In the past, I had made specifically Taenggu’s favourite characters like Jack Skellington (see post: VALENTINE’S DAY 2016: VALENTINE LOVE FROM JACK) and Harry Potter (see post: VALENTINE’S DAY 2018: LOVE SPELL FROM HARRY POTTER). This time, I couldn’t seem to think of any more characters that she could have liked now.

“How about making something that I PERSONALLY like then?” I thought. I began to think really hard to myself (it was probably harder to think about what my own favourite things are 😝) until that iconic picture of a flying house with thousands of helium balloons attached from my favourite UP movie came into my mind. It is also my long-time profile picture of my twitter account @mindofsoul27 since its creation in 2015.

This memorable scene of a flying house attached with thousands of balloons from my favourite UP animated movie released in 2009 that I would never forget 🎈

UP movie always has a special place in my heart. I couldn’t forget that time in 2009 when I went to watch it in the theatre with a friend. I was already touched to tears within the first few minutes of the movie. The story was about an old man named Carl looking back at his memories with his late wife Ellie whom he grew up with and shared childhood dreams of visiting Paradise Falls, and now he wants to keep his promise to Ellie which he failed to fulfil when she was alive by turning his house into a makeshift airship using thousands of helium balloons to fly to Paradise Falls. The background story tugged at my heartstrings so much.

https://www.instagram.com/p/rcTS-XuNZI/

And so, with the following pictures as reference, I was determined to turn this idea into a romantic vday artwork for me and Taenggu!

I began by piecing together a pixelated house with 0.5cm squares cut from various rough textured coloured papers.

After the house was done, I pasted it onto the bottom of a suitable scrapbook paper with layered curvy cloud pattern.

With 7 pieces of small papers of different bright colours and a balloon shape craft punch, I was ready to make the balloons!

I decided to go with Taenggu’s magic number, 39 balloons altogether! Not too many, not too little. 😆

I selected and printed 3 photos of Zero sitting down, me drinking a glass of bubble tea cocktail and Taenggu reading a Germany travel book respectively, in small sizes on a plain paper and cut them out.

Then I pasted each photo onto each of the 3 windows nicely.

Finally, I added in some calligraphy of words with brush markers and framed it up in a nice white bordered sqaure frame and we are done! 🤗

Up, up, here we go, in our little house of dreams! 🏠🎈📸

As I examined and analysed my finished artwork, I realised it isn’t just an ordinary house that I just made. It is a special house that holds both of our dreams together. For me, it could be the dream of enjoying a carefree life, as signified by the picture of me drinking a glass of bubble tea cocktail (taken during our 58th monthsary date to The Bubble Tea Factory, but psst, voices say it’s a mojito!). For Taenggu, it could be the dream of wanting to travel around the world, as signified by the picture of her reading a travel guide to Germany. Not only that, there is also our common dream of wanting to live in our own house together and sharing physical daily moments with each other (and also have Zero running about in the house! 🐶😆).

So I decided to name this artwork “Little House of Dreams”, inspired by the cafe of the same name that I am planning to visit this Valentine’s Day! (will write about my experience at the cafe after the visit! ✍️)

A sneak peek of the cafe “Little House of Dreams” I will be paying a visit this Valentine’s Day!

Speaking of a dream house, just recently I wrote a Tumblr post about how I was daydreaming about living in a future house with Taenggu one day and shortly after, the universe mystically introduced and connected me to 孙燕姿 Stefanie Sun’s song “完美的一天 (A Perfect Day)”. Its lyrics coincidentally talk about wanting a big house and perfectly depict the ideal house I want! (read more at my Tumblr post)

In fact, this wasn’t my first time daydreaming of having a dream house with Taenggu. Probably no one knew I used to make a lego house by the sea for our 7th monthsary in 2015!

Original full post on Kakaostory: https://story.kakao.com/invariant27/hA2RwaeAL20

With this vday artwork, is it a sign that I’m getting closer to my dream of getting a dream house with Taenggu finally??? 😜

Dear Taeyeonie, my future roommate of my daydreams,

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! 💜💜💜💜💜
Hope you like my artwork!!

Up, up, let our little house of dreams fly high and take us to our destination! 🏠🎈

“Don’t ever stop trying, learning, fighting, experimenting, doing, until the miracle happens.”
Kim Kiyosaki
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“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”
Albert Einstein