Mark Choon

Valentine’s day is about a month away and this time round, I’m proud to announce that Engravinglass.com is having a Valentine’s day promo!

Check it out! www.engravinglass.com/vday

Please do support these engravers!

Yep I have one on hand. I don’t really need a new laptop so I am putting this up for sale. Still prefer my old Dell with big screen

Anyway here are the specs:

This HP Mini 110-1025TU is brand new and the box is unopened! See pic of sealed box. Comes with 1 yr warranty inside.

Retail price is 699 sgd… Get this one now for only 550!

Here are the specs:

Notebook PC
Intel Atom N280 Processor (1.66GHz)
160GB (5400RPM) Hard Drive
1024MB DDR2 SDRAM (1 Dimm)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 3 for ULCPC Program
Webcam
10.1″ Diagonal SD Anti-glare Widescreen Display
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with shared graphics memory
802.11b/g WLAN
HP Bluetooth Nano Dongle
5-in-1 Digital Media Reader
3-cell Lithium-ion battery

If you’re interested drop me an enquiry and I’ll get back to you.

Here are some photo evidence on the “newness” of this notebook.

new unopened

I’ve yet again come to another milestone in life hopefully for the better.

Been really really busy with school projects and engraving projects so much so I really neglected updating my with the engravings I’ve done. One reason for this is many if not most of the requests I get are similar. Simple things they need engraved on glass to give as a memorable gift for their friends or loved ones. So if you’re wondering whether I still engrave due to inactivity on this site, my answer is yes I still do!

I had to turn a few people down in the few weeks though because my tools were sent for repair. Sigh. Really sorry for that.

A recent engraving on a perfume bottle. It’s a birthday gift from HIM to HER. He wanted something simple, just Happy Birthday Eliza to add something special to the Ralph Lauren Romance perfume bottle.

As shown here, the bottle itself is bare and there is a lot of room for creativity.

However, he wanted something simple yet classy, so I  dressed up the Happy Birthday with a top and bottom curly border and he liked it a lot.

Here’s the finished engraving.

A reader, HyperX from www.kongtechnology.com, recently commented on my previous Christmas is coming post and suggested I make a list of Christmas presents list. It was a very good suggestion so thank you HyperX for providing me with some inspiration.

So then, here’s a list of Christmas presents/gifts that can be engraved for the special people in your life.

1) A Christmas dish plate! This is inspired by the latest gift plate that I did for a relative. She suggested today that I make one for Christmas for her to give to some special people. The idea is to have Christmas hollys as the border, a picture of Christmas, on the inside of the plate (one vertical half) and then the Christmas message and greeting on the other vertical half. Quite a cool idea and I’m sure, not many, if not no one, has ever received such a Christmas present.

2) A pair of glasses, or make it a six pack! Be it wine or other tumblers, shot glasses, etc , engraved with pictures of Christmas. Well, I’ve done a few last year. Remember the cute Christmas bears? Those were lovely… oh and the snowman set for a friend’s wife…cute

 3) Wine bottles! I think this is the best gift of the season. Christmas is the time to make merry and enjoy some good wine! I’ve done many wine bottles for anniversaries, birthdays and Valentine’s day. However, I’ve not done wine bottles for Christmas hence I’ve launched a promotion specially for this Christmas. Combining good wine with a nice Christmas picture and a personalized Christmas greeting and message. It’ll definitely make it a memorable Christmas to the person receiving it! The Christmas promotion is available at www.markchoon.com/christmas

4) Perfume bottles! Now this is a very recent idea and I’ve been getting quite a few requests since posting up my initial engravings on perfume bottles. This idea is of course, can be used as a Christmas present for that special someone, be it girlfriend, boyfriend or husband, wife. I can’t think of anyone else a person would give perfume bottles to…maybe very very close friends I guess, but I think thats just what I think. So HyperX, maybe you should get your special gal perfume, and I’ll engrave it for you at no charge. Thats thanks to the inspiration behind this post! Please do contact me.

5) Glass coasters! Ok this is an idea I’ve been thinking of but not done, ever. I’ve seen plain glass coasters sold at stores and wouldn’t it be nice, if a Christmas pic was engraved on each?

There you have it! My list of 5 Christmas gift ideas. If you’ve any more ideas, feel free to drop a comment and I’ll add it on!

Of course, it has to be a glass related item and engravable

It feels like just a blink of the eye, and its already coming to the 2nd Christmas ever since I put on boots. That means its just slightly over another half a year more to go for me!!

Ah well though my life had to be put on hold, especially my career, I guess it still gave me time to explore other areas, such as studying and engraving. Guess I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if it were otherwise.

Anyway Christmas is coming again and its time for presents. I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what to buy for the people that I’m giving presents to. I’ve been cracking my head for the past week.

Fortunately, a colleague from my office told me today that there’s a perfume sale at a nearby warehouse at Ubi. As I had the afternoon off, I went down to have a look. I ended up spending over $200 on perfume. Luckily its not all mine, as I helped wifey’s colleague make a purchase so I get to claim back quite a bit. Phew!

Anyway, the warehouse sale for perfume is at 10, Ubi TechPack, Lobby B, #07-30… I think! Best to check the banner near the cafe.

Now..

About the Christmas promo…

If you’ve guessed that I’m holding an engraving Christmas promotion for unique Christmas gifts, you’re right!

Head on down to www.markchoon.com/christmas to find out more!

Just a teaser, I think the wines in the promotion are not available in wine retail shops here. I think they’re specially imported. So if you’re curious, don’t wait, click on www.markchoon.com/christmas

Run out of ideas for a thank you gift?

Here’s one idea which my wife suggested to her aunt, get a crystal glass plate and engrave a thank you message on it.

This is not the first time an engraved glass plate was used as a gift. This is the second one actually.

For my wife’s aunt, a Schott Zwiesel glass plate was used. Purchased from Tangs, it came without any design, just plain.

What I did was to find a suitable border design and incorporate it to the sides of the glass plate, jazzing it up a lot instead of just having the Thank you message engraved on the plate.

Here’s the final product.

A suitably sized photo stand can be used to prop up the plate so that it can be put in a display cabinet.

International request, local delivery - you might be wondering what the heck that means. Well, to put it simply, the request came from France, to be delivered to local recipients.

I had two engraving requests, wine bottles with images and text engraved and hand delivered to the recipients’ address.

The requestor gave a choice of wine over the internet and I headed down to the shop to pick what’s available on the list.

The first bottle was an anniversary bottle, a heart shape design on the front, above the wine label and an Eiffel tower sketch at the back. The wine was a Domaine Cornu, Pernand Vergelesses Rouge from Burgundy, France, 2004 vintage

Front:

Back, with a message from the requestor to the recipient.

The second bottle was a belated birthday present. In the same style as the first, a heart shape design and birthday wish and date in the front while the back had a huge 50th Birthday cake picture and a short message.

The wine used was a Chateau Maris Minervois, from the Laungudoch region in France, 2004 vintage

Here’s the front

And the back with the big birthday cake.