Lilian has such an abundance of enthusiasm and energy, it's hard to keep up. Especially in Singapore, where the heat and humidity has us feeling like prunes.

We meet her at a pop-up market where she has a stall for the day. She's already been at the place for a couple of hours setting up before we arrive thinking, "Man, it's early."

When we see the number of things she has on display, it's clear why she needed the time.

Luggage tags, iron-on patches, nail stickers, transport card stickers, dolls, playing cards... you name it and it's on display, all neatly arranged on the limited real estate available.

What started out as a simple playing card game designed to teach people language and dialect in a fun way has grown into something way bigger, embraced by a far wider audience than Lilian anticipated.

Lilian's on a mission to make education fun. In addition to the range of SayWhat? Playing Cards - available in Hokkien, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bahasa and Singlish (Singaporean English) - Lilian also sells stickers and iron-on patches of beautiful and romantic words from around the world; a couple of adorable dolls named Aunty Chan and Ravi; iron-on patches and stickers of local Singaporean and Malaysian Sedap food (we had to get the Chilli Crab iron-on patch); even a Singlish Stranger things sticker set.

These are all done in her trademark fun, fun, fun illustration style, with characters that are simple and unforgettable; you'll fall in love with them just as we did.

She sells her goodies online, as well as at all the cool stores in Singapore and Malaysia. She has plans to reach new markets in 2019 and add to the fiercely loyal bunch of fans she already has. Yet, it isn't all smooth sailing. She has to chase after payments and deal with the cash flow, something she took for granted when earning a salary in advertising.

It's a juggling act alright, but the determined ones somehow seem to find the time and the motivation to do it. To get up at the crack of dawn and set up a stall at a pop-up market.

It's hot as hell, maybe hotter, but aside from a tiny bit of precipitation on her brow, Lilian's bright as a daisy. She smiles at every customer that approaches her stall and talks them through her creations with the kind of enthusiasm that's impossible to fake.  

We watch in awe for a while before deciding we really should be somewhere cooler, temperature wise that is.

We catch up with her at a cafe on another day, expecting a more laid back out affair but this lady doesn't do chilled. She's as energised as before, giving us ideas on how to further push FAMA, hitting us with names of people we should contact, even lecturing us on making some personal ideas we've been procrastinating on. Yes ma’am, we'll get on with it is all we can sheepishly say.