It's all about...

N's style, that is. She never fails to amaze me and always cracks me up with her funny antics. This layout should actually be called "The One With The Shorts On The Head" (like how each episode of the Friends sitcom is titled), LOL!

The journaling in the box reads:
"N's Fashion Tips • wear shorts on head • turn T-shirt upside down and wear it toga-style • smile, pose and be sassy!"

This was one of the times that I just wanted to stick the photos down, simple and straightforward with no fuss. Maybe the LO could be better in design e.g. there are so many photos of the same size you don't know which to focus on! - I usually review and analyse my LOs! - but I wanted to do something quick and these photos were already printed all in the same size 'cos I originally thought of making a mini accordion booklet to put them in.

Thanks for visiting and have a good mid-week!

My little beach babe...

Finally finished this layout! It had been sitting on my desk for like the longest time - I knew what I wanted to do with it, how I wanted it to look but just didn't find the time to do it!




Am quite pleased with myself as this is a recent photo - snapped it when we were on holiday in Bintan in July. Often I scrap a photo months - even years, haha - after it's been taken!

Okay, I'm hungry now and am off to indulge in a favourite of mine...instant noodles!!! And I've got a long day tomorrow and a pretty busy week ahead so tata for now!

Why I have been too busy to craft....

This is the publicity video for "Sperm", the play I'm in. Quite cool, huh?



Have been busy at rehearsals (the show runs on the last weekend of August which is next week really!) on top of my other life as wife and mom - read taxi driver, playmate, chef, etc - so I haven't really been able to do much else. There's an unfinished layout that's been sitting on my desk for a while now.... :)

We enjoyed our little getaway in KL last weekend. Except for a few traffic hiccups - took us an hour to get through the Singapore immigration due to extra security measures in place; and we also got stuck in th evening rush hour when we reached KL - it was a smooth drive. N handled the drive pretty well for a four-year-old...not too many "are we there yet?" questions, LOL!

We didn't do much in KL, just hung out at the hotel, swam at the pool and checked out the huge mall next to hotel. We also went to the Lake Gardens which has a huge fabulous children's outdoor playground - highlight of the trip for N! - and had lunch at the bird park before we set off on the drive home.

Took some photos of the trip - am considering doing a mini-album on it....just gotta find the time!

Hello!

Nope, no photos to post today.... just dropping by my own blog - i post so infrequently I'm more like a guest, hahaha! - cos a friend of mine said to me the other day, "hey, you haven't updated your blog for a while!" LOL!

Well, I have been scrapping a little bit but just haven't had time to snap and post! Especially since I went back to doing more work after N's birthday - acted in the Short & Sweet Theatre Festival in June, filmed for Kids Central's R.E.M. and did a singing gig at the Heritage Festival in July and am now rehearsing for a play due end August. Hey, come support and watch - I'm in Blood Binds, part of the OCBC Theatre Festival, Aug 23/24. The play I'm in is called "Sperm" - yup, no kidding!

Anyway, my little family's off to KL this weekend for a short getaway. Well,it isn't exactly a planned holiday but the dear husband has to attend a business dinner there and we thought we'd drive up with him so that at least we could be together, especially since he's away on business trips so often.


Have a fabulous weekend!

Another favourite photo...

...another layout. Lately, just for a change in creative direction, I've been going through the many photos I've taken and have started picking out the ones I like and then use the photo as the starting point for layout inspiration. Did this using Scarlet Lime's June kit - thought it went well with the photo.

So far it's a nice change in approach...plus my daughter's such a lovely muse! :)

My sister-in-law and her family are in town for a visit. N is so happy to have her 2 cousins staying with us - the house is kinda noisy now but it's nice happy noise! We're off tomorrow on a short holiday in Bintan, yay! We're all looking forward to it, especially the kids. And I guess this means more photos to take!

Have a good rest-of-the-week and weekend!

A favourite photo

Did this using a mix of papers, bits & bobs from Scarlet Lime's May kit and my stash. I really love this photo - took it when we were back in Denmark in fall last year. - and finally found the right papers to scrap with it. Tweaked the colour saturation of the photo to get the tone I wanted.

Kept the journaling very simple as the picture speaks volumes (well, to me anyway): "Life is a journey...and I'm glad I'm travelling with my dad."

I guess this layout is my tribute to Father's Day this month!

The Princess Castle Cake

This is the cake I baked and decorated for N's 4th Birthday. Had some scary moments when the butter cream icing started to melt and separate ('cos I forgot to turn on the aircon in hot humid Singapore) and I thought it would just dissolve in a messy buttery heap! So I had to put it in the fridge every now and then, which fortunately, did the trick. Good thing I started work on it early in the day or I wouldn't have finished it in time for the party.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end. And it apparently tasted good, too - or maybe the guests who said so were just being polite! :)

It also was a perfect opportunity to use this lovely candle train set that Farmor gave to N last year. We realised, after of course, that we should have turned the train the other way so that the number 4 would face the right way in the photo!

And here is my little princess with her castle cake! All in, it was a nice little birthday party and I think N and her friends enjoyed it.

Birthday Party coming up soon!

Wow, my little girl is turning four this June. I guess all mothers say this but gosh, she's growing up real fast.

Party's just 2 weeks' away and apart from making and sending the invitations, I haven't done much else. Oh dear me, time's running short! At least this year, the guest list small - only 10 kids! So different from the massive parties of previous years, with invites to 20 - 30 kids. (It was hard to cut down as there were - and still are - so many different social groups....family, friends, playgroup, preschool, neighbours...! But the parties were a blast anyway!)

And unlike before, where she wanted to invite the whole world, this time N's very very selective about who she'd like as her guests. So I didn't have to make too many invitation cards this year!


She wanted a princess theme but since there are boys being invited, it's now a "Prince and Princess" theme. For the invite card, I chose to do a neutral castle design - but still in girly pinky colours. I handcut the castle from off-white shimmer card and the turrets, windows and drawbridge from printed paper and cardstock (I used American Craft and Prima). The rest is hand drawn and hand coloured to give a whimsical kiddy feel.

The drawbridge opens to reveal the message printed on vellum paper - "Princess N cordially invites Princess (or Prince) so-and-so to her 4th birthday party....". I'm now more into interactive paper stuff and cards with moving parts!


And now that the invitation cards are out of the way, it's time to prep for the party itself. Have a nice weekend!

Am back...sort of...

Okay, so I'd actually connected my mac up over a week ago! But there's still stuff all over the floor.

Am happy though - I now finally have a small craft space of my own. Have been wanting to scrap or make cards but it's kinda tricky finding stuff as while most things are unpacked, they're not exactly organised. Plus it's actually in the guest bedroom and my parents-in-law are visiting from Denmark for a month so I've got limited access for now. But hey, MY VERY OWN SCRAP SPACE, YAY!

There are still a few kinks to iron out with the house move, like Singpost just can't get their act together with mail redirection. Paid for a 6-month period of service starting 1st April but they're still sending mail to the old address. Most ridiculous is I collected, from the old address THIS MORNING, a letter from Singpost confirming that my re-direction service had been approved!!!! And I had last checked the mailbox - and retrieved non-redirected mail - last Thursday. Lucky I still have the keys to the old place. Have asked for a refund for this month's fee but really, it's not just a monetary issue - I just want the mail to be delivered to the new address and on time! Am quite surprised as usually, I think, Singpost is quite efficient.

Oh dear, didn't mean to gripe here. After all this is my blog for my crafty stuff - meant to be a happy site - so apologies for letting off steam.

Anyway, I do hope to get crafting soon. Might post some photos of older stuff soon. Meanwhile, have a good week!

Will be unplugged for a while...

Am right smack in the middle of moving house. The movers started work on Tuesday and we've all been soooooo busy and tired. I've also sworn to stop the clutter after seeing the unbelievable amount of stuff - and a lot of it junk - that the movers unearthed when packing!

Okay, after I post this, I'll be disconnecting my desktop for the movers to pack. And the broadband connection in the new house will be only be operational some time tomorrow. So, I'll be unplugged for a while. Anyway, looking at the massive amount of unpacking that's needed, I probably won't set up the mac till Saturday, maybe even Sunday!

So, till I plug back in, have a good rest-of-the-week/weekend which I hope will not be as stressful as mine, LOL!

... just had to create something...

Last night I just felt I had to create something, anything.... and since it was already late and I wasn't about to go through my stash in the midst of all the packing, I used loose scraps at hand to make 2 ATCs. Quick and easy, but enough to satisfy the crafty urge to keep me happy! And even though they're very simple designs, I quite like the way they turned out. :)



I stamped this with Hero Arts "Art, Life & Beauty" wood-mounted rubber stamp in my favourite grey ink (Anna Griffin pigment ink from All Night Media), distressed the edges with ink on a wet sponge(I used Ranger's distress ink in weathered wood), then trimmed a scrap butterfly diecut (sizzix sizzlit) negative to stick over. In deference to the stamp I used, I titled this ATC "Art, Life & a Butterfly"...okay, okay, not very original but at hey, at 11pm at night, I was happy with it!




This Scenic Route PP with the arrows is just so fun and funky, I just HAD to do this ATC! One of the quickest and easiest ever - just a rectangular scrap of the PP, light blue flower blings (from Kuretake), "this side up" handwritten around the PP and edges inked with my favourite Colorbox charcoal chalk ink! Titled it "this side up" and had a good laugh at how corny it was! But I was happy, so there!


Oh, and I finally took out my recently acquired Cat's Life Press unmounted rubber stamp to use on the back of my ATCs. So of course I have to show a sample! :)


Have a fab Saturday evening and Sunday, y'all!

2 weeks to go....

...before we move house. The rep from the moving company came this morning to do the assessment and it seems we'll need 5 days to complete the move!!!! Ok, so we have a lot of stuff... But what do you expect - we've lived in our apartment for 10 years, have a kid (read "toys everywhere") and I am an avid scrapper/paper crafter (read "stash hoarder", LOL!)....

On a different subject, N started at her new preschool yesterday. She seems happy and has already made friends. The only hiccup was her not wanting to eat her lunch. As I've arranged for her to be there full days for the next few weeks until we move house, she was quite pooped (happy sort of tired) and hungry when she got home that it was pretty easy to get her to have dinner and go to bed early. :)

Anyway, decided to take a break from clearing to post some pictures of some stuff I've made but never got around to posting.

This is the tag I made for ScrappinKidsCare A Tag! Charity project.



As I was still in the mood to quill, I made the tag above for my scrapping friend Angeline's daughter's first birthday.





Haha, this tag was made last year in November! It's a bag tag for a dear scrapping friend, the talented and creative Lia, for her birthday. Designed it so that the 2 sides looked different so you could choose which side to flip facing out depending on your mood or bag colour.

Hmmm... was going to post more photos but it's taking a bit too long and I've got to go back to my house move prep viz. sort, clear, purge, label... oh well, 2 weeks more...!

Gotta bake again soon....

Was going through my photos and saw the cake I baked and decorated for N's 2nd birthday (yup, that's one and a half years ago!) to suit her choice of butterfly garden party theme. Hmmm... it's been a while since I baked cakes, cookies, etc.

Gotta do that again, hopefully soon after we finish the whole house move thing. Especially, baking cupcakes - N loves helping me decorate them... and eating them, especially the frosting, LOL!


Btw, these cupcakes were made with the leftover batter, butter cream and sugar flowers from the main butterfly cake. Actually had enough leftover for about 20 cupcakes... because I had over-estimated how much I needed, haha!

Sweet Little Girlfriends

N and A are such sweet friends. They love each other and play well together. Sure, they have their differences and little quarrels - yes, even though they are both only 3 and a half years old, LOL! When we found out that their current preschool was going to close for good, I decided to make this a photo keepsake for A and get N to give it to her on Valentine's Day.


Was so bogged down with the house matters that I couldn't find time to do it earlier but fortunately managed to make it in the morning of 14th Feb itself! Hence, I kept it very simple which, as it turned out, also made it easy for N to help put in the heart and butterfly stickers.


The good news now is that by sheer coincidence, N and A are both transferring to the same new preschool - so the little friends will be together after all!

Look what my little girl made!

Am so proud of my 3-and-a-half-yr-old! She made this birthday card for my mum in January, pretty much all on her own, choosing the stamps, inks and peg embellishments, even cutting the stamped images by herself (I pencilled a simple outline for her to follow).

Also made this accordion tag for my mum, using K & Co's accordion tag kit. It features pictures of my little girl and grandma, and I also decided to cover the blank raw chipboard at the back with a simple layout of a sweet poem I found about grandmothers.

On a different note, I'm so tired with all the prep for the house move, the to- and fro-ing (and sadly, the correcting of mistakes) with renovation contractors - why can't they get things done properly and with care..aaargh!

Am probably bummed out most because I'm dying to scrap, make cards, alter stuff, basically do anything remotely crafty but simply don't have the time nor the space right now!

That's why I'm really looking forward to doing a class at an LSS this Friday - really need the breather.

Finally another post!

Well, it's not much but at least it's a start! I've been busy over the past few months, had to do the Christmas prep before we took off to spend Christmas with the family in Europe, followed by the Chinese New Year prep - and on top of it all, overseeing the renovation of the new house (still ongoing - the plan is to move in March)!

So with whatever little time I've got now - I thought I'd upload this bright orange layout that I did for a MWL challenge (Merdrey's "one and only"). Thought it suits the Chinese New Year festive mood!

I hope I'll have more time to scrap and craft more after moving house. On a note related to the house move, I will be clearing out stuff so will have RAKs to give away. More details later!

Meanwhile, happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrate it!