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!