~ Banana Frog Hop! ~

If you have reached here from the lovely Michelle (now how cool is that table!), a warm welcome to you! Hope you have been enjoying the hops so far! 

As the theme focus on 'summer', I decided to create something that would be suitable for the warm weather that we are enjoying at the moment. With the heat, I'm always reaching out for cold cans of coke and they do leave water residue on the table. Using leftover scraps, I quickly created a couple of coasters.

These were simple to create. I cut the base with my Nestibilities. I added some stamped images and then laminated it.

The laminated sheet was also cut using Nestibilities. What I like about doing them is it makes use of lefover scraps, and they are great for just playing with stamps and creating themeless projects! You can further personalise them by adding photos too.

This is the end of the hop! If you fancy winning a Banana Frog stamp set, just drop a comment. Thanks for hopping by! Have a great week ahead! TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 121 ~

This week we are sponsored by The Digi Kitty:

Today's challenge is called Shades of Red. Your card has to include 3 shades of red (or more if you wish). Here's mine: 

Digi image from The Digi Kitty, coloured using Promarkers. Patterned paper by Basic Grey (I think). Sentiment from SRM Stickers.

TTFN!

~ Le Weekend ~

What can I say.... a very busy one amidst the hot weather!

Saturday

It was my eldest's school Summer Fayre and as usual, I was involved in it, doing the bookstall. I was greeted with a mountain pile of donated books and it took me a good hour to sort and arrange them out nicely, thankfully with some help. The Fayre started at noon and there was already a long queue of people waiting to get first dribble at the stalls. My boys were let loose and they only came to me when they wanted money! It was a brilliant day and we had a good crowd! 

The eldest managed to win a prize for me! So sweet of him.

The wee one grossly involved in filling his bottle with sand. 

Sunday

The boys had an all day violin summer workshop! Certainly not a good day to be indoors as it was extremely hot! However, they did survive the day and we even managed a picnic lunch. The highlight of the workshop was a drumming session using African drums. Hubs managed to catch a bit of the England vs Germany match on my iPhone! 

All the photos were taken with my Hipstamatic app on iPhone. Unfortunately the black & white films are affected by the iOS4 upgrade (it has a bluish tint to them). Hope an update will sort it out!

The next few weekends are gonna be real busy for me. Just hope I can squeeze in some scrapping time! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog ~

Banana Frog recently came up with some new sets and they landed on my doorstep and I had a play with them. I created this sketch for June's Sketch Focus: 

This is my LO: 

Made use of Studio Calico June 10 main kit for this LO. The butterfly mask in the background is from my own stash. Stamp sets used here are from Banana Frog's Swirls and Butterflies, Totally Tropical, Tropical Taste, DeLouis Ville, Budmo Jiggler (large & small). 

The journaling spot is from Tropical Taste. The butterflies are from Swirls and Butterflies.

The flowery swirls are from Totally Tropical.

Finally the title was created from Budmo Jiggler both in the large and small size. Luv the mini size.... very appropriate for cards.

Check back on the 30th where Banana Frog will be having a blog hop. TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 114 ~

This week we are sponsored by Lia Stampz, a new digi stamp company. 

Today's challenge is called Tuesday Triplets and that means to include 3 of these items on the card: Brad, Button, Blossom & Bow! I was wondering how I was gonna manage it without overfilling the card and somehow I managed! Here's my card: 

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Ambrosia (let's just say I got a few sets of BG 6x6 pads hence you will see them appearing on my cards a lot!) I tied a bow using 3 raffia strings, the blossoms were stacked on top of each other and 3 buttons in the centre! Finally 3 heart brads at the top right hand corner. Voila! Challenge fulfilled! Left the sentiment blank for insertion later when I've decided what I'm gonna use the card for!

TTFN!

~ Concert ~

My boys were asked to take part in a Scholar Concert held at Ladywood Arc Church, one of those obligatory attendance due to having free lessons in school! It was a solo concert for them which by now, they are quite used to. Anyway, here they are in action: 

Zac playing Handel's Judas Maccabaeus as his solo piece.

Oliver playing Handel's Bourree for his solo piece. 

Gotta excuse the quality as I video-taped them using my iPhone and these photos were taken off the video. Gotta luv the Mac for including a Grab tool... makes selecting stuff so easy!

My bro alerted me to a new software for the iPhone - iOS 4. So I spent the nite downloading and installing it (which is all done via iTunes and nothing on my part) but more exploring the new software! Here are some improvements.... zoom feature for camera (about time), folders for apps (fabulous, now I've got 4 pages as opposed to 8 before), multitasking feature which means you don't have to shut down an app to use another app but the catch... the app have to be developed to work with iOS 4. I've no doubt they will eventually. You can now edit/delete songs in Playlist in iPod which before you couldn't (and that annoyed me as I had to do it in iTunes). Emails are now consolidated eg. if you have several accounts (which I do), you can go to the consolidated account to see all the new ones as opposed to going to different accounts to check each new one. The other accounts still exists. Good idea and saves a lot of time! Other minor changes ... you can now change the wallpaper, not just for lock screen but also for the home screen (the one where you have all the apps)... luv that! I luv the folders inclusion.... now my apps are so much tidier. Gotta luv Apple.... they come up with such cool stuff all the time!

Talking about the iPhone, I also created some ringtones for the iPhone using Garage Band on my Mac. Don't really like the ringtones currently on there so Sunday nite was spent creating a few from my pop music collection. Took me some time to remember but I did attend a class on Garage Band a while back and was shown how to do it. Will definitely be doing more (when time permits). 

Better get back to crafting as I've got assignments due... TTFN!

~ Happy Father's Day & Mojo Monday 143 ~

Happy Father's Day to my dad and my boys' dad! It's a brilliant day today, the sun was out but we merely chilled out at home after a fantastic evening last nite. We attended my SIL's wedding party and didn't come back till late so it was good to be able to get up late this morning. 

I made a Father's Day card using a sketch from Mojo Monday:

Here's my card: 

As close to the sketch I can get! Patterned paper by Basic Grey Ambrosia collection. Stamped images from Unity Feb10 KOTM set.  Those 'dad' sentiments came in handy!

TTFN!

~ Unity's Friends With Flair & CardPatterns Sketch 68 ~

Friday has come by rather quickly again. Last weekend, I sorted out my Unity stamp sets and now they are nicely displayed on laminated sheets which makes for easy use. It's far easier to use them now than before when they were in their original packaging. 

I've been creating 'thank you' cards as the school term is slowly drawing to a close and these cards will be given to my boys' teachers. I made use of a CardPatterns Sketch: 

Here's my card: 

The retro flowers are from April 2010 KOTM set. Patterned paper from Basic Grey Kioshi collection.

My boys recently went to a scout camp and I made them a label for their bags. 

Stamped images from May 2010 KOTM set. It was enclosed in a laminated sheet. Pretty simple to create and effective.

Stamped images on the left are from May 2010 Moments in Bloom set and the 'happy' is from May 2010 KOTM set. In both tags, the back was stamped with a large butterfly from May 2010 KOTM set and our address was printed over it. 

I'll be making more tags as we are off for our summer hols next month and I'm always looking for labels for our luggage! Have a great weekend! I've got a wedding party to attend and looking forward to it! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog ~

Some new Banana Frog stamp sets landed on my doorstep and I had a play with them. I created a mini LO (6x4") using Totally Tropical and DeLouisville sets:

Totally Tropical

DeLouisville

Here's my LO: 

 

This is a 6x4" LO. I do a lot of them to post to my parents overseas where it's easy to store in a normal photo album. I used the corner stamp and added the flowers to embellished it. The title was created using the DeLouisville alpha set, which is fast becoming my favourite alpha set. LO created using Scarlet Lime May10 kit. 

Bev has also came out with a new Mixed Sentiments set and this is just perfect for cards! 

Here's my card: 

I made use of the corner stamp again and glittered the flowers with sticklers. I used the sentiment from the new set. 

Luv the sentiment set... can see myself using it often! TTFN!

~ Caardvarks: DRS Designs June Challenge ~

This month's challenge is to "create a *new* card using stamps and wet and/or dry embossing". Here's my card: 

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Granola. Went for dry embossing using a Cuttlebug star embossing folder. Stamped images from Unity's May 2010 KOTM set. 

TTFN!

~ Sketchy Thursdays: 6.10 Challenge ~

Here's the sketch for this week's challenge:

Here's my LO: 

LO created using June's Studio Calico kit. Stamped images from Unity. Date stamp from Banana Frog's Delouisville set. Photo of my boys busking in Birmingham Town Centre to raise fund for Christian Aid. They played for an hour and did receive generous donations during the time they played. There were a fair number of fiver notes being given!

TTFN!

~ Woot! ~

I was asked recently to be a guest designer for The Studio and the challenge was to scrap my country's flag colours & black. Well, my country's flag colours are red and white which incidentally is the same as England's and since I'm living here, I shall represent both countries. Here's my LO: 

Photo of us taken at my SIL's wedding reception. I can never get my boys to pose nicely for photos but hey, that's them and I wouldn't have it any other way! Made use of Studio Calico May kit with extra bits from my own stash (notably the BG Basic White background paper). Couldn't resist the TH bird cage as well (which I finally got my hands on). Alphas in the background are from Heidi Swapp mask. Happy bingo card is a digi printout. 

TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 107 ~

Here at 365 Cards, the DT members are fortunate to be sponsored by SRM Stickers and they supplied us with tons of stickers to play with! 

Today's challenge is a toughie! We had to choose from last June's challenges and I chose one where we had to use an argyle pattern and create a card for a special man in my life. However, Pam had to add a twist to it and her twist was to make the argyle pattern a piece of "fabric" on the card! Now looking at my stamps, I realised I don't exactly have a male image so I had to think hard and this was what I came up with: 

An air balloon! I'm sure it's made from some form of fabric material! Patterned paper by Basic Grey Granola. All sentiments from SRM Stickers. Stamped images from Unity.

Here's the inside of the card. 

I've got a couple of birthdays coming up so this card will come in handy! TTFN!

~ iPhone Apps! ~

Thought I do a couple of reviews on the apps on iPhone. I'm always on the lookout for useful ones that help me in my daily routine. Now, while browsing thru' the Apps store, found one that calculated calories. Oh man, that is one useful app that I use literally every day, in fact, every hour as I'm constantly checking how much calories a particular food has!

It's called My Fitness Pal, a calorie counter and dietary tracker app. When you first use it, it asks you for the usual info such as weight, height and how much weight you wanna lose/gain/maintain and then it calculates your calorie intake per day. Once done, all you do is itemise what you eat per day and it will inform you how much calorie you're consuming. Since using it, I've been made very aware of calories found in food. Suddenly I'm showing a lot of restrain in consuming food with high calorie as that will very quickly hit my quota per day. I'm on a mission to lose at least 2 kg before I go home for the summer hols. Hence, I've got a calorie quota of 1200 per day. As I've only started this week, it has been hard to try and keep to the quota and I'm usually overshot by an average of 100 calories. I'm quite impressed by the food list as my diet is mainly Chinese cuisine and it does show food that comes from my country as well! It's scary sometime to see how much calories I consumed per meal! Here's a couple of snapshots of the app.

Here's a daily entry. When you click on Add, it will bring out a list of what categories (Breakfast, Lunch... Strength (for exercises) and Water). Simply choose which category and then key in the food. It brings out a list and you choose what sort of food it is (hey, it will even list all the Walkers crisps!) It's dead simple to use and very informative.

  

Here it shows you how many calories a homemade curry has, based on serving size (which can be altered). 

All I can say is I'm more aware of the labels on food now when I shop! Never bothered before but now, very highly aware! Oh did I say that the app is FREE too! And you can also do it online too if you don't own an iPhone... check out the website: www.myfitnesspal.com. What I like about it is that I don't have to stick to a diet plan and I can still eat what I like but ensuring that I stick to my calorie quota. I love nothing more than to check out the calories of food especially of chocolates! My MIL just gave me a box of M&S chocolate-coated ginger biscuits (my fav) and when I checked the calorie per biscuit, it was 100! (yup, I found it in the food list including the brand too!) All I can say, it's not easy eating just 1 biscuit!!!

The next useful app I found is one that track your menstrual cycle called Period Tracker. Another useful app as it calculate your cycle, let you know when is your fertile moments as well as your ovulation date. Very useful if you either wanna try for a kid or avoid getting pregnant! (for moi, the latter!) There are a few apps for this but I chose this particular one as it was the highest in popularity and it's FREE again! 

No wonder I'm not scrapping... constantly on the lookout for new apps! :) TTFN!

~ Unity's Friends With Flair ~

It's Friday again. Time to hop on the blogs of Unity fans (Check Unity's blog for more info). My May KOTM arrived rather late and I only got a chance to play this week. Top on my list was the roller skates image and I made this: 

Patterned papers by Basic Grey Granola (luv that range... so suitable for male cards). I need to make more 'mal-ish' cards as they are rather short in supply.

Gonna be busy later as my eldest is off to camp today until Sunday while the wee one will be attending an all day camp on Saturday. The hubs is away on a weekend golfing trip while moi will enjoy some time alone to myself on Sat! Not often I'm left alone but I do cherish it ..... mmmm what shall I do... scrap, shop ..... All I know I will enjoy a bit of peace! :) Have a great weekend! TTFN!

~ Sketchy Thursdays: 6.03 Challenge ~

After a haitus from scrapping, I finally caved in and made a LO based on this sketch:

Absolutely adore this sketch... guess all the messy bits attracted me! LOL! Anyway, here's my LO: 

Made use of Studio Calico May kit although some bits came from other kits too. Luv this photo of my boys, taken using the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. Lots of stamping too, using Unity's Brave Girl stamp set. 

Hopefully this will mark the start of more LOs to come... been incredibly busy lately and that leaves me with little time for crafting. TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 100 ~

This week we are sponsored by The Cutting Cafe: 

Today's challenge is 'All Lined Up' which is to get all things lined up in a row. In fact, everything from the embellishments to the sentiment should be lined up, and you'll need to have at least THREE items in each line that you create. I played with the 'Birthday Fun' set and here's my card: 

No patterned paper, just digi images and Copic markers!

TTFN!

~ iPhone Speakers! ~

Hubs and I have been searching for a portable speakers for the iPhone/iPod and I had seen the Vestalife speakers a while back and thought it looked very hip! It being red was a plus point too. So we set off to hunt one down within Birmingham and Solihull to no avail! Eventually, with an hour left before closing time, we sped off to Currys in Wednesbury and laid our hands on one. 

This is the Firefly. Here's the specs: 

• innovative beautiful design, feature-rich, with sub-woofer and folding satellite speakers
• battery (4xAA not included) or mains operation (universal adapter included)
• works with all dockable iPods and 2G, 3G and 3GS iPhones, and has aux input for other sources
• charges your iPod/iPhone while docked, when connected to the mains
• full remote control and USB connection to computer for synchronising with iTunes

And here's how it looks when open. It sounds good too. Currently, not all speakers work with iPhone (as I've found out) so to find one that does in such a hip design is a plus! 

You can get it slightly cheaper on Amazon (as I've found out later) and this brand comes with other designs too, Ladybug and Mantis. Both equally cute too! But I like the Firefly. TTFN!

~ Wedding Update ~

Not mine but hub's youngest sis got married yesterday. Weather was brilliant... sunny and warm. It was an entirely family affair and hub's car was used as the bridal car. The wedding ceremony was held at Leicester  Register Office. The boys had to dressed up which they weren't accustomed and it wasn't long before their ties came off! 

The boys with still their ties on...

Hub & moi

(photos taken by my iPhone)

Lunch was a 3 course meal starting with goat's cheese, followed by sea bass or pork and finally a dessert dish. It was delicious! Nothing pleased me more than great food. The restaurant where the bride and groom held her reception was lovely too, lots of greenery and outdoor seating, coupled with a fabbo weather, it was just a perfect day!

I have to give a shout to my satnav app on my iPhone! I purchased this Ndrive UK & Ireland app as I was looking for a satnav for my iPhone but didn't want to spend loads on it. So when I was this app for a mere £4.99 with tons of good review, I had to get it. It was put to the test yesterday as I had to drive and this app got me to all the places I needed to go without problem! Here's a snapshot of it: 

It never lost the GPS signal and it duly informed me of any speed restrictions. You can make changes in the settings. Voice can be a little soft if you have the radio on in the car but it didn't bother me. You will probably need a car charger as it does drain the battery a lot on the iPhone. So now all I need is a cradle for the iPhone, which has been bought off Ebay now! 

The day ended back at the bride & groom's place. It was great to have the whole family together as we don't live near each other. The wedding party is held in two weeks time so it will be nice to see them again! TTFN!

~ Unity's Friends With Flair ~

Got myself another Christmas stamp set (can't have too many of them eh) and played with it when it came and create a few Xmas cards. This stamp set is called Merry Merry Merry and comes with some adorable images. 

Here are my cards. Had fun playing with the images:

Some of the cards above were based on sketches from various card blogs and also Hippity Hop sketches too. They come in handy when I need to create tons of Xmas cards to meet my quota for the month. 

My SIL gets married today so I'm out the whole day. Today also marks the end of the one week break as well. It has been great being at home with my boys although the days did pass rather quickly. Anyway, thanks for dropping by and have a great weekend ahead! TTFN!