~ Today ~

The weather today...

It was too hot and I stayed at home & had a massage & facial. Bliss! Also entertained a baby

And FaceTime my boys

Both are in separate places at the moment! TTFN!

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~ Shopping In Shanghai ~

Did my favourite activity today! Shopping!!!! Bliss!

Internet access is limited here as it's heavily monitored. Can't get into Blogger or Facebook. Hope this is able to be posted!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

~ Mr Whiskers: Stone Heads ~

Mr Whiskers came up with a new kit today! I take my hat off David, the designer. He comes out with some amazing images. Incidentally, he had 2 new ones recently which I've yet to play with! Anyway, this kit is entitled Stone Heads, available at Deviant Scrap.

Here's my art journal:

I also combined it with kits from Forrest Stump & Special Effects.

This art journal came about rather quickly. Somehow, the stone heads reminded me of the show Night of the Museum, the statue called Dum Dum (something like that). Hence, I gave it a mystical feel to it with a tornado in the backdrop!

I had better head off to bed as I've got an early flight tomorrow to Shanghai. Not gonna bring my Mac (although I know I'll suffer from withdrawal symptoms. I've been digi scrapping so much the last few days, mostly CT assignments). Part of me wanna stay up and watch the Olympic athletics but I know I'm gonna suffer the next day! Darn! TTFN!

~ Happy Birthday Singapore ~

It's Singapore's National Day today. I'll be watching the National Day parade in the comfort of my home later today. It would have been nice to see it in action at Marina Bay but my dad failed to get tickets for the show and they are like gold dust! Impossible to obtain. I did take part in it once, a very long time ago and it was the best experience of my life. I still remember so well and it was just a buzz to be performing. 

Will be packing for my trip to Shanghai later. Three quarters of the stuff I'm bringing belongs to my friend & her baby. I'll be glad when the luggage is empty to carry back stuff I'm gonna buy! I leave with this photo:

A little blurry as it was taken by my friend's li'l boy but he still manages to capture us in our essence. So happy to see them again!

And this: 

Hot fudge sundae! Yum!

Just can't understand why the MacDo in UK doesn't bring it back (they have it in caramel and strawberry, favours I don't particularly fancy).

TTFN!

~ GIS: Ideas For Misting ~

One of my pet technique in scrapping: misting on pages, be it paper or digi. I still use my mists when I'm doing any papercrafting. Now that I've gone digi, I still try to employ the misting technique on my page. 

When I was given this topic to do, I was in seventh heavens. I really love the look and effect of mist on pages. And I learnt how to do it digitally too! Well, here's my page as seen in this article:

Supplies:
Anna Aspnes: ArtPlay Palette Sweet Baby, Children Quotes No1, 12x12 Edge Overlay No5

Dido Designs: Notions Set

Gennifer Bursett: Toolbox Mist V5

Mye de Leon: Mists

Font: Kelly

The areas I misted are the numbers and hearts. Yup, you can get misted digi elements. Then I varied the  opacity to suit my page. That's my best friend's baby. He's so adorable! Be seeing him soon!

And speaking of that, just found out that Shanghai is experiencing typhoon. And guess who's going there tomorrow! Talk about perfect timing! NOT! Well, it won't keep me from traveling. TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 160 ~

This week we are sponsored by Robyn Fetish: 

Today's challenge is Darling Doily. I luv using doilies on card. Here's mine:

 Bird image from Robyn Fetish, coloured using Copics markers.

TTFN!

~ Checking In From ... ~

Singapore. Reached here early at 7am on a Sunday morning. Makes a change from landing at night usually. Took a Singapore Airline flight from Manchester with a brief stopover in Munich. A 12 hour flight but having been so used to Emirates 8-3-8 flight (i.e. 8 hrs to Dubai, 3 hrs wait, 8 to Singapore), 12 hours in a plane was a stretch. I was starting to feel a bit fidgety after 8 hrs had gone pass. Food was edible but by breakfast, I had enough and wanted to get out of the plane. Thankfully it was another hour to go. Can't say I slept well as I don't sleep well on planes. 

At the immigration, I tried the biometric system. First, scanned my passport on the till, then my thumbprint. Success! I got through in less than a minute! Man, I'm very impressed! However, this new system has reduced the number of years of my passport to only 5! It used to be 10 years!

As for jetlag, suffering a little. I'm up all night (partly to watch the Olympics as we are 7 hours ahead of UK). Anyway, now that I'm here, I lost no time to tucking in to my favourite food. Yup, having all my favourite dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner! So nice not to have to prepare any meals! 

On the scrapping side, busy catching up with my DT assignments. Got a few pages to produce. Had a slight problem opening a psd file. Been working on it before I left and now, when I tried to go back to it, it mentioned an unexpected end of file error! Googled it and found out that basically the file is corrupted and won't open. Darn!!! I had loads of layers on it and did a lot of work on it. The mere thought of replicating all those layers just fills me with dread!!! 

Also been offloading my photos off iPhoto onto a EHD. My Mac was running on 5GB of space and when working with Photoshop, I kept getting disk full messages. Hence, had to offload this year's photos onto an EHD just to free up some space. Definitely will be shopping to get a few 1TB EHD here (it's far cheaper buying here than in the UK!) Have been checking out the new Macbook Pro with retina display. So the screen is fabulous but storage is small and they took away the internal DVD drive. Eh why? I do burn my digi/psd files onto disk and having to get an external DVD drive is merely adding to the cost. Not to mention that the ram and hard disk is glued onto the motherboard hence, there is no chance of further upgrading. May have to rethink about a new laptop now! TTFN!

~ I'm Off! ~

That's it! Laundry sorted, ironing done and bags are packed! I'm off to visit my family in Singapore but this time alone as my boys didn't want to come along (they hate being bitten by mosquitoes, despite every precaution taken!) I had two glorious weeks with them although at times they drove me up the wall! I'm sure I'm gonna miss them but it's good for them to be with their dad for some men to men bonding as he hardly see them due to his long hours at work! I'm sure they will have fun! I just dread to think what the house would be like or laundry when I get home! TTFN!

~ Mr Whiskers: Midnight Masquerade ~

Deviant Scrap designers came up with a collaboration entitled Midnight Circus. The difference is that kits from the designers can be individually bought. Lucky me got to play with Mr Whiskers' kit, Midnight Masquerade, available at Deviant Scrap. 

Here's my page: 

This was such a fun kit to play! TTFN!

~ Oscraps Collaboration: Journey ~

The Oscraps designers done it again. They came up with this fabulous kit entitled Journey. 

There is so much in there, including 2 templates. Here's my LO using one of the templates: 

Talk about drama on a Monday afternoon. My son's Sports Day. The highlight is the parents race. Well, I do take part. This year was no different except that there was this lady who was itching to beat me as I won her last year. So much so that she took off before the whistle was blown. Well, it took every ounce of muscle strength to chase her and I did beat her in the end, only just! So annoying when people resort to cheating! Just had to rant it off on this page! Friend of mine took some good shots with my DSLR, and she was a first timer using it! 

This kit is so versatile. Can be used for summer photos, traveling etc. One of my favs! TTFN!

~ GIS: Inspired by Fashion ~

GIS came out an article on how pages could be inspired by fashion. I took a different take on it and here's my LO as can be seen here. 

Supplies:
Jodie Lee: Home Sewn Papers
Juliana Kniepp: Butterfly Fly Away, Cluster Tags
Anna Aspnes: ArtPlay Palette Bask, ArtPlay Palette Globe Trotter, ArtPlay Palette Authentic, ArtPlay Palette Special One
One Little Bird: Making A List
Val C. Designs & Sue Cummings: Focused & Photographed
Val C. Designs: Secret
Fonts: Snuff & KG Sweet N Sassy

I had fun doing this page. Took me a while to come out with this page but luv the result! TTFN!

~ Easy Scrapbook Pages: July 2012 ~

My LO appeared in Easy Scrapbook Pages recently as seen here. 

Supplies:Jodie Lee: Home Sewn Papers; Juliana Kniepp: Butterfly Fly Away, Cluster Tags; Anna Aspnes: ArtPlay Palette Bask, ArtPlay Palette Globe Trotter, ArtPlay Palette Authentic, ArtPlay Palette Special One; One Little Bird: Making A List; Val C. Designs & Sue Cummings: Focused & Photographed; Val C. Designs:Secret; Fonts: Snuff & KG Sweet N Sassy

Edited: Just found out that this LO made it to GSO! Cool! TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 153 ~

The challenge today relates to comfort zone. Hence, an image or sentiment that reflects what fits my comfort zone. That was easy! I luv chocolate so ta da: 

I'm a chocolate addict so that is my comfort zone! Not flattening for the waistline though! TTFN!

~ Simply Tiffany Studios: Templates ~

Tiffany has come out with new templates and they are currently on sale at Design House Digital. The first is Artisan Blends Pack 2. I simply adore these templates!

Here's my LO using one of the templates: 

The second template set is called Gallery Templates. It is part of a collaboration kit between Tiffany Tillman and Shannon Hegarty. Shannon's part is a full kit. 

And another LO done using one of the templates:

Can't wait to see these gals soon!

I do enjoy using templates. They so save time when doing pages! TTFN!

~ GIS: Travel To Cities ~

My LOs appeared in Get It Scrapped article on Travel to Cities as seen here. I was surprised to see 2 LOs actually. Here are my pages: 

First city: Singapore

2nd City: London

(this LO appeared under an article on feathers too)

I have to say, I do enjoy scrapping for GIS articles. It certainly does make me think hard about what I scrap, how I scrap and certainly expand my digi skills in doing these pages! TTFN!

~ On Display! ~

I had another attempt at the tutorial and this time I played with my image and came up with this: 

Supplies:
Anna Aspnes:
- 12x12 Sand Scratched Overlays No1
- ArtPlay Palette Metro Graffiti
- Script Tease Love No1 brush
- Metro Graffiti brush
- ArtPlay Palette Authentic brush
- Skinny Lines Overlays No1
- Urban Talk Damage No1

I really luv how this has turned out! TTFN!

~ Bird On A Wire: Pink Reptile Designs & Studio 68 ~

Over at Zig Zag Scrap, PRD and Studio 68 is holding some challenges. Never one to miss one, I had a go at challenge 1, using a template given. The theme was to scrap something handmade. Here's my LO: 

Made use of Handmade with Love kit by PRD & Studio 68, another fabulous kit!

I usually made small gifts for my sons' teachers. This year, I made a little box to hold some choccies and tags. I made use of Rucola's Fizzy Pop kit to do the tags. They were certainly well-received! TTFN!

~ On Display ~

Found another tutorial to experiment, thanks to a generous Oscraps member, Adryane. After a few tries, managed to create this: 

Luv the artistic treatment of the photo! Amazing how easy it is to achieve once you know how to do it!

TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 146 ~

This week we are sponsored by My Heart Pieces. 

Theme today is Shape, having 3 different shape on the card. Well, I used a rectangle, circle and a rhombus. Here's my card: 

Girl image from My Heart Pieces, coloured using Copic markers. Background using Rucola's Fizzy Pop kit.

TTFN!

~ Zig Zag Scrap Birthday Challenges! ~

Zig Zig Scrap is celebrating it's 4th birthday. As usual, there are challenges and games to celebrate the events. Not one to miss a challenge, I managed to complete 3 Birthday challenges. 

The Scraplift Chain Challenge. Basically, to scraplift a person's LO from the ZZS gallery. I chose this particular LO. 

The Birthday Memory Challenge. I made use of ZZS July template and scrap my son's birthday.

Finally, the Birthday Scrap Cake Recipe Challenge, based on certain requirements. Pretty restrictive  but I managed!

So good to get back to scrapping after the last hectic week in the school term. It just wore me out and I spent Saturday having a lie-in and chilling out the whole day. Managed to scrap a bit at night! So good to know that I'm off for the next 6 weeks! Yay! TTFN!

~ Pink Reptile Designs: Handmade With Love ~

Mirjam, designer of Pink Reptile Designs teamed up with Studio 68 to produce this amazing kit entitled Handmade with Love, available at Zig Zag Scrap.

I was a little late in producing a LO (blame it on the last week of the school term) but when I finally played with it, wow, I had so much fun. Here's my LO:

There was so much elements in this kit that I simply piled it on! Really fun kit to play with! TTFN!

~ Jennifer Labre Designs: Enchanted Memories ~

At Oscraps, the blog team was given Jennifer's kit, Enchanted Memories as part of One Kit, Five Ways series:

It's very girly and I'm not used to it but took it as a challenge. Here's my LO: 

I was fortunate to hold the Olympic Torch. A colleague's sister was chosen to do the Torch relay and she brought it in to show us. It was heavy but not to the point of not being able to run with it! It is a very lovely piece of souvenir and a pity that a few ended up on eBay. TTFN!

~ Happy Birthday! ~

to my eldest who turns 12 today! Wow! He has grown way too quickly for my liking but oh well, c'est la vie!

Now he specifically asked for a Top Gear cake as he likes it. Unfortunately, he doesn't like the cakes from the Chinese bakery... pity! Oh well, at least the cake didn't taste too bad! As for presents, he got a PS3 which he literally begged for! Luckily he did well for his Year7 report so I guess that contributed to it as well. He also got a set of Whimpy Kid books and one of those metal pins thingy that make a picture (not sure what it's called). Luckily both presents went well with him! Too bad his birthday fell on a weekday but no doubt, we will take him out for a meal on the weekend! TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 139 ~

Today's challenge is called Twisted. Basically have a braided or twisted material such as twine, floss, ribbon etc. on the card. Here's mine: 

I used Rucola's Fizzy Pop kit for this card. 

TTFN!

~ Val C. Designs: Nature Escape ~

Val released a new kit entitled Nature Escape, available at Zig Zag Scrap.

As usual, her kit is always full of interesting elements. Here's my LO: 

Photo of us taken at a fishing village in Tanjong Pinang, Indonesia. Miss that place!

Enjoyed playing with this kit! TTFN!

~ GIS: Using Feathers on LOs ~

Another LO I did for Get It Scrapped article is out on the site. This time is relating to using feathers on pages, either digi, real or even paper! Here's my LO: 

Supplies:
Anna Aspnes:
- ArtPlay Palette GlobeTrotter
- ArtPlay Palette Concerto
- Distressed Dates No1
- Month Word Transfers No1
- Travel Europe No1
- Globe Trotter No1
- Loop Da Loop Travel No1
- Warm Glows No1
- Distressed Frames No4
- Artsy Clocks No4
- 12x12 Edge Overlays No5
Katie Pertiet: Double Decker
Tangie Baxter: Flora Finery
Pink Reptile Designs: Noted
Fonts: LD Shelly Script, VTKS News Label & LD Letterpress Inverted

My main feathers were the ones near the photo, using them in red, white and blue colours to mimic the colours of the British flag. Then I use the feathers as accents near embellishment. Met these online gals on Jubilee day and London was just oozing with excitement that day! Boy did I have so much fun that day! TTFN!

~ GIS: Inspired by Print and Web ~

On the Get It Scrapped (GIS) site, my layout is out based on an article about "Inspired by Print and Web". It's about using feathers on LOs. Again, the article targets both paper and digi scrappers. 

I had to find an advert first to be inspired and I chose this: 

Found this advert online and fell in love with it, not the content though!!! Have to say, I do like the political adverts in the UK. Some of them can be hilarious!

This is my LO based on it: 

Supplies:
Joanne Brisebois: Papier Mache
Anna Aspnes:
- ArtPlay Palette Great Outdoors
- 12x12 Edge Overlay No5
- Children Quotes Word Art No1
- Rock Star Frames No1
- Multi Media FlutterBys No2

I was inspired by the newspaper print and it so happened that Joanne Brisebois had just came out with a new set of kit, Papier-mâché, involving newspaper print. I applied blending modes to lighten the newspaper print as they were much darker on paper and would overwhelm my photo. TTFN!

~ The Artisan Notebook: July 2012 ~

This is a digital scrapbook magazine! Happy to say that I've got a few LOs in there! Some via being a DT of Pink Reptile Designs and another was picked out from a gallery at Oscraps, thanks to a watercolour tutorial!

The magazine is available here. TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 132 ~

Today's challenge is called '3 Fonts'. Basically use 3 different fonts on the card. Here's mine: 

Made use of Anna Aspnes' ArtPlay Palette Work Hard Play Hard & Celebrate Word Art and Tumble Fish Studio's Nitty Gritty2.

This card is going to my eldest who will turn 12 next Tuesday! Gosh! Time has flown! TTFN!

~ Maya de Groot: Mermaids & Art Journal Caravan Itinerary#19 ~

Maya de Groot released 3 new kits today entitled Mermaids, Zen & the Art of Borders & Zen & the Art of Animals:

I combined my page with the Art Journal Caravan prompt. Made use of Itinerary #19 and used the word prompt: 

Slowly catching up on my art journaling. TTFN!

~ Art Journal Caravan: Itinerary #15 ~

I went for the quote. Had a new set of kit that I played with and came up with this art journal: 

Supplies: Anna Aspnes: Artsy Kardz Bask; Beth Rimmer: Diary Declassified, Steamtown Art Dolls; Crowabout StudioB: Pods; Rebecca Mcmeen: Berkeley Dolls; Font: KG Skinny Latte

TTFN!