Horses and ghosts

Yes, that's our last weekend.

Horse riding in the morning and the Halloween Party in the late afternoon.

A very busy, exciting and tired ( for me ) day, but seeing their joy, it's all worthy!!!

18 years

There are tons of things happened in 18 years for all of us, especially for me. But I didn't expect that nothing has really changed at the place I was born -- Hou Ba, Si Chuan.

I hardly lived there though as my parents sent me off to Shanghai to stay with my grandparents when I was three years old. In 1966, at their early twenties, they left Shanghai to join the service to help the Southwest China, I was born 7 years later.

When I was much older, I recalled all the train trips in summer, which took me 48 hours to meet my dear mummy and daddy. I can remember my parents moved from the tiny house at the riverside to the bigger apartment. Later during my last two years in the high school, I had to leave Shanghai and stayed in Si Chuan to join the national level university entrance exam. But again, I stayed in boarding house in the school, travelled weekend by train to see my parents. After I started university, my parents left that little town, left all the thing behind, that was after spending over 20 years in that little town.

Dad always wanted to go back to see the place especially after mom left us. I know that is a special place just for her and him, and me. After many planning , I finally made the trip with my dad during my recent break.

There are lot of changes in the big cities, but once our rented car entered the small and only road lead to Hou Ba, I realize that nothing really changed. I remembered the bridge, the old hospital near the roadside, the school, nearly everything...

4 hours' drive from Chengdu, after this bridge we arrived Hou Ba.

I can't believe that this little house is still there. This was my parents' first house where I was born. The iron bar on the window was installed by father nearly 37 years ago.

This is the place we lived before we left, now it looked so old and small... but still there!!!

The weekly train ride was never bored coz I couldn't wait to see my parents, I can remember that I usually ran on this road to the staircase that lead to the home. The place was small but very warm.

Almost

Almost
Almost there
Almost reach my target
after 6 whole weeks
sorting out the new mess
at work
and at home

Missed a lot of things
Hope to be back on the track soon

New and Old

New: first day of school year, just like what happens each year, a fresh morning to start with and ended up with lost bag ( Rafeeqa forgot to take her school bag home ), missed lesson ( Renee forgot to go to her voilin lesson after school )... well, not really new, isn't it?

Old: some layouts did last week.

Worked on sketch from MME, looks like I am in a double page mood recently.

Sketch from pencil lines, I can never get enough with the webster's pages as well as MME paper, and also love the combination of these two.

Have a great week, everyone.

Party ideas

Over at the Artz de Scrap, we are altering toilet paper tubes. Ya, the toilet paper tubes, what do you do usually? Throw into the bin, right? Haha, I use to collect them for school projects but haven't done this for a while. So when I was about to start my altering job last week, I was panic that I couldn't find any in the house!

But finally managed to gather 4 last night! The ladies at Artz de Scrap made pretty stuff using the toilet paper tubes and me here, just came up something for Rafeeqa's 6th birthday party -- how about a pirate party?

Here is the treasure box, cut out the cover from the middle of the tube, spray some glitter mist and stuff it with some "pearls ,diamonds".

The pirate set: 2 tubes for the binoculars, one for the treasure map cover.

The whole set I used sassafras lass paper and ribbons from maya road. So what do you think? A pirate party, is not a bad idea, is it?

working with sketches

I have to say that I didn't really a sketch follower -- I will modify any lovely sketch and sometimes it just turns out to be something differently. But on the other hand, I have to admit to work with a sketch is easier and faster if you have lots of pictures waiting to be scrapped.

Based on the sketches from Inspired Blueprints, I have created the followings:

These were over due since last year, papers are from Cosmo Cricket and Vintage Plum.

I seldom do 2 pages layout but with so many pictures from the Singapore trip, I decided to follow sketch # 26 which allows me to put more pictures instead just one or two.

I converted the sketch #27 into a 8.5 * 11 layout. The prima flower and vine is my favourite.

I am also a follower of another sketch community: Pencil Lines. Recently I have done a few based on their lovely sketches:

I like the last sketch the most, just can't stop looking at the multi layered effect.

Also I finished my kaisercraft's clock using Basic Grey's kraft kuts paper, I am a blue person afterall, anything blue caught my eyes straight away!!

Well, well, can't believe that my holiday will ends in two weeks' time, what can I say...

Altered play cards in Artz de Scrap

This month's altered challenge in Artz de Scrap is to alter playcards.

The lovely creation from DTs are to be seen here and mine is here:

Don't forget to play alone and submit your entry by end of this month, have fun!