Enjoy my break

of course the children enjoyed it too. I spent most of my time with the children if they are around I mean. They had playdates in the friends' and our home, we also watched two movies in a week!

And we have a winner for the pencil roll: Haryanie -- please let me know how to deliver it to you and the colour you like.

Shabby Chic's May assignment is one of my favourite: to play with Fancy Pants mixed media album:

I took out one transparency and a chipboard to make this lovely thing to hang on the wall:

I painted the chipboard with MM's paint: oliver mixed with a little bit gold, then add the Heidi Swapp's sticker together with Webster's page's paper. The letter sticker is also from Webster's pages while the rub on is from MM. The two beautiful butterflies are from my Jenni Bowlin's kit.
The rest of the album is all used for this:

Things I love to do -- Rafeeqa

On the cover transparency are a lot of Fancy Pants' rub on, the chipboard mushroom is from Buzz and bloom.

The title of the album is written by Rafeeqa, I just hand stitched the letters and then stitched on the felt. Chipboard hearts are from Fancy Pants and Basic Grey outlined with stickles.

Over the vintage plum star search, we are now at week 3, my week 2's layout is:

Enjoy your weekend too!

A mother's confession

I grew up with my grand parents, they're two loving person: grandma was a good cook and made sure me and my little cousin were well fed and looked after when we were away from our own parents; grandpa was even a better one, he seldom cook but once he did, you wouldn't want to miss that! He was the big chef for every CNY eve dinner, put on a 16-18 course menu was not a problem at all! He was an engineer and loved to read, I remembered the times that I sneak into our old attic, dug through his collection of books... I enjoyed his collection of Chinese books and English books though I didn't know any English at all then but I simply indulged myself into the smell of these old books and the best of that, I found myself became a treasure hunter. Grandpa loved stamp collecting, he had many different stamps and hid them in his books. While I was browsing the books, they flew out like feathers. I doubt if he had ever remembered it as he had never asked me for the stamps which I keep them safely now in my books.

Away from one's own parents was so painful, but I know they didn't have any choice then. I recall the time I was crying under the blanket for missing mom and dad badly but there was nothing I could do either. I think I told myself that if I become a parent one day, I would never never be apart from my children when they were young.

So here I am, with two children. One of them thinks she is already a teenager... I can't blame anyone for that, lol. She is a very kind hearted girl with great interest in books and music. When I started to work in my current school, I made her to transfer with me. At age of 5 1/2, she arrived in this totally new enviroment, no friend, unfimiliar faces, hearing her complain every afternoon and seeing her wondered in the playgound alone was unbearible, I wished that she could get over it soon. She eventually picked up all the new things and now she is a very confident pupil in her year group, sings in school and plays violin in school's junior ochestra. This year the biggest thing is the Egyptian sleepover, all the children in the year group have been learning everything about Egypt through the year and to end of it they will dress up as Egyptian, have a Egyptian style feast, a talent show and all sleep in school. Dress up is usual for them, they have all sorts of function over the years, she has been all disney princess and refused to be one any more after she turned 7, then became the characters she likes in her books.

She has been practising very hard for this talent show and I worked very hard on her Egyptian dress, at the same time, I worried about her sleepover: can she sleep? does she like the blanket? will she eat the other food? too many to list all down, lol. It's such a joy to watch her growing up but deep down there, she is still my little baby girl, the previous first born.

Tell you the truth, all sorts of thoughts were in my head last night, I sent her to school in the afternoon and went home alone. I knew she would be fine, but woman like me, just worries too much. I came to school really early this morning just wanted to see if she is fine. Well, of course, she is! super fine despite her messy hair and she told me that she missed me a lot! Oh, that's exactly the word I wanted to hear...

Love you always, my darling.

Vintage Plum

In the mood of playing? Right, that's where I am at now.

There is a Star search going on at the moment here, first week's challenge is Fussy Cut -- one of my favourite! And guess what I did?

Out of my Anna Griffin's paper from Jenni Bowlin kit. I love this picture of Renee which I took when we visit Zoo Negara last December. Also in this layout, I used my Fiskars punch, can't tell how much I love them at the moment!

We will play for a few weeks from now on and in the end of each week, we will vote our favourite layout, oh, exciting, and so fun to play...

I also got so many goodies from Shabby Chic which are waiting for me to create this weekend. And you should pop in their blog here, OMG the new arrival of websters' page, prima flower and many many more...

Just a few things on my mind

If you have realized that it's been so hot lately, I tried to stay at home as much as I could. Not to mention during the week days, hid from sun after school and also in the weekend, stay under my cool roof... But we had a black out on Wednesday and all of us were all wet when it was back on.

I miss the other seasons.

I had this in my head for a while and it's long enough to get all the materials ready by this Saturday, so I sat in front of my sewing machine, cleared out dust of course then started my work. Rafeeqa had a play date in the house, I baked and sewed! Just when the other mummy came to take her girl home, my project was ready!

It now houses Renee's colored Stabilo pens.

I bought 30 pattern paper from Shabby last week and enjoyed 30% discount. The majority are MME's paper which I was reluctant to get at its usual price, but now, I have so many to play with, made these with MME paper for a contest:

It's still on till end of the month here if you wish to join too.

I often ask myself what I like the most about internet, after many careful thought and I think these are the thing that makes me happy:

(1) not only the news and information but also the inspiration which I gain from web surfing;

(2) lost and found -- interesting, isn't it, I lost contact with people over the years and the internet helped me to find them. It is amzing, I have to say.

How about you? Leave a comment till 22nd May (my last school day for term 2) and I will draw a winner for the same pen roll above but with a color combination of your choice ( red + blue or pink + green ).