How about some challenge?

Usual Sunday blog hop and found a new challenge blog: Divas by Design, like the sweet flowers on their design and would be happy to try out the new DT call:

3 of my favourite work, well well well, can't decide which three but will be happy to use these:

(1)

"Caught You", one of my favourite using Jenni Bowlin's monthly kit, love the journalling tag and the card, I used glimmer spray on the prima flower!

(2)

"Halloween 2009", a 2 page layout. I took these beautiful pictures right after I got my Nikon D300, my dad always know what and when to give to his daughter, lol. Again, very simple background, to feature all the wonderful costume and makeup for this festival!

(3)

"Log of Fun"using Webster's, Making Memory and MME, of course, along with many sweet treasures we collected at beach!

Thank you for dropping by! Enjoy the rest of the Sunday!

The long waited showcase...

Every year in March, is the time for JIS's showcase concert, a event that worth waiting and watching!

The rehearsals started nearly a month early with the dancers and the young musicians worked very hard for the week too. The music standard in the school is really no doubt, the orchestra which is made up with music students played whole night! Here are some shots for the show:

This is the youngest member of the orchestra, 10 years old Nathan on the piano, beautiful...

and the young singers from the junior school sang the French song: Vla Bon Vent and my little girl was right there. She is the littlest one there... Later they joined the senior choir, look, how tiny she is ! Here is her sister with the rest of the girls chorale singing "Say a little prayer".

It's a wonderful school event, the theatre was full house for the two show nights!

A week with sketches

Did my spring cleaning before Chinese New Year, again I realized there are so many supplies that I haven't even used, so clearly set myself a goal: Must try to scrap more in the new year, the idea was at least 1 layout a week. Guess what, I was very good, and actually finished 3 last week!

The layout were all based on sketches from Inspired Blueprints:

#65

I have used my Jenni Bowlin's kit for this sketch, a very simply layout.

#66

Most of the supplies in this look are from making memories 's Je 'adore collection, I also add two rose sticker from BG. I had the picture printed in two type: black and white together with the one in colour, I'm glad that I used the B/W in the look, it fits better!

I like to use sketch from time to time, dont' take it wrong, you still can be as creative as you are to play the sketch around! As for sketch #65, I used the chipboard house to replace one of the picture while as for #66, I just rotate the sketch anti clockwise 90 degree!

I also handed the "never forget" layout to Shabby Chic for the Valentine layout contest, it is really nice that I am back on the track again!!!

storyboard kits sketch

Discovered this kit club recently, was totally inspired the talents over there and they held a sketch contest, I had to try out especially with the tutorial of the felt flower -- I love felt.

I used Basic Grey's paper, Prima's say it in pearls, American Craft's thickers, Cosmo Cricket's tiny type stickers, Maya Road's pin on this layout. It's a picture of Renee taken on the school "Punk Day" and my little sweet girl turned into a Rocker Punk? lol, anyway, she's my sweet darling.

In the mood of cutting

As far as I can remember, I like to use scissors, from cutting my doll's dress to cutting mom's tabe cloth... anyway, I just into the cutting!

Chinese New Year is around the corner, hum,hum, the shopping has not done yet though. The last weekend, I did two Chinese paper cutting, which involves a lot drawing and cutting, when I completed the two big pieces, my fingers could't feel a thing, I think I pressed too hard on the craft knife!

But these two pieces made me smile, they looked perfect for my kitchen window:

"Nian Nian You Yu" means abundence.

"Fu Wa Yin Chun" is a traditional picture used during Chinese New Year.

Say Hello to the new year!

A bit late but better than never, so here it is: Hello, Year 2011!

There are a lot of water this year, it's been raining here nearly everyday since the day 1 of 2011! And you know what, last week I went for my first run in the jungle and it turned out to be a super wet day! As soon as we headed to the jungle the rain started pouring... I will remember that one hour forever seriously! There were leaves and tiny branches in my wet hair, my pocket, don't need mention that I was completed soaked and one leg slipped into a small pond, lol. Really enjoyed it and ready for the next one in two days time!

There are quite a few things I want to do this year, one of them is write more, post more... this is a beautiful place to note the things happened, happening and will happen in my life.

How about to share this one today:

Bought the Babushika from KaiserCraft through Emma's Paperie, the place I love to shop! Well, they have been sleeping in my basket for a year! yes, a year!!! Finally I decided to play with them. I first painted them using acrylic paint color brown mixed with silver. I had a good time to decide how they should look like ( you know I do take long time to think plus the time my girls used ) and made my decision to paint their face like this, sweet , aren't they!

I used the beautiful paper from webster's pages, of course, along with brads and laces, now they are looking at me every day like this.

How I enjoy that my life is filled with little pretty things! So I told myself :

"you need to make more"

Hopefully, I will and be back very soon!

Adore, Grow, Live

That's what I made using JB May's project kit: it comes with 7 Gypsies' hanging book, JB bingo card and some chipboard shapes.


The pictures were taken two weeks ago when Renee had the Punk day at school, the year 5s dressed as punks to raise money for the much needed children in the country, that week's total amount reached $2800! When I looked at my baby, just couldn't believe how the time flew, she is turning 10 this August! That baby, the little, tiny thing!

Another week nearly gone, 4 more to go till my summer holiday!

After a straight 8 weeks' term, I welcomed this lovely short break -- it is so great that I wake up these few mornings without alarm clock!

The highlight of long weekend is the beach party at a friend's place in Tutong, we always joke that we feel like that we are somewhere in a beautiful resort: the beautiful beach, the giant pool, the food, the hanging out with great friends... Of course, not to mention how difficult to pull the girls out of the pool, even the man! Well, he decided to cycle to Tutong from our house, which took him one and half hour on the bike! The rain also joined in to welcome his arrival just before the dinner. I forgot to grab the camera at that point though!

Here are some fun moments:

Life is great, isn't it?

More craft time later today, I have a scrapping date with Hilda, will share what we make tomorrow!

Have a great week!

Monday Mood

The start of a new week is always exciting, especially after this one, I will have a mid-term break!

As I mentioned in the last post, I have more things to share here. My children usually spend a lot of time on their art work, they draw, paint, sketch, colour, they do a lot of stuff at school as well as home. I always have to find more place to keep the treasures -- well, just can't throw them away, can I?

I used to file Renee's art work in big A3 size file, but eventually that doesn't work any more since Rafeeqa joined in. She can start to draw from the moment she wakes up till the minute before she goes to bed, every a few days, I have to sort out the things she has. There always a few pieces of great work caught my eye and I simply couldn't just file them away, kept thinking of ways to display them. Not very long ago, I discovered a few ways to show off the girls art work. Along with the JB kit, I received KaiserCraft's wonderful project items and decided to use them to display the girls work.

Rafeeqa was very into Beatrix Potter's beautiful books and decided to try some by herself. The pictures of the duck, cat, and bunnies were all drawn on to a piece of A4 paper, I wonder how to keep the pencil sketch forever then thought of use the UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel) to keep the image into the 3D kinda version and it worked perfectly after I add on some wing and button.

The best thing about Kaiser Craft's display item is that you can use your creativity to transform into anything you like:
I first arranged dollies on the bottom part then used Claudine Hellmuth's multi-medium gloss to make sure they stay. American Craft's rub-on fits perfectly in this frame, not to mention the grass stamp to complete the whole look.

Another one is called Aliah, who is actually a friend of Rafeeqa. My little girl sketched her friend in the woods one day. I laid it on Kaiser Craft's wood canvas and again applied multi-medium gloss to make sure the picture can last forever, for the edge of the canvas I used Heidi Swapp's ribbon. Now these two beautiful work sit outside their room on the desk, as well as the other work by Renee.


I once did a layout called :" Your art make me Happy", I scanned some of Rafeeqa's work and reprint them on A5 size sheet, used a lot of Maya Road's frame to display the work, as if the gallery style, we loved it.


Let children know that they are appreciated and make them create more, do not the imagination stop...

Till then,

Wow! It is nearly 6 months since my last post.

Let's see, where to start: life is as usual, work, home and the girls...

Scrapping is still where I spend most of my free time, late afternoon before dinner and after dinner; sometimes after putting the girls to bed; weekend whenever I am able to be in front of my table. Many boxes are piling up and the scrapping table is forever a mess!

Sharon was here a week ago and of course we had a great time, not to mention the home cooked food from Bev.

Quite a lot of projects were completed, I will slowly post them up. Today let's see my album for the trip last October:





That's the best memory a little girl could have and I am so glad that I get to know the scrapping world, where I learned to keep memory for my family.

When I am blogging today, I read a story, a sad story of a scrapper: Linda Burnasakorn.

Though we live so far away from each other but I simply could not stop thinking about her. Please read here and see what you can do. Big or small, does not matter, just do it follow your heart.

Have a good day! Till then.

The excitement is not over yet...

Not to mention the inspiration I received during the whole weekend but also the anxious waiting since the day I knew she is coming...

I still can't believe that Iris was here with us for the past weekend, an exciting, beautiful and technique packed fun weekend. We talked, laughed, scrapped and most of all, been totally inspired!

The 4 projects that she prepared specially for Shabby Chic are beautiful -- I simply have no idea how to describe them, so breathe taking, each of them. The 4 hours each afternoon will be remembered for a long long time, I am sure.
I remember exactly a year ago, Hilda started scrapping and nothing has taken her back since, she is a professional now...

And I have to say this is actually the first time, I finished all projects within the class! Here is one of them:


I was kinda packed with work and slowed down for a while, but guess not any more, after these lessons, I have to get back to my scrapping table and start all over again!!! Thanks, Iris, for the inspiration!

Just a few updates

First, Shabby Chic's aniversary sales starts today!!! And don't forget Iris's fabulous class is scheduled this Saturday and Sunday, I can't wait any more!!!

Secondly, this month over at Artz de Scrap, the project is taking your breathe away: Candy's design of that beautiful earring carusel! Mine is here:

pp: melissa francis; crystal: heidi swapp and lots of buttons. Anyway, mine more looks like a tower (as per Rafeeqa's words), so this has to go to her table!!!

Enjoy your sunday!

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?