Thanksgiving

It's the time of the year to keep crafting for thanksgiving and gratitude. And for the kids, it's making thank you cards for teachers.

Today it's bbC's turn to start the process as she will be leaving the current preschool in two weeks time, to change to a new preschool next year.

Here's a sneak of work in progress as I work with her to put together her items.

And what ms E was making last week? It's been completed and filled with her friends notes and addresses, as it is also her final year in preschool before she steps into primary school in 2013.

Myself, I've been crafting as well. A quick thank you card exchange in a course I was attending, & my recipient is a male classmate.

Maybe it's time to think about crafting and thanking someone today too. Start yours :)

House Warm



Whistle Bird Key Chain roosting to warm the little hook up house.



Yesterday I went to attend a housewarming of an ex-colleague, Bee Yee (or Bee which was her nick), who had been my mentor when I first joined my current organisation.  Of course, my entire department had been invited as well.  I didn't want to give her a standard goodwill red packet although that money would have been useful (since when money wasnt'?). 

Anyway, so I connived with my nice boss Pei Ling and my lovely neighbor Nalini  to get Bee a gift.  Something that I think she would enjoy more than a little red packet, or a fake crystal fruit punch bowl with a ladle and 9 matching cups (Yes, that was the de facto house warming gift in the 80s~!).  Bee in my memory loved to snack.  And more than snacking, she loved Jelly Belly jelly beans.

 

I made a super quick trip on Friday evening to the nearest Cocoa Trees and snapped up a 50 flavour variety box, a mini dispenser and 3 pocket dispenser worth of beans.  Three pocket dispenser because I figured one for her pocket, one in her bag and one in the office drawer in case she left home without it hahaha...



Typewritten : For all the colorful moments in your life (just like jellybean!)

I made a bee clear embossed tag, stained it with rainbow colors and typed the message on my Hanima Regal typewriter. Happy colors yes?


.Since it was shared by 3 persons, I made 3 mini card tags to paste each of the 3 pocket dispenser. Within each tag was a best wish from each of us. 



  



 The message is hidden within. 

As for that bird house on top? That was the first thing I gave her when I stepped in.  I altered it with Tim Holtz tissue tape, and covered it with a thin layer of protective matt medium.  It's cuteness isn't it? :)









Little Black Mini

We're talking about the paper kind :)



BbC and the Little Black Mini



July has been an unexpectedly busy month because my Indonesian live-in helper ran away.  She received some news that her son was sick and decided to run away to the embassy, leaving bbC at school.  I did manage to get her an airticket home, amidst a lot of tears and apologies from her and she texted me goodbye when she left. This hapless employer (me) zealously took over work and household, fell sick and then before I could recover, my BbC also fell sick! BbC, who was closest to my helper, fell ill  cos

• helper gone.
• abandoned in school 
• had to shift to a totally new full day school 

because of change of arrangements and fell very ill.  So me, while being sick, still took over the household, took some childcare leave to stay home and nurse her to recovery during these 3 days.  Thankfully I have a very understanding employer...

Anyway, so I was arranging my desktop when I spotted the above photo and realised I never got round to blogging this mini.  It was one of those "I thought I already did but hey I didn't" slip up.  I did this for an album swap I organised in April.  It was for a scrapbooker who was also a fantastic tattoo artist and a biker chick.  Chic too.  So I made this for her since she now has a new cool baby.  I used a lot of black cardstock and white acrylic paint stamping as I was inspired by the black white ensemble I always saw her son wearing.  Here's all the tim holtz, spritzed up by Washi tape color, and some distress ink edged stamping pop up.

and here is one sample page.  For some reason I didn't take photos of the entire album and I didn't prop it up to take like usual. So pardon the weird background as the lighting was good for the black album.

I see you noticed the stitching!   Yes every page was stitched, and the album was stitched together as well.  I thought it would form a nice part of the accent and help to delineate the space .  Each page also had a little tab that was stuck on a repositinable washi tape so it could be attached to any note or photo or just moved around.  I especially love those little date washi that I stuck around so milestones could be recorded.  I had a page for mom, one for dad and many pages for the amazing everyday.

p/s : those cute semi colon are from catslifepress ... I had been eyeing them for the longest time.. cute!

Grand Bling

Here's one that I did for my niece on my husband's side.  We bought her this ginormous bling ring and it didn't look quite nice sitting on the ring tag.   So I decided to whip up this tag to attach the ring and give it to her.  Behind the birdcage was the handwritten message.

Can you see where the ring is?

 

New Year Blooms

I tag this as the last project I did in 2011, and the first I have done in 2012.  I was making the bloom brooches in the night for 4 friends who were different from one another.  The tags to put them on were pieced together on the first morning of 2012.

As you can see, it is a fast and easy way to pull together a gift and make it look more complete than just giving it plain.  I find that putting a little consideration and some feeling will bring you a long way in putting together the final product. 

If you have some great ideas for displaying and giving your gifts, do share your idea with me!

Old School Bond

My cousin has a little girl about the same age as my firstborn, Miss E.  They were born two weeks apart, with Miss E being the older one.  The two girls spend a lot of their early growing years together as my cousins make effort to meet up every week so they would bond.  Of course, we all grew up as close cousins as well so we unconciously wanted the same thing for our children.

Here's one taken at the Mid-Autumn festival where the two were delighted to see each other after a long break. 

This was made from papers from Pink Paislee's Old School and Butterfly Garden.  The trims are from Prima, including the wire that I twined and twirl.  The cage, large tag and bird are recycled cardboard from 7 Gypsies' shadow box, cut by the Tim Holtz Sizzix Dies.  I just love sparkly and glittery stuff so I had to paint my chipboard bird with pinkish glitter.   That little "old school" strip was from that little extra bit that always comes with the 12x12 paper.  Recycled it into the title as I thought yes, this is really old school kind of bonding!

Girls have all the fun yes?

Mini for Mummy

It's been a long time since my last post as I had been busy and couldn't find time to take photo when it was not raining. Finally I managed to catch some golden sun today after so many days of afternoon rain, so I quickly had this mini album photographed and tonight I get some moments to blog about it.

I had been altering things and making scrap stuff here and there for people and thought I should make something for my mom. So I set about choosing photos (the hardest part as there are so many!) and defining the moments before putting them into this little album. There are never enough pages for books like this, I'd say!

Here are the pictures.  I love this album because, again, it has lots of experimental stuff that I tried and I find that it is like an archive of both memories and progress.  Ms E loves the book because she would take the book and flip almost every night.

I won't show all the pages, but here are some that I would like to show.

 

Materials : Album - Me & My Big Ideas; Papers - Prima Annalee; Stamps - Fiskars, Purple Onion;  Embellishments - Making Memories, K&Co, Joann.com, Tim Holtz, Ribbons, Handmade flowers, Basic Grey, KCK, Glitz Girls.

Wish that was me...

One day some time ago, we went to Vivo City and Ms E chanced upon this ride.  It cost us $8 for 5 mins, and the operator would not allow more than 1 kid up on the ride.  At that time, BbC was not too stable so we thought we would just leave her outside with me to wait.  Who knows, she stood at the side looking on longingly and the dad and sis on the rides and even patted one of the deflated giraffe that was wheeled in in delight!  Felt so bad that she didn't get to ride, but the queue was too long to go again.

Next time, we will ask her godma Diana to bring her :)

Layout on October Afternoon paper. With trims from the Martha Stewart leaf lace punch, misted with Tattered Angels. Handmade bloom.