Worn out

Ms E had these favourite shoes that she refused to let us throw out.  It was already biting her toes yet she loved them very much and kept wearing them.  We had originally bought them when they were on sale in Colettee thinking that it would come useful come year end Concert when she was in k1 (2011).  Who knows, the school closed at the end of 2010 and there was no concert for her to wear them.  She didn't forgo wearing them and tried to wear them on each and every occasion and only retired these end 2011 after the dad promised to buy her a new pair (yet to appear).

I had to take a pix of the worn out state of the shoes and immortalise them.  I can't recall her having loved anything so much, and probably not even Dorothy in Oz loved hers that much.

Because the shoes were black, shabby and yet sporting a round simple diamond, I decided to make a layout that would bring out the shoes (at least I hope I did).  The layout was done on black cardstock, which was a little challenging initially.  I didn't want to do the run of the mill super brights nor the black white type and decided to let the layout just flow.  I put the title in with black glittery foam Thickers (and I super love glittery fonts, if you haven't already discovered) and did my layering and distressing. 

The elements I put together were 1) about shoes 2) depicting young girl and 3) love to bind these two together.  I used the number washi tape cos ... well.... don't they look like shoe size tape? hehe.  Of course, I had to add in tulle... tulle is so girl.  I resisted the urge to make it all soft and flowery since I felt the focus should be all on the shoes.

  I had quite a bit of challenge trying to lay on black cardstock, but I enjoyed the process.  So this became my challenge that I set on the Moments Recorded Facebook group and it garnered many beautiful submissions.  If you have a black cardstock layout to share with me, please do!

Materials : Cardstock - American Crafts; Punch - Martha Stwart; Stamp - Teresa Collins Posh; Paper scraps - Webster Pages, Kaisercraft; Trims - lace , tulle, washi tape.

De-railed

Did not realised that this layout had been sitting in my album and not uploaded for some time.  I spent one weekend misting and playing with the masks effects when I received my purchases from Vpost, and did this masking.  I super ♥ giant blooms so I also plugged in the large prima blooms, recycled its beautiful green packaging and layered the elementgs togeher for a Railway layout.  This was taken at the railway tracks on of those weekends before it was closed down and the rails removed.

The girls were still very small so we had only completed half track when they said they were tired.  The paths were strewn with large heavy stones that didn't make for easy walking on tiny feet.

Look at the luscious purple blooms...

Materials : paper - DCVW cardstock; mist - own made ; flower and packaging - prima ; fonts - Thickers and Pink Paislee; embellishments - K&Co, Basic Grey, Girls Paperie; dew drops.

Fly

Such a drowsy browsy Sunday!  Probably partially due to the fact that I was mulling over a layout till quite late last night. 

Today's sun is gloriously hot, bright and one of those "I wish I was dipping in the sea" type of day, or better yet with a large pina colada and by the pool side wearing a large floopy hat.
I was working on a challenge from Moments Recorded, set by June on the simple theme of Wings. Me being me, I left it to the really last weekend to get it up as the deadline is 10th March.  I pulled out my favourite photo and here is my bright sunny happy take.  Childhood is so full of promises and I couldn't help but tie it together with God's promises in rainbows.

Inspired by all those drippy gooey crayon art on Pinterest, I thought I'd do my own non melt art version and here's my take on it.

My cam  is still down so this was taken by my iphone 4 (no S).  I brought my Canon to repair and was very sad when Canon told me it'd cost $400 odd to have it repaired and that it was kind of a goner...  looks like I need to buy a new cam.

Any suggestions?
Materials : AC white cardstock; Made With Love washi tape; Fonts - AC Thickers, Pink Paislee, My Little Shoebox; Mist - Maya Road, Tattered Angel, own made; Butterfly punch - Martha Stewart.

All you need is Love

My Ms E went to attend a class with her godma, Diana at the PM.  Don't know who was more ambitious, PM for offering the class to kids, or us.  Anyway, she managed to complete two layouts over the many days after the class with a little bit of assistance from me.  We tried to put together with the photos and she said something to the effect of , 'Mum, why do we need to follow? Let's do it my way'. tada! So it hit me that, yes I should let her complete it her way with her 20% modifications..

So here's her layouts, from 5 year old Ms E.

We ♥ Singapore!

National Day is coming on 9 August and it reminded me that I hadn't scrap Ms E's photograph from last year.  So I quickly pulled out a piece of cardstock and sprays, wanting to have some color to remind me of the fireworks that occur every year at the parade.  I wanted to add in ribbon for texture and movement and all the shiny stars that appear in our flag and our songs.

"here are 5 stars arising, out of the stormy sea..."

I adore the October Afternoon paper and thought all that red apple goes very well with my red theme. And all those big small MLS letters just made the title perfect! Majulah (onwards) Singapura (Singapore)!

materials : DCVW cardstock, October Afternoon patterned paper, Maya Road stars and mist, MLS alphas, American Craft brads, red glitter, red satin ribbon, washi tape

Fly a Kite

Once a while, in busy clustered Singapore, what we need most is space.  And because open space is so rare, everyone wants to go there too.

Here's one layout I did quickly to put together one trip by the sisters for my own reference. We went to Marina Barrage to fly a kite together. BbC's very first time too!

materials : My Little Shoebox papers and alphas. Glitz girl transparency., felt , string, ribbon.

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.

Birthday Bash

Tonight, in a moment of randomness, I decided to scrap my daughter's birthday photos to make it for the Laine's tag challenge.  I was very motivated by the Pink Paislee Soiree papers I bought at a Papermarket sale.  The little signs and flags and all were just begging to be fussy cut by the cutterbee and I had to do it.

This was what happened after all that fussy cutting.  As for the cake, Ms E decided it was better she lopped off some ....!

Made by love

I always wanted to do "just one more" for the two girls. When I saw how this photo turn out, I could not help but feel that they were made by love. Of course, love that the papa mama had for each other. And with that love, we produced them.

With this layout, I was inspired the moment I saw the Kaisercraft Le Chateau papers. It was also no coincidence that I fell in love with the stamps and felt that there were so much possibilties in the birdcage and chandeliers (though one sang of day, the other made you think of nightfall). I did stamping, misting, layering and basically made it all my own.

Sakura new year

When I made this, all I could think of was that Sakura signify a new season and would rightly be paired with Chinese New Year. Our family had a wish to go visit Japan one day, to see the sakuras, experience the culture and also to visit Tokyo disney - I did not think that it was not to be.

Anyway, I saw the news report that Sakura season this year was a solemn affair in respect for those at the affected towns.  I hope that Japan will recover quickly and recover much of its rich history so when I visit after Elpis' PSLE (that's our new target) it will be safe sound and better than before.

I made this layout with my MLS papers for an MLS challenge, and paired it up with this cute photo of BbC taken with a pair of Russia Dolls during the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year 2011. We were visiting my in-laws and they had this pair of dolls which they bought in Russia and are the same size as BbC! BbC was a little stunned and amazed by these same size people that did not respond to her.

Look at all that pinkiness! I think BbC's little brocade dress added to the whole feel.


and here's some fussy detailing on the page that I cut from another paper in the same set.


 Materials : My Little Shoebox Harmony Papers, diecut sticker, mini alphas and glitter alphas, Ribbon.

See the Sea Shells by the Sea Shore

Today I really felt like going for a long holiday. Maybe because I had been looking at my ever evolving list of To-do at work, so images of the sea/ shade of ruffling palms, and the smell of salt drifted into mind. Need not be too far away but just some quiet time with the girls at the sea would be good.

So I dug out this layout I did a couple of months back that I nearly threw away when I thought it was too complicated.

Well, I am glad I did not. Or rather, glad that June asked me not to.

Misting, stamping with the mask, sewing, paper tearing, staining, ruffling; I think I tried it all on this layout.

I did machine stitching on the alphas so they would stay down. I also corner punched the E so it would be rounded like the rest of the layout. Torn paper strip below the flags to perk it up, like it was flying and fluttering, and to give it a rough flagpole look.





 



My pretty pink princesses

I wanted to scraplog this photo before it got lost in the sea of photos on my comp, so when I saw the MLS MARCH SKETCH CHALLENGE I told myself to give it a go!

My comp chose this moment to "pass on" so I can't download the accurate ones taken on my ixus. Here's the one taken on iPhone. The background is a yellow green and the centre title is the MLS green text, but it doesn't quite show.

Here it is. A photo of the love between these two always makes fo great photos. Big Sis E likes to help little Sis C, and so here E is holding C's hand as C takes her wobbly steps in delight.

Ugh - iPhone doesn't allow me to post photo!

(update - posting from comp as it has revived!)

Ed's sketch for March

I decided to use my MLS scraps to give the Ed's sketch a go as I wanted to see if I could use it to create the torn paper look I wanted to achieve.  Here's my take on Ed's sketch.

Materials : My Little Shoebox papers, glitter alphas and tiny alphas; K & CO papers and tag; DCVW Cardstock; Unity Stamps; Inkadinako Stamps; Fiskars Stamps; Adironack Dimensonal paint; Kaisercraft acrylic paint; Ranger stickles; Martha Stewart Butterfly punch; Colorbox Cateye's inks; Maya road mist and plastic flower. Mini peg from Daiso.

Family Album

A colleague of mine invited us to his house for a gathering some time in December, 2010. His son was born a couple of months after my BbC, so I did not get to attend his son's full month as I was in confinement. So I wanted to make something special that they could use.

It was my first attempt (and a very ambitious one) at using chipboard 12 x 12 shaped. It took me many nights of gluing and filing before I could start decorating. It'd be a while before I try something this ambitious anytime soon. I think.


The cover made to signify exploration - a pair of tickets, some butterflies and three pairs of hearts and keys in a shaker box.


I actually themed the pages two by two. So this one featured everything that was fun holidaysy feel. The circle could open up with four in a fan style, and they looked like biscuits :)

This one was about little peekaboo secrets. So this particular page had a "card" style mini folder where when it opened, had a journalling page and a mat for photographs. It's closed like those yellow manila envelopes favoured by secret agents. hehe.And here's one last photo just to show one of those tags I included in the pages. I like this very much - inspired by Tim Holtz's 12 days of Christmas tags.