Walking on Ice

It’s been a while since I made this type of layout. Nothing fancy, just me and Photoshop. I did this fairly quick too, maybe 30 minutes. I really like it because it reminds me of the good old days in graphics class over 10 years ago. Back in the days I wanted to work at either an advertising company or a magazine. Obviously none of the above happened but I’m quite happy. I get to do this for a hobby, no pressure!

I know that there are so many terrific kits out there and I myself just want to buy, buy, buy, and try them out. But, once in a while, sit back, relax and see what you and your application can do (this can be challenging, especially for those who relies a lot on kits or love to fill up the page). If you have a hard time, grab one of your favorite magazine (I love my Country Living) and get some inspirations from there.

If you have nothing interesting to do this weekend and have about an hour, I challenge you to create a graphic style layout. Leave your kits, elements, fancy paper, etc. behind. It’ll be fun. I think you’ll like it {::SMILES}.

At the Beach

Don’t forget, two blog candies this week — both will be closed Friday, April 25, at 4 p.m. You can participate in both if you like, just leave a comment.

Digi Blog: $10 gift certificate to The DigiChick
Stamp set: H&M new May release

Here’s a LO that I did using a hodge podge of paper. I used Sassafrass’s new paper for the clouds, SEI for one of the circles, K&Company, and misc. others. I also used H&M stamps (coming April 25th) for the turtle and the seashell behind it.

I did some doodling because I wanted to try Daring Cardmaker’s tutorial on this topic. I like it, kind of fun and I still have some white space too — or green space {::SMILES}. You can see a more detail picture in my Flickr gallery.

M was about 4-mo when we were at Ventura Beach. Hubby was on temporary duty at Edwards AFB for 3.5 months. We visited at least once a month. To me, it was kind of like vacation — with free accommodations, ha! We were glad when the duty was over though and M had to relearn to know her daddy again. Because of this assignment (and dad was on night shift before leaving for CA), M became distant with her daddy. She was about two when or maybe older when they got closer (dad was gone again when she was 14-mo for another four months). Before that, everything was mom. I’d be cooking and carrying her because she didn’t want anything to do with dad. Now she’s great with him although on many occasions she’d rather be with me than dad. Ah… the military life.

Specimen: Me

I’ve been doing more me layouts this year. Now that Emma’s older, and loves looking at pictures with me, I thought that it’d be nice for her to see that once upon a time we were little too. I have a few photos of my hubby that I’ll eventually do (right now it’s all about me. ME, ha!).

I created this layout based on Scrap Mojo’s “The Office” theme where you’re suppose to use items that you’d typically find in the office. The layout design I sketched myself. This was a sketch and page that created for last weekend’s sketch challenge. Want to play along? Feel free to. I had fun creating this sketch. I don’t do a lot, this is my third one that I’ve posted but both times have been great.

I used a lot of stuff for this LO. If you’re interested in a particular item, let me know. I’m too lazy to list them all out.

Just some info about my picture. This was me before first grade in Indonesia. I know this for sure because I went to school in the U.S. I thought I was four but I looked at some other pictures and nope, I am for sure older than four.

My mom, still does, always made my dresses. Back then I loved wearing long dresses… I wanted to be a princess. Sounds so familiar. M’s like that too {::SMILES}.

I wasn’t the most outgoing or talkative little girl. I’m off and on now but still not as outgoing as many I know and some take it as snobbish. I loved to read. I read early. My grandpa owned a book store and there were always books all over the place. Nobody taught me, I just figured it out somehow. Not sure how and I still love to read and I’m glad M’s the same way too. I think she’s almost ready to read, she’s so good with her letters and numbers right now.

So that’s mini me. Have a great Friday and more late.

Unidentifiable Brownies

I did another me page. Just last month I found these photos while cleaning my office drawers. Two years later almost {::SMILES}. I used Pencil Lines sketch for this layout. It’s an older sketch, maybe last months. I like it since I don’t do a lot of circles.

The brown paper in the background is handmade paper. Hubby got me this a long while ago for Christmas and I finally got around to using it. The alpha, they were bright green, Stampin’ Up! green galore-ish, but I used Making Memories paints to get them to look the way they do now. It’s my first stab at repainting chipboards, kind of fun.

A few stories… yesterday we helped feed the locals who are in need of warm food. My duty was to bring dessert and I told the others that I’d bake some brownies. Well, after trying two recipes, none of my brownies turned out as brownies. The first one looked like a brownie but the taste and consistency was unknown. The second didn’t look like a brownie, more like a pound cake, but it tasted better according to hubby. So, I gave up and felt so depressed - M was so sweet with the hugs and kisses. We ended up stopping at Wally World to pick up some cakes and apple pie. URGH!!! I am such a horrible baker!!! I thought since my cookies have been great and I did make a cake last year that the brownies (which reviewers said were so easy to make and yummy) would be easy. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Today I received a t-shirt from Adobe or Kuler to be more exact. A few days ago I received an email thanking me for the Kuler video that I created and he gave me some other tips and also asked if I wanted a t-shirt. I said sure (and before I emailed him back I Googled him first to make sure he is from Adobe… ha!). Today I got the shirt. Quick! It’s a girl shirt too and a size S. Whoo hoo!!! This rarely happens, most freebies are too big for me. Now M’s wearing it. She loves running around it my Ts. It’s a perfect dress for her.

Have a great night. More later…

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Smile

I used Pencil Line sketch to help me with this LO. This was March’s sketch. Here’s the story behind the title… When M was a baby, up to two years I think, she was not the most generous kid in terms of smiles. She’s even tougher when it came time to take studio photos. We’d do everything and we’d just get a stare and she she did smile, either the camera person wasn’t ready or she blinked. So these are a few photos that we got from Sears. There’s one good smiling photo and the rest looked like she didn’t care to be there… of course there’s got to be one where she either has something, her hand/thumb usually, in or in front of her mouth.

Now she’s a totally different person. Quite friendly although there have been days where she’s just not camera friendly or will not smile for people she doesn’t know well. Her excuse… “Emma’s grumpy.”

Now, does any of you have a Ning account? Ning is a social networking account. Once you have one, you can create a group of your own or join another group. It’s like Yahoo group but with a better interface. I’ve used my Ning account to join educational groups… so work only… but recently I just joined two scrapbooking groups: Pink Paislee and Scrapbook Dimensions Magazine. If you’re not socialed out yet, check Ning out and the two groups. You might like it. In my field, I find the groups I’m in very informational.

Just a Page

A nice relaxing Saturday. At least for me. The hubby’s been tearing down the master bathroom and burning the shrubs outside. Once he’s done with the bathroom, I’ll be MIA, maybe. I’ll be tiling and painting. I have more patience and attention to details. I am a VERY good painter. So good that I can paint without the blue tape and hardly any drips (no, I will not come over {::SMILES}). The tiling, I’m still amateur, but getting better. I don’t like it as much either, too dirty.

This is what I came up with today. I used One Little Word for inspiration but was too late to submit. It was fun anyway.

I used:

Felt owl that I made myself.
Sassafrass note card.
Bam Pop paper.
Stuff from my March Studio Calico kit.
The off white paper is SEI and the striped paper is unknown.
SU cardstock and ink.
Making Memories paint.

Emma helped me paint and she also chose where to put the buttons and insisted on the bird. You can see more pics on my Flickr account. Just click the picture and you’ll get there.

My Off Day…

Everybody has an off day, right? Well, this was mine. I can’t remember when I did this. I think it was last weekend and just wasn’t feeling it. This was actually a re-do and the first version (never got it done) was terrible that I never got back to it until now (1.5 years later).

This was our trip to the Zoo. M was 2+ (4th of July break) and dad was one duty overseas. We thought we’d go visit the grandparents. We had a good time but wow, did I not like MS in the summer. The mosquitoes were terrible!! The in-laws live on a lake, might be the reason, but we couldn’t go out for a few seconds without getting attacked. Ekk!

I got tagged. I’m not sure who to tag, so if you’re interested in sharing your randomness, considered yourself tagged. It’s Friday night, not sleepy, and even though I should probably sleep or do something more productive, I am not motivated. So here goes…

1. I am pretty low maintenance and every day, except for training or meeting days, I am on casual Friday attire — minus the jeans. Often times people who doesn’t know me thinks I’m a graduate assistant. Ha!

2. I am a food snob. I am all about quality and not quantity. I’m all about organic and natural. But I eat anything really. A little bit of anything doesn’t hurt, right?

3. I can eat A LOT. It somewhat contradicts my built and really fools buffet restaurant owners. I guess I’m lucky that I’m Asian? It scares my husband though… sometimes he thinks he’s the guy in Shallow Hal… ha ha…

4. English is my second language. Ah ha you say… no wonder her grammar is often off {::SMILES}

5. I love France and anything French. Oh la la… I so want to be fluent in French.

6. I love to sing off key and dance the crazy dance in front of my husband just to drive him crazy.

7. I don’t like to admit it but I am a geek especially in applications.

The Quickest LO Ever

I did this layout for A Million Memories Challenge and my friend, Guen.  First AMM info… The rules for the challenge are (copied from the forum):

1. Patterned Paper only (as in no cardstock, you can use  embellishments)
2. Hand journaling (lots of it)
3. LOTS of white space
and (the clincher)….
4. Do it in under 1 HOUR (we’re in the honor system here)

As you can see, there’s no card stock. The line around the photos are from the photo paper, I hand journaled, have quite a bit of white space, AND I did this in 45 minutes!!!! From the time I sat down, figured out which photo to use, find paper, and get to scrappin, I did this page in less than 60 minutes. Whoo hoo!!! I even incorporated some stamps — actually this is one of my favorite stamp set for my LO — oh wait, not the bird, just the bird, is my favorite stamp. I think this little guy is my trademark. Maybe I’ll have him in all my LO from now on. Might not be obvious but he’s there {::SMILES}.

Guen… well, she came over last weekend. I showed her the layouts that I did at the crop and she casually mentioned that my layouts have been more center focused lately compared to my past ones. Why yes, I didn’t realize that. So for this one, I made sure that the focal point isn’t in the middle (or to the right — I noticed that if it isn’t centered it’s slightly to the right).

Credits: I know that the b/w paper is 7Gypsies, the die-cut flower and stamp set is Stampin’ Up!, the chipboard text is American Crafts. The rest… unknown. I know I got the ribbons from the 2005 CK Convention in Kansas City and the polka dot background paper is nice and sturdy — doesn’t help, huh?

I really like this page. It’s not because my dog is too funny when he’s into his kong (see the larger image to read the journaling), but it’s because I did this in less than an hour. I think I’m spending more time blogging this than actually creating this LO!

Pencil Lines Sketch #74

So here’s my version of the PL sketch. Kind of like the sketch but not quite. Again I did another collage. I’ve been so into this look lately.

I used an interesting item for this page. My blogging sister, Karyn, sent me some brads. I was in a brad share that she was hosting. Besides brads and other goodies she sent me a sweet little thank you card. The card paper was gorgeous. It’s that green and light blue floral that I used on the left of M’s picture. How could you just store such prettiness? So I trimmed it and used it on my LO. She also sent me some blings and I used one on the green flower — can you see it?

Other materials:

K&Company background paper, word art chipboard , and rub-ons
Field House chipboard bird
Unknown floral background paper, brads, and net
Prima floral
Tara Sroka Nutritional Fact #1
Target ribbon
Making Memory Acrylic paint
ATG adhesive and Fabri-Tac fabric glue

I really didn’t put a lot of product on the page. It just seems like it from the picture. My desk is also not too messy from this ordeal {::SMILES}.

I really love this page. M’s so cute and the colors just enhances the picture I think. She was such a beautiful baby and now a cutie pie girl. You can see two more close-up images of this LO in my Flickr site.

So glad it’s a weekend. No big plans, just relaxing, cleaning, and more scrapbooking or digi scrapping. I need to create a few LO using Tara Sroka’s and Dana Frantz kits that I downloaded the last few days. Next weekend I have an all day crop that’s hosted by the local girls’ scout. I plan on doing digi and paper — yeah, I’ll be hauling my stuff This coming week is also spring break. Whoo hoo!!! I can take a break from grading and going to my classes. I love my French class though. So fun! I plan on taking a couple days off too from my day job. I’ll use one day to scrapbook and the other day to spend with the hubby (he’s going to take one day off). Have a great weekend everybody!!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Prince was the inspiration for this layout: Beautiful Girl.

VSBN Gone Wrong

I hosted my first Virtual Scrapbook Night. My portion went alright I think. I have to thanks a couple ladies for helping and supporting me along the way since the main hostess (who was suppose to guide me since it is my first time) had an emergency dr. visit. Thanks Sally (salstar) and Darcy (arhawg)! Thanks to Pattie (the main host) too for allowing me to guest host and working so hard to get me on track with all the what and how. I had fun and I am excited to see the LO submissions.

Now, for my VSBN gone wrong. Well, I looked at all the earlier challenges before me and there was one that I could do — or so I thought. I didn’t read everything, or I thought I did, so I started putting together this LO with arrows in it. I didn’t know I was suppose to follow a sketch. I thought I just needed arrows. So, I did this LO. Got the arrow or arrows but this wasn’t what was asked. Arrrrgh. Oh well.

On the upside, I did work hard on this. I did a lot of cutting can’t ou tell? I also did some painting with my acrylic paint but you can’t see too much of it. You can see the white and maybe, if you look hard, you’ll see the brown and the green behind the aqua netting. Catherine, I used your netting. See, see? I love it! Gives my LO some texture.

I finally did a page on our home building. We closed on the land Valentine’s day 2006 and closed the 15th of Sept. We were the general contractors for our home and we did A LOT of work ourselves. We had a few friends help too and we’re so grateful for them. So there’s our blue and yellow house and this page is not a page about the process but a page about our memories like wearing the suit and painting when it’s 100+ degrees outside and of course no AC inside. Me insulating the house and insulating the area on top of the fireplace — they’re lucky I’m petite! Of course the portable potty — iiik. I think that was one of the most horrible part. I hate portable potties! The bird that we can to nurture while we built and figured out how to move when we needed to work on the garage and all the time we put into this house… late nighters, sweat, and frustration. But, we got it all done, still a basement to finish, but we’re quite happy. Now we’re redoing our main bathroom — the tile’s not right, ha! I also have a stairway and hallway to paint… oh the laundry room too. I should get on it soon… before my parents get here at least. Always a project, right?

Ok, that’s it. You can see more pics on my Flickr site if you’re interested. Good night!

EDIT: If you flip my page over, this is what you will see. The story was that soon after my VSBN shift was over, I went down to grab some dinner for us. When I got upstairs, I saw that M had decorated some old receipts and cut an element that I was going to use for my LO. I was upset but didn’t fuss although I did tell her that it’s not nice to just draw on or cut other people’s stuff. Then I looked at my pile of mess that I was working on and I saw this. She wrote her name AND drew a little face. She said that’s her. In the picture there’s her little hand. She had her four fingers up but I didn’t zoom out enough to get her whole hand. Ahhh… I couldn’t get mad at this. It was too cute, I mean she said that the face is her and of course she spelled her name. So I flipped the page over, somebody also suggested this at VSBN, and you see the layout above and this is behind it. Kids!