Album II

I Love Coffee and this shows how much I love it. See for yourself..

All I used for this album are pamphlets I collected from Starbucks and cardstock.. Nadia rolls her eyes when I she was with me. She asks, "Mama, is that for your scrapbooking?". I smiled. She rolls her eyes..

hehehe...

Tied here is a 12x12 cardstock which opens up to a little book.

Album I

This album is my inspiration album. An album I look into when I need to find inspiration. Every page in the album I used different techniques of putting the pages together. Folding pages in as many different ways as I can possibly think of.

Cover page: Broan Cardstock, DCWV Pattern Paper, Whimsical Articles Ribbon, Fibres from Lincraft, Making Memories Vintage Hip Frame, Bohemia Barefoot "Love" Rub-Ons.

Pockets on top of right hand corner for sliding tag

Making Memories Tag Maker to make tag tied onto the spiral

Whale of Punch for squares (we do so much with this square punch)

To compliment with the rest of the album, I have repeated the textured paper and tag. Tear textured paper as photo corners.

Ning's sizzix envelope with inserts and paperclips to hold down sticker and as an embellishment

Tag is tied to spiral, another way to hold tag in

Page to look like a door with string tied for easy flipping

Pockets for keepsake notes

I atarted this album with just loose pages. Only after I finished embellishing the pages, only then did I get the album binded.

Making Memories Boho Chic Albums

Yipee! Dropped by Papier and I found this. Lovely albums from Making Memories. Its called the Boho Chic Mini Albums. Managed to get my hands on the 9x9 for RM50 and 6x6 for only RM30! Now, I can't wait to play with them, alter them. We'll see what I ended up doing them. Yummies!

Emma K

My first visit to Bangsar Village II today. I am impressed with what we found today at the newly opened Emma K. Emma K is so interesting. It has wrapping papers just like Chatterbox's collection the dots and the stripes, except they are not acid free. They have beautiful sachets (in picture above, green in colour) for wrapping gifts, handmade cards (ahem, yes handmade cards..) ofcourse, as "sibuk" as I, bought a few just for sample sake. They were really pretty and affordable. This handmade card I have seen in mags, Emma K selling for RM35.
and this cards opens up to this...

pretty ain't it...

Gong Xi Gong Xi

My two little amois. They were so into dressing up for Chinese New Year this year. Don't blame them where everywhere we go now in the shopping malls they are all celebrating CNY. The kids really enjoyed this. Gave them something to look forward to. Gong Xi gong xi gong xi ni ah...

So even threw these in just for an in-house family show after dinner.. all my three babies performed Happy Chinese New Year for everyone.. special presentation...

Dessert.

Friday night's family dinner was nice. We had dinner in Shangri-La's Lafite. Beautiful presentation. Portion?...hmm small.. but again beautiful presentation. What really caught our eyes were the huge flower pots on everybody else's table. So Fahmy noticed the pots first and happily ~ confidently answered yup its an ashtray, when asked by Adib. I was not convinced.. so asked the waiter, ~ its our complimentary Dessert`. Check it out. How wonderful! we thought and same time laughing at Fahmy...hahaha..ashtray..apa la.. The pink flowers are cotton candy coated in strawberry dust. Stems are acrylic plastic (not eating that) and the soil are chocolate chips and chocolate bits. Interesting... another party idea..

Superstar

I have been playing with photoshop quite alot lately. Getting familiar with the things you can do with it. The main reason being, all this while scrapping, I have never really concentrate on the photo and how much we can do with photoshop really. Let it be changing the sizes of the photo I use to scrap with, to the colours of the photos. The photos here I played with the lighting of the photo, change the contrast (made it sharper and darker). Its real fun with photoshop. One who has not tried it, I urge you to get your hands on it, it'll be lots of fun.

Watch this space...

Scrappingville is finally under construction! Yeehaw! Here's a sneak preview of where Scrappingville is located. The pictures turned out great and they're huge! Thanks to my role models, ning and tim! You both look absolutely gorgeous!! As for now, I need to stay calm and pray the stocks arrives save and sound. I am so excited you have no idea.. oh ning maybe you do..hehehe

Malaysia's Largest Scrapbook Page....

Malaysia one time had the tallest building in the world, the Twin Towers. I was also told we had the biggest flag, etc, but now Malaysia has the largest scrapbook page ever!!! and Scrappingville has it!!! Muahahaha! I am so excited. Today, is the day, Scrappingville will be putting up our very first visual design, an introduction to the opening of Scrappingville in March at Bangsar Shopping Centre! This, you see here is going to go up as the hoarding board for Scrappingville's opening soon advertisement. This marks the official commencement of renovation for Scrappingville!!!!!!!!! I am so excited, and I think I have expressed that over and over again but I really can't wait.

Dira turns 4!

I left this layout hanging for nearly a week, only finally got to finish it, although I might add more journaling into the layout. Crop pictures into various different sizes. Idea was to stick to a few colours with the patterned papers. I didnt want to take the focus away from the photos. The word "Dira" are Making Memories Velvet Stickers, I inked it with inkpad, to get the soft shade of pastel colours. The little squares are brads that has the letters "t-u-r-n-s" on it. "Four" and green flower are rub-ons. Felt like I was not putting enough embellishments on my layouts so tried to incorporate more embellishments but still keeping in mind of not overcrowding the layout.

A Very Proud Grandpa

Enlarged this photo to 10"x 7.5", sand it, after photoshop-ing it. Simply glued it on. Tear paper. Add ribbon and fastenator it and handwrote "a very proud" ,the word "Grandpa" are Making Memories' velvet stickers. Clear and concise.

This album I made with mounting board instead of corrugated boxes for the covers. I was trying different things/techniques for making albums. I scored the mounting board and glued down the patterned paper with King's Bond Glue, Best Japanese Glue. What I found is that using glue stick is much easier. Using normal liquid glue, found that it dried up faster than glue stick and the paper tears easier compared to using a glue stick. If you are doing an album such as this one, with a scored side, for easier flipping, I would suggest if you use glue stick. Works better.

Kate-Lyn's Mystical Party

An absolutely stunning cake! It was a dress-up mystical party. Nadia dressed up as a Witch, Nadira wore the fairy outfit and Ariff just as himself in army pants! The kids had soo much fun and brought back with them 2 new pet fish! Such a good idea to have for a party, fish in a little padding pool, where kids can do a little fishing. Part of the goodie bags. The girls are calling the new pets, Molly and Dizzy. I will need to blog them soon..hehehe

Scrap Spaces

I found this site full of scrap spaces of scrapbookers. Really interesting to see other ppl's scrap place and compare with my very own! Ning, you might like this site http://makingmemories.typepad.com/photos/consumer_scrap_space/colleen_e_van_nuys_ca.html as you might get some ideas as to decorating your very own scrapbooking space now that it's ready!! As for me, Scrappingville will have to work for me for the time being..

Sneak Preview

Dear Ning,

I couldn't wait to show you what I have been up to lately. This is the album I was making while chatting to you couple of days ago. The covers are cut up boxes which I used patterned paper to cover. The inserts are just plain brown acid free paper, Bazzill. I haven't quite finished the album but I think I am gonna make this into a Family Album. Its really easy to make, not to mention, its easy to score too! To glue down patterned papers to covers I found that using glue stick works best. It even folds well inside especially around the scoring part of the album. Start keeping boxes for albums! They really turn out well!!

Cherish

I have been asking my Japanese friends to help me out with some layouts. One of the pictures I pass over to them was this beautiful picture. I think they did a wonderful job with the colours. They used origami papers too! They even brought it to frame for me. I absolutely love this layout!

Valentine Love

I wanted to do something special for this valentine. So i decided to do this, I am gonna put this on up our wall. I had to check so many times to make sure I got everybody. Been wanting to do something to this frame for a while now, finally got round doing it. Frame is from Ikea. They have all sizes. Might go back and get me-self some more..

Daddy..

Always wanted to scrap daddy's photo. Here it is. Finally, did it! I find that scrapping for an adut especially a man is always harder. But found this simple vellum from my stash. The word daddy are my new sizzlits alphabets, Nouveau.

Kids and the colour blue..

Nadia loves painting. Nadira loves painting. I usually let the kids paint when we are not doing anything at home over the weekend. So Nadia, as usual, will do her masterpiece, sitting nicely, quietly painting her masterpiece away, while Nadira will paint her hands, her feet and maybe even her desk! Today she came to me and she said something happen to her feet, its magic its magic mama. My feet is blue! Someone did magic on my feet. my gawd! Not to mention she was dripping all over the floor. Angry or laugh? you may ask. I laughed. Happily went straight to the bathroom and washed everything off. Happily she walked away and came back with blue hands ma blue hands! Instead of getting angry with her, i grabbed the video camera to capture this moment. Kids.. I don't know how anyone could live without them! They are such wonderful things!

Dream Studio..

Jenni Bowlin's, scrapbook designer, redecorated studio! Isn't it a dream come true? Here you'll be able to chill and do what you want to do, your very own space! Time to yourself, time to relax and de-stress. I love the furniture, I love how its all white, I love it to the every detail of it. Notice the shelves for the stamps? I think that is the best possible way to display your stamps. Great job! If you're curious to see Jenni Bowlin's creation check out her blog http://www.jennibowlin.com/

9 months

Ariff's picture taken on Nadira's birthday party on 7/1/07 at Kidzsport, BSC. He enjoyed himself so much. We had everyone there, Adib, Adam, Mimin, all baby cousins attended the birthday party. Layout is scraplifted from Ali E. I think its real simple and got a chance to use my new clear stamps from Autumn Leaves. Absolutely love clear stamps now. With green swirls on top left hand corner, I managed to stamp twice with clear stamp block. Made a mistake with green being too light so had to stamp one more time to darken the colour. Not bad, stamp it, no sweat!

Japanese, Japanese, Japanese

Today its all about Japanese. Made menu cards and name cards. Had to keep it simple for we didn't have enough time to do anything more. Anyways, we whipped up these cards in minutes!

Hap-py

Happy is my word for the rest of the year.

Happy is joyous, joyful, blithe, cheerful, merry, contented, blissful, satisfied, favourable, successful, propitious, prosperous.

I will put all this beautiful words into my little notebook to remind me all the time of what i wanna be this year.

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

Taking up a Challenge

Ali Edwards, my inspiration (besides you, Nings), posts challenges on a monthly basis. One of my new year's resolution is to spend more time with myself. So what do you know, Ali E's 1st newsletter for 2007, is One Little Word, check it out at http://www.lifeartmedia.com/newsletter11.html. The idea is to introduce a single word can be a catalyst for enriching your life as well as your scrapbook layouts. It can be a something tangible or intangible. It could be a feeling or an emotion. It can be singular or plural. The key is find something that has personal meaning for you. My word is, Happy! So i made this journal for myself to remind me of my word.

2 thumbs up gallery!

Please check out http://www.concroption.com/Gallery/tabid/631/Default.aspx for mini albums inspirations!! They are aboslutely beautiful!! Enjoy!

Invitations

1st birthday, jungle animal theme. Card is dark green, hand cut grass in lighter green. Animals in front of card a gorilla in yellow, an elephant in baby blue and a zebra in baby pink. The idea is to keep the colours to baby-ish colours.

Top of cards says KAY VEN TURNS ONE!

Inside of card, says, You are invited to a roaring good time at Kay Ven's 1st birthday party! Sunday 11 February 2007 at 11am, Level 2, 3 Kia Peng Apartments, 3 Jalan Kia Peng, Kuala Lumpur. RSVP lysha.

7th Birthday. Dragon theme. Dragon with wobbly eyes. Pink box is space to insert photo.

Inside of card says, Come and join our magically mythical adventure where dragons rul the skies, unicorns roam the elms and wizards brew up some wonderful tricks. Date and venue same as above and right on the bottom of card, it says, please come dressed as a magical/mystical creature!

Basic Techniques

When it's time to get started on your very first exciting layout, here are some basics to get you started~

Selecting your pictures. Take your time selecting the photos you would like to scrap, there are no rules in how many photos you can put on one layout. You can have one impactful photo or a series of images depicting a holiday/special occasion. Picking photos with similar colours/themes/series of events works well on a page together.

Cropping your photos. You have to first know what you want to focus on in a photo. You can shift the focus attention of a photo by just cropping it with a computer or simply lay pieces of paper over the area you think you're cutting away. That way, it can change dramatically the emphasis of an image on the photo.

Selecting papers & cardstocks. Choose your colour scheme, either by selecting a colour from the photo you have selected or try selecting papers/cardstocks reflecting how you feel about the image.

Matting your photos. A matting technique will help you make your photo stand out from a layout and it gives a frame to your photo. Cut carstock slightly bigger than your photo then mount the photo on top of it. For extra dimension, double matting the photo will give a more impactful image.

Putting your layout together. After choosing paper for your background, you can then start arranging your layout. Do not stick anything yet, try different arrangements first. Start with your main photo in the right place and only when you're happy with the focal point, then and only then stick everything together. Add embellishments and lettering that matches your colour scheme in the layout.

and there you have it.. the basic techniques in starting your very first scrapbook layout. Its very simple. There are so many embellishments and different kinds of lettering you can use for your layout, always remember to not use too many elements on the page as that will take away the focus on the pictures.

Have fun and be daring!

Shortbread Special

Mak had a special celebration for the birthday gals.. So made cookies to put in jars as a birthday gift. I have tried so many cookies recipes, never really got it right. I had to make these twice to get it just right. I love making them! I have to start a new project, I need to make a recipe keepsake. Have no idea yet of what I want or how I am gonna do it. I need have that so I can start collecting beautiful recipes such as this. This recipe is called the Icebox Shortbread from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food.

Essential tools

1. Eyelet Setter: eyelets are easy for fastening elements to your layout. Setter can flatten eyelet backs to secure element. Setters may come in different sizes to cope with different eyelet sizes. There are only about 3 sizes.

2. Hole Punch: Create holes on layout as decorative patterns, or to add eyelets or brads. Interchangeable heads will make various-sized holes.The beauty about this tool is that you can have the hole anywhere on the layout, unlike using an ordinary puncher.

3. Mini Hammer: a little girlie hammer especially for setting eyelets or to put force into your hole punch. With the new gadgets out every season, many brands are making new tools where most of them requires a hammer to punch hole in. A must buy!

4. Cutting Mat: A self-sealing mat to protect table top. A must have too! Don't want to damage the beautiful desk!

5. Scissors: Good scissors are essential for intricate cutting, while a standard pair is good for general cutting. Did you know they have a non-stick scissors especially for adhesives. Fiskars ones are pretty cool, they are black in colour, kinda reminds you of the non-stick pan in the kitchen. Hehehe

6. Metal Ruler: Great for accurate edges. It is best to use a metal ruler so there be no damage done to edges.

7. Paper Trimmer: Makes cropping photos easier. More handier than a metial ruler and a craft knife! Trust me! Been there done that!

8. Craft Knife: For intricate cutting and light scoring is easy with a craft knife.

9. Bone Folder: Helps create crease (i.e. scoring) for easy folding.

10. Paper Piercer: Helps create fine and precise holes in preparation for stitching or for attaching brads. Really comes in handy when making albums!

Its all fun I tell you... all so exciting... these are just the essential tools don't get me started on the nice-to-have-tools list! Muahahaha

You are my sunshine

As you can probably tell, i am trying to use as much handwritten journalling as i can. Prior to reading and doing the exercises in the Heidi Swapp Handwriting book, I have learnt that we can learn to love our very own handwriting. This layout took me only minutes to put together. The journalling was written first in pencil then trace over with acid-free black marker. Ok maybe I'm into the swirly thingy at the moment, yes Ning, swirly is done with free hand. May i also add Ning is very hesitant with writing anything, even if its just a line! But hopefully after the Swapp book that she might be more daring to write her journalling. We'll see.. I guess I can also say my new year's resolution would be to hand write my journalling more now. Hehehe. We'll see about that!

Nadira turns 4!

My first attempt to making buttercream icing turned out just the way i wanted it to. Not bad for a first timer. My hands were shaking though. Icing always scares me away. I am very happy with the outcome thanks to Ning and Nigella for the beautiful recipe! Nadira turns 4 today, she was speechless when she saw the cake, I could see her eyes staring towards the cake by the dinner table. She is so cute. Dora the Explorer is her favourite at this point in time. She absolutely adores Dora. There was a time when my Nadira really did look very much like Dora, everybody agrees with me. At home, she is still being called Dira-Dora!

Special

Another simple layout. Love the photo. My journalling for this layout says: " Mama Ning, you are so special. You are thoughtful and very gentle. We are glad to have you as our very special friend". Title: Special Friend, Special Cuddles, Special Love. Ahem.. doesn't the paper clipboard look familiar? Mama Ning's new Sizzix die cuts!! We miss you..

What is ...

1. What is Scrapbooking?
Scrapbooks are used for sharing thoughts and feelings and recording family stories and special memories. Scrapbooks are cherished memory books that tells a story of who we are while preserving our memories for future generations. Scrapbooks are a celebration of our lives, an artistic expression of who we are, a place to have fun while recording the memories that make our lives unique.

2. What is acid-free?
Paper, card or products that don't contain acid. Using acid-free supplies means that your work will last. Acid attacks the surface of the photos, causing them to deteriorate.

3. What is Lignin-free?
Paper/products that do not contain the sap that holds wood fibres together as a tree grows hence preventing the paper/product to brittle or yellow with age.

4. What is a crop?
A group of scrappers working on their layouts together and sharing ideas, having a scrapbooking session together.

5. What is cropping?
The process of cutting photographs to focus on a certain area.

6. What are eyelets?
Small metal shapes used to fastened into a pierced/punched hole that becomes flat on both sides. You will need a tool to do this.

7. What is journalling?
The writing on the page, the story behind the pictures.

8. What are die cuts?
Pre-cut paper shapes in both printed and solid colours, used as extra decoration on your pages/layouts.

9. What are embellishments?
Used to refer to the non-paper decorations/products. There are a wide range of embellishments ranging from charms to buttons to shells, etc.

10. What are rub-ons?
Alphabets and images that can be transferred to backgrounds with a stylus or stick.

Scrapbooking 101

So.. I have been updating meself with some Bruneian blogs over the holidays and friends encouraged to check out the very few scrapbooking one http://www.scrapper-holic.blogspot.com/. Thought the blog was very informative for you all new or scrapaholics out there. There is an extensive review of different adhesives and not to mention pictures to go with it too! and most importantly where to buy them adhesives. So thanks to the blog, i would like to write about what scrapbooking is all about in my next few posts. Keep up the good work scrapper-holic!

Ahhh!!!!... It finally arrived!!! My very own Big Shot! I really can't wait to get my hands on it.. try it... compare using it to a Sizzix.. Yay!!!!!!!!!