Denim

I finished one class sample....so here's a sneak:Quite happy with how it turned out. Was thinking about fat bikers on Harley Davidsons while I scrapped.....can you tell? Haha.

Merdrey and Betty are also showing sneak peeks of their classes. December classes are gonna be fun! Time is running out....gotta go finish other projects. Catch you later.

Sheepish....

I did not start on my December projects yesterday.....sigh...totally brain-dead and ended up doing 'factory' work - keying in customer data, ordering toner....things like that.

Class was fun though - always enjoy seeing the light 'go on' for new scrappers.

I did make a little something though...

His name's Lambchop. You can read his technical specs here

Today, today, I will, I WILL get started!!!!!! BAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Hide and Seek...

Hidden Item No. 1: Monkeys
the kids were really hoping to spot them on the nature walk along the Southern Ridges on Saturday.......but I think they were hiding from the blistering heat....Us too!
Hidden Item No. 2: Journaling
On a layout for my parents:

Layout Title: "I've Been Meaning to Tell You..."It's really easy to include quite a bit of extra journaling space on your layout using a Zutter bind-it-all:

1. Cut notches into your base cardstock (so that the wire rings won't stick out of your page and make it not fit into your protector) - I cut 1/2" notches into my page to fit the rings

2. Then punch holes using your bind-it-all

3. make as many pages as you want, and bind it onto the layout with the rings and the Bind-it-all

See the booklet?
Semi-Hidden Item No. 3: Me
I am planning to (hoping to) go into 'hiding' this week at the store so that I can finally start on my December projects....it's 8 days into November and I haven't even started yet!

Betty says that sometimes when I am designing I don't even hear when people are talking to me....so shout if you have to - I'd still want to say hi and chat if you drop by!

The Boys

Hubby helped son with his bike-riding again yesterday....things like this make mummy happy. It's sweet.

Here's a layout of them together....with matching army jackets walking back to our hotel in Tokyo. They are very alike in many ways, these two...

"You Will Never Walk Alone" -lyrics from song by Point of Grace (No, its not the Man U one)'Technical' Info you might like to know:

1. The green stuff wrapped around the 'path' is floral tape - mine is 'ahem' Martha Stewart brand - expensive stuff ok? (haha)

2. there's brown distress stickles around the "walk alone" - looks like soil...(mental note...must do this again....)

3. The funny black markings around the edge of the pattern papers are made with chopped up rub ons.

I am feeling a little schizophrenic.....half at Laine's and half at PaperMarket - I'm gonna get confused and forget stuff and turn up at the wrong store one day....I just know it!

November is here...

The new month brings many usual routines:And some new developments: (If you look carefully, you'll see papa in the background telling him to 'brake brake!') - he managed to get all the way to the end of the path without crashing - Yay Benny!And speaking of new developments.....I get a new friend at work tomorrow...yay! yay!

And here's a 'new' project to share - yay?

7G Mini Album - "A Little Perspective Helps"- I designed this book as a class, but used the opportunity to write down for myself the important things I wanted to remember....to give myself the right perspective on everything so to speak:

Sharon's Super Corny Cover:

1. There's a pair of glasses....cos perspective is how you look at things

2. The glasses have 2 different halves - cos there's always 2 ways to look at things
3. The half that's stamped on glass has a rose behind it - rose coloured glasses - get it? get it?!!Fun Photo Effect to Share:
1. I leached out some of the colour from my photos using photoshop then printed it out on transparency
2. Cut a piece of ledger paper same size as my photo
3. then layered the 2 together

Not sure if you can see this, but the photo has a nice 'softness' to it....and you can see the ledger lines faintly showing through. You can probably achieve this same effect digitally using overlays too.

So....looks like November is off to a good start....got classes brewing in my head as usual. Tell you more as I go along.

Whole Lot of Giving Going On

Just wanted to do a real quick check in to tell you about some lovely lovely people who are giving away lovely lovely things!

1. Laine's is giving away our limited edition tote bag (the 'cartoon' one) to the first 200 VIP customers on 2 nov (starting 1:30pm) and best of all its going to be filled with Christmas surprises! Check it out

2. Purple Onion is giving away more free stamps from the new releases and also offering terrific specials on them. And there's even an overstock sale going on too. Check it out

Happy weekend!

A Little Perspective

Went to laine's the other day and cleared out some of my old projects to take home....a 'moving house' of sorts....makes one a bit sentimental. (warning.....long wordy post ahead....with only 1 photo)

I remember when I fell in love with scrapbooking....reading a scrapbooking magazine by Rebecca Sower that Elaine gave me....looking at the beautiful things she made, feeling inspired, and most of all moved at the life and heartfelt feelings she managed to capture through her pages. I'm trying to remember a little of that feeling today... it sometimes goes missing amidst the 'work'.

Over the years I have learnt to "design for work" and sometimes its hard to put your heart into it....but today I think I want to remember the best parts of my job - not just the deadlines, the time constraints, the customer preferences....

this was a bookbinding project from quite a while ago that I did where I got to have the best of both worlds - I got to design it the way I wanted, made everything from scratch, didn't care that it would probably wouldn't be possible to finish half of it in class, used all the materials that I liked and yet have peope willing to sign up for class (although there were some 'complaints' about the hard work - the binding and all the buttons on the spine were hand stitched)...But classes like these are few and far between. Most of the time, there are materials that need to be incorporated, constraints to consider (although I must state here that my sis is absolutely the best with giving me as much creative freedom as possible) - and there are days I feel tired or I design things in 'default mode' - i.e. with no heart...

But...as the title on my journal says, I guess it all boils down to "the Way I Look At Things" -

1. I can choose to see a difficult customer not as an irritant, but as someone who is part of the reason why I get to scrapbook for a living - and be grateful that they are interested in the store and my work

2. I can choose to see deadlines not as something breathing down my neck, but as signposts that help me prioritise the things I need to do - and be grateful because woolly-headed me would get nothing done otherwise

3. I can choose to see restrictions on class materials and timing not as cramping my style, but as challenges that have helped me be more creative with what I make - and be grateful for the myriads of happy accidents that have happened to me as a result.

So today....I choose to be grateful - I certainly have so much to be grateful for.