C'est Bonne (That means Goooood)

Some French stuff arrived at Laine's ... how apt, given that the store name is partly French (Papeterie means....?? Ha ha. Don't tell you) . Check it out here

C'est Fantastique = I like

1. The clear stamps - good price. Nice designs. (Check out what the French call clear stamps - you gotta love the name. Heh.)2. The alpha stickers. You guys who are starting to run out of the old EK Success Rebecca Sower tiny black and white letter stickers, these are a good replacement! Love the coloured ones!

3. The ribbons - I like the texture and the Frenchy words (so 'atas')
So...drop by and see us K?

Purple Onion Pages

Here's a couple of layouts featuring those scrumptious Purple Onion stamps: Layout Title: "No Longer at This Address"
Stamps featured: Vintage Postmark Set (love how you can make your own 'postage stamp' by putting a small photo into the empty stamp border), Carnation alphabet, small Broken15 Alphabet (this is getting to be one of my favourites) and Stems & Grass

Incidentally, the old apartment we were living at in that photo is now a dormitory for foreign workers (and no, nobody protested, nobody wrote to the Straits Times to complain) - sign of the times eh? Wonder how they like sleeping in the Critters' room with the giant super colourful murals on the wall - haha...

Layout Title: "Angel"
Stamps featured: Brocante Set (just the butterfly), Ribbon Label
I have to say I seriously like that butterfly - its not too cute which is just right for me.

This layout is actually a bit of a 'failure' cos I told myself I would make an all-white layout - no other colour except on the photo and the stamps...oh well...will try again!

Happy Accident: I happened to photograph this layout against the glass of the store window and 'cos it was Christmas, the fairy lights were still up so it looks really nice behind the clear parts of the page.

And I made the white felt flowers myself (with the help of a flower punch as a template)- can you tell?

February Sneaks

Before I disappear for a while (Chinese New Year lah), here are peeks of the classes running at Laine's in the month of February. Drop by to see the real thing or just to say hello.

"A Touch of Whimsy" (DS - WHIMSY): mixed media, canvas art bag. There'll be homework after class.

"A Year in Review" (DS - REVIEW): mixed page album. Super value. New favourite colour - teal (even the name is nice...)

"L'Amour" (DS-AMOUR): lovey dovey layouts (One of them's very pink but the other is nice and brown to make up for the sweetness overload - haha)

"Pretty As a Picture" (DS-PICTURE) - Altered wood frames (more prettiness. Pardon the bad pic and the sweetness - its Valentines soon that's why)

In the Spirit of Chinese New Year

Just finished teaching this class a couple of days ago. Don't you think the colours are very auspicious? Maybe I can use this to carry 'kum' (mandarin oranges) around when visiting. (I could change the words to "Hong Bao's make me happy")

I like:

- the happy colours

- the butterfly (that's Kaiser bling sticker on Pageframes overlay, cut out, then bend. It will stay bent 'cos the overlay's thick)

- the fact that this is made from recycled box

And to celebrate Chinese New Year, Laine's is giving way a very cool lunar grab bag stuffed with lots of goodies and specials for future use. Details here.

So, drop by the store if you can. Just say you're going to 'visit relatives' - after all, we're all one big scrapbooking family right?

Sorry Enid Blyton...

The last altered book class is done for January. Hope you all had fun with the "stabbing" and "slicing" (I am happy to announce that no one 'stabbed' or 'sliced' their fingers!)

Project Title: "Naturally You, My Sweet Baboo" (altered Enid Blyton hard cover book)
Almost everyone in class didn't like the 'mucus' look on the circles. Hmm...I must be abnormally fond of gross things...The photo's printed on a transparency and glued on with Claudine Hellmuth's multi-medium. (That explains the husband's rather disturbing complexion)Pleased With Myself Occasion 1: I like how tissue paper looks when crumpled and glued behind the transparency - can see, cannot see...Pleased with Myself Occasion 2: The photos were printed on transparency then glued onto thick acrylic pieces and cut out. I was going for the 'microscope slide look' - turned out quite nice. (if you look carefully you can see the background pattern through the photos). One nice side effect - the picture actually transferred onto the acrylic pieces cos I used the multi-medium. Cool. Need to try that again. On purpose this time.Unhappy Accident: I tore out too many pages from the same section of my book and now it's split apart.... sigh. Lesson learnt - next time must tear pages from various parts of the book and not all from one spot right Betty?

Thank You and Paying It Forward

I'd like to thank the academy (i.e. Susan) for this award. Also my parents...my cat....Haha - hey this is the closest I'll ever get to the Academy Awards ok?

And hey, pay it forward right? So, here are some lovely blogging ladies out there who I'd like to nominate too! They're all inspirational because they find ways to be creative even in the midst of the ordinary-ness of life - by scrapbooking of course!

Wati
Edleen
michelle
Wendy
Shirley

Wish I could nominate lots more - but I never nominate you doesn't mean I don't friend you ok?

You very Mixed Media Nowadays ah...?

That's what Sharon [Chan] said to me the other day. And she's quite right... :o) Mixed media is my new frontier!!! Totally appeals to my 'chao-pattern-ness'.

So, new class in Feb coming up... using Claudine Hellmuth's lovely Studio line stuff again - this time working more with the paints on canvas....wah, so 'artist'.

This is some of what I used:

This is some of what I made

grubby hands - Happy heart.

Best Way to End the Day

After a long day of stock taking nothing beats coming home to big hugs from these two...

Layout Title: "B is for Benjamin & Elizabeth Starts with E"
Did this layout quite a while ago using Jenni Bowlin papers and bingo cards.

Happy Accidents & Other Symbolic Gestures:
1. If you fold 2 bracket pages in half and glue them down side by side, you get a cool page that has hidden journaling on 2 sides. (Picture 2 shows my layout opened on the "Elizabeth side" and Picture 3 shows it opened on the "Benjamin side"). I actually used only half of each bracket and made do with cardstock for the other half cos we didn't have enough brackets for class materials, but it would have been much easier to just fold 2 brackets in half.

2. I like how the Bingo cards had the Critters' ages ( I highlighted those in colour)

3. I basically massacred the Bingo cards beyond recognition - good fun. (The numbers became boxes for the mini photos to sit on and the borders became frames for the photos. Saved the word for title elsewhere.)

Definitely one of my favourites.

Midnight Musings

Can't sleep....don't know why. Was watching the news earlier and its all really rather depressing... And at the same time, behind me my little boy was laughing and giggling getting tickled by his daddy. Maybe this song kind of sums up what I was feeling...

Laughing Matters:
(by Mark Waldrop & Dick Gallagher; performed by Bette Milder on her "Bathhouse Betty" album - really good album this one)

Live at Five and CNN keep us all abreast
of breaking stories that can tend
to make us anxious and depressed.
Problems with no answers
hang on like some chronic cough.
And every day some brand new issue
rears it's head to piss you off.

Bad guys win.
Optimism's wearing thin.
Things are spinning out of control.
Cynicism's all the fad.
World events could make us mad
as hatters.
Almost every day
some underpinning slips away.
These aren't laughing matters.

Time bombs tick.
People keep on getting sick.
And a nickel's not worth a cent.
Wickedness and greed abound.
Just as peace is gaining ground
it shatters.
Hate is here to stay,
and justice goes to those who pay.
Friend, these aren't laughing matters.

The truth is scarrier by far
than anything that Stephen King could write.
The stories in the paper are
the daily small decline and fall
spelled out in black and white.

Oh, what to do, what to do?
how to take a brighter view
when your noodle's totally fried.
Human spirits need to be
leavened by a little levity.
So take those blues
and bounce them off the wall.
Keep your humor please,
'cause don't you know it times like these that
laughing matters most of all.

So, this year, I will remember to laugh, to hope, to be grateful for everything God has blessed me with - that I have many reasons to laugh. Happy New Year (again)! - I think I found my resolution for 2009 at last.

p.s. Don't you think the song title would be great on a layout?

Favourite Layout in December

Layout Title: "The Best Childhood Ever"
I like this layout best of all the layouts I did for December's layout class - just mainly because of the colours and the photos of me when I was little...

Hmm...been using stickles to outline chipboard letters quite a bit...need to break out of that and try something else.

More December Class Favourites

Project Title: "Bon Voyage" (mixed page mini album)

Made this one for my mum and dad who are avid travellers. I think I surprised myself (and everyone else in class) when we were actually able to finish making this album within 3 hours (excluding photos of course). So, its not true that class projects at Laine's "always cannot finish in class one!" (Ok, ok, its true quite a lot of the time - whenever I do 'chao pattern' stuff anyway)

p.s. I'm quite tickled by the tiny circular photos (only 1/2" in size) on the calendar page.

More aluminium foil

Layout Title: "Cars - My All Time Favourite"

My Favourites from this layout:
1. Love that aluminium foil - especially with black paint on it.
2. The photos - nice shadows and angle (good job, Sharon. But next time get the focus right)
3. The 'honk', 'vroom' and 'beep' stamping
4. the little monkey - both the human and the chipboard one

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Everywhere

It's a new year! Happy New Year! Spring Cleaning is in the air at Laine's - we're preparing for stock take, plus there's a great great deal going on at the store - check out the jan 09 newsletter

Basically, you give us 20 sheets of old patterns you don't want, and we give you

1. a $10 voucher that you can use when you buy 20 new pieces of patterned paper you do want
2. a reward stamp
3. some good vibes cos your papers will go to charity, PLUS Laine's will donate 1 sheet for every sheet you give.

Good way to start the year....

Clean Up, clean up, everybody everywhere. Clean Up, clean up, everybody do their share. (Your kids watch(ed) Barney too?)

P.S. you gotta check out the store "Hong Bao" (more like pink bao - Cynthia is very happy) - its got a customiseable square space on the front of the hong bao where you stick a suitable sticker so that you can use the hong bao for Chinese New Year, weddings, birthdays and other occasions. (My sis came up with the idea - seriously, how smart is that?!!)