One for You....and One for You....

Here's a present for my friend Dor,

made using the very lovely "Lantliv - Life in the Country" collection from Majadesign... (along with some recycled cardboard box, cardstock and washi tape for binding)

And here's a little present for you:

I have one 6X6" stack of the papers to give away! So just drop in a little comment here and I'll randomly pick a name on Friday to give the papers to ok? :)

Something 'Old', Something New

Here are sneaks of classes I designed for August:

Something 'Old'
Those of you who missed the Rusty Suitcase class the last time, might be glad to know Version II is running in August.  I changed the colour scheme a bit and made it more girly (i.e. I pasted a few flowers - albeit brown ones - haha)

Something New:
And you might also like this little flip box with a little album inside - this one's made from scratch, so that might be fun.

The schedule should be out soon, but the samples are at the store already - come take a look K? Or come say hi to me - either way is good.  :)

Made From Scratch

My favourite kind of albums / books are the kind that are made absolutely from scratch - without any pre-made album covers or pages.  Major sense of satisfaction.  Of course, this doesn't happen very often (it's tiring to figure out measurements and my brain isn't wired for numbers) but here's one I made recently for class:

It's made of pieces of cardboard box wrapped with raw canvas.

Closed

 Open

 Inside - accordian books

 back

 

The canvas cover's covered with mists and ink and stamping - which makes for yummy messy fingers in the process.  Best part of class.

 The little metal clothes hanger is just too cute

A big inky-fingered hi-five to all the lovely ladies who joined this class - we had fun eh?  :) and a special hello to Jamie who spent part of her holiday with us!

Present-ing

This one's for you Jon Jon:

Scrapping Specs:

Covers - 7 Gypsies
Papers - recycled newsprint and kraft cardstock
Binding - Multi-needle Coptic stitch
Embellishments - 7gypsies and Tim Holtz
stamps - Purple Onion (inside and out)

Sleepytime

I am in sore need of sleep....I haven't been sleeping well for some reason, and it doesn't help that school has started (which means early wake up calls again)

Maybe I need some bedtime buddies...

Beth's

1.  Baby blankie

2.  blue blankie

3.  Checks (the bear)

4.  Squishy (the pillow)

Benny's

1. baby blankie

2.  Shocky the stingray

3.  Little shark

4.  Baby whale

5.  Rufus the crab

6.  Jumpy the frog

7.  Squidy the octopus

8.  Wormy & Wormette the leeches (aka bolsters)

9.  Rocky the big red Angry Bird

10. Little angry birds (5)

And in keeping with the theme, here's a little Sleepytime layout featuring the new papers from Majadesign (yay!!! a whole load of them arrived for me in the mail!) and some subtle stamping with my Purple Onion stamps... (music notes and stars)

click image to enlarge

My favourite bits are the clouds....made from the lovely new patterns....

And you know what's really cool? The new papers come with lovely patterns on the brand label so you can use them as borders... nice!

Now back to.....sleep work!

Throw some Mud on It

Here's a fun mini album we did in last month's class called "Let's Go Outside" - with lots of 'vegetation' and some 'mud' thrown in for good measure.

 

Here's all the vegetation:

Ribbons growing through the album all higgly piggly

(they help bind the album together)

And here's the mud.....ahhhhh....

This little glass jar filled with 'mud' (i.e. Distress Stickles) and the little plant growing out of it amuses me no end. (er yes, I am quite easily amused)

And if you think the mud looks good in the jar, check out how it looks smeared on the front of the album - yes, the fact that it looks like someone splattered mud on my album amuses me as well.

Makes me fee like singing!!!

"Mud mud, glorious mud

Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood

So follow me follow

Down to the hollow

And there let us wallow in glorious mud"

- The Hippopotamus song

Did I tell you I like hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) too?

And yes, I'm in one of those moods today.  :)

Kawaii Neh?

Scrapforhelp's July challenge is up! Details here. (scroll down for English instructions)

Here's what you have to include in your layout for the challenge:
1.  Recycled packaging (e.g. soap box, chocolate wrapper)
2.  you should follow the sketch given
3.  And it has to be about friendship

Let's do a little QC and check and see if I managed to follow instructions:

Here's Nadia's sketch:

 

I think my layout looks quite similar to the sketch... [check!]

I recycled these little Meiji candy boxes (no prizes for guessing who helped empty the candy boxes)

And used them on the layout along with their plastic wrapper which had this kawaii heart on it.... [check!]

I used part of the plastic wrapper overlapping the photo...  [check!]

And I made sure the layout was all about "Tomodachi" which means friend in Japanese... And just to be 'kiasu' Singaporean I made sure the word friend appeared somewhere on the layout in English and used the recycled candy boxes again. [double check!]

Contrary to the very businesslike nature of this post, I actually had a lot of fun doing this!  Haha.  Trying to get my layout to match the Japanese kawaii style of the candy boxes was a blast!  :)

Go have some fun!!! [check...check...check...check!]

Hard Pressed but Not Crushed

Do you ever feel like this?

When there are so many things pressing in together at the same time and you just want to 'pop' out of things for a bit and catch your breath? (very corny I know...haha)

I am glad my Heavenly Father knows the stuff I am made of and I am "hard presed on every side but not crushed" (2 Cor 4:8).

There is joy and laughter at home to be treasured and not taken for granted:

Here's a happy album full of happy times to keep close to heart on those 'pressing' days. (Warning, lots of photos ahead....I've had a lot of happy times - haha)

cover is transparency over a canvas book (love that chubby boy!)

 inside cover

All the pages are misted:

rainbow mist

 misted sun rays

bubbles in water

 made by misting over eyelets

 misted sky

 sunset... with stickles

 raindrops...

Despite the pressures of life, we've got many reasons to smile and be thankful yes?