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.

Where the Cookies Went

Some time back I 'baked' some modelling paste cookies (recipe here).
They ended up as little white flowers on this album. (all the other cookies were given out during the class)

"Origin of the Species" - Chatterbox wooden cover album

Happy Accidents and Experiments:

1. Gold Foil Texture - The gold stuff on the background is gold foil (Stewarts) - for the life of me, I have never been able to get this stuff working properly (you're supposed to be able to stamp an image and foil it but I just can't seem to get it right - I blame the Singapore weather!). So, anyways, I got fed up with trying to make it neat and did this: - I stamped using a cookie cutter and elmer's glue....and then smacked the gold foil on. Brushed away the excess bits, dried the glue with my heat gun and voila....not bad. The lumpy texture is a result of my vigorous brushing but it turned out pretty ok.

2. Glitter Glue - I used Stickles (which is a glitter glue) as a glue - (duh! Sharon!) Squirted a blob of glitter glue, pressed in a button, let the glitter squirt out the side and leave to dry. (Don't laugh ok - it was a real 'lightbulb moment' for me) - then I purposely drew white dots around them so you would notice how pleased I was with myself...haha!

3. Super Bumpy Flower Centre - Made a big blob of liquid glue, then sprinkled beads in. Heated it, watched it sputter and bubble, burst the bubbles along the way, then coloured with Staz On ink - love to touch this bit (after its cool of course) - its super hard and bumpy!

And after all that mess....tired already so did this inside....

Yes, that's me. And yes, I looked like a boy when I was little....

If I had to Choose Only 2 Cardstock Colours...

Black and white - absolutely. No contest - black and white go with everything!

Here's black and white with blue....her favourite. (Hmmm....just realised the background doesn't actually look very white in this photo.....)

Layout Title: "Happy Happy Birthday Dear Beth"
Sharon is Feeling Very Singaporean :
Its probably not very clear (cos its in the background) but I 'enlarged' a 6X6" square of GCD parisian labels pattern paper into an 9X9" square. Here's how:

1. Cut all the labels apart from the patterned paper (this would work with any other pattern that has many 'pictures' on it)
2. Spread them out on your larger piece of cardstock (or in my case chipboard).
3. Whitewash the whole piece, carefully painting around the images.
4. See, you save money and it looks artsy at the same time! How Singaporean is that!

I wish the weather wasn't so Singaporean today....sigh.

The Designers are Out in Full Force

Classes at Laine's:
Classes at PaperMarket: - click here. (sorry, no Photoshop!)

All the class designers: Betty, Jaz, Merdrey, Yanni and me - are looking forward to you signing up for our classes next month. So....M-I-C (see you real soon)....K-E-Y (why? because we like you....M-O-U-S-E. (Do you remember this???)

She's Coming to Papermarket

This little lady was sold out in September, but will be making a re-appearance in PaperMarket's November class line up.

Here's a closer look at her:

This was one of those projects where ' magic' happened - everything just came together all in a rush. I had fun making the dress.....but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that (fleshy upper arms are best hidden in my case - haha). Funny how scrapping style doesn't match dressing style....does yours?

p.s. Class doesn't include the stand, but you can buy it during class at a special discount.

Purple Onion Giveaway!

Hey hey, quick quick, faster faster, go to the Purple Onion Blog:
'cos Michele is having a giveaway!

Here's what you have to do:
1. Click here
2. Post an all time favorite recipe or something new you are looking to try before 21 Oct midnite (US time)
3. Pray that Michele will pick your name from the pool so you can win one of the new stamps!

There will be additional stamp giveaways over the next week or so. So please check the blog daily to participate.

Sneaky Sharon

I am done! (well, more or less) - finished designing 3 classes for November. I showed you sneaks of one of them earlier, but thought I'd put all the sneaks up together here:

1. "Have Suitcase Will Travel" - altered Maya Road Suitcase (for Laine's) 2. "Origami Adventure" - mini album featuring some of the fun folds and mini books I learnt from my reading. (for Laine's)
the plane moves...3. "Yummy Scrummy" - mini album using Fancy Pants mixed page album and lots of food-themed stuff. I made: a cake, a toaster (with toast of course!), a mug and an oven mitt (amongst other things)
Things to Be Happy About:
1. I get to go back and teach some classes at Laine's again - yay for me!!!
2. If you sign up for both the Suitcase and the Origami class, you'll get a pack of my all time favourite twill alphabets free.
3. I am done! I am done! I am done! (actually now I have to make a duplicate of the "Yummy" album 'cos its running at both stores....sigh)

Ok...back to the factory

Strangest Thing I ever Altered

Guess what this is?Ans: Its a Dove Shower Gel bottle - after a scrapbooking makeover

I had fun designing this for a workshop we ran last week. The challenge was to turn the bottle into something useful. So I made this thing that's got little hooks (made from brads fixed into the flowers the 'wrong way round') where you can hang things like rings and little earrings - although personally I think you have to be quite chao pattern princess to be the kind to hang your earrings and jewellery on a special stand before you take a bath - wouldn't you just put them on your dresser table? (Hmmm....but then, I have no jewellery to speak of, so what would I know eh?)

Here's version 2: You can hook earrings onto the rows of lace.

The workshop was fun - and I got free shower gel (which smells great incidentally) - so all in all, it worked out great.

By the way, thought you might like to know - the lovely ladies on the Laine's design team now take turns to blog every day on the Laine's blog - I share a little technique every tuesday and each of the girls shares inspirational projects and ideas and sneaks of their classes - lots of good stuff and free ideas! (Even better than getting free shower gel!)

Actually Martha Stewart Quite Clever Lah...

Been doing quite a few 'clean and happy' designs for classes at Papermarket. Here are pics of the very first class I designed exclusively for the new store which ran in September. I got to work with a Martha Stewart album kit - which is really quite a clever one - I like the binder a lot... (and did you see the little Martha Stewart punch car?)... ...Plus these too cute envelopes (that come with the kit) ...and a handy ziploc bag for stashing bits and pieces The red kit that we used for classes is sold out but there's a very pretty pink set still available (for those of you who were asking). I like that its actually adapatable to any theme.

I've also been indulging my inner 'artsy scrapper' and I'm very happy with how this turned out. It's gonna be a class in November at Laine's.

One down, two more to go! Deadline is 20th Oct so forgive me if I don't chat so much when you visit me at the store. Still friends ok?

It Isn't Lantern Festival Unless Something Gets Burnt

We celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival over the weekend. The kiddies had fun...And Hello Kitty got 1st degree burns....This happened to my rabbit lantern too when I was little, and also one of last year's lanterns, so I can see Beth is carrying on a grand tradition.

And speaking of tradition....

Layout Title: "Reminisce" (can't believe I had to look up how to spell "reminisce" - don't tell the MOE ok?)

I like
1. how the Purple Onion definition stamps turned out on the right side.

2. The photo - yes, that's me (and no, I cannot be bothered to try to look like that everyday)

3. How the coloours came together - everything looks sepia now!

Song for the day: "We'll go dancing in the dark.....walking through the park and reminiscing..."