The Sugar Bowl Challenge #11

This week's challenge over at The Sugar Bowl is to create a card following the sketch provided and to include pearls! Woah...I like pearls...I like vintage...I like romantic...I like the old, distressed look...and I like my Sugar Nellie stamps!

I used the 'Sweet n Sassy' stamp for my card. I made this card in mind for Adah's best friend. Her birthday is coming up in July and she is such a girly girl, so small and dainty. While Adah, Jesse and Carlinos will jump into the pool during swimming class, she will do a little bunny hop into the wading pool instead. Even if I hold her hands and encourage her to jump and splash, she will still do a dainty ballerina jump, all completely with her toes pointing down into the pool. That's how girlish she is. But she is just like the girl in the stamp, all sweet and sassy and she can have such a fiery temper too!

I used the papers left over from my previous layout cos I like the color combination of green and pink. Lily likes green and purple so I tried to incorporate that into my coloring and she is so early, the use of pearls and flowers suit her no end!

New Layouts

2 new layouts to share today, both of Adah's. I am beginning to think that its easier to do girls' layouts than boys'. At least I can add flowers and butterflies without worrying that its too girlish cos it's meant to be for girls anyway.

1) Ur Big Eyes for Butterfly- Crafts Challenge #12
People has always been telling me how big Adah's eyes are. I dun really think so myself but her eyes were the first part of her that left an impression on me when I first saw her after she was born. The nurse had cleaned her up and placed her on my chest after she was delivered and this small squirmy, whiny baby appeared very alert to me cos I met her eyes and she was wide awake! Nothing like Asher, whom I had diffculties making out how he really looked like cos his eyes were so small and he barely could keep them open the first few days! Lols.

The photos in the layout were that of Adah's in her sleepy state around 3 months old. The challenge for Butterfly Crafts was simple, just to use your favourite color. Mine has to be pink. Its easy to combine with other colors- even browns for earth tones and a vintage look and if its bright fuschia pink, it brightens up the page immediately and these days, its not that strange to find pink on boys/ men. I used a transparency overlay from Fancy Pants here and I cut 2 other pictures of Adah's to fit into the circles. Overall, I loved the effects and the embellishments used.



2) Fun in the Sun for Moments Recorded Challenge #09 using Pencil Lines Sketch #134
I love these pictures of Adah's taken by her friend's mum. Adah had been invited to her friend's birthday pool party and we had an agreement that she should not be swimming because she ran a fever earlier in the morning. But she could hardly resist playing with the water so I had her changed into a tank top and shorts. She was good for the first 20 mins, getting only her feet wet, watching her friends play from the sides of the pool. Then before I knew it, she was all wet and she came running to me almost with tears in eyes and told me that her friends forbade her from playing with them because she was not in a bath suit and she had slipped and got herself all wet. Finally I caved in when I looked at her sad face and told her to go play with them. Thankfully she did not get any worse after that...

I used another glitter Fancy Pants transparency here and followed the sketch #134 provided by Pencil Lines. The blue borded was actually cut out from one of my favourite Sassafras Lass papers and I loved the green damasak paper which I had used as the background. Its from Daisy D and has been in my stash for the longest time. Its one of those papers which I just can't bear to use because its so lovely but when I saw the main picture of Adah in the pool, I knew the paper was an immedite match. I love this picture so much, I think I might just scrap it again some other day.

Toot!!!

I hate it that the governement here has blocked Blogger and almost all blogsites. Dun ask me why, I really dunno why??? Now I will have to find some means to get my site updated, maybe my sis when she is not too emo, or via some proxy network which means we will have to pay for its use.

But the happy news- I made it to the Design Team of Butterfly-Crafts. Yay!!! Thank you Karen for choosing me, I am sooo excited that I can't wait for the term to start. I'm sure I will have more photos to scrap afer our trip to Tokyo next weekend! Yes, we are still going despite the swine flu. We just pray hard, wash hands more regularly and faithfully carry our sanitiser solutions and wet wipes all the time. And I hope by the time my term starts, blogger sites will be unblocked again!!!

These are my fellow team mates over at Butterfly-Crafts.blogspot.com. Do visit us!

Vicki Murray - Assistant DT Coordinator
Leanne Inkpen
Louise Hickey
Jodi Wilton
Roberta Gallotti
Maria Delo
Frances Sylvia
Sarah Eclavea
Krista Hanna
Tina Guigui
Leanne Love
Lou Collins
Tara Orr
Adeline Lim
Sandra Wilkinson
Guiseppa Gubler
Jocelyn Petcholan
Georgina Hefferman
Marlene Filipiuk


Have a lovely weekend!

Whooo's Cute?

I used the sketch #82 from Got Sketch? This is Asher at 3 months old, still a contented and chubby baby, starting to coo more and get more active.

The internet is indeed a powerful tool. Through it, I get to research about information I need (sometimes too much info till it scares me), but there's online classes, online ordering (my favourite!) and blog- hopping, getting to learn more about this hobby of mine and making new SB friends thru' the internet.

I have came to know Annissa, Sophia and a number of regular scrappers from Singapore through the SB forums. I never thought I would have a social life since I became a stay home mum but now I am ready to chat with them online most times of the day when I am home!!! Even in Shanghai, I managed to meet a couple of friends with similar interests and squeal over good buys together...ha ha ha...(esp Linh if you are reading this!)

And Annissa is a life saver. She is so so good with her dollars and cents that I can just turn to her to check out where's the best place to get stuff and sometimes I ride on her sprees and save more . I am thankful for this hobby which helps me to relieve stress, keeps me sane and has engaged me in forming new relationships which I never expected to have.

All of 2 Months

All of 2 months- Adah grew so much in just a matter of 2 months that I could hardly recognise the scrawny, dark and skinny baby that we brought home from the hospital It was a challenge adjusting after the confinement lady has left but we DID it! Even now, I can recall vividly the long nights when I had to carry and rock a colicky Adah and walk her up and down the corridor. Those nights seemed so endless then... But now 4.5 years seemed to have just gone by in a flash...it's so scaryhow fast the kids just seem to grow up overnight.

I used the layout provided in Challenge #122 over at Lotus Paperie. I have this habit of trying to squeeze in as many pictures into a layout as possible. I thought this layout was appropirate as I wanted to show the many faces of Adah in her first 2 months. I used lots of stuff from my old stash here. Nothing is new except the paper from Imaginisce which was used as the background. Even teh flower sheers from KI memories had been lying in my cupboard for some time! I am glad that I am using up stuff. Perhaps that means I can purchase more soon!!!

LOVE

I am trying to catch up on my two first year albums so that I can start scrappin' the more current photos and I always like to capture both Adah and Asher together on the camera. They are so funny, always looking out for each other to play with and yet they quarrel like almost every 10 minutes. There is hardly a moment of peace when the two of them are awake. Even when Adah is quietly reading on doing her own stuff, Asher will find some way to irritate or taunt her.

The above pics were taken of earlier peaceful days when Asher was just born and Adah absolutely enjoying her role as an elder sister. She was very protective of her didi and Asher will be contented gurgling away at her when she pretend- read to him or sing to him. Gone were the days now...

Productive Weekend

Despite the long weekend we had for the labour day holidays, I was amazingly productive, even with handling the two monsters at home plus toilet training. I did the first layout for Moments Recorded May Challenge. Rules of the challenge were simple this time- we had to use only rub-ons, stamps and stickers to create our own patterns. No cardstock allowed except for the layout piece and no chipboards except for the alphas.

Considering how much I like to embellish, this was a tough task. But I must say I enjoyed the 'white space' and distressed look I created for this LO. I inked and distressed the edges, and even sandpapered the cardstock to add to the look. I wanted to go really vintage and add on my faux pearl strings RAK-ked by Sophia but then again, I am not sure if that will breach the rules of the challenge so I forfeited the idea. I used Unity's distressed music background stamp and Inkadinkado's mini clear bird stamp here. Rub-ons were from Basic Grey and ribbons from my stash!





Second LO- I simply can't bear to cut up my Sassafras Lass paper. Its so bright and cheery so I cut out Asher's picture and stuck it onto one of the hot-air balloons on the paper and embellished around it. This is really simple. The paper speaks for itself and I love Asher's shy little smile @ 1.5 months old.

Just a little toot. One of my previous layouts in which I used Sassafras Lass- Fawnd of You paper was selected as the winning entry over at {Create}. Yay yay yay!!! Now I go over to their blog everyday to see my name and my layout being mentioned. Cheap thrill, I know but very happy!!!

Sugar Nellie Challenge #9

Well, the challenge over at The Sugar Bowl this week is to create something for MEN! In my case, it has to be for a young man who is turning 2 very soon! Asher finally has a little boy friend around here around his age and he is turning 2 in a week's time. All the friends I know here seems to have girls so Asher is always brought to playgroups mainly dominated by girls. Maybe that's why he is so shy.

The image used is from the Birthday Hamish stamp and I really went simple on this card. I did not want to over- embellish it or layer it too much, in case it turns out girlish. I added a row of cute little froggies on my ribbon strip that I picked up from the local market here too. Sometimes less is more... ...