Back to Life…

Friday, 14 March 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 17 Comments

… as I knew it before the past two weeks. But much better. Much, much better now.

By now you’re all probably aware (unless you haven’t been to the Spraground) that I’m out of the apprentice program. I won’t say much about it except that I believe everything happens for a good reason, and when you do your best and still what you worked on slips through your fingers, it can only mean that there’s an even better opportunity out there, waiting in the wings.

And so there is. 😉

I’ve gotten so much more than I ever could’ve had I gone farther than the second week. And what I have received is worth infinitely more than anything in the world. I have been overwhelmed again and again by the overflowing love, affection, loyalty, and support of my sistahs on my playground… and when you have that, how can you not feel that you have won so much more? I do. I have treasures beyond compare, and they have names. I play with them everyday on the playground. They are my friends. They are my family. I may not have had the opportunity (yet) to hug them in person… but they know that I’ve sent a kajillion hugs over the oceans and clouds, a kajillion hugs for each one of them.

I am so blessed. So happy. So contented.

And THIS, this is the life I have wanted. I went on this adventure and learned a lot. But my most important gains were not in the area of design. They were in the book called Life. I have never, ever waivered in my devotion to my home-away-from-home aka Spraground. And I was not happy being away from my friends there, which was what happened while I was working on my entry kits.

This is probably where I have to say that I am still and always will be grateful for the opportunity I was given by Little Dreamer Designs. I am not bitter nor sad nor angry about the elimination because I know that I gave my best and I made decisions that I thought of thoroughly. I could’ve opted to make really simple designs and thus ensure that I could go on to the next round, but I chose to be experimental and to push my limits, and to not take the easy way out for me. I made judgment calls, and those judgment calls were part of what got me eliminated… but it’s fine! Because I made those judgment calls myself! They were my decisions. And I stand by them. So I’m happy! 😀

And because I know I’ve been true to myself, there is nothing that I can possibly be bitter about. Besides bitterness only zaps energy, and that’s never a good thing. I truly believe, too, that we get what we give out, so I only want to give out good vibes. Good juju is good. 😆

And really, if you have the Spraground sistahs in your corner, how can anything go wrong? How can anyone be sad? The only tears I’ve shed are those that have quietly rolled down my cheeks as I’ve read messages of love, support, and affection from the girlies (and guy-ie :D) who mean the world to me.

A very very good friend of mine–one of the most awesome people I have ever met–sent me an email with this quote, right after I had told her that I had been eliminated. This email of hers was what brought to my eyes the very first tears–I cannot even begin to describe how she totally touched my heart. I want to share the quote part of it with you here:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knowcking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that hHe is building quite a different house from the one you thought of–throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Beautiful quote. Beautiful email. Beautiful person.

And beautiful messages and beautiful cards from beautiful people! (And I mean beauty of the heart!) ~ God is so good. He has blessed me with so many gifts. You. My friends. Precious, precious gifts.

So now I’m back, and I’m extremely glad to be right where I belong, surrounded by all your beautiful hearts. Ahhh. Always so good to be back home.

Soooo… thank you, thank you all for all the affection and the support (and the really funny things you were saying: you really made me laugh! And I loved that too!)

And the Creative Muse Plods On! 😀

And because I love creating, here is what my muse has come up with for you. (There’s more bursting to come out, inspired by all of you whom I love more than I can ever express in words… so expect a whole lot of freebie gifts coming up for you soon!)

I promised the paper I used for the preview of the ElementaLove kit, but I didn’t want to give just one piece, so I created more stuff… My creative muse is still in that experimental mode, so I have a torn and curled rough paper border, four grungy & textured papers (three solids and one patterned), a grungy photomask (pull in your photo onto the layer above it, hover your mouse on the dividing line between the photo layer and the mask layer till you see a snowman-looking icon, then click and you have your clipping mask!), a fabric mat with built-in buttons to attach it to your layout (can be used for journaling or as a photo mat), and a simple ribbon strip.

PS. The arrow on the photo mask in the preview is only there to show that it’s the mask I used with my photo… 😀

Here’s what the additional stuff looks like:

{Click on image for larger view}

And here’s where you can snag the ElementaLove Add-on Kit!

Okay, I’ve got to do some rounds on the galleries to leave love, because I’ve been away for so long and I am just soooo excited to see all the masterpieces my friends at the Spraground have come up with!!!

I’ll see you soon! Have a great day, my sweeties! ((((((((hugs))))))))

Coming Up for Air…

Monday, 10 March 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 21 Comments

… after being on a self-imposed exile for the past few days, working feverishly on getting my Round 2 Challenge submission for the Apprentice Program at Little Dreamer Designs done. Thank goodness for a very understanding hubby: “Shhh, J,” he tells our son, “Mama’s working hard…” Priceless man! 😆

And thank God for not letting me come down with the virus that hit my 5-year-old dearie 3 weeks ago and that, hopefully, is on its way out our door 2 weeks after hitting my 2-year-old honey. I lost my voice for a day and felt really sick for about three, but other than that, I’ve just been sooo grateful that I haven’t had to lie down and nurse the illies. (Totally helps that I’m also downing really strong vitamins like an addict, just to make sure I can function well enough to do all that has to be done).

Actually, I kind of feel like I could give the Energizer Bunny a run for its money. 😆

So… I just finished uploading my kit and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I make it through the next round. I’m just counting on making it through each round alive. 🙂 This sorta reminds me of the relationships I had when I was young: unlike so many of my friends who used to count (and celebrate!) anniversaries with their boyfriends by the month 😆 I always used to just look forward to just celebrating the days till they eventually turned into years. Call it crazy, but I like living each day fully, and then having the option to look back one day and say, “Wow!!! Those were some ultra-fabulous 365 days!” instead of “That was a great year!” 365 days sounds so much more than a year, right? Hmmmm. (If you haven’t noticed it in the past, by now you should be fairly certain that I have some strange ideas. 😆 )

So… anyway… it’s been an awesome week. Crazy-busy, more than ever before, with the 3rd run of my dear friend Jessica’s fab beginners’ class, Up & Running… (on the 3rd day of the course, there were 400 layouts I needed to go and leave love on… I can imagine how many masterpieces are waiting for me to marvel at!) The galleries at our Spraground are seriously ROCKIN’ too, with all the great great creations of all my Spraguemates… and WOW! Have you seen the LDD Apprentice Gallery??? Man, all (and I’m not exaggerating here, but I mean ALL) my friends who uploaded their layouts there really ROCKED the kit and the gallery!!! And I was soooo happy and proud to find that one of us, dear, dear Carol, was the very first one who won the very first $10 coupon given out by Michelle at Little Dreamer Designs (if you haven’t yet uploaded a layout using any of the apprentice freebies–hopefully, mine! 😆 — in the gallery there, go run! Michelle is giving out two $10 coupons each week for the four weeks that the apprentice program is running, and the only thing you have to do is (1) be a registered member there (it’s free!), and (2) upload a layout into the Apprentice gallery using any of the kits that are there for exclusive download.

Then there are our wonderful Spraground Weekly Challenges, which are really so much fun, especially now that everyone is playing excitedly. I can’t even begin to tell you how RICH our galleries are with inspirational materials! These girlfriends of mine are ROCKIN!!!! I AM SO PROUD OF THEM!!!! (Okay, I had to shout that out, because … the words just aren’t enough, you know??? My heart is bursting with pride and affection for each and every one of them!!!)

It’s also the end of the school year where I live, so you know what that means? Oh, just tons of final exams for each of my 3 kids who are in school. It also means that all the schools schedule as much parental-involvement activities as they can in these last few weeks (probably cramming what they can fit into the remaining few breaths of the school year)… I almost think it’s a conspiracy. 😆 End-of-the-school-year also means entrance exams for kids to enter the next level (my 3-year-old S had to take an entrance exam to enter Kinder, and my 5-year-old J has yet to take the entrance exam for Prep… and then my first two sons have to take summer review programs to prepare for the entrance exams for university and high school)… SIGH! Exams, exams, exams. Thank goodness I’m done and over with schooling! 😆

And then… summer. Kids with me, beside me, around me, by my head, by my feet, by my hips, on my lap… 24/7. Love it. I need to find some worthy activities to keep them busy so that they aren’t tempted to speak the Unspeakable: in our home, the three words that are among the most forbidden are “Mom, I’m bored.” 😆

Then there are a number of other projects as well, which I’ll surely let you know about as they come closer… and … the long-awaited DIGI IN DEEP at our Spraground in a few weeks!!! WOOHOO!!!

But so that I don’t let you suffer further with all my blah blah blah, please tell me that you forgive me for being absent for most of this past week… on the Spraground, on my porch swing here… I do peep in once in a while to say hello, but haven’t had much time to really sit and talk (and regret that GREATLY… if only I could find 48 hours in a day to do all that I want to do!) 🙂

So anyway, forgive me? Please? And let me give you all a HUGE HUG for all the warm fuzzies and the awesome layouts and the wonderful support that you’ve given to me while I am embarking on this huge design adventure of my life! I promise you I will never ever forget this incredible show of support and love: it’s written on my heart forever. And even beyond that. 😉

Speaking of design adventures, here’s the latest!

This is my submission for Little Dreamer Designs’ Apprentice Program Round 2 Challenge:

I can’t say much because it’s all private and propriety information that we get, but this much I can say: I have truly enjoyed slaving away at the challenges… it’s playing, learning, creating, sharing all in one blow… really, how much better can it get?

So here now comes the sharing part!

What you’re getting: a mini-kit of elements in what I called my ElementaLove (the love is there for you, you know. 😉 )

1 glitter foliage accent – in two versions: one without shadows and one with its own shadow… I chose to apply the preshadowing to this element because I felt it was the hardest to do a shadow on… the other elements are easier, but with this one, I did my best to apply a drop shadow so that various parts of the wildflower seem to be at different heights from the paper base

1 shiny chrome / metal photo corner – there’s one png file, but you can use it to put two on either sides of your photo or journaling block, or you can use all four, or… 😉 Just flip and rotate and have fun!

1 stitched border – a little trivia: this took me the longest to create, because I made my own new stitches and stitch holes from scratch, experimenting a bit here and there and playing around with Photoshop… I worked on the first set for roughly 48 hours. I went to sleep at 6AM, with the sun just about to rise, last night/this morning… and when I opened my kit on my compy to get ready to upload it at LDD… I took a look at the stitches and decided I didn’t like them much. So it was on to creating a new set of stitches and stitch holes from square one… experimenting some more… and this time I came up with something that I really liked. So I hope you like them too. And you know what? I have even greater appreciation for all the designers who put stitches in their kits: let me tell you, these little bits of thread are not easy to make. 😆

1 metal and glass triple-frame – I’ve included instructions in the download folder on how to work with this in the easiest way. If you’ve downloaded and used my pocket page from the first Apprentice Round Freebie submission, it’s pretty much the same technique you use… easy-peasy! 😉

All items have no shadows (except for the pre-shadowed version of the foliage accent, but you also get the shadow-free one, in case you want to apply your own)… so that you have absolute freedom in deciding where and how you put it on your layouts.

Here’s the preview, in case you haven’t seen it yet on Little Dreamer Designs (click on Apprentice Gallery Round 2 if you want to leave love… there are some awesome kits over there! Have you seen the company I’m in? Man, seasoned designers and newbies, all in one room! It’s a GREAT mini community we have going there for these next few weeks!)

Okay, enough talking! (See what happens when I don’t see you for ages? I’m unstoppable! 😆

Here’s the preview:

{ Click on image for larger view }

And you can download it HERE.

PS. The preview paper isn’t included in this mini kit, since our challenge for the week was all about elements… but if you want it, leave me a note in the comments, and I’ll upload it here for you in the next few days. Just give me a few hours to get my lost hours of sleep back, hahaha! 😉

Thanks for passing by, and thanks for your continued support, thanks for all your warm fuzzies, thanks for keeping your fingers, toes, arms, legs, and eyes crossed that I get as far as possible in this adventure… and just, wow, a million kajillion bazillion THANKS. From. The. Bottom of my bottomless heart.

Have I told you that I love ya? I have? I’ll say it again. I do. 😉

YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Monday, 3 March 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 14 Comments

If you will allow me this one little toot…

I made it! 😀

I made it to the first round of the LDD apprentice program!!! WOOHOO!!! So so so happy!

In the acceptance email that I received from The Dream Team, they informed us that there accepted 40 out of the “over 130 applicants”… so I am truly glad that I was lucky enough to make it through the first round!

I need to give a huge SHOUT OUT to all my sistahs at the Spraground –and all of YOU who left such kind words of support… I can’t even begin to describe how MUCH you mean to me. You inspire me, my dear friends. Truly. THANK YOU.

The freebies are exclusively available for download at Little Dreamer Designs… so if you’re interested (and I hope you are, fingers crossed!), you can hop on over to Little Dreamer Designs; click on Freebies in the top menu. Scroll down and at the bottom right you’ll see the Quick Jump dropdown menu. Click on the triangle beside it and choose the category Apprentice Round 1 Freebies and click Go. The submitted kits are arranged alphabetically, so if you’re interested in mine, please scroll to the 3rd page and you’ll find it there. 😉

Also, Michelle left a note on the forum that they would love to have you upload any layouts that you’ve created with the apprentice freebies on their gallery, with the added sugar cube of being able to qualify for a $10 coupon to their shoppe, which they will raffle off to those who’ve uploaded their layouts. (They will be giving two $10 coupons for each week that the apprentice program is running). I would LOVE to see what you create with my kit, if you use it!

To upload your layouts, choose the Apprentice Layout Gallery.

To those of you, my sweet, sweet friends, who have been asking me how the program goes, here’s the way I understand it:

There will be four weeks of challenges, with the first one beginning this week. At the end of the 4-week program, 5 finalists will be chosen by the Dream Team to submit a full-size kit to sell in the shoppe. Each kit sold is equivalent to one vote for the designer. The sales generated by the kits will count for a little over half of the final score of each applicant. The person with the highest score wins the coveted option of selling kits in the LDD shoppe.

Or something like that. 😆

Wish me luck, my sweeties! It’s your support that carries me through!!! 🙂

CREDITS: stock photo from stock.xchng

It’s Done!

Saturday, 1 March 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 19 Comments

Finally! Got my LDD application kit uploaded, got the confirmation, and now I’m playing the waiting game… 🙂

After spending 2-3 weeks conceptualizing my kit in my head, deciding on color schemes, and then 24 straight hours of trying to translate that imagined concept onto my compy monitor, it does bring a huge sense of accomplishment to be done with it. The only problem now is I’ve got so much energy, I’m searching for more stuff to do! 😆 (Like I don’t already have my plate full… hahaha!)

My Spraground friends Dawn and Lisa have also submitted their application kits so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed… I think it’s totally awesome that we’re taking this adventure together!

Rockin Spraground Playground!

We had awesome results flowing in for our Spraground Weekly Challenge this week (remember the template?) I love every single thing that these wonderful playground-friends of mine have created… there’s an amazing amount of creative talent on our playground, and that makes me awfully proud of our sweeties! (Oh and our sweetball… we have one really fun guy playing with us now too! 😉 )

Here was my take on the template challenge. I wanted to keep it simple and straightforward… and here’s what came out of that:

Journaling:

countless and immeasurable: the grains of sand that you cup in the palms of your little hands… infinite ~ everlasting ~ just like my love for you.

CREDITS:

Kim Christensen’s Cardstock Alpha black paper. Gemstones and Template by me!

And yes, there is!

A freebie, I mean! Right over here!

Another template… because I promised my friend Di, who’s on a CT, that I’d create a template for her to make her job of creating loads of layouts easier. 😀 The advantage is… we all get to use the template as well! hahaha!

So here’s what I came up with:

I know it’s a very very simple template, but then I think that’s when one can draw the most varied uses out of it… when it’s simple and adaptable to one’s needs. You can resize this, you can flip it, you can remove some of the masks if you wish… the sky’s the limit when you play with templates, right?

This is a psd file, so that means that you can use clipping masks to get your papers or photos onto your layout with a simple CTRL-G for PSE users and a simple mouse-hover-between-layers+ALT-CLICK for CS. The masks come with built-in drop shadows, but you can always clear the layer style if it doesn’t suit your needs.

You can download the multiphoto template no. 2 HERE.

Whoa! Gotta go. Dinnertime! I really just wanted to post a freebie up for you… hope you find some use for it, and thank you in advance for the love you leave on my blog!

(((((((((hugs))))))))) to you, my sweeties, and I’ll see you again soon, okay? 😉

PS. Some of my playground friends asked for the gemstones that I used on my template challenge layout… they may be coming soon! 😉

Spraground Fun!

Monday, 25 February 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 22 Comments

Before anything else, I’d like to give the most HUMONGOUS hugs to all my friends who’ve left love and prayer wishes for my son here on my blog and on our playground… I wish I could put into words how infinitely grateful I am for the time you took to send a little note to heaven for my little one. He’s still doing the meds and the nebulization rounds, but as of yesterday his coughing fits have significantly lessened and I attribute the improvement TOTALLY to all the prayers of my dearest friends — that’s right, YOU — all over the world.

Hand on my heart: I love you all. Thank you soooo much.

(These words don’t come an iota close to expressing the extreme gratitude and affection I have in my heart for you… but it’s all I have now, unless I can clone my body and come to you one by one to give you the greatest, warmest hugs).

Please continue to keep him in mind till he gets over this health hump. Thank you again!

And now… for the fun part:

Next week our Weekly Spraground Challenges begin officially… in the meantime, we’ve been continuing the excitement and fun of playing on our playground! For this week, we will have a template challenge (read all about it on our Spraground!).

Here’s what the template that we’ll be playing with looks like:

Download the template here. (Thanks for joining the game, and thanks for the love you leave!)

Been quite busy…

taking care of a million and one things. Not really different from the rest of my friends on the playground, who seem to be quite swamped with the demands of real life as well (funny how 2008 really just shot off like a race car wanting to set a huge lead ahead of the rest, huh?)

So I won’t stay long today… have yet to continue work on my LDD application kit (yesterday I played around and came up with around 20 papers and I was happy with… ONE. 😆 So I really need to play some more. Isn’t it funny how self-imposed pressure can make everything seem not good enough? 😆 )

Also need to care for my little sick duckie. So I’ll catch you around again soon, okay?

(((hugs)))

Of Heads and Hair

Sunday, 24 February 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 15 Comments

I’ve got a splitting headache. I think it might be because I spent the entire day yesterday sorting and fixing my paper file notes (in a sorry attempt to put off working on my LDD application kit, hehe)… and now I know I have no more excuse to procrastinate. 😆

Or it may be because these past two days I’ve been quite worried about my five-year-old son who has a terrible cough (I’ve taken him to the doctor who says that he’s most probably got a really bad viral infection, possibly a relapse from his cold virus that he had a week and a half ago). I really think it’s the shift between warm weather and rain these days. So he’s on antibiotics again, a whole bunch of medications, nebulizing around the clock, and antitussive lozenges thrown in for good measure when the coughing fits get really bad. Each time he coughs, I get really stressed with all the worrying that floods through every cell of my being. Makes me totally want to reach into his throat, pull out the cough germ, and stick it into mine; just so that he wouldn’t have to cough anymore. The other day, after a particularly drawn-out coughing fit, he said “Somebody please take me to heaven!” I think my heart dropped on the floor and broke into a million little pieces. My poor boy. So please, take a minute and say a prayer for him please? That he gets well real soon? Thanks, honeys.

So… yesterday I was looking at myself in the mirror and I saw FIVE strands of white hair staring back at me. Mind you, I didn’t even run my fingers through my hair to search for more. I’d seen enough. Adding to the possible headache culprits: I saw in the mirror not just the five offending white strands of hair, but even worse, looking back at me was a really groovy-looking girl with hair that was threatening to turn into a real 80s mullet. Ugh, ugh, ugh!

So I called my hairdresser and made an impassioned plea for a haircut appointment.

I’m happy to report that after 3 hours spent at my hairdresser this morning, I now look human again. Almost. 😆

Perfect Moment Take Two

So… given that my headache is threatening to take over my entire body, this post won’t be lengthy. I just wanted to share with you this long overdue Part 2 of the Perfect Moment Plopper Parts that I promised I’d give you a few days back.

{ Click on image for larger view }

What you’re getting today is a grungy textured background paper, a .psd file of the trame with stapled tag (there are just 2 layers in the file: the frame and the photo mask), and a grungy lined journal tag with distressed edges. I decided to give the frame as a .psd file so that it would be easy for you to put the photo behind the frame. Just target the photo mask in your layers palette, pull in your photo (it should come up under the frame layer in your palette), and then do a CTRL-G if you’re using Photoshop Elements, or for any version of PSE or Photoshop CS, hover your mouse on the line that divides the photo and the mask, hold down ALT and when your cursor turns into a snowman-looking icon, click. Voila!

You can download the Perfect Moment Plopper Parts Set 2 here. Thank you to mexikids of stock.xchng for the stock photo of the adorable baby I used for this preview. Thank you’s for the CU-OK items I used can also be found in my TOU! I hope you can find some use for these plopper parts, and thank you in advance for the love you leave in my blog!

Orton Effect

Over at our Spraground playground, my girlfriends and I have been keeping ourselves busy by indulging in weekly challenges (Our official Spraground weekly challenges will begin in March, barely a week from now! WOOHOO!!! If you have ever lurked over at our playground, now is the time to come out and play! 😉 )

This week, we played with the Orton Effect which we took from our playground-mate kimi’s blog (Thank you, kimi!). The Orton Effect was first used by Michael Orton, and it’s a technique of sandwiching two images where one is in focus and the other is out of focus. Originally this was done with actual slide film, where the original (sharp) image was overexposed by two camera stops, and the second (out of focus) image was overexposed by one camera stop. What results from this technique is a wonderful glowing photo. With the amazing Photoshop, we can now do the same thing right on our computers!

I had a pretty difficult time with this challenge, not because the technique is hard to do: on the contrary, it’s unbelievably easy. The difficult part for me was finding the perfect photo to do the technique on (because I found that it fits some photos much better than others… ). Here’s what I finally ended up with:

{ Click on image for larger view }

CREDITS:

Jesse Edwards’ FallingAllOver paper (recolored) and Michelle Coleman’s GrungyBoy paper & Grungy Edges Overlay; Mindy Terasawa’s Little Explorer Notepaper (altered); Graphics-Illustrations brushes FONTS: Susie’s Hand (background text); RomanSerif

This is a photo I snapped around a month ago while we were on an out-of-town trip. Dh and I were sitting outside on the verandah of our unit when I looked out into the sea of green trees and saw this tree. I immediately thought of Shel Silverstein’s book The Giving Tree… except what popped in my mind was the opposite: The Ungiving Tree. 🙂

Did I ever share…

with you what I excitedly gathered (like one gleefully picks wildflowers in a huge field of flowers) from Annie Manning’s store? Remember the Oscraps Designer Spotlight Challenge that I joined and uhm, had the great luck of winning? Well, here’s what my prize was! (A coupon which allowed me to choose anything from the fabulous designwork of Annie Manning aka Paint the Moon)! (Oh and did I already say how fabulous Annie is as a person? Totally sweet and adorable! The icing on the cake of my winning this challenge is getting to know her as a friend! Wonderful!!!)

{ Click on images for larger views }

This is Annie’s Charmes d’Antan Mega Kit:

Her Chloe’s Treasures Kit:

One of her Funky Flowers sets:

Her Smooth as Silk Ribbons In a Knot:

Her Really Random Ribbons:

and her Vintage Frames and Corners:

If I could buy her whole store, I would’ve (except I wanted to leave some for another shopping trip! Gotta space these things out, ya know? 😉 ) In fact, she has a new kit that I am sooooo lusting after: it’s called Boxed In Set One, and if I really want to push back what I need to be working on right now, I think I might just hop on over there and snag it! 😆 I am so hooked on Annie’s stuff (all that wonderful, delicious texture!) that I can’t stop wanting to make layouts with them! Go check her out at the Oscraps shoppe (link is also under Shop Till I Drop over there on the right side >>>)

Time’s Up!

Well, okay, I know, I’ve dilly-dallied too long. There’s just no more delaying what I really should be doing now; I really must get my mouse pointed in the direction of my design work! 😆

Speaking of my mouse (what’s the plural of a computer mouse: computer mouses? computer mice? And while we’re on that topic, if the plural of mouse is mice, why isn’t the plural of house, hice? Or spouse, spice? Hmmmm. Wait a minute. That could work too. 😆 )

Anyway, speaking of my mouse, mine is driving me crazy! It’s so sticky! Every now and then, I have to keep lifting it from the mousepad for it to move; otherwise the cursor just sits there, unmoving, daring me to shove it into place. What could be the reason for this, would you know? Is it time to replace my dear old mousie? (I love the scroll button, waaaaah!!)

Well then. Enough of my delaying tactics. I really must be off to work. 😆 Thanks for passing by, and do come around again soon! (Sssshhh… I’m working on an alpha freebie for you which I hope to finish soon! 😉 )

(((((hugs))))) , my sweeties!

Doobie Doobie Doodle

Tuesday, 19 February 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 11 Comments

I’ve been busy… doodling. 😆

For some reason I’ve been hooked for the past few days on doodling… of course, this is my way of further procrastinating on getting my application kit for the LDD program completed (uh… actually, not completed… started is what I should say. I haven’t done a single thing and the deadline is 10 days away. hahaha!)

Not that doodling has been the only thing that’s been keeping me busy… there’s so much more under wraps, stuff to attend to, real life to live, layouts to complete, yadda yadda yadda…

So instead of me boring you with all that, let me give you the freebie for today! ( I realize I made a resolution to give out at least one freebie a week, and I know last week kind of passed me by without my accomplishing that goal… so here’s the second freebie for this week to make up for that missing one 🙂 ).

These are the parts of the Perfect Moment Plopper Kit… I figured you might want to use the individual elements on other layouts, so why not throw it all into a folder and give it to you with a huge ribbon and an even bigger hug? 😉

Here’s what you’ll be downloading today:

{ Click on image for larger view }

The glitter border is actually 12×12, but I resized it for the preview so you could get a fuller view of the paper without the border blocking it. Also in this set you’ll find the pinned bow with heart charm and the torn paper mat… none of these have drop shadows so that you can apply the layer styles according to your wishes.

You can download the Perfect Moment Plopper Parts – Set1 here.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the second and last set of the Perfect Moment mini kit: more of the items I used plus a surprise item included. 😉

Hope you can find some use for this, and thank you in advance for the love you leave right here on my blog! 😀

Have a happy day, my sweeties! (And it’s back to the drawing board for me!) (((((hugs))))

Oh, WOW!!!

Tuesday, 19 February 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 18 Comments

I’ve been waiting for February to roll around because I’ve been waiting for this particular magazine to come out…

If you’re wondering why, and if you’ll allow me to shamelessly toot just this once 😉 … here’s why: because it has the very first magazine article that I’ve written on it! 😀

Remember my friends Jun and Abby de Leon? Well, in all the decades that Jun has been top photographer in the country, this is the first time (to my knowledge) that he has ever agreed to come out in a feature article in a mag… and he had some requirements, hehe. One of those requirements, to my huge surprise, was that I write his article for him. 🙂 (He didn’t tell me… I only found out when the mag people called me to ask me to write the article… 😀 Have I said that I truly like this guy? :D)

So… here it is (another one on my “Things To Do in My Lifetime” List checked!):

Here are the pages, one by one, for my dear friend Noel who requested to be able to read it. 🙂

(PS. If you click on each image, you can get the enlarged view. If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, hold down the control key as you scroll and you’ll get an even larger view 😉 …. oh, and I blocked out my last name… hope you don’t mind)

I joined Jun and Abby during their pictorial which was held early December (you can imagine how long I’ve been waiting for this to come out! :D). Seeing the lights and the perfect set-up just sitting there, waiting for the taking, I couldn’t resist and shamelessly snapped a few of my own photos while I was at the studio. Here’s one of the photos that I took, spruced up on a layout which I gave this lovely couple for Christmas:

CREDITS:

Michelle Coleman – WinterFrost Paper; Jason Gaylor – Japanese Foliage brushes; Fonts: BeoSans & Jane Austen / Photo by LivE

What Makes My Heart Smile

Speaking of layouts and artwork… I love love letters, don’t you? I especially love them when they’re accompanied by scribbles that are hardly legible… 😆

My 5-year-old son J is at that stage when he goes through paper with as much mercy as a shredding machine… but I don’t mind his using up all our paper when what he comes up with totally makes my heart burst with tender affection:

He’s into mixed media, haha! He received a bunch of Pooh stickers in his goody bag from Family Day which we celebrated at his school yesterday. He combined those stickers with his crayonwork and dotted all the pages (there were more than 6, but I didn’t add them all here, considering that just one of this would put a smile on my face that could reach all around the world and back). Each of the papers had “I luv mama” or “I luv papa” … awwww!!! Gotta love kids!

I scanned them for prosperity… and so that one day, when he’s a teenager, I can bring these out and tell him, “See? You loved us once!” 😆

Dilly-Dallying…

is what I’m doing…

Little Dreamer Designs has come up with an apprenticeship program, which is something that I’m sure has long been awaited by many who have wanted to get into the design world. A few of us from the Spraground ( you read that right: our playground has been christened Spraground (couldn’t resist the play with words!), with permission from Jes and Jared too! 😀 ) have decided to try our luck… I know I’m going to be up against a ton of great and seasoned designers, but no guts, no glory! (Hear me pushing myself? Trying to convince myself? 😆 ) Actually: it’s as simple as this–I promised myself at the start of the year that I would get into lots of adventures, so here I am, merely fulfilling my resolutions! hehehe.

So I’ve been doodling and drawing and brainstorming and imagining and doing everything else that it takes to come up with the required mini kit for application–everything but the actual doing. Uhmmm… so far, I’ve come up with nothing. Lots in my mind and nothing on my compy. 😆 Except for something for you, which I couldn’t help making…

Here’s the layout I made with it:

Here’s what I came up with while playing for the past week: 2 papers, some embellishments, and this plopper. Initially I planned on making a template for all you sweeties… that template developed into a plopper… and then, while I was making the plopper, I thought to myself… why not give all the individual elements that I used to come up with this plopper as well? 😉

So today you get the plopper, and tomorrow I’ll upload other parts of this mini kit…

I hope you like today’s freeb, and that you can find some use for it! Here’s the preview of the plopper (I used a stock photo on it). Credits for CU items I used can be found, as usual, in the TOU!

{Click on image for larger view}

This plopper comes as a .psd file… I’ve included a clipping mask to make it really easy to use. All you have to do is insert your photo layer between the plopper and the mask, hover your mouse on the line that divides your photo and the photo mask till you see the little snowman-like icon, and Alt-Click to clip the photo to the mask. You can add journaling or a title or you can leave it as it is… all up to you! 😉

Download the Perfect Moment plopper here. Thank you in advance for the love you leave on my blog! 😉

Well, I’ve got to get back to the other things that are swirling around in my mind (lots to think of and plan for)… so hope to see you around again tomorrow for the rest of the Perfect Moment mini kit!

May today be filled with perfect moments for you, my sweeties! (((hugs)))