Remember the more-than-140-merged-layers layout I posted a while back, the one I had absolute fun working on, and was totally absorbed in for close to 24 hours? It was an adventure in thinking outside the box for me, and I really, really had the time of my life with it (felt very close to oil painting, which I haven’t done in more than a year… except with this layout, there were no brushes to clean after, no lingering smell of linseed oil or turpentine, no mess to clean up… perfect! Or… maybe it’s safe to say, I’m just hopelessly, digitally addicted. 😆 )

Anyway, did I say that that layout was the answer to a designer spotlight challenge featuring the Nature Glow kit of Annie Manning (aka Paint the Moon) at Oscraps?

The funny thing is, the only 2 challenges I have ever joined are ones that my girlfriends over at jessicasprague.com mention on the threads and rally about joining. I always welcome a chance to play with my friends; it’s like someone says “Come, let’s go on a trip to Disneyland and ride the scariest rides!” Who could resist grabbing the chance to have fun with friends, right? And Lisa–who normally handles our PSF challenges every Friday (except now she’s on multiple creative teams so the rest of us have taken over coming up with challenges… but I digress)–had included the Oscraps challenge as her PSF challenge for the week.

So anyway, I was checking the threads a week after to see who had won (always nice to know, so we can leave some love and congratulatory whoops), but there was no word on the discussion threads. After a while, I got totally caught up with the NWR course moderation, the LOAD challenges, and the 2peas photography course–not to mention real life (ha!)–that I stopped checking.

My friend Veevs would ask me periodically, “So who won?” Then I would remember to check, and I would tell her “no mention on the threads yet.” Finally, she got tired of waiting and told me she would email them to find out. Okay, so originally she pushed me to email them, but I am a shy guy (really! I am!  >heehee<  ), so my dear friend, total go-getter, sent an email.

This morning, as is my usual routine, I opened my inbox, and first thing I see is Veevs’ email to me telling me OMG OMG OMG YOU WON!!!!

I almost fell off my chair!

So I went to the link she had in her email, and realized that there was a private message for me waiting in my inbox at Oscraps from Annie herself (a totally sweet email!!!), and okay, here is where I confess to my duhhhh-ness that I never did think of checking in there. ( I was totally not expecting to win. There were MANY great great layouts submitted for the challenge on the Oscraps gallery, and among my favorites were those made by my girlfriends over at the playground!  Have I mentioned that I never dare to think I could win in any challenge that I join? Well, this was no exception.)

But, dang, it feels good. Yeah, it does. 😀 😀 😀

And you know what’s even better? Knowing that all my friends over at our playground were so happy for me. Now THAT really matters big-time to me. I love my JS family, I really do!

A brief aside: I remember when I was 9 years old, I told my dad I wanted to join a drawing challenge for Sanrio (the Japanese company that makes Hello Kitty, Little Twinstars–which was my personal favorite back then, Melody, and those other cutesy totally-Japanese characters). What we had to do was imagine what kind of birthday party the Little Twinstars would have, draw it, and submit the drawing. The winner would receive a personalized certificate with a handwritten note from the Twinstars’ designer (big thing then), as well as a full year’s subscription to the English version of the Sanrio newsletter/magazine and some other stuff that I can’t remember.

My dad was iffy about my joining, and told me, “Fine, if you really want to join, go ahead. But please do not expect to win, because there are many joining that contest, and if you set up yourself wanting to win, and you lose, you just might be really disappointed.” I found that funny because even then, I never considered the possibility that I would win. I just wanted to draw! 😆

Long story made short: I did join. I submitted my drawing, which had a swimming pool (something I had always wanted to have in my backyard as a kid, but which we of course didn’t have) and everything else around it. Then I promptly forgot about it.

There was a party where we could buy Sanrio stuff while waiting for the announcement of the winners (great marketing ploy! haha!), and here’s the totally unexpected addition to my take-home goodie bag from the party!

And if you want to a general idea of the birthday pool (totally pixelly, hahaha!) here it is:

I have no idea why I won. Till now. Maybe the passion that went into doing it pulled all the good vibes? 😆

Who knows, but I loooved getting the Strawberry Magazine in the mail with its Japanese postmark every month! 😛 Just as I loved getting the surprise email from Veevs and Annie this morning!

Funny Nights

My five year old son, J, is the funniest thing on earth. He cracks me up about 24 times each day. Maybe it’s because he talks a lot, and he verbalizes whatever’s on his mind; you know what they say: “kids say the darndest things”.

Well, yesterday evening, while we were chatting, he told me,

“Mom, you know, I really like my friends. We pretend we’re Zoids or Power Rangers.” (pause) “We play rough games, and it’s lots of fun!”

Me: “That sounds like fun, alright!”

He: (another pause) “We don’t play with girls. They don’t like playing rough games.” (and this, in a sing-songy voice): “All they want to do is study and study and study… and play with dolls. Ugh!”

😆

Got me thinking: amazing how the difference between boys and girls is apparent even at such an early age?

And there’s more:

He: “But you know, my friend M (a girl classmate of his), she’s coooooool.”

Me: “Yeah? Why is that?”

He: “Cos she likes pretending she’s a Power Ranger too! She can play our games! She joins us!”

Aha. A typical boy’s buddy, she. Yup, those girls are precious. And in my limited experience, sometimes it’s precisely that total lack of self-consciousness and ability to relate with boys’ interests that gets them these girls the best boys. 😛

And yet another precious nugget:

Tonight, J tells me he wants to be a policeman when he grows up, “so I can fight the bad guys.”

He then launches into a whole description of what a bad guy is:

“He steals apples, Mom!!! Steals them! And he fools people! He says ‘Hey, paint this wall and I’ll give you candy.’ So the guy paints the wall, but after, the bad guy doesn’t ever give him the candy he promised. He lies! He lies, Mom!!!” (This description comes complete with wide-open eyes and look of disbelief and shock on his face).

Then he says “I’m going to need partners. Do you know who my partners are going to be?” and of course he gives the names of his two best buddies. He then goes into many details about how they’re going to punch and apply ninja moves on the bad guy (insert kapow, baboom, ching, and all other sound effects you can think of in place of the verbs… sample: “I’m going to kapow him, and then R’s going to kaching him…”)

He pauses long enough for me to say, “But honey, can you please consider another job, perhaps a safer one, where I don’t have to worry whether someone will hurt you while you’re fighting them?”

To which he replies, “Oh no, Mom, don’t worry, I’m not going to get hurt. My friends and I are gonna practice our moves.” (a thoughtful pause) “And we’re going to get M as a partner too!”

M is another girl classmate–not the “cool” one mentioned above–whom my son is less than fond of, because he says she’s a goody-goody. HAHAHA!!! So this girl classmate and my son are often at odds with each other; for some reason I can’t understand, they have a knack for getting on each other’s nerves.

So I am totally surprised when he tells me he’s getting her to join his posse.

I say, “Wow! How fun! You’re going to make M your partner too! Great!”

And he says without missing a beat, “Yeah, cos you know why? She’s really good at nagging! So she’s going to nag nag nag the bad guy and he’ll get defeated that way!”

😆 ROFLOL!!!

(Trivia time: nagging is taboo in our house. My sons are so used to hearing me say, “I only say it once, okay?” And I don’t normally result to throwing threats when things don’t get done, but when I do, my threat is always, “Do you want me to turn into a nagger?” A very effective threat, too! 😉 Ah, boys! )

Freebie, Long Delayed

Now one thing that HAS been nagging at me is my long-delayed freeb!!! I am soo soo sorry for the delay in uploading the promised “companion kit” to the Valentine card plopper I gave a few days ago…

I wanted to upload it sooner, but I also wanted to add a few more items that were not part of the card plopper. Unfortunately, I was not happy with how they were coming out. So I tweaked and tweaked and played and played, and finally I came up with something that I felt you might be happy with. So… I hope you are! 😀

Here’s Set 1 (of 2 sets) of the Bear Hug mini-kit:

{ Click on image for larger view }

Doing this freeb had me venturing outside my “design” box once more. Probably fitting, as Adventure was my word of the month for January… (which reminds me, have you decided on our Word of the Month for February??? I need to think about mine!). So this mini-kit is totally a result of playing around with my usual design styles. 😕 I hope you like it, but do tell me (gently now, softly, kindly) if you don’t like it, okay? 😆

What you’ll be downloading HERE is 3 textured papers, one that’s tame, another one that’s a bit on the wild side (done especially with Veevs in mind), and another one that has a grungy flower print on it. (Gratitude for the designers whose commercial use items I used in coming up with some of the items overflows in my TOU 🙂 ). There’s also the bear sticker (pretty large, about 8″–feel free to resize it according to your needs!), and a stitched wordart…

Just a few notes about the stitched wordart: on the card plopper, and in the download, you’ll find the quote is one straight line. In case you want to break it up into phrases (as seen on the preview), you can just cut and paste it as you wish (CTRL-X and CTRL-V), depending on how you intend to use it on your layout. Also, I don’t recommend that you apply drop shadows to it, because it already comes with its own drop-shadow and bevelling so that it mimics being sewn right onto your paper. Having said that, you are absolutely free to apply drop shadows if that’s what rocks your boat! 😀

Alright, I still have TONS of stuff to attend to (won’t bore you with the details, haha!) but I really wanted to put up this long-delayed freebie.

Thanks for the love you leave here, and have a very happy day/noon/night!!! Catch you later!