Get a LOAD of this again…

Friday, 4 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 22 Comments

where LOAD refers to LayOut A Day! 🙂

At Stacy Julian’s Big Picture Scrapbooking, Lain is holding a Get a LOAD of This!, a January Layout-A-Day Challenge class (did I mention that it’s free? 🙂 ) which basically entails creating and uploading a layout a day for each day in January. So you end up with 31 layouts at the end of the month: not a bad start on the Creation Road right on the first month of the new year, eh? Best of all, there are no borders, no restrictions: as long as you create a layout–digital, hybrid, or paper–and you upload it every single day, you’re eligible for daily prize draws (if you upload daily) and for the grand prize draw (if you upload the entire January without missing a single day).

I know, I know. I must be masochistic, adding to an already full plate that’s overflowing. But I figured it’s the best way to stay sane while waiting for Jess to come back from her super-fabulously restful trip back home (wonder if she’s not a bit wistful for her laid-back non-techie time when she thinks about jumping back into the digital frenzy once again, haha… after all, we on her playground are like hungry little fishes waiting for the next feeding).

It’s also a fantastic way to kick my old procrastinating butt into action. Love, love, love creating layouts, but frankly, sometimes I need a shove to get going. Are you all super efficient, super prolific creators, or are you like the lesser mortals (that would be the group where I belong 😉 )?

But see, here’s the problem. While I need that shove, it has to be a real gentle shove because I’m a bit of a rebel too. Push too hard and I’ll stand my ground stubbornly. (I know. I’m trying to correct it. Must be the youngest-child syndrome, which I was for 15 years till my not-so-little-now brother came along. We’re seven kids, by the way: so I was the sixth for a pretty long time. And when there are 5 older siblings to push you around, you kind of learn how to keep your feet firmly planted in the same spot. I was a bit of a late learner, so there’s some debris left in me. 😆 )

And this is where I should say I jumped for joy when I listened to the audio welcome of Lain’s challenge-class. There is absolutely no restriction for size of layout (you want to do 6×6, fine. You want to do 8×8, fine too. 12×12, 8½x11? Fine and fine too). There’s no prompt you have to follow (no: “okay, everyone, scrap using your favorite song as journaling!”), no specific materials you need to use, no grading or ranking (prizes are given as a result of random drawing, so you don’t need to nurse any budding insecurities about your creations 😆 ) … I loooove that! Not to say that prompts don’t help, because they are awesome in terms of pushing you down a path you otherwise would not have taken, but… it’s really a personal thing for me: no stress please on the first month of the year. 🙂 hehe

Psst. If you’re interested and you haven’t signed up yet, you have till January 15th to sign up! Come join the fun! 😉

So anyway. Just to prove how weird I could be, with all this freedom, when did I create my layout for Day 2? Two hours before the posting deadline. SIGH. Slow learner. Or maybe procrastination is just a bad habit that’s hard to break. But hey, at least I got my paper passed before the bell rang, huh? 😀

Here’s what I did for the second day of January:

(Oh and you know what else is so wonderful? Doing this layout also allowed me to finally do one of Jessica’s PSF challenges that we have going on in our little playground. Lisa (who does a fab job of thinking up the next PSF for all of us to learn with) will be so proud of me! 😀 )

Journaling reads:

i look at the two of you and see my childhood come rushing back–all those languid days spent in the wonderful company of books. i think it’s totally cool that my best friends have become your best friends too.

CREDITS:

Mindy Terasawa – Lil Troublemaker paper, cardboard border (recolored), sticker, wordsticker, notecircle, frame (altered) / Katie Pertiet – Vintage Text paper / Fonts: Jane Austen, Cheltenhm BT / Photo of books: singhajay (altered)

Check Out Those Shoes

of my son… those yellow shoes. Looooove them.

He chose them himself for his 12th birthday last month, and they totally rock. They’re what I call the Scrappin’ Shoes (okay, so their real name is Adicolor by Adidas–best of all they were 50% off!)… because they remind me so much of a layout!

See, they come in this super playful sunshine-y color, and they’re made of velcro material. They come with these super fun colorful insoles, three different pairs of shoelaces that you can change according to your mood, and there are about a dozen circular “patches” that you stick on the velcro in any way you want (hence my association with scrapping… it’s like having a layout on your feet that you can change everyday!). Really: how cool is that?

And you thought there would be no freeb… 😉

Here, finally, is the Shutters Page Plopper that I promised I’d share with you. 🙂

I think it’s totally awesome that Jason Gaylor left a note on my blog to resend him the email I wrote to him, asking him if he was fine with my releasing the plopper which I used his fab brushes on. I resent the email to him, but I am still waiting for a response… as soon as he gets back to me, assuming it’s a yes 😉 , then I’ll put up the original shutters plopper that I created using his brushes.

By the time I got Jason’s note, though, I had already done some new work on the shutters plopper using hawksmont’s brushes. He’s amazing too! (I just looooove how the whole creative community is so generous and so giving!) So for now, I’m releasing the plopper that I used hawkmont’s brushes on.

Here’s what the “new” plopper looks like:

{Click on image for larger view}

PS. Don’t laugh. That’s me in the photo. Waaaay back. Ssshhhh. Let’s pretend it’s a stock photo, okay? 😉

And here’s the link to the “new” plopper that I made using hawksmont’s brushes! Hope you like it just as much as the first one! It’s a .png file, so just put your photo on the layer beneath it, add some embellishment if you wish, and voila! 😉 A quickie! 😆

Oh and PS… guess what. Since this preview is basically a layout which I completed on January 3, it has also turned into my LOAD layout for Day 3! How cool is that? 😛

Have a great day, my sweeties! More stories and more freebies coming soon!

It’s Been a While…

Wednesday, 2 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 16 Comments

a pretty loooong while! I looked at the date of my last post here… December 20th… that was LAST YEAR, for crying out loud! 😆 Geez, I didn’t realize it’s actually been that long!

Guess holidays really can make things so hectic that everything else not related to food and partying and food … and did I say food?… seems to fall behind. 😛

But! I’ve missed you, my dear friends! And I’m back with a vengeance so strong, you’ll probably be hoping that I stayed away longer when you see the multiple posts a day come up! hahaha.

First, the good news:

I have heard from wonderful, wonderful Adam J. Lambert-Gorwyn aka stoneraven, whose photo I used to make the shutters plopper… and he has given me permission to go ahead and release the freebie I’ve created!!! WOOHOO!!!

I have not heard from jason gaylor, though, whose japanese foliage brushes I used also on the plopper, so I may have to re-do the plopper with other brushes before I can upload it as a freebie. It will be on for a limited number of downloads, though, so be sure to check back soon! 😉

My first layout for the year!

Something funny happened today. I visited my friend Noel’s blog and I saw her layout for Lain’s L.O.A.D. class at bigpicturescrapbooking.com, which begins January 1st. It’s January 2nd in my part of the world, and I was out of town and up in the mountains for the better part of post-Christmas till New Year (so you will, I hope, find it in your hearts to forgive me for slacking off on my blog these past 10 days or so)… so I had completely forgotten about this! The funny thing is, I had mentioned to Noel that I had signed up for the LOAD class in one of our fun, fun chats between Christmas and New Year… but I had completely forgotten about it till I saw her blog! So with just a couple of hours left till the PST clock matched my time in this part of the world, I was able to complete a layout! YEAH!

Thanks, Noel, my friend, for posting your layout on your blog and mentioning the LOAD class. I would have completely forgotten about it if not for you.

And here is my very first layout for the new year!

Boys in the Hoods

Journaling below reads:

so funny that my boys have inherited my love for hoodies, but when they’re this cool, who’s complainin’?

CREDITS:

FONTS: Stoned Wash 6; SubPear / Mindy Terasawa – Groovy Boy Papers (Recolored), WordSticker & Staple / Katie Pertiet – On the Edge Flourish, WordSeal / Kim Christensen – DirtyShirt Brad & Eyelet – recolored; Spelling101- Black Inked Overlay / Jen Caputo – PaperTear Template / Brushes: smoke brush by ca-pris; Dot-Round brushes by GoGetADesign

And now… for a few mountain photos!

Love trees… I may not love the lack of dsl speed connections in the mountains, but I certainly loooove the scent of pine trees, the cool blast of wind in the face, and the trees all around!

Here’s a macro shot of the pine trees… such wonderful texture (and such fun playing with my camera!)

Speaking of macro, here’s a bug on the glass door of our villa. Looks kinda like an alien to me… my kids had a blast looking through the camera viewfinder and seeing it UP CLOSE in a big way! (Grossed them out too! Ha! Beats actual holding and handling of the bug for me! 😉 )

Loved taking texture photos, like this wooden bench here.

The wind was blowing so hard, you could actually watch the clouds move across the sky faster than an airplane would.

Here is one of the cabins… to give you a feel of the place 😛

Here’s the spa and lodge, where we check in and check out.

And for my golfing friend Joan, here’s one for you! The view of the golf course–or, more accurately, part of it. (It was really foggy and windy that day, so this is the best I could do with the photos!) 😀

I took the view of the golf course with my lens fully extended to its 200mm length… amazing! I was on top of the mountain by the spa when I took this! Gotta love my beloved lens!!! (AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX… the VR is great for those windy days too!)

And that’s the end of today’s film show! 😆

PS. I used Jay Arraich’s matted frames for the photos. You can get them free at his site!

I’m off to do some work on the shutters freebie… and if I don’t run out of energy, I’ll do more freebs for you! Yep, I’ve suffered from my mountain-imposed freebie-creation-diet and can’t wait to get back into feasting on design… all because I want to share more stuff with you, my sweeties!

Have a happy day, and I’ll be back soon! 😉

Happy New Year, and humongous hugs to you, my sweeties!

Just couldn’t help myself…

Thursday, 20 December 2007Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 13 Comments

I just had to scrap.

Yes, my bedroom floor resembles a war zone with wrappers and gifts (not yet wrapped) crammed into every nook and cranny. Yes. my husband has to go through an entire obstacle course to get from one end of our room to the other. Yes, I have yet to check my holiday gift list and see whether it is 20 (or 30) more people I need to shop for. And yes, yes, yes: I do know that I have 2 days left till Christmas Eve, when the gifts that are still in their unwrapped state are supposed to be sitting under other people’s trees.

But! When the going gets tough, the tough go scrapping.

😆

So here’s what I came up with today. I was going through the forum in my playground at Jessica’s and, after reading this ongoing thread about how our famous mom-and-daughter team are playing tug-of-war over some great shutters that daughter bought and that mom wants to buy from her, with the rest of us jumping in on the playful fray, on a total whim (crazy I know), I was inspired to create a layout that involved shutters.

It took daughter (that would be my friend, Noel) some time to search for a photo of her and mom (that would be my friend, Jackie) together. Jackie, if you’re reading this, run over to Noel’s house and get some photos taken asap! 😛 It took countless tries (and a really long, really fun chat session) for Noel to get this photo scanned in and sent to me. She is so NICE. Right, Noel? 😉

So anyway, here’s what’s waiting for them in their inbox when they get up in the morning:

{ Click on image for larger view }

CREDITS:

photo by stoneraven at stock.xchnge (altered) ~ flower brushes by jason gaylor at designfruit ~ photoblast action used on jackie’s and noel’s photo ~ word art by me! 😛 ~ grungy overlays (used 4 in all) by me! 😛

And since the scanning of the photo took a long time to accomplish, here’s what I came up with while waiting: my own version. hehe.

You think this could pass for one of my Daily December pages (of which I have just ONE to my name?) 😆

I wanted to give out the page as a plopper freebie, but I still have to check with stoneraven and jason gaylor if they’ll agree to that. 😉 If they say yes, the plopper is so yours, my sweeties!

Okay, now I really must get back to the holiday to-do’s. I’ve played the entire day and I need to make up for that this entire night.

Catch you again soon, my sweeties! ((((hugs))))

Layout Fever (and fevers of the other sort)…

Wednesday, 12 December 2007Wednesday, 12 December 2007 / LivE / 5 Comments

Okay, I put off designing for a little bit so that I could indulge in my other love: digital scrapping! (It’s been so long since my last three four layouts, with 3 done in the span of 2 hours… a big first-timer for me, as it usually takes me AGES to make one layout. hehe. But I can’t mention any of those 4 layouts because they have to do with a certain surprise that we’ve planned for a certain ultra-special someone and while that surprise hasn’t been sprung, my lips are sealed. :D… My friends from my regular playground know what I’m talking about, and I promise you, as soon as the surprise has been revealed, will let you know all about it as well! 😉 )

Daily December

This is a wonderful project that I have been wanting to sink my teeth into, so to speak, as soon as Jess gave it to us in our last NWR course. The idea is to do a layout each day in December (hence the “daily”) so that at the end of the month, you will have scrapped an entire album’s worth of this most special month in the year!

Funny that I get to do December 1 on December 11th (exactly 10 days after the day I should’ve done it)… but the daily photos somehow got stuck in my camera’s memory card with pure intentions to scrap them when the time was right. I decided I’d better start on them or the intentions might remain intentions by December 1st next year. hehe.

So here’s the first, and I hope there’ll be more to come:

CREDITS:

Daily December Everything by Jessica Sprague (with recoloring done) PLUS

Black Friday Kit papers of Amy Cheeseman & Kari Hentzelt
Katie Pertiet’s Ledger Grid Brush
Michelle Coleman’s XmasStar & Swirl Topper
Anna Aspnes’ Red Mat, Swirl
Retrodiva/TracyCollins-TistheSeason Ribbon (recolored)

Cameran was happy too!

Last night I spent 6 hours at Sara Black’s studio for a photo shoot of my dear Jun de Leon and his wife Abby and their son Ijah. I was there to do the interview for an article that will appear in one of the major magazines next year (by special request of Jun that I write the article, a request that totally touched me and gave me the warmest fuzzies). Of course Cameran came with me, as she always does (Cameran is my best friend, otherwise known as my Nikon D40x ;P ), and since the lighting was right and the studio was there and the subjects were wonderful, of course I could not resist taking a few shots myself. It was quite trying, though, because I didn’t want to interfere or get into the way of the real photo shoot (after all, I was supposed to be there armed with my pen and notebook, not a lens, heehee), so that meant that I couldn’t use my bounce flash, or any flash at all. That was pretty much of a challenge, as this was like 9PM (try shooting at that time with available light… oh, and have I said that in my part of the world, midnight light comes at 6pm at this time of the year? I always hear America’s Ventura Highway playing in the back of my mind: “when the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine…” except in reverse… 😆 )

Buuuut. I think I got a few great ones, which I hope to turn into some sort of Christmas gift layout for them, along with other shots I’ve taken at other times. Hold on tight… when I’ve completed that (if I ever do), I’ll be sure to let you know! Now why would you be interested in that? Because, my sweeties, if I end up making a calendar-gift, I’ll share the template with you if you want it! 😀

Here’s one of my favorite subjects, Ijah (so blessed with good looks and such a natural in front of any lens!)

Night Games

Fevers of the other sort

I knew it would just be a matter of time till I caught that nasty virus that seems to come with cold weather. My son J first had it; then my baby j got it as well… and so as of today, I have it too. Funny that I was just posting on Jessica’s blog, wishing her comfort and health because she has the illies, and now here it’s come to my home as well. Oh well. What’s cold weather without the sniffles, right? (just totally annoying though to be sneezing every 5 minutes or so, hahaha).

People making lists, buying special gifts…

Now that one is half me, half not me. This season, I think I’m going to be buying less and making more. 😀 Last Christmas, before Jess and her courses pulled me over to the Dark Side (and introduced me to the dearest, most lovable friends and playground-sisters I have ever had), my homemade Christmas gifts were social cards that I designed and printed and created gift packaging for. This year, I’m pretty excited to move beyond just cards (hehehe) and expand my horizons to include a crafted recipe box (per my eldest sister’s request) and framed layouts and maybe even calendars! (Time will reveal if these will ever come to fruition or not. But, in the wise words of Belva Davis: Never fear the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.

Let us so dream that I can make it.

😆

And part of making that so means I need to get off this porch swing and back to the salt mines! 😀

Have a happy day, my sweeties!

And if you drop by tomorrow, maybe I’ll be so happy that I just might have some freebs ready! 😉

Tonight’s the night!

Wednesday, 28 November 2007Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 11 Comments

It’s gonna be alright… Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now… Come on, everybody, sing along that Rod Stewart song along with me!!!

😆 How’s that for a flashback to the 70s huh? 😆

We’re finally launching the Big Project tonight. Here’s what the invite looks like:

Will post more stuff about it tomorrow. Just have to get through the launch tonight (and get through my closet as well: I have no idea what I’m going to wear, as I don’t own any dresses. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go in my usual jeans. hehe) Can you tell I’m just a teeny weeny bit stressed about this? (I hate publicity; I like hiding in the background; I’m shy. Seriously! 😆 ).

Here’s part of the layout I made about this project (made the bigger layout as part of our Now We’re Rockin’ course lesson):

{ Credits: Circle Template by Jessica Sprague }

Okay, enough about that and on to our much-delayed freebie!

Lullaby and Goodnight…

The reason I call this much-delayed is because it took me approximately 6 hours to upload this to my 4shared site, a lot of fiddling around, a lot of waiting, a lot of harumphing, deleting, re-zipping, re-testing, some more harumphing, until I was able to get this uploaded. 😆 Turns out it was some kink in my zipped file, I think. It did okay with the extraction and password when I tested it, but for some reason it would take forever to upload!

So, phew!, at least it’s working now and I have the link for it! Yippee! You have no idea of how much I’ve been itching to get this to you (so I hope you like it, or … that would’ve been five hours gone to waste. hahahaha!!!)

Here’s what Christmas Lullaby looks like (This is Set 1):

{ Click on image for larger view }

I call it Christmas Lullaby because the colors are softer and more muted, sort of reminds me of a peaceful, quiet Christmas. There are 3 highly textured papers in this set, along with 5 different textured brads. (Loads of Thank You’s for the materials I used are listed in my TOU credits!) There’s more coming… I’m very excited to post the next set for tomorrow (alpha tags! woohoo! with enough space for a bit of journaling on them! ), so don’t forget to pass by for that one as well! 😉

Download Set 1 of Christmas Lullaby. Zip password is quietpeace

ETA: Sorry, download link is no longer available.

Oh… and one more thing… since I’m really getting into the Christmas spirit, I think I’m going to come up with two more separate Christmas kits. Keep passing by for those too!

Well. I spent the whole day trying to upload this and now I have to ~groan~ start getting ready for the Big Project’s Big Event. Anyone want to go in my place and pretend they’re me? You’re most welcome!!! 😆

Have a great day, my sweeties, and thank you for the love you leave in my blog as you download! Hope you like this!

Perhaps they are not stars…

Monday, 30 July 2007Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 2 Comments

…but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

Wonderful how this Eskimo proverb can be so visually soothing to anyone who has lost someone dear.

Disclaimer: if you’re not into diving deep or exploring caves, you may decide at this point to do a quick hello-how-are-you-see-you-soon kind of visit and come back another day. 😀 Not that you should be very wary … just that the following post isn’t going to be all light and happy in a fluttery fun way. Though I’ll try to keep it that way. 😀 haha. As if I could resist that!

Surprise, surprise. This fun-loving, laugh-loving girl is in a bit of a melancholy mood today. This morning I woke up to a text message from a dear friend that her husband’s father had just passed away. A couple of days ago, I got a message asking for prayers for the father of my eldest son’s classmate; he had had a stroke and was in the ICU of a hospital. This father is also my husband’s high school classmate. Same age. After Mass last Sunday another former classmate approached us, having heard also about the fate of this poor man, and between jokes and making light of it (as is the culture among my kind of people 🙂 ), I could detect the undercurrent of just a tiny bit of uneasiness… it was the same kind of uneasiness one would probably feel as they open the obit and realize they actually know the people they’re reading about.

Then just about a week ago, my U&R girlfriends (at Jessica’s playground) and I had a “game” which involved each of us creating a layout with the theme Beautiful. I had wanted to push the limits of my creativity and come up with something outside the box, but no matter how many angles I viewed it from, when I thought of the word Beautiful, my mom just kept coming back to my mind. (I haven’t seen my mom since January 1977, when her first heart attack took her away from me and my 5 brothers and sisters… but then you probably already know that, if you’ve read the posts before this 🙂 ) And then there’s the fact that in about a week’s time, I’m about to add another year to my age, the same age at which my mom went Home. To her real Home. (It’s a bit funny how all of us, her children, are queasy about turning 39… and each birthday after that makes us feel so glad, as though we’re on borrowed time. Perhaps that’s one of the side-effects of losing a parent early?)

Anyway. Isn’t it amazing how sometimes the events that happen one after the other seem to conspire to stop you in your tracks and tell you: hey, you know what? You’re not going to live forever, you’d better make the most of the time you have, you’d better do all the good you can while you can. You’re mortal. It’s a wake-up call that, though not always so attractive at first, is necessary nevertheless. At least, that’s the way I want to see it. 🙂

I’ve been so lucky and blessed, because even if I lost my mom at such an early age (it’s never the right age, is it, even when you’re 80 and you lose your mom?), in the wonderful way that love allows, she continues to live on in my heart. And it’s funny because each time I’d “talk” with her, it would always give me such strength and comfort (and as I grew older, I was kind of thankful even that I had her in THAT way, that I never had had to go through the rebellious years when mothers and daughters pass through that stage where they may not get along so famously). If there’s only one regret I have, it’s that she wasn’t there to physically embrace my husband on the day I took his name. But she had the singular honor of getting my bouquet of flowers, which I lay on her grave right after the wedding reception, right before my husband and I took off on our honeymoon. (That’s right, no throwing of my bouquet… what can I say, I broke all traditions when I got married… I was quite a rebellious girl! haha!)

But you know what brushing up against Death has taught me? To value what I have, right here, right now. To tell the ones you love that they mean the world to you, right here, right now. When my mom passed away that morning, I insisted on kissing her goodbye (as was the usual practice) before walking to school, which was just around the corner. My other brothers and sisters, perhaps because they were older and more thoughtful, decided not to bother her as they knew she wasn’t feeling very well. Because I was the youngest (and insistent and probably headstrong in the way that well-meaning children are), I was the last and the only one of her children who got to kiss her warm cheek on that day (a memory I would treasure forever).

I sometimes think that what we learn from the painful events of our lives sticks more with us than the lessons we get from the joyous events (maybe because pain has the power to go deeper and hit where it hurts?) The one thing I carried with me from that day on was to TREASURE everyone and everything, because… well, we never really know, do we? So my husband teases me that I’ve turned our little family into a mini-Waltons family, as it’s very common to hear my boys and me say “I love you” so often everyday. (And that’s not the only Waltons thing, but you get the picture. You will recall that I have a testosterone-filled household, being the only lady there. So I suppose it’s not “normal” for boys to be professing love so easily… but that’s the way it is, and their wives or girlfriends will thank me for the training I gave their men one day. LOL! 😀 )

So anyway. This is probably much much more than anyone needed to know. Sorry. The news of anyone leaving this world always makes me stop and say a little prayer for the one on his way Home, and another in gratitude for all the blessings, for the life that is still within me and around me. It is always a gift. Always. A. Gift.

And just to complete the visualization roll begun by that Eskimo proverb at the start of this post, here’s my mom, for those who are interested to know a bit about her. (It’s the layout I did for our Beautiful class, and though it seems to stick out like a sore thumb to write the credits for the layout, I have to do that to respect the wonderful work of those who shared their creations and made it possible for me to create mine. 🙂 )

Credits:

Amanda Heimann (Unconditional Kit) – BG paper & brown ribbon / Atomic Cupcake (Heavenly Holiday)-Overlay; Chalked / Bob at designing-on-the-edge: stitches (x on buttons) RECOLORED / ameliescrap – buttons / Natali-zigzag stitches, RECOLORED / Rhonna Farrer, 2Peas in a Bucket -Memories wordart; ColorMyWorld frame RECOLORED / Ca-pris – Flower fantasy brushes / Design Fruit – Japanese Foliage brushes

And to really set the mood, here is the song that was playing on the airwaves when she left us. It was one of her favorite songs then. Can’t hear it without getting sent back to those days. Enjoy the walk down memory lane with me.