Music, Dance, and Whirled Peas

Tuesday, 21 April 2009Tuesday, 21 April 2009 / LivE / 4 Comments

Actually, I mean World Peace (thanks, Jes! 😆 )

Seriously, though. I honestly think it works. In the same way that two people in love can speak volumes without uttering a single word, people from all corners of the world can find connections with one another despite differences in skin color, eye shape, body mass, age, nationality, beliefs… if they–we–only pause long enough to hear the soft whisper of what ties us all together as one.

Fraternal love. It’s the universal language that needs no words to affirm its existence.

And happiness, that great emotion that moves us to swing our arms and shuffle our feet and sing out loud.

Enjoy:

* Thanks to my dear sister, who shared this vid with me. She’s a total expert at finding jewels on youtube. :D*

Magtanim ay di biro

Monday, 20 April 2009Monday, 20 April 2009 / LivE / 6 Comments

The English version of this Filipino song goes, “Planting rice is never fun…”

It’s a song that tells about the difficulties of the life of a farmer, how one has to bend over the entire day, with no time to sit and no time to stand. And then it goes on to summon the listener to join in, to keep the industrious spirit alive, to continue the hard work in the hopes of securing a brighter future. Wonderful how the song reflects the positive, hopeful mentality of the Filipino.

Somehow, though, the true heart and emotion of the statement, sadly, gets lost in translation (boy, did that movie get the whole concept right in that three-word phrase!)

So. I love taking shots of farmers at work in the fields. Because the Philippines is primarily an agricultural country (“despite plans to turn it into an industrialized economy by 2000” ), it’s pretty safe to say that farmers constitute a huge part of the images that come into my mind when I think nationalistic thoughts. Plus there is something so humbling about seeing these men and women working hard to give us the most basic of our needs.

I remember in my first year at the state university, I had a teacher named Judy Ick for English 2. I will never forget her, not just because she gave me my very first grade of 1.0 (though yeah, that added to her unforgettable quotient), but mainly because she was totally cool. Back in the early 80s when teachers wore proper 2-inches-below-the-knee skirts and tailored tops, Judy came to our classes in the mini-est of mini skirts and razor-cut hair, shorter on one side than the other, chewing gum, smoking a cigarette, and holding a can of Coke. She was the epitome of cool to the young teenagers that we were. And when the EDSA Revolution broke out, she held our classes underneath the trees in the university’s fields across Palma Hall. And best of all, she was smart.

So how does all that relate to farmers?

See, a group of friends and I–there must have been 6 or 7 of us–heady with the youngsters’ typical bloated sense of freedom that comes from knowing you have certain advantages in college that you didn’t have in high school, decided to make use of that wonderful freedom to absent ourselves from class via the “free cut” route. We stayed in the one sorry cafeteria then, called CASAA (what it stands for, I cannot recall anymore, although I always got a kick out of pronouncing the double-A ending because it sounded so much like the then-famous weatherman’s way of saying PAG-ASA. And this, I do remember, stands for Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, & Astronomical Services Administration. Phew, what a mouthful!).

So there we were, with our arms splayed out on the caf tables, chattering away and playing Pusoy Dos (poker, Philippine-style), when we really should’ve been in our English class. Just our luck… twenty minutes into class time, who came into CASAA looking to buy her regular can of Coke to go with the mint gum in her mouth?

I can still recall with 100% clarity how she looked standing there, staring at us, mouth agape. Wordlessly, she turned around, Coke can in hand, and marched off.

And we? We were as red-faced as overripe tomatoes, guilty beyond doubt. A flurry of debate followed:

– Should we tail her and attend class?

– No, what for? She already caught us cutting her class!

– But it’s worse to continue to sit here and play while we know that she knows we’re throwing her class away for a bunch of cards.

In the end we decided to follow her. In shame. And because we were a bunch of loonies, we bought brown paper bags for each of us, cut holes in them for our eyes, and wore them over our heads as we marched back to our classroom in a line. (And yes, the brown bags were meant to charm Judy Ick with a bit of humor. They worked. :D)

When we came in, she was giving a firm-sounding lecture to the entire class, and paused just a second before she said, “See? Here they are! These are the guilty ones I was telling you about!”

But because the brown paper bags worked their charm, she softened up and ended her reproach with these words of wisdom that I have carried with me throughout the years (and yes, I’ve told them to my sons over and over again).

She said:

You have to remember: when you study in this state university and you cut classes, you are not just wasting your parents’ money. You are wasting the money of Juan, Pedro, and Tomas, and all the other farmers who work long hours in the fields from morning till night, toiling under the heat of the sun, never stopping even when the rain pours down, just so that they can earn enough to send YOU to school while their own children sit in their homes, unable to attend school themselves.

(At that time, tuition in our university was largely subsidized by the government, and we had to pay a very very very small fee to add to it).

Oh yeah. It was the perfect guilt-trip laid on us. And it worked. I never cut another Judy Ick class again.

And I think I’ve loved farmers ever since.

*photo taken on the road during our trip to the mountains last week* more photos coming soon 😀 *

Adventures and Alchemy and All Awesome Things

Monday, 30 March 2009Monday, 30 March 2009 / LivE / 5 Comments

Have you ever felt the urge to try something new?

Have you ever suddenly stopped in the middle of Wednesday, or Tuesday, or Thursday (actually, any day will do since the routines pretty much repeat themselves) and said, Man, I really could do with a new, exciting thing today?

Have you ever opened your eyes in the morning, stretched out in bed, smiled, and said to yourself, Today is a good day for going on an adventure ?

Well, my dears, if you answered yes to at least one question, have I got great news for you! Today is the day you’ve been waiting for! March 30! Rev up your engines! Get ready for the ride of your life! And point your radar in the direction of the Spraground!

See, today Jessica launches her Scrapbook Alchemy courses! WOOOHOOO!

Turn lead into gold, turn your hoard of paper scrapping materials into wonderful masterpieces of recorded moments, turn your friend into your lab partner as you go on the adventure of your life with Scrapbook Alchemy! 😀

Are you a paper scrapbooker who sees all these new digital stuff coming up and thinks, “No thanks, I’ll stick to my paper. I can’t give up the feel of those soft fabric flowers, my sewing machine, my paper cutter, my Bind-It-All, my ceiling-high collection of cardstock and patterned paper? But hmmm… I don’t mind trying out something new to add to my hoard”? Jump on the Alchemy ship!

Are you a digital scrapbooker whose knees shake when you think of cutting up paper (“no! I can’t even draw, much less cut, in a straight line!”) and who gets dizzy at the mere thought of cleaning up after? Well, hey, sit down, have a drink of water, and join this little adventure that just might make your knees weak and your head dizzy but all with excitement! 😉

Are you a hybrid scrapbooker who loves combining digi and paper? Honey, get all comfortable, because you’re on for yet another fun adventure in your life!

See, the point is, this is an adventure for E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E., whatever your inclinations are! As long as you want to go on a new adventure and you’ve got the energy to play, you’ve got a place in our Scrapbook Alchemy boat!

As always, Jessica brings top-notch quality instruction (step-by-step, from start to finish, you get her LIVE right in your home… it’s like scrapping along with Jes right in your scraproom… or kitchen… or dining room… or wherever it is you like to do your creative stuff 😉 ). And the lessons? To-die for. Totally fun. Totally timeless… you’ll be using the techniques you learn forever and applying them to different kinds of projects and pages. And albums! Albums too! How marvelous is that?

Here’s even more awesome news!

You get Episode 1 at half price! That’s right, my friend! 50-off!

And just when you didn’t think it could get any better…

throughout the month of April, when you sign up for the course, you automatically get a free pass (via an access code) for a friend! You get a free seat for your friend so you can both hold each other’s hands as you ride through the adventure together! Lab partner and adventure-mate, so you can share the fun with another one!

There are four episodes (four different projects) that are offered right now, and you can read all about it here! (Come on, click on the link, you know you want to! 😉 ) Don’t forget to check out the vid right at the top of the page! I love it and I think you will too! 🙂

Trust me. The Alchemy courses? They’re to-die for. There are just no words to express how awesome a job Jes has done with these. I am a digi-girl deep down in my bones, but let me tell you, these courses make me want to jump up and pull out all my untouched paperscrapping hoard of supplies from under the bed! And not just that, now I want to run to the nearest Archivers store and go on a shopping spree for new paper stuff, except I know this time I won’t be hoarding but will actually be using them! Now that’s saying a lot from a girl who’s got her compy surgically attached to her body, huh? 😉

Am I swooning? Hyperventilating? Stuck to the roof of my room in a merry floating spell? You betcha. Because I am 110% sure… Click on the image and check out the Alchemy page… You’re gonna love this, yes, you will. 🙂

PS. And when you’ve signed up and started the class, do come back here and let me know if you loved The Loft as much as I did. And do. 😉

And speaking of adventure…

My eldest son (the one entering university next school year) came home one day last year and said to me, “Guess what, Mom? They’re making it into a movie!”

Then my dear sister sent me the link to the trailer, which I absolutely fell in love with, right from the drum beat at the beginning all the way to the waving at the end of the two-minute teaser.

She knew I’d love the trailer because she knows I love Maurice Sendak and have a collection of his books from way back in college, when I first discovered him. The book that the movie was based on was the very first book I ever had by Maurice Sendak. It was a book so precious to me that it was the main star of the countless bedtime stories I read to each of my sons through the years (and today the love for this book is not just mine alone but a love shared by my five boys … plus of course, we’ve got the stuffies, because really now, you’ve got to be able to play hide and seek under the blanket with Max and the monsters at night and hug them tight when you shut your eyes to sleep, right? ;))

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So. Feast your eyes on this. It’s amaaaazing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Do. Forever will. 🙂

Now, back to manual labor… I’m being evicted out of my room by the painting and carpentry crew, and if I don’t get out in two minutes, they will bodily lift me out (all eight of them). Heh.

Over and out and back soon! 😉

PS. In the amount of time it took me to write this and actually post it, youtube has already disabled embedding the vid… but no worries: click on the vid and it’ll lead to the vid on youtube itself. It’s worth the trip, trust me. 🙂

Project … 323?

Friday, 27 March 2009Friday, 27 March 2009 / LivE / 2 Comments

Okay, so I totally flaked off despite all my good intentions to stick to Project 365 or Project 52 or Project 12… and now it’s down to Project 323 for today (which is totally senseless, I know, except that it’s the date that this photo got taken). I got as far as 19 photos in January. Took more than that, for sure, and daily ones I dare think, but never got to save any as websized files since the 19th. Maybe I’ll go backward. Maybe I won’t. hahaha. Who cares? It’s all good! Don’t-stress-about-it is the name of the game! 😆

So here’s the one of March 23. Will have to find the time to post the first 19… and then the rest that came after.

Illuminate My Soul:

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PS. Adobo Putoshop was Photo #032409. Yay! Got two posted! heeheehee!

Over and out!

Love Jason Mraz

Friday, 27 March 2009Friday, 27 March 2009 / LivE / 4 Comments

What better way to begin the day than with this, I ask ya?

Hopping off the Roller Coaster

Friday, 27 March 2009Friday, 27 March 2009 / LivE / 7 Comments

This is pretty much what I looked like the entire month of March:

scaryride_sundstrom-sxc4

… and what a ride it’s been!

I have two sons graduating this month and embarking on new journeys: one is going on to university (can you believe it? Am I feeling the creak in my bones? Uhm… yeah. 😆 ) and one is going on to high school. Of course we are incredibly proud of them and we celebrate this additional feather on each son’s cap. Never mind if that means that there are a ton of only-in-March obligations to attend to (all school-related: baccalaureate masses, enrolment in the new schools, buying new outfits, getting the required medical and dental sheets filled up by the pedia and dentist, attending all these “no, they are not optional” parents’ meetings which are included in the acceptance requirements of the new schools… and wait, I’m not even half done, but let’s end it there before you doze off).

But hey, that’s not too much to attend to, right? So let’s throw in a number of family reunions (ah, now we’re talking really happy stuff!) My darling brother, two years older than me, whom I have not seen in almost 10 years, finally came home with his family for a couple of weeks, and because there’s just so little time before he has to fly back, naturally we’ve been trying to get together as often as we can. My aunt, whom I haven’t seen in just a little less than the time I haven’t seen my brother, also came home with my cousin, so it was just totally wonderful to get together with family this month. (The only thing I regret about my brother coming home is that I just know I’m going to miss him and his family soooo much when he flies back in a week’s time. >sniff<)

Since in my family I have the most kids, and most kids = most home space, it was decided by majority (we’re a democratic family 😉 ) that the reunion dinner be held in my home. I love having visitors over. I love having family over. I love having friends over. I love having company over. I love hosting dinners, impromptu or planned.

But wait. Did I mention that our home is currently undergoing *major* renovation?

😆

So. That’s why I’ve been absent for such a long time. I received your sweet, sweet emails and notes, my dearest friends, asking why I’ve been quiet… I am so grateful for the hugs you sent my way and so moved by your sweet concern, and I am so so sorry for having been unbelievably remiss in keeping up with my new year’s resolutions. (Yep, No. 5 – I will blog at least 3 times a week. I am so pathetically behind. Tsk tsk.)

Lots to catch up on.

Home on the Range

… or should I say Range in the Home?

Remember the photo of the undone kitchen some time back? Well, work on it is finally done. (Yay! Score 1 for the rooms in the home!)

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The kiddos’ room is also done. Score 2 for the rooms in the home!

stitchedroom

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Finally found another use for all those beloved (accumulated) figures. dsc_0095_shelf

Monsters, Inc., anyone? 😆
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None of the other rooms in the house are completely done yet, so this is all I’ve got on the homefront for now. 😛

This Week’s Funny

Preface: We walk around our home in bare feet because we’ve got wooden floors, and then there’s the fact that the kids (and I) will jump at any excuse to walk without shoes 😆

So a couple of days ago, I was feverishly working on my latest kit while my newly-7-year-old J and my soon-to-be-5 S were sitting on the floor of my bedroom a couple of feet away, playing with toys together with their nanny.

Suddenly, J half-screamed in shock and distress: “AAAACK! Mama! Yaya’s feet are bleeeeding!”

I turned around and said, “Whaaaaat?”

Yaya (their nanny) was totally calm, and with a very embarrassed look on her face, she whispered (loud enough for me to hear): “That’s nail polish. I polished my toes.”

Without missing a beat, S ran to me, anguish written all over his face: “Mama! She punished her toes!”

Hmmm.

This is probably the biggest disadvantage of having a mom who keeps her fingernails and toenails short and unpolished. My poor boys have absolutely no exposure to such feminine toys of vanity. hehehe. (Seriously though? I can’t grow my nails simply because I find they get into the way of everything I love doing: working on my compy, taking photos and changing lenses, holding my kids’ hands without fear of scratching them accidentally, giving my scalp a good massage as I shampoo my hair… ya know, those kinds of things. 😆 )

Humor and Cuisine, Filipino Style

Two things that are very basic Filipino food fare: adobo and puto (though not necessarily eaten together).

Wikipedia says this about adobo:

In Filipino cuisine, adobo refers to a common and very popular cooking process indigenous to the Philippines.

When Spanish colonizers first took administration over the Philippines in the late 1500s and early 1600s, they encountered an indigenous cooking process which involved stewing with vinegar, which they then referred to as “adobo,” which is the Spanish word for seasoning or marinade. Dishes prepared in this manner eventually came to be known by this name, with the original term for the dish now lost to history.

Thus, the adobo dish and cooking process in Filipino cuisine and the general description “adobo” in Spanish cuisine share similar characteristics, but in fact refer to different things with different cultural roots. While Philippine adobo can be considered adobo – a marinated dish – in the Spanish sense, the Philippine usage is much more specific.

Typically, pork or chicken, or a combination of both, is slowly cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns, and often browned in the oven or pan-fried afterward to get the desirable crisped edges. This dish originates from the northern region of the Philippines. It is commonly packed for Filipino mountaineers and travelers. Its relatively long shelf-life is due to one of its primary ingredients, vinegar, which inhibits the growth of bacteria.

The standard accompaniment to adobo is white rice.

Outside the home-cooked dish, the essence of adobo has been developed commercially and adapted to other foods. A number of successful local Philippine snack products usually mark their items “adobo-flavored.” This assortment includes, but is not limited to nuts, chips, noodle soups, and corn crackers.

This is what adobo looks like:

adobo

(image courtesy of rasamalaysia.com)

Then there’s puto.

Wikipedia says this about puto:

Puto is steamed rice cake popular in the Philippines. Rice, the main ingredient in this dish, is an important staple in the Philippines. It is typically eaten in most meals and has been known to be featured in all types of sweet and savory Filipino dishes. Puto is usually eaten as dessert, but can also be eaten for breakfast dipped into or paired with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate.

There are many variations to the recipe ranging from the type of rice used to the method in which the rice is prepared. In its traditional form, puto is of a plain white color. Adding certain common Filipino ingredients like ube and pandan (made from pandan leaves or Pandanus amaryllifolius ) slightly changes the flavor and completely changes the color of the finished product. Likewise, food coloring can be added to change the puto’s color but still keep its original flavor.

Most varieties often include the addition of coconut milk and this influences the flavor.

This is what puto looks like:

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(image courtesy of Wikipedia)

And here is the reason why we have this little lesson on Filipino cuisine. Because it’s the preface to this showcase of Filipino humor at its finest.

I was riding the car on my way to a dinner hosted for my brother-back-from-abroad and his family when I looked up and saw this little diner with the funniest name. And I had my camera with me, whoopee-doo! So of course I turned around the block just so I could come back to this little resto by the roadside and snap a photo of it.

Isn’t that such a hoooot? 😆

I am so inspired to travel around the city, heck even the entire country, searching for more of these hilarious signboards, showcases of the ever-amazing sense of humor of these people on my side of the world. 🙂

Okay. Time for bed. It’s 4.30am and I’m going to crawl through tomorrow if I don’t hit the sack right now. But it was just *awesome* sitting with you on this blog porch after such a long time! I have totally missed you and am so glad to be back!

More tomorrow, including a wonderful announcement about an upcoming course or two (wink, wink, wink!).

Have a happy day, my sweeties! (((hugs)))

Are you a typography geek?

Thursday, 26 February 2009Thursday, 26 February 2009 / LivE / 11 Comments

If you are, you’ll probably be totally tickled by this as I was:

I stumbled upon it as I was searching for our weekly Spraground challenge (this week we have a journaling/typography challenge). Have you joined us in our challenges yet? If you haven’t at all, or if you haven’t in a long time, do join us! Our challenges are open to all (so yes, that means you, you, and you!) and are a fabulous way of keeping our creative mojos in high gear and of building our skills through practice and fun!

Have you heard?

about the virus scare that’s going on around the net, especially among the digiscrapping community? I first heard about it from a newsletter of a designer in my inbox, which directed me to the thread on digishoptalk which discusses this. I have to confess, it’s scary, and if you share my extreme paranoia about your computer’s cleanliness and health, it can be downright terrifying. (For someone who runs virus scans on her compy multiple times on a daily basis, I am often teased by my sister as suffering from a bad case of virus-scanning obsessive-compulsive disorder. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that as soon as I read the 14th page of the thread on digishoptalk, I went and scanned my entire computer with two ultra-heavy-duty scanners… which took me roughly 12 hours to complete (don’t ask me how many files I keep 😆 I’m not telling!)… and yes, I was clean (yay, thank heavens!)

So why am I mentioning this here? Well, from all I’ve read, it seems that a lot of people think that the viruses are set free via the ads that appear on 4shared. ~Shudder~ So it seems the viruses aren’t coming from 4shared per se, but from the ads that pop up as you maneuver your way to 4shared links. This is really bad news for designers who wish to share their creations for free, and for all who love snagging freebies (me included! 😆 ), most of which come to us freebie-snaggers via 4shared.

And this is where we come to the reason why I mention this. I have spent the past few days looking into alternative sources of download links for the freebs that I share with you, my dearest friends. Although I am absolutely certain you are at no risk of downloading an infected item from me (I totally make sure of that with a passion that borders on obsession, haha!), I nevertheless wouldn’t want you to run the risk of meeting the virus through the ads that pop up on 4shared. Also, I think it’s kinda cool to be able to download right on the site without having to go elsewhere, right? 😉 (And kinda cool that you can now leave love in your comments here instead of having to leave them on 4shared, right? heehee 😀 )

So, with the awesome help of my dearest sis, this is now possible! Now you can download from right here, in peace! Woohoo, how awesome is that! Thank you to my dearest sis! So from now on till forever (or at least until the virus hullabaloo has been cleared and fixed), all the stuff that you can download will be available right here on my blog porch! Yay!

Alright, gotta get back to the saltmines now! Will be back soon! ((((hugs))))

ETA:

Okay, how sad is that? I swear, the link to the vid was working when I put it in, and now we get a message that it no longer works. 😦 sob!

So… to pick up ourselves after that let-down, here’s some great music (and some great storytelling, which we love to do, don’t we? hehe). Life goes on! 🙂

PS. I’m actually kinda glad the other one above didn’t work out cos this vid is just so much cooler! Calling all Chicago Spragbabes! We should so be part of that vid, shouldn’t we? ROFL! 😆 This is specially for you!

Greetings from the Chicken Coop!

Saturday, 21 February 2009 / LivE / 33 Comments

Wow! It’s been a looong time, hasn’t it? I’ve been missing you!

Forgive the absence and the total failure to live up to Resolution No. 5! Tsk tsk. But real life happens, right? So in real life, I’ve been running around pretty much like a headless chicken (refer to blog title 😀 ) attending to one million and one things all crying out my name at the same time.

Uhm. In retrospect, I think I’ve been much more of a duck (“calm on the surface but paddling like the dickens underneath”). There’s a funny part of me that hopes that being calm and collected on the outside will somehow seep into the inside by osmosis. hehe.

So. Lots of reasons why I hope you’ll forgive the long absence, but I won’t bore you with all the details. In a nutshell, this is what kept me away from my porch these past weeks:

dealing with medical emergencies ( one of which was major and took me out of the home for an entire week)
starting a crash course in Nutrition and Cooking Duty to answer the diet and lifestyle changes required by the medical emergencies (see above). Uhm. I have to confess: when God was distributing kitchen talents, I was way over on the opposite side, lined up in the Digital Addiction area 😆
working on the construction of a new annex to our home and remodelling of the existing one
helping the younger kids with their school work for this last stretch before summer (blissful summer!) comes
attending to the graduation needs of the two older ones (including graduation balls, graduation practices, and all those major class activities that seem to get scrunched up in the last few months of the school year)
writing my usual column for our community newsletter (and editing the whole thing too)
and…(I’ve saved the best part for last)…
working with Jes on our new shoppe. That’s right! We now have our very own little shoppe on the Spraground! Woohoo! 😀 (more on this below)

Extreme Makeover, Home Edition: The Kitchen

Did I mention that our home has been undergoing a major makeover since late December? We added an annex to our home (when you have five boys, you realize you need *lots* of space) and what that translates to is, basically, building a house all over again. Or at least it feels pretty much like it. Repainting, acquiring more furniture (luckily, we have access to a carpenter who can translate my designs into wood so we don’t really have to buy too many ready-made pieces of furniture), sorting through accumulated junk and trying to decide what goes and what stays (and having to deal with “No! We can’t throw that away!” from all corners of the home), ripping out flooring material and … you get the picture. 🙄

The good news is, with the additional space, dh and I get to have our own workroom. I’m still trying to decide which shelves and cabinets to move from our bedroom to the workroom over there (separation anxiety from my scrappin’ goodies, hehe). Funnily, the kids refuse to get their own bedrooms (which is one of the main reasons we added the annex); they prefer to sleep together in their own shared bedrooms. What this means is we get to have a guest bedroom (you’re all invited to come over for a sleepover! YAY!) and another bedroom turned into a playroom for the kiddos (which serves as a second guestroom if needed so come over and bring your entire fam!) 😆 . Oh! It also means I finally get my own veranda, which I’ve turned into our art nook! The kids’ art table is now there, and my oil paints and canvases and my easel and palette and paintbrushes and…

And then, there’s the kitchen. Which is being made over. Which, in this state, pretty much represents what the rest of the house looks like while it’s undergoing plastic surgery:

A bit of a side story: We had wooden floors here, which we ended up removing because we realized on Year 2 that wooden floors and kitchen spills don’t mix well. Now that we’re doing major work on the house, dh and I decided to replace the flooring with the more friendly Italian tiles. So he brought home 5 large square tiles for me and the kids to choose from: there was one amazing tile that had a wood pattern very much like our old kitchen’s wooden floor–very tempting, except that it had a slight pink-orange tint to it that disturbed me (heehee). There were 3 wonderful textured tiles of the warm-color family, the kind that make you think of Tuscany… and these seemed the perfect ones to choose from. But then there was this lone Zorro. The black italian textured tile. Very sleek. Very cool.

Hubby and I looked at each other and had the requisite “should we do black, knowing that dark colors make areas look smaller?” conversation. But then he said:

“Look at our black granite counters. And all that stainless steel…”

I thought of the black tiles. And the silver. And the black. And then the flashing marquee: Totally Sleek. Gorgeous. Yum.

So. Black it will be. 😉

And now, moving on from the kitchen, let’s go to…

The Little Shop on the Block

I love little towns. I love the concept of having everything within walking distance. I love the thought of walking on late afternoons and passing by the butcher, waving at the baker, nodding at the corner grocer, smiling at the florist… I love the completeness of small towns where you can get everything within walking distance and where every corner oozes with warmth and sense of family.

If the Spraground were a tangible place, this is exactly how I imagine it to be. There’s the hotdog man in his rolling stall with the children around him; there’s the flowershop with tulips and carnations and chrysanthemums in full bloom; there’s the playground right smack in the center where everyone gravitates, and … oooh! in the corner! Look at that! It’s a little new shoppe!

😀

If you’ve been around to my uber-amazing friend Jessica’s blog or to our wonderful Spraground homepage, you probably already know that we have our very own little shoppe on our Spraground! Woohoo! If you haven’t heard about it, come, run skip and jump right over HERE and consider yourself our very special guest!

Jes and I have been so excited working on sharing our creations with our uber-loved friends! For the record, I will state (again) how awesome a friend Jes is, and how grateful I am to her, and how awed I am by her uncanny ability to pluck a dream of mine from the sky, a dream I didn’t even know I had, and put it in my hands. What a girl. A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

And of course, nothing could come out from the most awesome digi goddess than the best stuff, right? Have you seen Jessica’s templates? They’re all to-die for! These templates are the most amazing, most wonderful things to work with because not only do we get to use Jessica’s stellar designs but… listen to this… her templates aren’t just templates, they’re Templates PLUS!

What this means is when you get Jessica’s templates, what you’re getting is really much much more than just a template. You get a lot of goodies as well that come with it. Goodies that you can use over and over again on different layouts! How awesome is that? So buying a template from Jes is like getting a template and a host of element packs as well, all with the mark of excellence of Jessica’s great design and creativity and genius! Does it get any better than that? 😉

Here’s a preview of one of her awesome single-page templates:

When you open up this template, you’ll see that you get not only the template design but every part that you see on the template, including the circle embellishment, the frame, and the torn paper effect! Now that’s a huge PLUS, right?

And here’s an example of one of her terrific double-page templates:

Yummy! Don’t you just love this?

Oh, and have I mentioned that Jes included a tutorial on her blog last week, together with a free template and video tutorial on how to use them? Her blog tutorial tells you how to take the items from the template and separate them into their own files so that you can find them easily and use them later on your layouts without having to go find them in your templates? Awesome, isn’t it?

Candice, photographer *and* creative woman extraordinaire, is also selling projects at the shoppe. Have you seen her Valentine Garland? It’s awesome!

And little old me… I create kits and all the other bits and pieces. 😆

Here’s the latest kit that I’ve got up in the shoppe:

My absolute favorite thing to make is papers… so I’ve got a coordinating paper pack that goes with the kit (papers in this pack are different from the ones that come with the kit):

And here’s the latest bit-and-piece I’ve uploaded:

One of the things I love about this country I live in is the fact that textures abound everywhere! I can step out of my front door and find literally hundreds of texture sources! (This, by the way, is how I justify to my DH the need to bring my camera with me everywhere I go. heehee 😆 )

And because you know I love ya…

Here’s a freebie for you!

This one is a complement of the textures pack that I have in the shoppe. What you’ll get here are three photo texture plates, ready to use because they’re sized at approximately 5.5 x 7.5 inches. All you need to do is pull the texture plate onto a layer above your photo and then play with its blending modes and opacity levels. Try duplicating the texture, combining different textures, applying different blending modes, etc etc etc. The thing about textures is that they’re great toys to play with, and there are absolutely no limits to the amount of playing you can do with them!

Here are some examples of the freebies at work:

(You can click on the images if you want a closer look)

CREDITS: photo by bjearwicke @ stock.xchng

CREDITS: photo by lusi @ stock.xchng

CREDITS: photo by jaquesi @ stock.xchng

Do you want to play with textures too? Here ya go!

Click on the image to download.

Thanks for the love you leave on my blog as you download… and if you haven’t paid a visit to our shop yet, do drop by and have a look around, and pass by the general forum as well and say hello!

Phew! That’s all for today, folks! More updates tomorrow! Gotta get back to the saltmines! 🙂

((((hugs)))) to you!

PS. Want free tuition to a really awesome photo-editing course?

Head on over to my dear friend Jessica’s blog and find out how you can win! 😉

Caving?

Sunday, 11 January 2009Sunday, 11 January 2009 / LivE / 18 Comments

Owing to some arm-twisting and bullying by my good friend Noel, it seems I have caved (for today, at least) to the peer pressure of participating in Project 365 (Quick, say that fast! ::peer pressure of participating in Project 365:: Now tell me, do your lips feel like they’ve just had a workout? 😆 ).

So for today, I’m playing catch-up and working backward on my photos that I’ve taken since the first of this year. (I knew there’d be a time when shooting in RAW would get me. It would’ve been so much easier if I just shot in jpg, but I just keep thinking, what a waste of pixels! … yeah, it must be photography pack-rat tendencies. >heehee< )

I’ve found a way to deal with the little nagging alter-ego imp sitting on my shoulder asking me “Yeah, sure, go ahead and do the Project 365, but can you sustain that for the entire year?” 🙄 Well, here’s what I’ve decided to do.

I’ve decided to commit to taking photos (as I really shoot practically everyday; I just don’t upload them into my compy everyday. hahaha! ). And… that’s about it! hahaha! I’ll shoot my photos as I usually do and not worry about whether I’m uploading daily or creating layouts immediately, as long as I shoot a photo everyday and upload them eventually. Now isn’t that much less threatening? (So take that, you little imp-on-my-shoulder! hahaha!)

Anyway… so here’s the first one for the first day of this year. I took it in that fab place we stayed in as we welcomed the new year. The teenagers and my sisters and brothers and DH were playing with sparklers and confetti bombs, and of course I just had to grab my monopod and shoot (Have I said that I am afraid of getting near any fireworks? tsk tsk. Pathetic=Me, right? 😛 )

I’ve always wanted to attempt to shoot a slow-shutter-speed fireworks photo, and what better time to have a first try at it than the first minute of the first day of the year, right? So, many thanks to my very cooperative subjects who obeyed without question when I called “Write 2009!”… here we go! 😆

(Bea, darling, this is for you! 😉 And for you too, Noel! heehee )

Photo #010109 – 12:01 on the First

(Click on image for larger view)

P.S.

I’d like to give everyone HUGE hugs for all the warm fuzzies you’ve left in my comments portion. Hearing from you really makes my day. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to me that you take the time to type in a few (or more!) words. Love ya, sweeties!

There are some questions that I received from some of you, and while I normally reply via individual email, I’ve seen in some blogs that the replies are written in the comments section too, so that others who may have the same questions can see the answers as well. Is this the right thing to do? What do you who blog do? 🙂

Anyway, for you, my dear friends, who asked me about stitching and the frame I used for my leaf-insect photo, I have the answers in the comments section here.

Now… gotta get back to the photos! (Will come back and edit this post to include the rest as soon as I’m done. )

(((hugs))) to you, my sweeties!

Resolutions, Resolutions

Tuesday, 6 January 2009 / LivE / 41 Comments

Have you made yours yet? 😀

I make daily resolutions (easier to do a check and balance that way, and there’s something very soothing when, if you find you’ve been unsuccessful with the day’s resolution, you know you have the option to say, “Well! Tomorrow’s another day!” a la Scarlett O’Hara 😉

Still there’s something quite auld-lang-syne-ish (okay, I just invented that adjective, haha ) about making the traditional New Year’s Resolutions.

So… what’s on your list?

Guess what’s at the top of mine.

Hehe… I’ve been oinking along since the middle of December, shame! (Well, I had to put the new weighing scale to good use, right? 😉 )

Seriously. Oinking. So this must be at the top of my list, most definitely.

And there’s more.

More walking, for one.

My 16-year-old son has been convincing me that I need exercise while respectfully omitting the “older people need all the exercise they can get” part, something I am grateful to him for. Bahaha!

Speaking of which, some days ago, my 13-year-old R –who’s a total movie buff–and I were talking about… surprise!… movies. He was telling me he didn’t want to watch some movie (I forget which one, but I think it was One Flies Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) because he couldn’t stand to see Jack Nicholson with hair (it was filmed in the 70s). He said it wouldn’t seem like Jack Nicholson if the guy had hair. ??? (Don’t worry, I didn’t get it either >teehee< )

So I said, “Why? How old was he when they filmed that movie?”

He said, “I don’t know, but he certainly had more hair than he has now. He’s really old now. He’s ancient! He doesn’t have much hair left.”

“Really?” I said. “How old is he now?”

“I don’t know… Old! Forty?”

Ahem. 😯

So. I must walk if only to prove my youth to my growing sons. Aside from the fact that exercise is good, of course. Especially in this ooooold age of ours (*tongue in cheek*).

Okay, so I won’t kill you with all the details behind my resolutions.

But I will just mention this, because it has to do with the word for the month that my dear friend Jes blogged about here.

What was your word? Mine was… tada! PRAY! Hence my No. 3 resolution! PRAY more! Don’t get me wrong, I do pray everyday. But I figure it’s a wonderful thing to do more of, and one can never lose by doing it more. I also truly believe that work done to the best of one’s abilities and offered up is prayer, so this is my way of reminding myself to turn everything I do into prayer. 😉

So. Five resolutions. Spiritual, health, personal aspects: check, check, check. I’m good. (I figured I’d stop at five. Five is do-able. Six? Seven? Eight? Too much room for me to fail. Haha! I’ll go the safe route and stick with five. )

What about you? What are your new year’s resolutions? If you share them with me, then we can encourage each other and cheer each other and support each other throughout the year! We’ve got… what, more than 300 days to make sure these things happen! Alright!

New year, new lessons: Stitching, anyone?

I have to say… I am totally a sucker for cheap thrills, and one of the biggest sources of thrills for me is learning a new thing! There are few things that make me feel more alive than discovering new things, no matter how tiny and little they are in the bigger scheme of things.

So… did I say I spent the latter half of the holidays (till New Year’s Day) in the southern mountains with my sisters and brothers? Did I mention that most of our time was spent exercising our jaws and stomach muscles? (READ: oink! oink!)

Anyway, we stayed at this fab fab fab place (and no, we don’t own it–we rented it 😀 ), with space huge enough to house 4 families (which we were), with an almost 180-degree view of the world’s smallest volcano and lake within a lake (it’s one of the places that author Patricia Schultz lists in her book 1000 Places to See Before You Die).

I was so awed by the place that I just had to take photos… so I took 8 photos of the view as you come down the stairs from the entry, knowing at the back of my mind that Photoshop would help me stitch them together. I’d never attempted to use Photomerge in the past; in the past I had always stitched photos by hand (Riiiight. That makes it sound a bit like doing a cross-stitch sampler, doesn’t it? 😛 ).

So I tried Photomerge for the first time last night, and oh, boy, I hafta say… it’s the *easiest* and most thrilling thing to do! Loooove how Photoshop takes all the hard work and does it for you! The only thing you need to do is (1) have enough RAM; and (2) know how to fill in the missing places once the photos have been stitched together (something that can be accomplished with the clone tool).

So. I began with 8 photos and ended up with this one:

(You can click on the image if you want a larger view. Originally, this photo was roughly 12+ inches by 36+ inches after stitching. I reduced it to about 8×26 in).

I promised some of my girlfriends that I’d share how I stitched this together (it’s really easy, and I so love sharing easy stuff!) Note: I use CS3, so am so sorry if you use PSE, but I’m totally in the dark as to whether Photoshop Elements 7 has this function as well or not. 😳

Here’s how to do it with CS3:

1. Open your photos that you want to stitch into a single panoramic photo.

2. Drag your photos onto a single document. Make sure that you hold down Shift as you drag in each photo so that it comes in centered on your document space. It doesn’t matter if on your layers palette you notice transparent spaces on some layers as a couple of photos end up in different areas of the total document size. As long as they’re centered when they come in, you’re good to go.

I used one of the photos as my base document and then saved it under a different name so that I don’t write over the original photo. It’s important to ensure that none of the photos save for the background layer is locked. Otherwise the photomerge function won’t work.

It might be good to note, too, that if you’re pulling photos straight out of your camera and you shoot in super fine mode or whatever the highest quality of your images are in your camera, you’re going to end up hogging the memory of your compy… so ideally you’d want to ensure that you have enough RAM to work with (if your RAM is limited, you’ll probably want to close other open documents and programs while you’re stitching).

Since I shoot 98% of the time in RAW, I first saved all my photos (without post-processing them) as jpegs. I post-processed at the end, after the photos were stitched.

3. Once you have all your photos in the single document, shift-click on the top and bottom layers to select all of them (they should all show up highlighted on your layers palette).

4. Go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers > Auto. You’ll get four options (Auto, Perspective, Cylindrical, Reposition Only) in the popup menu… I chose Auto. Guess what. I ended up with a stitched photo that looked like the Cylindrical option icon. I guess Auto makes the best decisions for you, which is a great way to do away with all the guesswork!

5. Wait while Photoshop does all the work. Go get yourself a cup of cafe moccha, or maybe munch on some Royce Potato Chip Chocolates (ha! Now you know what I was doing)… because depending on the number of photos you’re stitching together and your RAM, and oh yes, your patience level as well, this is going to take a bit of time.

6. When you come back, munching and sipping, you’ll be delighted to see on your monitor that Photoshop has done all the hard work for you.

Initially I started out with 14 photos to stitch, actually. There were some similar views, so when my stitched panorama came out, some of it looked a bit wonky. Not a problem. I found the layers that those almost-duplicate photos were on and deleted them from the layers palette.

It also helps to know before you take the photo that you’ll want to take each series of photos from the same height, more or less, if you’re planning to stitch them. (So, ideally, if I wanted a shot of the entire window view, I should’ve used a tripod, moving from left to right as I shot the photos… then to get the roof area, I would’ve tilted my camera on my tripod, again shooting from left to right. That way, I wouldn’t have ended up with huge gaps on my stitched photo and would have probably not needed to do any work with the clone stamp tool. But that’s in retrospect. For next time. 😉

Now you might find that your photos look a bit strange with different shades on them (assuming you didn’t do any post-processing beforehand); if this happens, worry not! Photoshop, our dear friend, will take care of that for you too! Here’s how:

7. With all your layers still highlighted on your layers palette, go to Edit > Auto-Blend Layers.

Wait patiently, knowing that this will take significantly less time than the stitching did a few minutes ago.

Blink your eyes a few times, and voila! MAGIC! The white balance and all the shades on your photos will be blended so they look … PERFECT! Or… sometimes, almost perfect, in case you end up with some transparent areas on the sides of your stitched photo.

Now what to do if you a less-than-perfect panoramic photo with some gaps on its sides on your monitor, same as the one I found on mine? (hehe. Don’t you just love experimenting? You learn a lot that way! LOL) Again, no worries! 😀 Paint in the missing parts with your clone stamp tool. That should take you longer than the stitching process… but since the stitching is the harder part of it, and Photoshop has done it all for you, what’s there to grumble about with the clone stamp tool at one’s disposal, right? heehee.

9. Do whatever post-processing you want to do with your photos, in case you shot in RAW, and voila! Perfect panoramic photo! YAY!

Now, for a bit more about the scene on my stitched photo:

This house was awesome (as you can probably tell, since I’m still raving about it a couple of paragraphs down this post.)

You enter through a gate and drive down a relatively short path till you get to the front door and the rooftop deck where you can host parties and get-togethers (as long as there’s no slight drizzle) and have a 360º view of the landscape.

You enter through a massive wooden door and go down a couple of flights of stone steps and enter a huge place where you have a split-level living area connected to the dining area with an equally huge kitchen right beside the dining area.

There are four huge bedrooms with their own bath/washrooms (perfect to house my little family and my sisters’ families… we moved in for New Year’s Eve as we had been staying at our own place in the country club earlier).

Then there’s a nice little pool which the teenagers were the only ones brave enough to dip into (cold winds, cold water? No, thanks!). Beside the pool area, with its uber-lush pine trees on one side, is a viewing deck from which you can marvel at nature’s wonders… and if you fancy a warm adventure with water but without the biting wind, there’s a sauna/hot bath a few garden steps below (I wasn’t brave enough to try that either… because it involves getting out into the cold winds before you get back to the house, haha!)

Surrounded by nature on all fronts, thank goodness we only encountered this little fella in the garden:

Well, whaddayaknow? A visit from one of those leaf insects that you see on the pages of National Geographic. I normally don’t like bugs (hate, hate, hate cockroaches… you can’t even get me to squish one. Ugh, that awful crunch as you smack them–notice I say “you” smack them because I’ll be the one running in the other direction at 200mph. And they fly! And they bite! And they stink! Uggggh. Shudder.)

But this is no roach. So okay, I’m fine with this, and I can stick around long enough to take its photo. Since we were in the mountains, I only had one lens with me (my lucky brother brought his macro… I’d love to see how his photos turned out!). I wonder how the poor insect felt with all those lenses a million times larger than him, all aimed at his little body. My nephew “held” the insect on his old and tattered book, and it crawled onto the ledge long enough for us to shoot a few more frames till my sister said “Eeeek! Get it out now!” End of photo session. 😆

One more time, up close, sans macro:

Recalling the Resolutions (Do you feel the freebie coming? :D)

What was No. 4? Create weekly? Let’s take that resolution seriously today, and let’s see what we’ve got here:

Oooh! A freebie! 😆

But first, I want to say THANK YOU to all of you for your warm fuzzies and for sharing with me how you’ll be doing Project 365 (or some variation of it). The 12 on 12s is a great idea! I have to admit that I’m still sitting on the fence on this one, wondering if I’ll end up doing a daily (20% chance), weekly (40% chance), or a monthly (40% chance) project. I’m wondering: if I just upload my daily photos onto my blog, does that count? ROFL. (Oh man. I so feel like Charlie Brown right now, sitting on the playground bench, watching everyone play and wondering what to do next. bwahahaha)

So anyway. You know how there are ten million options open to everyone, and anyone can do what their heart desires, right? (That’s what I love about scrapbooking and art and creating! There are no hard and fast rules! Just create! And have fun!)

One of these many options I’ve heard about is this other easy approach to housing and documenting the photos, which involves using a 4×6 slip-in photo album and turning it into a scrapbook (think: you have the option to put in photos or journaling tags or digitally scrapbooked 4×6 pages, or whatever you fancy!). Have you heard about this?

Personally I love the square size of 8×8’s so I probably won’t be attempting this anytime soon (and need a reason to use all the Bind-It-All schtuff I ordered! :D). But I can imagine wanting to try this approach one day. So for those who are doing this approach now, and for those who are doing the regular 12×12 or 8.5×11 or 8×8 or whatever size pages, this freebie mini is for you and you and you! Anyone can use it!

I made this chipboard journaling tag, with rubbed-on designs, which you can use for Project 365 or anything else, really. (It just came in really handy for jotting my resolutions on, haha!) And it’s sized at 4×6, so if you want to go the hybrid route and print this out and write on it, and then slip it into your 4×6 album pocket-pages, or attach it to your cardstock, you can! Or if you want to digitally attach it to your purely digital layout, you can too! (I didn’t include shadows so that you have total freedom with how you want to position it on your layout and where you want the lighting effects to be).