FAREWELL GIFT

Just a short post to share a farewell gift that I had created for a colleague who left recently.

Supplies: Prima, Pebbles, Papertrey Ink, K & Co, Jenni Bowlin, American Crafts

Basically a simple wooden letter from Cotton On Kids, though I believe that they are discontinuing these letters, and I prettied it up and personalised it. Actually this was a 'W' but due to a lack of letters, I turned it around and made it a 'M'.

The letter stickers are from Pebbles newest release and I love them a lot, though the glitter falls from time to time. I used the Dear Lizzy Vellum too, love the pick polka dots. I used it actually in my Project Life post yesterday, overlaying the words Hong Kong on my photo, and I like the subtleness that it brings.

Hope that I have given you some ideas on a simple yet effective looking personalised gift. Thanks for looking and have a good long weekend. I hope I have something cool to share with you next week that is currently brewing.

PROJECT LIFE WEEK 10

Being overseas really truly threw me off balance at least where Project Life was concerned. And even as I'm working on getting back on schedule, I'm going overseas again soon... However even with the little that I have done so far for Project Life, I really enjoy looking back on it and seeing the weeks that have passed.

Just realised that I have not done my February Project Life review, but given my schedule this month, it looks like it is possible that I would do both February and March together.

So I have not yet completed Week 9 but decided to jump ahead to Week 10 as the memories are fresher in my mind. And of course being overseas, I took more pictures than usual. But I will get back to Week 9.

One dilemma I faced was that I was doing a mini album for my Hong Kong trip too, so having to balanced out photos between the two seemed to be a need within my mind. In the end though I decided that it was no point stressing over and instead to just do what seemed natural and the best idea to me.

So here is my Week 10, though a bit simpler than other weeks, has lots of memories.

Pardon the slightly blurred photo, will retake it when I can

 A close up of the left side

I love that dear lizzy mason jar stamp (available at Scraplicious) and adore that it fits nicely into the size 2 shipping tags. I forsee lots of uses for this particular stamp. Also my papertry ink doily dies came in too, and I have started on a rampage of sorts to cut and use them.

As always labels are my most favourite thing to use on Project Life especially when I want big photos and a bit of journaling to remember them.

I have also been using my punches more. Pictured on the right in kraft is a tag that I created with the EK success Real Estate Sign punch and cutting off a third of the punched out image. Will definitely revisit doing this again.

Think that it was quite noteworthy that the this is the first time that I have received a fortune cookie. This is as fortune cookies, though found in Chinese restaurants, are really very much a Western invention. So though commonplace in the West for Chinese restaurants to have and serve after a meal it is a rarity of gigantic proportions in Asia. However at the China Club in Hong Kong, I guessed it was served as majority of its clientle are expats/caucasians. I think I was at the only Asian table in the resturant. That said it was great fun to play with it, though mine was "practical advice" rather than some prediction on the future.

Again you can see the real estate punch being used on my layouts (:

For more details of my Project Life process and the items that I use frequently while doing up my Project Life pages, head to the Scraplicious blog, where I share some of my favourite often reached for items while doing Project Life.

Project Life is a line of products by Becky Higgins, and can be used for documentation of daily life or anything else you may want. I am using it to remember the year and take more photos of  my everyday. For those who live in Asia, you can get your PL supplies from Scraplicious. Follow my PL journey here. You can check out more project life week pages all around the web, check out The Mom Creative. 

I am working on my Hong Kong album, which I think will be a work in progress for a while so stay tuned.

For those who are interested, I have restocked my etsy shop, so do pop by if you are interested in purchasing any items. I'm also working on some new items to be launched so I am hoping to get them out of the oven. Be sure to follow me on twitter to get the latest updates on that.

And once again Stephanie Howell is hosting a giveaway of some of my favourite printable journaling cards.

Head there for a chance to win one of three sets that she is giving away.

Other than that, that's all for now. Have a great day everyone!

THE DAILY GRIND

Winner of the giveaway will be posted tomorrow.

Well, Project Life Week 2 is under way on my table, but non-available light and lack of time is hindering its progress, but spur on I will.

In the meantime I have a layout to share:

Supplies: Silhouette, Studio Calico, American Crafts, Ocotber Afternoon, Crate Paper

Scrapbooking is in the end about documenting the ordinary life that passes me by. The reason for scrapping this was as I never imagined myself working at the heart of the business district in Singapore (its the equivalent of Wall Street in New York), with the sun setting by the time I leave the office.

The typewriter detail is one that I had been hoarding for the perfect layout, due to my work as a journalist. The newsprint scraps from Studio Calico was also fantastic to add to the details for my work.

My silhouette was also put to good use with the background polka dots cut out with a kraft on kraft feel as well as to cut out the title.

Just to let everyone know too, there has been an update in the shop, with some more items.

I have used them in my PL week 2 layout which I'll post later in the week. Do check it out if you like them and they help in the documentation of daily life, not just PL. Thanks for your support! I'm having a blast with this creative process.

I'll be back with a printable freebie when I post about Project Life again.

BANGKOK MINIBOOK PART ONE

I'm back with a share of the first half of my "Amy Tan" inspired book from Bangkok. Warning: It will be a photoheavy post!

Just a few random notes:
1. Thai Airways was the flight that I took
2. I printed out some of my photos with my pivi, but decided to print majority back at home
3. I use the roll of washi tape I had with me to mark out pages for certain photos I had taken and wanted printed out back at home so I knew how much space I had. I wrote with a ball point pen on the washi, and because of its properties, easily removed it when I got back home and added my journaling.
4. Crazily, it was only the night before I left that I decided to make a minibook to bring along for the vacation. So I was busily handstitching away at 2am with my luggage half-packed.
5. Memorabilia was collected and pasted on the trip. As mentioned I marked out spaces so as to keep the album chronological and completed when I got back.
6. As the album is at bursting point, I used a strip of washi tape to keep it closed, which means that I can open it easily when I want to too.
7. I use a Selphy ES40 at home. Love this printer though it does not print true 4x6 photos.

Will share the other half tomorrow. I'm also kinda addicted to making these books and am making some as presents for friends who I know will use it. Yet all the same, I'm looking forward to the new "daybooks" that American Crafts and Amy Tan have paired up to create.

DECEMBER 7 & 8

What happened to December 1 to 6?

Well I was actually away from home at the start of December, which I'll share more about later, so I decided to dive right in and record the days memories and do catch up later. That seems to be what a couple of people are doing and for me, it just makes better sense. After all even if I don't get back to the front pages, some being recorded is always better than none, right?

DAY SEVEN

Supplies: Crate Paper, American Crafts, The Twinery, Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon, Maya Road, My Mind's Eye, Studio Calico

As DD is not to just document Christmas, as it isn't a big thing at home, I document interesting things I see of everyday life too. As my table is usually in a mess of bits and pieces here and there, I just grab what I have and use it, in addition to already put aside for DD supplies. Thus my supply list is long at time.

This is a Merlion (a national symbol in Singapore) there was made purely out of lego pieces that was in the toy store that I was in. What is gushing out of his mouth is supposed to be water created from lego.

Interesting fact, a Singaporean is one of eight lego certified lego masters in the world today and is commissioned to make many large objects out of lego.

Christmas trees are in every mall everywhere. In Singapore, malls are everywhere, so I'm sure you can imagine how many trees I have seen so far.

DAY EIGHT

Supplies: Crate Paper, Keng, Jenni Bowlin, Silhouette, American Crafts,  October Afternoon, Doodlebug, Maya Road

Love the grey October Afternoon opaque mist to add a little dimension to the mix. Isn't the "EIGHT" paper tape too cute?

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? Shows like that are galore in numbers in Singapore. Growing up, Elmo and Cookie Monster were my favourite characters ever.

So back to being away at the start of the month

This was where I was for work. And I made a minibook "Amy Tan" style to add things about this trip inside. Previously I had used a photo album with pockets to documnet trips overseas, as for the long haul ones, it would include items that I would want to have pictures of both side or want to be able to feel. But for these short ones, a book to stick everything down and have it look cute is good.

Here's the pre-book, as taken on the plane towards Bangkok. PS: I only did the cover when I was on the plane as I had stayed up the night before to create the book and did not have enough time.

Will share the completed book tomorrow, all done within just a day.

It helped that I used my new Fuji x10 as the SOOC shots are generally of very good quality and colour, so minimal, if any, editing is needed. I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about it immediately.

A POST-JAPAN LAYOUT

June, July and the early part of August have been laced with travels and work, so I haven't been around much, returning not too long ago from Japan. So apologies for not having blogged.

Well, my job involves travel, and one unique opportunity I had was to go to the areas struck by the tsunami in March to document the post-tsnuami recovery, especially in the coastal towns in the Tohoku region.

To prepare, I spent two and a half weeks binge reading about the tsunami and the recovery efforts that were taking place, while emailing every single person possible to build my contact base and get help in the land. All this without a translator and not being able to speak a sentence of Japanese.

Luckily for me, there were angels sent down that helped me in getting around as well as translating and navigating me around the area.

In my layout are the two places that I had visited and the photos that I took that impacted me the most, a salute to my photojournalism teacher (I hope). Kept the layout simple as it really is about the pictures as I journaled about my feelings, particularly as I never thought that I would be doing this out of school. 

This was put together quickly with the scraps I had on my table, as I just wanted to document how I was feeling at that point of time. The camera tin pin from October Afternoon and the typewriter tag from American Crafts for me, illustrate what I was doing there.

Other supplies: Studio Calico, Jenni Bowlin, American Crafts, Hambly Studios

Have you made a layout about your job or what it means to you? I think you should, no matter what your feelings towards it at the moment, as like it or not, it plays a great part in terms of the time it takes up in our life at least (: