love at first scrap

(lack of) updates

cHaMeL30n — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Oh yeah, did I mention? My beloved Canon Powershot 5S got into an accident when we were back home, and I miss my DSLR wannabe Canon terribly. Thanks to my dad who generously lend me his camera while mine is being serviced, nothing drains the creative modjo out of a scrapper like the absence of her camera.

Soon, I will upload some LO that I completed a while ago, but somehow couldn’t find the time to even post them here..

Oh dear… how I wish I have more hours in a day!

June 2009

cHaMeL30n — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:48:27 +0000

The busier I get, I craftier I become.. or at least I tend to do more things with my hands. Otherwise, my head will be spinning with neverending thoughts and what-ifs, a common process when you are doing research. We did manage to get some stuff packed last night, but the packing mojo dissappeared this afternoon and I decided to turn my attention to my scrapping project.

I completed my June 2009 layout just this evening, based on a brilliant multi photo layout on Pencil Lines, Sketch 143. As usual, I did not manage to complete the LO on that particular week, but no worries… as long as I get it done.

So, till my next project… cheerio!

beads and paper

cHaMeL30n — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:23:25 +0000

It has been awhile since my last post, a lot has happened lately… with our trip to London and visiting families from Malaysia in June and July. Playing tour guide and host did take a big chunk out of your time, however I am really thankful for their visit.

I also have chapters to submit before we go home in August and the stress of hosting, tour-guiding and studying gets to me after sometime… my fingers got itchy, my head’s spinning… and so, it’s time to get crafty. I did manage to steal some time in between my activities to indulge myself in some craft therapy.

It was quite sometime since I last play with my beads, and with my sister around I had a wonderful opportunity. This was how I got round to complete some bead jewellery projects in between playing host and tour guide… hehe

mum and sis in law joining in the bead craze... see how congested my apartment is? LOL

In all, I manage to complete quite a number of projects, plus some I had forgotten to snap the pics, and my sister had happily packed them with her to bring home

necklace for my aunt, commissioned by her mum for her birthday

matching bracelets for me and my sis

birthday gift for a friend's daughters

As for playing with paper, I managed to complete a Father’s Day card for my darling Abah and 2 pages for my monthly LO project.

my Abah's Fathers Day card

a pic of us taken last year during their visit to Manchester

April 2009

May 2009

Hopefully I will be able to complete June 2009 LO before we move in a couple of weeks…oh the stress! I can feel my fingers itching already!

enjoying the park

cHaMeL30n — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:50:44 +0000

This LO has been on my idea board for the past 2 weeks, and I finally got to finish it last weekend. I was playing along with Sketch 134 from Sketches and initially thought I could finish it within that actual week. However, things came up… with deadlines for my current PhD work, and baby D’s encounter with high fever and measles (or was it hayfever?), I was very occupied. Well, maybe next time… I am currently thinking of scraplifting Sketch 136 .

I have been wanting these photos of Baby D having a ball at the park, on the day we went to see Mr S friendly football match with the Malaysian community in Cheetham Hill. It has been a long time since we went to the park, and the lovely colours of spring was so brilliant, it was a dream to snap these lovely pics.

for my mother

cHaMeL30n — Sat, 09 May 2009 08:41:48 +0000

A couple of nights back, I stayed up with my beloved other half in my study… finishing a scrapping project that came on the spur of the moment, basically right after baby D went to bed.

We were up making Mother’s Day card for our mothers and had sent them the day after. Hopefully the cards reach their destinations safely sometime next week.

Just thought I’d share what I made, however my apologies at the quality of the pics, I was too lazy to get up and get my Canon in the other room… so I used my mobile cam instead.. hehe.. my bad!

my beloved other half, who stayed up with me and made a card for his mum also

Such adoration

cHaMeL30n — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:08:22 +0000

A picture can tell a thousand words. As someone who has yet to master the art of photography, I need to take lots of shots before I can actually find one that I really liked. Then, in comes the editing tool Adobe PSE 6, and wallah… I end up with one meaningful shot that can tell a story, suitable for a scrapbook layout.

This picture was taken during our visit to Fify’s (Fariny’s sis) house in Worsley, in her lovely backyard on a beautiful spring afternoon. I loved the candid expression on baby D’s face while Daddy is kissing him, and knew instantly that this picture will find its way to one of my LO. Using the kit I purchased recently, and the basic LO instruction that comes with it, I adjusted the LO according to my liking and used some of my existing stash.

new stash :)

cHaMeL30n — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:33:08 +0000

I had promised DH to postpone my monthly stashing since February as we were moving house and all. I told him I wanted to get some new stash come April, but there were so many things happening around us that is time and financially demanding that my stashing intention had been forgotten.

One night I was feeling kinda low, and after getting the green light from my beloved other half I went surfing for some new stash… I went to most of the online stores I frequent, and stored items that I liked in my cart… I only checked out the one that I feel is most economical and value for money… and will return to the rest once my financial is better again.. (you couldn’t possibly think I’d forgotten them all?? hehe..)

I have been anxiously waiting for my overdue new stash… and today it arrived in the post. Yay!

February Kit from Basic Grey... I am a big fan of BG.. love their colours!

April Kit... lovely bold patterns, a little bit different from what I am used to but it would be nice to experiment with new motives

I bought these 2 kits from Crafty Stash, as I feel due to my economical situation, it is the best buy for me. This online store organizes monthly crop classes, and the crop kit (with instruction.. hehehe) is available for purchase if you can’t attend the classes. The ensembles are just delightful, and I honestly feel like collecting all their monthly kits…

Last night I was bloghopping and found a challenge blog, called The Design Experimenters. I had never been interested to join in these challenges, but somehow the challenges that these ladies put up are really different, raw and most importantly, realistic.

Hmm.. maybe I will join in the new one this coming Sunday… one more reason to enjoy and play with my new stash!

March 2009

cHaMeL30n — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:08:49 +0000

My scrapping muse did not appear earlier this week, possibly due to all the negative vibes surrounding us the entire week. The photos for my March monthly layout have been printed since last week and has been sitting on my idea board with a couple of patterned papers, and though I have some free time this week, the urge to scrap was definitely missing.

After a long day yesterday, baby D decided to go to bed much, much earlier than usual. Mr S was chillin’ out doing some Internet surfing and I had some winding down time last night. My muse might have decided to appear then which could have somehow influenced my choice of different PP (not the 2 that was on the board for the entire week.. hehe).

I completed my LO earlier this morning… using the flowery motives of BG Wassail range, to celebrate the arrival of Spring in March. Somehow the maroon & dusky blush colours of these papers reminded me so much of my mother, and I decided to stick with the colour scheme.

This is what I came up with:

monthly project

cHaMeL30n — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:35:05 +0000

As a serial blogger, one of my favourite pastime is blog-hopping. I was blog-hopping one night in January, after my usual reading dosage when I came across a scrapper’s blog (I am very, very sorry… I can’t remember whose blog it was) who gave me the idea to make monthly scrapbook pages for each month throughout the year. What a wonderful idea!

So, I started in February, coming up with a layout that potrays our activity in the previous month and has been continuing since. Every layout has a number of smaller photos, with one major photo showing the best memory we have during that particular month.

I am pretty happy about how the LOs turned out… though I must admit, trying to fit a handful of photos and still make the LO look attractive can be mind boggling at times. I have completed January and February, and now in the process of completing March. I am very excited to complete this scrapbook project, and hopefully by year end I will have 12 pages to remind me what 2009 was like for the 3 of us!

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

my cheeky boy

cHaMeL30n — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:10:33 +0000

After a week on my idea board, I finally had the chance to complete this LO. It is a simple one depicting baby D making faces to the camera, I love the colours of Basic Grey Oh Baby Boy! line. I printed the photos in black and white to get a nice contrast with the colourful patterned paper, and to emphasize baby D’s facial expression. I hope I do the paper justice