In a Crafting Funk

Sometimes I just do not have any creative spark. I sit and push pieces of paper around and nothing works. I took a bit of a break from crafting this past week. The ongoing Studio Calico saga has worn me down and made me a little blue. The latest developments have made me very glad I cancelled my membership.

Anyhoo I sat my sad self down and forced myself to craft. It is not the best layout ever but it is done. I worked on something new today and I am happier with that and can feel a little spark of creativity coming back! The subject was thrilled to see all the sequins so I guess that is a win!

These papers are all odds and ends left over from a kit. The patterned paper at the bottom is a Basic Grey exclusive for SC. I am not sure about the others as all the branding strips are gone. 

Miss Three was snaffled up by a photographer at a fair we went to and he took quite a few photos of her. I took some of her being photographed and I especially liked her expression in this one. We quite often get stopped by strangers here asking to take a photo of Miss Three. I think she thinks this happens to everyone!

I am having a quiet afternoon with MT. We were hoping to go swimming this afternoon but it is raining just enough to be a pain. I think my knitting project will be getting a lot of attention instead. Time is running out to get it done!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Sadness, Scrapbooking and Gratitude

There has been a bit of drama on the Studio Calico website this week. Normally I try and stay out of these things but I haven't been able to do so on this occasion. It all started with an announcement that free shipping was no longer available and there would be new shipping charges.

I have to admit I was not surprised to see the end of free shipping. Shipping has gone up across the board and I understand that a company cannot absorb high shipping costs and stay in business. What has saddened me, in fact it has made my stomach ache, is the way the changes have been handled. The original email sent out to customers trying to sell the increase as a positive was pretty insensitive and certainly poorly worded. I could have lived with that. Companies get it wrong. The addition of a service fee for internationals only was a pretty telling sign of how much the company values our business but I might have got past that as well. What has shocked me is the way the company has censored the message boards to the point where almost all discussion relating to these issues has been locked or removed. Members (and long term ones at that) asking valid questions have been banned from the boards! Just hideous things and certainly not an exercise in customer service.

It breaks my heart to be honest. Discovering SC and starting to scrapbook saved my sanity as a SAHM in a foreign country with a husband who travels a lot. The boards were a wealth of information to someone starting out in the hobby and the people were so friendly and welcoming. I have made some real friends in my time there. I love the kits. I agree that they are getting lighter in product and that being up at midnight or one in the morning to get an add on when you have a young family and are often sole parenting makes life harder than it might be, but SC was my happy place. I feel like I am breaking up with someone... it is not how I wanted things to end.

I would love to hear of any other kit clubs people have enjoyed using. I have ordered Kelly Purkey's latest kit through Simon Says Stamp and am excited to receive that. I have been thinking about Gossamer Blue, Cocoa Daisy and Citrus Twist. There look to be some good kits coming out of Australia now too but mainly they are Aussie only. 

I want to keep things positive so am also going to list a few things I am grateful for this week as part of Listmania.

• I am so grateful for my little family of three. After some rough weeks with tantrums and drama Miss Three is returning to her sunshiney self and we are all so much happier. It is due, in no small part, to me making more of an effort to take her swimming during the week. It absolutely tires her out and we all get a good night's sleep
  
• Our pool. We live in a building with 54 apartments in total. Almost none of the residents use the pool. We were down there yesterday afternoon. It was stinking hot (36 degrees!) and we had the pool to ourselves. Miss Three is getting so good in the water. She was swimming under water and doing backstroke yesterday. We really appreciate having pool access.
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• Living in a tropical climate. Yes sometimes it rains a lot and we do get a lot of grey overcast days being so close to the equator but on a good day Singapore 's climate is magic. Yes even when the temperature recorded by the car is 41 degrees

  

  Watching the dragon boats (not the most flattering photo but...)

• Living in Singapore specifically is a wonderful thing. There are so many things to do and activities on. We wandered around the Marina Bay area on Saturday and watched dragon boat races, a sailing regatta was underway and an international six aside football competition was on at the Padang. People who find Singapore boring just aren't doing it right
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• Taking my Self Care Blueprint course has been a blessing in unexpected ways. I have struggled to keep up with things but I made a commitment to exercise for 15 minutes every day. This has led to me walking 22.5 kms over three days last week and swimming most days too. I feel so much better for it. It is quite hard work walking in this climate though. My 10k walk nearly killed me (see photo above) 
•  

  

  Chowing down on banana pancakes for breakfast. She followed it up with half her father's soup (yes for breakfast !)

• My final thing I am grateful for is a child who will eat almost anything. We eat out a lot and it is wonderful that there is always something on the menu that MT will eat. I have friends who are struggling with picky eaters and while MT may have other issues, food is not one of them. It makes this lazy chef's life much happier.

Check out Home Life Simplified  to add your gratitude list and see what the other contributors have to be grateful for today.

Shimelle NSD Challenge 1 : Pensive in Pink

I am not going to get through all 24 of the challenges set by Shimelle by the end of the weekend, but I do intend to have a go at many of them over the next few weeks. I have discovered that I love working within limitations and a challenge is a great way to do that.

The first challenge was to create a layout using pink. I was quite surprised to discover just how few pink supplies I actually had. With the exception of a kit I have put aside for Miss Three's baby album I had only a handful of papers and Thickers to choose from and almost no embellies. I must be a failure on the Little Girl Mummy front!

Here is the layout I created.

The base paper is an older Studio Calico piece from the State Fair collection. I have also included some older My Little Shoebox and a Sassafrass Lass border sticker. The larger letters are AC Thickers and the smaller font is OA Minimarket. I have a little piece of a journalling card sticking out from behind the photo. This is an SC Project Life card. Probably my favourite supply is the photo itself. It is my first origrami photo that I have used on a layout. If you use Instagram run to their website and order some photos. The quality is excellent and they are beautifully packaged. Did I mention they have free worldwide shipping? And no this is not a sponsored post. I just love their work.

I am linking this layout up with Shimelle's site. 

Watch this space as I am taking part in my first ever blog hop right here later today. Have a fantastic Wednesday!

This Is Me

I signed up for the Studio Calico class as soon as it came up. I knew I wanted to make sure that I was recording more than just Miss Three's life but a quick glance through the albums told me I was failing. Hubby and I make an occasional guest appearance but the star of the show is undoubtedly our daughter. Don't get me wrong - I have not made an album of her first year even but we mainly take photos of her at play.

Part of the issue is that I came to scrapbooking late. I only took my first class when Scarlett was about eight months old and only really got stuck into the hobby six or eight months later so I have not been a memory keeper in a time before the child. I also struggle with the idea that I don't really have any stories worth telling. This is not going to be a pity party but more a reflection of the fact that as a SAHM expat wife and mother I have definitely lost a great part of the sense of who I really am. There is no real community in the real world that I am a part of and as I am not working, it has been a challenge to make friends. Does cleaning, cooking and scrapbooking make for good pages?

Fortunately the prompts for the class, mainly in the form of example albums from a variety of scrap stars, have been great. I have a big list of ideas that I wish to scrap. Not just the where I am and what I am doing kind but the deeper, spiritual important ideas about me and where I have come from and most importantly where I am going. This class is actually turning into a real life raft in a time of  tremendous uncertainty for me and my family.

It has quickly become apparent to me that this is going to be an ongoing project. I was dismayed initially that I could not manage to find a handbook to use as the basis for the album. It has been a blessing really as 12 x 12 pages will enable me to tell my stories in the way that is most comfortable for me. It has also made me realise that I need to create an Us album for the stories of my husband and myself together. Not just the stories before MT but the stories of our life together now. 

I have also signed up for what I hope will be a life enhancing class called The Self Care Blueprint which is being run for the final time in May. It is run by Deb Dane of Home Life Simplified and Kirri White and the focus is making self care a priority. I am super excited for May to come around!

I have only completed one layout for my album so far.

I purchased the beautiful liberty covered word for my bedroom but found that the idea of dreams has been at the forefront of my mind. Not so much the ones that happen when we sleep (in fact I rarely remember my dreams - maybe one a year) but more the ones we wish for in our lives. I knew I wanted to have some hidden journalling about my dreams but when it came down to it I found I did not really have any for myself anymore. I have plenty for my family and MT and hubby individually but my mind has remained blank on the topic of my dreams for me. Something needs to change and it will.

On a lighter note, I left this layout out in the lounge where I had photographed it quickly. I returned to find that MT had completely dismantled it and neatly laid all the veneer, envelope and flair beside it. Oh and she had removed the string from the envelope too. Sigh.

I mainly used pieces from my Studio Calico February kit along with a piece of flair from the Paper Bakery. I am in love with their flair and their range is great. There are some ubiquitous enamel dots there too.

Have a great Wednesday!

Scrapping the tough stuff

There has been a bit of discussion both on the Studio Calico boards and elsewhere lately, on the difficulty of scrapping the tough parts of life. Much of this discussion has been in relation to Project Life but I think it is equally applicable in the broader context of layouts.

I think as scrapbookers we are often guilty of selective memory keeping. It is easier to scrap the good and fun times. Perhaps we are doing ourselves and our families a disservice by painting a much rosier picture of our lives than is really the case. I am absolutely guilty of this. In part, I think it is because I tend not to take photos of the tough times. There are not many photos of the tears that accompanied our journey to have my daughter, or the days after the February quake in Christchurch when we waited for news of missing loved ones. Those events are important and I have not really scrapped them and I need to.

The second anniversary of the quake and tsunami in Japan gave me a push to start recording some of the tougher moments in our lives. We were in Tokyo by chance on the day of the quake. We knew it had been a major event but had no idea of the extent of the damage and destruction further north. We had a fairly intense 24 hours with missing family members, no power or food and our hotel completely over run with refugees. I have quite a few photos from that day and so I have finally started to do something with them.

 

For me the hardest part was keeping calm so that Scarlett wasn't alarmed. She did not get too upset by the frequent aftershocks. I have to say possibly the worst moment of my life was during a very powerful aftershock when we were in a double decker tunnel sort of road. I felt sure the top layer was going to come down on top of us on the bottom level and we would be buried alive. I was very relieved to get onto Odaiba where we were staying just before they shut all access to the island.

This photo was taken by the famous pedestrian crossing in central Tokyo that is beloved of film makers and music video directors everywhere. All public transport had just been shut down as all roads and rail lines had to be checked for safety. This meant hundreds of thousands of people were stranded in the central city unable to reach their homes. People were just starting to realise that this was a major event and news was filtering through that people had died in Tokyo as well as further afield. We were very fortunate to have a car. We had intended to use the train but Tet's brother was running very late so he drove into the city. If he had not, we would have had to spend the night at a school or community hall as there was no way to get to where we were staying.

I used the Layout A Week prompt for week 3 on Studio Calico's site for this layout. It was a recipe using a piece of cardstock and three patterned paper sheets and up to 10 embellies. We also could include our word for the year if we had one. Our word this year is adventure and it sat well with the story here.

Have you scrapped any of the less rosy aspects of life lately? Please link up in the comments and I am definitely looking for inspiration in this area. There are some big stories that need telling even if it will be hard to do so.

Lanterns : A Shimelle Sketch

Sometimes you see a sketch and you think that will be a good creative prompt and it is, for that one layout. Other times you see a sketch and you know you will use it over and over again. This is one such sketch.

People get into scrapbooking for many reasons and for me it was a combination of the old favourite, just having had a baby, and a love of all the pretty patterned paper. I adored all the pretty patterned paper but I also found it totally overwhelming when I first started. As a result, I have some seriously unusable paper stashed away in drawers and I joined Studio Calico to save me from making too many expensive mistakes.

Here is the wonderful Shimelle sketch : 

 

Here is my take on it:

I really loved this scripty neutral paper and I didn't want to hide it and this sketch is designed for those occasions when you want to let a paper sing. The photo is a very bright one so it needed a little toning down and again this paper was perfect. All the other bits were scraps from My Summer of 69 kit and my Christmas add on that I had been working on previously. I loved the pop of colour from the ombre washi here too.

This photo is just a random single image of a float we saw being prepared along the Singapore River for the Lantern Festival. I loved it too much not to scrap but it doesn't really have any bigger story. I am happy it now has a home in an album!

I have linked my layout up to Shimelle's page. There are some lovely takes on this sketch if you are hunting for some inspiration.

There is a bit of school based excitement here this week. Miss Three received her first Scholastic Book Club pamphlet which filled my book loving heart with joy. The two of us are off to a performance of the Little Red Hen at a theatre tomorrow with the rest of her school friends. It is her first proper play so I hope she enjoys it.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Cake and the missing sketch

In the lead up to Miss Three's birthday I had very limited free time and was working exclusively from sketches. This is another layout from that fortnight.

 These photos were taken at one of Miss Three's friend's parties last year. She and her friends had a wonderful time swimming, eating cake and celebrating a little boy turning two.

This layout is exclusively from my January Studio Calico kits and add ons. I love the mistable hearts and veneer arrows in this kit but decided to keep them nude as there was already a lot going on with the background papers.

I cannot for the life of me find the sketch this layout is based on. I saved this one to my reader but cannot find it. If anyone recognises the sketch please let me know so I can credit it.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

ETA : I have found the original sketch this was based on! It was an Inspired Blueprint sketch! # 83.

Project Life Week 7

My cunning plan of not waiting round for my SC kit and leaving a note for the postie to leave any parcels with the security guard worked. My kit arrived late on Wednesday and I got my Week 7 pages finished up last night.

This week is a bit different in that I used a 12 x 6 insert for half the week and a WRMK  page for the rest. I didn't like having weeks spread over two pages so this way I am back to a week across a page.

 

I worked with a combination of SC February Project Life kit, Clementine kit and bits and pieces from my stash. This side shows me finally catching a shot of a lion dance in progress. We have been listening to the trucks travelling around the neighbourhood for a few weeks. Scarlett loved seeing it but she definitely finds them a bit loud!

 

The second side of the insert covered Valentine's Day. I made a bit of an effort this year and we had fun celebrating this. I was very spoilt with a Selphy printer which made my gift of a fun coffee mug a bit on the naff side. I bought cake treats for Hubby and Miss S  and one of Tet's colleagues spoilt him with some amazing chocolate. I used a lovely 4 x 6 Elle's Studio page for the bottom pocket and a Creative Bubble printable for the top pocket. I had not realised that the AC pockets in this format had sleeves on both sides so I could not reuse the backs of my first pockets as I had intended.

 

My final page shows a few high points from the week. Lots of great children's meals at a variety of Japanese restaurants seems to be a major feature. We visited the Canadian International School Fair and were very impressed by what we saw there. It certainly gave us some food for thought. Miss Nearly Three and her father finally changed their game of choice at the arcade and were rewarded with three toys on their first day. I rather meanly snapped this photo of MNT in full tantrum after being told that I would like her to at least put some underpants on before she sat on the couch. I am so mean!

Most of my backing pages are from a Pebbles set of 4 x 6 cards which I love. I have borrowed some labels from one of my other SC kits this month too. I really find these little labels useful on pages where I use a lot of large photos.

I am really enjoying this form of memory keeping and my plan to keep it simple has meant that I am managing to do plenty of other crafting again too. I have even had my knitting out again this week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sunset

After being really spoilt with hubby home for a couple of months we are returning to the joys of frequent travel. This week he is in Tokyo. He is already complaining about the cold!

In true Murphy's Law fashion, our air conditioning compressors have both stopped working. In fact this happened while hubby was still at the airport in Singapore. Of course I cannot find the number for our air conditioning people. There is going to be some random phone calling of unlabelled numbers in my cell memory later today!

I have really struggled working with my December Studio Calico kits so I have moved onto my January kits and suddenly, with the help of some sketches, the layouts are flowing again.

This layout is from this sketch by Diane Payne for Write Click Scrapbook.

 
 I kept myself fairly strictly to three colours and really enjoyed playing with some new supplies as well as the kit. I had a little spend up on some flat embellies from Amy Tangerine, Maggie Holmes and Dear Lizzy and I have added a little Dear Lizzy and Maggie Holmes to this one in the form of the labels and tickets. I am also working at using up some of my older Thickers and I love these older Amy Tangerine ones. In fact, I have banned myself  from buying any more Thickers until I have reduced at least five sets to xs and js.

I don't get to see that many sunsets where I live. Often they are blocked by buildings and I am usually cooking or eating dinner or putting a certain small girl to bed when they occur. One day last year all the stars aligned and I managed to see and photograph a sunset through the buildings. When we have really amazing sunsets here it is often as a result of forest fires in Indonesia  so although they look beautiful they really are a sad thing to see.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Letting the cat out of the bag

Well the official announcement has finally been made so I can let the world know that we may be moving to Bangkok by the middle of the year. At this stage we have not really made any firm decision. There are so many variables to consider and the company is being a bit less organised than we had hoped about answering our queries. We are planning on taking a trip to Bangkok in the next few weeks to help us decide. I have been there a number of times but not in the last few years and although Tet goes for work quite often he has not really looked at Bangkok as a potential home for our family.

I am looking at it as a potential adventure and am actually quite excited about the idea of living in Thailand as it has been one of my favourite countries to visit since I was a child. I know living there might be very different and Thai is a very difficult language to learn. I will keep you posted!

I have been working away on another CHA challenge layout on the Studio Calico site. I have to say this is one of my all time favourite layouts. It came together almost exactly how I pictured it in my head which does not happen very often. I was inspired by Sasha Farina's challenge to blog from the heart and everything flowed from there.

I have mentioned in the past the difficulties we have had with Scarlett and sleep. They remain ongoing and while we occasionally get a few weeks or even a month where she sleeps through the night these periods are always short lived and we return to broken nights of sleep eventually. Our Christmas holiday has caused a real regression in her sleep and she is back in our bedroom sleeping on her mattress on the floor although most nights she ends up in our bed after multiple wake ups. It is exhausting and to be honest it has had a really detrimental impact on my health. After almost totally getting off medication for my stomach issues I am back on a daily dose and it is all down to having only three or four broken hours of sleep a night. Sigh.

My journalling reflects on the lack of sleep in our lives. I sure hope it gets better because I did not expect three years of bad sleep when I finally managed to conceive S!

The writing is actually in silver ink but it shows up quite differently on the layout.

I am really excited that I finally got my heat gun out and embossed some veneer for this layout. The glitter matched well with the Pink Paislee lettering I used and the aqua zing is a pretty good match for Scarlett's t shirt in the photo. I managed to enter this in Nik's glitter challenge and Marcy's dress up your veneer challenge as well as another entry into Kelly's use a patterned paper background.

Here are a couple of close ups of the embellie clusters.

The colours and textures really make my heart sing!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I intend to as look what the postie just dropped off!

I can see some Project Life work in my future!

A Couple of Challenge Layouts

What a good source of motivation the Studio Calico CHA Challenges have been for me. I completed two new layouts yesterday and hope to squeeze two more in before the challenges close on Saturday (US time). 

Apart from a couple of rows of knitting I have not managed to get any other crafting done today. We had a Landlord's inspection of our apartment so the morning was mainly tidying for that. The agent was here for about three minutes but he was happy so I am glad that is over for another year. I have a Scarlett home day today so we managed to squeeze in a little outing to one of our favourite cafes for a treat and to make up for some very shouty Mummy when she woke me up one too many times last night.

The first challenge I had a go at yesterday was a use three patterned papers challenge. I usually use at least that many but it made me use up some scraps that were left of my favourite papers from the Roller Rink kits.

I had a bit of trouble with my white Mister Huey smearing a little but hey ho. The photos are from one of my husband's many work trips to Thailand. On one trip the plant arranged to take him to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand. It is a beautiful spot and he took some lovely photos of the numerous Buddhas at the site. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Park ad well worth a visit if you get the chance. I visited it long before I even knew my husband but it is one of the most memorable places from my South East Asian travels.

The second layout was an include glitter challenge response. I don't use much glitter but I make an exception for Thickers and washi tape so I included both on this layout.

This photo is from when Scarlett was only about three months old. She was notorious for never sleeping lying down and this photo provides good proof of this. This photo was taken at an antenatal group meet up at our place and there were half a dozen Mums and babies in the room at the time. Crazy times!

Finally, I feel like a bit of a fraud with my knitting I showed you yesterday. It looks like a super complex pattern but it just clever wool that mimics a fair isle style pattern. Thank you for all the kind comments. I have really enjoyed doing something relaxing of an evening!

Challenges and Self Care

I love this time of year! CHA Winter has just finished and there have been so many lovely new scrapbooking goodies appearing on Instagram, Facebook and all the scrappy blogs. I have seen a number of things I hope will appear in my scrapbooking kits. I am also excited about some of the new mini kits coming from Becky Higgins later in the year. A smaller kit is definitely more what I would like to intersperse with my Studio Calico Project Life kit. I managed to indoctrinate my sister into the PL cult while she was staying with us and she headed back to NZ with a cherry kit and binder stashed in her suitcase! Perhaps we will be able to go halves in a couple of mini kits!

Studio Calico understands the dilemma of loving all the new goodies and having a stash full of lovely things already. They are running a whole series of challenges that are open until Saturday. I made a layout today that I have entered into Kelly Noel's challenge of using a patterned paper as a background. I love doing this so it was not too difficult but I am thrilled to have used a paper I was hoarding from the Roller Rink kit.

This is another photo from when we were staying with my sister-in-law and her fiance. I didn't even know Tet took it! A very typical scene of S eating her snack while I check my reader on the iPad. I love the little cameras on the Amy Tangerine paper and was happy the colours seemed to work.

If you think you have some stash to bust here is a link to the list of challenges currently running. I am sure you will find something to help you make room for all the new season's goodies.

I received some happy mail today. I ordered it after reading a post from one of my favourite Australian bloggers Natural New Age Mum. She put out a challenge to join her in a daily boost comprising of dry body brushing and moisturising with some beautifully blended aromatherapy oils. She recommended a specific combination of oils so I decided a little self care was in order and made an order from www.twenty8.com. My parcel arrived today with some instant calm blend aromatherapy oil, magnesium oil and a massage oil. I have been completing the dry body brushing most days and it does give me a real boost so I am excited to try the oils in the morning. If I like it I can see me ordering some more blends so I have a choice to suit my mood.

I am really interested in what others do to take care of themselves. Do you have any daily rituals that make your day that much better?

Learning to Jump

We had a lovely three day weekend. The weather was excellent. Sadly last night, Scarlett started to sneeze and by this morning she was down with yet another cold and cough. This is the fourth Monday in a row she has missed school due to illness! I am starting to feel like a horrible mother. I am also wondering if my very plain minimal fibre diet in an attempt to control my IBS is having a very negative effect on my daughter's immunity. Lots to think about in preparation for my next visit to the specialist.

I only managed to complete one layout over the weekend as tiredness is forcing me to get as much sleep as I can. On the upside I did crack open my new Roller Rink kit from Studio Calico and I really do love it.

 

I really wanted to scrap this single photo of Scarlett's first experience on a trampoline. She was not able to jump before she hopped on and after ten minutes was jumping with two feet together like a pro. She enjoyed meeting our friends' daughter, Maya and playing with her. The photo is a little unclear as it was taken through the protective net around the tramp. They are way safer than the ones we played on when I was a child!

I based this layout loosely on a sketch but in spite of my best efforts I cannot find it on my Facebook feed or in my reader. If anyone recognises it I would love to give credit where it is due.

The materials are a mixture of the Main Roller Rink kit and some embellishments from the Couples Skate and Toe Stop add ons. I also added a little washi from my stash. 

Right, I am off to take a nap while the little one is doing the same. We have had an unexpected guest arrive for the week and so I am going to snatch the sleep I need when I can!

Have a great week!

Toddlers in the Sun Shine

One of the most memorable mornings of my trip home was spent with my former manager, Jo. I have known her for nearly ten years now and consider her a friend rather than a former colleague. She was the person who took a punt on offering a teacher an insurance job and I hope I never caused her to regret her decision.

I met some wonderful friends in the insurance business. When we all first met none of us had children and only Jo was married. Jo now has three children, Fidelia two and Caroline and I one each! We arranged to all meet up and meet our various new arrivals while I was home. We had a lovely morning tea (home made scones!) and our children ran or crawled around and enjoyed the sunshine!

 Jo's husband kindly took the photo in this layout of us all enjoying the sun on Jo's deck. 

This layout is my entry for the Blow Out Your Stash #6 challenge on at Studio Calico currently. This challenge is a recipe challenge. The layout needs to include brads, ribbon, chipboard, stickers and an unused stamp. I thought the shine stamp was perfect for this blue sky background and yellow was the obvious colour for the ink. All the papers are from the Summer of 69 kit and the ribbon and stamp are from my Pop off the Page class kit. The brads are MME Nostalgia and the sticker journal spot is OA.

I think this may be the first recipe challenge I have ever tried and I really enjoyed it. What sort of challenges do you take part in most often?

Layout Challenge

I am finally starting to take part in some of the challenges on the Studio Calico Forum. The lovely members of the forum regularly post new ideas to keep us all inspired and trying new things. This particular challenge involved thinking of your lucky number and scraplifting that layout from your favourites folder. I am often guilty of saving something as a favourite and then forgetting all about it.

I checked my folder and layout six happened to be one of Shimelle's layouts from her recent stint as a guest designer. I had a lovely photo of Tet and his sister that I have been itching to scrap and the rest fell into place from there.

This layout was mainly the SO Cal kit with some papers from the Malibu add on. I also included some embellies from Lilybee Design's Double Dutch collection. I had quite a bit I wanted to say about the events leading up to this photo so the large journalling space was perfect. I also included some of the chevron washi that I recently won on Shanna Noel's blog. It is lovely and I can see it appearing regularly on my layouts.

I had better sign off as we have a long weekend today and the family are itching to head out again. I got a wee bit sunburnt yesterday so I am going to be sticking to the shade today!

Have a happy Monday!

Her Favourite Person

We are in the home stretch. In less than 18 hours Daddy will be home. It has gone quite quickly to be fair. Scarlett has been very good and we have had a pretty fun week. I even managed to do a bit of crafting.

I had a wee play with Elmwood Park this morning and ended up with this layout. This is one of my favourite photos of my Dad and Scarlett. Scarlett is a man's girl. She gravitates to men and her two favourite people are my Dad and her Daddy closely followed by Uncle Shinya. She is my Dad's shadow when they are together and she is beyond excited that he will be here with us in three weeks! This photo was taken on Christmas afternoon after a very large lunch. We had one of the few sunny warm days of our trip and Dad's garden was looking pretty lovely.

I started off working with the kit but ended up adding lots of non kit things including the banner and journalling block from Basic Grey's Clippings line. More SC veneer people, Hello Forever flair, and MME stickers rounded it out.This layout started off on white dotted cardstock but I just couldn't get it to work. Once I turned the white into a photo mount and added the coloured cardstock it all fell into place.

I am trying to keep myself alert today as it is Studio Calico presale at midnight Singapore time. I have my eye on a couple of add ons and a couple of shop items so I know I need to stay up. Coffee with diet coke chasers today, obviously. Is anyone else doing the same? I love hearing what people have in mind to buy!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Instagram Love

I still wonder what I did before my iPhone and Instagram. I rarely pull out my camera to take a photo as my iPhone pictures are generally every bit as good.  I love the Instagram community too; such a fun, positive online space.

I worry a little that I occasionally flood the feed with pictures of Scarlett but I do try and show some restraint. If you can cope with a fair few shots of Miss S then please follow my feed @clairetomonaga.

Today's layout is very simple. I love this little photo of Scarlett and her two best friends hugging/collapsing together. The three of them really do love each other.

Most of this layout is from SC Twisty Slide add on with a few pieces from the Elmwood Park main kit. The LOVE title is a Dear Lizzy piece from American Crafts. I am in love with the brighter colours this month and really excited about working further with this one. 

I am expecting a bit of a lighter crafting week this week as Tet is away in Indonesia all week so I am the 24/7 parent. Thank goodness for pre school! It did not start well as Miss S woke at 1 am convinced it was time to get up. It took me a couple of hours to fall back to sleep and then Poppy decided she needed breakfast at 4.30am. Needless to say I am a bit slow today!

Sketches Save the Day

I have been saving sketches that catch my eye on my Reader and then not using them. This week I vowed to make use of a couple before they disappeared off the top of my Reader list.

I first spotted this sketch on Melissa Priest's blog but it was originally from the Boys Rule Scrapbook kits.  The circles reminded me of the die cuts in the So Cal kit. Melissa simplified the sketch to suit her purpose and I modified it a reasonable amount too.

Please tell me what I did before grey card stock and SC veneer stars?! 

I started off with just the two embellishment groupings but it looked unfinished so I added a third in the top right corner. Everything on the layout is part of the SC So Cal Kit or the Santa Monica add on  with the exception of the Noel tab on the journalling which is from the 2011 OA Christmas line. Since I did not receive mine until January I think this is the first piece I have used from it.

The photo of my daughter was taken on Christmas Day at my Dad's house. She was pretty excited about everything!

I still have not received my July SC kit so I have my fingers crossed that today will be the day.

Testing testing

When this post goes live I should be in Malaysia so this is a bit of an experiment. Let's hope it works. If not then I am well ahead of the game for next week.

I have not had quite so much crafty time the last two weeks as Tet has been in Taiwan and then Shanghai for work. We have a week of him at home and then he is off to India for a few days again. Sole parenting means that when I do have a little time to myself there is plenty of domestic duty type activity waiting for my attention. This layout was one that I wanted to make a start on. I just love the stencil paper and I knew that I wanted to use it twice at least but could not decide how best to do that.

In the end I went with a very bold background paper and changed it for a heart shaped piece in Scarlett's first and last initials - S and T (she actually has four but that is another story for another time). The lettering is form an older Echo Park collection called Playground.  Most of the other supplies are from the City of Lights kit from Studio Calico with the exception of the heart paper which is from the new Amy Tangerine Sketchbook line.

Scarlett loves the water - she is a Pisces after all. She has at least two showers or baths every day - in part because of the high humidity climate we live in and in part because she loves them. She has a ritual after each one which involves a nudey run through the house. For the sake of her dignity I have used a photo taken before she discarded her towel on this particular day.

Enjoy your weekend. I am planning to!

Too Much of a Good Thing

I have noticed that almost every layout I complete at present has Scarlett as the star. I used to try and balance things out and alternate a Scarlett layout with one of Tet or me or a general travel one but that has fallen by the wayside a little. To be honest, the dominance of Scarlett layouts certainly reflects our life quite well. We live away from home so have no family or friends who can baby sit so everything we do is pretty much something suitable for the Monkey. We are at the point of looking at getting a live in helper to enable me to do some relief teaching and to give hubby and me some much needed time out without a two year old! 

This layout was a bit of a scrap buster. I have been cutting up a lot of 6 x 6 pads for 4x6 slots in Project Life. This has left me with a number of strips of patterned paper. Some I am using as bookmarks and some have found a new life on this layout. I adore the Amy Tangerine woodgrain white thickers. I had a pack in my April kit but it is pretty gappy so I bought another set as I know I will use it up! The frame and background paper are also from the April SC kit. The journalling spot is an Amy Tangerine sticker and the two little comment pieces are Lily Bee and MME from my stash. Scarlett loves going downstairs to splash in puddles after a storm and I love taking photos of it!

Happy Thursday!