A quick post for Fall alpha freebie

Hope I can do this quick. (I can never do anything quickly. Even my 6-year-old son knows that I'd always be the last one in the table to finish a meal -- and not because I eat more than anybody either! -- just to make that clear! LOL!)

I'm still on vacation in South Africa and now that hubby and son are already sleeping, I can sneak out to get online a little. Just want to update the blog to give you the alpha set freebie I made for/with Rachness's autumn kit "I Dream of Fall". (It's a great kit. You may read about and see my layouts using IDOF here.) This alpha should go with the IDOF and other Fall kits pretty well. I made it with pictures of signposts (near or in forests) in mind, so the alpha set also comes with an arrow and some screwheads on woodplank. There's also a version of the alpha without the screwhead for you to use as you wish.

I intended to put the alpha set on both 4shared and mediafire (Thanks a bunch for all who left comments at the other posts telling me which you prefer) but I really don't have time to upload on both sites. So please just go to this link on 4shared to download the set, or click on the image below. Next time I promise I'll do both.

Oh, and sorry for those who asked to see the vacation pictures. We're having such a great time here I haven't got time to take the pics out of the camera yet. I'll show you some later.

Thanks for all the comments, as usual. You know I love reading them. :)

Vacation time

I'm visiting our family in South Africa. Will be back to Thailand in November.

I don't know yet when I'll be able to update the blog again. But I'll try to get online as soon as possible. Coz there's another set of something nice in my harddrive waiting to be gone to you as a freebie and it can't wait that long.

TTFN!

2 very different LOs for 2 very different kits

Hi there!

Wow. Thank you so much for your glowing and overwhelming responses on the mosaic template freebie. I'm so happy that so many people like it and think it could be useful. If any of you actually make a layout using the template, I would be so thrilled to see it. Please drop me a link to your page if you can. Thank you!

By the way, my friend Grace from Digital Scrap Cafe pointed out to me that as much as she wants to, her program doesn't support .psd (Photoshop) or .xcf (of GIMP) so she can't use the mosaic template. So I got busy and put together the .png files for her, and I think I should put the folder here as well. Hope it helps.

Here's the download link, or you can just click on the image as usual. (This is just for the .png files. If you want the .psd and .xcf files as well, go back to the previous post for another link.)

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For the past 2 nights I had a chance to play with 2 very different kits, and I had a blast, seriously.


The first one is Dúnia 's gorgeous Black or White mini kit. (I still can't believe how lucky I am to be invited to be her guest CT for October and November.) It's a great kit full of fun papers and elements, now on sale at both ZigZag Scrap and Digiscrappers Brasil.


I've kept this old but ver special photograph and been wanting to scrap it for a long time, but haven't found a perfect kit for it. Then this B&W kit came along and suddenly I was scrapping like crazy! The finished layout turned out exactly how I wanted it to look like and it's definitely one of my most favorite pages I have scrapped ever! Anyway, here it is:

(click on image for bigger view)

Journaling:
Dog days, according to wikipedia and other online sources, is a phrase used to describe the hottest and most humid period of summerwhen time halts to a standstill and nothing ever seems to get done.In other words, it's a period of stagnation. How appropriate that it is also the name of a small restaurant that we frequented over a span of a year, almost 10 years ago. At that time, we were still young professionals just starting a career. Apart from the love for good arts and good food, we also shared frustrationin what we were doing for a living. Our lives were progressing so slowly andnot in the direction we wanted it to be. We were lucky though to still have each other to get drunk and vent out with.

Fast forward to the present, Dog Days the restaurant went out of business long time ago. There're changes in our lives too.The girl who took this picture becomes a top p.r. exec. One friend is now a famous actor, another owns a comic publishing house. Two succeeds in the music business as singers / songwriters.One learned a new language from scratch and now manages an international company overseas, while two are enjoying lives as architects. And me? I am happily married, raising a son, and loving my job. As cliché as it sounds, the photograph reminds me that dog days will pass, and life does go on........

Credits:
All from Black or White mini kit by Dúnia Acauan

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Now for the second kit. It's from Scooty's Design who is the designer in the spotlight this month at DSC. She has a new kit out called "So Cute" and, to celebrate being in the spotlight, she is sharing a great add-on and QP freebies as a part of DSC's Designer Spotlight challenge.

After doing the B&W page, I was yearning for something different and, boy, this neutral colors and oh-so-cute kit is just that. The challenge is to scrap the cutest picture of the cutest person you know with the kit. Is there a question in anyone's mind who that person is gonna be for me? LOL! Here's my entry for the challenge:

Credits:
All papers and elements from kit So Cute add-on by Scooty's Design

TTFN!

I Dream of Fall and a mosaic template freebie

Before I go to other matters, I just want to remind you that flood victims in the Philippines and Vietnam are still waiting for your help. Some of them lost everything including their loved ones to this flood. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read my previous post, or visit blogs of people who are there, like Willa's or Indy's. If you can, please go to the blogs or Red Cross website and donate. Thank you.

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I'm so glad it's 1st of October already!! Finally I'm allowed to write about and post layouts using Rachness Design's new Fall kit "I Dream of Fall". When I first saw the preview of this kit, I fell in love immediately. I particularly love the papers and Rachelle's unique doodled elements. See for yourself and you'll understand why.

(click on image to see bigger and more detailed previews)

I finished 3 layouts very quickly despite having so many other things to do, and then had to sit on it for days until the product is in stores. The excitement almost killed me. LOL! Check it out at the store to see what's the fuss. :) It's on sale at ZigZagScrap for only 2.80$

{Just a little note about Fall. This thread in My Scrapbook Art forum cracked me up so bad. :D Gabi (GButcher) who started the thread noted that there are an army of Fall scrapbooking kits out there because now it's autumn for the people in the northern hemisphere. She reminded all the designers that there still are those who live near and below the equator that just welcomed SPRING! Hehehe...}


We in Thailand hardly see leaves change colors except for those living way high up in the mountain areas. So I don't have pictures of my son or anyone in the family in fall scenes at all. But then this is actually a good thing. It makes you work harder to think of concepts or themes that could link the pictures with the kit's fall color scheme. In the end I found this very challenging and fun and I really love how it turns out.


Here are my layouts using I Dream of Fall:

For this third layout (above - simply called "Fall"), I actually got the idea from Digital Scrap Cafe's latest Clean&Simple Challenge where you have to scrap a mosaic layout! Because I love the papers in this IDOF kit so much, I wanted to make a layout that showcases all the different papers in mosaic, and still look kinda soft, wavy, and not blocky nor symmetrical in any way. So I made my own template! And it worked quite as well as I thought it should.



I found that this template is pretty versatile too. Since it's a layered template, with each strip (though not each block) on a seperate layer, you may delete or add layers or blocks to make the mosaic thicker/thinner or shorter/longer as you want it to be. You can also delete some of the blocks and replace them with pictures, or you can merge some layers together then use it as a clipping mask to your papers/photos, like I did with the Change layout in the earlier post. The possibilities are endless.


So if you think it might be useful for your scrapping needs, you're welcome to go grab it from 4shared or mediafire. (I also want to know which one you prefer. Which one gives you more trouble?) Just please don't forget to leave some love here to let me know that you've come my way. Thank you! Now you can go enjoy your freebie. :)

A change and a flood

I'll start with a flood.

I haven't had time to watch or read the news lately. With my editing work, a sideline job (translating), a son going through school term exam, and a digi-scrapping hobby, I'd rather sleep for 6 hours straight than watch TV. That's why I didn't know about the flood in the Philippines and Vietnam until earlier today when my mother talked about the rain and showed me the pictures of both countries in a newspaper.

I immediately went to my scrapping friends from Philippines' blogs; Rachelle (Rachness Designs) and Indy (SassyIndy), and saw that Indy has blogged about the flood. She has pictures and clips of the flood that would just break your heart. But what struck me most is the story of her cousin stuck on the second floor of a house with other adults and a child.* I still haven't heard from Rachelle and I'm praying that she's alright. Being a journalist, she might probably be busy covering the flood herself.

* New update from Indy: her cousin has been saved now. Hurrah!!


It's time to lend a hand. Please help if you can, in any way you can.

Please visit the Philippines Red Cross and Vietnam Red Cross websites to find out how you can donate.


(The Vietnam Red Cross website is not running so I'm sending you to the Vietnam page of The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) instead.)


May all that is Holy and Sacred in this world protect all the flood victims and their loved ones. I hope the situation improves very soon.

*****

Now about a change.

Jaime Choi of Three Paper Peonies has a new challenge that comes with her new ittybitty kit called "Change". She asked us to scrap about a change in our lives. I love the color scheme of this kit so much. Here's my challenge entry:

(click on image for bigger view or to leave comment in DST gallery)

Journaling:
When Neill was little, Mama used to automatically take the role of family photographer, lurking behind bushes and trees trying to take candid pictures of him playing and interacting with people. ....Not anymore.

Now that Neill is able to handle the camera himself, he's the one lurking and taking all those nice but not-so-candid shots of family members. We believe it's a good thing for him to learn to be observant and expand his imagination. As long as he doesn't drop the camera that is.

Credits:
Everything including wordart (altered) from Change ittybitty kit by Three Paper Peonies
Mosaic strip template by Pom's Breathing Room (my own :D )

I'll be giving away the layered mosaic strip template as freebie here in this blog very soon. Maybe even later today, I don't know yet. Let's see.