a note for my country and a gift of Love!

I'd like to start with a personal note as usual, if you don't mind. :)

I am Thai. If you watched the international news for all the last week, you might have seen that things haven't been easy in my home country. It breaks my heart. And now that we are so far away in Lebanon, there is not so much we can do. (And I doubt we'd be able to do anything much if we're there either.) It's even more depressing when you think that it's the week that we're supposed to be celebrating Songkran (Thai New Year holiday -- between April 13-15), with our famous Water Festival. Instead of splashes of water and smiles, we had a lot of anger and hatred on the streets this year. :(

I will not get into anything politics related here, just want to share some hope for love and peace to come back to my country. And, of course, I chose to express my feelings through some scrapbooking layouts.

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Dúnia is back from her pregnancy break full throttle! She has two new products in store this month and they are absolutely fabulous! She is also a featured designer at The Daily Digi this month. You can read all the fun facts about Dúnia here. The product she made for The Digi File is called Upside Down and it's full of fun elements and doodles! I love it!

She also has a new template set out and this one is so special! (If you have seen Ivana Alves's ultra amazing layouts before you'd know what I mean! LOL) It's called Be Inspired by Ivana, available at both DSB and ZZS:

I used Upside Down with a template in the Ivana set and came up with this page. This happy picture of 3-year-ago Neill somehow makes the present situation in Thailand seem even more gloomy by comparison.

"Make Splash, Not War"

Journaling reads:
This fun picture of Neill was taken three years ago
when we were celebrating Songkran holiday (Thai New Year) in Phuket.
This year we are in Lebanon, so far away from home,
and all the gloomy news from Thailand does its best in getting us out of the celebrating mood almost completely.

If we can have one wish for the New Year,
It would be for peace and love to come back to our beautiful country.
Let the joyful spirit of Songkran make people come to their senses and finally see what is best for the country.
Instead of bullets, blood, and hatred, let's splash each other with cool, clean, and refreshing water
to calm our temper in the manner that Songkran has been celebrated all along.

I personally don't like seeing kids play with guns, even a water gun for that matter,
but after watching the news where there are people with real guns
walking around the once beautiful and serene neighborhood,
I'd take the water guns over that any day! - April 13, 2010

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Another page I made last week was from the wonderfully lovely kit of Pixelily Designs, Love Is All Around. Lily is a brand new designer at Digital Scrap Cafe, but she is by no means a new name in digiscrapping community. She's been designing and giving away freebies with a group of friends -- now known as the Jakarta Scrappers -- for a long while. (A member of the group is Lisa of Aprilisa Designs, who's not at all a stranger to this blog. LOL)

During the new store celebration period, a lot of Pixelily products are on sale (this one is 50% off!) so don't miss this opportunity!


Here is what I made with Love Is All Around:

"Give Peace a Stance"

Journaling reads:
With a heavy heart I pray for my motherland. No more fighting, no more bloodshed, no more hatred. I pray for love and peace. ...Give love a chance. Give peace a stance.

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Well, let's end this long post with a gift of love from Lily and me! You can have the layout I made for the kit as a quickpage for your personal scrapping projects! I'm giving you the word art I created for the page as an extra gift too. :)

You can click on the image below to download from 4shared. Enjoy!