Today I'm grateful for...

So many things! I woke up feeling it's gonna be a good day, and it is so far. :) Outside the air is heavy and the grey sky threatens rain while I'm enjoying my cup of latte in an air-conditioned mall with free wi-fi waiting for my kiddo to finish his singing class. Yes. All is well.

Just about an hour ago I learned that my most recent scrapbook page made it to the Gallery Standouts blog again today!

It's always an honor to be among such amazing talents there but today it's very special because the page is also very special to me. Well, to be fair, all my scrapbook pages are special to me. But you know, like that bad joke, "All men are created equal but some are just more equal than others."

This page happened quite spontaneously. I didn't set out to create a photo-less layout but it just turned out this way. It became a page waiting for myself to fill one day with photos taken from my dream destinations. Would you keep your fingers crossed for me please...

Do you like my list? Anyone share the same dream destinations as mine? :)


The page is crated with Val C. Designs' amazing For the Record kit.

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Now I hope I can make you happy too. :) There's this little template I made from my own layout. I kept it simple but of course there's a lot of space for you to fill out with as many elements, photos, and texts, as you want to. I made a word art to go with the template and it also works separately. So, enjoy!

The template and word art are okay for PU, S4H, and S4O. Please click on the preview to download.

Holiday shopping, anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving! For those who celebrate the fabulous holiday, of course. We don't celebrate it here in Thailand but I always love spirit and the idea of being grateful for what we have.

The concept actually applies to Buddhist teachings as well. To be satisfied, grateful, and know what is "just enough" for you, that equals to letting go of greed. Isn't that wonderful? Wouldn't it bring a little peace to the chaotic world? (A little pageant-y for me but what the heck. LOL!)

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I'm running a little late at everything. (When am I not that? Umm............ Let me think.............. Still thinking............) So I'll just leave you a couple of ads here. Hope they are useful for those who are shopping for holidays!!! All images are linked to corrensponding stores.

Oh! First, some good news!!!!

I am very lucky to be chosen as this week's Featured Scrapper at MScraps.

I would really LOVE IT and LOVE YOU if you ladies can visit the thread and play with the challenge! It's easy! You just have to visit my gallery at MScraps and lift one of my layouts using at least 75% of MS products. I'm the last one for November so, with holiday preparations and stuff, there might not be a lot of participants. It can be a bit lonely there. Keep me company, pretty please.........? ;)

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Now, the second good news! Val C. Designs asked if I wanted to join her CT and I said yes!!! I have always loved Val's beautiful kits and she's sooooooooo sweet and one of the most generous designers out there. So it's such a pleasure to be working with her again.

She just opened her store at Zig Zag Scrap recently and now some of her fabulous products are on sale during the Black Friday! Go shop!

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At MScraps, Anita and Dunia are also having some sales of their kits. Dunia has 3 new products on sale for 20% off during the weekend, while Anita's shop is 30% off!

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Gotta end with this bittersweet news. Designs by Doodelle (Rachelle) is closing her shop at MScraps. She'll be starting at a new store next month. From now until the end of the month, though, you have a chance to pick up her stuff at MScraps at a very looooow price! Some of the old kits will be retired forever so, seriously, don't miss the chance at owning some vintage Doodelle before it's gone for good!


I have a big bunch of new layouts for ALL the designers I CT for that haven't been shown here yet. That will have to wait until next time, though. See ya soon! Now enjoy your shopping!!!!!

Guess who made GSO again??

Me! Me! Me! (Gee, love yourself much??!! LOL) Oh well, I'm happy, what can I do? :D

One reason why this time it makes me more excited than before is because it's totally unexpected. I'll admit it, everytime I finish a layout I have a wee bit of hope it will get a GSO somewhere. A bit pathetic, yes, but it feels great to know that other people like my creations too. (Since I always scrap pictures of Neill, the term "my creations" means him as much as my layouts. LOL)


I finished the page in a hurry because it was going to be the last page - the backside of the back cover - of the family's 2011 calendar, which needs to be reformatted and zipped up and burnt to a disc and sent to the printer right away. At that point I had been working for 40 hours straight, hurrying to finish the project, and only managed to sneak in 3 hours of sleep in between those long hours. So, I was happy enough that the last page came out decent. LOL! The fact that it got mentioned in the GSO blog just blew me away! Thank you so much, Kate and GSO!!!

Of course, the page can't be half decent without Rachelle's kit Travelogue and Dunia's 2009 in Review Template. I salute you and am soooooo very grateful to be working with you, Rach and Dunia!!!


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Also just finished a new page for Caged Bird Designs' store grand opening at Digital Scrap Cafe!! (Her kits are now 40% off during this celebratory period. Go check it out quickly!!) This beautiful Fall kit, Bountiful Meadow, is so easy and fun to work with. I used it for the pictures of Neill in his grandma's garden. It was quite a funny moment for all of us.

Grandma's Garden
Journaling reads:
Neill wanted to help Khun Yai (grandma) in the garden
at our little holiday house in Rayong.
It took him the whole 20 minutes to properly put on
mosquito repellent lotion, long socks, and garden gloves.

He then confidently tackled the weeds, pulled out handful after handful of those,
never forgot to pause every half minute to pose for the camera.

After 5 minutes, he decided that he had enough,
claiming that an ant bit him somewhere and the leaves made him itchy.
It took another 20 minutes to remove all that he just put on to take a shower. :)

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Alright, just a few short notes before I have to go. Rachelle (Designs by Doodelle)'s CT Call is still going on until October 13. Send her your application fast if you're interested!

My What's in the Coffee Cup challenge at DSC is also running until the end of October. Already there are some amazingly creative layouts submitted. I hope to see a lot more, though. Remember, ALL participants get a little something at the end of the month too!! :)

Creative Soul and Travelogue (and GSO again!)

You just gotta give it to Rach for always coming up with such interesting and fun names for her kits! :)

My friend Rachelle (Rachness Designs/Doodelle) has two new kits out in her store at MScraps, and they are truly stunning. Both kits are full of unique elements and most of them hand-drawn by Rach herself. If you are a fan, as I am, you wouldn't want to miss them!

The first one is Creative Soul. I just loooooooove all the fun elements in this one! You've got a whole lot of paint splats, brush strokes, drawn frames, doodles, and a bunch of other art-related stuff to create your own art with. Endless possibilities here.

You can also buy the element pack seperately, if you want to.

With my super-duper hectic schedule, I haven't got round to making a layout with this fantastic kit just yet. But I will very soon! Until then, please visit Rach's blog as well as Indy's to all the stunning pages from Creative Soul. Indy has something special waiting for you there too. :)

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This second kit, Travelogue -- just hit the store today and on sale at 20% off! -- is made especially for my family (or so it seems to me LOL!) uh.. no.. I mean... the travellers. :D Like one of the word arts in the kit said, the kit is perfect for when you are "..going on a trip, to take a break and see what the world has to offer."

It is also available as an Element Pack, also 20% off.

For this layout, I chose a picture of Neill from when we were on top of a mountain, savouring our first experience with real snow in Lebanon. I like the way he looked back as if pondering when we would get a chance to have fun with snow again. It was such a great day for all of us.


Journaling reads:
On that mountain, that day in Lebanon, with that first experience with snow, Neill must have felt like he's on top of the world.

Well, you know what, sometimes lightnings DO strike twice! I can't believe my eyes when I saw that this layout above has been featured at the Gallery Standouts blog! What?!? Second time this week???? I'm still pinching myself furiously here to see if I would wake up from such a great dream! LOL! I'm just so grateful for Rach's fabulous kits that inspire me so much.

So now great news! You can have this page for your own traveling photo! Just click here or on the preview below to get your quickpage. As usual, comments are very welcome and appreciated. :)


(Hint: There's another goodie for you at Indy's blog!)

That's all for now. See you here in a short while though. Really. And I'll be back with another freebie. :D

A call, a dollar deal, a GSO, and a challenge freebie!

Okay, I counted. And I found out that in the span of about 24 hours I'm gonna have to make at least 3 blog posts to cover all I have to share with you. Wow.... That's gonna be fun! (And I can pretty much kiss my sleep good-bye. LOL) So I guess they all are gonna have to be short and sweet, and speedy as hell. :D Ready?

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Designs by Anita is having a CT Call! This is absolutely a dream call for you, believe me. I'm speaking from my experience! Anita is super sweet to work with and always comes up with fabulous stuff that helps make your page special. Call ends Aug. 31 so hurry up!

(If you can't read the ad clearly, please click on it, or here, to go to Anita's blog for details.)

Here is just an example of Anita's beautiful work that I had a chance to create with. Natural Beauty:

I used the kit for this layout, This Smile, just to chronicle the progress of Neill's smile over almost 7 years of his life. :)

The template used for this layout is also a favorite of mine from Dunia Designs' Bunch of Templates Vol. 3!

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...which brings us to another matter at hand, Dunia's amazing Dollar Deal! Her 20 products will be retired from stores by the end of the month, so Dunia has put them on sale for only $1 each at DigiScrappersBrasil! The deal lasts until the end of August only so you have to run if you don't want to miss these fun products forever! Here are previews of what you can get at the deal.


I used Times Like These kit and a template from Muliti-photo Templates Vol. 1, both included in Dunia's dollar deal, for this layout, Jump!



This page subsequently brought me the honor of being featured at the Gallery Standouts blog for the second time! Woohoooo! It has made its way to DigiShopTalk's and Digital Scrap Cafe's GSO threads as well. :)

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I'll wrap it up quickly with this piece of news that is not so new any more as I should've blogged about it since the beginning of this month. LOL

I am a proud new hostess of the What's in the Coffee Cup Challenge at Digital Scrap Cafe! It's a fun challenge where you have to scrap a layout that includes each of the items listed in the coffee cup. And here is what the coffee cup looks like this month.


I won't go into the details now as this is already a loooooooog post. Let's just show you the layout I came up with for the coffee cup!


There WILL be a surprise gift (which will be revealed at the end of the challenge) for all participants. And, to kick start the challenge, I made a template out of my page above to give away as well. Visit the challenge thread to get the details and snag the free template!


Enjoy and see you soon! :)

A Girl, a Great News, and a Gift!

Sometimes I have such a love/hate relationship with scrapbooking. LOL! The only reason for that is because I'm so sloooooooow at it. I started this thread in Digital Scap Cafe forum to find out how much time other people are spending on a layout of theirs (Feel free to jump in and join the discussion!!), and that's when I realize how bad I am. :D Well, what can I do??? I need 24 hours (at least) to make a decent layout (for me!) LOL

Anyway, slow or not, the outcomes always make the hobby worthwhile. Those wonderful moments when a page is finished are what keeping me going. I've got some to show today.

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I found this out the other day and it still stunned me! Some of you who are very observant might noticed that I have a brand new blinkie on the right side of the blog. Yes, the Woohoo! one. Have you tried clicking on it? :)

Thanks, Scrappersonline! It's a real honor to be among such an amazing company!

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After a long break from designing to take care of her health and her work, Rachelle (Rachness Designs) is back with a vengeance! LOL! She has a bunch of fab new products in store and I got to play with some of them!

I Love Being a Girl - 20% off till Monday @ MScraps

Chalky - 20% off till Monday @MScraps


So Simple Photo Masks and Borders Pack 3

Here's the page I made with I Love Being a Girl and one of the So Simple borders. I love this great picture of my hubby's grand niece Deandré so much. It's taken by her Papa last year. Her smile is so infectious that I just have to scrap it. :)

To celebrate Rach's being back and, of course, my own good news, you can enjoy this layout too. I made a quickpage out of it! You can click here or on the preview image to download. Please leave a few words if you like it, will you? :)

Enjoy! :)

Charity and Gallery Standout

As Dunia's CT, I've had an amazing opportunity to work with a fabulous kit that came from a heartbreaking situation. I won't be able to tell you the story half as well as the wonderful ladies who created this kit. So, please take a few minutes to read this. The text is from Deca Designs' blog:

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Let me tell you a story.

Leonardo was a healthy bright and smart 4 years old little boy, who went to school and had a quiet life with his parents and twin little brothers, Lucas and Alexandre, until his mother Ana Paula started noticing that something was not going very well with him. As he became a sad boy, had a distorted sight, complained about headhaches, and he wouldn't walk the same way and no longer had much coordination.

Leo went through several doctors before being diagnosed with a brain stem tumor in late September 2009.

In October 2009, they moved to Sao Paulo to begin his battle against cancer. First a brain surgery to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy sessions.

After several sessions and much struggle, in April 2010 Leonardo needed a bone marrow autograft, because the chemotherapy had to be so aggressive that destroyed it, leaving him very weak.

Right now the doctors are very hopeful with the treatment and the response given by the body of this admirable little warrior.

Currently, the family moved to Sao Paulo, because it is there that Leonardo is being monitored medically, Leonardo and his family have fallen on hard times because Leo's mother left her job in Dourados to devote to her child, and his father who worked in South Africa, also had to leave his job and return to be able to take care of he twins as mother and Leo would have to spend long periods at hospital and they didn't have no one else that could take care of the twins that were only some months old at the time.

They are now facing serious financial problems for the payment of all treatments and costs with the struggle of Leonardo.

Above all the struggle and hard times, this family is an example of love, strength, courage, unity and faith to be followed by all of us!

This is our little and precious Leonardo, before and after.



Inspired on Leo's life, this month we are starting a new project at Digiscrappers Brasil. It's a charity project that we called Charity with Love and our idea is to have a new one every three month.

This is a project that aims to help needy people of the Brazilian community. With so many projects like this that happen in digital scrapbooking stores outside Brazil, we thought, "Why not create something like this also to help people in Brazil?". And so, with the will, commitment and effort of our designers we created this wonderful kit.

Charity with Love for May is this absolutely stunning childhood themed mega kit. My Wish for You! So this is our newest kit for you.

Help us HELP Leo and his family by purchasing this wonderful MegaKit and Album which was created by many wonderfully generous scrappers. Or you can purchase both products in a big bundle, available at 20% discount at Digiscrappersbrasils store.


Please help and spread the word if you can. They are counting on us.

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I made a page with this kit. It's a page I'm very proud of.

(Please click on image for bigger view.)
Credits:Journaling is from a part of "I wish you love" lyrics by Albert A. Beach
All papers and elements from Charity with Love Project: My Wish for You maga collab kit by Digiscrappersbrasil designers
Fonts are PS Pimpdeed III and JaneAusten.

I thought having the chance to create with this kit was special enough, but good news didn't stop there. Yesterday I put this layout into galleries and went to bed. This morning, I found out that the page was mentioned in Digishoptalk (DST) Gallery Standouts thread. I was totally over the moon!!

But that's not it! I went through my emails and found that there's a message in MyScrapbookArt (MSA) gallery telling me that the page has been featured in THE Gallery Standouts blog as well!!!! I can't believe my eyes! It felt like winning an Oscar for scrapbooking or something. (If Oscars were handed out daily, that is. LOL) All the time I've been doing this, the blog has been a huge source of inspiration. So, no doubt, I feel so honored and flattered.

I'm gonna stop talking and go make myself a celebratory cup of coffee now. :)

A long blog post and a freebie

Wow... A full month without updating the blog at all, can you believe it?

This isn't easy. You know when you stop doing something for quite a period of time, you can get so rusty and lazy and awkward and intimidated and everything that it's just quite hard to start again? Oh...you're not like that? Sorry. Maybe it's just me. :) I'm a kind of person who often buys a new diary, diligently writes in it for a whole week, then leaves it to gather dust for eternity afterwards. So now you know why maintaining a blog is quite a challenge for me.

Anyway, I'm back!!!! Actually I've been back in Bangkok for 2 weeks now. But let me tell you, those were the two ultimately chaotic weeks of my life, physically and emotionally, that I had to put the blog (and scrapbooking) on back burner while I tried to sort everything out. Anyway, again, I'm back!!!! And I already have a lot to blog about today, so I'd better start now.

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Let's start with an award! Last week, my friend the fabulous scrapper Lisa of Aprilisa Designs, who's been so nice and kind and an inspiration to me, left a comment here that she had an Honest Scrap award for me to pick up from her blog. I was so overjoyed!

Then I found out that the awardees (is that a word?) are expected to blog about things others don't know about themselves. Lisa herself created a wonderful layout detailing hers. I was so impressed by it that I decided to follow her lead and scrap mine as well.

However, as I said earlier, things were hard and I didn't feel much artistic for a while so I kept waiting for something to motivate me more. Turns out there were two things: Dunia's oh-so-cute-and-versatile kit Stand by Me (available at DSB - NDISB - ZZ) and the Coffee Cup challenge at Digital Scrap Cafe where you have to scrap a layout that includes each of the items listed in the coffee cup..

So here it is: my attempt to kill 3 birds with one layout um.. stone......hehehe)

(click on it to see bigger image and read my 10 facts)

Credits: Everything from Stand by Me kit by Dunia Acauan
Inspired by Aprilisa

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At DSC forum, I found another great challenge and a great freebie. Michele Stone Designz is in the Spotlight at DSC from 1st - 15th of November and she's hosting a challenge as well as giving us the amazing Holly Jolly Christmas add-on kit to play with.

As soon as I saw the kit, my mind automatically went to this photograph of my own Santa, who's also celebrating his birthday today. (Nov. 15) I don't know if I should tell you his age but if you're good with math you would already have some idea from the above layout. LOL!

Happy Birthday, baby. You're the best husband and father we could ever hope for.

(click on it to see bigger image)

Credits: Everything from Holly Jolly Christmas add-on kit by Michele Stone Designz
Except All I Want wordart by me :)

Journaling reads:
Working for the UN, Chris hardly gets to be home for Christmas. This year he is stationed in Lebanon. Alone and so far, far away from his wife and sons. What would I do then? - He asks himself. Well, he still has that old Santa costume from 2007 that he wore to a Christmas party in Liberia. So maybe he would put it on again and bring presents to the kids. They'll be his family for the day.

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Before this blogpost draws to a close I just want to give a shoutout to my friend Rachelle of Rachness Designs. She's now super busy being a bridesmaid and in charge of all arts and craft stuff of her friend's wedding. Yet she finds time to create all those uniquely cute CU products, write tutorials about how to work with them, and even give away CU freebies regularly! What a superwoman she is!?!

So no matter if you are an aspiring designer or just a recreational scrapper, do visit her blog. I assure you, the tutorials are awesome! They have a lot of details and so informative, even for a GIMP user like me! I was also thoroughly entertained reading about her life as well as seeing all her hybrid craft. I can't wait to see the stuff she's designing for the wedding!

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After such a long absence from the blog, it's only appropriate for me to end this post with a leeeeetle freebie. So please enjoy this wordart I made for the Christmas layout.



You may download from either 4shared or mediafire, just please don't forget to leave a comment or two here. I love 'em, you know. :)