So, what is clean, elegant, and comes hidden a bag?

The answer would be this blog post. :D Okay, don't start booing just yet. I guess I ran out of ideas for blog titles. LOL

I've got a few layouts to show you today! I just spent a few hours resizing and getting the images ready for blogging and I couldn't help thinking that this is gonna be one of the best color-coordinated entries I ever make here! You'll see what I mean.

The first layout is created with Anita's mini kit Elegant and Beautiful (which totally lives up to its name!)

I used a picture of Neill when he was 2 months old, almost 7 years ago, for the layout. I just love this photo and his Mona Lisa smile. There are quite a few comments in the galleries where I posted this page noting how, as a baby, he already looked so much like his big-boy self now. What do you think? :)


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Now the other one is mysterious. I hate secrets and surprises but, my dear blog readers, my hands are tied. LOL!!! All I can tell you is Anita has a Grab Bag deal up at Two Little Pixels and it's fabulous!

Alright, alright! Anita lets me tell you that in the Grab Bag, you'll find one full kit, one word-art set that goes with the kit so perfectly, one very versatile set of frames, and one fantastic set of templates! During July 23-30 you can buy this bag for only $3. After the period each product (worth $14.15 combined) will be sold seperately. So hurry up!

I made a double pager with the items in the Grab Bag. Maybe it will give you some clues of what you'll find in the bag!

Journaling reads:
Ever since PaMam told us about the new salt-water pool not too far from both our houses, Neill was hooked. His private swimming lesson there is going very well although Mama suspects that what he likes best about it must be the fact that he can play with his close friends Prima and Sinat afterwards. It's always extremely hard to get those energized half-fish half-monkeys out of the pool at the end of the day!

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Freebie time! I made templates from my double-page layout above to share with you. No strings attached. This is not a part of any challenge. You don't have to make layouts to show me anywhere and I don't have any reward for it. But I do hope you like them, enjoy working with them, and I would always LOVE to see your pages using them!

Here's your download link or you can just click on the preview below. Comments are very welcome, appreciated, and encouraged as usual. :D

"He who eats alone chokes alone"

*Warning* This blog entry might not be very coherent. LOL I started half of it and then found out that my son Neill was running quite a high fever and had to skip school for 2 days. So I just picked the blog up again 48 hours after I began. Sorry! Neill is better now though. :)

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Like my proverb of the day? "He who eats alone chokes alone." LOL I LOVE it! So true!!

I was going through a website with food-related quotes when I came across this one. The website doesn't show the proverb's origin but I think it's so clever! It tells something about human. It hilights the fact that we are social animals and that we are meant to share what we have and to help each other. What a deep meaning for such a short and fun sentence!

The social side of food and eating is what inspired me to make the 2 layouts that I'd like to show you today. These pages were made using the stories and pictures taken during our Lebanon trip from March to May this year. Both were created with kits by Rachelle of Rachness Designs.

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The first kit is A Cup of Kindness, a collab kit by Rachness and Lorie M. Designs. I have shown you the kit here a few posts ago but without the layout, because it wasn't ready yet.

Now the page is ready. So here's my page with A Cup of Kindness!


Journaling reads:

May 2, 2010 - We were invited to a lunch at a Lebanese friend's house one day and, after we all had too much of the tastiest Lebanese home-cooked meal, her mom offered to do 'coffee reading' for me. I was so excited. This was something I read about and saw in movies a thousand times before but never really experienced!

I was told to drink the thick and strong Turkish coffee until there's very little liquid left at the bottom, then swirl it around to make the sediments cover the cup's inside surface. We turned it upside down on a saucer and waited for the coffee grounds to settle and dry properly.

At first I thought the 'reading' will be full of ambiguous coded messages that require a lot of interpretation on my part. I was wrong. Although our friend's mother could barely speak English, she was very specific about my fortune (and misfortunes - LOL!) that she saw in the cup.

She mentioned health issues that I had, some deceitful friends, and described my precious close friend precisely down to how many children she has and their age. She could even tell from a symbol that I was from Thailand! (Honestly, I wouldn't be able to tell for the life of me that the smudge was an elephant!!)

In the end she told me to place my right thumb against the inside of the cup and turn it a little. She read the impression and concluded that I was satisfied with my life and had nothing serious to worry about. It's a relief to hear that and I was truly thankful for this amazing experience.

Okay I know that some of you might be thinking how unimaginative it is to create a page about a cup for a kit named a cup! Well, what can I say. The kit is just perfect for the picture and theme that I had in mind! It's also great for many other themes too, though, particularly friendship. Need more inspiration? See this entry in Rach's blog to enjoy all the CT pages from A Cup of Kindness!

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The second kit, just released Minda's Kitchen Retro Remix, was designed especially for cooking. It's filled with the nostalgic sense (or scents?) of our mom's home-cooked meals. This is actually a remix of Rach's old kit (and now retired) "Minda's Kitchen", and is packed with her own never seen before vector-drawn and digitally painted illustrations. The bundled pack contains 16 papers , more than 50 elements, and an alpha pack (lowercase a-z only).


I made this page about the Lebanese fabulously tasty treats with Minda's Kitchen Retro Remix!


My husband works in Lebanon so during our son's school break, we went to visit him there for 2 months. Before we got there, I was a little worried. Being a vegetarian is not always easy, and the last thing I want was to make life difficult for those around me. Well, I shouldn't have worried at all.

Journaling reads:
Lebanese cuisine must be one of the healthiest kind of food in the world. It has a wide range of dishes, cooked perfectly and creatively with tons of veggies and very little fat. I was in a vegetarian heaven!

Every labanese meal we had there was so delicious that it was always long gone before I even remembered to take pictures! That's why when we saw this miniature clay set of lebanese food in a souvenir shop, I had to snap it up right away. (Photographically, not physically though. LOL)

In this picture you could see all Lebanese delicacies such as Baba Ghanouj (char-grilled eggplant puree), Hummus (chickpeas dip), Tabbouleh (mint and parsley salad), Labneh (strained seasoned yogurt), Wara' Enab (stuffed vine leaves), Falafel (small deep-fried patties), and roasted nuts and olives.

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As always, Rach lets me turn my layout into a quickpage to share with you. Please click here or on the preview image below to download. Don't forget to leave a few words here too if you like it. :) Enjoy!



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My Template Challenge at Digital Scrap Cafe forum is still going until the last hour of Friday, July 23! You still have enough time to go get your free template and make a layout to participate. Hurry up and I'll see you there! :)

Free layered template, anyone?

Hi!!! Ahh... another weekend with hundreds of things to do. So I'll just keep this short and sweet!

It's my turn again to host a template challenge at Digital Scrap Cafe forum, and I decided to try something different this time. :)

Before we get to the template itself, let's talk reward! This week's challenge winner will win a gift coupon from the loveliest Alison, aka messina33, who's the designer behind Milly Dee Designs. I used her fun kit Little Sailor for my sample layout for the challenge!

And here's my page:

Journaling reads:
Brave the Weather - 15 Oct 08
Our fun boat trip on a replica of ancient vessel in Phuket turned into a nightmare quickly when the storm swooped in. The rain was hard and the wind was throwing our small boat left and right then up and down with the waves. Quite a few people must have started praying silently.

Fortunately, the storm continued on past us eventually, as suddenly as when it came. The whole ordeal was over in less than 20 minutes but it felt much longer. We can laugh about it now but it was certainly no laughing matter then.

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Now, about the template. I know that the templates I gave away for my challenges are more of the Clean and Simple style. That's because it's something I'm more comfortable with. This time, I think it should be nice to try something outside my comfort zone. :)

Clustering, especially tight ones, is always my weakness. Everytime I make a page with clustering, I'm nervous and feel I have to concentrate a whole lot more than usual. So, I think this should be a nice challenge for you and me both! I told myself to be brave and create this template for the challenge. And you know what? I had so much fun! I love the page I made with it too!!!

So here's what your free template looks like! You may click on the preview image below or just click here to go to the challenge thread where you can find your download link.


That's it!! I hope you like the template and can find time to play with it! See you at the challenge!