A 1000 apologies

I wonder if anyone remembers that from Mind your language? The sitcom was quite popular when I was about eight or nine I think?

Anyway yes indeed I would like to apologize 1000 times for being MIA. My mum's here with my youngest brother and some other relatives for 3 weeks. Of course to visit her only grandson who lives all the way across the globe and so far I'm loving the company!

I get to taste mum's home cooked meals again and have sort of a break =) so all is good!

I miss crafting though and haven't had the time to actually sit and make something because you know how it is when families get together right? Right now I'm actually winding down after some serious packing for a trip to Paris tomorrow!

We're going to Disneyland and hopefully this time I'll get to go on some fun rides (last I went in 2009 I was in my 2nd trimester so just took a lot of photos). Wish me luck since I'll be handling my active toddler this time round!

See you soon!

Scrap Map Saturday

This week's scrap map has a fun stamping theme to it! I love collecting stamps but I think I need to start using them more! Using stamps I can create unique backgrounds or personalize my own look to a layout.

Here's the sketch create by Sarah W, followed by my take.


I love playing with my glimmer mists! And to pair it up with stamping is additional fun!

On this LO I first sprayed red glimmer mist to achieve those blotches of ink I like (spray near the paper for bigger splatters and further away for a finer mist). I've stamped the background for the picture with a Hero Arts background stamp. After putting my photo and embellishments into place, I used a couple of stamps from Tim Holtz's sets to tune in with the look I wanted to achieve.

Hope you join us for some stamping fun over at CCW's Scrap Map Saturday!

See you soon!

What's your style?

Many of us usually associate a certain signature style to our layouts. It could be minimalist, plain and simple, cluttered, shabby chic, vintage - well there's a lot of styles isn't there? Anyway in this post I just wanted to show how I vary my style of scrapping depending on the photo I use.

First up is the 'whimsy' look. I like to use especially if it involves my son. It just oozes happy and I love that!

I was actually experimenting on those lovely looking ink blotches on layouts and instead of using my mists I was trying out reinkers. I obviously failed LOL so ended up spreading the ink here and there and I thought the end result looks like a sunny background.

So I got out the polaroids I have of me and my son, took some scraps of paper and layered them randomly. Since I had the brick patterned paper I put it on the edge so it kind of looks like part of a house we're in. Am I making any sense? LOL I added some cloud cutouts from some scrap papers as well and decided to add those felt mushrooms at the bottom along with a brown strip of paper which looks like dirt.

I love this type of layout because I'm able to use up my scraps (which I have a ton of and bet you do to!)

Next up is what I call my attempt at 'shabby chic'. This photo was of me and my cousins on her wedding day so as you can see we were all glamoured up. For these type of photos I usually reach out for my Webster's Pages. Their papers are always gorgeous but sometimes I am at a loss on how to use them. Eventually I found that using these types of pictures work for me and along with WP, Prima flowers and leaves and of course bling are a must!

I love the clustered look of flowers but I don't use them on all my layouts so this was a perfect opportunity to totally use my 'investment' of Prima flowers LOL Oh and that lace! I love lace, it just makes layouts look extra special.

The third layout I have for you today is one of the 'minimalist' genre I highlighted above. I found this look usually goes well with the hipstamatic photos I religiously took when it was first introduced.

With the different types of film, filters and such, the polaroid lookalikes are some of the photos I absolutely adore. They may not be perfect - sometimes a bit blurry or crooked but I love them nonetheless. An example is in my layout below.


This took less than half and hour to make. The thing that took up the most time was probably alligning the alphabet stamps and making sure they stamped right on the paper.

I used kraft cardstock (one of scrapping staples), sprayed a bit of 'Black Magic' glimmer mist (it's one of the Heidi Swapp colours). I stuck on the photo and added the word I wanted to highlight with some thickers.

Then I stamped the other words needed using a Pink Paislee alphabet stamp set including the hearts which was from a Lawn Fawn stamp set. I coloured the hearts with red promarkers and journaled around the photo and I'm done!

These are just some of my favourite ways to scrap my photos and I just wanted to show that there's no one way of scrapping layouts. Everyone is unique and there's always fun with new challenges including varying the way you scrap!

See you again soon!