Giveaway winner!

Hi all!

Thanks for hopping by my blog!

The giveaway is now closed & winner selected:

Congrats to Wati! Do email me your details at scrapsncards@gmail.com for me to mail your kit out to you!

Hope all my new readers will continue dropping by! I'll definitely be doing more giveaways soon, really do need to clear my scrap space! :)

Summer Instagram Blog Hop!

Welcome to the instagram summer blog hop! (Also my first ever blog hop!)

This bloghop is the brainchild of Jessy who gathered her instagram buddies (which includes me) around the world for a bloghop celebrating summer! 

So what's a celebration without a give away? For myself, I'll be giving away a kit (plus some more!) for your to complete your very own mini album like the one I made below! All you've gotta do is to subscribe to this blog & drop me a comment letting me know that you have done so! This giveaway starts on 14 June will end on 17 June, and I'll be announcing the winner here on 18 June, so do check back to see if you've won!

Here's a peek of the kit that the winner of the giveaway will be getting! 
(I'm still adding random things into the kit, like twine & ribbons that I missed out when packing the kit, so I'm hoping the winner will get a pleasant surprise when the open their package up!) 

What's more, all of the other instagramers are also doing their give aways on their blogs, so be sure to hop around to all their blogs (links are at the bottom of the post!) and do add us on instagram (@joancce for me!) to join this beyond awesome instagram community! 

As the final part of the hop today, here's the 5x5 mini album that I made for a friend whom I went on a really fun trip to Bangkok with!

Bloghop links: 

(do visit single everyone of them as they're doing giveaways on their blogs too!)

Aida Haron | aidaville : www.aidaharon.livejournal.com

Amelia Khalik | ameliakhalik : www.ameliakhalik.blogspot.com

Cindy Lee | cindylee : www.mylilcraftycorner.blogspot.com

Clare Reilly | thelifeofclare : www.thelifeofclaree.blogspot.com

Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf | geekgalz : www.evelynpy.wordpress.com

Gina Lideros | ginalideros: www.canoncreativegirl.blogspot.com

Jaime Warren | jaimewarren : www.jaimewarren.typepad.com

Janna Werner | jannawerner : www.jannawerner.de

Jessy Christopher | jcchris : www.teacherjessy.blogspot.com

Joan (that's me!) | joancce : www.scrapsncards.blogspot.com

Jordan Blaser | missblaser : http://missblaser.com/?page_id=9

Julie Garcia-Matus | callelillycafe : www.callelillycafe.blogspot.com

Kim Watson | kjstarre : www.kj-starre.blogspot.com

Kimberly Neddo | kimberlyneddo : www.kimberlygarofolo.typepad.com

Laura Banasiak | laurabanasiak : www.simply-scraps.net 

Liana Suwandi | lianasuwandi : www.maples-lianasuwandi.blogspot.com

Lindsey Hansen | lindzeyhanzen:  www.lindsey-hansen.com

Marie Ramirez | bettiescrapbook : www.absosweetmarie.blogspot.com

Melissa Mann | melissamann1981 : www.iheartpenquins.blogspot.com

Merdrey Chew | medrey : www.dreamieland.wordpress.com

Michelle Kehoe | michellek : www.michellelovesallsorts.blogspot.com

Michelle Lanning | michellelanning : www.michellelanning.com

Nancy S | Kittynance : www.kittyscrapper-nancy.blogspot.com

Natalie Elphinstone | natalieelph  : www.onescrappydoctor.blogspot.com

Natt Smith | tinynatt : www.tinynatt.blogspot.com

Nina Burgess | ladybugnina : www.adventuresinbugland.blogspot.com

Sharmandeswari Nidyanandan | shamu_rueben : www.craftyliciousme.blogspot.com

Susan K. Weckesser | susankweckesser : www.mysweetearth.blogspot.com

Suryanti Halim | isur : www.suryanti-halim.blogspot.com

Talia Carbis | taliacarbis : www.number-19.com

Wati Basri | watibasri : www.scrapcreation.blogspot.com

Ali got hitched!

So last weekend I was on a roll and managed to actually make a layout and this mini album!
It started out with me looking through my photos (There was once when the photoshop was having a 50% discount on prints and I kinda went mad printing photos for future scrapping.) and figuring that I couldn't fit all the photos of Ali's wedding into a single layout and then deciding that I would try making a mini album, subsequently deciding that I didn't have space at home to keep it and deciding to make it as a gift instead (wow long story much?!)
I mainly used pink paislee papers from one of their latest collection in a 5x5 size (since all the photos were 4x4 instagrams), chipboard covers and whatever embellies I could find!
Binding was done using my trusty eyelet setter ($12 from Chinatown!!) and leftover zutter binder rings that I forced together by hand.
Pretty happy with how it turned out! Will definitely be makin more mini albums since I've got so many more photos!!!

A flippy card

I saw this card on Jennifer McGuire's blog and thought I'll give it a try! And while I loved how it turned out, it took me more than 3 hours to create! (well nearly 2 of that was spent messing around on the silhouette trying to get the shape of the card right. On this note, do drop me a comment if you want the template for this card! I can send it over to you!)

I'm back to being obsessed with lace, pearls and doilies (which all appeared on this card), probably because the dear lizzy neapolitan line is so girly!

Going straight back to creating stuff now, and gonna try to get caught up with project life (eeks I'm only at week 17!!!!)

New years eve 2011

Wow. My first layout in a zillion or so years! Took me less than half an hour to finish thanks to the really pretty Amy tangerine paper!
A really simple one to mark my return to making layouts!!
on a separate note, I've actually been keeping up (sorta.. At week 16 mow?) with project life.. Just haven't had the time to post them. Whoops. Soon I promise soon!

Sunday school project!

With mother's day coming up, my mum needed to get the little ones at Sunday school to do up presents for their mothers!
She came up with sandwich making n then giving it in little decorated boxes which is where I come in!

I've gotta say that I really love the silhouette, it makes it terrifically easy to duplicate projects!

So bearing in mind that these are tiny tots (I think) that we are engaging, I broke out my sticker papers n cut a big 'happy mother's day' sentiment in a heart! also cut out flowers to brighten up the whole box! I mean, what's mother's day without flowers right?

Cut up some pieces of green papers for the background, layered a doily under the sentiment, added some hemp-ish looking twine and a couple of punched shapes and the flowers (with buttons added on) and we're done!

Duplicated it 12 times and packed them into little bags for the little ones!

Some project life thoughts..

I was just shuffling through my external hard disk (after a scare that it died on me) when it dawned on me that project life has had a greater impact on me than I've realized.

All my photos prior to 2012 have been organized by events. Birthdays, holidays, trips to the zoo, national day parades and so on.

Those small little things that happened everyday would be grouped under a 'random' folder based on who the photos were taken with, like 'random with xxx', 'random with the girls' etc. There really weren't enough everyday photos to justify having monthly folders with photos that didn't belong to events.

And herein lies the biggest difference of 2012. Even if I tried, I don't think I would be able to group them into events.

I've taken a total of 1,512 photos for 2012, (bearing in mind it's only April, well the end of April but still) and the only 3 significant events were my 2 holidays overseas (which accounted for about 200 photos in total) and CNY (maybe another 80 photos or so). That would make more than 1,200 photos taken of those everyday little things that happened. Wow.

Even though I'm not current with my project life (haven't done weeks 9 - 12, 16 & 17, must catch up!!), I'm still loving the little nagging voice at the back of my mind reminding me to take photos of those little everyday thing, because looking back at the photos I've taken is like watching a video (albeit a choppy and scattered one since I'm really not all that diligent at taking photos) of the first 4 months of this year, and realizing that I have a ton of things to be grateful for, like my awesome husband, wonderful friends, great colleagues, and of course my supercalifraglistic family! :))

Ok enough words, I'll be back really soon this week with another post on my project life weeks 13, 14 & 15, a card that I made, and a really simple project kit-ish thing I helped my mum put together for her Sunday school's arts & crafts! :)

Project life week 8

Well so I've finally got caught up on week 8! And started on week 13 and 14.. I figured, might as well put in whatever I can before I forget what happened!

Here's my week 8 spread..

Used my silhouette (whee!!) to cut out the title card for the week & decorated it a little with Amy tangerine / dear lizzy (loveeeeee!) stickers!
Realized that I was a little low on photos taken this week, so many spaces were filled up with filler cards / journalling instead of photos! I think it works pretty well!

For weeks 9 & 10, the focus is gonna be on my trips! Thinking of combining week 9 & 10 into 1 single spread with inserts for the trips (if required!)

So here's a little sneak of week 14....

Guess who just got a new toy today!

And that would be me!! Woohoo!

Been playing with my silhouette the whooole evening :)))

My first experiment.. And many more to come!!!!

Playing catch up...

I'm back!! :)
Have been absent from here cos of work commitments & a grueling exam (which is finally over!!!)

Gonna make full use of this long weekend to play catch up on posting here & on my project life! :)

Meanwhile, here are a layout & a card made during my looooong hiatus (I haven't even really broke out my dear lizzy stuff to use yet!!!!) for colleagues!

Can I just say that I LOVEEEE the dear lizzy line of products?? The colours are so pretty!!! Perfect for my colleague's god daughter who's really cute as well! I've got a major weakness for babies that stick their tongues out.
Anyways, since she wanted to incorporate more photos into the layout, I kinda made a flippy album using 4 photos & a piece of 4x6 paper (where I drew in borders and lines) for her to write a note to her god daughter to read in a few (many) years time (?)

The card was for a guy.. something simple & masculine-ish! Find that working with a grid design always works for me when making guy cards. Something in the lines that makes it more masculine?

Anyways, enough rambling!! Major hearts for long weekends! Have a good one y'all!! I'll be back sometime over this weekend with more stuff! :)

Name plates

So here's the other bit of commissioned work I was doing last week, a few name plates.
I find that this is a pretty popular item and it's popularity was aptly explained by a friend who mentioned that people generally like seeing their names and / or photos on gifts that they are given. Totally makes sense to me! :)
So here goes..

The base of the name plates are made from chipboard. (on another note, I buy chipboard, or as they call it, greyboard, in really huge sheets measuring 1m by 1m from art friend for a mere $1.50!!) The designs of the nameplates are usually specified clients, often based on their friend's personality.
For these 3, my favourite would have to be the blueish one with the bed design! I was scratching my head on how to represent a bed and finally decided to create some skirting on a simple bedframe. Thought it tuned out quite well!
Woww. 3 posts in 3 days! I'm keeping up! Will try to finish up my project life pages soon.. I'm losing count of how many weeks I'm behind oops.

Furry album!

So there I was going on about my commissioned work and not showing any pictures! I'm really quite happy with the album that I was asked to make because it's kinda out of my comfort zone (suppose to be a princess themed album), and I decided to do something different by not having anything in mind before heading to daiso to buy whatever I could find that fits the theme.
So here's the end product.. The client was very understanding, and only got me to decorate the front cover given the very tight deadline! I used dcwv papers for the pages and found the pearly sheen fitting of the theme!

My favourite part of the album has got to be the crown with its furry edge! I cut up a furry ball that I bought from daiso and used the furry bits to lime the crown! Another cool bit was the big purple crystals thing at the left bottom corner which was actually the cover of a lip balm.
Hope you enjoyed looking at this as much as I enjoyed making it!

Project life week 7

Right! So my later was really a little later than I anticipated..
Here's project life week 7 for me, otherwise known as the week of calm before the storm (try rushing 3 big presentations, traveling to 2 different countries coupled with 2 lost passports before coming back to rush 2 big orders all within 2 weeks or so)
Week 7 was valentine's week and the highlight was definitely the crazily cute flower arrangement the husband sent to the office! :)
So here goes.. This week was somewhat lightish on the photos.. So I ended up using the protectors that had less spaces ;)

backk...

After 1.5 weeks of traveling I'm finally coming back to reality. Boohoo.
Will be back later with my project life week 7!

Oops.

Ok since the start of the year, life is finally getting in the way of me finishing my project life weekly, in both a good way and bad way.
Besides work, which is as busy as ever, I'm spending my Sunday afternoon with my girlfriends taking up my usual appointment with PL! So that, to me is a good thing! :)
Anyways, since I haven't actually been scrapping, here's an iPhone app that I discovered through the daily digi! It's called red stamp and it creates awesome looking postcards like this:

I can think of so manyyyy awesome ways to use it in project life already! It's almost like digi scrapping on my iPhone!! :)

Oh yes, I also downloaded this new app called snapseed (which i used to edit the photo in the postcard), an app which is somewhat like instagram, only better cos it doesn't crop your photos into squares which gets annoying sometimes! (got it one of the days when it was free.. Not sure if it still is!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's valentine's day today, and boy does karma have a way of making us eat our words. I was just making fun of people who receive teddy bears for valentine's day and guess what I should receive from my husband? Yup. Flowers with bears. Haha. Ah well, I've gotta say they're really pretty though! :) here's a photo of the flowers that's gonna make it into my project life this week!

And what did I get for him? Well I whipped up a small card for him after realizing that i haven't given him anything handmade for ages, bought him a whole cake (gonna have some in a bit yay!) and bought him dinner at skinny pizza.

And now, at 9pm, we're at home and getting ready to watch a movie, or part of it till I nod off (work is totally kicking my butt recently!) and me feeling exceedingly lucky for having found someone so perfect! :)

Liebster Award

Liebster is a German word meaning dearest, and the award is given to up-and-coming bloggers with less than 200 followers.

Thanks Madey for the Liebster Award!! :)) [it's the first time I've ever won an award related to blogging / scrapbooking so it's a big deal to me!!)

It's kinda a funny story how we got acquainted & started chatting, I was doing a giveaway on one of our LSS's forum just before chinese new year, and she replied that she didn't mind picking up some of my stuff. Somehow we found out that I used to be colleagues with the brother-in-law (which is a huge coincidence right..? I mean 6 degrees of separation n stuff like that) which gave us something else in common other than scrapbooking. And elmos.
Anyways, I love all of her creations on her blog! In particular the photo tray she altered to put her birthday pictures!

So anyhoo, I'm supposed to pass this on to 5 people who's blogs I stalk read and find awesome.. so here they are!
1. Leena
2. Aida
3. Jeanette
4. Gaby
5. Lia

Go check them out! They share really great stuff on a regular basis :)

Project life week 6 and a day in my life

Woo. I took ALOT of photos this week. I would hazard a guess at maybe 150 to 200 in total, in part due to the crazy amount of good food ingested, in part due to the 2 big events this week, the banca launch event (where we took a TON of photos) and kimmy's birthday celebration at JBar on Friday (again, more photos in pink!) and not forgetting me trying to do a day in my life on Tuesday.
The food I had this week...
- Teochew food on Monday
- My favourite jap food on Tuesday
- Lunch at one altitude on weds
- An expensive jap lunch at mohd sultan on Thursday
- Indonesian food for ceila's farewell lunch and jap again for kimmy's birthday dinner on Friday
- Jack's place for dinner on Saturday
- Dimsum for Sunday brunch & peking duck for sunday dinner!

Ok after that long rambling introduction, what I'm trying to say is that this week's project life included 3(!!) double-sided inserts, 2 for my day in my life, and 1 for some random photo strips that I took over the week.

The second page of my spread this week is solely about all the food that I've eaten this week!

Main spread:

Insert 1 - A day in my life
For the 4 pages of this insert, I stitched black paper to 8x8 paper from DCWV (I used to scrap in the 8x8 format so I've got a ton of 8x8 papers) and basically used the same format for all the pages. Added some journalling using a white pen, and used a variety of embellishments for a divider down the middle to add interest!

Insert 2: Random photo booth shots!

Happy birthday Kimmy!

Made a card for one of my colleague's birthday, and am quite happy with how it turned out!
Its a simple card, but thought that it turned out quite nicely!
I used my newly acquired sewing machine to stitch around a piece of card stock, used a penknife to cut out a heart in the middle, used a rub-on sentiment, adhered it using foam tape to my card base over a piece of patterned paper, and punched out a butterfly border and 2 little butterflies and I'm done!
Must have taken me about 15 minutes or so to do! :)

Lets get sketchy!

Stumbled upon this new challenge blog called Lets Get Sketchy (www.letsgetsketchy.blogspot.com), a sketch challenge blog which was just started recently!

I find sketches an awesome way to work when I'm not feeling too creatively inclined and use it as an architect would use a blueprint.

Here's their design team call and my take on it! I flipped the sketch horizontally due to the composition of my photo!

I wanted to showcase the a couple of patterned papers and found that cotton shapes in the top most layer of my layout was a great way to do that! Other than that, I added an embellishment cluster for some interest.

Farewell card (again boohoo)

:(( yet another colleague is leaving the bank.. Decided to make her a card using the sketch from frosted design.
Had some fun using my newly inherited sewing machine, scrap papers and distress ink (to colour the piece on which the sentiment sits on). Decided to pop the sentiment piece and the doily border up using pop dots to add some interest.

On another note, I've just changed the design of my blog! Got kinda bored of the bluish design and decided to go for a more girly, pink design!

Project life week 5

Really glad that I've still got the enthusiasm to continue with project life despite life getting in the way! Gotta admit though, I didn't have that many photos from the first half of the week, but managed to sorta "catch up" in the second half of the week!
Also, finally started using the sewing machine that I took from my mother, and am slowly getting used to how the machine works, so there's loads of uneven and crooked stitching in this week's layouts ;)
(note to self, must buy more bobbins so that I can switch colours more often!)
Some interesting stuff that happened this week includes a steamboat with my favourite girls, and finally trying out a Japanese place that I've been wanting to try for a long time! :)

My Scrap Space!

So I've been wanting to do a tour of my scrap room for the longest time, and have finally edited them and gotten them ready for posting!
In my opinion, the most awesome thing about having our own house is that we (meaning I) can decide how the rooms are going to be used. And since we don't have any kids, there is one spare room which was supposed to be the TV room but has since been sneakily converted to my scrap room with a TV. Heehee. (and this is why I love my husband to bits, for not making a fuss about how the whole house is like 80% my stuff and 20% his)


So here goes.. pictures of my scrap room!

All photo templates & digital washi tapes used are courtesy of Pugly Pixel. The font used is downloaded from the CK website (CK Ali Handwriting)