Grace's art work

Grace has many many art works...those from school, those from church and those from home.....thus, you can image those art works being cramped on my already small craft desk...which sometime could get in the way....so I thought of a way of storing these precious.....right...put it on my layouts....

So, here's two layout showcasing Grace's art work...

The first one here is a little something that Grace made using bits and pieces of papers that she found on my table...she was making this while I attend to little Elise, and she kept telling me, she'll need to finish it up another day...because there's just too much glue....hehehhe....little ones meet glue = MESS...

The second one is a "folder on a layout" I made to store all the cards that Grace made me for year 2011....from this year onwards, I will have one for each year...that way I can save keep the cards that she made me and it would be so precious to look at when she's all grown up....


Talking about cards, there's this certain card I want to talk about here....it is for my birthday from my girl...and look at the wordings....



That day, she told me she wanted to give me a surprise...and the surprise is a card, so wanted me to give her some materials...and so I gave her some and wrote on a scrap paper the following greetings..."Dearest Mummy, Happy Birthday, I love you..From Grace and Elise"....so what happen to the "Birthday"?....this is what she said and insisted.."Mummy, this word (pointing to birthday) is too long...I can't write it...I will just write this and this (pointing to Happy, I, Love, You)...and not this...(pointing to birthday)...sigh....

Sandy Playground

There seems to be a thousand beach photos to be scrapped.....yeah...we love the beach and the kids love it too....we had been going to the same beach for like every week....Elise started off with limited exposure to the sand...and eventually we let go and let her play in this gigantic sandy playground...

Somehow, she knows that these are not to be eaten and she never once tried to put the sand, nor the play items in her mouth....and she enjoyed it a lot....I dressed her in romper and long pants..so we won't get sand in unwanted areas and it is less messy, just take of her long pants and most of the sand will be gone......

Well, I enjoyed looking at her playing the sand...and just for one outing, I have 51 photos of her with the sand....so it was a hard task to stream down to just 3 for this layout....

We don't have four season here where we live, but the weather here is like summer everyday...and so I go on with using the Summer Days banner, but instead of using it as it as (a border stripe), I separated the flags and go about making my own banner...and I made a sun using buttons and some stickles...and the watermelon..it is also refreshing to have some fruits during hot steamy days....

Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico June's Kit, some old trims from my stash and stickles
Sketch: Sketchy Thursday 6.23 sketch

Sometimes, you just need to sleep like this...

I'd posted this photo in one of Elise's monthly update and thought it was really a funny photo...it definitely makes me smile every time I look at it (I was laughing out loud when I was choosing photos last night)...she was having hard time falling asleep that day and when she finally did....she had to have this funny style...silly Elise...

And so, I used a Creative Scrappers Sketch and created this super simple page...and yes I made myself stitch again...


Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico June's kit, cross-stitch floss from my stash, and silver Signo pen
Sketch: Creative Scrappers Sketch #161

Howdy!

These photos were taken during our recent trip to Genting Highlands, when Grace is attempting one of the rides there.

There's a little story behind this. When we visited Hong Kong Ocean Park in March, Grace tried a ride called "Frog Leaper"...the kids version of the "Space Shot", with slower motion, shorter height, and it kinda leaps like a frog...."Frog Leaper" it is...she took 2 rides...both with mummy sitting beside her...and yes, they have an extra big seat in the middle for and adult to accompany their little ones.....

And so, when I saw the "Rodeo Rider" ride at Genting Theme Park, I thought she would be willing to take the ride. Now...this one does not have the extra big seat...as it is meant for kids under 122cm....so that's one setback...So, I tried to convince her into taking the ride by..."Look, that little girl is so little and shorter than you...she enjoyed the ride...she's not scared...she's bla bla bla...."; "It is just like the "Frog leaper"...bla bla bla...."....she agreed to try....but later intentionally avoid it....sigh....The next day, I persuaded her some more....and only at the end she agreed to try...

When the ride first started, she got a shocked and almost cried...but then there where so many people looking...and I guess...she managed to overcome her fear...and she was laughing the whole time.....when she's down, I asked her "Want another go?"........"NO"....hehehehee...


Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico June's kit
Sketch: Sketchabilities June 15 sketch

The photos were too small....(guess which one is her)

Wrestling with Mr. Bolster

I've noticed this for quite sometime now....when given the bolster, Ms. Elise will, for some reason, definitely "wrestle" with it....sometimes, even her pants came off...hehee.....maybe is her teething?....I don't know..but it sure was fun looking at her wrestling session...so, even with the blurry photos, I needed to put it down in my scrapbook...

I used a Sketchy Thursday sketch and played with stitching again....this time with the help of the Seweasy stitch piercer....it really was faster, rather than poking the holes one by one with my safety pin, which I borrowed from Elise (for her nappy)...

Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico June's Kit and some floss...
Sketch: Sketchy Thursday 6.16 Sketch

A post that is 2 weeks late...

Yeap....Elise's monthly update is late for 2 whole weeks....sigh..where has all my time go??!?

Oh well, Elise is growing up fast...time really flies...next month we will be celebrating her 1st first birthday and we're celebrating it BIG time....

We don't have doctor's appointment this month, so there's no formal weighing and measuring...but I guess she's just around 7kg, or may be less.....but she's eating fine, sleeping fine (except for waking quite often for nursing), playing fine, exploring fine, teething fine, baby talking fine.....everything is fine....

As Elise is quite a shy girl...she don't really shows the real cheeky girl she is when she's around our friends...she sometimes don't even want to smile...sigh...so I thought it would be fun to post some of those cheeky photos of her, that our friends don't usually get to see....enjoy...

"Qing ni gen wo zhe yang zuo"

...the title is the Mandarin "pinyin"...meaning please follow what I do....(direct translation...hehehe)

I've blogged about this before and had been wanting for a long time to put it down on scrapbook layout....I finally got to do it, using a Get Picky sketch...

Scrapbook materials: Studio Calico June's kit
Sketch: Get Picky June Sketch Challenge #9

Read me stories

As Elise is growing...she begins to appreciate a lot of things...one of which is us reading her stories, especially from this little cloth book (maybe it was because we had started reading this to her when she was a little little baby), "I Love...."...it's a very colourful book with images and simple words....it goes like this
"I love.... my elephant; I love.... my sheep; I love... my duckie; I love... my pig; I love... my monkey; I love... my pony; I love.... baby. I will usually read each page to her and make the animal sound, when I reach the last page, I will give her a hug.

Of course, the big sister has to have a go (in fact many go) reading to her little sister, and good as she is....she will add in all the sound effect and the hugging at the end.

I wanted to document down this very sweet moment...so I used almost all of the photos I captured....I want to show every expression of them both....(I'm sharing the photos at the end of the post)

I played along with Scrappin Studio weekly challenge, which is to use stamps....I have many stamps and it is time to use it...I just love the film strip stamp that comes with Studio Calico June's kit....and it is just perfect for the multiple photos...so, I embossed it with black embossing powder (something I have not done for a long long time)...before which I used some of my favourite stamps to make the background...
I'm not sure of how to use the smash pockets (from the June kit)..so I cut it open and journalled inside...I'm happy with how the layout turns out....

Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico June's kit, blue brads from my stash and twine from my stash

And since the photos are so small in the layout....I'm sharing it here again....

Nature lover

My family is kind of a nature lover....when we were young, our house (back in our hometown) will always be surrounded with plants, vegetables and animals (yeap...animals, like dogs, chickens, ducks, geese)....we just love it..especially my brother....

Well, now here where my parents live, the house is also surrounded with plants and vegetables....the below layout is about the magnificent sunflower that my mother grows....



Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico May's Kit with some butterflies punched out of left over papers from previous kits, with Martha Steward punch, and some gems from my stash
Sketch: None

Being such nature lover, of course we have to visit the beach numerous times...(and of course to satisfy the kids)...here's our 2nd take on making Sandcastles....



Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico May's kit
Sketch: None