Project Life Week 8

This week: Elise had a major meltdown which lasted about 1 hour, passport renewal, online shopping, painting, badminton training, yet another girls only shopping trip...

The painting session was special because it was Elise's very first time....so was the badminton training for Grace, that was not the first time, but was the first few....and it cracks me to see her many pose....as such, I used up the whole right page for photos and journaling for the painting session, and added an insert to slot in Elise's work of art...and the front side of the insert was a layout for Grace's badminton training....The left side was random, documenting the small and big of week 8 in our household....

This week, I used mostly circle/round elements in my pages.....and of course more experiment on the machine sewing.....

So, here's the spread with insert...

And without the insert

The right page

the left page

Insert - front

Insert - back

Some close-ups..that house is hand-drawn by Grace and cut out by me...

Grace's Birthday Final Part - Episode 2

Wow....I've abandoned my blog for the longest time....year end is always so very busy....I'm not quite done with Grace's birthday as yet....

And so...after our breakfast, we went home for a much needed rest and nap....

In the evening, we head on to TGI Fridays for a birthday dinner....and a little surprise for the little girl....when ordering our food, I told the waitress that we are celebrating Grace's birthday and wanted them to celebrate it TGIF's way....and for that we get a Friday's Sundae on the house....

And so we let the little girl ordered whatever she wants and then we eat....

After which, the crew came out with the sundae all lit up with a candle....and while Grace is anticipating them to sing for her.....she was asked to stand up (on the chair) and sing a song.....hmmm....now that's a surprise for her....

Later when went to Toys R Us....to pick up a present for Grace (this is from her grandma 奶奶)...what else can a princess like Grace pick?.....barbie dolls off course...and yes, she also picked a set of barbie doll when her uncle (my brother) took her shopping for her present....

So...here's the last bit of her 5th Birthday in photos....

Here's the very pretty birthday girl

Birthday girl enjoying her food

Waiting for her surprise

Singing a song

from her 奶奶

from her 舅舅

Little girl on the move

Well, the title tells it all.....my little girl, Elise is now officially walking....she'd been holding on to our hands for a few weeks now...and sometimes when she'd forgotten to be afraid, she did managed to walked a few steps unassisted...but once she remembered, almost every time she will fall...

On Thursday, she finally walked a few more steps....but still needed motivation and help....she will still asked for our hands to hold her...but when forced to...she will walk the few steps herself....on Friday she perfected her walk a little more...and tonight, while daddy was having puzzle time with big sister...little sister walked from the shoe cabinet to where daddy is at...picked up a piece of puzzle and walked back to the shoe cabinet to "post" the puzzle piece...the distance is about 3 feet...

Here's a video of her doing her new found favorite play..."posting" books or whatever that fits through the ventilation holes on the shoe cabinet and her new found skill...walking...

"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....

Missed me?!?

Went MIA for a few days......school holidays...sigh, always makes me even busier....plus, brother-in-law and family from Singapore visited us last week (and so some extra activities), plus church children camp during end of last week....

Yeap.....we went to the beach twice with Grace's cousins...once during the evening and the second time it was like 11am when we reach the beach...so you can imagine how Grace look like after the outing....

Then I was busy preparing kits after kits (crafting kits that is), booklets after booklets (with my Zutter binding machine) for the children camp. We had a blast during the camp.....children loves their craft materials and I even let my class play with some of my wood mounted stamps....love those stamps....I don't have to worry about the kids being too rough.....

Here's some photos of the kids enjoying their stamping session and the very messy table....




I will be back with layouts that I made way before the school holiday starts and Elise 11 month old updates (yes...I am way way too late)

Playing with colours

Yeah...I mean really playing with them...mixing this and that to get stunning new colours......that's when Grace meets colours! She will definitely enjoy every colour session....she just likes to mix them up!

We have this "Paint you own" kit and started off with 6 colours....which we then turned to a whole lot of pretty new colours....we had a blast doing so...and the kitty had a blast wearing those colours...hehhee....

I too was playing with colours in the background of this layout. I misted it with Mister Huey's Mist....





Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico May Kit, tag maker
Sketch: Get Picky May Sketch Challenge #8

The Wig and Gear Up

Just wanted to share these 2 layouts on respective girl.....

Earlier I purchased a bandanna with wig for little Elise...just to cover up her "hair-less-ness"....but she doesn't like it....she kept reaching for it and afterwards....I found fake hair all over my bed....sigh....but it sure make her look different...


Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico April's Kit, some die-cuts shapes from years ago, Basic Grey Brad, Jillibean Soup journaling sprouts
Sketch: Sketchbook 3 Online Class

Early April, my dad promised Grace a set of protective gears so that she could wear it during her cycling session. Unfortunately, the store owner was out of pink helmets, so for the first week after the promise was made, Grace only get the elbow, palm and knee shield....she was ok with that provided her gong-gong get the helmet that weekend and give it to her the next week.....unfortunately again...the stock does not arrive on time...this time Grace made a big fuss and only a tub of ice-cream could solve...so, waited for another week...and here she is satisfied with her gears....(note...the knee shield was too big for her...so used the elbow shield as the knee shield..)


Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico April Kit, rick-rag from my very big ribbons stash
Sketch: Sketchbook 3 Online Class

Sandcastle

Grace was off school for the past few days and will be for another 5 days....is she sick? No.....her school was advised for a compulsory 10-day close due to the outbreak of hand foot mouth disease....and so, 2 kids at home is driving the mummy to the wall....

So, on Thursday....I bundle them up and went to my parents place.....so that I have extra helping hands....like all grandparents....my parents is also always looking for fun stuff for the kids to do...and so later that day....we bundle up the kids and lots and lots of little containers and off we went to the beach.....it was our first time to this beach...it was a really nice beach...with shades and clean beach.....Grace love it and Elise also grew to love it....

Why little containers?....well, we did not know that we're heading to the beach, thus left all our sand-play gears at home....being my dad....whom is so good with kids play.....found all those old stuff and took it to the beach....Grace had a whole lot of fun making castles.....

And...of course...we had to go again next week....and I can foresee...many many weeks to come.....

Here's a page I made on our creation....



Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico April's Kit, Rub-ons by Cosmo Cricket
Sketch: by Jessy Christopher @ Scrappin Studio blog

Splashin'

Other than the rides in Hong Kong Disneyland, there's this one place called UFO Zone (@ Tomorrowland) which attracted a lot of children, and with no exception, also attracted Grace. Grace was already talking about that zone even before the trip, as I showed her video clips on the happenings in Disneyland.

One thing good about this zone is that, you don't have to queue for hours just to get on the ride...as it is just an area with spritzing water. While we were there, Grace really enjoyed herself and of course get herself wet....lucky I have change of clothes, which initially meant for layers of clothing to keep her warm....

Well, I captured a video of her running around like crazy at that zone, trying to avoid the spritzing water...and from there capture photo of the moment....the photos were not very good....but it did showed how much she enjoyed the play...

Like I said earlier, Grace will often ask if there's anything crafty that she can help, so one afternoon, I gave her the task of applying dimensional pearls on those chipboard shapes that I use in the below layout as her afternoon activity (you see, we substitute her afternoon nap with activities, and she gets to sleep easily earlier at night...if she nap, she is only able to doze off after eleven at night)....

Anyway, her colour applying is not very smooth...but I like it as it gives a little dimension, and the thing I love most is how she mix the colour on the cloud+rainbow piece...absolutely nice.....




Scrapbooking materials: Studio Calico April's Kit
Sketch: Sketchbook 3

Handmade with love

Grace often came home with stickers and pieces of cute paper, claiming that they are from their friends. She mentioned that her friends often share things with her. Being my Grace, she has to have something to share with her friends too...so I suggested that we make something for them. Yeah....Grace was super excited....

Did I mention how she loves my papers and embellishment?...well she sure do...she often come to my desk asking for papers and offering me help in completing some craft.....I can see that she's got talent in this....

So....I gave her some tags, some rub-ons which has been sitting in my stash for almost 2 years?!?...some die-cut shapes, some ribbons, teach her how to apply distress ink to the tags...and off she go..on her creativity ride....
(being her ever so wanting to be perfect mummy, I did touch up a little on the distress ink application)

All I want to say is...I'm proud of her...and she told me that she's so excited to give her little surprises to her friends....



Scrapbook materials: Studio Calico April's Kit
Sketch: Sketchbook 3 online class

Scrap my heart out.....3

(p/s...the giveaway is still open...here...)

...with Studio Calico March Kit...In the Woods...this month, I purchased an add-on kit (because I just can't resist the stamp)...

Well, with the add-on...I'm able to make 13 layouts plus 2 mini album pages...

Wow....that's a lot of pages to share...so I shall stop writing now...

When I saw this layout (the last layout) from Studio Calico Design Team, Jen Jockisch, I went ooh...ahh....that's how to use the big pockets....so I scrap lift her layout..instead of patterned papers and tags...I slot in all the travel "documents"..and I love it...everything from the kit...

Then came another idea from Amelia Khalik from Scrappin Studio...here...I took the sketch and made my version....it houses the journalling (long story) for this layout..a non photo layout..wait those tickets are the photos....long story short...thanks to Grace's "kepoh" (busybody) hands....I have these to scrap....everything from the kit except for the white paper clip

In April, I joined an online class..Sketchbook 3 by Kelly Purkey..and this is sketch 1. The title says it all....Amos is Grace's cousin brother and he is 1 year 3 months younger than Grace..I added a few phrases stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle

This sketch 2 from the Sketchbook 3 class....Grace just posing around at "special odd" places during our trip to Hong Kong....added some stitching...

These photos were taken in sequence as shown...really funny expression by the little one....sketch 3 from the same online class...and still today, there's no way I can trick her to take her porridge...

Did some lousy stamping here..(but who says everything has to be perfect?)..that's the stamp that I can't resist...Grace and Elise playing on our very big bed..while mummy trying out her Lomo Lomo iPhone apps....added the colourful banner from Cosmo Cricket and the phrases stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle

Just to document down the wonderful hotel that we stayed in while in Kowloon..it has a see through glass wall for the toilet...of course if you need privacy, just lower down the blinds...the see through glass wall was really useful to us...Grace can have her bath tub fun while we can relax on the bed....and still be sure she's ok...added the red photo corner chipboard shape from Scenic Route..Grace helped colour the stars with Dimensional Pearls

Sketch 5 from the online class....and that's the Panda posing for Grace but showed us the back when Moses steps into position...

Also sketch 4 from Sketchbook 3....added the phrases stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle and the die cut shapes from Pink Paislee..nice tea cups @ Winter Warmers

Our cable car ride @ Ocean Park Hong Kong....a ride that Grace couldn't wait...

Dedicated to our fabulous Daddy....the journalling was printed on Studio Calico stamp packaging....added the phrase sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle

A story on Grace's art class on every Friday...played with the alphabets here (cause I've run out of so many alphabets)...added phrase stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle and yes...that's Grace's colouring work...and I was a little carried away while adhering the circles...that's why the uphill...

Grace's school excursion to the Fire Department...she was overjoyed....sketch 6 from Sketchbook 3....added the journalling tags from Jillibean Soup...and I seldom use stickles....

Phew...that's a whole lot of photos and explaination....hope you enjoy it....