Me & Mr. Jones

New Domain!!!

2009-07-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wooot!!! Me& Mr. Jones is moving soon!! I just got a new domain, scrappingprincess.com for a really awesome price! I'm so excited to have my own domain again! I haven't had one in quite some time and I'd love to get back into the feeling of owning my site with no lame URL. LOL!

I just need some time now to get settled in, fix my blog and login page (coz it has to be awesome!) before I actually move. I'm hoping this gets me into the groove of blogging again. I'd really love to do so if my time at work wasn't so prohibitive. Darn day job! LOL

OK, in other news, it's time once again for... FOBTY!!!!

This challenge, Tracy wants us to talk about the most noble cake of all: the cheesecake!

Oh and I love me some of those stuff! My favorite cheesecake depends on the kind of day I'm having. Sometimes, when I'm sick of sweet stuff and I want something nice cool and kinda delicate tasting, I'd pick a Japanese Cheesecake. It's only $15 at Breadtalk (isn't that awesome?!) and can last a week of properly refrigerated. I only nibble a bit though on delicate tasting cheesecakes.

My one true cheesecake love is the classic Blueberry Cheesecake. I love it if it also had a bit of whipped cream at the edges. It balances the flavor of the tangy sweet-sour of the blueberry. But the best part of the cheesecake? The graham base.

YUM.

I want a cheesecake from Full House (except it already closed down when I was in junior year in college. Boo.)

New CT: Megan Turnidge!!

2009-07-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Yup. I applied for Megan's Team and totally got accepted! She's one of my favorite designers outside of Sweet Shoppe. I love how her stuff looks like the regular paper scrap materials and it really makes it easier working out layering and stuff for me. Those fantasy schnitzzle just doesn't do anything for me.

And since I'm on leave today, I'm working on my first page as her CT! So watch out for that one. :)

Meanwhile, a couple of the more recent stuff I'd worked on:

This is my page for Traci's awesome new kit, His Playroom! And if you spend $6 and above at the Sweet Shoppe this week, one of the summer samplers that comes free is an add-on for this kit! Man, I am seriously in love with how fun and colorful Traci's designs are!

Here's another really awesome kit: Coastal Holiday by Tracie Stroud. I thought I'd never be able to work with realistic elements, but Tracie makes it so easy with her awesome stuff! I even learned to do a bit of not-too-shabby blending with this page!

And finally, I have this super fun door hanger (with a pocket too!) using Dani's new kit, Image-nation and Kelleigh Ratzlaff's template! At this point in his life, my little bro, Lex, probably won't appreciate it yet but I'll keep it for when he'd start using it. It won't be long til he stops destroying everything he can get his hands on, I hope!

I'm planning a couple of new hybrid stuff in addition to the picture frames I'm working on for my dad's birthday. I want to be able to use Lauren Meader's My Timeless Templates (they're seriously awesome!) In between, I'm gonna go beg Lizzy some more for a permanent spot at La's CT, and maybe apply at Krystal's call. LOL!

And now it's time for me to stop rambling and hunt for breakfast.

FOBTY Baby Names!

2009-07-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

You Like Names that Are Retro and Fashionable

You like names that are from the past but becoming modern again.

Names with a strong history are very appealing to you.

You're a big believer in giving children very adult sounding names.

You're not a fan of nicknames or newfangled spellings.

Some female names you might like: Audrey, Emma, Fiona, Georgia, Isabelle, Naomi, Rosemary, and Veronica

Some male names you might like: Brendan, Colin, Ethan, Jared, Kenneth, Martin, and Nathaniel

What Kind of Names Do You Like?

So really, Jay and I have also been discussing what we'd be naming kids if we ever had any (so not sure if I'm ready and anyway I don't plan on any bratlings until after we get married and that's not happening any time soon, go figure.)

When I was a bit younger (like in high school, which was the height of my fantasy book addiction) I'd name my kids Crysania and Raistlin, both characters from one of my favorite fantasy novel series, Dragonlance. I mean, my brother named his son Viktor Creed (after Sabertooth from the X-Men) so why can't I pick something unusual for mine? Hehe.

I've this gut feel that if I were to have any, the firstborn would be a girl, and she'd be like a Madeleine Crysania or something, just to piss Jay off. I really hate how he dictates into my life sometimes. :p

New CT Teams OMG!

2009-07-17T09:14:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone!! OMG, have I got awesome news! OK, first:

I submitted to Traci Reed's CT call and got accepted! GAWD that's so awesome and I'm so excited to post as one of the new HAWT MAMAS on the Team Blog! OK, so technically, I'm not a mama, but you get my meaning! Traci's designs have become some of my favorite kits from SSD and her Team is one of the most active and dynamic too!

On top of that, I joined the DSA CT Battles as part of her team! Exciting or what? Here's a couple of pages I've worked on within my first week of being a Hawt Mama:

My page for the CT Battle Round 1:

And Traci has a new kit collabed with Meg Mullens coming out tomorrow 7/17. Here's my page with this awesome new kit:

OK, my next CT (drumroll please!): Dani's Girls!! I've signed on as a Hybrid Artist for her team. Yay!! I haven't photographed my first project yet (working on it tomorrow, when the light is better) but I've got awesome news: my page Summmer Fun is going to be published on Issue 12 of The Daily Scrapper!! Woohoo!!!

Tomorrow, I'll post my latest hybrid work with one of my favorite Dani kits! :)

And now, for an SSD FOBTY:

You Should Spend Your Summer at the Beach

You're a free spirit who is always thinking of new ways to have fun.

And you don't just love summer... you live for it.

So, you really should blow off your responsibilities and head to the beach!

Where Should You Spend Your Summer?

Thanks for joining me this week! :)

FOBTY this week of rainy weather

2009-07-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Uuugh. Jay is sick (not really, but because he over-exerted at the gym, he's got sore muscles all over and has difficulty moving around his arms too much), so I took today's turn to buy dinner and medication for his sore muscles. And it rained! It's been raining cats and dogs almost all day. It'd rain, get sunny and then rain again.

The weather's really gone bonkers this week. Like at home, it'd be raining in our backyard and sunny on our front yard. Soooo weird!!

And you know, I like the rain if I'm indoors coz it makes the house really cool, without need for airconditioning, but really, my shoes just aren't meant to be walked in the rain! ;_;

FOBTY and I'm baaaaack!!!

2009-07-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm here again! And here's my FOBTY for July! :)

You Are a Pineapple Smoothie

You are adventurous and brave. You aren't afraid of much.

You are in love with new experiences. You are usually the first to try something.

You get bored rather easily, and you need to be challenged in life.

You are turbo charged. Most people find it impossible to keep up with you in any capacity.

What Flavor Smoothie Are You?

asdfghjk I'm so frggin excited!!!

2009-04-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

OKOKOK.... Breathe, Jill. Breathe!!!

I made Robin & Manda's Tootie-2 CT Call last week!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I'm just so excited about it!! I've already created my first layout for a really awesome collab kit that they have coming out this Saturday for NSD (you have to have it! It's awesome!!)

I've only discovered how awesome their collabs are a couple of weeks ago when I decided to go ahead and purchase The Birds and the Bees and a few other kits with my March Sweet Rewards discount coupon. I love the bright, fun colors that they always work with! It's summery, fun ad just so darn cheerful that it brightens up every single page! In addition, because of the lovely patterns on the papers, they're so awesome to use for hybrid. I'm planning a couple of board books using some of the pink and orange colored kits; and I have a scrapbook stash organizer which I'll probably work out with similar colors.

Here's a page I've done with one of their awesome kits (this isn't the new one yet... I'll be posting the page for that on the sneak peeks thread at SSD :D)
Click image for credits.

And here's another, which I also love, but the kit, Love Shack, has been retired I guess, coz it's not at SSD anymore.

As if that's not enough excitement, I also got accepted as November Guest CT for Eva Kipler!!! Awwww yeah!! I'm on a roll here!! I can't wait to start on her CT assignment; Eva's always been one of my favorite designers since I started scrapping and I'm just so happy and fortunate to be given a chance to play with her products!

Now, all I need to do is figure out a way into Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Flergs and Shabby Miss Jenn's CT teams and I'm set for my scrapbook year. LOLOLOL!!!

Favorites!

2009-04-04T04:33:00.000-07:00

Here's my FOBTY for this week:

FAVORITE TV SHOWS

CSI - I can be such a dork about this butI still keep missing episodes! LOL
Lives of Crime
Cold Case Files
NCIS
The Buzz (it's a Filipino showbiz gossip show)

I'm obviously a huge fan of crime shows. If the Crime & Investigation channel here didn't rerun stuff shown at night on the following morning, I'd probably have it on during my entire waking hours :D

FOBTY!!

2009-03-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

You Are Facebook

You are social, outgoing, and excited to connect to your friends.

You are interested in your friends' lives, and you enjoy adding your opinion to the mix.

While you enjoy sharing online, you don't want everyone to know your business.

You value your privacy. Your life is an open book to those you know but not to strangers.

Are You Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter?

See ya later babes! :D

Ok ok ok...

2009-03-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

I've neglected my blog long enough :p

I got caught up with so much work in the past few days, and I've been so stressed over one of our projects, which is going live in less than 30 days. For about three weeks up to last week, I had awful dreams about getting severity 1 issue calls in the middle of the night. Yikes!

After a while, I just decided that my job isn't going to become less demanding or stressful if I knock myself out with worry, so now I'm just letting each day come. My bosses know the sheer amount of effort going into successful implementation of each of my projects, and I hope once our company recovers from the recession, I get a good pay package (otherwise I'll be hunting for a good severance package LOL)

Anyway, I wanted to post a couple of my favorite layouts I've done recently. There's been a lot so I just want to point out those which I think I just really love:

I did this one for the Paper 2 Digi Challenge, which is like my favoritest challenge ever ever ever! I'm very much inspired by seeing those gorgeous paper scrapped pages and I love to pick up design styles from paper scrappers. Because of this, I think I've also shifted away from those fantasy type layouts and kits which have been very popular recently. I really much prefer these pretty patterned layouts!

The über fabulous Armina gave me a personal little sale on her store (coz she's just that awesome!) and I whipped up this fab summery page with them! I think her stuff are just simply top notch and I've been a fan of hers since some of her earlier stuff! Take a peek at her store, you won't be disappointed by her stuff! :D

I don't know, this layout is just so cute!! I'm so in love with Eva Kipler's super cute kits! i think it's just perfect with this adorable photo of Creed!

OK, that's it for now. I'm up for scrapping some SUTUCS pages LOL! Yeah, I'm taking part and crossing my fingers to win some GCs at A5D! LOL

Ugh, my blog is full of FOBTY LOL!

2009-03-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

You Are Chocolate

You are dramatic, charming, and downright addicting.

You have a strong personality, and and people are drawn to your fabulousness.

You are stimulating and exciting. It's hard to get tired of you.

You are incredibly likable and popular. You live a glorious life.

Are You Chocolate or Vanilla?

Yay SSD FOBTY!!

FOBTY again :p

2009-03-14T20:54:00.001-07:00

So I'm really lazy at blogging these days LOL. I really need like blogging prompts like the ones at LJ. Good thing there's a FOBTY every week from SSD, so I don't neglect my blog for too long. Hehehe.

So the topic right now is Girl Scout cookies.

Oh by the way, I never got to join the Girl Scouts or even the Brownies when I was a kid, coz we couldn't afford the uniforms. I've been kinda annoyed with the Girl Scouts since then; it felt like there was too much money to be involved in, so I've never bought any Girl Scout cookies, even from my classmates.

Anyway, in other cookie news, I love these white chip macadamia giant cookies from Subway, but my favoritest of all are those super cute, chewy tiny cookies from Mrs. Fields, which I can't seem to find here now. :(

OK, I lied.

2009-03-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

I scrapped anyway. :p

For the DST Color Play Challenge, using the journal prompt: Celebrate your name.

I couldn't resist it; I think I'm in another comic book junkie fix! LOL

Geeks unite!!!

Tired!!

2009-03-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

I decided that I'm not scrapping today. My mind is too tired reading spreadsheet upon spreadsheet, and my creativity's being sapped by the system I'm trying to design for work right now. LOL

Hope everyone's doing well in the scrapping world though. :)

I just feel like killing someone now. Grrr.

2009-03-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

One of my few hundred projects I'm handling blew up in my face. You know. Because I forgot something. Because I'm overworked.

My fault? Totally. I'm accountable for my mistake. Now I wonder who's accountable for having people like me work several hundred projects going all at once.

Also, I think I'm going to stop scrap shopping for now except at SSD. I don't nearly use anything else as much as I use those stuff anyway.

Oh and at Sunshine Studio too. :p

Ugh. And an FOBTY.

2009-03-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm too tired today to post anything else, so I'll just do the SSD FOBTY :p

A Lily Says You're Very Enticing

You are playful, flirty, and friendly.

You can easily light up a room... or someone's heart.

Your unique personality attracts a lot of attention!

Your cute ways get you in trouble. People can't help but be a little jealous of you.

What Do The Flowers You Pick Say About You?

Whew! Whirlwind Weekend!

2009-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

Not! I'm essentially a boring person and I stayed in much of today, except to go to the library last night. LOL! Still, I managed to get a lot of scrapping done, to catch up for the lack of pages I've done over the past week (dratted work!) The one thing I'd been planning that I never got to do was to pick up some new board books so I can print out all the recent pages I've done. People at the office had been asking a lot about the accordion calendar I did and some are actually interested in hiring me to scrap for them. Wheeee! Let's hope I get enough time to work it out though!

OK, great purchases for this week:

I haven't used this kit by Kristen Rice yet, but just looking at the CT layouts at After5 already convinces me that this kit is going to be simply awesome to use! I love the color palette, so bright and funky and easy to use for both boys, girls and us oldies. LOL!

I learned belatedly about the Victoria bush fires coz I'm a late news reader. I think it's awesome that so many designers are working to be able to find ways to donate proceeds for some of their works to rehabilitate the devastated area. Although I only really wanted the kit, I was so pleasantly surprised by the lovely QPs, brag books, and what I need the most--the templates! This is a fabulous buy and all going to a good cause!

Does this kit not look like a cake to you? It looks so yummy and colorful and fun! Of all the designers at SPD, I have to say that Kasia is my absolute favorite. I don't buy all of her kits like I do some of my other fave designers (Catherine Designs comes to mind :D) but all of them are simply fantastic!

Next, some new layouts:

I was so inspired when I created this! The paper layout by Jen Caputo was simply fabulous and I had to scraplift it!

I seriously never expected that this page would make GSO. I wasn't very happy with how it turned out, but I didn't know how else to make it look better. And then my good web friend, Sheena, up and put it on GSO. How awesome is that?? Sometimes, the creations we ourselves can't seem to appreciate are the ones that strike inspiration for others. Thank you so much, Sheena, for appreciating my work and being such an awesome lady all around. Big hugs to ya! :)

Last one before I sign out: this layout of my not-so-little sister, Justine! Whew, where did all those years go? I remember when she was just 6 months old and she wouldn't sleep if we didn't carry her in our arms and rocked her to sleep. With some matching song and dance number if it was my brother, Neil, taking care of her! Now she's growing up to be a beautiful young lady. She needs to fill out her skin a bit, but that'll come in time. I sure miss when she was 4 or 5 and we picked out pretty stuff for her to wear, but I'm happy to have someone to teach the ropes of wearing make-up now! :D

More to come next post! I have so many fun layouts to share!

One Week Review

2009-02-27T06:01:00.000-08:00

Ooooh I was just so lazy to post over this past week, and work sorta ate me up LOL. BUT!! I have the most awesome thing happen to me last weekend:

TRACIE STROUD INVITED ME TO BE PART OF HER CT!!!!

W00T!! I'm so excited! It's my first CT ever and, boy am I ever so glad it's with her coz her products are just awesome! It matches with the recent colorful layouts that I love making!

I think I can't get enough of colorful layouts these days, so even those kits by designers who use more muted colors or use textures instead of patterns on their papers, I still manage to squeeze in a bit of color. Here's what I've been up to in terms of scrapping this week, beginning with my first CT layout for Tracie:

Featuring Koykoy, Jay's daughter. It was fun scrapping this, love the fun pose she has and those super cute heart-shaped sunnies!

Here's something using a recent SPD kit that I purchased, Spring has Come by Kasia:

Another one using the same kit, featuring the cutest little boy in the world, my nephew, Creed!

FOBTY Week 3! :)

2009-02-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

I'm almost nearing 14 points on SSD!! Yay!! Here's my FOBTY for this week:

You Are a Lone Wolf

You are resilient, and no doubt your resilience has already been tested.

You've had some difficult experiences in your life, but you are wise from them.

Having had to grow up quickly, you tend to discount the advice of others.

You tend to be a loner, having learned that the only person you can depend on is yourself.

Your strength: Well developed stability and confidence

Your weakness: Suspicion of others

Your power color: Eggplant

Your power symbol: Spade

Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I guess this is more or less true. I have very few friends. :p

Day 2 - Working 15 hours

2009-02-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

So yesterday, I worked 12. Today, I worked 12 again, but around 9pm, while I was having dinner (dinner for heaven's sake! It's the only time I have to myself and the people in my office are effing violating it!!!) my boss called to say that the Production servers are up and we need to do switch zoning to present the disk to the servers. WTF. Ended up working another 3 hours. So that makes it a grand total of 15 hours today.

I am too fucking tired of this.

OK. Take a deep breath, Jill. Update your resume, and send it out. I'm going to type out my resignation letter, with or without a new job, if this keeps up. D:

Anyway, my layouts for today both feature a cute, vibrant little girl I had recently met: Kaye. She's my boyfriend's daughter and I had only met her recently. What a fun, amazing little girl! She was a complete darling that day, especially while taking the pictures. :) Here's 2 that I've done layouts on:

Okay, I did this one for the Slogan Challenge at SSD. I just love the daily challenges there! It's so much fun, especially since I have a ridiculous amount of stash from SSD. LOL

Next is this fun layout using the super fab No. 9 collab kit from Sunshine Studio Scraps and OMG! You have just got to get it! It's seriously one of the most awesome collab kits I've ever purchased. Like ever ever ever. And the best thing about it? It's available for only $4 right now. You know you want it!

I got featured! W00t!!!

2009-02-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

My layout got featured at the Sweet Gallery Standouts at Sweet Shoppe Blog! Woohoo!! I'm so over the moon, I haven't been featured at a GSO in like so long!!

And for my FOBTY for this week:

Your Word is "Love"

You see life as possibility to form deep connections with a few people.

Relationships are the center of your world, and you always take time to bond with those you love.

You are caring and giving. You enjoy helping those you love.

And when it comes to romantic love, you feel passionately ... even in a very long term relationship.

What's Your Word?

Some new layouts... damn, DST is still slow...

2009-02-11T03:40:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick layout update; I just want to put some of these up here on my blog with some random commentary.

This lulzy little layout is part of the book that I'm doing for my super cute nephew, Creed. I think his mom was testing out his costume for his 2nd birthday and the little boy just wasn't ready to face the camera. LOL.

I sent this layout to my colleagues at the office. Everyday, because our team has shrunk about 50%, we're all trying to be Supermen, trying to finish all the work all at once and try to make everyone happy, but the truth us that even super men need to sleep sometimes. I crashed and burned two days ago and was so cranky, people just couldn't work with me. I'd get migraines everyday because of the stress level, and the amount of work to be done just isn't getting reduced. It gets piled up more and more and I've started becoming a bottleneck for some project implementations. How I wish I were 2 years old and just worrying about not wanting to pose for the camera while wearing a superhero suit! :D

I whipped this one up about 30 minutes ago, after some action I ran ate up the history of my previous layout and flattened the image. That sucks, man. I hate those image-flattening actions. Grr. Anyway, this one features another super cute little boy in my life, Lex. Just look at his fat round cheeks and you'll fall in love!

And finally I have My Funny Valentine, which I created for the A5D Feb Mixers Challenge. There's an even cuter video of this posted by my friend, Lovely, on Facebook. Lex is just an adorable kid, and he's learned how to swim so fast, at 2 years old! :D

Okay, that's all for me. I gotta get back to work... conference calls at night, after office hours suck, but it's the life of a corporate slave. :p

GSO: A Reflection

2009-02-07T06:44:00.000-08:00

When I look at GSO at boards and the GSO blog, I just normally skim the page, pick out layouts that have items I may be interested in (this is how I do my scrap-shopping), comment on a few and move on. I'm not much for journaling because I feel that it strains my eyes sometimes to try to read the text, especially if the fonts used are minuscule.

So, when I came across this layout by chickypow (I saw it at GSO blog, but I'm linking you to the OP at Scrapartist), I was like ummm yeah, why are there no pictures?, and just continued to scroll down for more pages that had elements and papers that catch my eye.

And then I backtracked. Why were there no pictures? There were frames, and the layout title was Our Family Photos but there were no pictures.

And then I read the journaling.

Let me just segue for a bit about this: I have to say that scrapping is a past time that has never really tugged at my heartstrings. I scrap because I like looking at pretty pictures and I like the creativity that goes towards it. The most that I'd feel when scrapping would be a twinge of nostalgia for a fun time with my nephew, or maybe get a bit tickled at a funny memory captured on camera.

But when I saw chickypow's layout, when I read the story behind it, I suddenly felt struck. This is exactly how I am feeling. It's exactly the source of my bitterness towards the current relationship I'm having, the reason why I am starting to feel that it has spiraled out of control and something dramatic must happen or I might end it.

It made me shed a tear.

This layout is a thing of beauty.

Birthday Celebration! (and an SSD FOBTY)

2009-02-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my brother, Lex's 2nd birthday and the preparations are dizzying. I made his invitation and even though it's not going to be held at home, there's so much things to prepare for a children's party. But I know it'll be so much fun! Last year, we had a blast on his first birthday. Most of the guests were from people at the office, and even though I try not to mingle too much with colleagues outside of work (we end up talking about our projects, how pathetic is that?) I still enjoyed myself. Bosses are so much fun to talk to when the discussion isn't revolving around IT infrastructural development. :D

Speaking of birthdays, this week SSD's From Our Blog To Yours challenge talks about birthdays. I posted earlier this week that SSD had an anniversary sale and to continue the celebrations, we have this fun blog challenge for a super sweet point! ;)

Let's see, my favorite birthday memory? It's gotta be from when I was 10. I had been so envious of the Superstar Barbie that my sister had received from one of her godmothers during Christmas of the previous year. On my 10th birthday, my parents got me a matching Barbie to tide me over. It wasn't as glamorous as the Superstar Barbie that my sister had, but it was the first Barbie that I ever received that wasn't a hand-me-down from my older sister or some other cousin. That really made a mark in my memory.

I also had a party that year, the 3rd one I had in my life, I believe. The first party was when I was 1, second when I was 7 and then when I was 10. The parties stopped after that, but we would always have a family get-together during birthdays just to celebrate and be with each other.

These days, since I'm living in a different country, I celebrate with my boyfriend, and even though I miss the family get-together, a quiet, intimate meal with someone I love is enough for me to celebrate as well.

Also, he gives the most amazing rose bouquets. ;) Check this one out from my 2006 birthday:

Flowers are mad expensive in Singapore, and I really appreciate the gesture, that he goes all the way to get these wonderful, ephemeral gifts. He's the only boyfriend I've had to ever give me flowers. The rest had been too cheap (I could understand, we were still students then LOL) or just un-romantic. XD

Ok, enough now. This has been a really long post. I guess I enjoyed reminiscing birthdays more than I thought I would. Initially, I thought I didn't even want to think about it because I'm always at work during my birthday. Does that suck or what? :p

Hi, this is Jillian. I'm working from hell. Please eave a message and I'll call you back.

2009-02-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

Ugh. This is seriously what it feels like working from home today!!

I had a very bad cold since yesterday (it's almost gone now, replaced by a grating cough. I'm going through the motions of the flu virus) and I had actually obtained a medical certificate to rest at home, but because my team is flooded with work, I agreed to just work from home while I recover.

Bad decision.

It's a little over 3pm and I'd just finished my lunch. I can't step away from my office laptop because my boss goes nuts if I'm not around when he needs my input. I'm hogging the two phone lines in our house because I have three meetings tot attend all at the same time every other hour. One of my teammates has a document to write that he wants me to write, but our boss wanted it yesterday. There's a portal to be created to facilitate approvals, but the admin is an idiot and doesn't know how to do it. I have about 60 projects active in my portfolio, each of them screaming for my attention...

How does one not drown from the sheer amount of corporate BS? Really, I should have just told my boss that I'll be working from hell. I can't imagine what it will be like when we implement the 1-day-of-the-week-working-from-home scheme.

But anyway, I still managed a few layouts and picked up 2 shiny new kits from Cinnamon Designs. Nathy has recently moved to A5D, which is like my favoritest place to shop ever, and the moving in sale is too much for me to resist. :p

I was jealous of all those pretty, neutral-colored layouts made out of the Sweet and Warm kit so I got that and the Melon Passion. There are matching freebie samplers/add-ons in Nathy's blog so go check it out!

And then, I finished 1 layout for A5D's Lift with a Twist Challenge, and I wanted to start on a new album to give my evil little nephew, Creed, on his 3rd birthday:

This was the one for the A5D scraplift layout. My source/inspiration layout is this pretty page by Hanazana. Isn't her work awesome? I love how fresh the page looks and that's what I tried to capture in my lift. I think the cheeky look on my brother's face got that one down to pat. :D

My other layout is one of the sweetest pictures I've seen. It's my brother and his son, Creed. Because I live in a different country, I very rarely see them, and seeing them together is adorable! They really look so much alike. I didn't really think my brother was much with kids, but when Creed came along, he's really mellowed a lot.

I'm planning to complete the 8-page Maya Road 7x5 album by March. I may need to prioritize my V-Day gift to my boyfriend first! LOL

A5D Challenge Post!

2009-02-02T06:52:00.000-08:00

I got lazy tonight. Was supposed to work on 2 more layouts to feature the night out we had last Friday, but meh. Drama llama time!!!

No, I'm not really going to dish out my dirty laundry, except that I wasn't really in the mood for creating something fun. It's a good thing I still managed to turn up a layout for the A5D On The House challenge. I want to do another challenge layout for SSD, but I don't have anything for month in review yet... Maybe I'll write/scrap about getting a hair cut for short hair for the first time in 4 years? LOL. My life is so boring. Seriously.

Since it's for On the House, I just used most stuff from the freebie add-on kit to Amy Hutchinson's White Almond Kiss. I was trying to wash out the photo a bit more to match the pastel palette used here, but I risk making the features of my face disappear. LOL! You can click on the picture for the full credits.

And now, off to nurse my worsening cold. Aaachooo~~!~!!

SSD Output

2009-02-01T03:31:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to pick up on the SSD Challenges again, since I shop on their page so much. I've done a couple of layouts, but only 1 for a valid challenge. As the Feb challenges roll out, I'll probably work up a bit more. I'm also trying to get into doing some at A5D, and hopefully that'll cut down on some of my scrapbooking supplies cost. :p

This is a scraplift I did for the Feb TOTM challenge. I used Atomic Bounce by Melissa Bennett as the primary kit for the layout. Recently, I've liked doing monochrome or duotone photos and that's what I did again, with some selective coloring of our vodka medley drink. The photos are of my friend, Lovely, and myself goofing off while having a drink at The Clinic. The drink wasn't so spectacular, but I was able to finish one off, and also my vodka pineapple drink.

Here's another set using duotone photos of myself and my little brother, Lex. It's so much fun playing with him and taking photos because of the faces he makes. LOL. This one uses Eva Kipler's Getting Fresh. I love the fruity color palette! It's perfect for fun pictures such as these.

Apart from this, I picked up a couple of kits from Flergs. She's having an anniversary sale at Scrapbook Graphics, and you really ought to pick up some of her kits. She's an awesome designer! I got myself 17 Cherry Lane, which is a collab with Tangie Baxter, and Victorian Strawberry, a collab with Kate Winiecki.

Can't wait to play with these goodies!

It's Sweet Shoppe Designs' Anniversary Sale and I've blown a hole in my pocket.

2009-01-31T22:17:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, I totally have. About the end of last year, I've told myself that I'm done shopping at Sweet Shoppe Designs, not for any bad reason about it--I think that store is super and all the designs are just awesome. It's just that between October (when I got into digis-scrapping) and December, I've spent the equivalent of a full month of my salary on that store. -_-;; Talk about over-spending.

But!!!

It's the sale and I couldn't help it! Dani Mogstad (the most awesome designer ever ever ever) has two gorgeous kits that I just had to have. Not to mention the couple of kits by Eva Kipler, Zoe Pearn and Misty Cato, plus the hybrid templates from Heather Roselli... oh the list just goes on and on. I admit it: I'm an SSD addict. Even more so than I'm addicted to A5D and SPD.

Here's a couple of my latest purchases to enable you. Go and get it now! :p

This kit is way too awesome. I love the colors and the groovy papers! It's a good thing I'm not done with my Valentine projects yet so I still have a few pages to scrap with this kit.

I'm so putting my little chocolate baggies to give away in these cute little packages! Awesome design and I love the colors of the kits used for these bags. (Incidentally, I bought the chocolate themed kit as well LOL!)

Penny Springmann's resources are always must-haves on my list. Even though I have tons of overlays from many other designers, I always end up using hers for aging my papers and photos. Amazing stuff, you gotta grab this one coz the combo pack is only available for a week!

I had a couple more items to get after this. In all, I got about 10 kits, 3 hybrid projects and 2 more templates/overlays. I just go overboard when shopping at this place. :D

A few recent layouts

2009-01-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

Just to start off and christen my new blog, I wanted to post a few of my more recent layouts. Most of these have already been uploaded to DST in the last few days.

This was one of the drafts that I created for the invitation of my brother's birthday party. He has a big bash every year and like half the population of Singapore comes down to our house to see him. LOL. This year, because of the chaos that ensued in his first party, my stepmom is hosting his birthday at a restaurant.

Anyway, to keep up with the child-like theme of the party, I used Lorie & Kitty's Valentine kit, Blooming Sweethearts (available at SBG & OScraps). I couldn't find any photo of Lex that I really wanted to use so just to showcase the layout, I picked out one from our New Year reunion. The whole thing, layout and photo and all, was subsequently changed for printing coz my stepmom wanted a Disney-themed party.

This is the last layout I posted on DST and the photos were taken after our New Year family reunion. My mom had brought party masks for picture taking and us being the usual camwhores, greedily took over. LOL

I wanted to give a magical, kind of mysterious feel to these pictures, so I opted for a monochrome palette. I added the rose as a touch of color to the layout. This would be the first black and white layout I've done and I think I kind of really like the effect, but only for certain photos. I don't think all of my photos would suit this kind of effect, but for this specific set, it makes the pictures very striking. You can click on the photo to go to DST, where I've listed out the digi resources used for this layout.

And now, that's all for me. I'm going to take a rest this weekend. I'm out of my usual funk since yesterday. I'm supposed to go out to pick up some scrapbook materials and chocolate giveaway for a Valentine's project that I'm working on, but nothing doing. Hmm. Hope I'll be in a better mood tomorrow for work. Ugh.

Hello, do you work?

2009-01-31T21:46:00.000-08:00

Hello darling, do you work?