It's been a crazy, hectic couple weeks!

It's been crazy for me and it started on Dec 23rd. It was a headlong rush towards the new year and I'm finally able to breathe a little and get some blogging in. It's 6.45am here in SG and I got woken up by Bri. Again. She's already 20 months and still whines and babbles in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Sometimes, she'll cry incessantly through the night and then my night's a bummer coz I cant sleep once I wake up too many times. Sigh......
Another bummer.....
Husb left his whole pouch outside the house couple days ago. Neighbour found it and knocked on my door to give it back. (so sweet!) I checked and found wallet still intact but with money curiously missing. Didn't think much of the missing $$ cos he forgets to replace his cash quite often. Chatted with neighbour who gently reminds me (repeatedly though) that I must not do this anymore and I must always remember to bring in my keys too. (Left my keys outside a couple times too!)
When I got back in, I searched for husb's handphone and came up ziltch. Low level panic starts and I wake the husb up. Shook him and asked his where his handphone was. I then rattled everything in the pouch out and guess what? Out dropped a SIM card, an SD card and his empty wallet! His handphone, camera and cash had been taken!!!!!!
I was hopping mad!! He was like so completely careless!! Almost $600 in value was gone just like that! And we could not even make a police report cos it was NOT STOLEN! MY HUSBAND HAD LEFT EVERYTHING OUTSIDE AND INVITED OTHERS TO COME AND PLEASE HELP THEMSELVES!!!!! Arghhhhhhh!!!
So I'm one camera, one handphone and $20 poorer!
Wont be able to post much of anything the next couple days unless I manage to snag a cheap cheap cheap camera over the post xmas sale. Husb was desperate for a new handphone though. Served him right! I'm still mad... ...
Thankx for reading out my ranting. Hopefully, by the next post, I'll be able to get a new camera. A DSLR this time... But... where to get the $$$!??!!

A New Scrapbook Store!!! The Art Republic
Ok, back to happier news. I discovered a new scrapbook stall was opening when I went to Novena Square to have lunch. Incredibly, there was a scrapbook cart at the front door when I walked in and lunch was promptly forgotten! Hahahahaha! I browsed and chatted and found out that they were opening on New Year's day! 1st Jan 2010, 1pm. How cool was that, I thought!? Another SB store for me to blow my $$ on! Yeah!!
So for our local scrappers in SG, head on down to Novena Square on 1st Jan, 2010 at 1pm to see what goodies they unveil!

MME's Challenge

I loved this My Mind's Eye challenge cos I got to stick flowers everywhere!! Heh heh heh! I got so busy sticking flowers, I had no time to post this until now. Here's the sketch and flowery LO!

MME Sketch

LOOK

I cut out flowers from the Bloom & Grow collection and used a Breaking Free collection paper as the frame. I first propped up the frame using really thick, unbleached (it's acid free if its unbleached) cardboard.

Then I crushed up the backgound paper (Signature Collection) and used that as a 3D effect for the photo. All background papers are from the old Signature Collection range that I still had. (I loved it soooo much!!)

Then I cut out the flowers and propped them up, again using unbleached cardboard, large glue dots, small, medium and large foam dots. The various sizes creates the different layers and makes the flowers look like they're in motion.

I curled the edges of the flowers and leaves from the outside in, instead of from inside out in the usual way. This makes the flowers curl gently. Finally, I layered the flowers over each other and under the frame.

The title "LOOK" has a special meaning. Brianna was holding a little flower in her hand and staring very hard at it. At the moment that the photo was snapped, she said, "Look!" It was the 1st time she said that word and coincidentally I snapped the photo at that time. It was one of those serendipity moments and I knew I had to scrap this in a most special way!!

Here's another challenge from Scrap & Stamp Saturday!

Hi folks! Hope your weekend was good! I had a lovely time yesterday coz my mum decided she could cope with both my son and daughter with her. I switched on the air conditioning in my scrap room, sat on my son's ergonomic table and chair and scrapped the day away! It was just the opposite feeling of the past couple days! Ms Mojo came back with a swirl and swish of her pretty skirts and I was ... OOOOOHHHHH!!!

So here's the challenge this week and I hope as many of you as possible can join as there's a really fantabulous prize up for grabs!!

Thanks for joining us for another Scrap and Stamp challenge! It is hard to believe we are so close to Christmas! I am not even close to being ready...what about you? So I am going to get right to it...lol!
Since this is the season of family and gatherings that is what we want to see. All you need to do is scrap a gathering (any type will do) and use at least one stamp!
Creations by Penny is our fabulous sponsor this week! If you haven't been by Penny's shop you should stop by and see her adorable designs!
Here are the fabulous design teams "gatherings" layouts! They amaze me each and every week with their beautiful creations!

Here's mine! I decided to go with a vintage gathering LO as this is a season for celebrations, remembering and forgiving, love and sharing, gathering of memories old and new!

Has Ms Mojo gone on a holiday?

Where did my mojo go? Holiday? If its even possible! Hahahaha! I'm just not in a scrapping mood. I seem to have lost Ms Mojo to a holiday hiatus. Hmmmm how did that happen? Does anyone of you scrappers out there face this problem?
I tried. I really did. And I actually scrapped my LO. As in threw it out.
Sigh......................... :(

It's all about you! Or me! Or you??!

Right! Here's an all new challenge from Scrap & Stamp Challenge for a whole new challenge this week!

Thank you for another fabulous Scrap and Stamp challenge! Now that the Christmas Holiday season is in full swing and we are hustling and bustling about to find the perfect gift for that someone special, we thought we would take a moment to share a little about what makes us special! And we definitely have a team full of special gals right here!
The challenge this week is "All About Me: With at least one stamp." If you are like me most of my scrapbook pages hold pictures of other people and their triumphs and stories. Very seldom do we get to see the person behind the camera and the face of all that special handwritten journaling. Now is your chance. We want you to do a page totally about you. It can be when you were little or big, about what makes you tick, heck we'll even take what makes you sick LOL We just want to know you and what better way than for you to take the opportunity to leave a little bit of you on a page.Our sponsor this week is the fabulous Say It With Letters! If you haven't been to the store be sure to stop by and check out all the wood letters, chipboard and more. Be sure to stop by the craft blog and say Hi!!One lucky participant will receive an 8 inch Mixed letter spelling "Jolly" in our chunky and cute Swedish Fish lettering style. PLEASE NOTE YOU WILL RECEIVE UNFINISHED LETTERS. PHOTOS SHOWN ARE EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOU CAN CREATE. A $20.00 value.

So before you run off to create a fabulous layout for this weeks challenge be sure to check out the design teams wonderful creations!

Here's mine!

My poor neglected blog!

Have been missing... Not by choice... Sick since my trip and sick one week since... Sigh... Whole year never even a sniffle, then I go on a holiday and I fall sick the whole darn trip!! What luck!!

Anyway, here's the weekly challenge from Scrap and Stamp and there's a 15pound gift certificate from the generous owner of Bunny Zoe's Craft for the winner! So come on by and join the fun. You never know if you're gonna be picked!!

Here's the challenge :

Thanks for joining us for another Scrap and Stamp challenge! We hope you all had a wonderful Thankgiving this week filled with family and friends! We thank you all for taking the time to play along with us during such a busy week!
The challenge this week is "fall traditions with at least one stamp." We all have traditions that we carry on with, so we want to see them large and small! Our sponsor this week is the fabulous Bunny Zoe's Crafts! If you haven't been to the Bunny Zoe's store be sure to stop by and check out all that Nikki offers.

Challenge at Groovie Cover Girls

There's also another challenge going on at Groovie Cover Girls. It's a fun challenge with a RAK prize for the winner. Our "leader" Ed, has gone and gotten a cover that was so simple and yet so challenging! So I challenge you to go and whip up a LO that's as interesting as the one Ed picked!! Here's mine!

Finally I can share this news!

Would like to shout this out!! Hee hee hee!
I've been selected for Scrap and Stamp Saturday to be part of their wonderful design team! They are a scrapping and stamping community who just love their stamps and scraps! (as do I, of course!)

From the blog of Scrap and Stamp Saturday
It is time for the announcement everyone has been waiting for!
First I would like to say thank you to everyone who applied to be on the design team. I so wish that I could have chosen each and everyone of you. I really hope that you will apply again the next go around. This was truly a tough decision to narrow the pool down to just six. After several days of blog hopping and hopping again it was finally time to decide. I am honored to introduce you to the new members of the Scrap and Stamp team. We are completely thrilled to have them with us. You all are in for a treat with their beautiful work!
Hollie Smallwood
Tamara Bennett
Cariena Basson
Lacey Stephens
Shirley Yow
Isolde Pyncket
They will be joining the existing team of
Boni Boutelle-Jones
Pamela Young
Shana Tedrick
Regina Jones

Thank you S&SS!

Then and Now

Reflections

Then and now. What a difference. And so fast. She's already 9months now and getting into so many things! Her big brother's truck is also fair play for her. She squeezed herself in and tried to get it to move and ended up toppling the whole truck over and her little head banged!

Then she decided that the night view was good and started her "King Kong" climb up the chair, table and finally the "pinnacle" of the "Empire State Building"!! What a little monkey. And she scaled it so fast!

Finally Dad decided that he needed to teach the little on how to build with the bricks. I hope she does not become too tom boyish cos the mummy wanted to save costs and space and decided to let the little girl play with "boy toys"!! But apparently, she loves the boy toys and can repeatedly play with Big Bro's toys over and over and over. And it helps that Big Bro seems interested in his little boy's toys again and is usually playing with the little sister. How sweet eh?!!

I'm back in circulation!

Hahaha! I just had to use that as a title! Vision still a little blur. But that's cos the 'scab' on the eyes have not fallen out yet. (just like the scab you get when you fall and get cut) At least the pain's not there anymore.
Apparently, I was over sensitive to the temporary lens that they put into my eyes. I was in severe pain over the weekend and Monday was hell! It was probably the worst day of my life - in terms of physical pain that is. I could not open my eyes for more than half a minute. Each time I tried to open my eyes for a longer time, the stinging pain would force me to close and tears just kept dripping. I was also so sensitive to light that I had to hide in the darkened room almost the whole day.
Misery was my companion and I was moaning and groaning about why I had to choose beauty over life and all that nonsense. Luckily, I was at my mother in law's place and they helped me to handle my little one. Otherwise, I'd have "died" of pain and exhaustion! Phew! It was torture I never wanted to go through ever again!
At least it's over now even though its gonna take me another 2 weeks before I can safely drive. It'll be another couple days before my vision clears up and I can really SEE without any aid for the first time in 20 plus years!!!!! Yipee!!!

Lasik over and done with....

Finally. Done. Over. But the healing process goes on... I'm still tearing and there's some slight pain. But according to doc, it went as well as it possibly could.
After a series of pre-op check up, I was found to be unsuitable to do the more common LASIK ops. My eyeballs were asymmetrical due to chronic contact lens wearing. I had to undergo another procedure called Epi Lasik. It was a less common procedure as it had a longer healing time and post op was more painful than Lasik. However, it was less invasive than Lasik as it did not involve the removing of the cornea to laser the eye. The exact procedure or differences of the two is simply beyond my understanding! (as of now, cos the pain and the near blurness of my current vision now does not make me feel like checking out the differences!)
I now have a lens in each of my eye to protect the tender surface of the eyeball. They will be removed in 3 to 4 days time. The whole procedure took about 10mins and that was due to the doc having to prepare the eye for the laser itself. The actual lasering took only a couple seconds and like my friend said, it was probably the most expensive operation ever for such a quick procedure!! It was pretty scary actually to allow someone to invade your eyes like that. But in actual fact, there was not really enough time for the scary feeling to take over. By the time the surgeon was done, the scary feeling had not even had time to develop! Hahahaha! So on the second day when the other eye was to be done, all feeling of nervousness was more or less over cos the procedure was fairly quick and painless.
So now, I'm still in slight stinging pain (only occasionally, not constant pain) and the blurness is still there but at least I can see without any eye aid. That has gotta be the best feeling in the world after wearing glasses and contacts for almost 20 years!
Need to stop now cos the tearing is starting. Will have brand new eyes in a week's time! Yipeeeee!!!!

Does this look like a Balinese Spa Resort?

GORGEOUS ain't it?? I love love coming here. It's actually my husband's 3rd anutie's house in Malaysia. They completed it only last year after quite a number of years in the making. The house is really really seriously HUGE!! It was designed in the Balinese resort spa style and the theme runs throughout the whole house. There are heavy wooden tables, chairs, "trees" (for lack of a better word), pots, etc! Even the entrance to the main house is flanked by 2 ponds and a wooden bridge to walk across. As we drive in, the wooden pavillion (pic right at the top) greets us with its sparkling fountains and creatively built ponds. The pavillion is used for relaxation and playing mahjong when the mood suits them. Sometimes it does get a little too hot outside and we escape into the cool of the house. Only problem I see with the house is that the seats have no sofas. It's all completely wooden and pretty uncomfortable at times! But this is just a minor inconvenience in the splendor of the house itself!

Even the furniture itself is mostly imported from Bali and other parts of Malaysia. Impressive huh??! Wait till you actually have a chance to GO there to see it! Jaws will literally smack the hot asphalt!

Groovie Cover Challenge

Here's the cover...

Here's my take!

123 Smile*

This is my first debut at Groovie Cover and here's my take! Come join in the fun and there's a RAK from one of the Groovie Girls!

Stickles Stickles Everywhere!

Special Girl

To make a "wavey" ribbon like this without a sewing machine, (I have one, but just too lazy to take it out for a little bitty ribbon!) just thread your needle and do a quick stitch through the ribbon. No worries about whether the stitch is straight or not, just pull it slightly when you're done and sew through the end of the ribbon and knot it.

There's no need to paint chipboards when there's prettily coloured stickles like these!

No more plain felted birdie. Just squeeze some stickles and voila! There's your pretty little birdie with eyes and wings!

Another plain felted chipboard tree. (which I also felted myself, like the birdie) Used green stickles and dotted it all over the tree. Gives it more omphh! Don't ya think so??!!

Lipstick Accident (Really funny one!!)

LIPSTICK DISASTER!!

Check out the trail of lipstick on the floor all the way to her clothes and face and hands and hair and goodness knows where else!!

She was still playing and smearing the lipstick all over herself and the floor!

I knew the lil lady had already woken up. She padded into the hall while I was at the computer. I chose to ignore her coz I had spent an hour persuading her back to sleep and she refused to sleep. So she found her own entertainment. I heard her mumbling with the occasional yell thrown in. Finally, after about almost 5 minutes of loud mutterings, I decided I'd better get up and see what she was up to. THIS was what I found!! Too dumbfounded to react, I just stared at her for half a minute. She knew she was in serious trouble and was whimpering away with those little cat like noises. I didn't know if I should cry or laugh but I ended up laughing SO LOUDLY and woke the whole family up. Told daddy to grab the camera and I laughed so hard that many of the pics I took ended up quite blur! These were the best to showcase her LIPSTICK DISASTER!!

THE AFTERMATH

I love how she isn't afraid of water even when I sprayed it all over her head and face. It took 3 rounds of soap and 4 rounds of water to completely clean her of the lipstick and smell! Happy and clean at last! I laughed all through the washings! I had to hold back the laughter cos she was getting perplexed as to why I started laughing each time I looked at her. She was beginning to get scared even though I was laughing probably cos she never saw me laughing when she got into trouble like that. Hahahahahaha!

Laines "Stickles" Challenge

At Play

Again another LO for a challenge at Laines Gallery. But their gallery is not up yet for this challenge so just have 'ta wait!

Yummylicious Food and a Rockin' layout!

Stir Fried Udon

Just a couple of days ago, I fried this. I was out of ideas for dinner. Found a 3 pack udon in the fridge. Took out the baby corn, carrots, cabbage, smoked bacon and a tin of vegetarian Lo Han Chai. Yummy! Husband, son and daughter loved it so much that even though it was a huge pot, they finished it all up!

Family Together

I completed this LO in just one night. I was actually inspired by Georgina's LO for the Groovie Cover Girls October challenge. I didn't realize it at that time I saw it that it was actually for this challenge, so I scraplifted it and lo and behold, I can now enter the challenge! Hee hee!

Kukup Kelong Trip

Brandon holding onto 2 starfish

Standing on the rickety planks of the kelong
Holding out fish food for the Archer Fish to aim at!

Family fun at the kelong

At Kukup Kelong having lunch

It was a super hot Sunday afternoon in Pontian, Johor. We didn't want to cook for such a large number of people so we all decided to go to the pretty well known and popular Kukup seafood restaurant. It was only a short 20min drive from the uncle's house in Pontian Besar to Kukup. At the restaurant, the view was so nice and breezy and everything was a new experience for the young ones. (the adults too!) We took pictures of pretty much everything and posed everywhere "posable"! Hahahaha! The lunch was mostly seafood and there were around 12 dishes for the 10 adults and 2 kids and 1 baby. The bill? RM$230!! What a reasonable price for such a sumptuous lunch!

After lunch, the "suaku" Singaporeans decided to take a ferry to the kelongs (fish farms) at sea. There, we stopped at the kelong and walked along the rickety wooden planks. It was pretty scary for those who have "land feet" as the locals called the land lubbers! My sister in law was pretty terrified and my husband had to hold her hand and helped her across the planks. Her own husband was helping her equally terrified son across the planks! Luckily, my son found his "sea feet" after a while as I had to carry Brianna across the planks.

There were some interesting stuff to see. The guide pulled out a horseshoe crab and flipped it upside down so we could look at it without it scuttling away. Then we saw the uncannily accurate shot of the archer fish as they shot out squirts of water to hit the fish food. Baby sharks, starfish, jellyfish and a dried out puffer fish completed the interesting tour.

Well, this trip was really meant for the city kids. We hardly have a chance to see all these things first hand and even if we do, it's always through a glass window and they are usually not allowed to touch anything. This time, the boys had fun feeding the archer fish and touching the starfish and the shark. They also saw a jellyfish up close. It was really fun and educational even though we all had a pretty bad sunburn!

Hey! I've got inspiration!

Autumn Leaves 2008 Design Calender

Sweet as a Berry

Together Moments

So Happy Together

Finally! I've done something! Enjoy!