My loot from Australia!

This post is waaaay overdue! I finally told myself that I MUST take pics and post this. I'm more restrained this time around. I decided that I would only buy stuff that I cannot get in SG and not stuff that I imagine is cheaper! Hahahaha!
This pack of flowers were not even bought at a scrapbook store! I was in this bargain place called Red Dot when I picked this up.
Even though I never wanted to get papers, I could not resist these Kaiser papers and this exclusive Australian brand from Woolworths.

Stamps are one of my weakness and these were cheap and cannot be found in SG.

This whole stack of mags were cheap cheap cheap!! They were all 3 @ $9.95AUD! But unfortunately, some of the mags were duplicated. I decided to give them away as pressies from my Aussie trip!

Albums are always super cheap there! I bought 3 albums at only about $9AUD each! And check out the wooden 12x12 multi frame display by Kaiser! It wasn't very cheap but I can never find this type of thing here! Yeah!! I love that frame and I'm really glad it didn't break in my luggage! In fact, nothing broke, only a bar of chocolates!

So here's the sum of my loot and I promise that I didn't leave anything out!

Life goes on... Much faster!!

Sigh... I'm back from dream holiday... Even though I was throughly convinced by this trip that I'm a born and bred city gal, I still miss Perth and it's serenity and utterly slow pace of life. I would love to holiday there once in a while for a week or so... but I now know that I'll never be able to live there or anywhere too quiet long term. (Which was once my dream. Not Perth, but maybe somewhere nice and quiet)
I don't like the fact that I've gotta drive 10mins to get food. Or that all shopping malls close at 5pm even in summer. Or that there's utterly no one around you. Or that every morning, there's the sound of birds chirping instead of cars rumbling.
I love the city and I love Singapore. Yes, it's so crowded here. There's always people and they are mostly annoying. But Singapore has LIFE!! Perth seems sleepy and kinda... errrr... dead... The people here rush everywhere and I've gotten used to the rushing. When not rushing in Perth, it felt odd and I was quite discomfitted by it. Even the CBD area in Perth felt relaxing, like one of our more sleepy suburb area like maybe Ponggol. The whole of Western Australia is larger than the whole of Western Europe but it has only 2million people!!! Singapore can fit into one of their lakes and we have 4.5million people!! I know I said this before but I'm totally amazed by this! How I wish it were the other way around!

This is a typical busy busy day at the Fremantle Market. It will barely clasify as traffic in Singapore.

This is how crowded the beaches will get in summer! This is considered very very crowded by the locals! I can't imagine how the Aussies feel when they come here and see the horrendous crowds on weekends!!

I tried to find more pics of "crowded" places in Perth. I realized that only a couple had more than 20 people in it and our small family of 6 filled up most of the pics!!

Hey! Here's some pics!

Font View of the House

I'm not quite sure if this is considered the front or back view of the house! The car is parked at the front door though and when we walk around back, this was what we saw! Amazing right??!! We absolutely love this place! The bungalow is huge, kitchen well equipped, rooms clean, toilets large.... Wow is all I can say!!
This is what happens every morning. The sprinkler switches on at 5am every morning and waters the grass around the greens. This light here is 5.45am! I can't really sleep and I wake up promptly at 5.30am every day! I'm getting a bit tired already!
Here's the rest of what the neighbourhood looks like!

Everyone needs food ya! There is a huge shopping mall nearby and best of all?? There are TWO! Not one, TWO scrapbook shops nearby!! Yipeeeeeee!

The two kiddies playing on the XBox. Yup! There're plenty of games too!

Perth is really beautiful!

I have been to Australia quite a number of times, but never thought of Perth till now. My brother rented a huge bungalow and invited us along. Naturally, we thought that was a good deal coz we were saving alot on accommodation.
"But.... Perth???!!! That's a really boring place!!"
However, we still thought that we should just go along because of the free accommodation.....
Today.... our 5th day in Perth......
I am utterly bowled over by the serenity and stark beauty of the place. Western Australia is larger that the whole of Western Europe and yet there are only 2 million people living here! Amazing ain't it?! There's 4 million people in Singapore and we fit just nicely into one of their lakes here!! Oh gosh! Even on days that are supposedly "crowded", to us, it seems like a nice stroll through Singapore malls on a really super quiet weekday morning! The only gripe I have is that the shops close really early even in summer.
The sun here is super duper HOT! Humidity is so low here that it's not uncomfortable. But the sun is so hot that the moment you are in it, you start to burn! However, the interesting thing is that the moment you find shade, the wind that blows is actually cooling! Unlike in SG, the weather is hot, sticky, humid and the wind is hot, sticky and humid too! Morning and evening gets quite cold. About 18 to 20 deg cel.
There are actually quite alot of things to do here. We have been to the beautiful and famed Swan Valley (I always want to say Swan Lake!!) and had chocolates, nuts, wine and bought the whole works too!! There's the Caversham Wildlife park where the kids ran wild and petted kangaroos, koalas, ducks (yes ducks too!), fed them and chased them all over the place! They watched the mandatory sheep shearing show and watched the dogs herd sheep. They even fed bottles of milk to newborn lamb! (Silly little things!) Brandon milked the cow and fed the donkey and llama and declared that they felt soft and had no teeth!! (They have! They just used their lips to pick the food and not their teeth!)
Then we went to Hillary's boat harbour and visited the famed (AGAIN!) AQWA aquarium. It was comparable to the one in SG, Sentosa. In fact, I think we had more fun here coz it was super interactive and there were outdoor and indoor exhibits. The undersea creatures were quite different from those that are in Underwater World in Sentosa. We saw creatures unique to the Australian sealife. Brandon was fascinated and Brianna was, for once, stunned to silence. She was so excited about all the exhibits and wanted to touch everything and anything! After that wonderful experience, we went to Adventure Park and let Brandon bounce on a huge trampoline for 20 over minutes!! His thigh was so sore that he could not walk the next day! Hahahaha!
We have also been to MacNuts Australia and Milbrooks Winery in Rockingham. MacNuts was where we all went NUTS!! Literally! My sister in law went nuts and bought $300 plus AUD in Maccadamia nuts! I was saner and grabbed only a modest $150AUD. Hee hee hee! Then, we proceeded to this beautiful winery cally Millbrooks Winery. It was the most gorgeous place! The surrounding was peaceful, the vineyard was lovely, the lake was crystal... What more? One thing spoilt our experience though. The staff there was not very friendly and they didn't bother to entertain us. They gave the other Australians (or other ang mos) free wine and friendly service but ignored us totally! So we ignored them too and took lots of pictures, used their toilets and left without spending a single cent! Hahahaha!
Then there was Mandurah where the rich lived! We took a ferry ride, ostensiously to watch dolphins. But it turned out to be a trip to see how the rich lived by the lake/riverway/water/sea. There were hundreds of gorgeous homes built by the lake/riverway/water/sea and they all faced the water. It was mouthwatering to see but impossible to afford. There was even a Singaporean couple who have a holiday home there and the pilot pointed it out to us! After the ride, we walked along the broadwalk and watched the seagulls and ducks. The wind that blew in was cold and we were all shivering even though the sun was beating down relentlessly. It was so confusing for our bodies that we finally decided the shopping strip was more suitable for our city adapted bodies and mind.
We have yet to visit all the other places we have planned. We are planning to go Fremantle to see the markets, prision. We want to go Scarbourough to walk along the beach and eat ice lollies. There's also Rottnest Island where the wild creatures there roam free. And not forgetting the big Perth city center where shopping and dining abounds!
Well, that's the gist of the first 4 days of our Perth trip. There'll be more to come!
Hey hey! Not forgetting that there are countless scrapbook shops here and their shopping malls like Target and Kmart have scrapbook stuff too! I have already bought so many clear stamps and punches I'm not sure how to bring it back! Some things are cheaper here and some things are unique only to Australia. I tell myself not to be greedy and buy only stuff that's available only here in Australia......................... Urghhhh! The mind is willing................... But the heart is soooooooo weak...............

Christmas Countdown @ Laines & Papermarket!!

Today's my "day" of the Christmas Blog Post at Laines & Papermarket. There's only 6 of the beautiful post it notes today so be the first to rush down and get your free gift! And do some Christmas shopping too with our fabulous deals and fantastic products!
Come on down now! What are you waiting for??

Cheers!
Shirley

You're the Light of My Life

I have actually been scrapping alot. I just didn't have the time to put up pics!
Here's one that I did quite recently and it's now displaying at Laines.
I took the idea from one of Sharon's recent layouts where she used the shaped paper and made it flip by using washi tape as the hinge. It was a brilliant idea where we can put many photos on just one layout!
And just yesterday, a Japanese lady asked to take photos of it so she could do a similar layout of her own. Hee hee! And I managed to convince her that she needed quite a number of things in order to complete that layout!

When is work not work??

Answer : When work is your hobby!
But still..... I'm so very tired after so much work and deadlines, packing, teaching, retail and I can't even remember what not! Hopefully this is just for the busy months of November and December. We're still having very packed classes. Maybe coz it's holidays and mothers are no longer so stressed out over exams! Our classes these 2 months are really good and I'm having fun teaching them even though all my classes are full and cannot complete type of classes!
Just yesterday I had 2 fully packed classes that cannot be finished in the 3 hours. I was actually quite stresses out the day before. Brought Red Bull to give me the energy and the brain boost! Towards the end of the night class, I was seeing stars and my brain was buzzing. Finally when most of the customers left, I kinda collapsed onto the chair and stoned! Could not even bring myself to stand up and go home! Lucky hubby not working and came to pick me. Otherwise I'd probably sleep at work! Hahaha!!
Well, you have heard my story and know that our classes are stunning! Come come and see for yourself!

More stuff for an already overcrowded space!!

I know that I've already posted most of these on Shopping Saturday but I still feel the need to post it on my own blog simply cos I really really love the recent stuff that came in!!! I went totally bonkers and bought sooooo much stuff. AGAIN!! Even the rest of the retail staff are shaking their heads at me. They probably think I need to have my head checked!! Wahahahaha!
Lookie here! Who in the world can resist THIS??!! It's a mini Peek-A-Book album by Melissa Frances. I'm not a huge fan but this time round, her stuff made me want to scream and tear out my hair!
This is the mini onesies from GLitz Design. Many many many pieces came in. But 2 days later, many many many pieces also went out!! Lovely aren't they?!

Again, I could not resist the stickers by K&Co. They are pretty reasonably priced and so as usual, I let my heart rule my wallet. Isn't it a beauty?!

Don't even ask how many I bought!!! So many that when I paid, I used cash so that there will be NO TRACE!! I sacrificed my lunch for several days for this leh!!

I just hope the husband is not reading this. He sometimes does...

Ok, will go play more mahjong and hope that I will win enough money for more stuff!!!!!!! (hopelessly addicted)

A very Interesting Candle/Flower Holder

Have not been blogging for some time. AGAIN! Well, been super busy at work and now's the time for exams and so on and so forth...
Here's a new project that I came up with some time ago. I used alot of Tattered Angels products for this. Using the Glam, take a brush and paint it all around a sheet of transparency. (the ones that you can get at any stationery shop) It will dry quite fast. I was surprised that it actually could dry and not peel off too. So with that pretty sheet of painted transparency sitting around, I thought for a long time before I hit upon the idea of making a candle or flower holder. Then I selected some flowers, from Prima and Daiso (hee hee!!) and used the Glimmer Glaze and painted the white ones. See the shimmer in the last picture? I love love love that effect!!
I also sprayed Glimmer Mist over the doillie to make it less stark white. End result! Hope you like it!
Do come on down to Laines Papeterie if you wish to know more of how to make this very pretty candle/flower stand!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Woopeeee!!! We've got more and more people on our team! (Does that mean less work for me??!! Wahahahaha!) Here's the newly updated list for our new Creative Team members! Congrats ladies!
Most of them I know. The new faces for me are Janice and Justina. Hope to get to know you gals better!!
Welcome Susan! Love your work for the longest time! Michelle has already been with us for some time, teaching part time at PMKT PS. Happy to have you on board!
And not forgetting Betty! Our all time fav!! Yeah yeah Betty! July is another of my fav person! She's such a talent and a dear dear friend!
The rest of them all have their blogs on my blog list! Be sure to visit all of them to leave many many love love! Muacks!
Happy Friday! It's a long long day/night for me!!

Lazy lazy me!!

I keep telling myself that I need to maintain my blog cos I've got really nice customers who keep telling me that they visit my blog but find that I've not updated for a long time and then they dont come back anymore!! Sob Sob! I really really try hard. Even my facebook account remains quite dormant until I remember that I've got an account that I need to maintain!

I'm actually quite ashamed of myself really. There are so many of my friends out there too who are working mothers and yet they find time to update their blog, keep people informed on their facebook and still find time to scrap and spend time with their kids!! I really need to watch less TV! Seems that when I should be blogging or scrapping or doing some sorta more useful stuff (like save the world!!) I'm facing the box. It is always easier to press that little "on" button, kick back on my comfy sofa, have a nice little drink in my hands and watch my favourite cooking programs! (Yeap, me looooooove cooking shows!) Especially when I know that if I start scrapping, my little toddler with the itchy, greedy little fingers would be all over my work and stuff.

Excuses, excuses! But hey, I've got some scrapping done though.

Here's one with my all time favourite.... Tattered Angels glimmers and glazes! I've used them all here! The background has shimmery white and transparent misted and splattered all over it. The white dollie has red misted all over it and I went a little nutz and misted the gold transparent shimmer over the whole layout! (I covered up the photo of course!)

Dreams

Hee hee! I actually "stole" the flower clustered with pin idea from Jaz's class! It's so nice, how to resist??!! Sorry Jaz!!

Here's a close up of the crazy glimmer, glaze spraying and splattering stage that I went through! I'm now all splattered and misted out. Till the next splatter session then!

New CHA stuff to play with!!

Heeeeyy!! When the gals came back from CHA, they didn't forget us folks who didn't have the chance to go. Mer Mer brought back for us some really "solid" goodies from CHA and I'm now finally allowed to post cos the stuff have arrived at Laines! Yipeeee!!

Here's the fantastic Studio Calico, Documentary. I love love love the papers with the cameras and the scooters and the map and the aeroplanes and the.... well, I love 'em all!!

I also did up a layout with it but it isn't quite ready yet so I'm only showing part of it. Hee hee!

AND there's my all time favourite brand, My Mind's Eye. I've got so many of their papers that I can devote a whole rack just to them. Now that I've got my grubby little hands on their newest range, I can't help but squeak in delight! I have already done up quite a few stuff with their generous packs and I can't wait to show it off!

My favourite too!! *Squeak squeak*!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Tattered Angels glimmers, glazes, mists!! And what's more, I actually found out that I could use the built in brush in the Glaze and splatter it onto paper and make beautiful splotches and splats. WooooHooo!!

Here's the splotchy splotchy splats. Oooooo! Me lovey lovey them! So nice so nice! Try it out, don't be afraid to splatter it all over your art work.

It's August already!!

I thought that I had been quite regular in updating my blog. Apparently not, as I discovered when I saw that last date that I posted. Hee hee! How can time fly by sooooo fast??!!

I think I know though. When you are enjoying yourself, you have stuff to do, places to go and people to meet, time does have a way of speeding through!

I have been teaching at Laines for the past 8months already. I still find it hard to believe that so much time has flown by. It sometimes feels as if I've only just joined them. But for the simple fact that I know/have almost everything at my fingertips just proves to myself how far I have come from the super blur and confused person when I 1st joined!

There are times when I wish I could stay at home and be with my kids. I miss them terribly and I want to spend all my time with them instead of letting the maid be my stand in. However, I know that if I had to stay home full time, I'd probably go stark raving MAD! So, I have my hands very full balancing my kids, work and scrapping. When I say scrapping, I mean my own stuff and nothing to do with work. Oh, I love work and teaching and designing and stuff. But nothing beats digging out my own stash and having a blast of a time with close friends and fellow scrappers!

Oh well! I need to go now! Need to dig out that little bit of time in between my little girl's nap and my boy's tuition time to have a bit of scrapping done!

Leaving you with a Webster's challenge page!

More craze! Wow!

For an Instant, Love can change the World

I recently dug out my wedding photos to do my August class project and I went on a "wedding" binge! Hee hee! I thought that I should try to make as many layouts as I could cos they're probably the only photos I have that I actually look good in. I'm not terribly photogenic and nowadays, I dont really have alot of nice shots of me and hubby.

In Dreams & in Love

I got my lovely title ideas from a Fiskars stamp set on love. The quotes were beautiful and since I've got crappy title skills, I decided to hijack other more skillful poets! This trio of gorgeous beads are from a large pack of beads that I bought from Spotlight upteen years ago and never used. Papers are from Basic Grey and are about 2 years old. Still lovely and very relavant to the occasion.

My Hollywood Walk of Fame
This is Bri pretending to be a Hollywood star as she puts her hand onto the floor of the cruise ship. Bran has almost the exact pose when we went to the Hong Kong Walk of Fame and had his hands on the real walk. Will develop both photos again and do another layout.

Here's 2 transparency butterflies that I hijacked from Jaz's Envelope class in June. Hehehehe!

Sudden scrapbook craze!!

Went a little scrap crazy recently!! I had this really strong urge to complete all my older projects as well as do up new ones!! Hahahahaha! I'm using really old MME, 7 Gypsies papers. Thought they still look so good. I also made some flowers from strips of paper twirled round and round using my all time favourite adhesive, Beacons! Yeah!!

Double the Joy

Here's one for my cousin's twin girls. They are so so so adorable and lovable! They are now in Primary One already and this was taken like umpteen years ago!

Dare To Dream

This was a shot taken in Japan. It was in summer and the heat was so bad, we were wondering if anytime someone was going to get heatstroke! Brandon's cheek was so red! It was a picture perfect moment!

Hug Me Tight

We were in the car and Brother and Sister suddenly became very loving and kept hugging each other! It was really amusing to watch them. I just wish they were like this more often!

I'm Applying for the ROLE ......

This is Brianna being cheeky and adorable! She loves to pose and make funny faces so I made this layout seem as if she was applying for an acting job at TCS! Hahaha!

And these are the flowers made from paper strips. I was scrapping at my MIL's place (yes yes, I bring my scrap stuff EVERYWHERE!!) and I didnt bring along any flowers. So I thought that it really has been a long time since I actually MADE anything! There are so many many ready made stuff out there nowadays! These flowers are really easy to make and look so shabby. Hmmmmm.... I might just use this for the next class!

Laines Sneak Peaks for July Classes!

This month at Laines, we have 6 classes. But 2 classes will only be conducted once. They are the very special projects done by Merdrey! One gorgeous project is a Hambly album made from scratch and contains so much stuff that it's a miracle that it has not burst with all the goodies!! The other project is a 2 page layout which is very pink and cute! If you love having interactive stuff on your page, you should really do this class!
There are 2 albums this month from Sharon, Stamping and Bowlin. Beautifully done (as usual) and so touchy feely!! I'm very tempted to take them home myself! Arghhhh!!
And last but not least, our all time favourite layering queen, Jaz! She has outdone herself this month by having a 2 page layout class and a 1 page layout class. All the beautiful layering and special vintage stuff that is used.... Hmmmmm! Yummylicious!

Have you seen such pretty flowers??!!

Recently, an old friend asked if I have any crochet flowers. I do have quite a few actually. I dug out some and realized that they were way too pretty to be kept hidden! They were crochetted by my mum some time back when I began the craze for scrapbooking. I wanted flowers that no one else had and "stole" some of my mums crochet flowers to put onto my layouts!
So here's a collection of crochet stuff that my mum did for me! Enjoy!

What inspires you?

I often ask my scrapping pals what inspires them. But whenever I'm scrapping, I don't consciously think of what inspires me. Do I really need inspiration? Or do I need a bolt of lightning? Hahahaha!

I am often stuck when doing layouts or altered art. It gets worse when I need to design for class and I have a deadline hanging over my head. Then I walk away from my project and flip through magazines, turn on the computer, browse other talented scrappers, check out the latest products. I am very inspired by what I see online and in magazines. THEN I GO TO SLEEP AND EVERYTHING IS LOST!!!! Arghhhhh!!!

Then how? Like that? Die la!!

So, day after day, I plod on, wondering what inspires me... More importantly, what inspires those talents out there?