Best Friends for a Lifetime

(Credits: card from Liz Tamanaha's Midnight digital kit)

Ha! I guess this is my 'older' way of saying BFF! 

I made this card for my PL to describe our friends who came over to our place on 1st of May for food and fellowship. These are folks we have known since childhood and teenage years. There are two other families not in the pictures, and together our 5 families have been together through life's ups and downs, celebrated and cried with each other, supported and had fun together, prayed and encouraged each other through the years, and our children are close too, and it just does not get better than this. We thank the Lord for you!

When I assembled the page above, and inserted my latest favorite photo of me and dh (taken by my best friend's daughter on the same day), I realised the phrase Best Friends for a Lifetime also describes us. We met when we were 15, married nearly 10 years later, and are now coming to our 20th Anniversary! We are one of those blessed couples who were best friends first, and have been ever since. You can't see it here, but we were sitting under the canvas print hanging on our wall that quotes Exodus 6:7, 

and indeed God has taken us to be His people, He has shown my family that He is the Lord our God, through everything He has brought us through and blessed us with. In this we are truly blessed.

(By the way the Ex 6:7 word art I did can be downloaded in this post)

And doing Project Life is so wonderful because it helps me look out for and find and make and record all the meaningful  times and thoughts and moments. And each time I sit down and complete a month of PLs, my overwhelming feeling is Thankfulness. How about you?

Next page is the day we spent at the Gardens By the Bay, where we visited a Conservatory (giant greenhouse of sorts) which maintained the temperatures and conditions as that in Cloud Forests and we get to see the flora and  vegetation that can only be found high up in mountains. The boys were not that impressed, but it was a great time out together nevertheless! I used a cut up insert on the right to complete the spread.

The next page has two series of photos, I love series! Right on top is a series of photos I snapped as J excitedly recounted his day with friends playing NERF battles. The series at the bottom of the page are of R and J having fun together on the Wii. I just can't get enough of these candid shots. Especially when they are not keen on actually smiling for the camera!

Here is the view including an insert on the left, where I included the Mother's Day card and cut-out of the box of the Hand Therapy cream I received, with the photo taken when I received them.

I really liked the little 3x4 card I put together, it's fun making my own cards, something simple like this can be visually stunning, and it says what you feel

(Credits: word tag from Miss Mint's Modern mama, font: CK nitelite)

The next spread included various photos that were meaningful for me. Here are the close-ups of some of them, I typed out the journaling in photoshop before printing them out at the local photo shop. They are not the prettiest photos, but they mean a lot because of what they say.

(Credits for all the PL pages: Simply White Templates by Tracy Larsen, Lauren Grier's A little Off templates v2, Word arts from Ali Edwards' Today Rocks, Messy Lifelines, Hello Life,So Totally This, Studio Calico NSD freebies, 3X4 quote card by KarlaDudley, Becky Higgins' Project Life Cobalt and Turquoise kits)

Linking up with The Mom Creative's Project Life Tuesday - lots of inspiration over there!

May 365 Digital Pages
These are great days, full of everyday goodness.

(credits: Alpha from Kaye Winiecki's StrawberrySwirl, word strip and flower also by Kaye Winiecki, and  Happy word strip by ALlison Pennington, arrows, hearts from Michelin Martin's artsybitsvday, speech bubble by Mommyish, and paper from Zoe Pearn's SO Lovely.)

(credits: star by Kaye Winiecki, alpha by Karah Fredricks, word art from Scrapmatters' team collab - Life Everyday, Happy circle and hearts from The Lilypad's team collab, other word strips by Mommyish and Laura Grier, paper by Gina Cabrera, ribbon from Studio RosyPosey's One Moment.)

Beijing Layouts
I continue my next few layouts for Beijing being compelled to have one giant photo per layout, because of the beautiful scenic photos we have of the Old Summer and the New Summer Palaces. This is the only way to do them justice! At this point I will like to give a shout out to Michelle Coleman's Limelight Photo Textures Vol 1, available at LittleDreamerDesigns which I used to give the large photos a lift, with highlights and subtle textures. It was worth the splurge (got it during her 30% sale)

The Old summer palace used to be a huge glorious summer palace and gardens apparently around the size of Central Park, which was burnt down by retaliating European armies around 1860s. The portion of the palace buildings which were built in Rococo style with marble survived as ruins while the rest of the wooden structures and palaces were razed. Today these ruins are hauntingly beautiful! (you can click on images to see larger images)

we wandered around together and individually, trying to imagine how each corner or area must have looked like in it's glory days, lost in our own thoughts. Ruins does that to you!

On the same afternoon we visited the 'new' Summer Palace, which was actually built earlier than the one that was burnt down, but was expanded and rebuilt and was in use by the royals until the Qing dynasty collapsed.  This gardens had rivers, lakes, pagodas, gardens, temple, halls, and beautifully landscaped grounds, even in winter!

And we ended the day watching the postcard perfect sunset - magical. To think this must be the same sunsets that the emperors and empresses enjoyed!

(Credits: Alpha by Karah Fredricks, Kaye Winiecki and Kate Hadfield, digital PL cards by Liz Tamanaha, word arts by Allison Pennington and Libby Pritchett,  flower by Pony Tail desgns, papers by Libby Pritchett, bzb designs, and Allison Pennington, stitches by Mye De Leon, Studio Basic and Michelle Godin)

Inspiration

I also want to show you a very lovely layout by a very lovely and special lady, Rhadonda Sedgwick, who has been such an encouragement to me. It was so nice that despite being on opposite sides of the world, we share the same faith, both loved BSF, and of course share a love for scrapbooking! Thanks Rhadonda!

And here is a 12x12 layout of a fascinating sight we saw in Beijing of a roadside stall selling mouth-blown candy of all shapes, see the delight in the little girl's eyes? A beautiful moment for us too, captured :)

(credits: paper from Studio Basic's Addicted to Lists, paints from Allison Pennington's I am who I am, heart from Kate Hadfield's Framed Freebie, and alpha from Karah Fredricks' Awesome sauce 3)

And of course, you can download this template to play with, HERE

Everyday Bliss

This is my favorite photo this month. It was taken on a Sunday early evening, I was in the kitchen doing some washing, and I looked out through the kitchen door to our dining table, and the boys were quietly doing homework side by side. I was suddenly filled with so much joy and thankfulness, just to know they are there at home, they like each other's company, they are quietly working, that I can see them from where I'm working. We have lived through enough, and seen others going through much, to know these are not to be taken for granted! Oh how I count my blessings! The quiet everyday bliss is the most precious and wonderful of all.

A few days ago, our family's oldest and best friends came over to our home to visit and celebrate with us in our newly renovated home, and they had a Home Blessing for us, where each prayed over us and our home, room by room. It was such a blessing to have good friends and the Lord blessing us in our home!

We so appreciate their prayers for us, which were, for our home to be a sanctuary of love, peace, and rest, where there's understanding and acceptance, where we will be healthy and strong, where there will be laughter and fun, joyful and happy memories, where the focus will be on people and not things, where less is truly more, where we will create, grow and live together. Thank you God, amen!

BI-MONTHLY APRIL LAYOUTS

These are our daily photos, one a day for April. I find this Project 365 so worth it, when I look back at my older 365 albums I'm so glad I had the everyday captured. Wish I did this earlier when the boys were littler! Having said that, I keep it very simple, 90% of photos are taken on my iphone, except those that the boys or dh takes and passes to me. I do the two pages for each month at one go, journal at one go, pick all the embellishments at one go, you get the idea. I timed myself - it is usually completed within one and a half hours every month!! You have to be decisive with the embellishments though!

Highlight for 1st to 15th of April - first photo on the top left - R vacuuming the floor without prompting just 'because it was full of crumbs after breakfast' :) 2nd photo: the boys are into Japanese anime girls - poster on their bedroom wall :) 

 (Credits: Yin Template 317E, alpha by Kay Winiecki, Paper by Gina Cabrebra, butterfly overlay by Laurie Ann, wordstrips by Allison Pennington and One Little Bird, Our Life wordart by JustJaimee)

HIghlights for 16th to 30th of April: My hand - my third finger on the right hand swelled up and the doctor thinks it might be arthritis!  :(  Bottom photo : datenight at Shakespeare at the Park - watching live Othello while picnicking on the lawn of For Canning Park - cool!

 (Credits: Yin Template 317D, alpha by Kay Winiecki, Paper and word art by Allison Penington, Splatters by Karah Fredricks, chevron arrows by Gina Miller, flair from Scrapmatters' Life Everyday collab)

PROJECT LIFE

Here is where I capture extra photos for the month which are extra special, or I have a story to tell, anything that I fancy at all. Only 3 pages for April, took me an hour and a half one night to choose the photos and edit in photoshop to prep for printing, and another half hour another night to assemble into the pockets and journal. Love Project Life!

Took an entire page for photos taken at a wedding we attended of a very special couple. It was the boys' first church wedding! And these were their Youth pastor so it was extra special. We got to dress up too, and meet up with old friends, so it was fun as well. 

 More everyday life, R and I had a swim together (this is rare! especially where he chatted with me as we took breaks between swims), Jared tying his own tie, dh's tooth implant, and the last look at twenty years' of travel brochues, we threw them away finally, no space anymore to keep them!

(Credits: Cobalt core kit from Becky Higgins PL, 3x4 cards from Midnight editioin by Liz Tamanaha, Life quotes by Smitha Katti, alpha by Karah Fredricks)

BEIJING LAYOUTS

For my next 4 Beijing layouts, where I had very colorful photos, I went for completely white backgrounds again (see these Shanghai layouts). Love the results! Super striking layouts! All I had to use was great alpha and Paint splashes (this set from Emily Merritt is my constant go-to , see credits below), and they are done!

The first two layouts were us at the Antiques Market, more like a flea market, with all kinds of everything, from art to books to jewellery to weapons! We LOVE it!

 Template 331

 Template 332

Next two layouts were when we visited the Temple of Heaven - really a huge park with several amazing structures and areas, where the emperor used to go annually to offer prayers for good harvest and a good year. The entire temple was built without nails and had withstood all kinds of weather, earthquakes and all. Amazing. An as you can see, super photo opportunities!

 Template 333 

Template 334

(Credits: Painted On Rainbow and Painted On Neutral by Emily Merritt, Alpha from Karah Fredricks's Awesome Sauce 3, and Alpha from Chelle's Creations' Bluebird on my Shoulder, black paper from Essential Blacks by Emily Giovanni, red paper by Laura Grier in the LilyPad's MFEO collab)

THE DIGI FILES

I know, I'm so excited, I'm on The Digi Files at The Daily Digi this month! I'm so honored to be a contributor for the third time! Steph and Katie and their team run an amazing site, and the Digi Files are a super deal. I myself am a subscriber and you can see a lot of what I include in my layouts and PL are from the latest great kits every month! This is my contribution this month, all layouts from my Hawaii photos, the 12x12 layouts are my first templates for Instagram photos! 

INSPIRATION

Every now and then wonderful people send me their beautiful layouts and books, so I'm never short of inspiration to share: This time I want to show you Carol Johnson's Europe Travel PhotoBook: It is full of amazing pictures, layouts, trust me, you will love it. 

Go HERE to view her entire album

FUN WITH TEMPLATES

Templates are versatile and fun! Like this layout I made below of a Sunday Morning scene in Beijing. At first I went with a white background, which looked striking and great! Then I played with placing an enlarged photo as the background, it looked fab too, especially the streaks of sunlight interplaying with the people's shadows. Now I can't decide which to print in my album, haha! 

 

 Go ahead, try it! Download this 12x12 template HERE. Have fun!

Happy about ...

Happy about ...

• the just delivered canvas prints of collages I did for our family room walls!

Dh and I had been wanting to put up various black and white pictures of our family through the years on the walls, instead of our collection of multiple assorted frames due to the lack of space. But individually framing or canvas-printing them would have been too costly and tedious. So when I chanced upon Design Editor's amazing layout on Pinterest, it inspired me to create a huge collage (well, two) instead. And of course I practically entirely scraplifted from her, even the color schemes - they matched what I was planning for the space, thank you Catherine for the inspiration! We love it! By the way, you can find the templates in her Etsy Store here - she has load of other goodies worth checking out too.

Yes those are the boys from then to now. These were some of our 'iconic' photos through the years. So happy to have them in the family room where we spend much of our family time everyday! After I completed the first one above, I had so many shortlisted photos that I had to do up a second collage (below), taking the design and extending/adapting it horizontally.

Design-wise: we made most of the photos black and white as they were all of different colors from different periods, to tie them together. Except for one photo in each collage that had similar color tone as the patterned papers used. Notice in the second collage, the bottom left photo of the boys are one photo which took up 3 photo spaces. Also mixed in close-ups and further way ones, action ones and posed ones, to create interest.

So pleased how they turned out!! This is how they look on our wall, well, floor (we are somewhat overwhelmed at committing them to a particular spot on the wall at the moment ) By the way, they are sized 35" x 22"and 30" x 17.5" respectively. I printed them at Print On Canvas (a singapore based company that ships worldwide) who delivered them 4 days after I uploaded them to their website!! 

• the type, colors and print of our new cushion covers that I ordered from Society 6. Love that they give a modern trendy vibe to our sofa - true, there isn't much space left for lounging... but they are matchy matchy with the colors of the collage....

• the subway tiles we had put in for our bathroom (with black grout for easy maintenance!) and the matching black trim and white blinds - one idea on Pinterest that made it to our home!

• the boys conferring over homework (this mom is no longer of much help where Maths, Physics, Chemistry etc are concerned) - the sight makes me so happy

• Good Friday and Easter services we attended as a family (usually the boys attend youth service). Singing beautiful, meaningful, lovely hymns together, the Lord is Risen!

Find this and more Easter printables here

• my freshly organised Project Life stash! Ok, one big plus is the teeny size of stash that I have :) I try very hard to keep it that way! I have the Cobalt and Turquoise editions, and they fit right into this basket where I can easily see each different journal or filler card by standing the first in the series upright. I don't have much other supplies as I try to keep things simple and focus on the photos and telling the story, and add titles digitally most of the time before printing.

As I do not have any other room or space, once a month, when I have my photos printed, I set everything that you see here on the dining table and complete that month's spread at one go. Then they all go back into the shelves. I think my stash can last me two years !

• bi-monthly project 365 layouts for March capturing our month with the overview of each half month I often look back through my past years' 365 albums with fondness, so much that would not be remembered had I not have them captured! 
• Love the word art I used on this month's spreads below from Suddenly Artistic. One of them says: Bits and Pieces of Life - Unexpected, Real, Unforgettable    So worth noticing and capturing!

• march project life photos and journal cards safely in their pockets!

The first page are snapshots of us in our newly renovated and painted home. The pic at the top left was captured by Jared when he was fiddling with the camera apps on my iphone, it's cool! There was a lot of blank space on the enlarged photo on the right that begged for hand-written journaling :)

The next page are pictures I took on my iphone outside home. At church, at meals, jogging/walking the neighbourhood, at the library, mostly brothers together doing the stuff they do.

This is the first time I'm using an insert from my Becky Higgins' protectors, here to add in a photo about the defective lights (which have finally been fixed), devotions we found meaningful that week, and photos of a wallet J made for himself! 

The flip side of that insert is the start of the one and half page spreads of the day we spent at Legoland Malaysia. The rides were mostly too childish for my kids, and they are not really into the hair-raising ones either, but we had a great time together (finally, a family outing!). The best and most impressive part was the Lego mini-cities, with many scenes from Malaysia and Singapore (including where I work) that are familiar to us. You can't believe how intricate and life-like the lego cities are! 

More Legoland photos. I like putting a white border on all the photos since there was no filler or journaling card on the page.

And J's 95 marks-Chinese mini test paper made it to PL, it is Awesome for the effort he put in as Chinese is not his strong suit. So proud of him for sticking with it, you deserve it, well-done!

• Capturing meaningful devotions / readings the boys and I read together, into my PL album.. These two (both from Rick Warrens' Daily Hope devotions) were particularly meaningful for us. 

• 5 more Beijing layouts completed (yay!)

The first layout is of Arrow Tower which is one of the few remaining parts of the original Beijing Wall and gates into Beijing that remains - so cool to walk through that tunnel/gate that used to link the city to the outside. Wow.

These next 4 layouts are all of the seriously amazing time we spent up on the Great Wall of China. I had broken my little toe just two 10 days before the trip, but limping or pain or not, I was going to get up to there with the family. It had also just snowed a day before, and the skies were so clear, so it was perfect! (click to see larger image)

First layout are the first glimpses and first moments on the Wall

Next the view and terrain changes as we snake up the wall.

And more pics of moments up there. Including the boys sitting right in the middle of one stretch playing Uno, they had walked to and fro and to and fro while waiting for me to catch(limp) up, so they sat down to play. 

And finally, we made it up the last steep stretch of endless stairs to reach the highest point in this part of the Wall. Very hard to top that on this trip.

•  Joining the 30 Days of Lists - to journal and capture some of me according to the prompts. I chose to do only 9 of the 30 lists - no pressure for myself, wrote my lists onto PL cards and tucked them into PL with no embellishing. Just cool to have captured some of my thoughts, some trivial, some just fun and some more thought provoking. I will definitely do it again - next round is in September I believe - check out the blog here

Just for fun, here are a couple of my lists:

List # 4: On an Average Day I...

• spend too long getting ready for work
• scrapbook or read blogs or pinterest after kids sleep
• make and re-make lists
• remind J to start homework
• ask hubby to help with something
• do the dishes and mop the kitchen floor
• drink 2 cups of Cafe 21

List #20 : I do not regret:

• marrying DH
• having the boys
• going into the accounting line
• spending on travelling
• our home choices
• working part time
• not having a car
• starting scrapbooking (!!!)
• serving in youth ministry

• Kim (FiveSeventeen Creations) sharing her awesome layouts with me - Prepare to be inspired! Thanks Kim!

• sharing this template with anyone keen to make one of these double page layouts with 13 photos. It's made from the Arrow Tower layout shown earlier. Enjoy!

Download link here

• hearing from you, it's been so nice to hear from you, thank you!