Family History

I think all of us scrapbookers are in one way or another trying to preserve, create, record, in our own form, our family history. So I was very excited to learn that Ryan had been given an assignment to write a biography of a family member. He chose to interview and write about his grandmother, my mom. We all watched three weeks ago as we set up cameras and tape recorders, and he asked her all the questions he prepared, and acted all adult and grown up as he prompted her, saying "I see", "How interesting", "i didn't know that!" ... in response. My mom was so happy and though a little uncomfortable at first, quickly warmed up to her first grandson's interview.
Anyway the biography is done, at nearly 5000 words - capturing a few things even I didn't know about my own mom, and helping him understand her much much more, AND preserving for future generations a bit more of our Family History. I WILL be making a layout out of it!
Ryan did not want to let me share the biography here, but I will tell you my mom singlehandedly brought my brother and I up after the early and sudden passing away of my dad nearly thirty years ago. And you can see a picture of us below taken when we celebrated her birthday which fell within the chinese new year period.
I've removed several photos from this 365 layout because they were full of friends and relatives whom I have not gotten permission to post online. I'm quite behind in my project 365! You can download the template for this below.

Now some overdue answers to comments and questions on my blog recently (I love reading them, then keeping them in my mail box, always planning to come back and answer them, but seldom finding the time, but today shall be an exception! )
Thanks to Cara for giving me the lovely award!
Thanks to Tess too for introducing me to the very interesting blog photo challenge, wish I had time to participate :P have to prioritise my time very strictly!
To Shawnyrvr, I loved to hear what you and your dh do for each other - HOW sweet and precious!
To Savannah Brentnall who asked if my templates can be used in scrap for others projects - the answer is YES - I should do up proper TOUs and post them in the store - another on my to do list!
Thank you Tink for your ALWAYS heartfelt comments.
To Karen, I know what you mean about taking forever to find the right colored kit or papers. I organise by printing out previews but am now behind in my printing. Still, for the two latest layouts below, I limited myself to searching within my printed previews, and managed to do both in two and a half hours each.
To Brenda and everyone who has been asking me about a sale - I've announced that I will have the bundle sale again in July once I have added more stuff to the store. But since you all asked, I'll probably hold a 20-25% sale in March or April - so do plan accordingly! Thanks for your interest!
To Sara, amazing that you've done 27 layouts this year already! I thot I was productive! :)
To Soffy, I will work on 365 templates soon, have sketched them out, just not had time to put them together yet.
And to Anita, your layouts are Beautiful! And so are your girls, how they have grown! Can I send everyone to your blog to check out all the lovely layouts here!
And Thank you everyone for taking the time to write comments for my humble blog.

Here are layouts I completed this week - am trying new styles for the last few layouts of my 2008 album - this one is inspired by a picture of a wooden board in a beach house where lots of pictures and knickknacks were haphazardly tucked and pinned onto.

I'll come back tomorrow to put up the credits.
And for this layout I wanted the look of spontaneous journaling in a children's note book!Again credits will be posted tomorrow, it's too late tonight!
And yep, as usual, templates are available in the store

I nearly forgot! haha! You can download this template HERE. Hope you like it.

Happy Valentines' Day

Happy Valentines' Day!
DH and I don't usually celebrate Valentines' Day as we find it terribly commercialised but yesterday (on the eve so it's still regular prices) he brought me to a jazz bar for the first time in my life. We like listening to jazz, so he thought live jazz would be wonderful! It was! The only thing was we don't really drink, and had no idea what to order, finally settled for a mocktail and something raspberry that tasted like cough syrup! lol
But better than that, I made a fabulous card for him with this layout which I printed out on tracing paper, and attached to the inside of the card. Can you tell it's in the shape of a heart? We had started taking pictures of ourselves by looking into a camera we held at arms length, because we hardly have pictures of the two of us on trips and the boys are still too young then. Well, these are a collection of such shots taken in HK, Singapore, US, Japan, Malaysia, I turned them into black and white to unite them. I love this layout and he did too! Can't wait to share it with you, scroll all the way down for the template link!
Credits: It's you I love quote by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals, ribbon tie and angels stamp by Gina Cabrerra, We will be friends quote by Jackie Eckles, I 'heart' you word art by Studio ELlie, heart patch by purescraps, clip from kiki's springtime kisses, background paper by TracyAnn designs
Today the scripture passage I read included Mark 1: 7 " where John the Baptist said of Jesus :" the throngs of whose I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." WOW. This really helps me to picture a glimpse of Jesus' Greatness and my unworthiness, and helps me appreciate a little better how great His love for me. May you know His love this day when the world celebrates love.

And I want to tell you of the blog of my new found friend Lynette, you must go check it out here . She does beautiful photo and digiscrapping art which she shares DAILY for FREE, and also shares beautiful words of inspiration and truth. What a dear she is! Thanks Lynette!

I'm behind in scrapping my project 365, but intend to catch up and will share more templates then! I will try to make more 365 templates too as requested!

Thanks to Rebecca who highlighted to me that the Shutterfly offer is only for CK books, well, since I got started, I'll still be hurrying to finish the remaining layouts of my 2008 photos. I'm so proud of myself I did the below layouts in less than one and a half hours each. Normally I take up to 3 hours, mostly spent on searching for the perfect background paper (!) and on arranging the photos and making the shadows, of course. How long do you normally take per layout?
Credits: Background paper from Lauren Reid's Create Wings, and everything else from Michelle Coleman's Island Adventures


Credits: Background paper by Gina Cabrerra, Stamped swirl by Lori Barnhusrt,stitched flower by Dani Mogstad, word arts by Vinnie Pearce, alpha by Sarah Robinson, you & me word art by Krystal Hartley


These templates are now available in the store thanks for looking!

Download this heart shaped template HERE and I'm excited to see what you make from it! Email me with a copy (and indicate if you don't mind me showing it on my blog) to yindgs at yahoo dot com dot sg.

Being a parent

Well, admidst the chinese new year festivities which ends today, I have finally caught up with the boys' birthday prayer layouts which is something I want to do annually (last year I started making layouts - see them here). This year I got dh to write the prayers! I love it when he writes, both because it is rare, and because i love his thoughts and words. Credits: background papers both by Weeds and Wildflowers, Love and ABCD wordarts both by Emily Powers, cream heart by Mira designs, glitter star by Loreta Labarca, red letter f by suzy scraps, square stitches by Margote, grateful and heart shaped word art by Weeds & Wildflowers, circle stitching by Natali designs.
I have made them into templates for you, scroll all the way down!

Being the boys' parents has been so much pride and joy, and in equal parts worries and headaches, I'm sure you can all testify to! I always remember this article dh wrote for our church bulletin about 8 months after Jared was born, (I think he won't mind me sharing it with you! :P)
"I wanted to write this when my first son, Ryan, was born, but the thoughts and feelings were a bit overwhelming then. Things are still pretty chaotic but I might as well start.
I think few people would sign on for fatherhood if they knew the whole deal! It was daunting, the first year. Handling poo, diapers, rocking the baby in the wee hours of morning in an empty hall, crying fits (from mum (yin: that would be me!)and child). Imagine giving up most of your favourite pastimes (movies!) and instead being able to discuss breast-feeding intelligently with your female colleague. Talk about shifting paradigm.
When you have children, a part of you is constantly looking out for them, checking if they are safe or hungry or dirty or wet. They're asleep? - let's sneak off for some coffee! Even when you are apart, you'll think of them. I think I understand prayer a little better now. If I as a sinful man can look out for my kids, how much more our father God who love us and died for us. He is Omniscience and, before you even pray, is already looking out for you.
Psalms 139:13,14 : 'For you create my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.' "
Hope you are blessed as I am every time I read this.

I am also rushing out layouts from last year to put into a 20 page album, in time for the free offer shutterfly and CK sent to my mail box! Apparently it is a one time use coupon so I can't share it. The next few layouts are going to be ultra-simple and quick! And which can be lovely, I think :) These are both from walks and weekends spent outdoors.
Credits: Red background paper by Studio MGL, brown paper from Weeds & Wildflowers, leaf cut out from Vera Lim's the most wonderful time of the year, Priceless charm by PureScraps.
Credits: straight stitch by Loreta Labarca,ribbon and journaling tag by studio ellie, stitched flowers by creshens, soft dots and background paper all by Weeds & Wildflowers
Have made them into templates as usual:You can find the templateshere!

Here's the templates I used for the birthday layouts, combined as one double page. You can use them as single or double, quite versatile, isn't it? :) I've added two more photo mats to each side of this template, so that you can use them for Project 365 if you wish. This template is now available as a set in the store HERE

Printing double pages on Shutterfly

Thank you for your loveliest comments on my latest templates and layouts, you're unbelievably nice, thank you!
Now there was a very good question about whether I made any adjustments for printing my double pages on shutterfly. And I'm going to share with you as best as I can, what I did.
Firstly, it is important that anyone who prints at Shutterfly downloads their printing guide here. The first time I printed a double page, I did not know about the "trim" they do and the result was that the edges and centre were a bit cut off. See this post here
So the next time I was printing double pages, which was the US book you all saw here, I tried out adjustments on some pages, like experimenting!
Well, for pages like these two, where there was nothing important in the middle, nor at the edges, I did not make any adjustments, simply "cut" the layout right down the middle, saved the left and right sides and loaded them up to shutterfly:

Below you see how they turned out:

But for these two layouts, where I had titles down the centre, I made an adjustment when I saved the left and right sides, such that there would be an extra overlap of 3/8ths of an inch. Let me try to explain:
This is the layout with the line showing the exact centre of the 12x24 layout at the 12 inch point. I saved the 12x12 right side of the layout as it is with the cut off at the 12 inch point (cutting through the right side of the H)
But when I was saving the 12x12 left side of the layout, I pushed the layout to the left by 3/8ths of an inch, such that the left side had the centre cut off point shifted to the right (down the middle of the T)
Below is what the left side and right sides (which I loaded up to shutterfly) looked like. Notice the portion of overlap in the middle for the left and right sides. I figured when shutterfly cut off a bit of the left middle, and of the right middle, it would join up nicely. Well, lucky for me, they pretty much did.

This is another page which I tried the 3/8ths of an inch overlap down the left and right sides:

They turned out great too!


However, I must show you the Ground Zero page - there is just the slightest off-alignment of my journaling that went diagonally across the page - on hindsight, I should have split the journaling into two halves in two separate text boxes on the left and right sides. That's a bit tricky too. Well, you probably don't want to try journaling this way unless you're a die-hard double pager like me!:p
Hope all this helped!