This Week

This week we enjoy having Jared back home! Missed him last week when he spent 5 days at a school trip to Bali. He had a lot of fun! They did lots of stuff, visited museums, palace, temple, orphanage, a Green School, Organic chocolate factory, a padi plantation, climbed a volcano, and white-water rafted! I did up his beautiful pictures in 8.5*11 collages which I will print and insert into Project Life :)

This week I brought Ryan to make his identity card. At fifteen you get to make your official ID card and it feels kinda like you're all grown up (no need to bring your birth certificate to prove who you are anymore!) Unfortunately the photo we brought along was rejected, and thus began a hilarious time trying to get him an instant photo taken. His hair was so messy as it was a while since his last haircut, then his fringe was too long as it is not allowed to touch his eyebrows in the photo, we sprayed so much water on his hair to coax it off his eyebrows, then he had to put on a shirt (checked!) because white shirt is not okay against white background, then he had to remove his spectacles due to reflection, but he looked stoned without it and the lady handed him a pair of spectacles without 'glass'. He was quite transformed! This is the photo that made it to his ID! I think the real him is way cooler, don't you? Sigh...

This week I've been taking Jared to a Japanese language class he requested to take. Isn't he an interesting kid? It's tough going but he is sticking to it, he will complete 30 hours in two weeks! He will be the only one in our family who will speak and read some Japanese, WTG!

This week dh and I spent a lot of time considering and discussing the look and feel we want for our home - remodeling and renovation coming up! It is so much fun and so exhausting at the same time, we looked at tonnes of pictures online, even read design books and so on, we came up with ideas and words like: Nordic, intimate, informal, natural, practical, functional, not fancy nor ornamental, maybe some quirkiness or whimsy... we'll see where this goes! I pulled the below images from the internet - lovely mood board don't you agree? Only problem is our space is much, much smaller!

This week I completed the first half month of my Nov PL, way to go, if I may say so myself! :P

I printed out words included in my birthday card to dh:

  Also decided to add in screenshots of Whats App messages dh and I sent each other that were especially hilarious and fun one day, made an insert for it for some privacy!

Some of the stories from my blog posts like the one on watching videos with Jared to be considered 'cooler' gets included.

And the day spent at the Anime Festival and the latest game craze to hit our home gets top feature space!

Oh yes, Jenny you asked if I will be able to complete my 2012 PL all in one album? The answer is YES!! This is how it looks so far with October pages in! It is very important that I have only one album each year because we just don't have the space to store many albums. Of course our overseas holiday photos gets recorded separately in digital layout photobook, and I keep my PL for everyday stories and photos, perfect!

This week my Vietnam Photobook arrived! Other than once when I tried Blurb, I've used Shutterfly to print my books and have always been pleased with the results. Some pics:

In one of the recent post comments, Susan asked how to upload full 12x12 scrapbook page to Shutterfly for printing. I was at Shutterfly this morning and found that they now have a Print Your Digital Scrapbook solution. It looks a lot easier than I had been doing it, so do check it out. I'll try it the next time I have a book to print :)

In case you still want to know how I had been doing it, here are the steps:
1. Upload pictures (12x12 layouts) to Album
2. Choose and open Custom Photobook
3. Load pictures to Photobook
4. On the left, you will see on the Layouts tab, various layout templates. At the bottom of that tab, click on 'Get more layouts', choose '1 photo' option, and find the one where the one photo covers the entire page.
5. Once loaded, choose that template for every page .
Looks rather tedious to me too, haha!

This week, you can download this template to play with!

Download Here

This weekend, we will be leaving for a two week holiday and adventure! I'll post when we get back.

What has been up with you this week? Please share, and do get it recorded!

How to be a Cool Mom to Teenagers

If you have been reading this blog, you know I'm in the season of mothering teenage sons. It is a joy and a roller-coaster ride too! You are so proud of everything they are becoming and achieving, but it is hard when your advice and opinions are now viewed as nagging. lol! They have so much to talk to each other about, but so little to to talk to me about :( This year has been the pursuit of How to be a Cool Mom (or parent) to our boys, to do things with them that they might enjoy, of accepting them and appreciating their interests, of knowing and enjoying them. I may not be very cool yet, but I'm making strides, really. 

Watch their Videos

So in this spirit recently I have been asking Jared to share with me some of the videos he is constantly watching. He was happy that I thought they are quite cool! Now he will share new ones he finds with me much more readily, yay!  Let me share some with you:

This is my favorite. We thoroughly enjoyed the haunting and beautiful art of Van Gogh together. So thrilled we share the love of art!!

Then there are the Ryan Nigahiga videos that he is able to reproduce verbatim. He loves them and they are wacky and funny. But this one actually speaks volumes about our way of life. I kept saying this Nigahiga is a grounded young man!! 

And then there is this Japanese computer game called Touhou that the boys play. Jared has this as his screensaver that is very impressive indeed.

Not bad eh? Now you know what I've been up to, hehe. Definitely stories for my November PL :)

Project Life ( October)

My PL is on a great routine. I will snap pictures everyday, add them to my Project 365 iphone app daily, then at the end of the month,choose those stories that I feel like telling more, and select them to print for my physical PL. The P365 photos get captured into digital half-monthly (fortnightly) pages that I then print out and include in my PL binder. It's so rewarding and satisfying to be on-time with my scrapbooking this year! 

For October, three pages of PL fitted my photos and stories perfectly. 

We received tickets to go to the Universal Studios Singapore's Halloween event, sure it was a bit gory but good fun and great family time. Jared kept saying 'Hello!' to the mummies, monsters, etc while they try to scare us, it was hilarious!

(Credits: Project Life Cobalt kit, love the journal cards by Kate Hadfield!)

We went downtown one day with them, did fun things together and went up to this rooftop garden for amazing views. I used Paislee Press' templates to put 3 photos on these 4X6 photo before printing.

Then there was this afternoon I went with my oldest, best friend to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum Wedding Dress collection at our local museum - a girl's dream!

At the bottom right is a photo of the boys' desk missing their laptops - where have they gone? They were 'kept' with their agreement during the exam period. A very rare and lovely sight indeed. :)

I like doing up the photos on photoshop before printing, like adding a title or journaling, but I also love adding handwritten journaling - makes it more authentic and homespun :)

Digital P365 Pages

Ordered my second batch of 12X12 pages from Persnickety during their recent sale - whoopee! They look awesome! 

Here's how they look in the PL binder:

October P365 Pages

You might notice I've done up a new set of Half-Monthly (Fortnightly) layouts for my October pages! 

There was the day we were out on date night and the kids went to use our bathroom and accidentally locked us out of our bedroom. We got home at midnight and spent a night sleeping in the living room in our work clothes, haha, felt like a sleepover of sorts!

(Credits: Paper by Angie Young, Word arts from Sabee's Creative World's Be You kit, Alpha by Karah Frendricks, elements from Brittish Designs' tweet hearts kit, yin template 317E)

More everyday goodness including Dh's birthday!

(Credits: Alpha by Karah Fredricks, elements from Sausan Designs' note it kit in The Digi Files 47, flower by Mommyish for scrapflower, word art by Suddenly Artistic, word art and strip from Michelle Godin's Blustery Day in The Digi Files 47, Paper by Digital Design Essentials, using Yin Template 317G))

And here's the All New Half-Monthly Template set - available in the Store

 Inspiration

I have more inspiration to share, in the form of completed Shutterfly Albums. 

This is Carol Johnston's Egypt Album, totally awesome trip and pages, check it out!

                             
                               

             Click here to view this photo book larger

And here's Lauren Boxx's Italy trip photobook. Another dream trip, fantastic photos and layouts!

                                

                   Click here to view this photo book larger

  Of course I'm so honored and proud that my templates look so good in Carol's and Lauren's albums. (blush) Thank you so much for sharing with us, ladies!

And here's my own completed Vietnam album, I haven't received it yet, but it sure looks good on-screen, can't wait!
                                

                   Click here to view this photo book larger

Have saved the Album Cover as a template for you to download. Also included it adjusted as a 12x12 template, so you can use it as a regular layout as well. Enjoy!

Download here