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)

This is now available as part of Template Pack 7 in the store. Thanks for your interest!