Try something new

If you have not seen this video, check it out!

So cool, isn't it? Yes, try something new, even if it is going back to the real thing, the original back to basic could be the new thing now!

This month we are trying some new things. Instead of eating out at Japanese restaurants (it is very possible to eat out everyday in Singapore. Food choices are abundant and fairly cheap and very good), we tried making our own sushi. Makes for a great family time! Besides being yummy. 

Another new: for the first time in my life, I have signed up for a 10k! I've decided to walk all the way. Instead of training in the gym, DH and I have been doing walks at the beach. We walked and people watched and had great conversations. Who would have guessed how fun this can be. As you can see above, I've worked it up to 6k in an hour or so. Am hoping to do the 10k in an hour and half, thereabouts. But dh only wants me not to get injured, haha!

The Digi Files - a first podcast!

Yin Designs is being featured in The Digi Files this month! I'm super-honored to have been part of the files for the fourth time, I answered the interview questions as currently as I could, so do check it out at The Daily Digi. For my feature, I recorded a podcast with Steph, something totally new! It took me a while to pluck up the courage to listen to it, lol! I remembered being very excited and rambling on and on and giggling quite a bit. But so glad I did it! Not to mention I'm a few notches up the cool factor in my boys' books :)   

Steph and The Daily Digi has really expanded me over the years, given me opportunities, ideas, helped me with quality control, even started me on a newsletter. Thank you! And if you have not already signed up, this month's files includes kits from:

Studio Blagovesta
Chelle's Creations
Miss Mint
Karah Fredricks
Tangie Baxter
Bella Gypsy

For my part of the contribution, you will get these four 12x12, and two 12x24 templates:

All for only $7.50. I am a member and find that most my layouts each month come from that month's Digi files! Click Here to sign up

And for the podcast, you can play it by clicking the play button right here, or by going to this link : http://traffic.libsyn.com/dailydigidigest/ddd_yin_designs.mp3 

Or you can also download in iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-digi-digest/id717402302?mt=2

Birthday thoughts: Trying new things certainly spices up life, but as I crossed another forty-something (wink) birthday in August, I find myself wondering, amidst much celebrating over meals with family and friends and cakes and all, if I'm too focused on enjoying my own frivolous life, and neglecting good that I could have been doing? 

On Sunday, our pastor said this in his sermon :So whether we eat or drink or do whatever, ask:

Can I do this for the Glory of God? Am I satisfied in Him today? Have I made my God too small?

And brought me back  to my favorite verse that I have always leaned on;  

And so I re-committed myself to this. Not new, but so important that this is my daily prayer and service. I want to go deeper into these words, to be less affected by my surroundings, and impulses and worries, to be more steadfast and faithful, even whilst I am doing all this living, trying new things, eating and drinking that He has graciously given me to enjoy. 

August Project Life Pages

This insert page is all from my birthday, we had an extended date visiting an area with quaint bookstores, shops and cafes, for the first time :). We also visited the Singapore Night Festival, again for the first time since it ran, and were surprised there were so many people who turned up at the street concerts, movie screenings, at the light shows, and more.I squeezed 4 photos and 2 photos into each 4x4 pocket, And the bottom left photo was printed by the Peranakan Museum immediately after we uploaded an instagram pic! I used hashtags for the first time :)

This next page was filled only with one photo, and another screenshot taken off the boys' facebook post, the rest were all stories, funny conversations, even a note from a teacher, I totally love snippets like that. They may not be important moments or sentiments per se, but evoke laughter and 'oh yeah!'s and trigger memories and shared moments when I show them to my family and that's what my PL is for!!

Our family and friends got together on many occasions this month too. It's nice all the photos happen to have have red and black tones in them.

At the back of the insert page are photos of my colleagues and I at our company dress up dinner. The golden hues were beautiful, we were dressing up as greeks :)

Project 365 Photos

As usual, I popped all 31 photos a day for August into two of my Half Monthly templates and sumarised the month in review

I have been using graph or note papers as backgrounds and this simplifies it a lot for me, I also limit myself to a handful of elements, culling them based on the color scheme for that page. In this way I keep it really simple and completes the month in reviews in a couple of hours.

Hawaii Pages (find the double page templates in the store)
A lot more pages have been completed! This month I was working around the idea of photos layered over shaped paper cuttings, then over 'wood' papers. More pics at the beach:

Visiting the For Derussy US Army Museum - filled with stories of patriotism and machines and tanks and copters the boys were so interested in.

Being beach bums on another afternoon spent at yet another beach on our beach hop :)

Hiking at Manua Falls - so much glorious flora and greenery even the muddy ground did not bother us.

And these are pages of which templates are in this months Digi Files:
Visiting the Justice Department building - we had seen it on Hawaii Five-O so much we were excited to visit, but enjoyed even more the rich history of the exhibits and learnt so much.

Doing what we love - visiting art at the Honolulu Museum of Art - always a treat!

These 12x12 pages are of special stories I wanted to scrap recently, I will be printing them to slot into my Project Life album. Here's Jared on his beloved guitar - love watching him play!

And we took the family with us to this fun concert at the Esplanade - it's wonderful we can now enjoy concerts together!

A layout of  Jared dressed up as one of the anime character he so resembles, he looks so cool don't you think?

And for a while we were all into mastermind again, Who do you think is the mastermind?

The template for this layout of us in transit in Korea was shared during my feature on Real Life Scrapped - in case you'd like it but missed it, here it is. We were on transit enroute to Hawaii. Had to bring winter gear just for that 13 hours of transit. But we got to wander the streets of Seoul, first time for us. We will be back one day!

Download here

And I put the rest of the brush script words I did into this second set for you to play with, enjoy!

Download these here

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