Brothers

The above 365 layout was made using one of MandaGirl's templates, I love her style!

The boys' exams are over and we are all having a much needed rest from studying. The two of them have been spending the last week on holiday from school, 5 days together with each other for company, with their fair share of fun and tears! I guess that's the way with brothers right? One evening they were quarelling over something trivial again, and I got so fed up settling the dispute, I said whoever can come up with 10 compliments for the other first, will win the case. They got started and it was such fun hearing what they come up with!! When Ryan struggled to compliment #8 for Jared, he declared, "That's the absolute limit, I can't think of anymore!!" Haha!! Jared is more generous, and got to 10 more easily, along the way I suggested that 'Ryan is honest' and he said, 'honest, my foot!' lol! When they were done, they agreed reluctantly that 'my brother does have some good points!' :)
I tried to capture as many of the 10 compliments as I can remember!
From Ryan, good points about Jared are: He's intelligent, adorable, good with robots, great at puzzle games, creative, have a good sense of humour, fixes my (Ryan's) toys, learn from his mistakes. :)
From Jared, good points about Ryan are: Coordinated gaming skills, great strategist, superior vocabulary, strong, tall, has many good friends, fun sense of humour, careful, obedient! Another great story for a layout! :)

I'm pushing to complete my 365 layouts and Japan layouts, as I'm already planning next year's album in my mind!! It will be along stories of everyday like the 10 compliments story above... more of that later!

The next part of our Japan trip was spent in Takayama, a town in the Japan alps, it was a total change from modern, bustling Tokyo, it was beautiful, quaint, with pretty old houses and alleys to explore, lots of arts and crafts and markets to browse in, and here are the first few layouts I did.





This template is now available as a set in the store HERE

This one below I put together quickly and simply, I'm so glad I started my 365 album on a simple, white background, minimalist theme!
Here's template 154 for you to play!

Sponsor Spotlight at The Daily Digi!

I had the incredible honor of being a sponsor on The Daily Digi! Had wanted to blog about it, but just been too busy working 12 hour days this week (don't worry, it's temporary). I have loved The Daily Digi since Janet started it this year, and visit it everyday - if you haven't been, check it out, you'd be hooked. They have great articles, tips, fantastic inspirational layouts and scrapping ideas, great non-scrapping fun stuff, helpful hints, and lots more. You can see Yin designs being spotlighted in this post, it's such an honour, so exciting, I still can't get over it! :)
I have contributed the following tempaltes 144 to 147 to The Digi Files 8 - in which (for a mere $5) you can find designs by the AMAZING Lauren Reid, Ziggle Scraps, Dani Mogstad, Designs by Lili, Kay Miller, and The Digi Chick! Can you believe I'm in the same File as these designers??? I had many items in Dani's wishlist when I found she was being featured, and promptly bought them all with her sale coupon.

I did find time during the two weeks ago when I was on leave (I called it PSLE leave - I took leave to see Ryan through his Primary School Leaving Exams - a big deal here in Singapore - unbelievable, you'll see how hard we studied in my next few 365 layouts) to complete several layouts, catching up on my Japan album (I think I'm about half way through)
This captures the many bento set picnic meals we had while in Japan, they have the loveliest bento meals - available cheaply in their supermarkets, with the most amazing array of options, assortment, the hardest part is choosing, especially when we couldn't quite figured out what they were made of, lol. These picnics became a memorable part of our trip! The places we've ate them in!
And here we are at the Maritime Museum of Science - I found it whimsical with an old time air, and very fascinating, with lots of hands on stuff - a total hit with the boys.
Another quinessential part of our trip was our Shinkansen journeys - Japan's super fast bullet trains - the first day of our Rail pass, we boarded the wrong local train (to the same destination) and only realised after half an hour, I know, how could we?? When we got off and found our way to the right station, a shinkansen came and zoomed right past us, whoosh! And we all went "Now THAT's a shinkansen!!!" We made no more mistakes after that!
One more layout of Disneysea, too many photos, and I had to pick at least one from every scene, just didn't want to exclude them from our album!

Finally, this one's from the afternoon we spent at the uber cool, ultra modern Museum of Science & Technology.

And the template for you to play

This template is now available as a set in the store HERE

My very first layout - Opposites according to Jared

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, especially sharing your views on 'frog in the well'. I really enjoyed reading every one of your comments and appreciate all the wisdom and views shared! So much food for thought for dh and I as we continue on this journey of parenting. Even dh sat down and read through all your comments (he rarely does that) :)

While I was going through my harddrive to find older favorite layouts to dress up the blog, I came across this - my very first digital layout, using photoshop 5, with no digital supplies. It captured Jared's so cute and amazing words at age 6, isn't it precious! This is the reason we must keep recording and scrapping! I'm reminded to care less about perfect layouts, and go for the story! (Click on the image to enlarge and read the journaling)

New Blog Look

I've been wanting to dress up the blog like so many others have done, now that the screens have been expanding in width, and finally got my inspiration from Nicole Young's blog (it's incredibly beautiful!) and from her post on customising your blog, see here. I loved the chance to fix up some of my most favorite layouts so I can enjoy them all the time! :) Thanks Nicole!

Frog in the Well

Yes, that's the latest collection of my 365 layouts all stacked up! Isn't it just fabulous? I just love that I will have this year entirely captured in pictures! I've already started to think what kind of album/theme I want to make next year! Now this blog is my other place for recording what doesn't get captured in the 365 album, like the thought of the week. :)

A "frog in the well"is a chinese saying that means someone who is so out of touch with the world and only knows his bit of the world but thinks that it is all there is. It is also the recent complaint of Jared, who claims that we are making him into a "frog in the well".
What an incredulous claim to come from our 10 year old! At first we thought it was so funny, but it made me think. It started one day at a bookshop when we would not agree to buy him the latest Pokemon Annual. Then he went on about how he no longer knows so many things his friends knows, that he is outdated, not able to keep up with the latest trends and fads (yes he knows the word), all because we do not allow and will not buy them any Nintendo, PSP, Wii or the like! He also claims Ryan and him are the only children in his entire school that do not have a mobile phone!! (I'm sure that is not true?) He cried a few times talking about this and seemed genuinely sad and feeling deprived.
What's a parent to do? In our efforts to protect them from the addictive influence of what we feel are stuff they can well do without, we are faced with the pull of the idea of not depriving our children. Are we being unrealistically strict, given the world they live in? Some say if they grow up deprived they will become even more addicted to what they could not have. I choose to believe if we give them much more of what we think is good, it will balance out what they do not get to have. Now giving them much more of what is good, that is the tough part!
Then again, Ryan is not complaining. So at least one kid thinks it is okay? Or maybe he is just more reticent by nature... :) . And so we press on, pray for God's wisdom, and are determined not to give in, (check back again in a year or so), even if that makes us frogs in the well!
Do you have similar struggles? Not over the same things perhaps, but something you want to hold on to, but are up against the pressures of the world? Thanks anyways if you read this far of my ramblings!

Finally here's my latest 365 layout. I got this particular page idea from the evernote site home page. I'm keeping to my theme of white background clean lines layout style for this entire album. It makes for fast scrapping and capturing of the year!
Credits: word art by Danielle D designs, papers all from Bren Boone, heart by Kate Hadfield, doodled border by Emily Meritt, alpha from Weeds & wildflowers.
Template 148 can be downloaded here.Leave me a comment if you download! Oh, for the folded corners, after you have clipped your chosen paper to that layer, lower the opacity, or change to overlay blending mode so the curved shadow shows through.

Enoughism

Two weeks ago, Jared was working hard on a social studies project on whether children really need all that store-bought toys, versus homemade toys and fun that can be had from things found at home. He chose the topic because he is fantastic at having fun from anything! His teacher tried to loosely wrap his project around the topic of "Consumerism" and he asked me what is Consumerism? That led to a fantastic conversation and discussion and we found this definition on Wikipedia: Consumerism is the equation of personal happinness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement called Enoughism.'" Now that led us to Enoughism which is defined on Wiki as: Enoughism is the theory that there is a point where consumers possess everything they need, and by buying more it actually makes their life worse off. Now isn't that a thought!
Jared surprised me by his understanding, and we talked about not buying any more toys unless he gave some away, and he reminded me that I have enough vintage rings already and I do not have enough fingers to wear them on (!) and moreover, my harddisk is bursting with the digital kits I've downloaded and bought (lol)! Finally Jared said, I don't think we have Enoughism yet, but I think what we have is TooMuchism!! I totally agree! Now to set the example (they are never too young to learn) to know "contentment with holiness is great gain".

On the Ryan front, he has since added 3 more phrases to his conversational repertoire since I did the layout two posts down (the strong and silent type). When he tries to tell me something and I take a while to get it, he says " Oh, never mind". When I ask him too many questions, he says "It's Classified". When I try to remind (ok nag) him, he says "Fine! Fine! Fine!" My friend tells me she read James Dobson's comforting words that our children may go mute as they enter deeper into their teenage years, but no worries, their vocabulary will return in time. That's comforting!
Actually for all his angst, he is a very wonderful boy, just last thursday, I got home so late and finally had my dinner at 10pm, after which he offered to wash up all the dishes, pots and pans for me, now that's the sweetest thing ever! So what if he is of very few words? :)

It's a little late, but I do want to thank everyone for making the sale a great one, thank you very much! I've been closing in on the deadline of a project at work, and working on a special 'project' on the designing front as well, so no layouts to show except for catch up on my 365. I've reused my last template (you can find it a few posts down) because I love it so much!




And this is what I came up with for the next two weeks. I honestly can't wait to complete this album and get it printed and hold it in my hands!! 4 more months (about 9 layouts for me since I do 1 layout per fortnight) to go!!





You can download it here. Let me know if I've helped you keep going in your 365 project!

Girls Night Out

Two weeks ago I had an all girls night out with my primary school classmates! Yes, we were classmates from age 7 to 12, and met up recently after nearly 30 years! There were more than ten of us, and we had a fantastic time reminiscing about the past, filling in the gaps, updating each other, laughing so hard all night long. It was a wonderful time, amazing too, that despite all that we had experienced these years, between us we have career women, business women, homemakers, mothers of one to mothers of four, mothers of ages 21 months to 17 years, married, divorced, chosen to be single, and so on, but it didn't matter, we were all genuinely happy for one another, there was no need to compare or wonder what could have been (something we might have done if we were still in our twenties), or might have been, at our age we know it is just great to be alive and well, and to have tried to live the best we can, and that we are all blessed with our lot in life, and all agree we definitely look better than we did all those years ago! I felt so great thinking about this that night and just wanted to remind us all to celebrate every age we are at! We are blessed! (hint: it's a great thought as I'm celebrating another birthday this week, :))

And oh yes, some news, Ryan has been accepted at one of the High Schools that he applied to, we had prayed for God's clear direction, and He answered clearly! Though we are so proud, we are also worried if he could cope with this prestigious school's rigorous standards, but God has shown, and we will and can trust and walk in faith!

Managed to complete two layouts continuing with our Japan trip photos, these are both layouts of our day at Disneysea. I'm loving the one big photo as background format again!



And here are my cowboys ;P



Did you read Katie the Scraplady's article on Power Scrapping on The Daily Digi? I love what she wrote, it is how I scrap too, and she puts it so eloquently! I usually work on 2 to 3 layouts at the same time, doing each stage for all 3 layouts at the same time: gathering photos, deciding which photos go into each layout, arranging them, looking for background, elements, alpha, and so on, it moves really quickly as I can work on each little step each day with the little time I've got!

With the help of wonderful ladies Lois B and Natalie Hill (sending the templates I had lost back to me (!)) I was able to put together the old freebie 12X12 template in a pack in the store. These would be from templates # 5,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,23,30,33. They are here in the store



I've also reposted this old freebie desktop from when I just came back from the US trip. I think almost all the ones taken off file front previously are now all reposted! If you haven't got it yet, get it here