Be Yourself Day

Tonight our news is full of the US Election results! Although we do not know much about US politics, we followed this elections with interest. We pray that Mr Obama will lead with wisdom and understanding and insight and foresight. What a historic time we live in! And amidst all of this, we carry on our ordinary lives, :)

Yesterday was "Be Yourself Day" in local schools. Instead of the school uniform they wear everyday, the boys get to choose to dress up as anything they like, preferably dressing up with recycled stuff instead of bought costumes. We don't celebrate Halloween here, so this promised to be fun.

True to form (or rather, their personalities), Ryan did not want to dress up but went as 'himself', donning his usual weekend clothes. Jared, on the other hand, had high hopes of going as "obi one kenobi", and drew up an elaborate list of costume bits, including a brown 'cloak' I was supposed to sew for him and a beard he was going to devise out of cotton wool and wires! After much trying out, he went as Luke Skywalker, wearing my t-shirt, his brother's socks, my belt, and the rest of his own stuff. He was rather pleased with it, except that he did not have blond hair and wore glasses. :)

This brings me to this week's layout from Orlando, this one where Jared got to fulfill his dreams and got a stint at the Jedi Academy where they train padawan. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for him! Can you spot him? He's one of the tiniest one in orange T and blue jeans.

Credits: Background paper by Digital Couture designs, button by Debra Tope, so cool label by Ksharonk, word tags by Dani Mogstad, twine by natalie,

Speaking of being yourself, on dh's birthday two weeks ago, his young colleagues got him a new 'new age' man's bag, how do I describe it, like a much smaller messenger bag, that had a rounded bottom. It had a flap that was velcro closured too! I love my dh for many things, one of which is him being a man, leaving the dressing up and carrying bags to me! So I teased him no end on his 'carrying a sissy bag', and when Ryan came into the conversation, he asked, "what are you talking about?" and topped it off by "oh, you mean this purse?" !!!! Even dh laughed out loud at that one! Oh, he is still carrying the 'purse', by the way.. he says he is man enough :)

The next two layouts were of the day we spent at Island of Adventure, though we did not take any of the extreme thrill rides, we were thrilled alright, and had loads of fun!
Credits: black & white doodled border by Emily Merritt, circles and splash paper cuts by Dani Mogstad, striped paper by Jackie Eckles, background paper by Emily Giovanni


As usual, the above layouts templates are availablehere! Thanks for looking!

Credits: Background paper by Emily Giovanni, red paint by Rachel Young, mesh by Carrie Stephens, foil stars by Dani Mogstad.

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

Font used on my layouts

Thank you for your encouraging messages to my last post everyone! Am so blessed.

And just to come back to some who have been asking me about the font on my layouts, the one on the Magic Kingdom layout is "Aquiline", and the one on The Magic of Disney is "Pegsanna HMK". I donwloaded both for free on the internet, but can't remember where, and both remains my favorite which I use again and again. :)

It's late for me, so good night!

Walking humbly with thy God

There's so much bad news and uncertainty around these days. So I thought I'd share parts of a testimony I wrote out while attendnig the Alpha Course recently. It is about how I came to know the Lord and how my life has changed. I'll cut out some of the more personal parts, and just share this part:

"Before I knew the Lord, I was not really at peace. I was happy if I felt I was doing generally better than others, had good results, and was well thought of by others. Naturally I was miserable when the opposite happened.

Over the years, God’s dealings with me in this area extended to many areas of my life, to my relationships, studies, career, marriage, having children, and raising them. He continues to work in me! To show me that “all have fall short of the glory of God” and it is “by grace, through faith that we are saved”. 'Good' as I may appear on the outside, inside of me God continually works, and “amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” is a resounding song within my heart.

There were a few major periods of difficult times in my life, one when I was younger and had relationship struggles, another when I was married and was trying to have a baby, and yet another when our firstborn had developmental difficulties, coupled with financial worries. Through all those times, God took a long time to answer my prayers in the manner I asked Him to. But in those long periods of struggling, He changed me. He taught me to rely on Him, and to trust Him. Through those periods, He also knew where my breaking points were and when I was vulnerable, and He protected me and provided special ways and help for me to cope.

As I walked this road of faith with God, I have tasted the goodness of God, experienced His faithfulness and answered prayers, seen the changes in my life, received peace, joy, and guidance for my life, found that the teachings in the bible are true, and that the bible gives answers to all my questions about life, and hope for the future.

My favourite verse is in Micah 6:8 - “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Praise God for His Everlasting love and faithfulness, and I pray that I will walk closer and closer to Him, and my life will more and more honour Him."

Well, if you have taken the time to read through all that, thank you, and hope it blesses you to know how God works in my life. I hope in the difficult times to come I too will remember His faithfulness and always have hope, peace and joy. Same to you too!

Now, for this week's layouts, I'm trying out more muted colors for these theme park photos. I've so many photos for this one trip!! It's taken almost the entire year to scrap them. Someone asked if I'm always on vacation lol! I wish, hehe! But scrapping has been really great as I relive the trip with dh and the boys. Can't wait to see it printed!
Credits: background paper by Weeds & Wildflowers, birdie and cut papers by Beth Nixon
Credits: Background paper from mediterrean kit by T Martin and Nancy Comelab from Digital Artist magazine, purple paper from Miss Mints kindergartencrafts, color sparkles from ChristinaRenee's blog party 2, orange paper fr Jackie Eckles' Whimsy world.

As usual, the above templates can be found here
Credits: background paper by Faith True, disney logo by Idzibitsy designs, numbers strip by Danielle Young, bullseye by Kim Christensen

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

New link for Template 68 and some replies

And some replies to my wonderful blog friends:

Jazzmint, the F1 was great but tickets are rather expensive, if I get them for free I would definitely go next year! :)

Elnorac, you live so near by? It's a real pity and I don't think I would go to the US for a long time more .. :( ..but then over the internet all distances are short!

Thank you Melody and the others earlier who gave me the blog award! I'm very honored that you all visit my humble blog, I'm not much of a blogger but I do love sharing layouts :)

And to Chelsea, great suggestion, I will put in the preset guides in future templates. Actually I have not yet printed my US trip layouts with shutterfly yet, the only double page I've printed is the one of my trip to the beach, (see aug 16 2008post) where I experienced outer edges being cut off, that's when I realised shutterfly had these guides. I will be using the guides for printing them when i'm done, soon, and will definitely come back to tell how they worked.

For the shutterfly covers, I made a very successful cover (see post on 22 Oct 2007) where I used a textured solid color background. That helped the spine to blend in with the front and back covers without any obvious seam. And I did not have photos that crossed over from the front to the spine or to the back. Hope this idea helps!

Oh and I've completed two layouts and will be back with them soon!

Bits and Pieces of Everyday Life

Finally completed the next few layouts, getting close to completing my US album! I have been held up a bit because I only get to scrap at night after the children are in bed, but these last two weeks have been hooked on watching a couple of Korean romantic comedy series, dh and I are both hooked. I really love that we enjoy it together, a bit of romance (fun, happy, sometimes sad, but not too sappy) for everyday nights. :)

I crossed a marker this week. I had a pair of glasses fitted so that I can read better. Yep, I can no longer see the print clearly close up, and it is the only real impact I've felt about age catching up. I've resisted it for a while, but it's great, now everything is clearer! I won't have to pretend I can tell what's on the menu in dark cafes anymore! lol!

Last weekend we had fun as Singapore hosted it's first F1 Night Race. Lots us of who don't normally watch it got quite caught up as the race was held in our city centre. I watched it live on tv at home with dh and even then it was quite exciting!

What's happening in the financial world last week has been scary. We are not as personally affected yet, but the news, and at work, we are feeling it. I'm reminded today at church that instead of looking around us, we must keep looking up, at Him who does not change, is always faithful and is always in charge. And I'm so thankful.

Well, here are the layouts, all theme park photos, so I had fun with brighter colors and cuter elements.
Credits: Black paper by Sarah Belle, pink one by Angela & Emily Powers, elements by Britt Designs.

Credits: Rainbow by Miss Tina, brown paper by Favreau, glitter spots by LorieM, Alpha by Miss Chifis Designs
Credits: background paper and word art from Sandlot papers by Jackie Eckles
Credits: Background paper by Digital Couture Designs, branch by Loreta Larbaca, scrap paper by Vinnie Pearce, alpha by kimberzyz scrapz, leaves by Lorie M
All the templates for the above layouts are available in the store here thanks for looking
Credits: round tag by Miss Mint, road sign stickers by My Digital Addiction , alpha by Tara Dunstan, mickey papers by Andrea, and yellow paper by Mira Designs.
This template will be available in the store soon

Some answers to comments and questions

Finally got down some instructions on printing, which I have had quite a few questions for, hope you understand what I'm saying, this is how I do it in photoshop.

To Jacinda who asked about the template for my 'Perfect Day' layout, it is in the store here.

And to Darlene who asked if I have thought about pricing the templates (in the store) as one large set for a specific price, thanks for the great idea, I will certainly do that, once I have completed my US album (that's the priority now), hopefully towards the end of November.

And to Mary, i'm sorry I'm not sure why your download decompression always fails, I would doubt it is due to your using a mac, but sorry am not techie enought to help!

And Melody, you can email your layouts to me at yindgs at yahoo dot com dot sg (sorry for spelling it out, I'm trying to avoid spam mail)

Thanks everyone for your patience, I'm working on more layouts and templates every chance I get! :)

Brimming with Life

Gosh, I just noticed it's been 18 days since my last post! Glad to report that it is because life has been very full, had more commitments recently and scrapping and blogging just had to take a back seat. I usually blog on weekends, and the past few had been taken up with dh's workplace family day, my church's community day, my sunday school's youth camp fund raising food fair (my beef stew was very successful, yay!) and time spent at Alpha course with a dear friend.

Another point of note this past week is the wonderful phenomenon of Ryan's changing voice. It's been a point of debate in my family. I think his voice 'broke', but my mom and my dh think he is having a sore throat, and it's been quite exciting and unbelievable for us, (after all, he's only eleven!), but he himself is perplexed with our reactions, wondering what the fuss is all about. lol!

Oh yeah, and dh and I went to the movies to watch mama mia, what a romp we had!! Such fun and we laughed till we cried, not to mention singing along most of the way.. dh kept murmuring "James Bond is singing!.." and I kept going " and Darcy is dancing!!!" lol. We had a blast! I think I have an old cassette tape of Abba songs somewhere....

I myself hadn't much time to scrap, and seem to be low on inspiration (hope it's temporary!), so only have one page to show, this is from the last stop on our US trip, in Orlando, you'd be seeing park layouts from now on, haha! Thought I'd try something different to spice things up a bit for me. It's still great fun reliving the trip as I scrap, of course. Great conversation starters with my boys too!




This template will be available in the store soon And thank you ALL for your wonderful, wonderful words and comments, keeps me going, luv y'all!

Conversations with young men

One day last week my brother wrote me that he is travelling to Argentina and Chile for a holiday. We were so envious! Anyway we were wishing we worked and lived abroad some time in our lives too. While dh and I were talking the conversation got to, in ten years time (so long?) even Jared will be off to national service (army) and then we'll go work and live somewhere abroad. Then Ryan said, how about weekends when we come home from the army? We said you can take care of yourself. And he went, okay, computer games and instant noodle... great!! And dh said, you forgot one factor, girls. And Jared went, we are going to be bacalers. Bacalers? Oh, he meant bachelors! Then I proposed the advantage of girl friends, for cooking and washing your army clothes, all in love and out of free will. And Ryan went, that's nice! with a thumbs up sign... Jared was not so convinced... what conversations we have. Must record this for reading back in ten years time..... Haha!

Well, I worked hard to complete all my New York layouts. I had to, I was running out of steam. And they're done! First up, a layout of Central Park Zoo, on a rather cloudy day.. the boys had been dying to go there to meet Alex and Marty and the characters from the Madagascar cartoon and were shocked they were not there! :) (click on image for larger view to read journaling)
Credits: Background paper from StephanieOgren's Broken & beautiful, brown flourish by Jen wilson, white flourish stamp by Andrea Victoria, blue glitter stitch by Dani Mogstad

Now our day out to Liberty Island took me four layouts to scrap. They were all too good to be thrown out or squshed in one layout. Blame dh (or thank dh) for fantastic shots that tell such great stories :) I tried all different styles, but I think I like this one best. What do you think? (click on the image for larger view)
Credits: Background paper by , pledge overlay by HeatherAnne designs, messy stitch by Lori Barnhurst, swirl by Weeds & Wildflowers, licence plate heart by Gina Cabrera, brads by Dani Mogstad.


Credits: Grid background paper by Gina Cabrerra, orange paper by Kitty Chen, scalloped edge by Jessica Gorny, star by designs by Helly, word tags by Chantal.

Credits:Background paper by Rachel Martin, black paper (edge) by grammyleigh, green glitter leave by Edeline Teintang.

The templates for all these layouts are available in the store here! Thanks for looking!

Credits: Paper blended with large photo from Weeds & Wildflowers, red paper by ScarletHeels, tag by fotosusu, flourish by Jen Wilson
This template will be available in the store soon