Currently

Outside our window... it's a fine evening with clear blue skies in low light (so rare recently!)

Around the house... lots of newly built tank models and lego tanks (our family is going through a tank phase)

I am wearing... a (hand-me-up from J) Star Wars T shirt and Cotton On shorts 

I am planning... a photobook to celebrate our 20th anniversary (yes!)

I am going... to start exercise/fitness classes again, it's been three months overdue!

I am wondering... how we will cope with R in boarding school next year, yikes!

I am reading... Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide, thoroughly enjoying it

I am hearing... 'mosaic roll' in music box tones coming from J's laptop ( I think he calls it a vocaloid song)

I am hoping... our family's allergies and rhinitis conditions will not flare up so often

I am looking forward to... one of my BFF's visit to Singapore next month!

I am thinking... how true it is that while success gives us a sense of pride and achievement and spurs us onto greater things, failure makes us kinder, more compassionate and far greatly understand God's grace. 

I am thankful... for His clear answer and peace on the choices I had to make regarding my part time work. God is good!

I always enjoyed journalling along these Currently/These days/ prompts. Have you tried one lately? I just read one such Prompt journalling I did two years ago, one of the lines was: I am wondering... what Jared will be like as a angsty teenager. Well do I know now, lol :) he's really equally sweet as he is angsty I must say.

What else happened in June?

It's school holidays and we spent the first day with J and R at an Anime Music Festival. It was fascinating watching teenagers so passionate about singing, dancing to Anime Music. Our family is in a Tank phase, we watch tank themed shows, play World of Tank (I joined in too, in the name of bonding), build tanks, it's really fun really.

We spent five days at Rawa Island, our favourite island retreat. It's our fifth year, and everyone asks us what do you do at Rawa? So I decided this year's journalling will be as such. I  brought PL cards there and journalled as and when, and when we came back, just had to print the pictures and slot them all in, voila!

Here's the same left side page, with a Design H insert flipped over

The right side page with the Design H insert flipped to the right

Same right side page without the insert

And a final page - we just asked the kids if they see us coming here even when they are grown with their families in tow, and they said, why not?

And Singapore descended into a terrible HAZE from fires in nearby Indonesia. The PSI climbed quickly within a few days to hit 400 one afternoon. We could not see buildings 100m away! It was quite a frenzy with mad rush to buy sold-out masks, everyone looking like robbers outdoors or stayed indoors and in air conditioning where possible. What a relief after a week the situation has improved greatly - welcome back clear skies!

I'm linking up to Project Life Tuesday over at The Mom Creative!

P365 Bi Monthly Pages
And here are my photo a day for June - except for the Haze situation, it was the school holidays month, so lots of free and easy and relaxing and fun, including the kids going away to church youth camp and to overnight chalet with friends. We were home alone! They are growing up too fast!

(credits: Papers from Allison Pennington's Ledgered Vol 1, alpha by Karah Fredricks and Kaye Winiecki)

Beijing Layouts - Tian An Men and the Forbidden City

The day we chose to visit was a fine winter day, with blue skies with not a cloud in sight. What a stunning backdrop!

For 500 years and two dynasties, the Forbidden City was the imperial palaces in which the Emperor and his family and household lived, and also where he held court and governed from. The entire area was walled up with so many outer, and inner courts, ceremonial and official buildings, and living quarters, apparently at one time, 980 buildings in all! 

From when we were young, we have read, heard, watched countless stories/shows depicting the life and happenings within these walls, historical and folklore, of politicking among princes, assasinations, concubines, suicides, good emperors, bad emperors, empress dowager, till the last emperor. It was just amazing for me to step foot in this place!

First we come up to Tian An Men - the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which used to be the gate to the imperial city, within which the Forbidden City is situated. During the Qing dynasty only the Manchu people were allowed to live in the imperial city, the chinese people had to live outside. So it is significant that Chairman Mao made his declaration of founding of the PRC here, and also overlooks the square where the student protests of 1989 happened. We had to go up atop the gate tower and feel the exhilaration of that view over that square!

As we stepped through the gates into the city proper, it became apparent how huge this place is, and how much walking we are in for! What did they do with all that space in the courtyards between the buildings? Perhaps the vastness besides conveying grandness also serves to foil potential attacks on the emperor's life!!

We have heard stories of how the walls kept intruders out, and kept wives, concubines and servants in. Horror stories of how concubines would be brought into the city, married to the emperor, but will never be able to leave and possibly never see their families again. The walls were beautiful though, worn but strong, keeping centuries of secrets....

Within the living quarters were interesting sights, where the newly wed emperor spends their honeymoon night, the 3 storey opera theatre with hidden accesses, the well where the concubine Gui was forced to jump to her death.. 

And there were much imperial treasures here to marvel yet. A lot of these were gifts from foreign countries, including an amazing clock with a clockworked doll that could write a poem in chinese characters! We had spent seven hours here by the time we left, but time just stood still for us that day.

(credits: All these 5 layouts used papers from Boho Chic Ombre bzb designs' Anthologie Collection, alpha by Karah Fredricks, Kaye Winiecki, Sahlin Studios)

And like to  share this layout template with you, make something from your summer of 4th of July photos! And link back!

This template is now available as Template Pack 9 in the Store. Thanks for your interest!

Before I go, I'd love to show you layouts my friend Tracey did for her P365 pages. Don't her pages look like mine!  We think it is awesome that no matter how much different our physical worlds are, we follow the same Lord and have so much connection in Him! Thank you Tracey for sharing :) Visit her and her lovely and fun family at the Browning 1/4 acre plantation

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!

Everyday Bliss

This is my favorite photo this month. It was taken on a Sunday early evening, I was in the kitchen doing some washing, and I looked out through the kitchen door to our dining table, and the boys were quietly doing homework side by side. I was suddenly filled with so much joy and thankfulness, just to know they are there at home, they like each other's company, they are quietly working, that I can see them from where I'm working. We have lived through enough, and seen others going through much, to know these are not to be taken for granted! Oh how I count my blessings! The quiet everyday bliss is the most precious and wonderful of all.

A few days ago, our family's oldest and best friends came over to our home to visit and celebrate with us in our newly renovated home, and they had a Home Blessing for us, where each prayed over us and our home, room by room. It was such a blessing to have good friends and the Lord blessing us in our home!

We so appreciate their prayers for us, which were, for our home to be a sanctuary of love, peace, and rest, where there's understanding and acceptance, where we will be healthy and strong, where there will be laughter and fun, joyful and happy memories, where the focus will be on people and not things, where less is truly more, where we will create, grow and live together. Thank you God, amen!

BI-MONTHLY APRIL LAYOUTS

These are our daily photos, one a day for April. I find this Project 365 so worth it, when I look back at my older 365 albums I'm so glad I had the everyday captured. Wish I did this earlier when the boys were littler! Having said that, I keep it very simple, 90% of photos are taken on my iphone, except those that the boys or dh takes and passes to me. I do the two pages for each month at one go, journal at one go, pick all the embellishments at one go, you get the idea. I timed myself - it is usually completed within one and a half hours every month!! You have to be decisive with the embellishments though!

Highlight for 1st to 15th of April - first photo on the top left - R vacuuming the floor without prompting just 'because it was full of crumbs after breakfast' :) 2nd photo: the boys are into Japanese anime girls - poster on their bedroom wall :) 

 (Credits: Yin Template 317E, alpha by Kay Winiecki, Paper by Gina Cabrebra, butterfly overlay by Laurie Ann, wordstrips by Allison Pennington and One Little Bird, Our Life wordart by JustJaimee)

HIghlights for 16th to 30th of April: My hand - my third finger on the right hand swelled up and the doctor thinks it might be arthritis!  :(  Bottom photo : datenight at Shakespeare at the Park - watching live Othello while picnicking on the lawn of For Canning Park - cool!

 (Credits: Yin Template 317D, alpha by Kay Winiecki, Paper and word art by Allison Penington, Splatters by Karah Fredricks, chevron arrows by Gina Miller, flair from Scrapmatters' Life Everyday collab)

PROJECT LIFE

Here is where I capture extra photos for the month which are extra special, or I have a story to tell, anything that I fancy at all. Only 3 pages for April, took me an hour and a half one night to choose the photos and edit in photoshop to prep for printing, and another half hour another night to assemble into the pockets and journal. Love Project Life!

Took an entire page for photos taken at a wedding we attended of a very special couple. It was the boys' first church wedding! And these were their Youth pastor so it was extra special. We got to dress up too, and meet up with old friends, so it was fun as well. 

 More everyday life, R and I had a swim together (this is rare! especially where he chatted with me as we took breaks between swims), Jared tying his own tie, dh's tooth implant, and the last look at twenty years' of travel brochues, we threw them away finally, no space anymore to keep them!

(Credits: Cobalt core kit from Becky Higgins PL, 3x4 cards from Midnight editioin by Liz Tamanaha, Life quotes by Smitha Katti, alpha by Karah Fredricks)

BEIJING LAYOUTS

For my next 4 Beijing layouts, where I had very colorful photos, I went for completely white backgrounds again (see these Shanghai layouts). Love the results! Super striking layouts! All I had to use was great alpha and Paint splashes (this set from Emily Merritt is my constant go-to , see credits below), and they are done!

The first two layouts were us at the Antiques Market, more like a flea market, with all kinds of everything, from art to books to jewellery to weapons! We LOVE it!

 Template 331

 Template 332

Next two layouts were when we visited the Temple of Heaven - really a huge park with several amazing structures and areas, where the emperor used to go annually to offer prayers for good harvest and a good year. The entire temple was built without nails and had withstood all kinds of weather, earthquakes and all. Amazing. An as you can see, super photo opportunities!

 Template 333 

Template 334

(Credits: Painted On Rainbow and Painted On Neutral by Emily Merritt, Alpha from Karah Fredricks's Awesome Sauce 3, and Alpha from Chelle's Creations' Bluebird on my Shoulder, black paper from Essential Blacks by Emily Giovanni, red paper by Laura Grier in the LilyPad's MFEO collab)

THE DIGI FILES

I know, I'm so excited, I'm on The Digi Files at The Daily Digi this month! I'm so honored to be a contributor for the third time! Steph and Katie and their team run an amazing site, and the Digi Files are a super deal. I myself am a subscriber and you can see a lot of what I include in my layouts and PL are from the latest great kits every month! This is my contribution this month, all layouts from my Hawaii photos, the 12x12 layouts are my first templates for Instagram photos! 

INSPIRATION

Every now and then wonderful people send me their beautiful layouts and books, so I'm never short of inspiration to share: This time I want to show you Carol Johnson's Europe Travel PhotoBook: It is full of amazing pictures, layouts, trust me, you will love it. 

Go HERE to view her entire album

FUN WITH TEMPLATES

Templates are versatile and fun! Like this layout I made below of a Sunday Morning scene in Beijing. At first I went with a white background, which looked striking and great! Then I played with placing an enlarged photo as the background, it looked fab too, especially the streaks of sunlight interplaying with the people's shadows. Now I can't decide which to print in my album, haha! 

 

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