Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Tag You're It

I woke up on Tuesday and went thru the list of blogs that I regularly visit and saw that bling bling Black Diamonds (who does really great digital scrapping) got tagged. It was not an easy tag...I mean 6 weird things about yourself...wah that's hard! Then you gotta tag 6 other people. So there I was happily reading Black Diamonds' tag and making a mental note never to stand too close to her while she's drinking beer. At the end she tagged 6 people and strangely enough I saw my name. Now there are lots of other people out there with the same name as I, so being curious and wondering who this other person is, I clicked on the name and my blog page came up. HUH??!! Double check lagi and omigawd, she's tagged me. Alamak...6 weird things about myself...gosh...this is hard.

The rules are:

"Those who get tagged must post 6 weird things about themselves in their blog and state the rules clearly. At the end of the post, you must choose 6 other people to tag"
So here goes:-
  1. If I catch sight of a mosquito in a room, I will automatically start itching all over even tho I've not been bitten and won't be able to relax until the dreaded blood-sucker is squashed dead;
  2. My pillow is sacrosanct! No one is allowed to use it...yes not even The Hubby cos he has really oily skin and Ty is yelled at and shoved off each time he puts his feet on it;
  3. I'm very very and I mean very fussy with my bath towel. One side is to be used specifically to dry my hair and upper body while the other side must only be used to dry the lower half and God help anyone who messes with my towel (The Hubby and Ty included);
  4. When I buy toiletries, I buy in bulk to "keep stock". My bathroom is full of stuff like shower gels, face scrubs, body scrubs, shampoo. I do use them but once I get to the last bottle, it is always saved for a rainy day and ends up not ever getting used...sayang bah and so the collection grows;
  5. I like buying snacks, crisps and biscuits but never eat them. They get stacked up in a basket beside the tv until its long past their expiry date and then get chucked out by my really annoyed Hubby;
  6. I never open my mail. All my personal mail still goes to my parents house and my mom passes them on to me regularly. When I get home, they just get tossed into whichever pile is convenient until its spring cleaning time. And yes, this again annoys the hell out of The Hubby.

So there, 6 weird things about myself. Actually, I don't consider them that weird but The Hubby seems to think so. He is the one that listed No. 3-6 for me cos I really couldn't think of anything.

Ok so now I tag Jazzscraps, Sleepless, Scrappaway, Ruey, Pandachu and Mr. Pablo. Get to it guys! :-)

Friday, February 23, 2007

Rubber Stamping 101

Now I have to admit, I do not make a lot of projects with stamps and inks. I use my small collection of rubber stamps and ink pads sporadically. More often than not, my most active stamping period is the run up to christmas when I start to frantically hunt for and wrap prezzies while simultaneously making gift tags.

I like buying tools that can be used over and over again and rubber stamps are one of them. Unfortunately, I have found that rubber stamps can also be quite costly especially alphabet stamp sets. In the past, stamps are mounted on wood but nowadays you can get stamps mounted on clear acrylic, which makes the placement of the stamps so much more easier, or foam stamps mounted on foam pieces. I personally like Hero Arts for wood mounted stamps, Autumn Leaves for clear stamps which have to be mounted on acrylic blocks and Making Memories for foam stamps. You can get Hero Arts stamps from Creative Hands in Takashimaya, Singapore and Paper Arts in Hong Kong. Autumn Leaves clear stamps can be obtained online from Pictures 2 Pages in Singapore.


INKS

There are a variety of ink pads that are available and each of them allows you to create different effects/looks with the just one rubber stamp.



Dye Inks


I have several of the kaleidacolor ink pads as seen above (by Tsukineko). Got them from Creative Hands in Singapore. Each pad has 5 different individual colour pads mounted on a slider. With a simple push of the slider, the individual pads join together to make one large multi-coloured pad. Because dye ink is pretty fluid, it bleeds easily and the ink pad must be stored with the individual pads separated to avoid a mixing of the colours. I use this pads for making invitation cards and gift tags.

Dye based ink pads dry quickly and is not suitable for embossing work. They should also be stored upside down to allow the ink to move to the face of the ink pad.



Pigment Inks

Pigment ink pads are slow drying and good for embossing. The above Color It ink pad by Ranger Industries was my first ink pad ever. I bought silver and black from Inksquisite, the sister shop of Stamp It in Perth, Australia. I was recommended this particular pad as I wanted to to embossing for my church wedding invites. The Hubby and I made our own invites and bought all our supplies from Inksquisite. As first time embossers, the shop lady advised us to get a coloured pad as opposed to a clear embossing ink pad so that it would be easier for us to see the design we were embossing.

Pigment inks are rather thick and viscous and therefore not suitable for use on glossy paper. I didn't even dare to use it on vellum paper. Tsukineko makes all sorts of pigment ink pads with different uses.


Above is the Versamark Watermark ink pad. It is clear and when you stamp your image on dark coloured cardstock, it creates a watermark effect. You can also use it to create a resist image on paper, then dye or ink the paper. The dye or ink won't be absorbed into your stamped image making it stand out.


Opalite is another pigment ink pad which gives off a reflective effect. I have one Opalite pad but have not used it yet. Hehe.

The one type of ink pad that I do use quite often are the Versacolor and Versamagic pads. The Versacolor pads are the Tsukineko equivalent of Ranger's Color It pads and they look great when used on any color cardstock. Versamagic pads are a chalk pigment ink and it creates a chalky look without any of the chalky residue. I find that these pads don't work too well on dark cardstock though.




Solvent Inks

Solvent inks are permanent ink pads that can be stamped on anything from glass, wood, metal and leather. Refer to previous post 'Like Father Like Son' for more on this.


Distress Inks

Ranger Industries produce a great brand of distressing inks by Tim Holtz. I love these ink pads as they are fabulous for inking the edges of your paper. I have about 10 of this range in different colours. Other brands like Making Memories also make distressing ink.


Embossing

This is a fun way to play with stamping as it gives your stamped image a raised and embossed look. You need to use pigment inks to stamp your image or a clear embossing ink pad, then pour embossing powder (see below) over your stamped image and heat with a heat tool.



You can also get tinted Embossing ink pads so that it is easier for you to see your image when you pour the embossing powder.

If you don't own a heat tool, no worries. Heat your image over a toaster (the sort that pops up) or put it near an iron. The heat from the toaster and iron will melt the embossing powder and give you the embossed image. When the Hubby and I did our wedding invites, we used a toaster cos the heat tool was not within our budget at that time. :-) What you must NOT use is a hair dryer as it blows out a lot more air that is not hot enough to melt the powder. You're likely to blow away your embossing powder. Hee.

You can get embossing powder in all sorts of colours as well as clear ones. Usual embossing powder is made up of tiny grains that looks rather like fine salt. Then you get Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel ("UTEE") which is about the same thing except the grains look like rough salt. UTEE gives a thicker embossing effect and if you layer enough UTEE over an image, you can 'crack' the UTEE to give the image a crackle effect.




Cleaning your stamps

After using your rubber stamps, it is best to clean them to avoid a build up of ink. This is also to avoid a bleeding of colour when you use them on other ink pads. I use the Ranger Industries stamp cleaner (see below) bought in 2003 from Inksquisite. A bottle goes a long way unless you use your stamps all the time. I reckon my bottle is still about three quarters full.


My stamp cleaner has a sort of rough-ish pad on top. All you do is squeeze the bottle lightly while rubbing the rough pad over your stamp, then just dab your stamp clean with a paper towel or tissue. It is best to also rub the top of your cleaner with tissue to clean it as well.


Now you can get stamp cleaners in a spray bottle which you can just spray on your stamp. Or you can get the scrub-it pad below which goes with the spray cleaner which is scented. Nothing like Chanel No.5 though.




Clear stamps

The popular take on rubber stamping nowadays are unmounted clear acrylic rubber stamps. These are excellent as they are flat and hence easy to store (can use a file folder). And you can get mounting blocks with grid lines (Provo Craft) to help you place your stamps. Autumn Leaves do a great range of clear stamps.


And there it is...hopefully all you need to know to get you started on rubber stamping. Apologies if I have missed anything out and happy stamping!

Note: All photos were downloaded from the relevant websites (was too lazy to take photos of my supplies...much faster this way really and fun since I have been able to upload my photos onto blogger lately).

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Like Father Like Son

Finally a proper father and son LO. I snapped this photo on the day we were doing a family photo shoot at home and was really pleased with this shot. I wanted to list out the similarities (and believe me there are many) between them, from the one single dimple on their right cheeks to how they sleep. What I was not able to say was the fact that both of them can sleep for hours on end!! Seriously!! Haha.


Materials:- Textured Cardstock: Bazill Basics Paper and DCWV; Patterned Paper: Junkitz; Vellum: Hot Off The press ('HOTP'); Die-cut arrow: 3 Bugs In A Rug; Alpha Stickers: American Crafts; Alpha Rub-ons and Dyed Tags: Making Memories; Woven Label 'Papa': Me And My Big Ideas ('MAMBI'); Buttons: Foof-A-La; Rubber Stamp: Hero Arts; Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Faded Jeans) and Staz On by Tsukineko; Pen: ZIG Writer, ZIG Opaque andUniball.


Yeah I finally got to use my stash of buttons by Foof-a-la. Didn't bother to stitch them on with floss or thread. Just stuck them on with glue dots. Even managed to use one of the buttons to record the date the photo was taken (see yellow button). I used a CD writing pen by Uniball because I knew for sure that the ink would not smear on the plastic button. Got this idea of writing on the button itself from my sis-in-law.


I knew I wanted my journaling strips to go on the side but did not want them to hide the pattern paper or stand out too much so I wrote on white vellum. Instead of using brads or eyelets as bullets for my strips, I used a rubber stamp with Staz On ink (see below) as I wasn't sure whether or not normal pigment ink would smear on vellum. Staz On ink pads are brilliant as they are permanent (it is solvent based so it does smell a bit) and smear-free on wood, metal, plastic, glass, etc. If you buy Staz On pads, make sure you also buy the Staz On Cleaner. Normal stamp cleaners will not work. I bought most of my Staz On ink pads and cleaner from Creative Hands (located at the 4th floor of Takashimaya, Singapore). I really wanted the black ink pad but Creative Hands never had any in stock whenever I was there. I finally found the black in Paper Arts (a dedicated rubber stamping shop in Hong Kong - if anyone is going, I have the address of the shop - worth a trip if you are into stamping).





The Junkitz paper I used came with a distressed effect which I love. The dyed tags I used as part of my title was a brand new buy from Shabby Chic (from the MM Fresh Anthology Collection). The idea for the use of the tags came right of the packaging, i.e. the sample page on the back of the packaging the tags came in. Hee. I wrote the 2nd word 'like' by hand. It was my attempt at cursive writing...haha I think fail lah!!

Sadly, after I had finished the layout, I found a pack of MM star buttons in reds and blues which would have been perfect for this LO. Sigh. That's why I try and organize my stash as best I can because 'Out of sight is out of mind' and I often have to spend ages going thru all my stash for embellishments just so I don't miss the rights ones.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

4 Precious Little Monkeys

Ty and 3 of his cousins were all born in the year of the monkey. It was great cos all 3 of my sister--in-laws and I were pregnant together and I picked up a lot of tips and advise from them. They all had baby girls so Ty was the prince (The Hubby said thorn) among the roses.....Haha.



Materials: Textured Cardstock: Bazill Basics Paper and Making Memories; Alpha Chipboard: Basic Grey; Chipboard Word Tile: L'il Davis; Word Sticker: DCWV; Ribbon: American Crafts; Acrylic Paint: Making Memories; Pen: ZIG Opaque; Corner Rounder: Carl.

This LO came together quite easily. I thought of basic LOs by Cathy Zielske, from Simple Scrapbooks (whose LOs are really fabulously simple), that would always have an even border on the edges. A defining clear border makes a simple statement and gives your LO clean edges. It also allows you to use minimal embellishments thus letting you have minimal fuss. As you may have noticed, I didn't use any patterned paper hence less hassle.

The L'il Davis Chipboard Word tile 'Precious' comes in a pack for baby girl which I bought during my second pregnancy...yes I was convinced baby No.2 would be a girl. The word 'little' was cut out from a sticker quote from a DCWV pack for Boys and stuck onto brown cardstock and edged with acrylic paint. I was trying to match the warm colours of the photos by using browns and yellows. Not too sure if that turned out very well though.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Happy Chinese New Year 2007


Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!! Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year and more importantly...have a good long weekend!!



Ty in his CNY baju. Wah so hard to get him to wear it. He gets really stubborn with wearing new clothes sometimes and after a frustrating half hour of trying to convince him to wear it in the morning, The Hubby and I gave up. It was only later in the day that my eldest sis-in-law managed to convince him (by bribing him with jelly and then threatening to take it away again) to put it on and atu-pun only his jacket. He completely refused to wear the matching pants. Judging by the photo taken by Ab Moz above, Ty wasn't too happy. Hee.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

My Two Boys

I now have three blokes in my life and two of them are just the cutest boys in the world!! I think Ty and Jay look alike but it seems that I'm the only one who thinks so. Hmmmm.


Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Homemade cards

I was running through the Photos Folder on the computer and found these pictures I had taken of the 3 cards I made last year. Thought that I might as well post them on my blog too. (Note: I took these photos myself and did not 'clean' them up on Adobe as The Hubby would do...so I guess I'd better put in a disclaimer now to say that he had nothing to do with these photos that i have posted. Hehe...yes I did them all by myself!)

1. Love, honor, cherish


Materials: Textured Cardstock: Bazzil Basics Paper; Rub-ons and Card making template: Making Memories; Chipboard Heart: Heidi Swapp for Advantus.

This was my first attempt at card making. It was a really last minute thing for my Uncle (James and Christina) who were getting married the next day. Slapped on a few rub-ons and the heart and voila...done. I used a vellum phrase for the card sentiment on the inside (sorry no photo) which was inked on the edges with pink acrylic paint. Really basic stuff.

2. To Have and To Hold



Materials: Textured Cardstock: DCWV Card Making Stack; Patterned Paper: Chatterbox; Wedding Die-Cut: Ann Skelly for Lifetime Memories; Rub-on '&': Scrapworks; Alphabet Stamp: Hero Arts; Ink: Versamagic Chalk Ink by Tsukineko.

This was the 2nd wedding card that I made (for Steve and Wei) and again it was rather last minute. Both my Uncle and Wei did a wedding gift registry list with Innerspace and because I bought both wedding couples their gifts from there, I had to make an accompanying card. Usually, The Hubby and I would just give angpows with our names scribbled on the back.

With the 2nd card, I decided to rummage thru my stash of scraps and decided to make a simple border. The wedding die-cut (the book) is from my wedding scrapbook stash. Yes, I'm still in the process of finishing my wedding scrapbook...The Hubby reckons he will be old and with grandkids by the time I finish it. Hee.

For the inside sentiment, I just scribbled an appropriate message as I really had no time to try and do more.

3. Thank You


Materials: Textured Cardstock: DCWV Card Making Stack; Patterned Paper and Brad: Making Memories; Flower: Prima; Circle Punch: EK Success; Ink: Color On Pigment Ink by Ranger; Pen: ZIG Millenium.

This card was done at the behest of my 9 year old nephew who came by the house for chinese tuition one fine Sunday morning and asked me to help him make a Thank You card for his teacher in conjunction with Teacher's Day. I thought it was for his chinese tuition teacher so I rushed the production.

Again, paper and green cardstock are from my scraps stash and once I had decided on how to arrange the elements, it came together pretty quickly. I got my nephew to handwrite the 'Thank You' on the 2 punched circles for a more personal touch. Oh and after the card was completed, said nephew then tells me its actually for his class teacher in school. Grrrr!!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Budding Creativity


The Dude and AA came over to visit last weekend and they came bearing a gift that is so special, a real treasure find!! A picture frame decorated by Ty himself!! The Dude found it at a Charity Auction held in Sungai Liang and had it not been for the two photos below sent to him by the principal of Ty's playschool, I would have had a hard time believing that Ty decorated the frame himself. I'm so glad that the Dude bid for and got the frame as I had no idea that Ty had done this in school and I love the fact that I now have something that he created at the age of two and a half as a keepsake. Ty decorated the frame on the 17th January 2007.


The finished product.....



When the Dude gave me the frame, some of the sequins and rhinestone flowers had dropped off so I had to glue them back on myself. I used the KI Memories GLOO (see below) which dries to a clear finish to stick the sequins and flowers back on. GLOO is sold specifically for use with KI Memories' acrylic embellishments but has a whole lot of other uses too. It has an easy applicator tip and if bubbles form, just use a toothpick to pop the bubbles before applying the embellishment on your page. I bought the GLOO from Laine's Papeterie in Singapore and I've also found it at Papier in KL (located at The Curve).

Thursday, February 08, 2007

The Bump

The belly page is a more apt title for this page I think. This was a fun LO to do. Inspired by a LO in Simple Scrapbooks ("SS") Nov/Dec 2006 issue and one of my very first black and white picture. Had originally thought to use white cardstock then I stopped and changed to pink bling cardstock. Why?...mainly because I already knew that baby no. 2 would be a boy and figured what other opportunity would I have to use my pink cardstock if not used for myself. This LO had one of my sis-in-laws going..."Pink??!! You??". Hahaha.





Materials: Textured Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Bling; Patterned paper: K & Company; Page Pebbles, Crystal Brad and Paper Edger: Making Memories; Paper Scuffer: Lasting Impressions; Metal Embellishment: American Traditional Designs (l'il stackers); Alpha Stickers: Provo Craft; Rub-ons: Heidi Swapp for Advantus; Pen: ZIG Opaque by Kuretake; Journaling Template: Chatterbox; Ink: Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries.




This photo was taken on Xmas Day 2006 after the annual xmas meal at Karl's. Insisted that the Hubby took the photo specifically. I had never actually recorded the ups and downs of being pregnant and had also never done a LO on anything about me. The LO in SS really struck me. From the photo to the journaling. It was inspiration to record a little something on being pregnant.


The photo edges were distressed the same way as the "2 of a Kind" layout but this time the distress effect was much clearer. The title was created by sticking alpha stickers on clear page pebbles. My only problem was that the square page pebbles were kinda yellowish in colour. Dunno why cos the pack said clear. Hehe maybe yellow with age as I bought them in 2004. The journaling was fun to do. The wavy lines were drawn out using the Chatterbox Journaling Genie template (Funky - see below). I would love to collect all 6 of these templates but have only managed to find only one so far. I have the vanishing ink pen that goes with this template range but have not as yet dared to use the pen on my layouts for fear that the ink won't disappear altogether. I still rely on my handy pencil and eraser.


Dreams come true

Yes I have been scrapping...before Jay was born but have been having major trouble uploading pictures onto the blog. Seems it is impossible to do from home. The Hubby had to upload the pics from his office. How sad is that eh!! Telbru home internet sucks!!

This is one layout that is not so my favourite. I liked the side bit and had fun doing it (especially the sewing) but I was rather disappointed with my journaling block (couldn't be bothered to re-do though). One good thing is that I managed to use the journalling which I wrote ages ago (finally). It was just waiting for an angelic/decent photo of Ty. This photo was one I dug out from a box I found full of Ty's photos printed for scrapbooking. Hehe forgot all bout these photos. Photo was taken by the Hubby at Meragang Beach (a.k.a Crocodile Beach) in March 2006.



Materials: Textured Cardstock: Bazzil Basics Paper; Patterned Paper: Chatterbox; Word Stickers: Making Memories and K & Company; Mesh: Magic Mesh (Vintage Dottie Ann); Pen: ZIG Millenium and Calligraphy; Embroidery Floss: DMC; Rub-on: Pure Juice Memories Complete.

I used the ZIG Calligraphy pen for my journalling but didn't count on my swollen fingers messing up my already U.G.L.Y handwriting (yes journalling was done during the late stages of pregnancy no.2 - hehe - I could not even put on my wedding ring). I just think the messy journalling block doesn't go with the neatness of the pattern paper blocks. Sigh. Surprisingly, No.1 critic (the Hubby) likes this page. On to bigger and better pages!!!

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Arrival of Baby No.2

Baby No.2 a.k.a Jay arrived on the 25th January 2007 and weighed in at 3.5kg exactly. What a good thing he came a week early.

His arrival meant that I could not feast my eyes on the new arrivals at Shabby Chic...I actually planned to go that day after work. Nevertheless, with the modern technology that we have today and good people (you know who you are!!), I'm glad to say that I have not really missed out on the new goodies even though I have been stuck at home since Jay's birth. 1 week down, 3 more weeks to go.


Watch this space for photos!! (Reason being the Hubby's laptop contracted a virus from my sister's pen drive (Hah Dude, not a virus that would affect the computer tekarang!!) and it corrupted his Windows programme so photos will be uploaded as soon as that is sorted. Kiddo, you better sort your laptop out!!