Harlow! I'm Back

*Disclaimer: This is quite a long post with lots of my rants & project pictures!*

It has been almost 2 weeks since I've blogged about some CAS-ual Friday's cards. Sad but true, the new job has taken a toll on my health & my scrapbooking life. I can no longer do this : sleep-eat-scrap-eat-scrap-sleep. I feel sick when I don't get to scrap.... *LOL* I am required to sit for almost 10 papers to be register as a financial advisor representative, and the good news is, I have only sat for 2 exams. Yeah, you read me! Two down & eight more papers to go! Some of the weeks, I am having 2 papers in a row >_< Urghh... Is there a profession as Scrapbooker / Cardmaker? If there is a company hiring scrapbooker (or Creative memory maker =P ) I would definitely work for them at minimal wages!

Since I started this new job, I have only completed 1 layout.... I used to complete like 3 layouts and a bunches of cards in a week when I was jobless. I miss those days.... I didn't even have time (or too lazy) to blog recently. And last weekend was D-I-S-A-S-T-R-O-U-S for me as I had terrible tummy ache on Saturday & awful allergic reaction to god-knows-what on Sunday. And the best part is, I was having an exam on Monday evening!! Enough of my rants, on the bright side, getting to know new friends is one of the few perks for my new job. And also, working = getting salary = able to expand my scrapbooking stash = AWESOME! So I shouldn't complain much about working.working.working, let's share some projects that I have done for the last 2 weeks.

1. A Layout for Made With Love - Scrap This & That Challenge: Photo-less Challenge

This is a real challenge to me as I normally get inspiration by laying photos on my layout and start adding layers, clusters & embellies. It took me 3 days to think of the theme of the layout & another 5~6 hours to do the stamping, pasting, fussy-cutting to complete the layout. And Voila! it just turned out the way I envisioned it. Love this mushy layout ;) This is basically a 10-card-sentiments in 1 layout idea and it works!

I have never do so much stamping and using so much Twines on a single layout. I probably used up 3 sets of my Ruby Violet Cling stamps and it was so fun! I love all the images for these stamp sets but I think I had only used the Owl & the birdie for card-making.

2. Sorry... Not again! I've done another layout of my dog - Nut Nut (For Frosted Designs Challenge)

It seems I can never get enough of wood grain background paper eh? I am entering this layout for Frosted Designs: Sketch Along Tuesday #36. 

Here's the sketch from Frosted Design:

I followed the sketc for its position of embellishment, circle & photo (I only use one photo here as I am a big fans of sketching only ONE photo for my LOs). I just move the journalling above the picture. And I also went a bit crazy with the layering as I read somewhere about 'More is More' so I would like to challenge myself to add more layering & clustering. What say you?

Some misting done here but Failed! 

I ended up with the confetti & butterflies (Not again?!?) as the embellishments, and I kept layering the scraps & tickets & tag around the photo. I was stuck for today after placing down the spools & doilies & photo as I didn't know what to add as embellishment. I ditched the idea of using butterflies as embellishment as NutNut (the dog) is a boy. Butterflies do NOT go too well with boy-themed I guess. LoL. But with paper doilies and all the girly Dear Lizzy papers, so I have to ditch the idea of boy theme & started punching butterflies & circles.

I used total of 5 butterflies in this layout. These 2 are the Kraft butterfly stickers from Studio Calico but I altered the Kraft color by stamping and adding Ice Stickles. Number 3 is highlighted with Silver Stickles as NutNut is the 3rd dog in Ethan's family. 

I love every bits in this LO.  I got the inspiration for adding the tiny weeny bobbins from Paper Smooches blog. The journalling part is just fun n' cheeky! At times we called him Natt Natt loudly (pronounced as Nate Nate) when he doesn't respond to his name. And one of my favorite conversation with him is by asking him 'Are you nuts?', of course he is totally clueless with my question. I know this is silly but I do talk to my dogs! 

Love the Dear Lizzy's epoxy stickers from Studio Calico Feb Kit. I added the bone-shaped buttons as this is a doggie layout >_< It took me 3 days to complete this simple layout but this is by far my favorite LO, featuring one of my favorite pictures.

3. A Happy-but-EXTREMELY-messy Project - My Happy Pie

This is not your ordinary mini album.... It is an album packed with many many colors, textures & inspirations! I will share more pictures of this HAPPY album in the next post. Stay tuned!