Layout⎪3 Layouts using my eBosser *Craftwell*

Hello there, I am sure most of you know how much I love my eBosser! I love using it to die cut mini doilies, letters and also alphabets. I also love using it to do dry embossing / debossing to add lovely (yet subtle) texture to my pages.

So here I am sharing 3 layouts that I have made using different die cuts (with myeBosser of course!) in January. Some are valentine themed, some are just my day-to-day baby photos! Since I am sharing three pages with a few detailed shots of each page, so this is definitely a very photo-heavy post!

1st Layout - It is valentine-themed. God knows when was the last time I took photo of only 2 of us? I am in love with the Crate Paper Love Note collection, so made an effort to search for a photo of us from my 12k photos iPhone library. The paper is a little too busy with multi colour hearts so I mat the photo with a lace heart doilies. This is die cut with  lifestyle craft dies and eBosser. I love how the heart peeks out from behind.

2nd Layout: Using a lot of goodies from my Made With Love DT kit - it has mix of products from Crate papers, My Minds Eyes and Fancy Pants. Chalkboard is still in the trend now. I made the chalk board paper a little more chalkish by rubbing my white distress paint over. It sort of toned down the dark black colour a little. Love love love this photo of Ivan having fun with my dad, playing remote control car. Okay, he doesn't know how to control the car but he knows how to turn the knob of the control! This is one of the layout that I want to use up all the scrap bits - papers from Crate Paper Love Note collection and also random die cut letter. I arranged the letters randomly just to fill up the space, it does not form any words here. I just want some white embellishments to tone the hot pink paper down. 

I embossed the word RIGHT with gold embossing powder but it doesn't turn out as good as I expected. Again, I would just leave it as it is ;p 

And here's the 3rd layout: Enjoy. A layout that I made to remind myself to enjoy Ivan's babyhood, to remind myself not to compare him to other babies / their growth chart / milestone. Ivan had not been eating solid much, he was either gag or vomit whenever we fed him. I got really worried and brought him to the paediatrician a few times and even got scolding for the doctor! And guess what? 3 week after this layout been made, he is eating solid food 4 times a day! Guess he is catching up after been sick for a week plus. 

One night, I had the urge to die cut a tonnes of mini doilies. Instead of reaching for my usual white card stocks, I decided to cut those doilies with various colour card stocks. When I am done, I love all the pastel doilies and want to make them the feature of this layout. So I sprinkled them all over the page. I noticed I either like to arrange my repeated elements horizontally or vertically. For this page, I arrange the doilies in vertical arrangement and this layout came together so quickly. 

Old book papers are my favourite papers for matting a photo nowadays. And I also love to add either grey or black paint splatter to my page. I like how it lead your eyes to the page. But my lovely hubster commented that it makes the page looks mouldy. I just brush him off saying you aren't artsy enough to understand my paint splatter >_<

Its a doilies madness layout eh? I also added some die cuts that I cut with my Cameo - the title Enjoy , the arrows and the branches are from my Cameo.

Cute camera die cut from My Favourite Things Die-namics and my eBosser.

Oh by the way, I had just take photos of my freshly cleaned scrap room. Will definitely do a post to bring you girls around my room! Stay tuned! XO

Layout⎪Living My Dream *Write Click Scrapbook & Craftwell*

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing this layout that I made for Write Click Scrapbook November gallery, using my beloved eBosser. This layout is inspired by a piece of patterned paper from Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Signature collection. I am in love with the doilies pattern on the pink background. I have used up this piece of paper so I decided to create a piece of similar paper with doilies die cuts and pink patterned paper.

And this is what I came up with. I die cut some doilies using My Favourite Things dies with white and ivory color card stocks. Then I scattered the die cuts  randomly on my patterned paper. And here's my finished layout - looking airy and dreamy to match the theme of the layout - DREAM.

Loving how soft the layout turned out to be. I also added some word strips and tags on each of the doilies to create some layering and clustering.

I was stuck when I got to know the theme for November gallery is DREAM. Then I browse through all the photos that I have printed and found this photo of me & my boy. I have never envisioned myself being a mom, but now I could proudly say that being a momma is my best, dream job ever!

Here's my journaling:

I journal on a piece of tag and stick it behind the layout simply because I didn’t have space for my long journaling. 
Here it goes: Some of the mornings I woke up and it took me quite a while to realise that I am a mommy. Most of the mornings I wake up feeling blessed, be it seeing a smiley baby or a fussy baby. It's such weird feeling that I actually mean the world to him, and he needs me almost 24/7 as source of nom-nom and comfort. Of course i would love to have more of my me-time and scrapping time back. When he is all smiley, I feel like I am the coolest mom in the world doing all the 'right' thing - breastfeeding, cloth diapering, babywearing and documenting his daily life. There are times he is so fussy that I think I am so lousy and even feel like throwing him out the window (which obviously I would never do it). So glad that we made it to 15 weeks now. Way to go, baby!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend ahead!

List of Products:

Cardstock - American Crafts

Patterned paper - Crate Paper, American Crafts

Embellishments - Buttons (My Mind’s Eye), Heart Sugar Dots (Prima Marketing Inc) + Wood Veneers (Maya Road)

Dies - My Favourite Things

Alphabets - American Crafts

Ink – Versafine

Pen - Pigma Micron

XoXo,

Project Life⎪Playing Catch Up - Week 40 *Citrus Twist Kits*

Hello there! Today I am sharing my project life pages using Citrus Twist October kit. I am loving the soft colors with hint of gold in Crate Paper - Flea Market paper pad. I love that the three weeks spreads that I made using October kits is very pastel and pink (my favorite color)!

Today I am going to share with you how I manage to catch up 7 weeks of PL spreads in 3 days time. And 3 of the weeks were made using October kit.

I came up with a strategy in catching up with my Project Life:
1. Work on the most current week and then work backward whenever I have time. I worked from week 40, then go backward till where I fall behind - week 34.

2. Not more than 12 photos in a week spread. This is vital as I tend to print too many photos, say 20-30 photos just for a weekly page. I ended up making 3~5 pages worth of pages just for one week. Instead, I picked only up to 12 photos that I think it tells the weekly story and print them week by week. 

3. Work using a kit. I used Citrus Twist kits for the 3 weeks spread (show below). And I am in love with this month exclusive stamp and the 3x4 cards! 

4. Follow the sketches by our inspiration girl Kasia provided in the kit. Sometimes it is hard for me to follow sketches when doing PL, but I love to pick up the way she arrange embellishments in her sketches. So I follow the way she embellished her sketches and that make decorating the cards so much easier!

5. Keep my cards as simple as possible, to get it documented is more important than making sure it looks pretty in my PL album.

Here's my week 40 using only October Pocket Life kit. There are a lot of pink, teal and arrows here.

Loving this month Citrus Twist Kits exclusive cards. 

And here are the close-ups of my week 40. Keeping the title card fairly simple, just added strips of papers to a piece of 4x6 patterned paper. 

Whoopsie! I realised I have used the journaling card upside-down only when I photo-ed the spread. But it doesn't bother me much! You could see that it writes : 'Notes From Today' right? =P

Loving the exclusive stamp the said 'DAILY BLISS' that came in Citrus Twist October main kit.

Cute photos of my baby and good friend, Trisha definitely made it way to my PL album!

XoXo

Guest DT⎪ Crate Paper

I am so excited to share this amazing news with you! I am guest designing for Crate Paper this week with a few of my projects. Here's the blog post from Crate Paper:

Project 1: I Wouldn't Trade You For The World

When I received Maggie Holmes collection in my Crate Paper box, I was so amazed with all the pretty papers and I really want to use them all in my projects. For my first project I couldn't decide which paper to be used, so I just cut paper strips for those paper that I like and put them all on one layout. I love the white glitter thickers (which is in a perfect font), the butterfly die cuts, the ribbons and also the hair pins in this collection. 

I stacked the die cut butterflies together and added a pretty hair pin to make the embellishment pop.

The die cut ephemera pack makes the most perfect embellishment. I simply tucked some die cut under the photo to create some clustering. 

Project 2: I Love You Too

This is by far my favorite photo of my baby boy, Ivan. His expression and the sentiment on the onesie never failed to make me giggle every time I look at the photo. So I choose to use the cheery and happy collection - Party Day to create this layout. The happy colors in the collection is not only perfect for birthday-themed projects, it is also absolutely perfect for baby or children-themed layout. 

        I gathered a few circle elements (die cuts, brads and buttons) and cluster them next to the photo.

I am into creating off-the-edge embellishment for my current layouts. So again, I layered many of the die cuts and stickers on the top left corner of the layout, machine stitch them. Easy-peasy way to create dimension on a layout. The brads and buttons that come in the collection are so cute and lovely.

Project 3: Project Life Spread: Welcome Baby

This is my stress-free way of documenting my baby bump and baby photos. The happy colors in Party Day collection make this spread looks so cheery and it totally fit into the theme of this spread which is ' Welcome Baby'. Baby's first day is considered as baby very very first birthday too right?

I use the vellum paper from Party Day collection for one of the pocket and love how the effect.

I also went a little crazy with layering and I know I am going to end up with a very bulky Project Life album.

Project 4: Altered Project: Enjoy The Little Things

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I wanted to dress up the wall at my craft area for months but yet to find any inspiration and motivation. I stumble upon some wall art using embroidery hoops on Pinterest one day and I know I gotta make something similar with papers. I dressed up various sizes of the hoops with Maggie Holmes, Story Teller and Fourteen collection. It is so easy that I just trace the circle using the hoop on the patterned papers and cut them accordingly. Add some die cuts, chip boards and stickers from the packs and I am done.

p.s.: This is a silhouette cut file from Amy Tangerine ;) Love this as my motto for my daily life ever Ivan is here.