The kissing sisters

This is supposed to be a last-minute submission for the March/April contest of My Creative Sketches. However, I was extremely busy on the day and finally missed the submission deadline. At the time I could do the upload, it is closed!

It's okay, and am still pleased to share what I've done on this LO.

This month's sketch is quite simple to follow, but, that's make it difficult for me to brainstorm what exactly I should do. Behind the scene, I've really tried different series of paper stock and couldn't find one that I'm really happy with.

Until one day, I saw a picture drawn by my 4.5 years old daughter, which has a rainbow on it, I thought that I should prepare a rainbow background myself, instead of using a pattern paper.

Therefore I used a stencil and inked some distressed ink over the background, layer by layer and the rainbow pattern appeared - and I got inky fingers too!

The picture I've chosen to feature on this layout is my most favourite shot of this month. I, just on my own, took my two babies one day during Easter, to Stanley in Hong Kong and spent 2-hours at the seafront. The girls were so lovely chit-chating with each others, looking at dogs, etc and they were very cooperative in posing for my photos.

They kisses and I captured the sweetest moment! How sweet is it?

The decorations on the layout were from everything, such as fabric roses, layered flowers but I dye them with colour spray; as well as some tiny accessories (i.e. the little birdies) I bought from a Japanese zakka store in Hong Kong; as well as the punches butterflies.

I really like the final layout and I am very happy with the background particularly - which was made ALL BY MYSELF!

Happy Scrapbooking!

Irene

February layout: Girls' talk & laugh

I took 3 instagram pictures of my two sweeties and I love them so much.

The pictures were taken in an evening, after dinner, when the sisters were playing together.

It wasn't a game, just the girls making funny face and made the other laugh.

So sweet!


Because of the 3 instagram pictures, I've decided to uses them to make a layout for taking part in My Creative Sketches' February contest.

I love this sketch and it stimulated my creativity to do a layout highlighting my girls.



What a coincide that Echo Parks launched the edorable Sweet Girl collection in February and available for sale at my favourite craft shop - HK Memory Chest. I bought a few from the collection.

Though I only used 3 pieces of their pattern papers but they all look great after mix and match with other papers and adhesives.

I love the girl dresses pattern and I cut them out and add a pearl chain on it, which look like the dresses are being hanged.



I saw from many other artist's layout that they stitch on the papers using sewing machine, this time I've done the same too.

Though I've not used my sewing machine for long, plus I'm not great in sewing.

I love the stitching technique very much, I think I'll do that more in my upcoming artworks.



Pink, red and gardens are always suitable for girls.

I added lots of scraps on this layout.... they are all the left-overs from previously, such as paper flowers, birdies add-on from Kaiser; and the punched butterflies and they really refreshed the entire layout.



I hope you like this too - Happy scrapbooking!!!

Splash time... in Phuket

It's my 5th participation in the monthly contest organised by My Creative Sketches.

It's a really good drive to encourage myself to get at least 1 layout done in a month.

After seeing the January sketch, I thought it is quite simple but actually not!

We recently came back from our annual family holiday in Phuket and the weather was amazing, sunny and clear sky everyday. We have therefore tak en many pictures and some are great for doing layouts.

Seeing there is an unused kit I bought at the end of 2012 - Amy Tangerine Sketchbook, designed by American crafts, and being inspired by Kelly Purkey, who visited Hong Kong in end Nov 2012 and hosted a class for HK Memory Chest. I've decided to use the kit for this layout.

The Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection features splashing colour, I love the contrast while putting each piece of paper together. 

I love the Indian-style pattern paper and I use it as a background. I sprayed some colour over the background, though the paper got a few colour drops originally.

In Phuket, we went swimming in pool. The picture I chose was taken from there and  a big portion of marine blue, which matches perfectly with the paper pad collection.

I cut out a few piece of textured paper and spray some blue ink over them, cut them in semi-circles and they became the splash... !

The Sun on the top right hand corner was from KaiserCraft's Fine and Sunny collectables, and the "Bring on the Sun" clear stamps set, by Ali Edwards also works perfectly with this layout.

I love this layout so much. By seeing this I can still feel the "Sunshine" and our happy time.

Thanks for passing by and visiting and I hope you like it too. 

Feel free to leave me with your comments too.

Cheers.

Irene

September layout ~ Cute Hannah

We had a long weekend last week in Hong Kong to celebrating the mid-autumn festival (Full moon festival) and China's national day, which has given me a great productivity. I've been making 3 layouts over the week but one of them is still not 100% happy, so I'm only about to show you 2 of the layouts.

The following layout was done with reference to the September sketch contest hosted by My Creative Sketches. The sketch is basically comprising a few circles.

It's the first time that I trim my photos in round shapes, but they look really nice on my layout (I think!). I've picked 3 pictures of my little daughter, Hannah, which were taken at home few weeks ago.

Regarding paper stock, I used the series of The Sweetest thing (Tangerine) from My Mind’s Eye, I bought from HK Memory Chest, a well-known scrapbooking supplier in Hong Kong.

The sentiments and phrases in this paper stocks are relating to adjectives including sweet, adorable, beautiful... which are all ideal for any projects about girls. Personally I always think my Hannah is relevant to all of these adjectives. Don't you agree with me? : P

I added a few die-cut and punched butterflies in this project and I have embossed two of them.

Recently I'm in love with these flags

I put doilies and scallops behind each photos and they look perfect to go with round-shaped pictures.

The theme of this layout: “Do you know how cute you are? “ - I guess this is the feeling of every mothers towards their daughters, true?

My 1st Scrapbooking layout ~ The sisters

Inspired by the July Sketch contest by My Creative Sketches, I have decided to do my first ever 12" x 12" layout. Not just because of the chance to win the wonderful kit, but to kick start my life in scrapbooking.

As a mother of 2 lovely girls, aged 1 & 4 respectively, I think I should start my first project with "The SISTERS" as the theme.

I picked a pictures taken last month when the elder sister Anson was carrying her little sister Hannah on her lap.

I've also combined a few different techniques including stamping and embossing, punching, die-cutting using Big-shot ~

These two hearts were die-cut using Big-shot + Hero Art Heart frame die; then stamped with the Hero Art Four hearts cling stamps - The stamps & die are compatible with each other. The hearts were then embossed in Champagne gold and Clear respectively.

I've also handmade a ribbon flower learned from a tutorial by Delaina Burns, Design Team member of My Creative Scrapbook. Plus, punched out two little sakuras.

The beautiful Silver glitter alphabets stickers from American Crafts.

I have downloaded a beautiful, vintage, poem printable from a website.

I've pretty happy with my first layout overall, though there are still room for improvement, what do you think?