My little cutie - Entry for MCS July contest

Finally, right before the submission deadline, I finished this layout for the July sketch contest.

The typhoon signal No. 8 was hoisted in Hong Kong yesterday and most of us gained a half-day holiday. Therefore I spared a couple of hours to work on this layout.

I picked a photo of my 2-year-old daughter, Hannah, when she was making a funny face during a lunch recently.

She's indeed my little monster and little cutie, a very active, naughty but smart girl.

This is a relatively simple and quick layout and I hand-cut our some flowers from various scrap pattern paper and match them with some fabric flowers and Prima flowers.

I punched a few butterflies using the MS Butterfly punch;

then used the left over paper pieces as "stencils" and spray over on the background.

Therefore you can see the shaded butterflies on the background of this layout.

Thanks for visiting!

Irene

Hurray ~ "Giant duck" layout is being featured!

I woke up early this morning and saw the notifications showing a few inbox message sitting on my Gmail account.

Since the Gmail inbox is only used for receiving messages related to my blog so I guess something should have been happened about my posts.

Oh yes, it's about my recent participation in the My Creative Sketches June sketch challenge.... My "Giant duck" layout is being featured!

Hurry! It is absolutely a great recognition of my work. Thank you very much for picking my artwork.

It has been almost an year since my last layout being featured by MCS. I love playing along with MCS which gives me a monthly brainstorm of scrapbooking ideas. 

I have been participating in their monthly contest since July 2012 but unfortunately missed 2 months in April and May due to my super busy schedule.

I hope I will continue with this and try my very best to get more layouts done, and add in more new elements.

Thank you again - Happy scrapbooking and crafting!

Giant Duck

It has been 2 months for not participating in the MY CREATIVE SKETCHES' MONTHLY CONTEST due to house-move, holiday and business trips. Once everything was settled down last month, I urge myself to create a layout and get it done fore the deadline on 14th July.

This is the MCS June/July sketch which is actually quite familiar.... 

The theme of this layout is Giant Duck - For those who are in Hong Kong, we have been desperate for visiting this 32-meter tall duck which has been sitting on the Victoria harbour for a month. The duck is an art piece created by a Dutch artist 

I took my girls to take a closer look at the giant duck on its last day in Hong Kong, i.e. 9th June.

To create a background highlighting sea waves, I applied some LIGHT MOLDING PASTE over a STENCIL of wave pattern. I sprayed a thin layer of Shimmer blue colour mist over the mold. 

I cut out the Giant duck from the photo, and outlined it.

I created two CHIPBOARD frames for two pictures of my lovely daughters

On the top left hand corner, I made the SUN by cutting out a small circle from an embossed swirl pattern paper, I added a few small pieces of ribbon. And yes it was a sunny day when we went to visit the duck.

There is a big circle on the background of the layout, I cut a circle out using Martha Stewart circle cutter, I hand-wrote some notes on it.

I added a die-cut chipboard of Sizzix bigz die - Picture wheel

Last month I went for an holiday in Los Angeles and I found this pair of cutie yellow duck buttons from JoAnn Store, which are very suitable for this layout.

I stamped some rainbow arrows over the background using the ARROW ROLLING STAMP.... I actually tried to stamp it neatly on the page, however it failed. So I just rolling back and forth and created this messy stamping pattern, which is quite good for the layout

This layout turns out nicely and gives some feeling of mixed media. Thanks for MCS for their sketch idea!

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

The hand-in-hand Sisters

I confess I was too busy last month due to the change of domestic helper and missed the opportunity to submit an entry to the November contest of My Creative Sketches (MCS).

This month, I got a few days off in Christmas so I have been forcing myself to get one done for the December contest.

In early December, it was rainy in Hong Kong. I took a camera with me on a Sunday but did not go to anywhere fancy. We had to stay indoor so we went for a relaxing and some shopping in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of the tourism spots in Hong Kong.

While we were window shopping, my elder sister was so good to hold the hand of her little sisters. My little one started walking not long ago but she always loves walking on her own or hold my hand only, just for safely. That was the first time she allowed her elder sister to hold her hand.

I captured the scene and I said to myself I must create something out of this.

There are 1-2 sets of scrapbooking kits sitting there and I got no chance to touch them yet, I used the one I bought from HK Memory Chest November kit for my layout, Though I used only 1 piece of paper and a few alphabet stickers though.

Before adding anything to the page, I handmade a butterfly stencil by cutting off a a few butterflies using the Sizzix Movers and Shapers die; then I sprayed some colours on it. I love the effects on the background.

I also added a few Prima flowers and a two chipboard butterflies which I cut using the Sizzix Movers & Shapers die.

For the title, Sisters, it was cut by Sizzix Eclips Machine. I bought Eclips for almost 2 months but this is the first time that I really try playing with it... finally!!!

I used the ECAL software, chose the font type and type out the word "Sisters", added a Shadow, and it cut automatically. It's really amazing!

I used Cricut before and I sold it out because I seldomly use it, though I really like the cute graphics on most of their cartridges. Once I knew that Eclips enables to type and cut, as well as import an image and cut.... I made the decision and bought it, and I’m now happy with it.

Merry Christmas & Happy 2013!

Honeymoon travel Album

 I attended another class at HK MEMORY CHEST and made a photo album.

Tutor was Angela McDaniel, a mother of 3 kids. Angela is talented in creating double layout and other projects recording every precious moment of her lovely family. I heard Angela was actually inspired by Heidi Swapp's idea - Memory File for getting this album done.

Before the class I did not pay attention to the film, I just remember Angela put her kids photos in the album so I prepared some photos of Anson & Hannah too.

Arrived at HKMC, I found the pattern paper are on the theme of "Travel", I think I should change my mind and get another set of photos from previous holidays. Anyway I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the entire album in 3 hours because lots of techniques have been covered.

The cover of the album was simply made of paper file, which are available in any stationery store.
I sprayed a beautiful orange ink over a stencil and created a nice "monogram" pattern on the covers.

There are lots of inner pockets in this Travel fotoflip album which give me lots of space to store pictures and other accessories.

I kept thinking of what pictures I should put on this album. In the past few years, the most memorable,  meaningful and enjoyable holiday is our HONEYMOON in 2005 ~ Rome and London.

As soon as I went home I took out the disc of the pictures and chose some and printed them out. It also gave me (and my husband) a good chance to review them.

I put a cover picture and stuck a "Our honeymoon" sticker below it.

This adhesive is really interesting, just blow towards it with the heat gun and lots of curly bits and bops appeared.

Remember when.... we took a direct flight to London, then took another flight to Rome on the same day of arrival. It was December 2005 and it was very cold, but no snow.

We love Rome, we visited the Colosseo, Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani), Vatican City, and the city of Rome for 4 days.

The most exciting moment in Rome was when we planned to visit the Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano, there was a special mass being held that time, hosted by Pope Benedict XVI. As we are from Hong Kong, we feel so blessed to see Pope in person.

Before returning to Hong Kong we spent 2 days in London, and visited a few places such as the Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, etc. I have been working for UK companies, this was not my first time to visit London, while I'm still loving it. I love London!

The best thing to look at these pictures is that I am not looking too much different from 7 years ago. However my husband has changed quite much ...more mature now! : )

Besides spending some time to choose pictures, I've also found I saved a collection of Boarding passes, train tickets, bus tickets from the trip.

This travel fotoflip album is really the best place to store our sweet memory!