More HAPPY news!!!!

You know the saying that goes.... when one door closes, another opens? Well, in my case, when one door closes, MANY opened.

Today I spoke to Luisa of Addicted to Craft, Australian distributor for some wonderful (and my favourite) brands, eg. American Crafts, Maya Road, My Minds Eye, Blueye Dezines (which I've also just got onto their DT), Pink Martini, Dream Street Papers, Prima Marketing, Everlasting Keepsakes, Gelatin Stamps, Rouge de Garance..... and many many more. Are you drooling yet? Cos I am. LOL.... I am so thrilled to announce that I am now one of their 8 Design Team members!!!!!!!!! I would NEVER have thought that an opportunity like THIS would fall on my lap!!!! Of course, I would like to thank Katja for this. First she gave me a Guest Designer position on Designing Memories, then she showed Brett and Luisa the layouts I did for her! So THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Katja!! And of course, THANK YOU BRETT AND LUISA!! I am soooo over the moon!

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For the past 2 days we have been doing some school tours. Tours to decide which primary school to send Ellen to next year for Prep. We have decided to send her to a public school. The 2 schools we visited were just impressive. One of them will even be building their own indoor swimming pool!!! How impressive! I'm quite torn between the 2 schools. Both of them have impressive academic curriculums, but one emphasises on the children's awareness of community, while the other emphasises on activity and sports. hehehe... like Liberal vs Labour, Republican vs Democrat .... We will have to think about this.

Thank you everyone who has commented on my last blog post about my mini album. I'm very excited and have a few albums on hand now that I think I might want to work on! ..... soon, I hope. ;)

That's all for today.

Mini Album

I had a great weekend!! I spent my Saturday at a crop with Trish Clark, who is the new owner of Scrapanalia, that went from 1pm to 11pm, and spent Sunday having breakfast at Maccas with my family, did some shopping with them and got a real bargain for a car booster seat for DD on Sunday.... how not to be happy? :) :) :)

I spent the entire day at the crop doing this album for my girlfriend, Gladys. I've known Gladys since we were 7.... a 30-year friendship. Hard to come by, don't you think? Her birthday was over a week ago but I only started working on this album last Saturday. It is sort of a birthday-cum -30th-anniversary friendship album. Gladys lives in Singapore, so this album is going to leave Australia tomorrow to catch a plane to get to her. Here are the pages...

(oh and before you laugh.... this is my 2nd ever mini album I've altered ..... )

This is a Maya Road round coaster album. Notice on the 6th photo, there is an additional circle made of transparency with some Creative Imaginations rubons. That goes between the 2 pages. I added that because I was afraid that the metal butterflies I used, which have their wings bent upwards for more effect, will damage the photo on the other page. Good thinking huh?? hehehe....

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Sunday breakfast at McDonald's is kinda our ritual now. If it isn't yet, I will make it one!! LOL... For one, I LOVE their breakfast - Egg McMuffin, Hash Brown, OJ. MMMmmmmm..... And we go to a Macca's that has a McCafe, so we can have those fancy coffees/teas, fancy lounge seats, shoo the kids to the playground after their breakfast, and I can read my scrapbooking magazines... IN PEACE. Isn't that the best way to spend a Sunday morning????!!!!

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The car booster seat we got is a Safe & Sound one, called Nova. Normally priced at $69.99, it was marked down to $39.99 at Target!! And I happened to have won a $25 voucher from the kinder's Mother's Day Raffle. So we really only paid $15 for the seat!

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Sadly, I've got the cold and cough after that weekend .... 2nd time this year. Bugger! The cough is seriously hurting me. It hurts when I take a deep breath to cough. Man! I hate coughs!

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We have made a couple of appointments this week to tour some primary schools. I hope I don't this lousy when I'm walking around the schools tomorrow and Thursday, and passing the yucky germs around.

That's all for now. Toodles!

Happy Days!!!

Thank you to all those who commented on my last entry. I really appreciate you being thoughtful. Over the past few days, I kinda realised what really affected me wasn't the initial similarity comparison but more the other email that IMO, totally trivialised my feelings. In any case, I should be and I am over that by now. Cos I have news.

FIRSTLY, the Designing Memories June kit is up for sale now (has been available since 15 May). Claire and I guest-designed the kit for Katja Schneider, owner of Designing Memories. The kits are absolutely a breeze to work with, not to mention the price!!!! So go check out the website for options galore!!! These are the layouts I did with the kit....











SECONDLY, I have been selected to be on the Design Team for Blueye Dezines, a new Australian-owned designer/manufacturer. I will be working alongside some great talents, eg
Natasha Millard, Julie Love, and Ngaire Gilligan from Australia; Jill Cornell and Laura Solomon from USA, and Crystal Jeffrey Rieger from Canada. I "think" I am officially on a manufacturer's design team! :D :D YAY!!!!

OK... my cuppa tea is waiting for me.... there is something else I had wanted to blog about.. but I can't remember now. Another time.

Good Night!

Happy Mother's Day!!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

I woke up this morning with 3 pressies. One from Ellen done at kinder, one from Phaedon also done at kinder (3yo), and one from my dear husband, Peter. Ellen did a drawing, Phaedon did a handprint-colouring-in with a poem, and another painting that has been framed, and a corrugated heart-shaped magnet, and Peter bought me a bottle of fragrance... Michael Kors' Island. I absolutely adore the bottle! Shame it's too heavy to go on a layout...




I have been busy scrapping this week. I am guest designing for Designing Memories' June kit. I have finished the layouts. Will post it when the kit goes online for sale.

I had an encounter with someone really nasty this week. I won't mention names here but I just wanted to share the story.

A kit club was looking for a designer to fill one of their spots. I wrote in to ask if they are still looking for someone, and if they think I was suitable, we could discuss further. The owner wrote back to say she has seen my work and think they are good, BUT she feels that my work is very similar to XXXX's, and then proceeded to ask me if I "feel" that we are similar. **insert dumb-founded emoticon** Then she asked if I would be too busy to do work for her because I am in the FK DT. And then offered me a 1-month trial.

Under any other circumstances, I think the 1-month trial is a great idea, and a perfect time for us to find out if this was what we both really wanted. However, I was concerned that she felt that my work is very similar to XXXX's. Scrapbooking in the online world IS in fact a very visual thing. Many times, you have to physically see the layout IRL to realise it's actually quite different. And this being an online kit club, she will only ever see my layouts via an image. What difference would it make if I told her "I don't FEEL that our work is similar"? You mean by me telling her that I don't feel that our work is similar, she'll believe me and will not ever think that again?

For me to work for someone, I find it very hard if you already have a perception of my style being similar to someone else's. I will constantly think about that, and worry about whether she thinks my work is once again similar to XXXX's. Even if I told you that our style is different, I seriously doubt it would change how you feel because it is how you feel.

So I wrote back and thanked her for the opportunity she wants to offer me. And said that I will find it hard to create freely without thinking what she's going to think of my work. And I also said that I wished she hadn't made that comparison out loud because from now on, I can't help but think about that everytime I scrap. It's like telling an artist... you paint like someone else, you act like someone else, you sing like someone else..... iykwim?

She wrote back. To sum it all up,
a) she is sorry that I took it as a criticism
b) I obviously feel very strongly about not wanting to be compared to XXXX (DUH!!) ... and that if I let it sit on the back of my mind, that is very unfortunate.
c) .... that my convictions in my own abilities and style should be stronger than this.....
d) ... that she has always been forward and honest.... and for me to take offence is honestly very silly
e) .... since we haven't connected in a good way, it wouldn't be a good idea for me to join her team

**insert more dumb-founded emoticons here**

I don't think she was sorry, at all. She just made me look and feel even smaller than before. Ok... I am normally a confident person but I'm probably not confident enough to ignore what people think of my work. I can take it if you feel that the embellishment didn't look right, or the paper / colour combination is weird, or this layout is not quite balanced... but telling it to my face that my work is similar to someone else's... is not what I call constructive criticism. Just made me rethink all this time, what have I been doing??? Just copying someone's style?

But once said, it's out there. I was hurt. And I felt even smaller with her reply. I now know that there is this breed of human beings out there, who has no qualms about hurting other's feelings, and don't even feel that they have done anything wrong, and that it is just the other person being silly. You can't just say things without processing your thoughts first. You may well be bullet-proof and don't give 2 hoots about mean comments. But you are just another human being. One day, someone will say something that hits your nerve and you'll be called the silly one because you took offence.

I've seen a lot of bitchiness going around in this scrapbooking community, but now I've experienced it first hand, and I didn't even ask for it. But I guess I did, I wanted to be on her DT. Just another ugly side of scrapbooking I've seen.

And for the record: No, I do not think my style is similar to XXXX's. There are only 2 things I have in common with XXXX ..... 1) We scrap great layouts 2) We are human beings with a good heart.

Made Up and we are off to dinner....

OK, we made up. In case you haven't guessed, DH and I had a huge fight last Thursday, that's why we didn't quite celebrate our anniversary on Tuesday. We were still in the shits with each other. It was a horrible thing to do, to not wish each other Happy Anniversary out of spite, and we both felt awful. But I just couldn't apologise first, because he said some nasty things that hurt me very much. I knew he didn't forget about our Anniversary because when my FIL rang to wish us Happy Anniversary, he took the call very quietly and thanked him. So I had to out him yesterday. I asked him if he actually forgot? He came up with the lamest excuse that I was still in bed when he left for work, and he should have rung me and told me not to cook dinner and that we'll go out. I told him he could have just admitted that he hasn't gotten over the fight, and I would have left it alone. I hate excuses, and worse, lame ones. But anyway, we had a long talk, and we have sorted things out. I do agree that our relationship hasn't been what it used to be ever since we had kids. He felt that I was always angry, and I felt that he is never plugged in and hence I got angrier, and it just snowballs from there.

I'm happy now. I feel a HUGE load off my shoulders. See, I never buy an apology when anyone says, "If I have offended, I apologise". To me, that's not a sincere apology. That's what bullshit people say to others so they can move along and get on with things. What they actually mean is, "I am not wrong, you are. I am saying this because it is what you want to hear. If you accept this as an apology, then get moving and do what you are supposed to do, ie. get off your soapbox or get a life. If you don't, stiff shit!" Isn't that true? People who argue in forums, politics, talk-back shows, say things like that just to appease. But they don't feel that they are in the wrong. They just think the other person is an idiot! But he *knelt* and said he was sorry .... and was very emotional about it too. And I KNOW this man. He meant it. Gotta love a man who actually apologises and meant it.

OK... enough of my romantic life! LOL... So, we are going out to dinner on Saturday, with kids on tow. That's our life. 99% of the time, we have no one to look after kids. Have to take them everywhere we want to go. We went to Rasa Malaysian Cafe last year on our anniversary, with kids too. We will be doing the same this time. If you are in Melbourne, you have to try this place out in Malvern East. It's Ruey's cousin's restaurant (but this is definitely not a paid advertisement). It has some really fantastic dishes. Trust us, if Ruey and I recommend an Asian place, you've got to go and try the dishes that WE ask you to try. Don't go ordering Sweet & Sour Pork and Fried Rice like you do in all Chinese restaurants and then tell us that you've had Chinese for dinner, cos then you can do it at ANY place that has something resembling a Chinese menu. (Yes, I'm a food snob!)

TRY their Oyster Omelette, Sambal Prawns, Sotong Kecap Manis, Rasa Special Chicken, Ipoh Char Hor Fun, Char Koay Teow, Sambal Kangkong, Rojak, Roti Kosong. For dessert, try the Pulot Itam.

SO, 2 more sleeps to Rasa Malaysian Cafe! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Anniversary to ME

It's our 7th year of marriage. It's not long, but not too short either. Other than my friendship with Gladys that has gone on for 30 years, Lizi for 24 years, and Bernadette for 14 years, this is the longest relationship I've had! People come and go in your life, for many different reasons. Every acquaintance you have with someone, a relationship may develop. And for many intrinsic reasons, some relationships lasts, some don't. It can lasts for as long as one email; or it can lasts as long as a lifetime. That's why everyone is unique, everyone's life is unique for the many relationships you have with many people. All these different acquaintances or relationships form a very significant part of your life! If you are not a part of somebody's life, even a small part, you've got to start making the effort. Your life will become meaningful because you mean something to someone, and people mean something to you. And the more meaningful relationships you have, the more you see of this world, that life is such a wonderful thing! You give and you get. The more gives and gets there are in a relationship, the more wonderful the relationship can be!

OK... you must be thinking I'm on drugs now. Yes, it's something call hormones. My hubby hasn't said Happy Anniversary to me yet. Has he forgotten? Or is he playing with my mind? I'll let you know tomorrow.

I was given a Guest Designer spot on the Asian Dare blog, Dare or Not? Yes, my fellow Singaporeans are catching up in this craft and they are all speedy Gonzales. Scrapbooking was only gaining popularity in 2005 and in 2 years, it has become a phenomenon in this little country I came from. I've seen so many girls who have made it to manufacturer's DT, US mags, US kit club DTs, US website DTs and many more. And they are truly very talented people, so don't you dare leave them behind! LOL... Congratulations, my friends!

This was my layout contribution this week. It is a fashion-inspired item. And I was totally inspired by the Fiskars' scrapbooking apron that was given to us at Crop For Kids! Just LURVE the blue/orange combination, and of course my favourite.... swirls.


Title : Thrill Seeker



Have to clean up the house again. We are expecting a property valuer from the ANZ to come value our house tomorrow. I sure hope this is the last one we have to do.

OK... will keep you posted on what happens with my husband tomorrow. *insert evil look*