Not Ordinary

Geez, I've been a bad blogger again...things are getting quite busy at home and we haven't even really started preparing for Christmas! Luis' exams are in 2 weeks and Nadya 2 weeks after that...cutting it too close to Christmas! Here's a LO of Bianca I finished recently -- I know I'm her mother but isn't she just adorable???.

Title: I'm Not Your Average Girl

Materials: Patterned papers - Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon; Transparency - Hambly; Bling - Heidi Swapp; Ballooons - American Crafts; Chipboard Butterfly - Scenic Route; Paint - Kaisercraft; Glitter - Pink Paislee, Ranger Distressed Stickles; Sticker - 7 Gypsies; Cardstock - DCWV, Bazzill; Pen - American Crafts; Others - Crackle Medium, fiber

Journaling: Bianca turns 2 small green balloons into very girl's must-have accessory! Sept 2009

The Countdowns Start!

Yup, you read it right! In our home, the Christmas decorations start coming up the moment Halloween is over -- in our case, some of the decor was up even before Halloween was over -- and so have the kids started making their wish lists.

If only what Nadya said was true "It's ok to put expensive toys on the wish list because it's free since it's from Santa!" How can you argue with that kind of logic?

I made a Christmas countdown last year but I sent that out for publication (toot for me!) and I haven't gotten it back (I hope I get it back at all since I haven't gotten any responses to my queries..boohoo).

So just in case it doesn't get back in time, and before I get a headache from my kids asking me several times a day "How many more days 'til Christmas?", I decided to make another one...with a twist, of course.

This time there are 3 countdowns -- to Christmas Day, to our wedding anniversary on Dec 30 (10 years this year!) and to New Year's Day.

Check out Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker adorable Christmas line "North Pole Lights" -- not your traditional Christmas colors, so they are very versatile.

And since I'm starting so early this year, here's hoping my kids willactually stop fighting over who gets to change the numbers on the countdown -- since they have 2 months to do it!

Please forgive the dark pics, I'll have to take more shots in daylight tomorrow!

Update: new photos taken 11-16-2009, in case you start calculating number of days:)

Halloween House Tabletop Decoration

Here's another Halloween project using Nikki Sivils Victoria's Street Chipboard album and Boo-tiful stamps. The only difficult part of this project was cutting out the windows since the chipboard is really thick and sturdy. Once the windows were cut out and the whole thing was painted black, everything fell into place.

I'm planning to put a candle inside so it looks all spooky at night with the light coming out through the windows.

Please check out Working Mom magazine's Oct 2009 issue for my article on displaying kids artwork.

Kiki-Art Toot!

Yipeeee! I made it to the Kiki-Art Design Team! Kiki-Art is a a new scrapbook manufacturer, based in Canada, that debuted at the recent CHA. It is different because having a multi-cultural perspective is a fundamental part of their existence.

It was named Best New Company for the Summer 2009 CHA by http://www.craftcritique.com/ because what they are offering is very different than anything else on the market right now. They are the first trilingual scrapbooking company, but their lines aren't only themed in French, English and Spanish.

It's 1st design team is a huge group divided into 4 categories (combining languages, cultures and countries):

Francophone team
- Nathalie Gregoire - QC, Canada
- Annie Legace - QC, Canada
- Annie Carignan - QC, Canada
- Sylvie Sabourin - QC, Canada
- Kim Brouillette - QC, Canada
- Fabienne Delvaux - QC, Canada
- JJ Sobey - QC, Canada
- Cathia Leblanc - QC, Canada
- Melissa Mercier - QC, Canada

Allophone team
- Vivi Rahman - Brunei
- Ria Van Son - Netherlands
- Ann-Katrin - Norway
- Ria Mojica - Philippines
- Sophia Allison - South Africa
- Annika - Sweden

Anglophone team
- Michelle Galatuik - AB, Canada
- Kim Toms - QLD, Australia
- Megan Epperly - FL, USA
-Keely Yowler - KY, USA
- Sarah de Guzman - CA, USA
- Nicole Rixon - CA, USA
- Carole Stirrat WA, USA
- Lynda Lindley - WA, USA
- Katrina Hunt - MO, USA
- Ellen Sosnoski - PA, USA
- Nicole Renee Martin - OK, USA

Hispanophone team
- Lida Garcia - Mexico
- Al Marie Campana - FL, USA
- Magdalena Vazquez - Peru

I did some research on the word allophone - from Wikipedia:

In Quebec, an allophone is a resident, usually an immigrant, whose mother tongue
or home language is neither English nor French. The term is also sometimes used
in other parts of Canada. The term parallels Anglophone and Francophone, which
designate people whose mother tongues are English and French, respectively.

I'm so excited because Kiki (Arantza) is particularly interested in adding our local flavor into the mix (she's actually been to the Philippines!). I'm also looking forward to practising some of my rusty Spanish! I can't wait to start playing with their bright and colorful products!

Kids @ Heart

Halloween is definitely in the air...gotta start decorating the house. Here's another LO from our trip to HK Disney last year.

That was a really fun trip -- we all went to Disneyland at night wearing costumes. I wanted to be a witch but the kids wouldn't have me be a bad witch so I guess I was a good black witch. Bud went as Elvis -- I swear he loves that shiny red satin costume of his! It was fun to dress up and feel like a kid again.

Title: Kids @ Heart

Journaling: Halloween '08; Nothing brings out the kid in us like a visit to the happiest place on Earth!

Materials: Nikki Sivils patterned papers; Bazzill cardstock; Hambly transparency; Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey and American Crafts chipboard alpha; Making Memories paint; Zig and Ranger pens

Trick and Treat Album

Here's a Halloween album using Nikki Sivils adorable Boo-tiful line and the matching shaped ghost mini-album and stamps. These are available in the Philippines at Lasting Impression.

Materials: Chipboard ghost album, patterned papers & stamps - Nikki Sivils; small chipboard alpha - Basic Grey; white chipboard "&" - Heidi Swapp; Ink - Tsukineko; Pens - Zig and Ranger; Paint - Making Memories; Glitter - Pink Paislee; Embossing Powder - PSX; Glaze - Judikins; DYMO label maker; MM Slice Spellbound; misc ribbons

Doing our little bit...

I wanted to teach the kids a lesson about sharing so last Wednesday, after my gym class, I headed to Makro (our version of Costco) and got some items to make relief packs for Typhoon Ondoy victims. I also invited some friends and their kids to come the next day to help out in packing.

Luis was very excited when he saw the car loaded with stuff for repacking and even helped bring some of the boxes into the house. He even took the initative of making signs to indicate where everything was and assigned duties for those who were coming.

Those who came to help were Sam (who was celebrating his birthday that day) and Roxanne, Cole and Kensie and Aerol, plus Lilian and Maget and my kids Luis, Nadya and Bianca. Together we made 50 relief packs -- 1 of which went to our driver whose house was flooded, 15 went to the maintenance people in Bud's office and the rest went to the factory workers of Bud's friend whose export factory and inventory (including finished goods awaiting shipment worth $100,000) were all wiped out.

This is not much, I know, as everyday, we hear more stories about people we know who need help, but it's a start.

Halloween Season!

It's the 1st of October and the start of Halloween season! Here's a LO using Nikki Sivils Boo-tiful line and following a sketch challenge that was posted for the DT. Check out more LOs and projects using this super fun line at the Nikki Sivils blog.

Title: Spooked

Materials: Nikki Sivils patterned papers, Bazzill cs; Zig & Ranger pens; Ranger distress stickles; Pink Paislee glitter; Ranger embossing powder; Making Memories Slice Spellbound design card

On another note, much of Metro Manila and nearby Rizal province was devastated by Tropical Storm Ketsana (called Ondoy locally). We were lucky to have come out unscathed but a mere 10 minute drive takes us to some homes that are still surrounded by water, 5 days after Manila received the highest rainfall in 42 years!

Everyone is trying to do something to help out, but the hardest part for me is to try to get my kids to understand how lucky they are. They are enjoying their 1-week vacation from school and it irks me that they just do not get it. So today we will be packing up some relief goods here at home to donate to Buddy's office staff who are suffering from the effects of the flood -- at minimum, I hope they learn to be thankful for the capacity to give.

Busy Busy Busy

I wish I was busy making LOs, but last week I was so busy making reviewers for Nadya's exams this week -- it's a crazy life but it's the only way I know to prepare my kids for their exams. I know if I don't do it and they get a low score, I'll only have myself to blame.

Luckily I was able to make a few LOs before then so here they are. Please forgive the slightly blurry pictures, I'm still waiting for the sun to shine long enough for me to take decent pictures of my LOs, it's been raining almost everyday the past few weeks.

Title: Danger Zone
Materials: DCWV & Bazzill cs, Bo Bunny pps, 7 Gypsies stickers and rub-ons, Autumn Leaves & Rusty Pickle letter stickers, American Crafts Thickers, Zig pen; Tool: MM Slice Just Chillin

Title: On Stage
Materials: Basic Grey & Bo Bunny pps; Bo Bunny rub-ons; DCWV cs, Basic Grey letter stickers, Ranger pen

Title: Game Nite
Materials: Bo-Bunny patterned paper, DCWV cardstock, American Crafts Thickers, Magistical Memories chipboard gears, Daisy Bucket felt star, Ranger Inkssentials pen, Creative Imaginations phrase stickers
Journaling: It was Bianca's birthday and she begged to go on the teacup ride at Fun Ranch. But it was almost 8pm and the ride was closed. We ended up in the Bumper Cars and had the most fun 5-minutes ever! 090309

Using Texture Paste

Here are the 2 LOs I used as sample for my Texture Paste demo at the recently concluded Scrapfest 7. Texture paste, also called modelling paste, is a great way to add dimension and texture to your pages.

In 7th Heaven, I used it to create the frosting on the cupcake. While in Lazy Summer Days, I used it to turn ordinary chipboard stars into stafish.

All the papers used in these LOs are from Nikki Sivils "My Sweet Cherry Pie" line -- available in Asia through Lasting Impression.

Title: Lazy Summer Days

Materials: Nikki Sivils patterned paper and journal tag, Rusty Pickle chipboard, American Crafts chipboard alpha, Doodlebug alpha sticker, Zig pen, Bazzill cs, Ranger white pen, misc charms and fabric, Making Memories paint, Clearsnap ink

Title: 7th Heaven

Materials: Nikki Sivils patterned papers and cord brads, Bazzil cs, Ranger white pen, Making Memories glitter stickers, American Crafts pen, misc bling, cupcake stamp