It's a sad day

I was doing my usual check of my galleries and forums this morning. Since it's the last day of May, I wanted to see if there are any other challenges I missed and could squeeze in. And like I do every day, I always check Coolscrapsdigital (CSD)first. When I logged in, I got this pop-up notification that I have a private message with the title "QP Contest - Cancelled". My initial thought was "Oh... ok." and proceeded to open the message to see what it was about. What I read came as a shock and I thought I misunderstood the message. So I closed it and proceeded to the forum.The forum was empty except for this one thread:

And the announcement confirmed what was on the private message. CSD forum and gallery are closing.

CSD was the first forum I joined and participated in. I have been browsing several other forums before and have been admiring members' work in the galleries. I don't remember why, but it was at CSD that I felt brave enough to actually sign up and participate in my first challenge: to create a freebie from a commercial pack provided in the forum. 

After my first submission, I immediately felt welcome. I browsed other challenges, joined a couple more and actually won something! I was hooked. And this gave me the confidence to explore the other forums, where I discovered that members are equally friendly and welcoming, and join their challenges too.

I visit several forums now and maintain several galleries, but I always considered CSD as my home. It's the first forum I visit every day, and the first gallery I make an effort to update. And now it's gone. And I miss it already. I know I will miss it more tomorrow when June starts and I will not have the CSD challenges to look forward to. Addie didn't provide details and only said it was a very difficult decision on her part. Whatever difficult time she and her family must be going through now, I can only pray for her and wish her well. 

I think I will be taking a break from challenges for a while.

Happy and Happier

I must be running out of inspiration. I made a couple of layouts last weekend and I only noticed yesterday that it pretty much contained the same words: HAPPY.

Elements from Sunny Days Add-on kit by A-liya

I made this layout first and when I made the word art, I totally forgot that I downloaded a word art for one of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's challenges that also said "Happy". The photo above was taken last April during our family's trip to Baguio. I made this layout as part of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's Birdcage Challenge for May 16-31.

This is the mini-kit provided:

For the challenge, we had to use all the elements in the kit. 

Here is my second "Happy" layout:

Elements from Splashtastic Summer by Sunny Day Scrap; Word art by Claudio

This photo was taken from our trip 2 weeks ago (I finally managed to get the photos organized! Posting about it later!). I made this layout as part of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's Word Art Loving Challenge for May 16-31 (I can't believe I missed the May 1-15th one! How could I have not seen that??). Don't you just love that word art from Claudio?

May is almost done! I still have around 3 or 4 challenges to finish before I say good -bye to May though. Will be back with more! :)

Sunday with Kelley and Diane

I've met a lot of friends through blogging, and I admit that this is one of the things that keep me going in spite of periods of creative slump. And last Sunday, I finally met Kelley of Kelley Highway and Diane of Diane Writes.

With Kelley and Diane

This is the first time I met up with fellow bloggers. We have been sending emails and commenting on each other's blogs for almost a year now and have mentioned meeting up in the past but never really got to. And now that we did, you know what? These ladies are as nice and friendly in person as they are in their blogs! Thanks to Kelley, we never really ran out of things to discuss and it was interesting to get to know them better. And too soon, it was time to say good-bye.

They prepared gifts:

I love Kelley's creative packaging, and I love the words of wisdom on Diane's shopping bag.

And inside the box, a flower pin made from upcycled plastic foil wrap. So pretty!

Kelley also gave us some of her home-made coconut cake, but errr... it never made it long enough to have its photo taken. It was delicious Kelley!

I didn't bring them anything :( I haven't really made anything for the past few months, but I'll make it up to you guys next time :)

When I got home, a little someone found the items in my bag and immediately staked her claim on the flower:

Conversation excerpt from real life.

I took the bag Diane gave and hid it in the closet before she found it and laid claim to it too. She had that flower in her hands all night inspite of my warnings that she might prick her hands on the pin (she didn't). She only let go when it was time for bed (and I hid it and was only able to take it out this morning to take the photo... hence the late post :)

Meeting new friends is always so much fun and I hope we get to do it again soon. And I hope to meet my other blog friends soon too!

New kit by Mariscrap: Boston

This kit is perfect for your travel, vacation and trip pages. With the monochromatic theme, this kit will be perfect to scrap all of your treasured travel photos.

This kit contains : 12 papers (300 dpi, in JPEG) and 50 elements (300 dpi in PNG)

If you don't have a lot of time to make layouts, Mariscrap also has a set of 4 quick pages made from the kit available.

 

Kit and Quick pages are available here:

Coolscrapsdigital

And she has a freebie for you on her blog, check it out!

Click here to visit Mariscrap's blog.

I replied to Marie's one-kit-call for this kit and made a couple of layouts using this kit:

Yo-ho! Let's go!

Can you relate? 

If you can, you probably have a toddler in the house who watches too much Disney Junior.

Welcome to my world!

We took Andrea to Eastwood a couple of weeks ago and there was this big inflatable pirate ship outside where kids can bounce and slide... for a fee of course. And of course, Andrea was too small to be allowed inside. Tsk tsk tsk! She was happy playing with the life-sized Jake and the Never Land Pirates character cut-outs on display though.

This layout was created as part of Berry Sweet Scraps' Scraplift Challenge for May. Elements used are from the "Pirates are not allowed" blog train kits sponsored by The Blog Train Blog, specifically from the following designers:

• Digital Creation from Millstream Cottage
• Jaya Prems Hangout
• Hot Flash Designs
• Kimeric Creations
• Psychozoe Designs

Timeless - QP Freebie

Time for another freebie!

I am participating in Coolscrapsdigital's QP Contest for May. For this month, we were given this kit by EMS Arts to use:

Steampunk kit by EMS Arts

I admit, I don't go for Steampunk styles very much. I do not get it and I do not know how to use it. But a couple of months back, I downloaded some pretty steampunk clusters from another designer that I found interesting. So when I received the invite from Addie of Coolscrapsdigital to participate in this month's QP Contest with the given kit, I decided to give it a try.

Here's what I came up with:

I like how it turned out, considering I ditched 3 almost complete layouts before I finally got to this point. At first glance, it doesn't look very "steampunk" huh? Unless you look closer and notice the gears and rusted elements. 

Oh and the photo... that's my mom as a teen-ager :)

And now for the freebie:

DOWNLOAD HERE

New kit by KakleiDesigns: Finezas

 

Made in gorgeous greens, blues and oranges, soft and magical textures and designs come alive in this beautiful set to light up your daily memories.

The kit includes 16 papers of12x12 inches-JPG-300dpi and 70 assorted, unique elements at PNG-300dpi.

Buy here:

Coolscrapsdigital

Digidesignresort

Scrappity-Doo-Dah

Here's a layout I made with the kit:

These photos were also taken last weekend. We stopped over at SM Pampanga for lunch and saw a kiddie train ride that goes around the mall. Andrea couldn't keep still long enough to eat since she saw it. She loves kiddie trains!

It was just us 2 in the line when the train finally came to a stop to take on passengers. We had the whole train to ourselves so Andrea got her own row and she had this permanent smile plastered on her little face the entire ride. It was totally worth the 1.5 hour delay in our trip for this unplanned side trip!

I will find my way

Who would have thought it's almost the end of May?? And I still have a few more challenges to go!

CoolScrapsDigital gave us this beautiful gray kit from Cocotounette for the Collor Challenge this month:

And this is the color palette we have to use:

I don't know why but I actually had a hard time coming up with ideas using this color palette. The first few tries, I overdid the violets and pinks and had to scrap the whole thing. I finally came up with this layout:

If you have been reading my past 2 posts... yes this photo is from the same set from our trip last weekend and I plan to use more from that set in the future :)

New kit from Scrapbrat Designs: Little Pleasures

This kit contains 12 3600 x 3600 papers in JPEG format and 64 full-size elements in PNG format at 300dpi.

Available at the Studio.

Here are a couple of pages I made with this kit for inspiration.

Dreaming of my Bubble Bath

Vanity Mirror

New kit from KakleiDesigns: Ethereal Day

Sweet ethereal day, eternal poetry of the innocence, romanticism among the gorgeous levity of nature and it's divine, heavenly pastels lights...

The kit includes 12 papers of 12x12 inches-JPG-300dpi and 62 assorted, unique elements at PNG-300dpi.

Available here:

Coolscrapsdigital

Digidesignresort

Scrappity-Doo-Dah

Here's a layout I made with this beautiful kit:

 

 

Please, stay little

Our small family went on a trip last weekend. We visited this really nice resort in the province where I grew up. I haven't had a chance to sort the photos yet but I will share more about the place when I get it done. For now though, I have this:

Elements from Spring's Whispers kit by Dillie's Design

Who is this little girl??? Where is my baby??? *sniff* *sniff*

Anyway... drama aside, this photo was taken last Saturday. You won't know it from the photo but that smile was a little forced and that little girl was not in the mood to have fun because she was tired.

I made this layout as part of Coolscrapsdigital's Scrap for a Freebie challenge for May 2012. This is the kit we were given as a freebie to use to make a layout:

Spring's Whispers kit by Dillie's Designs

Felt-Covered Headband Refashion

Just when I thought inspiration will never come again... it did. 

I stayed home from work yesterday because I wasn't feeling well and was still too tired from the trip my family took last weekend (more on that later). I decided to start looking over Andrea's clothes, shoes and other stuff to see what she will need when she starts pre-school this June. I still haven't repaired her bow holder since some of the glue holding the ribbons gave out so her clips and ribbons are being stored in a box. I opened that box and was surprised to see that she doesn't have a lot of clips anymore. Most of the stuff in the box looks old and worn already. And I realized it has been a while since I last made her anything new.

I remembered some clips and headbands we saw at the mall a couple of months ago which I thought were really cute but didn't buy, even though they were really cheap, because I knew it was so easy to make them. I already have all the materials needed. The headbands were just covered with felt with some very simple felt flowers attached. So yesterday, I sat down to finally work on it.

Instead of using a new headband, I decided to get some more use out of an old favorite headband of Andrea's that was already falling apart.

For the rest of the materials:

• A plastic headband, old or new, width will depend on how wide you want your headbands.
• Felt, in different colors
• Sewing machine
• thread
• scissors
• Glue gun and glue stick
• Velcro
• Embellishments: fabric flowers, ribbons, beads, etc
• OPTIONAL: pinking shears

STEP 1: If you are using an old headband, strip down all embellishments until all you have is the plastic headband. This is how mine looked like after I removed all that pink:

STEP 2: Measure the length of your headband and cut 2 strips of felt of the same length. The width of the felt strips must be at least 1 inch wider than the widest part of your headband.

Optional: You can taper both ends of the felt strips like I did since most headbands are shaped that way.

STEP 3: Hold the 2 strips together and sew along both sides to create a casing for the headband. Make sure that your headband will fit inside this casing.

STEP 4: Insert the headband inside the felt casing and trim the sides of the felt to make it look even after sewing. OPTIONAL: You can use pinking shears when you trim the sides if you want a zigzag edge.

STEP 5: Cut 2 small pieces of dark-colored felt. The pieces should be the same width as both ends of the headband. Wrap each piece on both ends of the headband, from inner side to outer side, to close the opening and apply hot glue to secure.

STEP 6: I want to be able to change the embellishments on the headband so I glued one the rough side of the Velcro on one side of the headband.

STEP 7: Make the embellishments, and apply the softer side of Velcro on all embellishments (using softer side of the Velcro on all embellishments will make them easier to store since they won't snag).

The possibilities are endless... here are some I made yesterday:

Fabric flower made with some scrapbooking flowers and brad :)

Felt flower that looks like the one attached to the headband I saw at the mall that inspired this project

A felt owl like the one I made here.

And I have this crocheted flower from last year where instead of gluing it directly to a clip, I also used Velco to attach it to a clip. Thanks to that, I can also use this on Andrea's headband.

Andrea was at my mom's and was not available for pictures so I had to  model her headband :P

The felt owl, attached to the headband.

I have several embellishments for different projects where I used Velcro... like these pearl bows for my shoes:

I don't have the shoes anymore but I kept the pearl bows since they can be used on some clips. The bows are attached to the shoes using Velcro too, so they can also be used on the headband :)

Hope this gives you some inspiration for your kids for this coming school year (be it June, like here, or another month)!

I am linking to the following parties:

Craftastic Monday at Sew Can Do |  CraftOManiac Monday at CraftOManiac | Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou | Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff | A Round Tuit at Creating My Way to Success | Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T | Take-a-look Tuesday at Sugarbee Crafts | Handmade Tuesday at Ladybug Blessings | Sew Cute Tuesday at Creative Itch | Show Me What Ya Got at Not JUST a Housewife | Tuesday Confessional at Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy |

Freebie! Fairy Farm - PU kit

I've been falling behind on my challenges so I decided to prioritize those that um... came with a responsibility :)

Coolscrapsdigital has a "CU Pack for a Freebie" challenge every month, where they give all the participants a Commercial Use pack of elements (i.e. elements you can use to make kits or other commercial items that you can sell). For the challenge, you have to make a personal use item: either a kit, clusters, quick pages. I have skipped this challenge for a couple of months because designing takes a lot of time and I have difficulty coming up with a concept! 

You can not download the free CU pack unless you plan to join the challenge. And well, for this month, I decided to try again and downloaded the pack. So I am honor-bound to participate :)

For this month's challenge, we were give this CU pack from Star Song Studio to use:

I love all that yellow! As a freebie-lover myself, I know from personal experience that I like free kits more than I like any other freebie like quick pages. So I decided to make a mini-kit. I still don't have the patience or time for a full kit. 

And here is my kit, free for you to download and enjoy :)

 

5 papers (3600 x  3600 pixels in 300 dpi)

22 Elements (in png)

Download here.

New kit from Sunny Day Scraps: Gone Fishing

Sunny Day Scraps has another super cute kit out:

Gone fishing is a colorful and fun kit with elements that are perfect for scrapping your favorite camping or fishing trip photos. 

This kit is available in:

Berry Sweet Scraps

Me So Scrappy

Here are a couple of layouts I made using this kit:

To celebrate the release of this new kit, I made a quick page freebie for you:

Download here.