Month: November 2011

About Santa Clauses, Purple Christmas Trees & Shopping in Town

Yep. It’s Christmas season. Even in China. How I know? Because you can see it in the streets. Well, not every street, of course, but certain places do show. Like this one, where we went shopping today. Now, I’m not going to start a debate here whether the stuff they sell is pretty, or worth buying or anything. As we all know, tastes differ – widely at times. So, I’ll let you make your own decision as to whether you like what you see, or not. Here. Maybe this will make your decision process a little easier: Anyways, going shopping into town, we got to see lots of Christmas stuff, and some pretty impressive decoration, too. Like the giant Christmas tree which was so purple that it hurt my eyes; or this castle that was so magnificent that we had to have our picture taken with it: Still not in Christmas mood yet? Well, that’s not my fault then. Showing you all these Christmas pics, I’ve done all I could to get you there, haven’t …

P2D: Fall Frolic

I love turning traditional layouts into digital scrapbooking pages. Not only do I love the inspiration I can find in the traditional galleries, but I also love the challenge of creating a digital page and making it look as realistic as possible. For today’s sample, I got inspired by this sketch, released by pagemaps.com: Here’s their sample page by a person called Lynn Reany: And here’s my take on that sketch: Now, who says that traditional scrapbooking sketches aren’t as useful for us digiscrappers as they are for the traditional scrappers?

scrapbook layout, autumn

Jump Into Fall

Credits: Falling for You by Jullie Billingsley Cindy’s Layered Templates – Halfpack 26 Font: DJB Holly Berry Wonderland by Darcy Baldwin Winter Wishes Credits: Blitzen by Libby Pritchett Cindy’s Layered Templates – Set 110 by Cindy Schneider Font: DJB Holly Berry Wonderland by Darcy Baldwin October Memories Credits: All Year Long – October by Meghan Mullens & Cindy Schneider Font: DJB Holly Berry Wonderland by Darcy Baldwin

Freebie Friday: Black Friday Break

Hey friends, I decided to take a break this weekend. After all, it’s Black Friday, and lots of digiscrap stores have serious discounts. (I know that sweetshoppe.com has a 40% discount today, and 30% for the rest of this weekend; and though I haven’t checked, most likely other stores will have similar deals.) So I’m sure you’ll get your treats anyways and do fine without a new template from me. And I’m sure you’ll still have a happy scrap-weekend with all the sweet deals. Thanks for stopping by, and happy scrappin’ everyone!

greeting card

Hybrid Hub: Card No. 22 – Thanks

I’m in trouble. It’s late where I am, I’m tired, I should be going to bed, but I can’t. Because I seriously stuffed myself. And even hours after the event, I’m still way too full to put myself to sleep like this! With the Thanksgiving dinner being the best meal of the year and all, of course you’ve got to seize the opportunity. And with all the various dishes of stuffing (they come on the side here, not in the turkey), of course I feel stuffed. But anyways. That’s just a side note. I should talk about my current card. Of course, it being Thanksgiving and all, it had to be another thank-you card, and I made this one with an older Jenn Barrette contribution to one of the SSD Quarterly Assortments last year. I “stamped” the sentiment with one of the stamp alphas by Heather Roselli, and easy-peasy there’s another card ready to go and find its recipient! On that note, happy thanksgiving y’all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday where I grew up, and neither is it a holiday here in China. But living in an American community, I get to celebrate whatever is most important to my American colleagues, and Thanksgiving certainly is one of the most important holidays to most people around me. I don’t mind though. Being thankful always is good, and I have many reasons to be thankful. Most of all, I’m thankful for the love and support of my family and friends, their encouragement, when life far away from home gets tough. Thanks to everyone who is helping me be the person I was meant to be! I’m grateful to have you in my life, and thankful for whatever memories and experiences we share! Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Enable Me: Card Positioning Systems

The holidays are around the corner, and for many of us this means mailing out season’s greetings. What better reason do we need to get our crafty mojo going, and create our own Christmas cards? (Or any kind of card for that matter?) Today, therefore, I’d like to introduce you to a website that has become a great inspiration for my own card making in the last few months: Card Positioning Systems. The website runs like a blog, and on a frequent basis, sketches for greeting cards are released along with a full load of handcrafted cards that were created based on the sketches. What better inspiration do you need to kick your card-making up a notch? And don’t worry, this is not a Christmas site. They publish new sketches all year around, and their sketches are general enough to use for non-holiday-themed greeting cards as well. Here are some more samples from their recent posts …   Got inspired? Then why don’t you hop over to CSP to browse their posts a little more? …