You might have guessed it already: I’m quite a fan of Amanda Taylor’s. However, she doesn’t only design some unique digiscrap goodies, she also creates some very gorgeous layouts, in a very unique style as well. If you haven’t checked out her gallery, yet, you should do so, for you could draw lots of inspiration form her pages.
Have I ever told you about my favorite dish? It’s generally called “Dragon Eggplant,” and it’s a sweet & sour dish. Basically, a whole eggplant is taken and cut into thin slices that are still attached to the whole. Then, the eggplant is breaded and fried in sweet & sour sauce, and lots of foreigners around here agree with me: it’s one of the most delicious dishes we can get!
Have you ever heard about tracking and kerning? If not, today you will, for it is “Time for Type!” Yes, you got it right: today, we are talking about fonts again. Fonts and journaling. If you know anything about typography (or graphic design for that matter), you might have heard about tracking and kerning already. For those of you who are clueless, however, let me explain … Tracking – according to one of the many photoshop tutorials – is “the process of loosening or tightening the spacing between characters” in a text. Kerning is “the process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairs of characters.” If you go “Ah???” now, hold on! I’m still not done explaining. Tracking Basically, when we talk about tracking, it means to add or take away space between the characters of your text. It applies to the whole text and can make your text look wider or more dense. Condensed text will appear heavy, while loosened text will appear lighter. Kerning Kerning, on the other hand, deals with …
The Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival, which can be traced as far back as more than 2,500 years. On this day, people visit the graves of their ancestors to honor and worship them, to pray before them, to sweep their tombs, and to offer them food, drinks, and other gifts that could be useful in their afterlife. Some people even draw pictures of TVs, cars, houses, in hopes that the deceased would have a more comfortable “life” wherever they are. Money, real or paper, also often is burned at the tomb, as a sacrifice in honor of the ancestors. It is believed that worshiping their ancestors on Tomb Sweeping Day will ensure good luck throughout the year, while not honoring those who have already passed away, can have very unfortunate results. After its re-institution in 2008, the Qingming Festival has become a widespread custom again, and many people of the older generations expect the younger people to follow their example in observing this holiday. Other names for Tomb Sweeping Day are: – …
Have you scrapped any spring pages, yet? At least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, spring is definitely upon us. So, with all the digiscrap goodies, it should be easy to capture some of the season’s beauties on a layout. I’m not going to showcase any spring themed scrapkits today, though, since there are so many out there … where should I even begin? And if you are like me, you have a few favorite stores that you keep an eye on their new releases, which means, you already know what they have to offer. I will, however, give you some inspiration today, that maybe – hopefully – will get you inspired to scrap your own spring pages. Here is a double page spread using some pictures I took exactly one year ago (on Easter Sunday, which was April 4th, 2010). For these layouts, I combined two kits – “Sunday Best” by Lauren Grier (unfortunately retired) and Felicity, a collab by Libby Pritchett, Misty Cato & Krystal Hartley (still available at SSD). I …
It’s a holiday here in China, and that means no classes today and tomorrow – as the school officially closes for a short vacation. Of course, students (and teachers alike) had to go to class on Saturday to make up for today’s classes, but at least that gives everyone three days in a row without school. The traditional Tomb Sweeping Day (where a large proportion of Chinese worships their ancestors) will take place tomorrow, and it usually is a pretty big deal locally, since our town is considered one of the cradles of Chinese civilization.
I found my perfect gem again: “Gardener” by Jasy1983 I love the water (color) stain which pulls all the elements of this composition together. The photo, of course, is super cute, the clustering around it is stunning, and isn’t the painted title behind the journaling so much fun? (And note the tiny flower near the date component – too adorable!)
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. Chinese Proverb
Every year, the soccer tournament between the different departments of our university takes place in March. Some members of the foreign faculty also take part in the matches, together with a group of Chinese teachers. Yesterday was the final. And even though it kind of is to be expected that the PE department wins every year, for the last couple of years, the teacher’s team won the trophy. This year, however, fighting not only against the other team, but also against a dust storm that made playing almost impossible, the PE students had the upper hand, and finally won the tournament. For us by-standers, however, being exposed to all the gusts of wind and dust, we were almost as much in need of a shower after watching the game as the players themselves!
I’ve got lots of new products to feature this weekend, but in order to keep things short, I’m just going to provide the information for each new release in the captions of the respective layouts.
