Month: December 2011

That Christmas Tree

Remember that Christmas tree? The one I keep telling you about? The one that needs some imaginative powers to be regarded as a Christmas tree. The one about which I can’t decide whether it’s just not good looking or plain ugly. The one that has all these little notes added by the students to make good for the lack of other Christmas decorations and ornaments. Well, I was wrong. About the little notes, that is. And about how they’ll soon cover up the bottom part of the tree. I should have never told you about the little notes, because this year? They’re … HUGE!!! Or about how they only cover up the bottom part of that tree. Because that whole tree looks like a carnival scarecrow for Santa Clause. Just saying – oh Christmas tree! Or maybe: Oh, oh, Christmas tree! PS. And I haven’t even told you about the Winnie Pooh Bear and Micky Mouse balloons that are flying far above the tree. Wonder how they got there? I agree – that’s a gooood …

Inspire Me: Christmas

If you’ve been following my DigiScrap Corner even just a little, surely by now you’ve figured that I really love Christmas. And since it’s the season, and Christmas is almost here, I thought, I’d throw out some more inspiration for you. Here are some Christmas pages I created earlier this year (from last Christmas) for a photobook project I did.   And here are some older pages from last Christmas …

Food Corner: Gingerbread House

Look at what we created today! My first ever real gingerbread house! And while it’s far from perfect, I still consider it quite a success for numerous reasons … Reason #1: The only time I’ve made a gingerbread house before, turned into such a disaster that we never finished it, and never dared touching a project like that afterward. Reason #2: I consider myself quite unexperienced when it comes to making a gingerbread house, or even working with and decorating things with icing. Reason #3: It’s not easy to get a gingerbread house kit here in China at all, and the same applies to the other ingredients such as icing sugar, or even suitable candy (we had to be a little creative). Reason #4: I don’t have the right tools to put together and decorate the house, so we had to be quite creative with what we had, and thanks to my two friends who helped me, we were able to figure out how to make things work. Reason #5: None of my friends who …

Enable Me: Document Your December

Ok, so I know it’s kind of a little late for this – it already being almost Christmas and all; and I know that I usually try to hook you up with stuff that’s free in the Enable Me/Inspire Me section of my Digiscrap Corner, but being someone who absolutely loves the December Daily project this year, I just have to still show you: The other day, I stumbled upon the Pear Tree Album – a template pack by Sara Gleason. And boy, do I wish I had the extra $$ to purchase that set! This pack is huge, and besides the full range of page templates in various sizes (to make way more than just one DD album), it also comes with lots of extra goodies, such as transparency overlays, trims for clippings, etc. etc. I’m telling you, if you are looking for some DD inspiration, and you have the cash for templates (this set is rather cheap considering all the content, and comparing it to template packs in general), then you need to …

A Christmas to Remember

Christmas is almost here, and that reminds me of the first Christmas I spent in China. Let me tell you about the first Christmas party I had here, and what happened with the gift exchange: I’d invited a bunch of friends to celebrate together, and I had told everyone to bring a gift for a gift exchange. Everyone followed my instructions and brought a gift, except there was one little problem. While my intention was that everyone would leave with a gift that they’d gotten from someone else, their intention was to give the present they’d brought to me. In the end, I found myself with a bunch of presents, some of them specifically dedicated to me, and feeling quite bad about the fact that I’d gotten so many presents while they’d not gotten anything. But all arguing and debating was fruitless – my friends wouldn’t want to have the gifts used in a gift exchanged. They only wanted me to have all the gifts. That’s when I learned not to organize another gift exchange …

Behind the Scenes: The Key to Clustering

Composition and element clusters often make or break a scrapbook layout. With all the templates that are circulating the market these days, clustering has been made a lot easier, and yet, I still hear more than enough comments about how people just don’t know how to create pretty clusters. If you’re one of them, then this tutorial is for you!   In this tutorial you will learn how to … … add elements, and arrange them in such a way that they create clusters.   Here’s how it works … Lets get started. I’m going to take you step by step, as I am creating one of my December Daily pages. STEP 1| Add Elements You Desire to Use on Your Layout I’ve already prepared my page so that I only need to add and arrange the elements. KEY #1: The order of when you add which element doesn’t matter. First, I just go through the element folder of the kit I’m using and pick a couple of the elements I’d like to add. I …

Journaling Café: Christmas Celebrations

It’s the season of celebrations – Christmas parties, advent afternoons, get together-s with family, friends, colleagues, and whoever else. Today’s journaling prompts are all about the Christmas celebrations: With all the celebrations coming up, I hope you’ll still find the time to record your memories, too … The font used here is my own handwriting font DJB Squirrels In My Pants by Darcy Baldwin (available at the Sweetshoppe).

Journey to Bethlehem

I promised you, I’d post more about the floor decorating competition, so here goes another hall that I went to explore. This one’s all about the journey to Bethlehem, and I love how entering the hall you enter into the oriental world of the past – with flat-roofed houses, hills and mountains, camels and what not … and if you look very hard, you can even see the wise men following that star! On the doors my colleagues posted different Christmas carols, and I’ve been told that after entering the hallway, everyone starts humming, or singing, or whistling, or whatever … Christmas songs! That’s it for now as far as the hall decorating competition goes, but stay tuned, because I have more to come about the oh-so-famed Christmas tree …

Treasure Sunday: December 18th

Got myself some new treasures again, and feeling in a generous mood, of course, I’m going to share them with you. Love by juhh Starting off today’s showcase with this page by juhh. My heart goes “aaahh” whenever I see pages like these – so full of life and vibe. I love the “messiness” of this page, all the splatters and doodles. The overall composition is just so much fun, and I love the artistic feel to conveys so perfectly.   Awakening by Jopke Staying on the artistic side of things. Another page full of splatters, messiness, and – life!  Love the shadows of this page – the little picture frames lifting at the corners, the yellow flower. And the photos are so beautiful, too!   Dec 15th by teeleedee Of course, what would be the Christmas season without Christmas layouts, or the December Daily for that matter. If you know anything about me, then you’ll know that I love pages with lots of white space. And this one’s so much fun! I totally love …