Month: April 2012

Happy Easter

Published by Sula H.

It’s the Easter weekend, and to all of you that care about such things, I wish you very happy, restful and delightful Easter holidays. Make sure you keep some chocolate bunny leftovers for me, because here in China, we certainly don’t get much of Easter in any way. It’s just another normal, busy busy weekend like every other!

Bee Keepers and Other Curious Creatures

Published by Sula H.

So, like I told you, we went mountain climbing yesterday. And while that in itself usually is an exciting event, the highlight of the day for me was our stop at the bee keeper’s. It’s this old man and his wife, who camp out at the foot of the mountain where they keep rows of beehives. And for the first time in my life, I was able to see how honey is “made.” After all, quite some of us purchased a jar of pure, all natural honey, and so the old man had to get more honey from the honeycombs. And we? We get honey deluxe – all inclusive that is. Even the extra portion of protein, since our honey comes with bee wings, bee legs and all that other good stuff that makes this honey so special!  

Mountain Climbing and Sad Discoveries

Published by Sula H.

Everyone (we take) loves to go to the mountain not far from town where we can have adventures, nature, and lots of rock climbing. I’m no exception. So, I took a group of my students out on a little trip. But this time, I was in for a little disappointment. They are turning the bottom part of our trail into I-know-not-what – they say it’s going to be a water reservoir. But whatever they are doing, I’m just really sad, because they took down a huge part of the mountain, are breaking apart rocks and whatever else is in their way, and completely change what was so lovely about “our” mountain. And if you look at the pictures and wonder why I’m fussing since there’s no sign of anything out of the ordinary – that’s only because in defiance of what’s going on, I didn’t feel like taking pictures of the destruction. My photographer-heart simply ignored this part of our hike. Anyhow, the good news is, the majority of our nature retreat is still intact, …

Take Care of the Dryer

Published by Sula H.

Yes, we have dryers and washers. And they regularly make it on the list of topics that need to be discussed during our faculty meetings. Here’s just one of the reasons why (and since we received the notification in such a wonderful email, I thought, I’d simply share the contents of that email with you here):   Dear _____, Since the new dryer was installed, we found out some teachers put the very wet clothes in the dryer. The dryer would be broken by this. The attachments are the pictures of the wet clothes. We have asked the worker to fix the dryer once. Can you please mention all the teachers who live in your building that spin and dry the clothes before put them in the dryer?  And would you please mention all the teachers that please pour the water in the box of the dryer before use it. It because that if the box fulls of the water and the dryer won’t work. Thank you for your help.   No more questions, right?

Behind the Scenes: Creating Your Own Labels

Published by Sula H.

With the Project Life being such a rage, labels have become really popular over the last couple of months. A lot of designers have picked up on the trend and regularly provide PL-type labels in their kits. Oftentimes, however, I find myself still not having exactly the kind of label I’m looking for on my layout. My answer to this problem: I sometimes create my own labels. It’s quick, it’s easy, all I need is paper (patterned and solids both work), and I’m ready to create my very own label that perfectly suits my needs. Take this layout for example: This kit “Sweet Caroline” by Kristin Cronin-Barrow didn’t include any suitable label that would fit in the little compartment of the tray that I had chosen for my journaling. No problem, I thought, I’m just going to make my own label that will fit just perfectly. Here’s how it works …   In this tutorial, you will learn how to … … create a shape layer, … duplicate the shape layer and erase parts of …