Love Jason Mraz

What better way to begin the day than with this, I ask ya?

Buzzzzzz!

Yep. Lotsa buzz going on around here. Starting to feel like a real bee (not a queen, though… that’s wishful thinking. I’m more like the worker type or the drone )

BUT! It’s all good, right? There is always so much to be thankful for! And on that note, before I forget, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! Hope you had an awesome time celebrating all that’s warm and wonderful in your life (and hope you had a great Black Friday shopping spree, too! )

We’ve got a lot to catch up on, so I hope you’ve got your shopping for the day done (at least for today ). So get comfy, sit back, grab that cold drink (or warm, if the snow outside is starting to freeze you), and put your feet up… and here we go!

The Gift that Lasts Forever

Have you gone Christmas shopping yet? You have? No fair… you can do mine.

I haven’t done any Christmas shopping, but that’s okay… there’s time to freak. Let’s see… I have exactly 19 days to go on a wild race to the stores. (And believe me, given the Christmas traffic in my part of the world, that’s not a lot of days to shop in. It’s not surprising to spend a quarter of each day sitting in traffic–and that’s if you’re lucky. *sigh* Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating. It’s just that I like traffic–any kind of traffic, any length of traffic–as much as I like … hmmm… bitter gourd. Each holiday season, I tell myself I’m going to shop the entire year next year, so that by December I would have no one left to shop for–you know, that dream of sitting contentedly, all gifts wrapped and ready to be delivered way before the 20th day of December–and of course, every year December rolls around and I wonder where that shop-early resolution got shelved during the past 11 months. What can I say? It’s an elusive dream. )

But hey, guess what? There’s a gift you can give which doesn’t require you to lock arms with the rest of the country as they run around the malls, looking at their lists and checking them twice. Better yet, this gift is truly special, the kind that doesn’t make you fat, that doesn’t collect dust on a shelf, that doesn’t get broken if dropped. This is the gift that lives on, long after the wrapper has been turned into recycled paper… (the season allows me to be cheesy, right?). It’s  gift of learning, of discovery, of creating, of celebrating.

So yeah! Give the gift of digi-goodness to those you love this season! (Yes, that includes you! You can give yourself this gift too!)

There’s a huge, first-time-ever, crazy-generous gift over at our Spraground, and it’s called the Holiday Sale! Jessica has taken the best-selling digital courses and slapped on a huge discount on them, and there are even bundled offers (where you get a really, really great class for free if you take the bundle of 3 courses).

It’s so awesome that you can even divide the bundle gift between you and your friends! (You can give the entire bundle, lock stock and barrel, to your BFF or you can give one or two courses to your friend and keep the third and the free one for yourself. Oooor you can even give the four courses to yourself if you just joined us on our Spraground recently for our super-successful Stories In Hand free course and decided you like our Spraground enough to paint your name on a swing.

The sale goes on till Christmas Day, so you can totally do your last-minute shopping on the web as well. You can send the gift either with a print-able card (we’ve got them on the Spraground–you just need to download them and type or write the coupon code before you give them to your loved ones), or you can send the gift via email.  See? Isn’t Jes awesome? She thought of everything to make life in the fast-season lane easy for you!

(Alright, you may run to the Spraground and grab those courses now… I’ll wait right here for you to come back. >heehee< )

(Oh and PS. the image is click-able… it’ll take you right over to our Spraground! )

PAD makes a Comeback

Remember the photo-a-day we had last May, where we took a photo each day of the month, and at the end we have an entire day-by-day account of the extraordinary found in the ordinary days? We have that going on again over at our Spraground, upon the suggestion of one of my dearest friends, Lindsan. We’re taking a photo a day for each day of December (especially tricky, if you’re wrapped up in a million things to do this month, or especially exciting, if you’re one of the more organized people who’ve got their decor up and the gifts all wrapped and are just waiting for the 25th to roll around. If you’re the latter, I wanna be you. )

It’s only Day 4 and over at the special December 2008 Photo-A-Day gallery that Jes put up for all those who want to join (yes, that would be you, too, if you haven’t yet joined… COME!), there are soooo many wonderful photos and layouts coming up! I wish I had the time to leave love on all of them (yep, that’s on my to-do list too)… one of these days, I’m going to be successful at catching up with this! (There were 24 pages of photos/layouts last time I checked. )

If you want to take a photo a day and collect warm fuzzies from the awesome folks over at our Spraground but just found out about it now, come and join us anyway! (You can always post the previous days, a few days late! )

And in case you’re thinking twice… there’s another special treat that Jes has cooked up to make our Photo-A-Day adventures more fun! Go read about it on her blog HERE.

And just to show you what a win-win situation we have here, at the end of December not only will you have had the chance to win a great prize, not only will you have experienced the special brand of Spraground warmth in our community, not only will you have had something exciting to do with your camera for every single day of an entire month, but–best of all–you’ll have 31 photos worth of wonderful memories, preserved forever either in photographs or in layouts!

How awesome is that?

Totally! Here now are my first four days of December PAD (with stories interspersed):

Day 1: Bread for Breakfast

A few weeks ago, some close friends of dh and mine invited us to a joint-birthday celebration at this little deli where they sell the yummiest and freshest French bread ever! Since then, I’ve filled our table with all the different types of French bread (and yes, with the cheese and the sausages to go with it! Mmmmm!)

Warm bread and Christmas warmth… it’s a perfect fit!

Day2:  Igloo, Southeast-Asian Style

When I was a kid, I wanted to have my own playhouse. I had a nipa hut in our backyard, complete with ladder and windows that you kept open with sticks (authentic!), but I didn’t really like spending time in there because it was hot and it made me itchy (and between me and the teddy bear family I kept in it, there just wasn’t enough space). And to my little mind, it wasn’t cool. hehe. What was cool for me and my brother, 2 years older, was having our own treehouse. There was just one tiny problem: though our backyard was full of trees, they weren’t members of the treehouse-strong-branch family. The closest we ever got to making our treehouse back then was hanging a floral blanket over the branch of the aratilis* tree. It probably looked pathetic to the adults, but for us, it was treehouse-teepee heaven.

(*aratilis – For those with green thumbs: I did a google search for aratilis, and found out that it belongs to the genus Muntingia, and is a close relative of the Jamaican cherry. It’s tinier than the first joint of your pinky finger; it’s green and hard when it isn’t ripe, and red and squishy when it’s ripe. Never enjoyed eating it, though my sister loved it. )

So… this yearning for a playhouse–is it genetic, you think? Is it something that all kids pass through? Because all my kids passed through a stage of trying to build their own playhouses (never mind that there are Little Tykes ready-built playhouses; there must be a primal urge to build a cave with one’s own hands).

My fifth son just built his a few days ago. Right in the comfort of our living room.

Yep. I knew those huge floor throw pillows had to be good for sumthin’.

Day3: Oh Happy Day!

Oh happy day! Oh happy day! My package finally came in! My long-awaited Bind-It-All, accessories, space bar, acrylic and chipboard covers, and o-rings, finally in my home! Yabba-yabba-yeah-YEAH!

Okay, so maybe I kind of went overboard with all those o-rings… shhhhh. ( Wouldn’t you, if it took about a month for the supplies to get to you? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m justifying it. heehee).

Of course, since I happen to be a gadget queen, it should come as no surprise that I totally love this tool?

A corner rounder that can cut through chipboard and other thick stuff! Mmmmm! It’s like a long-lost relative of my beloved Cropadile!

Now, all I have to do is learn how to use these. Unlock the Power of the Tools! Indulge in the Gadget Love Affair! Let the hybrid games begin! bahahahaha!

Oh! Along with the BIA, I also got a bunch of books (to read during the Christmas break–yay!), ordered from both Amazon and ideabooks4u.

Love these two stores, amazon & ideabooks4u. The best part? Great customer service. I ran into a snag with Amazon (Ali’s book was listed as available, and then not), and they fixed it up as best as they could. Gotta love that. This was the first time I ordered from ideabooks4u (to get that Ali book which wasn’t available in Amazon), and they did an awesome job of delivering quickly and shipping the items wonderfully.

I am a sucker for great customer service. The product, whatever it is, has to be fabulous–of course, or else, why buy it, right? But even if I’ve got an excellent product staring me in my face, if it isn’t accompanied by excellent customer service, I can easily turn around and march right out, empty-handed and wallet-full, without an iota of regret.

Let me digress a bit and mention that (based on my experience) all digi shoppes are awesome and I have not yet met a designer who wasn’t a really, really nice, generous, sweet person. But I need to give a shout-out to my friend, Becky, who handles customer service at Scrapbook-Graphics.com. Each and every time I have run to her for help, whether it’s a tiny issue or a huge concern, she has always treated my pleas for help with much gentleness, concern, kindness, and immediate action. If there was an award given for excellent customer service in a digi shoppe, I’d vote for Becky any day. She’s definitely one of the reasons why SBG is among my favorite digi-shoppes!

I think it’s totally great to take an ordinary day and make it special by celebrating people who do their jobs with much heart and dedication. Just appreciating them is enough to put a smile of gratitude and quiet contentment on my face! (Among these people would be the three security guards who serve at my sons’ school. They are such a joy to meet every morning! Everyday when I take my kids to school, I’m greeted with big smiles and warm “Good morning!” greetings… every. single. day. Rain or shine. No fail. I love that, you know? That cheerfulness in the morning that lasts all the way till later on in the day when I come over to pick up my kids–it’s so precious! They’re definitely one of the best things I love about my sons’ school! What about you–whom would you like to celebrate today?

Day4: Belen on a Deadline

Ever tried crafting on a deadline?

Last Wednesday afternoon, my son R came home with news:

“Mom, my teacher wants me to submit a belen for extra credit.”

Belen is the Filipino term for the nativity scene, which can be found at Christmastime in every Filipino home (that, and the ubiquitous parol, or Christmas star).

I noted the information and… promptly forgot about it, thinking there’d be the weekend to deal with it.

Well. Yesterday afternoon, R came home with news again: “The belen is due tomorrow.”

And: “It has to be artistic.”

Whaaaaa? You need this is less than 24 hours?

Zoom. Off we rushed to the malls to look for a nativity scene that could be bought off the shelves. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? After all, this is standard Christmas decor fare.

Wrong. Six stores and two pairs of tired legs after, I decided to buy a nativity scene figure and some raw materials and c.r.e.a.t.e. the nativity scene. I had absolutely no idea how it would come out; I only knew that it was our only option, since the bookstores we went to had absolutely no books with a nativity scene of the paper-doll kind; and none of the toy stores had any toy nativity scenes.

Here’s what the preliminary stages of the nativity-scene-creative process looked like:

The bare naked facts:

The backside:
(jumble of rice lights peeping on the right side)

The front:

And let’s not forget the recipe:

Ingredients:

extra thick chipboard, leftover unused chopsticks from Japanese-food takeout, some strapping tape, glue sticks, PVC glue, brown crepe paper, glittery fronds, a set of tiny rice lights, leftover animal toys borrowed from children’s toy box, and one store-bought Holy Family figure

Tools Needed:

glue gun, cutter, cutting mat, and yer good old trusty Cropadile

Procedure:

Mix together, pulling cobwebby strands of glue from the glue gun (which manage to find their way all over the stuff). Cut some, measure some, laugh a lot. Plug in the lights when done, and voila!

The finished product, and my Day 4 Photo-a-Day accomplished as well!

Freebie Mini

And since you made it this far, I thought it would be really nice if I could reward you with a little freebie, right?

This is just a tiny one… I have found that if I wait till I’ve got a fuller set to give away, I end up not blogging for days while working away on my designs. Then I end up torturing you with these long, long, looooong posts!

So I decided to try a different route and give off little freebies now and then… that way I get to see you more often, and you get to download more (albeit smaller) freebies! Does that work for you?

So here’s what we have for today:

This is a 6×6 chipboard journaling block… just type (or write, if you’re doing hybrid ) your journaling on the lines, and voila!

Click on the image to download the journaling block (or should I say journaling circle?)

PS. 4shared no longer allows comments on the download page unless you have an account with them and are logged in… so I would totally embrace you if you took the time to leave love on my blog as you download.

And before I go (it’s mid-dawn once again!), I have a little riddle for you:

Question: What could a 14-year-old teenage girl and her middle-aged aunt possibly have in common?

Answer: A love for Jason Mraz! Well… more specifically, absolute adoration for the boy by the teenage girl, and absolute love for the music (not the boy, LOL) by the aunt.

And because my niece is in Paris, this one is especially for her, in hopes that she manages to bump into the boy of her dreams while he walks along the streets again, someday in the future.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you soon, my sweeties!

PS. I can’t believe the guy just chased those pigeons down! Ooogy! I remember the first time I was in Paris, and dh wanted to take a photo with all the pigeons on the street… and I love birds. NOT. I think you can tell from my hunched up shoulders and the body-tilt (away from the birds, far far away) in the photo below. bwahahaha!

The Fork in the Road

I have to say that one of the (many) reasons I can talk with my dearest friend Jessica for hours on end (aside from the fact that our chats often involve a bit of drooling over stuff, whether it’s typography images or delish-shoes that call our names) is this:

We can talk about anything under the sun and get each other completely. We talk, and it’s light and it’s deep. It’s funny and it’s heart-rending. We get equal servings of silent bow-your-head thought-provoking moments and boisterous throw-your-head-back silly laughter. Oxymorons, these? Nah. Just a description of the precious connection of friendship.

We had extra servings of all that during the two weeks of our Type+Writer course. And a big bulk of it was filled with awe, wonder, gratitude, and appreciation for all the courage and honesty and heart-baring that our Type+writer students were sharing with us through the amazing stories they were telling on their layouts. (I’m still going through our class gallery savoring every layout that’s there).

So. The Type+Writer journey we took together was awesome beyond words. (hmmm… sounds familiar. Haven’t I mentioned that somewhere before?     ) And as awesome moments go, hearts are moved and brain gears start whirling. Deep desires make themselves felt, and the vision becomes clearer.  I think this has been true for every single one of us who participated in the Type+Writer course: outside, things may look pretty much the same, but inside things are different.

I think this has been true, at one point or another, for you too. Have you ever been at that point in your life? That life-changing, rearranging point? Ever felt excitement and maybe even a bit of trepidation mixed in the salad bowl of your life?

As we all know (especially my dear sis who’s starting to carve a new life in Paris), sometimes changes can be a bit unsettling, maybe even a bit scary. It has a lot to do, I think, with the uncertainty that comes with change. It’s like riding in the same jalopy year after year, and suddenly you’re sitting behind the wheel of a flashy red ferrari. You’re happy, you’re excited, you can’t wait to feel the wind slap against your face as you speed down the road, but at the back of your mind, you’re thinking: Can I really do this? (Absolutely). Will I hit humps on the road? (You might, but if you do, you’ll survive and be better for it). Is this the right thing to do? (Search your heart: if your heart says yes, there’s no other way to go).

My friend Jes has decided to incorporate some changes in the little home she has shared with us, our Spraground. Wonderful changes. Beautiful ones. We’re at a fork in the road, and it’s the same road, it’s the same path, but suddenly we look up and see how beautiful the rays of sunlight are as they filter through the leaves in the trees, and we look down and we see how the path under our feet has pebbles of every size and shape and color. It’s an amazing sight. And we walk together, linking arms like little girls, because we know this is a great road to take.

So here’s one for my dear friend Jes, and for all my sweeties whose lives and loves and hearts I am honored to have been afforded a glimpse of these past two TW weeks, and all my friends from around the world whose lives have touched mine because of this wondrous thing called the internet, and YOU; this one is for you:

Photo Phun!

Wow! Thanks to everyone who left such great love in my blog and on my 4shared site; I am sooo glad that you liked the template (more of those coming soon!).

I just realized that I am sooo behind in posting my May Photo-A-Day exploits, so why don’t we sit on this porch swing, grab a cold drink, and just let the breeze play with our hair as we sit back and have a most relaxing chat? Sounds good?

Oh, and while we’re at it, maybe let’s add some music… my dear friend Linda just introduced me to this guy (who doesn’t even know she and I exist, hehe), and I looked him up on youtube and totally fell in love with this song.

A bit of an aside: since my 2 older teen sons are into music (who of their age isn’t? ), I asked them if they’d heard of Jason Mraz, thinking “Wow! They’re going to find me so cool, that I know contemporary music!”

The response? “Oh yeah mom, that song has been around for some time.”

So much for being cool.

So… here we go! Maestro, play your music! (And you, dear friend, press that play button). hehehe

And now for some Photo Phun

May05 ~ Do Flowers Have Faces?

I couldn’t help but think Madame Florabell when I saw this on a walk around our garden grounds… Is it just me who sees the eyes and the green nose and the tuft of yellow-fuschia hair, and her ruffly collar? heehee. Sometimes nature can have such a sense of humor!

(PS. I am utterly hopeless at identifying flowers by name! All I know is that these ones are so common around here, they even grew by the side of our childhood home… and when we were kids, we’d pick them all the time! )

May06 ~ A Very Casual Love Affair

What can I say? I’m a jeans-and-sneakers kind of girl, true and through! Gotta love them (try running after 5 sons in skirts and heels and you’ll understand why I live in jeans and sneakers~ROFL!)

Intermission:

Here’s a layout I did with the extra takes of the day.

Could these shoes count me in as a hybrid scrapper?

CREDITS:

MeredithFenwick-WildSide-DarkGrey paper (combined with KatiePertiet’s BlackBlack-Paper); AntiquePaperSwirls; AntiqueBits Postcard / Pieces of Me Sentimental Kit – Staple, Transparent Tape
JenWilson-ExtraSmudges
NancieRoweJanitz-ChalkedOverlay1
AmberClegg-PostageStamps
FONTS: SxTalk69; Mom’sTypewriter

The storyboard was created using Jessica’s Photoshop Friday Tutorial. Very easy, very fun to use!

May07 ~ Urban Tears

Urban tears = rain in the city. Ever since I was a little kid, I always thought raindrops looked like teardrops. Shot this from inside my car on my way home from another one of the daily trips I had been making to the hospital for my kids. We were on top of the bridge as I shot this, so the background is actually the tops of the buildings as we passed.

May08 ~ Iron Man Rules!

I was going to use the photo untouched, but my two older teen sons saw me playing around with it using the WOW Watercolor and Linework Filter, and begged me to upload this instead. They said it fits the theme… and because *sometimes* my sons rule me, I let them have their way this time. hehe. (Guess the Comic Generation knows whereof they speak! LOL).

May09 ~ Ma, Look!

Took this photo of my son’s hand pointing to a wooden thingie on our home grounds while he was on his (most probably) hundredth “Ma, look!”… I don’t remember seeing whatever it was he saw there (an ant?) but when the photo came out, I decided to play a bit with it, and added a little sprite! Totally played with this!

And okay, so the photo is real but I added the lights and the glow, and used Stephanie Baker-Thomas’ faery figure.

May10 ~ aaaH2Ooooh

Pure relief, and the best refreshing drink on a hot and humid day; and possibly the best elixir to take when you’re about to climb the walls because your internet router is dead and you can’t get to your favorite Spraground in the world. heh.

Took this glass of water in my dining room… switched off all the lights except the corner lights and one on the right side.

And okay, so there are more photos to upload, but before you doze off to sleep, I’m going to save you some energy and upload those at another time! hehehe

Photo Phun Means Phreebie Phun!

And since you’ve been such wonderful friends, patiently looking at my photo exploits, here’s a little something for you!

My sister, who has just completed the previous Up & Running course of Jessica a couple of months ago (and promptly GOT HOOKED, mwahahahaha), wanted to create a layout but only had 2 photos to use on it. What a dilemma, huh? I normally like using photos in groups of odd numbers (say 1 focal photo and 3 little ones)… I don’t think I’ve ever used just 2 photos on a layout.

But her dilemma got me thinking: What IF there were truly just two photos snapped? Then what?

Make a template for 2 photos!

So I made her a template with two choices for the title area: One with a straight honest-to-goodness regular title, and another with a curved title path that leads into one of the photo masks.

And here’s the layout she came up with (I am so proud of this work of hers! So wonderful!)

CREDITS:

AAspnes’ Web Challenge Brushes 18May, MZimmermann’s Breeze of Elegance Paper, MZ’s Timeless Journey Paper (recolored), MFenwick’s Warm Heart Paper 6 (journal spot), MZ’s Lifetime Moments Lock & Tag and Bundled Lock & Key Elements, JBolton’s Pastiche Screw, MFenwick’s Fall Fiesta Rhinestone Circle. Fonts: Lucida Blockletter and Century Gothic.

And here is what the templates look like:

You can get this template, which has a straight, no-nonsense title by clicking on the template preview.

And if you prefer a curved title path, you can get this template here (also by clicking on the preview)

Both templates are psd files with clipping masks included. All you have to do is clip your photos and papers on to them, add whatever accents you want to, and voila!

Happy Scrapping, my dear friends! Oh, and thanks for the love you leave in my blog!

And… have a LOVELY day! I’ll see you again soon!

In Love with Cameran

For those who are wondering who Cameran is, that would be my camera (camera + Nikon = Cameran )

I am totally loving the manual mode now (though I think I’ll shift back to the aperture priority mode for regular daily shots. Just nice to know that I can tweak the way my camera works according to the effect I want to get). Am totally loving the tripod that hubby so generously bequeathed to me, too! (Am I blessed having him or am I blessed having him? )

So I played around with Part 2 of Week 2’s lesson of the 2peas Photography course. If you’ve been reading the past posts, the 1st week had to do with aperture (lens opening) priority, and this week had to do with shutter speed. Part 2 (you get to advance if you’re a diligent student, ) is setting the camera to Manual mode (why is this such a dreaded setting, I wonder?) and applying what you know about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to tweak your shooting according to what you want to come up with.

We were actually supposed to choose one priority to tweak in the manual mode: either aperture or shutter speed (because once you set your ISO and one of the two other items, then the camera will adjust the 3rd item for you. Nice, right? )

I decided I wanted to try both! So I played.

Here are my shots in manual mode with the following settings: f/4.5 ~ focal length: 52mm ~ ISO: 800

{Click on images for larger views}

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on book in front:

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on books at the back:

Note: I’ve recently begun my goodreads (didn’t really get much up, unless you count my setting up an account and one book review, hahaha!) so I wanted a shot that I could use for my profile photo over there. I took 2 shots: in the first, I focused on the front part; in the second I focused on the back part. (In the second photo you can catch a sneak preview of the books that will appear on my to-read list. Come to think of it, these same ones will be featured in my to-cover-with-plastic-first list. )

Here is my one and only shot taken in manual mode, prioritizing shutter speed.

Shutter Speed at 6 seconds.

I set the shutter speed at 6 seconds with the same ISO of 800 and a 32mm focal length. I used a tripod because of the ultra-low speed I wanted. (Had I held it in my hands, simply breathing out of my nose would have blurred everything in my photo. hahaha!) I placed it at a very slow speed because I wanted to blur the lights coming from Buzz Lightyear.

Considering that it took soooo long to set up and just a few seconds to take the shot, I was pretty pleased with the results (if I may say so ever so humbly). It was so funny because I had to tie Buzz Lightyear’s legs together with rubber band to keep the on-button activated. Then I had to figure out how to make Buzz stand on his legs at an angle (had to tie him with gold cords, which you’ll see in the background behind him) so that I could get the full effect of the lights. Of course all the other Buzzes and Woody and Zorb had to lean or sit at varying angles just so Buzz the LIGHTyear guy could really light up the place.

This is soooo fun! Play along with me, why don’t you? Then link me up to your photos so I can ooh and aah at them too!

LOAD Day 17

Okay, I missed upload cutoff time by 2 seconds again. I’ve got to stop playing long enough to upload way before the last minute, don’t you think?

So here’s my 17th layout for January and my 12th Daily December layout. Woohoo!!! In 14 days I’ll have a theme album completed, all thanks to LOAD’s kick in my butt! Thank you, Laine!!!

Journaling reads:

five minutes tops. and then they were gone. those gingerbread boys never stood a chance with you, my dear hungry boys.

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template, Katie Pertiet’s grid frame, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Emily Merritt’s and Heidi Larsen’s papers, Karel’s gingerbread bowl, Anna Aspnes’ ribbon (recolored), and Bren Taylor-Boone’s alpha.

Reality TV, anyone?

Did any one of you catch American Idol yesterday?

We had a ball of a time watching Reynaldo Lapuz. What a guy! He happens to be Filipino. Actually, from the very first moment when dh, my kids and I caught the teaser of the show on TV, we KNEW that this guy happened to be Filipino. We were rolling on the floor with laughter. What a great guy. How can anyone help not liking him, simple as he is?

Paula, too, cracked us up with her interpretative hand signals and her bopping along. Amazing.

Dh checked Youtube minutes after the show ended and, true enough, there he was! on Youtube. Within minutes! So funny.

Here, in case you missed it. (And if you didn’t, watch it again. It gets better each time).

What were your favorite parts? These were mine:

“Simon, you are a great person. (sniffle, sniffle, voice breaking, tears threatening to fall) You give chance to everyone to sing to the whole world. I’m thank you.”

“You are heaven’s chosen to give chance to any talent for free of charge!”

“Even they throw you negative words but there are many people who really like you, who really admire you. One of them is meeeeh. You are a great person, Sssssaaaahmon.”

“You’re my glory, Ssssssssaaaahmon.”

Seriously, though, laughter aside, you know what I really, really like about this guy? (Aside from the fact that he’s sooo Pinoy!) He is just so guileless, so good-natured, so happy. So Filipino, actually.

You know that part where Simon tells him no? He just goes and hugs Simon. I mean, how gooooood can a person’s heart be? Whereas 90-95% would walk out and say bad words and curse, here’s this guy, just so thankful and so appreciative of the chance to sing. Amazing.

On a deeper level, I guess it teaches us how to be grateful. In a world where we often forget that it’s the simplest things that matter.

Like I said, what a guy, huh?

(And mark my words, this guy is going to be a greater hit than William Hung ever was. )

Here’s another Pinay (slang for Filipina… for men the equivalent is Pinoy) who made it big on Ellen Degeneres’ show. What’s funny about it is that it shocks people that she has a good voice. Wasn’t shocked that she could sing well, actually, because there are tons of people in my homeland who can sing well (and there are tons who can’t either. But Filipinos in general love entertainment and performing). People on the street sing well. The man in the bus can break out in song and he’ll be in tune. Let a band play on the streets, and passersby will bob their heads and move their bodies in perfect rhythm. I guess what shocked me more was that she was actually discovered on youtube, and Ellen was able to give to her an opportunity that Charice Pempengco probably never even dared to dream of.

Me? I am in awe of her, simply because she can do what I can’t.

You absolutely hafta, gotta take this GREAT TEST!!!

for photographers, Photoshoppers, and generally anyone addicted to digital stuff (that would be you, and me, and you, and you too, and you … )

The objective of the test, called Fake or Foto, is for you to determine which of the photos in a set of 10 is computer generated and which is an actual photograph. Try it. You’ll be amazed.

And what’s great about the test is you can be very visual about it if you’re feeling tired and just need some entertainment. Or, if you’re intense, you may want to summon everything you know about photography, lighting, shadows, effects, and Photoshop to help you get a higher score. Either way, it’s fun.

Find the Fake or Foto test here.

Click on the link, take the test, then come back and post in the comments what your score was. I’d love to know!!!

Alrighty. Need to have dinner and then I’ll be back in a bit to post the link for Set 3 of Pasteleria.

Catch you later, alligator!

ThiSThING for STING…

I was so amused that my dearest friend Deb asked who that dude was with Pavarotti in the video, so here he is again, Deb: (His name is Sting and in the rebellious, idealistic days of my youth, I loved that there was this rocker who could sing songs of substance and with deep messages… their kind don’t come around often, so when they do, I fall in love Isn’t talent just soooo attractive?)

For you, Deb, and for everyone else who has a thing for Sting :

And here’s the classic Sting song:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

why, yes, even in my own home, as of last night!

Christmas, my friends, has officially arrived in our home as of December 8th, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

It’s a good thing that my dear hubby does not believe in filling every nook and cranny of our humble home with Christmas decor, because it makes my job of decorating that much easier. Also, it totally helps that I have five sons who can help me put up the Christmas decor (well, okay, four… )

What I really love is that I now have some real Christmassy photos to use for my Daily December album, which has been up in the air (or more correctly, stuck in my camera’s memory card), instead of the daily-any-month photos that I’ve been taking since December began. I’ve been trying to decide whether to post the photos here or maybe make a layout and post THAT here (need a push to actually start scrapping those photos, and this might be it! haha)… but while I make up my fickle mind on that issue, here’s something again for you!

(And some nice music by two of my favorite people to keep you entertained as you download )

This freebie is actually a spin-off from the Winter Shimmer kit, so you might notice that the papers are similar to some in Winter Shimmer, except they’re in more playful, brighter colors (and the striped one is new, and the creamy one has a different texture). This came about because my dear friend Jana loves pink christmases, so I decided to go ahead and make a pink version. The elements on this mini kit are not the same, though, so you might want to snag it as well.

Since this is a mini kit, you’re getting all of it in one download. Aside from the four papers, I’ve made a chipboard arrow with a snowflake accent, a Christmas tree calendar transparency accent, and three silver-bookplate tags with gemstone brads. One of the tags has wordart on it. Thank you’s are in my TOU! And that’s the whole kit, my dears!

Thank you for letting me know that you can still do with more Christmas kits; this one is for you and you and you, and all of you, my sweeties!

{Click on image for larger view}

Download Jolly HollyDays here. Now much as I’d love to sit on this porch swing with you, I really must go to bed as my fingers are frozen from the cold and it’s almost 5AM in my part of the world.

ETA: Sorry, download link is no longer available.

Love to all, and to all a goodnight! (((((hugs)))))

Tonight’s the night!

It’s gonna be alright… Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now… Come on, everybody, sing along that Rod Stewart song along with me!!!

How’s that for a flashback to the 70s huh?

We’re finally launching the Big Project tonight. Here’s what the invite looks like:

Will post more stuff about it tomorrow. Just have to get through the launch tonight (and get through my closet as well: I have no idea what I’m going to wear, as I don’t own any dresses. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go in my usual jeans. hehe) Can you tell I’m just a teeny weeny bit stressed about this? (I hate publicity; I like hiding in the background; I’m shy. Seriously!   ).

Here’s part of the layout I made about this project (made the bigger layout as part of our Now We’re Rockin’ course lesson):

{ Credits: Circle Template by Jessica Sprague }

Okay, enough about that and on to our much-delayed freebie!

Lullaby and Goodnight…

The reason I call this much-delayed is because it took me approximately 6 hours to upload this to my 4shared site, a lot of fiddling around, a lot of waiting, a lot of harumphing, deleting, re-zipping, re-testing, some more harumphing, until I was able to get this uploaded. Turns out it was some kink in my zipped file, I think. It did okay with the extraction and password when I tested it, but for some reason it would take forever to upload!

So, phew!, at least it’s working now and I have the link for it! Yippee! You have no idea of how much I’ve been itching to get this to you (so I hope you like it, or … that would’ve been five hours gone to waste. hahahaha!!!)

Here’s what Christmas Lullaby looks like (This is Set 1):

{ Click on image for larger view }

I call it Christmas Lullaby because the colors are softer and more muted, sort of reminds me of a peaceful, quiet Christmas. There are 3 highly textured papers in this set, along with 5 different textured brads. (Loads of Thank You’s for the materials I used are listed in my TOU credits!) There’s more coming… I’m very excited to post the next set for tomorrow (alpha tags! woohoo! with enough space for a bit of journaling on them! ), so don’t forget to pass by for that one as well!

Download Set 1 of Christmas Lullaby. Zip password is quietpeace

ETA: Sorry, download link is no longer available.

Oh… and one more thing… since I’m really getting into the Christmas spirit, I think I’m going to come up with two more separate Christmas kits. Keep passing by for those too!

Well. I spent the whole day trying to upload this and now I have to ~groan~ start getting ready for the Big Project’s Big Event. Anyone want to go in my place and pretend they’re me? You’re most welcome!!!

Have a great day, my sweeties, and thank you for the love you leave in my blog as you download! Hope you like this!

This one looks like it’s going to last…

for some time, if not forever.

My boys (3 and 5 years old) have been singing this every single day, about 10 times a day at least.

It’s such a sad song, but they totally love it, and I don’t see anything wrong with it, actually. Except that it kind of nudges my heart in a way unknown to my kids, because I could’ve been singing this myself when I lost my mom at the age of eight.

My 5-year-old once said to me, after another round of this song: Mom, I am sooooo happy that you’re alive.

Yeah. Me too.

Because my kids don’t know this, but the one thing I have always asked from God, as far back as I can remember, is that when I have kids of my own,  He blesses me with enough time on earth to be there for them till they don’t need me anymore.

I have always told my husband that, at the end of the day, I don’t dream of castles in the sky. I could be sitting on the ladder of our nipa hut and planting vegetables in the garden all day, as long as we sit together holding hands and watching the sunset, still in love with each other, still loving and being loved by our sons, and loving God above all, then that would’ve been a full life for me.

Ah. Being a wife to my hubby. Being a mother to my five sons. I think in the whole wide world, these are the greatest blessings I have ever received.

What are the greatest blessings you have received? What is your definition of a full life?

I will join you in thanking Him for all that He has given you, me, us, everyone.

Have a great day!

Does anyone know…

…where I can buy an additional 24 hours to add to each day?

I suppose you’re sick of hearing how I’ve been swimming frantically, trying to keep my head above the water with all the deadlines that seem to choose exactly the same moment to appear and terrorize those who’ve been too busy having fun playing (yep, that “playing” person would be me… about…hmmm, a month ago? At least, seems that long ago since I had the leisure to play, haha).

Since I really can’t blame you and would even totally understand if you cover your ears/eyes the next time you read “busy” on my blog, here’s a visual instead (haha!):

A few tidbits about this photo you’re looking at:

* Don’t look for me there. I was behind the camera, teehee. These are three of the people I was with last Saturday/Sunday. Add me into the mix plus 3 more men, and we totalled 7 owls. We worked on finalizing the editing and layout of the Big Project from 1 pm on Saturday up to… oh, 4 am of Sunday. Do I need to say that at the end of that period, my brain was dead on the floor? That wasn’t the end of it though: my friend in the middle (the fantastic layout artist) and I met the next/same day (Sunday) to do the real final work on the Big Project… from 1 pm to 9 pm. Not bad. At least we didn’t end up working till Monday (well, we did, but at least we could do it in the comfort of our own homes).

* My brain was so dead that Sunday dawn that my friend T (the layout artist) and I spent roughly 15 minutes discussing what time to meet the “next” day–which was actually a few hours away. I bother to mention this only because we realized later on that what we took 15 minutes to discuss could’ve actually been resolved in about 1 minute… had our brains been working better.  

* This was taken in front of the building where you will find the studio that we do our work in for the Big Project. If you look closely, you will see on the left side the legs of the building guard, who was raising up the metal gates so we could enter. See, the building closes at 8 pm… so we had to do a bit of charming and cajoling so that we could be allowed to work in the studio till midnight (which extended till after midnight, haha).

* I used John Wright’s Photoblast Pro Sapphire action on the photo… Confession time: I actually wanted to put that photo up here so I would have an excuse to play with the Photoblast actions. They are so much fun! If you’re into playing with your photos, you might want to check out John’s site HERE. I normally enjoy playing with my photos by tweaking them myself, but since a whole lot of my friends were playing around with them, and John offered a GREAT deal (essentially, 50% off on the cost of the whole pack), I … ahem… caved. And I don’t regret it one bit! John is great with his support and service too! He even came to our playground to help us out in case we had any problems with his actions (he must’ve heard all the excited chatter on our MB!). I still like tweaking my own photos, but I love that I have the choice to use John’s actions–all of which are fantastic–when I want to. Mmmmm, I am so enjoying playing with them!

What’s been keeping me company…

as I work late at night and into the morning is this… It’s been wonderful re-discovering this 80s song, and it’s upbeat enough to keep me awake… plus it’s all fall, which is fast coming, if it isn’t already where you, all my dearest friends, are! If you love dogs, or autumn colors, or great visuals, or upbeat 80s music, don’t hold back; go ahead and press that Play button!

I couldn’t resist…

I know that all these deadlines have been falling on my head like one great big rainstorm ( “raindrops” just doesn’t seem to cut it )… but I couldn’t stay away from designing some more stuff for you. I intended this to be the last offering in the Pinky Promise kit, but I have to warn you there’s one more coming up. See, proof that I think of you all the time, even when I’m caffeine-crazied… speaking of which, I have a feeling, if you squeeze me hard enough, you’ll be able to get some brew out of me–I feel like a giant coffee bean ready to be percolated, what with all the coffee I’ve been drinking like water! (It helps that we have great coffee right at home, haha).

So here’s Set 5 of Pinky Promise:

{ Click on image for larger view }

There’s a grungy textured version of the cleaner paper that I released some time ago (too lazy to check which set it was in, forgive me). Then there’s a paper tag which you can use for journaling in strips, or for dates, titles, whatever… the bigger tag on the preview is the actual size, and the smaller one is for you to see how it looks reduced. You can also enlarge it if you want. It’s about 8 inches long, I think. There’s a pink textured bow, which I attached to the preview with one of the buttons I made. The square buttons on the left side of the preview are shown at their actual size. There are 2 buttons in this set only because I initially made the smaller one… and then I decided to make a bigger one so that you could reduce or enlarge without sacrificing quality… and then, since I already saved both files, I decided to just give them both to you!

A bit of warning about the tag: it comes with the button stuck on it. See, I made the tag with the square accent (before it became a button, haha)… and when I was looking at it, I thought… hmmm, maybe I could use that square accent to “pin” the bow down to the preview. So I pulled it off the tag and put it on the bow… and that’s the story of the birth of the square button. (Note that the bow doesn’t come with the button attached. Behind the button in the preview is a regular knot in the center of the bow).

All items come without the shadows (those you see in the preview are there for uh, preview purposes only ). Download Set 5 here. Zip password is wide-awake (don’t forget the dash!).

ETA: Sorry, download link is no longer available.

Oh and one last thing…

I got a few comments about the teddy bear that I used for the preview of Set 4… I am so sorry, I hope I didn’t mislead you into thinking that the teddy bear came with the kit… I do remember writing in my post that I used the bear for preview purposes only (and I think I wrote the credits on the kit preview as well). The bear photo is not mine; it’s by Sarej at the stock xchnge photo site… But since your reception to the bear was so warm, I just might come up with a bear kit in the future!!!

Thank you, Vicky, of DigiScrapDepot for your invitation to advertise my kits on your site… I am honored and I promise to create a teddy bear kit for you soon!

Well, this is a mighty long post, so I better get going (before you fall asleep on me!)

Back to the salt mines for me! Thanks for passing by; do drop by again soon! Pinky Promise Set 6 is coming in the next few days… and after that, more freebies!!!