Spooktacular Trick or Treat Weekend

So in the hopes of finishing my re-organization tasks and my DT assignment, I am joining Scrapbook Deals 4 U's weekend online crop! There are fun games and challenges awaiting participants and nice prizes to go with them! Hope you can join in! See you at the crop! :)

I miss scrapbooking already!!!

Since we got back from China, I haven't done any layout nor projects at all... Not sure what came first - I'm missing my mojo or I'm obsessing about re-organizing my room. Well, whichever came first I chose the last. I guess this all started when hubby said we need more space in the room in preparation for the baby (although that's not until next year) and I went clothes shopping also 2 weeks ago and my clothes don't fit in my closet anymore (so I need another closet) - okay so maybe I'm just using that as a reason to re-organize hehehe...

But really I guess it started when I saw this blog - wookie mouse that featured organization solutions for every type of scrapbooking materials you have! So I've been browsing through all the links provided there and I'm in awe of the scrap rooms that I saw! I envy them! Oh well, check out the blog if you have time - it's in my organization links.

So for the last 8 days or so, here's what I did:

1. Measured the size of the room - created a layout and tried different types of closets I've seen.

2. Home depot hopping (Home Depot, Ikea websites, Ace Hardware, SM, Trinoma, HMR)

3. Purchased a 6-door closet

4. Purchased a shoe cabinet to store my scrapbook items

5. Purchased a cube display rack for more scrapbook items

6. Purchased cropper hopper 12x12 vertical paper storage - though this hasn't arrived yet.

7. Boxed all my scrapbook stuff and purged!

8. Took out my scrapbook table and my current black metal storage.

9. Removed all the installed panels on the wall and all the hooks (this was hard!) And I totally don't expect hubby to help because he's just not the hardware-guy type. I knew that before I married him hehe...

Okay so all these new items just got delivered and installed yesterday. So now I'm in the bloody part where I need to take everything from the boxes and sort them out and find a space and container for each type of god knows what! hehehe. I'm sure you know what I mean.

So, here's some pictures of my "before" room and soon I'll post the "after" room. :)

Here's the table that I need to get rid of. It's actually a real hardwood table that's gonna last you a lifetime but it's just occupying too much space in the room - this will be replaced by the 3x4 cube display rack. And all those wall hangings are gone! This time I want my space clean and unclattered! So most will be hidden! :)

This black container of mixes of SB stuff just has to go too - will be replaced by a shoe cabinet. I loved it but I just hate that I see everything in the open and all the clutter makes me crazy.

So, next up will be my "new room" that I've been working on. Hopefully I finish sorting, packing and labelling everything tomorrow. I actually have to because my DT album assignment is still a work in progress and it got stalled because of this obsession of mine!

Cheers!

Cathy

Artz de Scrap Inspirational Scrapper

Hello! Happy Monday to all! I have not been able to update my blog this weekend because our internet connection had problems (and i also went to SM Megamall - for their big annual sale) hehe... i'm glad i was able to scratch off some of my christmas shopping list.

Anyway, another beginning of the week - I can't believe there's only 60+ or so days to go before Christmas! Ok, i'm drifting away again from what I wanted to post... :)

I'm so glad to be part of the Artz de Scrap Team and for this month, I am their featured inspirational scrapper. I created a special and fun altered project for my stint. It's a tic tac toe game box!

My husband and I have already played with this and this game box currently rests in our scenter table (sala). Hope you can try this challenge out. Head on over at Artz de Scrap to check out the tutorial on how this game box was constructed.

Cheers!!!

Windows to Yesterday

When I saw the challenge from scrapwhispers, I immediately started planning about it. The challenge is to reminisce about your childhood memories and to think of an activity, person or anything that brings all the memories back and there's nothing that reminds me of my teen years than my collection of stationeries and papers! (yes, I had the knack for papers since I was a kid).

So here is the outcome. I cut out some paper ads in one of my old scrapbooking magazine and used that as my picture.

I cut up some webster's pages and overlapped that with the picture.

I used one of the acetate frames from Hambly.

Journalling:

These papers remind me so much of my stationery collection when I was in high school. I've been fascinated with papers since then. I make sure I save up some of my allowance and make sure I got to bookstores every so often. It came to a point I had a drawer full of stationeries I just look at and don't use. I don't know what it is but there's something about collecting them that made me really really happy & that hasn't changed 17 years after...

Cheers!

I'm back and blogging

I'm back! And before I blog about our trip to Beihing (which is gonna be long!), I'll post the layouts I fnished first before we left for China. I just took pictures yesterday so here they are.

I used 4 different papers from BG Stella Ruby collection. One for the background, the foreground of the pictures, matting of the pictures and the cut flowers on each middle side.

This is a fabric pocket that I had for a long time now and i squeezed in the tag I made inside. I distressed the fabric a bit with distress inks then applied crackle paint and sticles and then stamped the bird on top. I had fund doing this.
Lastly, this is the card I made from the scraps of the 4 papers from the same collection. I had a chance to use my new stamp from Inkadinkado. :)

I've one more post coming! :)

Cheers!

Off to China Tomorrow

I finished two more layouts the past few days but I gotta pack because we're leaving for China tomorrow! Yipee! So excited to see great wall!

I'm so glad Gio decided to go. He changed his mind about a month prior to the trip and we even had a bit of trouble with the visa application requirements because we had too little time. But I'm so glad that's over and that the trip's already tomorrow!



We're both so excited because this is our first trip that includes an official tour. We normally just plan our own itinerary but since we heard that there are a few chinese there that can speak fluent english, we decided to just get the package tour.

Duration: Oct 8 -11, 2009
Hotel: Double Tree by Hilton
(We're taking PAL and I'm glad we are)

Here's our itinerary

Day 1:
Temple of Heaven, China National Grand Theater, Acrobatic show after dinner

Day 2:
Tian’men Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace (with dragon boat ride), Beijing Zoo & Qianmen Da Zhan Lan Commercial District

Day 3:
Badaling Great Wall (w/cable car), afternoon tour the Olympic Village – Bird’s Nest, Water Cube & shopping at Yaxiu or Xiushui Marke

Day 4:
Free Time - although our flight leaves early so we will barely have free time :)

SO EXCITED! A lot more photos coming to scrap about!

Cheers!
Cathy

My newest inspiration & a giveaway

I'm so excited to blog about my new inspiration! ~ Irene Tan ~

She is so amazing with inks, distressing and so very much more! I find myself in awe of the beauty of her work! I am a very big fan of inks & stamps so you can understand why I am just drooling over Irene's work. She can literally create a brand new paper design simply by inking and stamping! Pure goodness! I'm not sure how i ended up on her blog but am OH SO GLAD I DID!

And since i've been an avid follower of her blog for about a week now, there is a great giveaway at THE CROP SPOT where she is currently a designer.

Just look at what's in store for the winner! This is actually a supplies of the next tutorial that Irene will be conducting at the crop spot!!!

Yummy! Hope I win! :)

Cheers!

Cathy

How do you know you're getting old?

We just got home from a children's birthday party at Gloria Maris. What struck us (Gio and I) as we were walking towards the parking lot is the sudden realization that we really are getting old already. Not only did we attend a kid's birthday party full of mommies and daddies with kids but while we were at the party, another friend texted and invited us for another party in two weeks time.

How often does it happen to you that while you are at a children's party and you get another invitation at the same time? Well that's when you know you REALLY ARE GETTING OLD. Oh well, time flies so fast indeed. It wasn't so long ago when you were getting texts from friends inviting you to debut parties, then to graduation parties then to afterwork gimmicks and now children's birthday parties. I guess that's how you know....

Giggles

This is my entry to scrapbook deals sketch challenge. I really loved what I did here and my hubby liked it too except for his pictures! hahaha...
He said all he could see was CHEEKS! hehehe...

Journaling: Just goofin around after the planning session. Pancake House, Tagaytay. Aug 1, 2009.

Materials used: HS Masks, TH Inks, Around the block CS, DCWV CS & PS, MM chipboard, Maya Road Chipboard, crackle paint, MYLYB die cuts, stickers and PPS, Hero arts stamp, Prima flowers and ribbon, misc. brad, eyelet and photo turn.

Altered Metal Tin

For this month, Artz de Scrap's project is to alter a metal tin with halloween theme!
I altered a Hershey's chocolate tin. I painted it with purple and black paint and brushed the side with orange paint too. Then sanded here and there and cut and attached halloween designs.