Artz de Scrap DT Call

Do you like altering stuff? Making scraps useful or converting them into art? Have you ever collected random stuff or scraps though you don't know "yet" what you'll use them for and then later finds out it's great for something if you alter it?

Then you should try out for a DT spot over at Artz de Scrap! They are now looking for four DT's for the Jan - Jul 2010 term. To apply for a DT spot, you simply need to submit 3 altered projects you have done in the past (except those previously submitted for the ADS challenges). How easy is that? It can be anything as long as you did some alterations or better yet created something out of scratch!

I have enjoyed my term and have surely grown as a better artist and scrapper because you always want to think out of the box when altering stuff! It releases the artistic side of you that you probably aren't aware of . So grab this opportunity to learn and grow! Apply now!

Cheers!
Cathy

Ever tried beach camping.... Survivor style?

Since it was a long weekend last week, we planned to go to Hundred Islands. We've been planning to go since two long weekends ago but something always kept us from going. So we headed off at 5 in the morning, this is actually our fist overnight trip that we actually didn't have any plan at all. By plan I mean we don't have a reserved hotel, no idea what's in store and most shockingly Gio only looked at the instructions to get there the night before the trip. This is a first and it was actually a risk because what if most people went on vacation and all hotels within the area are booked? We would've wasted 8 hours of driving for nothing. But luckily, there were not so many people and no traffic at all! I guess everybody went for holiday shopping.

And so when we got there, we got scared for a moment because we saw the beach area and there was no hotel or any resort in plain view! We went ahead and asked around and we were pointed at the Tourism reception area. It was there that we found out that you can actually spend the night at the island!

We've never really done anything like this (at least for the both of us). His sister (Faye) and boyfriend (Ave) had at least been through something like this but not the two of us! So you can pretty much imagine the smile on our faces.

So we rented tents, water supply, cooler, blankets, pillows, etc. We bought packed foods for lunch, snack and dinner at the nearby food store (carinderia). Our breakfast will be delivered the next morning via our boat. Once all is set, we headed for the docking area and immediately hopped on the boat. We rented the boat for the day – it will tour us around the 100+ islands before we get dropped off at our choice of island.

This was a picture of me having a hard time hoppin on the boat Hehehe. And below is our picture.

Our first stop was at an island called Governors island. There was a small dark cave there (pic below) and fantastic view of the small islands around at the top (which will require 125 steps to reach). We were panting and can hardly breathe when we reached the top but the view was worth it.

At the cave...

View from the top of Governors Island...

Then we headed off to Quezon Island – this is the island where we were suppose to stay at and built our tents. This is the most crowded island we saw and there were actually cottages and stores around the island but when we saw the island just in front of the island, we were attracted to it because it was just small and there was only one group of people who’s staying there. We decided that’s where we’ll spend the night.

This was the walkway to the huge clams area (that by the way, I couldn’t see!).

After Quezon Island, we decided to go eat our lunch and snorkel. We had lunch at the boat when we got to the snorkeling area (this was a first too!). When we went down to look for corals and fishes, we were disappointed at first because we couldn’t see any near our boat. But Gio and Ave persisted – it was very far from where our boat docked! We were tired from swimming when we got there but it immediately subsided when we saw the fishes and the corals. It was beautiful swimming along with those fishes although sometimes scared that the medium sized fish might bite (LOL).

We stayed there for more or less two hours and then went ahead with the tour. It was close to 2PM and the sun’s heat was burning our skin so we decided to stay at the Marcos Island where there is a shaded area where the waves hit the rocks.

See the waves behind us? The sound of it hitting the rocks is simply beautiful and calming. We ate our merienda here and after another two hours we headed off to the island where we’ll spend the night.

Setting up the tent… I’ve no idea how it’s setup so I let the experienced folks do it. Heehee…

Tent all setup…

This was taken at around 7pm already… I’m all made up and ready for bed oh tent I mean. And by made up I mean I’ve cleaned my face, private areas and am wearing dry clothes. No bathroom!!! We just go to the darkest covered area of the island and change clothes and clean up there. It was extraordinary and fun!

We also took videos of the island and Gio actually had a lot of shots pretending he was Jeff (Survivor host), one of the castaways – where he discusses who he wants eliminated at the tribal council tonight, etc. It was hilarious!!!

After dinner, we just sort of lie at the sand and watched the gazillion stars and the huge moon while listening to the ipod music – we always bring our small speakers. It was so peaceful… I was actually telling Gio it was so nice to hear the waves just crash the shore. I often just hear this from Spa treatment areas! Haha. But now that it’s real, it’s really relaxing and I was content and happy.

And then the survivor experience began…

We tucked in the tent at around 9pm – I guess we were tired after all. And aren’t we glad we slept early?!?! We were because at around 4am, it started to rain! But it was only light showers of rain but I didn’t realize the calming waves can actually become scary when it’s raining and you don’t see it! We were so scared the waves might hit our tents but when we checked it was still 2-3 meters away. But the light showers wouldn’t stop and our rented tents are not that sturdy and water proof! So Gio and Ave went out to look for a covered area where we can keep our things dry. At that point, I got scared that the boat might not be able to pick us up later because of the tides ,that we might got stuck there for however long without food! Of course I can’t forget food! Hehe…

But gladly, the showers stopped at around 6am and when we saw the rays of sun peeking through the clouds, it was priceless. The surge of happiness and calmness in that island can’t be surpassed. I just fell in love with it.

We swam the early hours of the day and our breakfast was delivered at around 830 and immediately after breakfast, we headed off to go home…

This vacation was superb! It gave me mixed feelings (happy, relaxed, content, peace, calm, scared, worried, hungry, etc) in just 24 hours! I guess that’s the reason why some survivors go back. With that, I believe this will be the first of our many more trips here.

Lots of new pics for me to scrap!

Cheers!
Cathy

Altered Matchbox

This December, Artz de Scrap's challenge is on altering a matchbox with Christmas in mind. We have a used matchbox so I decided to use that instead of creating something from scratch.

I was brainstorming on what I'd do with it that's "Christmasy" I decided why not use it as a gift tag instead of using it as a gift box or something (and trying to look for a gift that would actually fit the box! hehe). It's too small anyway so it could pass as a gift tag.

Here's the finished matchbox. I used scrap paper from my Graphic 45 papers and added stickles to it (center of the flowers).


The leaf is actually a Hero Arts stamp which I cut out after stamping and applied stickles on the end. I stamped Happy Holidays using clear embossing ink and then applied white embossing powder so it would pop above the papers.

Close up of the paper with stickles.


And here's the close up of the inside. I painted it with gold acrylic paint and stamped the holly leaf inside. Attached the maroon ribbon on the side for easy pull out and added the message using Jenny Bowlin alpha stickes.


That's it for today folks! Will check out T!m's 12 tags of Chistmas now and share some work soon!

Cheers!
Cathy

10 Things I love to do...

The title says it all – 10 Things I love to do that makes me a Domestic Goddess. J It is my dream to become a homemaker just like my mom. However it is but a dream because I wanted to have a career of my own too in the Corporate world. It’s hard to juggle work + family but I will give it my best to try and become the best wife and mother for my family. I listed 10 things I love doing that I believe can make me become a better homemaker.

I love to clean the house and decorate it – just my thing. I hate to see disorder and I need to always find what I’m looking for when I need it (kinda OC about this). I also love to cook good food for my husband – it gives me great joy when I do this for him. I love crafts which I know will become handy when we have kids already. I enjoy spending time with babies / kids (nephews, nieces) – I have this thing about babies since I was a kid. Sometimes I get pessimistic and think that maybe I might not be given the opportunity to raise my own baby that’s why I love all of them – Irony you know.

Here’s the layout I finished. I used my Oct nook kit again – which has the G45 Domestic Goddess collection. I used a cardboard as a base which I distress by creating those tears that I crackled and put distress inks on. Since the base is actually plain, I used 2 Tim Holtz masks. The left mask was inked with dried marigold and the right bottom swirl was inked with fired brick. And then I just layered the different matching papers.

This is the close up of the ribbon on the top right corner with the cutout birds. I’ve raised the birds with a foam tape.

Close up of the title. The number 10 is from the same Graphic 45 collection underneath the numbers 1 and 0 is another set of circle alpha’s to give it a different look. The word things is from Making Memories passport collection which I distressed with Vintage photo.

This is the close up of the photo turns and brads on the bottom right section of the LO. I love that circle die cut which I’ve cut from a square frame.

This is the small tag which I topped with a BG button and I placed the whole thing on top of the paper flower I cut from the same papers.

The crackled section on the top middle section of the page - I used scattered straw crackle paint on these and I intentionally applied it over the border. I also used flower and eyelet for the tag on the top right.

This is just to show how I used the Jenny Bowlin small alpha’s and the crackle on the corner of the corner of the photo.

I really enjoyed creating this page. I was able to incorporate the techniques which I’ve seen and learned that’s why I’ve shared a detailed description for each portion. Thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Cathy

Seafood Weekend + 1 LO

I was on leave today so I had a 3-day weekend and I thought I'd make about 3-4 LO's! I think I was dreaming... :) Anyway, I wouldn't trade it for cuddle time with Honey. Yes, that's what we did! Eat, cuddle, watch TV shows, sleep (repeat until fade haha).

But the weekend started great. We woke up early last Saturday and went to Farmer's Market to shop for seafoods! He was craving for seafoods to the extent that he's willing to wake up early. So we left at 7am with my mom, aunt and nephew. We bought tiger prawns, lobsters, lapu-lapu, oyster, crabs and squid. So how would you say we managed to eat all of it? I don't know too but we did! Talk about high blood! But kidding aside, we had a little bit of everything. Saturday lunch was the biggest. Steamed Lapu lapu for Gio alone, that's how much he likes it. Then we had 2 small sized lobsters, 6 tiger prawns and 6 crabs. It was definitely a sumptuous meal I won't forget. And now I'm kinda regretting I didn't take pictures of it! Grrr.... It would've been a memorable picture I can scrap about! Oh well... too excited to eat I guess....

So I was finally able to create one LO on Sunday morning. This is for What's Ad about November Challenge. I really liked the color combo in the Ad because I tend to go for darker tones. Here's the Ad and the LO.



I used black CS as the base and HS mask on the left corner of the photo. It has a subtle effect because the CS is already dark to begin with. I layered lots of flowers cut from the Kaisercraft Penny Royale collection.


Here's the side view of the cut out flowers.



This is Jillibean Alpha with some doodling plus border strips from the same Kaisercraft collection. I also used stickles in between the border and on some of the flower petals.

Here's the close up of the masking.

Here's a close up of one of the flowers with Heidi Swapp pink blings and stickles.

All in all, I had a really lovely weekend! Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers,

Cathy

My Shower Party & Oct Nook Kit

I was going through my printed photos late last week when I chanced upon my shower party pics! I was surprised I haven't created any LO's about it yet! But then I realized I didn't really get into actually finishing LO's until the middle of the year. :)

My shower was held at Linden Suites c/o my Maid of Honor - Cheryl last January 9, 2009. It was super fun and we totally had a blast. There were just a few of us (about 10) but we had tons of games and they were actually looking for more after about 8 games! Will definitely scrap more pictures about it in the future! :)

And I finally got my Oct Nook Kit last week - Johnny air got delayed due to the holidays or at least that's what they're saying. So I used the Graphic 45 papers there.

Here is the layout. I used the Heidi Swapp Mega Masks for the border with dried marigold distress ink (this is my next fave after Vintage Photo).

The 2 photo mats were Graphic 45 papers - Domestic Goddes and the other one top is from Scrapworks - it matched the color combo so I combined it.

These are MM alpha's which I recently got from Vivian at really good deal (Buy 3 take 2)! Yes, I shopped last week - twice! There goes my promise not to shop anymore until the end of the year! Oh well...

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Cathy

Project featured at INSPIRE ME Gallery

Yipeee!!! So happy today! I found out my Xmas project was featured over at the Inspire me website - this is the ning site of websters pages. I can't believe it because there are so many talented girls over there including my idols like Iris & Karola. And there's a lot of people leaving loooove there. I'm so glad I joined. :)

It's called the 12 days of chrismtas crop where for each day starting Nov 12 - they will feature an artist work and you get to do your take within 72 hours to win an amazing prize! Of course you have to use their 2009 lines for all the projects and what's not to love about their Xmas lines?

I used winter wings and home for the holidays for this project.

There's my project in the middle! :)

Last Sunday, it was Iris turn and her project was a glass art on easel. And I just happen to have an easel that's currently not in use so I decided to give it a try. In addition to the fact that we currently have no xmas decor displayed in the house. :)

Here's my take. The page is made of a 6x6 acrylic page that I have left from an unfinished project :). I inked the edges with copper and pearl alcohol inks (it's that shiny portion on the picture - sorry you can't see it that well here).

Here's the close up of the tree - i punched some xmas themed eyelets and red stickles on the flower center.

Side view of the paper cut outs. . .

Close up of the frame. I used Tarnished brass crackle paint and spread martha stewart glitter on the edges.

Here's the cut out from the winter wings collection. I just love that dangling piece. And the ribbon is just pefect for this. :)

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Cathy