Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I love my new Canon 500D!!

Oh yeah! I LOVE IT!! It has always been my dream to own a DSLR camera. And ever since I started scrapping seriously, this dream had become quite an intense desire! LOL! I had tried to save money for one but there was always some other neccessities to spend money on.

Well, then my Knightmare in shining armour stepped in. (A small footnote here: Our name is Knight, so my pet name for my hubby is Knightmare. LOL) He promised to buy me one as my Birthday/New Year gift! My Birthday is actually in September but at that time he was still in Lebanon so we agreed to wait until we could find the right one here in Bangkok. So, finally, the right one was found!!! Yay!!!

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However, with a whole lot of crazy stuff going on around here, the camera was sitting pretty in its box until Feb 14, when we celebrated Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year by gathering at PaMam's house for a good clean fun. Bubbles!!

I was so excited about the camera that I practically forgot to take care of the children. All I did was shoot and keep away from the splashes and bubbles. Hehe. Lucky for me that PaMam and NaMee were there and all the kids had such a great time they hardly missed me.

Anyway, here are some pictures we took that day. All of them were doctored with the Gimp, obviously, because I'm still completely new to DSLR so all the colors/light exposure were pretty much off. (Plus, these were taken around 5pm in a cloudy day!) But I'm happy with how they turned out!


By the way, they're not all my children. :) The girl in blue is PaMam's daughter, Prima. The boy with plaid shirt with cute smile is also PaMam's, Sinat. The lady in pink is PaMam herself while the red-blouse lady in the group shot is NaMee, PaMam's sister. Last but not least, the dreamy-eyed boy in red is Neill, and this one is mine. :)

All the cute doodles are from Rachness Designs's So Simple Masks and Borders pack 1 and pack 2. Lovely, aren't they? Thank you so much, Rach!!!



I'll be back very soon with some layouts I made with other pictures I took that day. :) Thanks for dropping by!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Time for DSC Blog Train once again!

Dear blog readers,

I absolutely hate to spoil you but it seems like that's all I do these days. LOL! Freebies are here to collect again, my 4th freebie of February, can you believe it?? I can't!!! It's getting sooooo often now that I'm almost tempted to change this blog's name into Pom's Freebie Room!! Ha!

I promise you that there will be no freebies next week. None! Zero! Nada! LOL! Though today you are gonna have to endure yet another oh-so-nice free stuff one more time. *sigh* Do you think you (and your EHD) can handle that? :)

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Anyway, here it comes! The Digital Scrap Cafe Blog Train is here once again! This time we play with the huge and cute February Collab kit by the fabulous designers of DSC.


Now I must tell you, I LOVE the kit. This is not your typical Valentine's kit with predictable color schemes at all. I like its richer and more classic tone that, along with many design styles of designers involved, give you a whole lot of freedom to play with your creativity.

I have shown you the page I made with this kit, the one for Dúnia's twin girls, Rafa and Duda, at the last blog post. Now you can see a lot more of this kit at play, and you can own them as well! Just hop on this DSC Blog Train and ride with us to all the stops, picking up freebies along the way, and you'll end up with a whole book of 4x6" pages to keep!


Here's my part for the DSC February Blog Train.


You can just click on the image or here for the download link! Leave a little comment here and be on your way to the next pages! Debbie is now waiting for you with more of her stuff. Tell her I say Hello too, will ya? :)

Just a few more things to remind you! If you get lost along the way, or want to start over or just check if you have gone to all the stops, you might want to go to Digital Scrap Cafe's blog, where you can find all the links to all the blogs at the same time!

And please remember that we are a true international community, with members and participants scattered around the world. So if the freebie hasn't appeared on the blog yet by the time you drop by, do not panic. :) Just try again a bit later and You'll certainly find what you want eventually.


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Another leeeeeeetle news before I'll go blog-hopping myself. LOL. This week's Template Challenge at DSC is something totally fabulous! Val of Val C. Designs is offering you a free double-page template to play with, plus a chance to win $$ to her store as well! Take a look.


Just click on the preview image or here for more info on the challenge. Or drop by the DSC forum and check out all the challenges yourself. There are sill lots of prizes to win and freebies to collect in there if you look hard enough. LOL!

See ya!


Saturday, February 13, 2010

Two babies, one challenge, and one QP

I've got many great things to share with you today but sadly due to a massive migraine attack, I can't really be the usual upbeat self right now. So I'll keep everything short. :)

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Anita of Designs by Anita and Val of Val C. Designs are having a new tremendously joyful collab kit out called Simply Joy, and now they are giving you a chance to win their add-on set of 4 templates and 4 quickpages for free! All you have to do is make a layout that shows JOY!! and post in this thread at Digital Scrap Cafe forum by Feb. 19, 20.00 CET.

Interested? Click here or on the preview image below for details!



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The wait is over! :) Dúnia has just given birth to two absolutely beautiful baby girls, Rafaela and Eduarda, on Feb 4, 2010. Yay!!! Let's head over to her blog here, or her personal blog here, to congratulate her for the new members of the cute family!

She is now taking a little break from designing to take care of the girls. But right now you can have your own little celebration too because Dúnia's whole stores, both at DigiScrappersBrasil and at ZigZagScraps, are on sale 50% off for the whole February! Enjoy!
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I saw some pictures of Rafa and Duda (Dúnia's twin) and really couldn't help myself. They are just so cute and I just had to make a layout with their pictures right away. Here's the first one I made for them, using DSC's February Collab kit with Scrap with Brooke's template.



A little toot, this layout is added to DSC's GSO thread too!

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And later on that same day, I received a perfectly cute kit from my dear friend Rachelle of Rachness Designs called Blushing Dolls to play with. (The kit is now 30% off at the store.) I immediately thought of the two baby dolls of Dúnia and made another page for them.




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So now's good news for you. Rach is just as lovely as all her doodles and products as usual, and she kindly allows me to turn this one into a sweet little QP for you. Here it is, or just click on preview image below if you are interested.


If you like this, maybe you'll like another QP from the same kit as well? Indy is also sharing a quickpage she made from Blushing Dolls with you on her blog here. Don't forget to leave her a lot of love too!

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Another good news very fast before I have to go take some pills. :)

Rach is holding a RAK at her blog where 3 (yes, three) lucky visitors who leave comments there will win ANY of her new product for free! The winners have between the Blushing Dolls kit, the cutest and very versatile So Simple Photomasks & Borders pack 1 and pack 2, and the Doodly Alpha (CU) to choose from. The givaway/RAK ends on Feb. 14 so hurry up and comment away!!!

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Okay, I really have to drink some painkillers now. Enjoy your freebie and I'll appreciate it a lot if you can leave a comment too. Oh! And do come back in a few days where there's a blog train coming pass this way with a little present for you once again. See ya!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Match up challenge & freebie too!

A little personal note before we go into business. LOL!

It's been a year and a half now since I became vegetarian. It started as a kind of merit-making and giving-back-to-the-world project to celebrate my son's 5th birthday, and I thought at that time that I was going to try it for 2 weeks.

Well, a year and a half later I still haven't digested a piece of meat and I feel FABULOUS!! I'm not trying to convert anyone, I can't even say exactly what good being vegetarian does for my body. All I can say is that it feels so natural for me. I am totally satisfied and really never had any kinds of meat craving at all.

Isn't it great when you know that you are doing something right for yourself?

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We have come to the last day of Digital Scrap Cafe's Birthday week! I'm sure you had a lot of fun participating in our challenges and collecting Daily Download freebies so far. Need I remind you that there's a lot of big prizes to win at our party as well? But of course, you can just go back to my previous post for all those information, or better yet, just go to DSC forum to check it out!

I'm soooooo excited to be hosting the very last challenge of the party!!! Woohoo! I can't help bringing it here for you to see as well. But if you're interested, you really have to hurry. 'Coz since this is the last day of the Birthday Bash (Feb. 3 - 9), and you will have ONLY 24 HOURS to complete this!! Oooohh, scary huh?

Here is your challenge.


In short, find these DSC products, link me up, and win! Easy as that! The prizes? EVERYONE who gives ALL the links correctly will get $1 store GC to use after this week!!

Click on the challenge image above or here for more details! (And a whole lot of HINTS on how to win this challenge too! LOL)

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Speaking of challenges, I just want to show you a layout I made for one of those as well.

I made this layout using the I Love You a Latte kit with Val C. Designs's beautiful wordart that she gives away in this challenge thead. (Commercial break: Buying ILYAL kit and doing the challenges will get you entered for the prize raffles!) The month stamp is from Pressed Petals Designs' fabulous Initially Dated set which is on sale at 50% off until Feb. 15!


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Now the freebie!! Yay!

I told you in the previous post that my dear friend Lisa of Aprilisa Designs has started designing professionally with DSC. She is now working so hard creating cute stuff to fill her shop with digi goodies. I picked 2 of her wonderful products, Affection and Love Bites, then throw them around until I got this page, which I loooooooove very much. LOL.



Well, of course, good news for you. If you want this as a quickpage for your little darling too, you can have it. Just click here to download from 4shared or on the preview image below. And don't forget to leave me and Lisa some love too, will ya?




That's all for today, folks! If you need me, I'll be at DSC sitting tight and watching my challenge the whole 24 hours. (Who am I kidding?!?) LOL!


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

sales, prizes and freebies galore at DSC!

Digital Scrap Cafe is turning one! Woohoo!!! And boy, what a party we're holding!!!

Put on your party hat right now and celebrate with us for 7 full days! From Feb. 3 to 9, you will find a whole lot of sales, prizes, and freebies waiting for you in DSC's blog, store and forum. Ready for them???


**SALES**

During Feb. 3 to Feb. 9, the whole DSC store is 50% off.


And once your purchase exceeds $10, you'd get this beautiful set of 12 quickpages plus 2 cluster frames from the celebratory kit 'I Love You a Latte', created by the DSC designers and CT members, worth $7.99, totally FREE!! (Care to guess which one is mine? There'll be a little reward for the first one who guesses it right, how's that? LOL!)


**PRIZES**

There are tons of prizes for you to win and also many ways you can participate to be eligible for those awesome prizes! Take a look at these...



Don't miss the daily fun&easy challenges during the week! I'll be hosting the very last one (on Feb. 9) so I'm kinda excited myself, because you would only have 24 hours to complete it. It won't be too difficult, I promise, especially for those of you who's a true fan of DSC and familiar with our designers' styles and products. Ooops..I must not give you too many hints, right? LOL!

Please go ahead and click on those images above to find out more about the raffles, the challenges, and the prizes. Or just click here to go to the DSC forum, you'll find our brand-new Birthday Bash section at the top!


** FREEBIES **

Apart from all the usual freebies that you can find *everywhere* in DSC, during the Birthday week there's also a Daily Download freebie for you to collect from our blog. By the end of the week you will get a full kit, 1 lowercase alpha, and 2 quickpages!

Loving this party now? :)


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Well, to help spice up this celebration a little more. I decided to make a little something that goes with all the DSC's "cafe" theme to share here as well. So I present you Pom's Breathing Room Latte Word Art set.


I think they are versatile enough to be used in many kinds of layouts, and can be modified to suit your scrapbooking needs easily. If you're interested, please click on the preview above or click here to go to 4shared to download. And leave me some love too, will ya? :)

I used one of those WAs (with a little modification) in a layout that I want to share here with you. This is quite a special page for us too.


(Please click on image for bigger view and to read the journaling)

The page was done on the 2nd of February, which is my stepson Michael's birthday. He's 28 years old now. Eventhough my son Neill (6 years old) is young enough to be Michael's son, they are still so close and love each other so much. Or as much as any two brothers can be. And I believe that the fact that they live so far apart only makes the bond stronger. :)

Credits:
Template by Scooty's Designs from DSC Template Challenge Jan.29 - Feb.4
Papers and some elements from Crea Zara's kit 365
Wordart and stamp from Pom's Breathing Room Latte wordart set

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Okay, I'm signing off now. Just gonna leave some links to remind you again. DSC's Birthday Bash ---> here. And Pressed Petals Designs retirement sale (also 50% off all products!) ---> here. If you like my freebies, you might want to leave some kind words just down here where it says Post a Comment. Easy huh? :)

Sad news for Pressed Petals fans....

With such a heavy, heavy heart, I have this news to share with you.

Alamama of Pressed Petals Designs has decided to retire from designing. I'm sad because I have been a fan of her layouts in ScrapMatters since forever and has learned a lot from her creativity. That's why I said yes right away when she asked if I want to join her CT.

I only had a little more than a month to work with her products but I can honestly say that I love each and every one of them and also am very satisfied with all the layouts I made with her stuff. Now, I mustn't make this too sad a post because eventhough the time was short, it's full of great memories and it's a privilege to know Alamama herself as well as all the nice and talented ladies in her CT.

What can I say now except...Thank you so much! I wish you the best for all you are doing and planning to do in the future. I'll continue to be a fan and be inspired by your art as always!! :)

Let us all give her the best good-bye gift! Alamama's Pressed Petals Designs is now having a huge retirement sale over at ScrapMatters. Everything in her store (except collab kits) are now 50% off, so go there and get your hands on all her creative and delicate products fast!! And on the way there, why don't we drop by Alamama's blog to leave her some kind words and wish her good luck as well? :)