Made a free template again!

This is just gonna be a quick one to let you know that I have a template to share with you again! But first, let me say thanks to all the great and kind comments you ladies left for my last post. You are the best! I replied to you all there. :)

I'm hosting this week's (April 23-30) Template Challenge at Digital Scrap Cafe forum and you are all invited to join in! I played with cutters and got you some cut-through papers, stacked them up and, voila!, a new template is born. I like the depth it gives the page! I also made a little stamp/brush for you too!


The preview image will take you to the challenge thread where you can find the download link! The link will stay there during the week but afterwards it will be here, at this blog. :)

I created my sample page for the challenge using Pixelily Designs' Vanilla Twilight kit. I love this one's tender and warm colors.

Here's what I created with the template and the kit:

We were at the Byblos port, sitting in a cute seaside restaurant waiting for our lunch. I caught Chris looking so thoughtful and couldn't resist taking this photograph and scrapping it. The journaling is quite embarrasing, LOL, but I'll share it here. (Hey, it's my blog. Surely I can stand being embarrassed by myself? Ha!) It's part of the song How Deep Is Your Love and ended with a message from me, "As corny as it (the lyrics) is, you know it's true for us. :)"

That's all for now. I believe I'll be back with some surprise blogging soon. :) Now head to the DSC forum and have fun with me at the template challenge, would you? There will be TWO winners at the end of the challenge who will receive free coupons from Pixelily Designs!

a note for my country and a gift of Love!

I'd like to start with a personal note as usual, if you don't mind. :)

I am Thai. If you watched the international news for all the last week, you might have seen that things haven't been easy in my home country. It breaks my heart. And now that we are so far away in Lebanon, there is not so much we can do. (And I doubt we'd be able to do anything much if we're there either.) It's even more depressing when you think that it's the week that we're supposed to be celebrating Songkran (Thai New Year holiday -- between April 13-15), with our famous Water Festival. Instead of splashes of water and smiles, we had a lot of anger and hatred on the streets this year. :(

I will not get into anything politics related here, just want to share some hope for love and peace to come back to my country. And, of course, I chose to express my feelings through some scrapbooking layouts.

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Dúnia is back from her pregnancy break full throttle! She has two new products in store this month and they are absolutely fabulous! She is also a featured designer at The Daily Digi this month. You can read all the fun facts about Dúnia here. The product she made for The Digi File is called Upside Down and it's full of fun elements and doodles! I love it!

She also has a new template set out and this one is so special! (If you have seen Ivana Alves's ultra amazing layouts before you'd know what I mean! LOL) It's called Be Inspired by Ivana, available at both DSB and ZZS:

I used Upside Down with a template in the Ivana set and came up with this page. This happy picture of 3-year-ago Neill somehow makes the present situation in Thailand seem even more gloomy by comparison.

"Make Splash, Not War"

Journaling reads:
This fun picture of Neill was taken three years ago
when we were celebrating Songkran holiday (Thai New Year) in Phuket.
This year we are in Lebanon, so far away from home,
and all the gloomy news from Thailand does its best in getting us out of the celebrating mood almost completely.

If we can have one wish for the New Year,
It would be for peace and love to come back to our beautiful country.
Let the joyful spirit of Songkran make people come to their senses and finally see what is best for the country.
Instead of bullets, blood, and hatred, let's splash each other with cool, clean, and refreshing water
to calm our temper in the manner that Songkran has been celebrated all along.

I personally don't like seeing kids play with guns, even a water gun for that matter,
but after watching the news where there are people with real guns
walking around the once beautiful and serene neighborhood,
I'd take the water guns over that any day! - April 13, 2010

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Another page I made last week was from the wonderfully lovely kit of Pixelily Designs, Love Is All Around. Lily is a brand new designer at Digital Scrap Cafe, but she is by no means a new name in digiscrapping community. She's been designing and giving away freebies with a group of friends -- now known as the Jakarta Scrappers -- for a long while. (A member of the group is Lisa of Aprilisa Designs, who's not at all a stranger to this blog. LOL)

During the new store celebration period, a lot of Pixelily products are on sale (this one is 50% off!) so don't miss this opportunity!


Here is what I made with Love Is All Around:

"Give Peace a Stance"

Journaling reads:
With a heavy heart I pray for my motherland. No more fighting, no more bloodshed, no more hatred. I pray for love and peace. ...Give love a chance. Give peace a stance.

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Well, let's end this long post with a gift of love from Lily and me! You can have the layout I made for the kit as a quickpage for your personal scrapping projects! I'm giving you the word art I created for the page as an extra gift too. :)

You can click on the image below to download from 4shared. Enjoy!

I'm still alive, and come bearing gift :)

Hi there! I know it's been a month since my last blog. No excuse at all. LOL! We're alive and having a great time here in Lebanon. I managed to take a lot of pictures (I know I have told you this but I'll tell you time and time again, I LOVE my Canon 500D! LOL,) and scrapped a lot! There are a few recent pages that I want to show you but let's wait just a few more days for that. Because, today -- as the title says -- I come bearing gift!

It's time for Digital Scrap Cafe's Blog Train again! For this month, we worked with the kids in mind. Do you have small kids who are still going through potty training or need to be reminded to brush his/her teeth before going to bed? Or are your kids big enough to have chores or help out around the house and need to be rewarded? Or do you homeschool or need to keep tabs on his/her school subjects? We believe we have something for you.

This month we work with the DSC designers' April collab kit "Spring Garden". A fabulously bright and huge kit (with 98 papers, 161 elements, 2 alphas, and 4 layered templates!) I really wish the preview shows you more of the papers which are absolutely detailed and beautifully textured. I totally love it!

For this blog train, I made two A4 sized chore chart QPs (with blank space for you to put the little one's picture in) and some tags so you can choose to use with the charts as you please. Here they are:


You may click on the preview image to download from 4shared.

I'm the first stop for this blog train. So now you can hop on to Kristen's blog and she will have something awesome waiting for you too. Since DSC is a true international community, we don't really wake up at the same time. LOL So please allow 24 hours for all the blogs to update and check back as often as you want to. If you get lost along the way, you can always pop in the Digital Scrap Cafe's blog to see the links to all participating blogs. And while you're there, don't forget to check out other cool stuff we have to offer too. *wink*

If you find this blog train useful, would you consider leaving comments here or letting us know at the DSC forum? We are really trying to do something different this time and don't just follow what others in the scrapping community like to give on blog trains. We know that these chore charts and relating items might not appeal to everybody but we hope that the stuff will really be put to good use for the children, not just something to collect for moms. :)

I'll be back in a few days with something else to share. So, stay tuned!