Ummmm ...... this smells so beautiful !!
It's light and fresh with hints of green apple. I love Sasa, a popular Singapore chain of stores selling all manner of beauty products and going in is like being at a fairy wonderland with the sweet smells and pretty colours. There is something for every budget from sweetly packaged, affordable Japanese perfumes to the sophisticated Elizabeth Arden or Versace.

 




The mail-lady came by yesterday with a fabulous package from Scrap-Tastic where I am their guest December Girlie.  Thank you Becky, you are da bomb !

Wanna a sneak ?

 





This morning after getting Nura off to school, answering a few emails, a mug of tea ...... I was hit by a wave of tiredness. Weird, but I decided to listen to my body and took a mid-morning nap, something I've not done for a long time ! I did feel better after and am back on track, my mind alot clearer.

I took Nura to her ballet class where it started storming madly just after we reached the CC. Waited for 30 minutes, it let up a bit and I headed to Tampines Mall. As much as I grouse over how crowded Tampines is now with three malls, occasionally like today when I needed to buy a couple of things, it's nice NOT having to head downtown in the rain, NOT having to waste time travelling, NOT having to dress up too much. I'm getting more familiar with Tampines 1, the latest mall here which has most of the mid-priced items we see downtown, with enough glitz to make you feel like it's Orchard Road. Of course if your budget is Vuitton or Prada it won't do, but for the 'burbs, it serves it's purpose.

How do you live daily ?

This is my home in it's moments of tidy - it's simple, uncluttered and feels peaceful.





The layout is an attempt to explain this need for peace and mental freedom in my life.

** Using Cocoa Daisy's November Kit **




The last week had me mulling over cliques and social groups.

How do you deal with people who can be unconsciously destructive ? They don't mean to be bad or to influence unduly, but as a friend, if you are part of the clique, it's hard not to be pulled into a certain mentality or way of thinking. You get blind-sided and you find it's easier to think like them than to keep your own counsel, to trust your own instincts or believe in your own decisions. I'm not a fan of cliques and prefer to hang out at the fringes, more familiar or friendlier with some than others, but not wholly part of the group. Perhaps having to manage my time between working from home, family and not wanting to get into the politics of *Best Friend Forever* has made me more choosy and careful about who gets near me.

Am soooo totally past the drama every moment phase of life ..........

A fabulous prize to win, so don't wait !!! And YES, they will ship anywhere if you are the winner !!!

Be a fan of Imaginisce and GlueArts and win! To celebrate the launch of both the fan pages, we're running some friendly competition to see who can get to 1,500 fans first! Visit the Imaginisce fan page, click to become a fan and post on their wall: "I'm a Fanatical Facebook Face-off Fan!" for a chance to win one of two gift baskets of Imaginisce & GlueArts products each worth over $300!

 



Go, go, Gooooooooo now and sign up............. !!!



The Cocoa Daisy Fall Crop has started and my online class is in a few minutes, see you there !!!
The new site is up *WOOOOWWW !*

I love Mrs Incredible !! Her desire to create a *normal* life for her super-powered family in a humdrum everyday society, made it essential for her to be quick at adjusting to changing situations, she was sensible and realistic, she had to be mentally and emotionally strong to steer her extraodinary family through society's expectations.






Was reading Kristine McKay's Blog, an amazingly creative person who had a post about Defining herself and how in I'm Just a Simple Girl she felt about the hype surrounding elaborate, embellished *professional* work for Design Teams, using very expensive tools and products. The Blog has not been updated for a while now, but there are still nuggets to glean.

She speaks from the point of having been through some Design Teams and knows how it all works,
I can totally see where she is coming from.

Well, what I think is : it's important to do all this with your eyes WIDE open and to make the experiences as positive for you as it is for the owners of the Design Teams. Bottomline, no one is going to give you expensive products and then get shoddy work in return or put up with missed schedules without notice. In addition, you have to be independent ..... you have to be savvy at managing the personalities in the team ...... and you have to be low maintanence, not needy, or take situations too personally.

For now, I am still enjoying the ride, there is something to learn everyday ......... yep it's still fun !!!



One wonderful piece of news : I am Scrap-Tastic's December Girlie !!
They have a fabulous, talented Design Team and it's a real thrill to be able to put my work next to them. Thank you Becky for this opportunity, I am so looking forward to working on the projects.






There's still one more news to share ........ that will have to wait just a teensy bit longer ......

Hey ..... I got featured in Aussie Scrap Source !!
Thanks for showing the Basic Grey tags ! 

I LOVE the Letterbox papers from American Crafts !
It's clean and graphic without being too strong unlike some of the previous lines.
This layout is about the Funk-Tap workshop with the Raw Dance teachers at the Esplanade during the Da:ans Festival.

American Crafts available at  Made With Love !!



  
 
Cards ......










Scrapbookwise, I was told my style has changed from the elaborate fussy cutting to a more streamlined, simpler style. Yes, it has. Every scrapper changes eventually and for me, with the amount of work I do, there has to be something new, something I am happy with for this time. There are still details in the work, I don't think I can scrap without the layers, the chipboards, the buttons ( MUST have my buttons *LOL*), the ephemeras or journaling tags.


Today : We had planned to go out, but the girls are sleeping in so ........ we'll see.

Have a great Sunday !!

Nura's neoprint mini Cover .......






Randomness ..........


Shout-outs go to Cocoa Daisy Divas - Kim Watson for being invited to the CK Design Team,and Mou Saha is bumped up from CK's Design Team 2009 to a contributing writer **WOOOOOOOOOT!!!!**. THAT is literally the cherry on top of the glorious scrapbook sundae. What an achievement !!!


I'm always thankful for all the scrappers I meet along this creative journey. They continue to inspire with their glorious work and originality, their personalities and they keep me humble. What do I mean by this ? Well ...... like any human being, sometimes it's easy to get carried away with the *importance* of the work or accomplishments, we forget there are others just as good or even more talented. I might be a fairly competent scrapper, it was hard work getting to this point ..........but over everything I would infinitely prefer to be known as a real person, a wife, a mom, a good friend. When scrapbooking is over and done with (it's not forever you know ?) what leaves the biggest impression would be the sense of the person :  how genuine they were, how generous in spirit, how helpful they were in sharing ideas. When I first started to explore the US scrapbook community, I remember how kind a few well known scrappers were in trying to ease me into the culture, tolerating my bumbling, klutzy questions and my lack of sophistication. I also remember how hurt a friend was when at a crop a few experienced scrappers sniggered behind her back as she did not have the *right, up-market* scrapper tools ..... as if being original and creative depended only on using the *right* trimmer or having the best brands and carrying that flashy crop bag. It occurred to me then how the vanity of the craft, the one upmanship of acquisition, can overshadow the purpose behind all of this.

I could go on about the less desirable facets of scrapbooking, but not today.

There's news to share soon and for now, in my scrapping world ...... it's all good !

Cocoa Daisy's  November Fall  Crop is almost here !!

A peek at the Fabric Mini online project I've got lined up :
 




I love tags ....... any tag !!  The box filled with them is always next to me when I scrap to make it easy to dig out a tag, a Maya Rd sheer, a vintage ephemera, a small scalloped circle. Though some of the brands are not cheap by Singapore standards, having them adds that *extra* interesting detail to a project, they are really perfect for mini-books. It's great we are able to get a good selection now in Singapore !






It's a bright HOT, HOT day. The laundry gets a sun-kissed scent, the humidity is down, sunny days makes me happy,
I can get so much work done ! It's Tuesday, on TV tonight is the Mentalist with with gorgeous Australian actor
Simon Baker ...... he really is the eye candy !






Hope your week is shaping up good.

What can I say ?
I LOVE cats, even bags featuring cats, check out the updated bowling-bag design !
This was from Art Box.


 



Peaceful Saturday morning ....... so far .........

I usually get up the earliest, and it's my quiet time to look over the projects in the making or blog like now, with a mug of hot milk tea and the cats as company.



 


Nura has chosen SOTA in the DSA confirmation slip, we've emailed the acceptance and she will be posted there if she meets the PSLE aggregate requirements. Though there were initial doubts, the Parent-School conference last Thursday night made alot of issues clearer. Many of us were relieved to have the curriculum clarified, and I felt the one mistake SOTA made at the previous open houses was in NOT highlighting clearly enough that this was an Academic program, SOTA is NOT a vocational school. The IB will prep the kids for entry into NUS, NTU and the SMU (or a whole host of overseas Ivy League unis if the student is able to ace the course), they can still be lawyers, teachers or engineers OR dancers, musicians, artists and thespians should they want to. The Math and Science components have been matched to the mainstream schools which means the kids will not be short-changed if they have a strong interest in the subjects. And one statement that got the Singapore parents smiling ........ *No Tuition outside* ....... the school will have remedial classes for students who need it, they intend to make sure the students get all the academic help they need.

So what about dance ?

Parents and kids were given an explanation of how dance as a component of the IB's Diploma in Dance is worked into the program, the ability levels the dancers will be streamed into at year 2, how many hours a week they spend on dance (it's 11 to 12 hours), it was emphasised the selection for performances is strictly based on merit, it's a privilege they have to earn through effort, good attitude and consistant academic grades. Classically trained dancers have a slight advantage and all dancers will be tested twice a year, the effort they put in will determine their exam results. Fail the dance exams, and they might have to stay in the same level another year.

Is Nura happy about this ?

Yes she is and understands there will be compromises to be made at DSI : she will not participate as much in DSI concerts, events or competitions. Her dance classmate (a really talented dancer who had been seriously vacillating) had made the decision to join SOTA, as well, another Temasek Primary school friend who will be in Theatre. She is delighted Year 1 2010 will start with a couple of familiar faces.


____________________________


On Wednesday we were at Colin Dunne's Out Of Time.
It was in a very intimate theatre setting, we were just ten feet away from him ..... and Nura and I found the whole show mesmerising !! In Singapore we don't know much about Irish Dance aside from the flamboyant Riverdance and Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance. Colin Dunne's concept of taking Irish Dance into less traditional areas, weaving archival film footage into the one man performance, the extreme skill of listening and reacting immediately to the tapping sounds created by the engineered looping of the tap rythym, the catching and incorporating into the dance the *whoooshhing* sounds the mikes pick up from the feet movement ....... is was real brilliance. Some parts were quirky and enormously entertaining like the *Rashes and Sausages* chant used by Irish dancers to practise the steps with the continnuous chant getting faster and faster as they went on. He had an injury to his left ankle, but still danced for the audience. There are some videos of the dance, and an interview featuring his point of view, how the performance came
about : *here*  and the promo for *Out of Time*

Tonight is the Asian Premiere of Shen Wei Dance Company's RE-I. II. III.
Shen Wei choreographed the Beijing Olympic's Opening ceremony.
This should be very interesting, it's always a real pleasure to be at the Esplanade

This was for Charlotte who needed a little book for all her neoprints !





I used mostly Jillibean and some Bella Blvd, it turned out sweet
and girly, just right for a 12 year old.

Thanks for dropping by !