Lately.

During the past few months, I've been getting busy adding to my skills and certifications. I've recently taken this class a couple of months ago and learned so much!

Above is an example of how I used to color before the class and how I colored after.

It's not perfect but I've definitely learned more about light source and adding depth and contours to my coloring. I've noticed the difference from my previous projects and even now, I assess the images before I start with the copics.

I also obtained...

I would definitely recommend both!

Woot Woot!!!! *pats myself on the back for getting a couple of my goals done*

Talk to you later!

Mini-Albums with my Fave Scrapbookers!

Hi everyone!

As promised, here are the rest of the pics of the mini albums taught by Kelly Purkey and Amy Tan's workshop. If you want to see the rest and more of the class, please head on over to the post before this one.

I didn't have time to edit the rest of the pics so pardon the darkness and size of them. As you can see from the first one, I still don't have the watermark thing figured out in FlickR's new Aviary editing tool. I swear I didn't mean to brand that pic with an obnoxious-sized mark of my name right in the center.

Amy's is above and we used her new line from American Crafts, Sketchbook with some cool water colors. Kelly's below is done with lots of misting and masking and we used Studio Calico. LOVE both!







It was really nice how they signed my albums :). I would totally recommend taking classes from them!

Love,

Scrapping with my Favorite Celebrities!

The other day, I had the privilege of taking classes from these two:



I know, right??

You must be like, "SHUT UP!" or "No Way!"

But it is true!

My Local Scrapbook Store (LSS) Our Paper Place hosted a workshop led by the wonderful Kelly Purkey and Amy Tangerine.

They just happen to be my most favorite scrappers!!! I stalk, errr, read their blogs all the time! Love KP's graphic style and honesty. I am inspired by Amy's free/ easy-going art and openness!



When we were introducing ourselves to the class, I said that when I first started in the craft, I had wished there were more of these two lovelies out there. I was young, single, had lots of friends and went on lots of outings. But I always longed to find connection with the famous scrapbookers. They were Caucasian and always scrapped about families and kids. Don't get me wrong, there's totally nothing wrong with that and I could still relate. But when you're in your teens/ early twenties and you're trying to find yourself, well... let's just say something was missing for me when I looked at magazines or blogs. For a long time, I had scrapped about my friends, my dreams, even about clothes! :)

So, along came these two young Asian women and I am really digging their work! Of course, now I'm no longer in my twenties and am married with two kids. But I still love to scrap about my BFFs, my designer purses, and food at restaurants (LOL!). And that's what I love about this hobby! There's such a wide range of products and styles and celebrities!

Anyway, enough yapping....






The first and third lay-outs were taught by Amy. The second one was from Kelly. Pardon the watermarks -- I'm not quite used to FlickR's Aviary (bye bye Picnik, I'm so sad!). I thought I put them at the bottom. And the third one doesn't have pics on it yet. Do you spy the TGF stamp I used? :)

I'll be blogging about the mini-albums we did tomorrow!

Cheers!

Cuties!

I am not very good at taking pictures of scrapbook lay-outs. I'm too short to just take it from above when it's on the floor. The photographs are usually blurry or too washed out. I'm thinking that investing in a new camera lens would help. Although to tell you the truth, any excuse will do to spend more money on my photography, LOL!

Up there is my third lay-out from the class I took (taught by Amy Tangerine).

It features my and some of my college group's kids! The title is pretty generic, but if you look closely, I stamped the letters with some brown ink :). Cool how the pattern comes out, huh?

Hope you're all having fun during these few days left before the Holiday Season! There's so much I want to do but alas, time won't allow it. I wish there were 30 hours during the day this time of the year. Of course, only on my days off, not on :). Haha!

Hugs,

A Slice of the Good Life.

When I took Amy T's class, I wasn't very prepared. I just grabbed a bunch of old pics and prayed that they would somehow fit the pages we were going to make.

I was pretty lucky because these photographs from a trip to paradise were perfect for the lay-out I had in mind. I didn't change much from Amy's original design because I really love how her page came out:



Sorry to blog and run! I must finish my Holiday shopping while I still have a chance! Hope you are all having a stellar day!

Life Is Good!

Here's one of the four lay-outs I made at the class that Amy Tangerine taught.

I pretty much copied her design and sketch, but changed up the flowers and embellies.

Here's a pic of her LO:



The pic is of my two sisters and our friend, J. We had gone to Hawaii and was at a luau at sunset. The water was just beautiful and I just had to get a shot of it. I've been to four of the Hawaiian islands and I think the luau at Paradise Cove in Oahu is still my favorite.

The title of this page was perfect for the pic. I feel so grateful and blessed to be able to travel and see so many beautiful places! Can't wait to see more of the world :).

I love the colors of this page and the layering as well! I also loved incorporating fabric! So happy I'm getting to scrap :).

I plan to write a bit of journaling on the tag. I always forget to write the date and now when I look back on my older work, I have a hard time remembering when the picture was taken. If anything, I need to journal a bit on the back of the page.

Have a wonderful one!

Meeting Amy Tangerine!

Hi all!

It's been so long since I last took a scrapbooking class. I've definitely forgotten how fun it is and how I usually learn a lot.

When one of my favorite scrappers came to teach a class based on her wonderful new line, I knew I had to take it! I had pretty much been hoarding as much of the Amy Tangerine goodies (American Crafts) as I can afford. Thought it was time to use them. What better way than to learn from the designer herself?

I had gone through a lot in order to take her classes (don't ask), and I was feeling a bit under the weather. Am super elated that I got to come... it was very inspiring and I've learned techniques for both scrapping and card-making!



Here are my supplies and goodies. The classes were $60 each but you pretty much get it back in the items they provide.



Here's the lovely Amy holding up one of her lay-outs. I was a bit (ok, a LOT) star-struck! Haven't met one of my fave scrapbookers before. She was really nice and down-to-earth and oh-so-cute!



She showed us how to make her delightful lay-outs using our own photos and making the pages our own. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she didn't measure anything. I'm like that 85% of the time. Her style is graphic but the layering is not always concise and purposeful (does that make sense?). I really like that style. I tend to make my cards in that way currently.



Here are a couple of Amy's LO's that we learned.



So happy that I got to take it with BFF'ers.



My favorite part of the class was learning how to make these flowers. I also loved incorporating sewing and fabric into my creations.



Here's the class.



Giddy here from meeting such a talented scrapping celebrity! I didn't get into her work until just about a year ago -- I wished I had sooner because before I was married and with kiddies, I always wished for some inspiration on scrapping lay-outs about friends, being young, partying, and traveling! But Amy T (& her style) is definitely someone everybody can relate to.

Amy also blogged about visiting the Bay Area in this post. You could see me in one of the pics! :)

Over the next week, I'll be sharing the lay-outs I created. I'm trying to post as much as I can so I hope you don't mind if I s-t-r-e-t-c-h this topic out. :) LOL!

Instead, here's a pic of my boys in the shirts from Amy's clothing company:



Should've taken the pic before they ate .. pardon the wrinkles and stains. What can you do? They're young and boys afterall! Haha!

Creativity Unleashed

Hi everyone! Good Sunday morning to you!

Like I said yesterday, I have another book to show you from a class I took about five years ago with Traci Bautista.

The thing I loved about Traci was that she allowed us to do whatever we wanted. I know that type of teaching technique doesn't work for everybody but it sure "unleashed" my creativity -- and that's what Traci wanted to teach us most of all.

For this class, she provided the basics to bind this intricate "star" book. I embellished the pages after. Because it was hard to open and I needed to re-glue the back and front pages, I only took pics of a couple of pages.



Aren't the textures and shimmering effects gorgeous? She had given us a clear sticker sheet and gave us paint flakes and glitter and paint to put on it (& go wild). I chose to make it an Asian theme and put Jolee's stickers.



This is the view of the star book from above. Please excuse my dirty table and the book covers had to be re-glued after this :(.





And some views of the inside. I needed to put my candle in the front to hold the pages open.

I'm such a procrastinator! Only posting pics up now....and I still haven't filled the pages! :)

Vintage Book

About 5 years ago, I was fortunate enough to take classes from Traci Bautista. This was before her books and national tours, and I learned so much.

I always thought Traci was ahead of her time. In her classes, we learned to transfer images, play with paints, and stamp on many different mediums.

I made this book for my parents during one class and I never posted it. The instructions were to bring in colored and black & white copies of older pictures. The album is much more vintage-like than my style but I thought it came out beautifully.

And the book? We learned to bind it ourselves! Speaking of...I wonder where I put her notes??













I have another book to post tomorrow so stay tuned!

Thanks for coming today!