Saturday, July 31, 2010

Iphone 4

It launched yesterday here and I decided to get one since my Samsung is dying.
It's my first iphone since the previous models don't have good cameras (and no flash, I think) and that isn't really helpful for my 365 project.

Since this has a 5mp camera with flash, I decided to give it a try.

Turns out, my unit has one of the common problem of iphone 4, and that is, under florescent light, the camera has a blue tint haze in the middle. Hence, indoor photos on very light objects (or white background) will look blue-ish.
The problem isn't obvious when I'm outdoor, so I guess it's fine.
Anyway, many suspect that it might be Apple over-correcting white balance and maybe the next software upgrade will solve it.

Decided to make a layout for my phone. This is greatly inspired by Dodie (her site seems to be down so I can't put a link) 'cos she made a layout when she bought her iphone.


Layout is by Mandagirl.
 

Summer 2010

Singapore is a tropical island city sitting on the equator, so there isn't any "seasons" for us.
Before the global warming thingy, weather here was "not so hot, hot, very hot, super hot".
Recently, it's more like "thunderstorm, cool, sunny, very hot".

Here's an extension of my August label. Manuela has asked if I could make Summer labels and of course I can! I love to get "custom orders"!
Besides the cloud and the heart, I added a flower label as well.
Have fun!

Click on preview to download.

p.s. Craftcrave did not pick up my previous posts, so if you missed out Template 30 and the original August date label, do check them out.
 

Monday, July 26, 2010

New template (#30) and a joke

Joke first.

Some eggs were sitting in the refrigerator and one says to the other:
"Look! There's a hairy guy over there!"
And the other says "Yeah, and he's big!"
And the "hairy" one says "What's your problem! I'm a kiwi!"

Now the template!
Click on preview to download.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

August date labels

Wow! I already have 20 followers on this blog!
This may not mean anything to some designers, but it does to me, since I'm just a beginner.
Thank you to you who make my day when you leave a comment or a chat message.
I love love love to read them all, although I don't reply them.
It's said that comments from 4shared can't be port over here nor traced/read easily, but I still appreciate every message left.

Anyway, I did another round of "cleaning up" yesterday and trashed many kits and templates.
Over the past 2 years, I downloaded many stuff just because they are free, or I thought they are nice, or I like only a few stuff out of the entire package.

Then I realised that I don't use them at all. Who needs 5 3X3 of 4X4 templates that are almost the same? And wordarts that will never be used 'cos you now know your styles?
I'm not a clutterer and hoarder, and I love the "tsssssk" sound when my trashbin empties its content.
I think I will "kill" more kits soon. Afterall, there are just so many new ones out there!

Here's something for August. Hope you'll like it.
And if you have any special request for September, do leave a message and let me know.

Click on preview to download.
  

Thursday, July 22, 2010

It's been raining everyday...

July is always coming to an end and it means that my shutterfly photobooks should be reaching soon!
This time, I tried printing 2-page layouts so I'm anxious to see how it will turn out.
The results will help me better trim my layouts for future prints.

Here's a new template for you. It's part 1 of a semi-2-page layout.
I call it "semi" because the photos do not cross the centre but they have similar theme.

Click on preview to download.
 

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Weekend is a fast runner

I spent the weekend organising my digital scrapbook stash.
I deleted kits/templates that I will never use and rename some files to make them easier to find with spotlight.

And, after applying for my AUS visa, I started making some "quickpages" for the trip (even though it's still 3 weeks away).
12 days with road trips and all should give me lots of photos to scrap!

It's already July and I am amazed that I am still going strong with my 365-project.
Besides scrapping each week into a page, I also do specials (for events, thoughts, movies etc) and a 1-page journal for the month.

Here's a new template to share. It is from my July week 1 layout.
Have fun with it!

Click on preview to download.
  

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Template 27

Friday is here! Finally I start to see the corner of the weekend.
I am planning for my 2-week vacation in Melbourne in August and I think I need to get some layouts ready so that I can quickly clip photos when I return.
Lots of scrapping this weekend!

Last week, I re-make a layout which I created when I started digi-scrapbooking.

This is the original ->

Very simple, very sparse and almost no elements.

This is the re-make ->

Bigger photos since I'm not going to add elements.
Title changed into a curve path since I now know how to do it.

Yes, it is not significantly changed because that was not the main idea.
I was trying to see how much I have improved.
And indeed, I like the new version better.

If you like this layout, here's the template to grab.


Click on preview to download.
 

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

PSE-friendly template (Part 3)

I found 4 more templates which were grouped and have "rectified" them.
There shouldn't be any more old templates that are PSE-unfriendly and I will definitely make sure my future templates are ungrouped.



Links are as follows (same as old version but I have updated the files at 4Shared):-
Template 11
Template 17
Template 23
Template 24

A new template will be posted by Friday. Do drop by!
 

PSE-friendly templates (Part 2)

I've ungrouped these 4 older templates.
In case you have missed them previously, here's a great chance to grab them!


Links are as follows (same as old version but I have updated the files at 4Shared):-
Template 1
Template 2
Template 3
Template 8
  

Monday, July 12, 2010

Information overload

I recently discovered that I overload myself with too much repeating information from designers.
You see, I will receive an email from the newletter because I signed up for it, and I will see the same information on my google reader from the blog, and on my facebook wall, the same thing will appear because I'm a "fan" of the designer. If I have twitter, I will see it 4 times.

Yes, I love many designers, and I love getting updates about their new designs, their freebies and lovely CT layouts.
However, do I really want to bomb myself with the same information 3, 4 times in 24 hours?
No.

So I'm going to do some cleaning up.
Either remove them from my FB or unsubscribe from the mailing list.

Life is short, repetitive infomation only clutters your time and nothing else.
  

Sunday, July 11, 2010

PSE-friendly templates

Being a neat person, I love to categorise stuff, set naming convention for files and even organise my wardrobe/shoe racks by colours and all.
When it comes to digital scrapbooking, I rename all the kits/files that I download and make individual folders for elements that do not belong to any kits.

And so, it seemed perfectly logical to me to group layers together in the templates I make, so that they are easier to find, move, resize and of course, look neat.
However, I didn't realise that PSE doesn't have this "grouping" function and many people can't use the templates after spending time to download them.

For all of you PSE users out there who have this problem, here are 4 templates which I have now ungrouped and uploaded for you to use.


Links are as follows:-
Template 10
Template 12
Template 15
Template 16
  

My new layouts and Template 26

I've been busy scrapping for the past few days for my recent Paris trip.



The weather was very good and my photos turned out quite well.
As you can see, I'm not a fan of elements, especially when it comes to multi-photos layouts.

Here's a new template for you. Have fun with it!

Click on preview to download.

Off to work on un-grouping some of the previous templates to that PSE users can use them.
Check back soon!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Clouds

Did you enjoy Template 24?

This is what I did with it.
Each photo represented a year, from 2005 to 2010.
Times flies. It's scary!

 

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Back home + July date label freebie!

Am back home after a tiring 13-hour flight.
Couldn't wait and quickly clipped my Paris photos to the layouts which I prepared before the trip. Still, that took me a few hours (for 4 pages) because I had to resize the photos and adjust the positions of the photo masks.

And! I remember that it's July already!
So I quickly made these for you. This month, it's sticker-style cos I recently learnt how to "stroke" pictures/words.

Click on preview to download.
 

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Paris sales and Template 25

7th day in Paris and the SOLDES starts today!!
I didn't know that there was going to be a big sale and have already bought many stuff last Saturday.
I don't even want to think how much EURO I would have saved if I have bought them after today.
*sulks*

Now, I can't decide if I want to brave the crowd and buy more stuff because my credit card is already sobbing and my luggage is sorta bursting.
Regardless of whether I'm going to score anymore buys before I leave this Saturday, I can be sure that I am banned from shopping for the rest of the month.

I have taken quite some photos in Paris, so I guess I'd just stay at home and scrap my hearts out!

Did you like #24?
Here's template #25 for you.
If I remember correctly, this is also a multi-photo template.


Click on this cute photo to download.

p.s. I love the picture! So cute and heart-warming!!

Updated:
Here's the preview!