Wrestling?

I do not care much for wrestling - or other contact sports. But this Turkish sport I think I could watch!! LOL! The very well oiled participants try to grab the family jewels of the opponent. If they manage to get a good grip and squeeze hard enough, the poor guy in the difficult position slaps the ground thrice to acknowledge defeat.

Thanks to Aeryn for bringing this to my attention ;)

Titanic Awards

A new website called Titanic Awards put together this video below. The mission of the site is to give us a more accurate view of what travel might be like for most of us. Travel writers usually tend to paint a rosy picture about travelling and destinations becaue either they are paid to do so or they have earned free trips or some such. So ... a dose of reality before you pack your bags and who knows, you just might appreciate your holiday that much more!

Covering an album

My first attempt covering an album - the pink part was done already. I just stitched the green part, applied the label, embroidered the word 'travel' and then glued it all together. Surely my next attempt will be better ;)

Angkor Wat

For my next project I have to perfect my technique of working fast and producing pages that are fuss free and have clean lines, with a contemporary look. And below is the first example of this style. Took me a half day to complete but it is not bad for starters! If only I had a bigger table to work on ... and all my supplies visibly stored.

Cardstock is actually the same colour but some how the shades got altered in the scanning process. The itty bitty pieces of printed paper and round chipboards are by Imagination Project. Rub On alphas are by Gin-X and the round 'Sights' sticker is by Chatter Box. The rub-ons on the two smaller round white chipboards are from 7Gypsies. Stamps on the larger chipboard by Art Warehouse.

Temples

This layout, though finished a couple of days back, took a while to post. Because I just upgraded to Adobe CS5!! I am sooooo excited! I tried just a few features and totally LOVE it! Will be spending the next few days on Lynda.com ;) I may not be posting as many layouts till I have mastered at least the basic upgrades.

The printed paper is from Sei but I stippled it with coffee ink to subdue the colours a bit. Cardstock is from Club Scrap. Letters for the title are made using Tim Holtz masks. I found these again so be prepared for lots of masking over the next few layouts ... lol!

Killing Fields

These photographs from the Killing Fields of Cambodia were very difficult to work with. When Lily tried talking about it all she could remember was the pain and depression she felt looking at all the skulls. The photos are of the human remains of Juvenile females, 15-20 years old - just Lily's age group. It is unsettling, looking at these skulls, knowing that these were once young girls just like her who suddenly had their dreams, their lives, snuffed out just because of their race.

I decided to keep the layout as basic and simple as possible. No trinkets, colours or frills. Crate paper had just the colours I was looking for. Love the texture of these papers and the distressed look. Crate seems to do it especially well.

Attitude

I found some rub-ons in my stash that are still perfect! I wish I could stick to these brands but that might be easier said than done. The large capital letters are from Flair Designs and the small block letters are from American Traditional. The website for Flair Designs is not active and I cannot find much of their products for sale online. This is a real pity because the quality was good! With the American Traditional website I was redirected to another called Momenta but I could not find a good collection of letter rub-ons. Paper is all from the Mosaic Twist kit by Club Scrap. Swirls stamp unknown. Journaling on a 7 Gypsies thingy (what is it called?) that I stippled with some ink called Outdoor Denim. I bought some stippling brushes from Toy Box ages ago and they are still the best stippling brushes I have used.

The girls spent a short while on the St. Kilda beach in Melbourne. A welcome break from all the drama workshops but of course everything they were learning came into play when taking photographs! The photo with the four backsides is quite a favourite with Lily.

Azzurra

Tried that video thingy on Picasa with some of my favourite photos of both the kids