Too many things to finish

At the moment... scrambling to finish our first handmade advent calendar inspired by Inchmark, making presents for our neighbor who's going back to France for good, making Christmas presents for relatives, cooking, baking, and hectic days at the office.


Growing up in the Philippines, we had a lot of traditions but we never had an Advent calendar. I only found out about Advent calendars when my husband introduced it to the kids when they were 2. So the past couple years we've bought those which comes with a chocolate in each date. And now, I decided, it was time we had something that we will last for years to come and not so commercial hence all the late nights.

The kids keep asking when will it be Christmas and when can we start using the calendar... Audrey has already picked out which ornament goes into which date and pocket. Being a girly girl she likes pink stuff at the moment...


One thing I'm excited and can't wait to start sewing with is this recent purchase of vintage fabric. These are very traditional and are typically from the Dongbei Province in China. The level of detail are just amazing and is not anymore evident in the fabric you get at the market nowadays. Apparently these dates back to when you need to have a coupon to buy fabrics, probably around the time of the Cultural Revolution. I just love the goldfish motif. There's 2 fabric weights - lightweight corduroy and medium weight cotton.


Chinese characters mean 'double happiness'... goldfish or fish in general symbolize abundance.



The peonies in full bloom means: fortune comes with blooming flower. Peonies are always an auspicious element in a lot of Chinese paintings.

Freebie: More Paper Packs and Tags

To those who downloaded the new batch of scrapbook freebies, THANK YOU. I've made more freebies for download for you. As a small request, if you can share whatever you've used the freebies for to the Group Picture Pool.

More Christmas theme to add to your December album. Just click on the images to go to the download page(s).


So excited with this set of tags below. Just so Christmas-y. These icons are the same designs I'm using for my first handmade Advent calendar, which I will post later, and thought they would make great tags, too...


These paper packs below are inspired those cross-stitch patterns. I got distracted at work the other day and had the itch to do these patterns. I am planning to use these on a new album I'm working on which the kids will give as gift to friends of their who are leaving China for good. I'll also share the album and templates later on... ... so here are the paper packs.



On a final note, to avoid getting multiple 'order confirmations' emailed to you after downloading the freebies, please wait for the page to finish downloading before clicking the 'submit' button again.

Don't forget, this weekend, everything in the shop are 50%!

Shop Update: Sale

Check out the shop now for more details.

Freebie: Big Christmas Download

I know it's been a while since I last had some freebies. Been planning on posting new ones but with life's many interruptions coming my way, I decided, a big Christmas freebie would be even better.

So here goes 3 sets to get you started on a '25 Days of December' album or journal...

Here's 5 Photoshop layered templates which I've started with a paper and a tag for you. Just add your photos and other embellishments you may already have in your stash. Rotate the pages or flip the photo clusters and you get yet another layout.

Here's a series of festive Christmas-themed paper pack. Total of 9 patterned papers.

And finally 25 date tags to use with the album pages all with shadows ready to use.

Do come back soon as I may end up posting more Christmas-themed stuff to supplement this batch of freebies.

And lastly, it would be great to see what you've done with these...

Thanks. Enjoy!

These days...

These days... just want to sit down in front of the TV and watch TV series on DVDs and knit...

These days... work has been picking up and so have been working until late every night. Sometimes not getting home until 2am...

These days... still have lots of unfinished sewing to do but just too tired to go near my sewing machine...

These days... we've been exploring Shanghai on foot on weekends with the kids and they've been great sport...

These days... experiencing more migraines than before...

These days... kids doing great in school, with teacher singing praises...

These days... Audrey is into art, doing all sorts of drawings, crafts, painting, cutting, even on her own...

These days... Samuel has been on daddy's computer trying all sort of games online, and even good at it...

These days... life is good.