Crafty Friday #5: Layout for Ate Mae

All our 2005 LA Disney pictures have been finally glued down to their respective homes. I actually didn't have much pictures for that trip. The husband accidentally deleted the photos while he was transferring them from the memory card to our PC.

Here is one very special picture that I took that time and really deserves a page in my scrapbook album. This is a picture of my in-laws (father and sister) in our first visit to the US.

The layout was completed just in time for her birthday.

Thanks to the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge blog for the sketch. It is a non-entry layout since I was able to work on it past the deadline.

CD Art Thursday #2: Altered CD - Photo/Memo Holder

Glad I found those tiny frame stands in one of the super malls around here. Fits CDs perfectly.

CDs are just perfect for this since they are sturdy and can hold embellishments.

Christmas is just around the corner so I thought of making prototype of what will be our give aways this year. Next thing I will do is make a list and start the mass production of my altered CD - Photo/Memo Holder.

Wais Wednesday #12: Savings on ATM withdrawals

A trending topic in Facebook recently is about BDO imposing a PhP2.00 fee for every ATM withdrawal, even if withdrawal is made from a BDO ATM. That's too bad for those whose payroll are with BDO. A PhP 2.00 charge may even be more than what the payroll or savings account earns in terms of monthly interest. To make matters worst, most ATM machines dispense up to maximum of PhP 10,000.00 per transaction. So if you go beyond that amount, you will be charged more than PhP 2.00. Banks put up ATMs to discourage depositors from over the counter withdrawals and imposes higher fee in this case.

Thanks to Citibank, withdrawals are free, whichever ATM you make the withdrawal, and that also applies for withdrawals outside of the country of your branch.

Citi offers Citi at Work for payroll accounts, I think companies should now start considering moving their payroll accounts to Citi.

If you are a depositor, might as well move your accounts to Citi.

Crafty Friday #4: Swap-bot - Postage Stamp

This was sent out almost two weeks delayed due to the recent flooding in Manila and over various parts of Luzon. The requirement is use a scenery postage stamp for ATC. Good thing I was able to receive a mail with a postage stamp from a place in Brunei. I used mask and structuring medium and stampendous frantage fragments, distress inks and came up with this ATC. Hope my partner likes this one.

I am now getting addicted to swap for three things: 1) Gets me excited to wait for the mail because I am getting something other than bills; 2) Postage stamps from all over and last but not the least 3) I am receiving something that was created by an artist in other parts of the planet.

Wais Wednesday #11: Going Green

With the recent calamity and disaster brought about by flooding, won't we all consider about going green and seriously caring for our environment. We only have one earth to live in and the more we neglect or set aside our concern for the environment, the more damages we bring into our home.

Organic and natural products are not only safe to the environment but are also free from harmful chemicals that bring damage to our physical health.

We can start change in our own household and take initial step in loving our mother nature. We made the switch initially by using Human Nature body care products. Now, even all our household cleaning materials were replaced with Messy Bessy. These are locally made products so there's no additional carbon emissions just to bring the products in the Philippines.

On a Roll...

Don't you just love it when you never ran out of mojo and those layouts just keep on coming? Bet you do. Thanks to sketches, and another thanks to our local sketch challenge blog. Really makes scrapping a breeze with cool sketches and awesome design team. All you need is to mix and match photos, papers and embellies and you are on your way to having another layout tucked in your album.

Here's my take on Filipino Scrappers Challenge for the second sketch for August. I just did a little twisting on the sketch to match my photo. This is for my eldest son's chef guild in their school. To match the picture, I used a paper with veggie prints, and embellishments that is shaped like a pan and a chef hat.

Crafty Friday #3: More Scrapbook Layouts

Here are some more layouts from the past few weeks after I attending Iris' class. 

I have started the layout last April, but was only able to finish now.



This is a combination of old and new trends. As you notice, the paper is a very old Basic Grey line. Just imagine how happy I was when I saw chevron patterns on the paper. I also made use of American Crafts neon embossing powders, which is making its comeback in terms of scrapbooking trends.



This is a total shift from the clean lines above. It started as a simple layout. I added the layers by using stencils and distress inks. 

Wais Wednesday #10: History Repeats Itself

It was only three years ago when Typhoon Ondoy (International name Ketsana) tragedy befell upon us in the Philippines. And now, history repeats itself when continous rain for the past two weeks. As of Tuesday, the accumulated rainfall is 472 mm surpassing the 455mm recorded during the Typhoon Ondoy. While sources said the Ondoy rain is considered to be more intense, having delivered 300mm of rainfall for 6 hours, the rainfall last Tuesday was spread out to 24 hours, the question is our preparedness.

For the past few days, alert levels were constantly announced and Metro Manila was put under a red warning signal due to heavy to intense rains. This could be the reason why reported number of fatalities is lower compared with Ondoy. But I believe we can do better. If there are fire and earthquake drills, there should also be flash flood rescue simulations.

I saw several posts in FB which are all about getting prepared in an emergency, however, we are now in a rescue and recovery mode and the rescue team are doing a great job and we even have more means today for rescue operations.  To my mind, any emergency tips could have been helpful prior to the actual calamity to minimize the effect on us.

So as the recent disaster becomes just another page in our history, let us keep ourselves on guard for any  incidents in the future. Having a background from a company who gives high importance to  business continuity, I believe it is about time I should be applying the same security and safety procedures to my family, such that as whenever an emergency, calamity or disaster strikes, our family is well prepared and our safety and security is not compromised.  Now it is time to come up with our family's version of a disaster preparedness and recovery program.

Crafty Friday #2: Scrapbook Layouts

Attending Iris' class never fails to pumped up my mojo. Two Saturdays ago, we've learned about watercolor effects using Derwent Inktense blocks. We also used a new texture paste medium from Plaid. I so love this new mediums but shopping takes a backseat while I am in a transition to a new job.

Here are the layouts I finished from the class. I can't wait for the next classes.

This is the first and only picture most recent photo I have with my mom. This was taken last year during our family trip to Singapore. I wish to have move photos to scrap and preserve our memories.

The baby in this layout is Joie who is already 6 years old. I admit I still have plenty of backlog photos to scrap. I love the splatter effect using distress stains. Perfectly matches the vitamin splatters in his bib. 

Wais Wednesday #9: Homemade Bonchon Fried Chicken

The first time I ate at BonChon, I thought it was a US fried chicken franchise. Not until recently when out family ate at BonChon Eastwood did I learn that it was originally from Korea.

So what I did is to research about Korean fried chicken in the internet. There are recipes though that would require me to go to a Korean store, so it went down to the bottom of my recipes to try list.

Not until recently that I saw in PureGold Taguig, McCormick Korean Fried Chicken mix complete with sauce. It comes in different flavors, soy garlic, kimchi and bulgogi. I have not seen other variant though. I bought the soy garlic and bulgogi. I cooked the Soy Garlic flavor in one of our Sunday night specials.

I did not follow the direction that comes in the pack. I followed the Korean style I saw in the internet. First is to rub the chicken with salt and pepper. Then, instead of mixing the batter with water, I used egg.  I also added several spoonfuls of cornstarch for the batter to make it thicker. Then instead of frying the chicken only once, I tried double frying. I do not know why, but it just makes a lot of difference on the crispyness of the chicken. You will be needing plenty of oil for frying. First you have to make sure that the oil is hot enough, heat it for around 7-8 minutes. Then fry the chicken for 10 minutes. Let it stand for around 2 minutes. Since I did my frying in batches, I had to complete the all the batches for first frying before I did the second round. For the second round of frying, you will see the transformation from being soggy to really crispy. After the second round of frying, using the sauce provided in the pack, I just tossed the chicken in a container and shook it with the sause.

So last Sunday, our family enjoyed a feast of simple yet very delicious fried chicken.

Crafty Friday #1: Swap-bot: ATC swap

I will be starting another series in my blog for the crafters out there. My Wais Wednesday series has been ongoing for the past 8 weeks and so here is another one (though I hope I can still revive my CD Art Thursday series in the coming weeks).

I recently joined a swap group called swap-bot. This is a fun group who does a swap of almost anything - from postcards, ATCs, smash/junk journal items to teas, pens and what-have-you.

I usually sign up for ATCs, postcards and smash/jubk journal. Although shipping is a little heavy on the pocket, it is a way to connect with others and at the same time keep the postal system alive. Thanks to technology, gone are the days of snailmails and penpals. These were replaced with the internet and other electronic media.

Here are two of ATCs mailed for the butterfly theme. Both are butterfly themed except that the second one is a glittery butterfly per swap requirement.

The ATCs are very simple, I just run through a patterned paper in an embossing folder, distressed with distress inks, punch a butterfly. To customize for the glittery requirement, I just applied embossing ink, glue powder and glitter and voila, two projects completed.

Wais Wednesday #8: Color Coding

This is not about the UVVRP (The Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program), but our self imposed color coding scheme for the two boys to distinguish their things in school. We bought their items using their respective favorite colors. This way, we can tell who left what just by simply looking at the color without the need to inspect the items inside. 


This has worked for us and one of the factors that help us get by even in the absence of helper at home.