Fun weekend and some sayings...

Panic set in when I left work at 5.40pm (very rare so early) and drove up onto the highway only to find that it was jammed cos of a fender bender!! I was DEFINITELY going to be late for SC's anniversary crop. Argh! I called Anna and had to ask her to save me a space. It didnt help that it was end of the month which meant that Gadong would be jammed too! Huff...puff! I got to SC by about 6.20pm which wasnt too bad I guess considering...

Sharon quickly burst into action once we were all settled and had some fun projects for us. We were divided into the pink and blue team. I had Foxyzzz, Scrapperholic, Renoa, Serene and Bee Fong with me on the pink team. Firstly we made a little coaster autograph book and we went around introducing ourselves and getting everyone to sign it. Then we had a little game of listing out the number of items that we were supposed to try and memorise which our team won! We continued with a few questions then altered a mirror which Sharon had brought all the way from Singapore with her for us! The last game of the night was to list down A-Z of scrapping brands...the other team won so we all went home a winner. That's not all though!!

Being Scrapperholics also meant we were shoppaholics! We had a chance at a lucky draw for every $50 we spent (this is still on-going) and I got a kit and a $5.00 voucher...and and and...I got an anniversary gift of 3 6"x6" American Crafts albums!! And and and...there's more! I attended the crop and Emily's class which meant I got a goody bag from each session! It was a weekend full of fun and freebies! Will update this post with pics later on. If u want to see the beautiful creation we made at Emily's class, check it out here. I would have loved to join Lia & Sharon's classes but my weekend was booked up. I hear they had some great giveaways though!!

My sis and I spent some of the weekend pampering ourselves (all paid for by me...broke now) and making cupcakes (carrot & walnut and pink icing) as well as trying to remember how to play mahjong. Ken had a whole bunch of friends surprise his wife with a lovely gathering at Sheraton on Saturday night for her birthday. Aww!! I didnt expect for there to be so many people but it was good to catch up. Dinner with my out-laws (not yet in-laws bah)on Sunday was postponed and I got a head start on making X'mas cards for the kids that will be receiving some lovely goodies from the SK Swap...my brother is going to have a very happy X'mas! I'm soo going to capture lots of pics of his reaction to receiving all the packages!



*the cupcakes*

Anyway I just wanted to leave u guys with some stuff people have told me over the years that has really helped me. I hope it helps u in some way too!

1. When ur rich, everyone wants to be ur friend. It's who is still there when ur poor/normal

2. Its very rare that people find someone who fits their criteria 100%. Be happy with someone who is 70/80% cos remember, ur not perfect yourself

3. Whatever your hubby does with his money is his business, as long as he treats u well and provides for the family, he does what he wants with his extra money

4. Take everything that happens to you in your life as an experience you can learn from, whether its good or bad. U still walk away with something u've learnt at the end of the day

5. A smile always starts things off well no matter what

6. Always make time for yourself no matter how busy, or in love or rushed you are. It really makes a difference...clear your mind, read a book, do what YOU want to do. I find I really cannot go without more than 2 weeks without having a girly session with my girlfriends or taking a moment to just taking time to immerse myself in a good book always helps.

And finally...

I have completed the SC ASR Challenges. The one that took me the longest was the last LO for some reason. My mojo decided to run out on me just before the last challenge so I wasnt the first 5 to finish but I'm just happy to have gotten it all done. Now I have the crop on Friday and Emily's class to look forward to!

Challenge #5:- Create an LO with 15 pattern papers


Challenge #6:- Create an LO using the title "I Scrap Because..."


TFL!! Good luck to all the others in the running and thanks so much to all those who leave their lovely comments for me!

Christmas Wishlist

I'm following in WS footsteps and making up a little wishlist of my own. Yeah I'm a copycat, so what? We're going to be related....eventually (I hope cos not many people can take on that fat cat at home). I'm putting up a more affordable and REALISTIC (WS take note) list....keke.

No. 1: Canon Selphy Printer. I just got my new toy (which I have yet to blog about) which is my new little Dell XPS (strokes it lovingly) which matches my phone. This little baby will complete my (new colour of the moment short of getting my Lexus IS300) white collection of gadgets. It's very useful for a scrapper like me (unless anyone has recommendations for better)


No. 2: Flowers from Wilyn. OK so its a bit boring but eversince H got me this last year (which caused me to have a huge silly grin on my face for the whole day) for my birthday...a Wilyn bouquet just makes me wanna sigh with pleasure. Yes, they will be my wedding florist!


No. 3: Provo Craft Cuttlebug. I've been coveting this for AGES cos I love their embossing results...sigh...someone please feed my card making addiction (and scrapping of course)


No. 4: Miss Dior Cherie. The bottle is just too pretty and it smells nice too. Not too overpowering or sickly sweet. I *heart* this.


No. 5: A weekend getaway to KK for H and me just walking around hand in hand, enjoying a couple's spa, eating bah kut teh, seafood & me getting my Starbucks fix! Oh gotta check out the new Wan Borneo as well! Maybe for our 3rd anniversary...

Label Tulip Oct Kit

Got it last week but havent had a chance to play with it yet. I cant wait to use those cute Maya Rd velvet blooms *rubs hands together*



*pics taken from LT website*

SC's Amazing Scrapping Race

Its Shabby Chic's 2nd Anniversary and they've got an Amazing Scrapping Race going as well as some fun classes with their current DT's...oh and they have just announced a crop on the 28th! (which I've already signed up for). I must say I wasnt sure if I was going to participate in this but its got my mojo going and I'm happy to still be in the race even if I am most likely not to win the Big Shot seeing the amazing talent that is out there.

Challenge #1: Create an LO with at least 6 photos


Challenge #2: Create an LO with at least 2 altered raw pieces of chipboard


Challenge #3:- Create a totally B&W LO including ONE B&W photo (this caused some confusion for me cos of the word "include")


Challenge #5: Create an LO with 2 ribbons, PP, CS, flowers, buttons and types of alpha.


So far, I'm still in the running and awaiting my next instructions.

P.S. I'm glad to see that I've used totally different types of pictures and totally different themes of LO's throughout. Ideas have flowed to me pretty fast this time around. Hope it continues past the competition. Thank you SC for fuelling my mojo.

Life's Choices

The bulk of my work at the firm the past year and a half has been divorce matters. When I go to court, I'm amazed at the increasing divorce rate here in Brunei. Yesterday, while I was tending to a client whose case would be potentially very contentious, I was asked if I was married. I told the client that I would be getting married next year. The client was amazed how I would still want to get married after handling so many divorce cases.

I told the client I could be put of marriage by all this or I would be more determined to make marriage work after seeing all the mistakes people make. Most of the time, I notice that people were incompatible to begin with. U can not only learn from your own mistakes but also from the mistakes of others.

I made a similar choice after I had recovered from cancer. I could have chosen to treat myself as a potentially sick person for the rest of my life or live my life to the fullest and achieve all I can while I'm still around. I'm glad I opted for the latter. Life isnt meant to be lived wrapped up in a cotton ball.

Next year, I now have 2 major events to look forward to. A new exciting job with lots of prospects and a wonderful journey of marriage with H.

I cant wait!!

Day 2 in Jakarta

Nothing exciting happened for me on day #2 (depending on how u look at it) as my stomach was still precious from the night before. EL brought us for some lovely Spanish food that night at Moya after I had more or less recovered. It was delish!! We had a few different types of huge plates of tapas (the UK ones are tiny compared to these). Love love love the prawns...sigh! EL's fav dish is the thinly sliced smoked pork (cant remember what its called) but the prawns won it for me and Dr A. We sighed at having proper nachos with guacamole and cheese...ummm. Oh we also loved that wall mural behind Dr A...cool eh?













Dr A wandered down to the loo after our meal and she insisted I go down WITH the camera afterwards. EL had told us it was a nice cosy jazz club downstairs (apparently they are no longer concentrating on jazz now) and the decor was just fab!! That cushion with the pole was outside the loo area...soo plush! The loo itself was cool cos u got these grafittied walls and u are welcome to leave ur mark cos they provide u with chalk to scribble too!






Restaurant Moya is part of a company that also has Cassis Restaurant which has fine dining and another restaurant in the building serves Indonesian food (I think). There is also a big club and we saw some very nice wheels in the carpark!!




We ended the night buying loads of dvd's (cos it was sooo cheap) and watching them for the rest of the night. The place beats Unitek!! No pics...was too distracted looking for dvd's...hehe.

A Teaser

Before someone's neck grows any longer, I'm going to talk about my trip to Jakarta. The 1st day anyway. It all started with some drama at the airport...waayy to early for my liking. Dr A had purchased our tickets with her CC a couple of months ago. By the time we had to fly, her CC had expired and she had returned it to the bank. She did not realise that we needed her CC to verify our ticket failing which we could not fly on those tickets and had to purchase new ones. She would further not be refunded for the tickets we had already paid for. She told me to stay calm.....I was ready to thump her!

We were given Option B which was to find out what the last 3/4 digits of her CC were. I thought...Ah! At least this one, she should have statements or internet banking to see the number....She had neither *.*. She ended up calling Customer Service at the bank and after explaining it to the guy more than once, he said he would call her back. I thought it was utterly ridiculous and called a friend of mine who worked at the bank and he got the number straightaway. We were then told we had been upgraded to business class!! Wopee!! (I later found out it wasnt our lovely smiles that got us upgraded but the fact that they had overbooked the flight)

We quickly went into the loungue for our brekkie and while we were there the bank customer service called back and said he was unable to get the CC number. WTF?!! Imagine if it wasnt for my friend, we would have been stranded!!

So, on to Jakarta...

Dr A started looking out the window as we approached and suddenly excitedly called out to me for the camera. She was amazed to see this stadium in the middle of a padi field. It was the beginning of the huge divide between the rich and poor we were going to be seeing during our trip.


We met EL at the airport after waiting AGES for our luggage (dont business class passengers luggage come out first?) and the driver was instructed to send us straight to Pacific shopping centre below the Ritz Carlton Hotel. I like the background of the picture below but the guy didnt take the lift that was behind the fountain and I look fat (gym time)


Realising that most of the shops in there were not within our anticipated budget, we stopped for some food. I had some herbal baked chicken stuff but I just had to take a picture of this absolutely decadent muffin we had...oh the place we stopped at specialised in muffins. It was also at this point that Dr A realised u can smoke ANYWHERE in Indonesia (all my clothes came back smelling of smoke)


We then decided to start from the top floor of the place instead and found the food area. This section caught our eye. Lovely isnt it? U can have ur dinner in that boat or in the lighthouse. Part of the restaurant...


After managing to do some shopping and while waiting for EL, we stopped for gelato. Mmmm....


We had shabu-shabu for dinner with EL and Sunny and the only pic we managed to take was the decor. We were too distracted and fascinated with the fast cooking super thin slices of meat and only realised we hadnt taken pics AFTER we had eaten everything.


The night didnt end there. After refreshing ourselves at the flat, we went out to Equinox which is a really good club. I didnt bring my camera as I was afraid to lose it and thankfully I didnt as I ended up having a tad much of my friend Johnny Walker which lasted me till the next day...but that's another story...

Shabby Chic Challenge #1

I managed to finish an entry for the 1st Challenge of Shabby's set of 6 challenges after Foxyzzz alerted me to it yesterday. I wasnt too happy with it at first until I added the bling and came back to it again then I was quite happy with how it turned out especially after I created my own "chinese coins". I'm not sure whether I can show the LO so here is a sneak peek...



Btw for those who wanted to know, in my last LO, I used PP from Making Memories and Heather Bailey. I got the butterfly CS from one of me Label Tulip kits, not sure if its sold out yet. The ribbon is a combination of organza ribbon I got somewhere and I layered the top of it with some AC ribbon in a similar colour to the background PP. For more definition, there is a strip of silver pearl thread. Psst...I tied the bow and pasted it down separate on top of the ribbon...hehe.

Young & In Love

This month's Groovie Cover Challenge had me inspired as soon as I saw it. My initial plan was to make an LO with no picture. However, I changed my mind when I started on my LO and I love the result as I have managed to colour code the LO with the colours of my sister's top in the photo. Oh, my sister may love this or may kill me for posting up the pic of her and her bf (that she didnt know I had)...keke. So, without further adue, here is the cover...



and here is my LO...



H's sister has been making delicious cupcakes since she came back last week while I was away. I came back in time for her strawberry muffins and strawberry and cream cupcakes. Yum!! She also helped me purchase this book I mentioned previously which I absolutely love!!



As I was meeting the gals last night, I felt like whipping up a little something for them and here is the result. Sorry for the bad pic la...it was on my fone and I didnt take my time to focus in...



I know at least one person is waiting to read the stories of my travels. Here is a sneak peek of the wonderful pictures to come of my travelogue...keke. Its the sunset I witnessed at Borobudur but as someone said to me before...no camera can capture the beauty of ur surroundings as well as ur eyes can.