Garden Photos

It's been C.R.A.Z.Y.B.U.S.Y at work. No time for crafts or scrapping of late but here are some shots taken of our vegetable garden about a month ago.

Ladybugs living in our garden. J loves them to bits!

I have no idea what these bugs are, but they don't move. Update: I finally found out that these guys are actually baby ladybugs! Silly me!

'Misai Kuching'.

Errr.... celery?

'Sio Pak Choy'

Spinach

Spinach flowers grow close to the plant stem.

Close-up of the spinach flowers.

Megablocks Mickey & Friends

Let me warn you that this will take LOTS of imagination. These little Megablocks structures are done by J - they are supposed to Megablocks versions of the little figurines next to them. The one at the bottom right corner is supposed to be Daisy Duck (no figurine of Daisy). Imagine.

Cousins

Love the Vintage Moon collection from Pink Paislee and immediately got inspired to scrap these photos which were taken during Chinese New Year eve reunion dinner last year. I had been saving them until I could get the 'right' papers to scrap them, so finally, they are done.

Thanks to my BIL, Sam for taking these cute photos of J and cousin N. I'd love to say that they're the bestest cousins, but I guess it's more accurate to say that they have this love-hate relationship going ... but, it definitely has improved since the time these photos were taken. N has a 'special' name he calls J, "Eska" ... it's really cute, but I guess details of that deserves another scrapbook page of its own. Soon. I hope.
Close-ups - my favourite Prima flowers on a journal tag overlapping a frame, but I just can't seem to leave things as they are so they got distressed, Stickled and bling-ed.

7-Gypsies gaffer tapes ... I lurve!

Vegetable Garden Update

Some time ago, I had posted photos of our container vegetable garden, well, some of the plants have since bloomed, been consumed and/or replanted. So here's an update of what has happened.

Baby spinach seedlings which have newly sprouted.

We replanted our longbean plants too as the old one started deteriorating.

Our grape-tomatoes (if that's indeed the real name for it) finally ripening. But the plant might need replacing soon as it seems to be infested by some cottony-looking insects.

Close-up of the tomato flowers.

Close-up of the tomatoes. Yes. They are seriously THAT yummy looking! And they taste as good as they look too. I'm a little obssessed with the tomatoes, can you tell?

ATC ~ Journey

Had messy fun with this one. Layers of acrylic and crackled paint, Perfect Pearls, stamping as well as using Beadazzles.

Close-up of the cracks, sheen and various textures.

Best Buds

My 2 favourite girls ... this makes me happy!



They are constantly like that - under the dining table, rolling on the floor ... mainly J terrorizing Bubbles. Sigh!

Potpourri Bottle

Did a little tutorial for a feature over at Artz de Scrap and loved the ladies' takes on it!

Transformation from empty used bottle to this ...
... then finally this!

Close-up of the distressing and layering done to the Prima flowers.

ATC ~ Bloom & Grow

This ATC is made from repurposed corrugated cardboard and splotched with a bunch of Mica Magic Inkpads. Parts of the edges are inked and embossed. The layered flower is distressed and stickled, while the leaf is stamped, distressed-embossed and cut-out. Got a few more stuffs I'm working on (at snail's pace) involving corrugated cardboard ...


A close-up of the textures from the various embossing effects and the metallic sheen of the Mica Magic Inkpads.

The 'Blossom' Shaker

This is what J and I get into when we have spare time at home. This 'shaker' was made in Aug'08 actually but I never got around to taking any photos until now. It looks a little beaten now from J carting it around whenever it pleases her.

The pink thing in the middle is actually J's drawing of Blossom of Power Puff Girls, her favourite cartoon character for some time now. That black smudge near the midsection is supposed to be the black band around Blossom's waist.J has decorated the shaker frame with drawings of swirls and smudges of Stickles. Also a close-up of the plastic see-through area with various sequins and beads which we sealed in to make the shaker sound. A relatively easy and fun piece to work with when it involves kids, plus all materials are repurposed from items lying around the house.

Vegetable Garden

FIL has been revamping our little driveway garden in the past months and I absolutely love that we are now producing bits of vegetables for our meals at home. These cute yet useful plants are all contained in pots and the vegetables are definitely 'sweeter' in taste - they've got that extra zip and zest to them - probably because they are really fresh and pesticide free. I was thinking of suggesting starting a vermicompost, but I think I'd better take things 1 step at a time!

Screwpine leaves which smell fantastic with so many uses for them.

I believe these are called grape-tomatoes - they've got small-ish cute yellow flowers
This is the still green tomato. Will try and post photos of the ripened version later on.

Our longbeans which will probably need replanting soon. They have been harvested many times over and somehow, caterpillars love the taste of the leaves

A little eggplant that just metamorphosised from the flower.

And this is the 'grown-up' version of the eggplant. It's not fully ripened yet I guess, and we are still trying to determine how big it can grow!

We are now hosting a bunch of these little wrigglers on both our longbean plants and eggplant. J claims that she doesn't mind sharing our vege-plot with them as they are her friends ...

ATC ~ J's Garden

J made this ATC some months back but it somehow got lost in her stuff and only recently reappeared again. This is done with colour pencils, depicting a butterfly hovering above this strange, err ... I mean, extraordinary flower. This is a 'special' rainbow butterfly - so says J.

Moleskine Entry By J

J got her little artsy hands on my Moleskine 2 days ago and insisted on contributing a page (or two). Of course I relented, I mean, I'm a huge fan of this little artist!

Page 1

So the story goes like this ... J (that's the 'girl' - the human drawing in the middle) with the red hair in pigtails (complete with blue hair clips) is playing with her (imaginary) friend 'Sasa' (with the red & green eyes) on the far left. They are at the playground - as you can see, there is a pink slide on J's right side. Also enjoying the fun is Bubbles, our Miniature Schnauzer (yep, that black drawing with Mickey Mouse ears and tail at the bottom right).

Page 2

Now the story gets complicated ... something to do with Fairytopia ... rainbow-coloured fairy-wings ... and closing doors so that no one gets knocked down by the rainbow-coloured car (at the bottom right) with pink and green wheels. Unfortunately the picture is not clear enough, but somewhere amongst the colourful 'intepretation', it is detailed that the inside of her car is with 3 blue pedals - a clutch, a brake and an accelarator, oh plus a green steering wheel. Somehow, she's got shoes in the car (??). Oh, and she penned her name below her car so that "people will know that this is mine" ... well, no doubt about that!

ATC ~ The Cools

Made these for a swap via Malaysian Scrappers Society blog. Must apologise for the blah photos - it was deadline for mailing out these babies and the only chance I had to photograph this ... the weather is crummy. So anyway, I had fun playing with inks again, everything created from scratch (with use of inks and masking and reinkers and embossing, and so on), except the blue-green pattern paper (which I LOVE) from Autumn Leaves.



Some close-ups. But sheesh! I still hate how 'dreary' the colour looks with the crappy lighting.

Favourite foil heart colour (at this angle, at least).

Supplies - Inks: Adirondack Inkpads, Tim Holtz Distress Inkpads and Reinkers, Adirondack Alcohol Inks; Ranger Embossing Powders; Autumn Leaves pattern paper; Prima stamp; Bazzill Cardstock; Cuttlebug; Foil Tape.

Mini Album ~ My World

I decided that I had time to attempt Smidapaper's June challenge of coming up with a "mini book with soul" at the very last minute. Was completely inspired by the colour combination of the blues, greens and blacks. The cover might be temporary though as J is demanding for "her" notepad holder back. Anyway, it remains an album (for now) until she next looks for it.

A close-up of the little 'window' I made with the Hambly.

One of my favourite quotes by Oscar Wilde.

Update:-
To use the words of my 3-year-old ... Holy Toledo! I'm so excited!!! Okay, so before I got a chance to post this original post, I found out that I had actually won the challenge ... and this now resides with me. Can't stop smiling.