Tremors Felt at Home

This morning, while I was applying my make-up and getting ready for work, I felt some movement. Then I looked at my reflection in the mirror and saw myself swaying a little. My watches hanging on the wall were swaying slightly. It was rather surreal to me since I have never felt tremors at home before, the western part of Singapore.

I was sure something drastic had happened in Indonesia again. Only earthquakes there has this effect. But I sort of know this quake must be really serious, since I can even feel the tremors at my place! Usually it's the southern and eastern part of Singapore most affected.

I went back to my dresser and continue with applying my make-up, still feeling the tremors. It went on for quite a while, about a minute or so. All sort of images were running through my mind. People fleeing, children cowering with fear while the earth shook violently around them, screaming, their houses falling apart before them and their lives are falling apart too. And here I was, putting powder on my face while the earthquake was happening.

I drove Tara to school and drove myself to work. Everyone is going on with their lives as usual. Totally unaffected. And I actually felt glad that I'm living in Singapore, away from all the disasters that are breaking up families and ruining lives.

I know there is nothing I can do and I can't stop these things from happening. But I can't help feeling emotional. Sometimes, life can be so cruel.

Scrapping LOs

LOs are layouts. Meaning anything that goes on a flat piece of paper. But now, it doesn't go on just paper, they go on acrylic pieces already. Ok, in any case, LOs are generally able to be slot into plastic protector sheets to be showcased as albums. Just like your general photo albums, but they last much longer.

I haven't been doing a lot of LOs recently. And I almost forgot they are the main reason I started scrapbooking! My objective/goal was to document anything and everything memorable so that my next generation, aka my children, and next, next generation will know about their ancestors, aka me and those before my, aka my parents, in-laws and their parents!

So many a times, we get so caught up with our own lives that we don't bother to talk to or find out more about the old folks, who are so dear to us. Only recently, that my dear Daddy told me he actually had to earn extra pocket money by scoring basketball shots during recess time in his seconday school days! If he doesn't, he can't get any lunch, cos the pocket money he got was only enough for transport. Poor Daddy! (I'm going to scrapbook this REAL soon).

Most of the time I do any decent scrapping, it's mostly the altered stuff. Meaning anything that doesn't go into albums. The lunch boxes, the photo frames, notebooks. All these are altered projects and 80% of the time, these are for other people. Don't get me wrong here! I love doing gifts for my friends and colleagues and seeing the joy on their faces upon receiving my handmade stuff is priceless. But I do know that I have limited free time and I wish to spend most of it documenting what are really important to me, before I pass on.

The other day, I was telling Bob I wanted to do some LOs of his parents. He asked me why. I told him I'm not sure how long more the both of them will be around, so I want to know more about them, scrap about it so that Tara (and my future children) will know about their grandparents. Then I told him not to dumb dumb and burn all my scrapbook albums if I should die before him. I said it in a joking tone, and he laughed. But I'm serious about this and he knows. I told him why I started scrapbooking and if he is going to do that, all my work will go to waste. And if he really want to burn something, he should burn more scrap supplies, so when I go up there, or down there (whatever!), I can still scrap mah! My purpose in scrapbooking also got his 100% support because of this, which I'm so grateful of!

Actually, I started this post to show my 2 new LOs, but I don't know why I babbled so much! Bleh...

Anyway, here they are, after a long.. time.. I finally did some LOs, and I'm absolutely satisfied with them!

Here they are..


This has got to be my favourite LO. And something I've always wanted to do. I'm glad it came out nice!

Details here:


My second LO:


Details here:


Did you see the fabric ruler button on the right side of this pic? I made it! Oh well, with the aid of a button kit though. And I totally love how it turned out! The button kit is so cool! I just need to put a fabric over the button, push it down into a rubber thingy, stuff the excess fabric into the inside of the button, and press another piece of metal thingy and it's done! I'm not sure if you understand what I'm saying though. Anyway, this is one reason I so love paper scrapping! The feel of all these papers, ribbons, embellishments just makes me so happy. A thrill I don't get in digi scrapping, as in scrapping using computers, but don't get me wrong also, I'm thinking of starting digi scrap too, cos paper scrapping is just so expensive to sustain! And not getting the thrill of the feel?? I'll live with it..

After starting on LOs finally, I'm so inspired to make more! My next project will be Tara's super belated first year album. I know... it's so late right? But it's better late than never.

P/S: Just in case you are wondering, I'm in a super cheery mood when I'm writing this post. It usually happens when I managed to do scrapping. Ha!