A Foreign Life

Great Start to the Weekend!

Jen Caputo sent me the sweetest gift this morning - her new bendy actions. They are so incredibly clever. There's only one little problem...I can't stop using them! As evidence...

The first one is with Melany Violette's Moody Boy, and Lady is with Vera Lim's Mystified. And of course Jen's Bends, you can get them here.
I also did one with Lacy Underwear by Lauren Reid, Leah Riordan and Vicki Stegall.

I also did 2 with Lynn Grieveson's gorgeous new kits, but I can only share those tomorrow. So it's been quite a productive day. Poor James had to work all day. We were supposed to go to a farewell party, but he didn't feel up to it.
Tomorrow will probably be another quiet one. That's how we like them.

Yippeeee!!!

It's Friday and I'm finally home! 2 tests, 2 parties and waayy too much cake later...I have some time to relax. Also I think I caught the incurable hiccups from little Scotty. Not contagious right? But seriously, he came in to do his oral test and he had the hiccups. Then they stopped and as soon as he walked out...I started. So I guess I need to pass them on to someone else.
Chinese class was good, we did numbers - all the way up into the billions. i'm not too sure when I'll get a chance to use them, but it was fun.
I just posted the layout I did yesterday with Vera's Wonderful kit.

I was so excited yesterday cause I got the most comments ever on my Sylvie layout - 36. Now of course I want to get just as many today! Silly, isn't it?
Well, tomorrow is supposed to be freezing - so, I plan on staying in, wrapped up in a blanket and scrapping!
Have a great one!

I love Thursdays! I get an extra 2 hours off. I always get my hair done, and James and I get to go for a Starbucks fix. Then, of course, I proceed to get nothing productive done for the rest of the day. And it's almost Friday....Fridays, I can handle.
Switched on DiscTalk radio, and I'm scrapping away on my free night (no Chinese class). Matthew phoned and he has a job! yay...this is a good start. Now he just has to get that 'getting up in the morning' thing down. So far, I just got one layout done with Sylvie's new Valentina Valentino kit. I love that I can get the funky freestyle look (I hope that's what I got) with this kit so effortlessly. But I'm still going, so who knows what I'll get done.

I have absolutely nothing lined up for this weekend. Poor James has to work for 7 hours. I'll probably stay in and watch the Sopranos. How exciting am I? Right, well, I'm going to get going...cause tomorrow is party day and I have to deal with 7 year olds on the first day on vacation and on waaayyy too much sugar. Wish me luck.

Aren't these gorgeous? Sylvie just put these up on her CT forum and I just can't wait to get a chance to scrap with them.

I did manage to get some scrapping done too, I did this one of my brother and I. And one of my Gran too. I love this pack from Jan Crowley, it's called Marinara.


I also just finished this one with Sylvie's Adorably Worn, but I haven't posted yet. Mostly just because it's a bit late for the Praise Game, I'm such a praise hog!

Other than that we are steadily working our way through two seasons of the Soprano's. We really have to break these shows up. We run out way too quickly. We're still trying to get the second season of Prison Break, cause that one went way too quickly. Ok, we got to finish off and get some sleep in. Before we have to get up and do it all over again. :)

a fun little experiment

Ok, well I'll give this blogging thing another go!
Nothing much is happening over here except for the fact that I've been trying my hand at making my own digi-papers. I wanted to have some papers that I can use for commercial use, so I went out and got myelf some Commercial License templates and scanned every texture I could find and this is what I came up with.

I have to admit that, while I won't be trying to design kits to sell, it was great to have a new challenge in my scrapbooking. I'm going to keep at it and see what comes from my little experiments in paper. I actually have a link for the second kit cause I was smart enough to work out how to use YouSendIt too. Yes, it was a proud moment in the Buchanan household. So, if anyone wants to grab it...go here . If anyone has any tips on paper making or ideas, please drop me a comment!

Weehee!!!

I'm doing backflips!!! Jan Crowley just invited me to be on her amazing CT! I have been stalking Jan forever and she finally cracked ha ha ha (evil laugh) No seriously, she is such a sweet person and completely amazing designer!!! Her stuff is very unique - not only different from other designers, but also one kit to the other. Just check out these two I did, the first is with her gorgeous Portobella Rd kit and the second is with her latest Comic Junkie kit:


Combined with my ScrapArtist win and my other exciting news which shall not be mentioned and I am one happy little digi scrapper. Now, if only the rest of my life would follow suit. I so desperately want to go and study and start a fulfilling career. I want to be challenged again. I spend a good part of my evening checking exchange rates and figures and fees. I really want to go in Feb and the thought of waiting another whole year is so depressing. At least we have our holiday in September to look forward to. Just have to get through a hot and sticky August!

These are the layouts I have done recently. Sylvie from Sausan Designs is back from holiday and i got more of her amazing stuff! I really liked her designs before I applied for her CT, and since I've been on it she's brought out the Altered Artistry line which is so much 'my thing', I feel like I really got lucky! the first one is with the Industrial Grunge pack and the second is with the Art Pack all at her store at PDW.

These two are with Lauren Reid's Mahalo Kit available at OScraps and DigiScrappinBiz - it's perfect for summer pics!

In other Christy Lyle news, she has new Oh My O ring Mini Books out along with two new alpha's and a rocking The Basics:Office kit. All of it is very cool. I used the books and Worn Cardboard Alpha and Office stuff in Visa Hassles, next to that is a lift of Christy's LO - Twelve, using ABC Baby from the Expecting collection.

Amy Bleser has been busy over at ScrapMommies and these two are with her new Having Fun kit, she's also got a great new boy kit out which I'm going to play with later.

The one on the left here, with Stacie Prinzo's fun new PoppySeed Mini Kit is a lift of Jenn Olson's Tousled. She is the treat of the month over at Sweet Shoppe Designs and she is really amazing. The one on the right is with Vera Lim's Sweet Romance kit. All of us, on her CT, love her word art and she's just brought out a Word Art collection along with her new Timeless Kit. I'm going to get going with those in a bit!

Sandra Boddington has a beautiful new kit out, Country Hill which I used in this LO. I'm so lucky to have such a range of wonderful designers. I could never afford all this gorgeous stuff by myself! My mom already complains about all the extra stuff I buy. non-scrappers just don't get it. But seriously...if I can just get on to the Designer Digitals CT, then I'll be done...really...yeah right

Have a fab Saturday!

Check out this amazing sale

These are some brilliant savings!!!!

Could there be anything worse...

than a Monday? I'm sure they didn't always seem this bad, but lately I can't seem to get over the Monday blues until Tuesday evening. I should definitely remember to keep some wine in stock for Monday nights...hey, there's an idea...
It's not just the Monday right, there's the whole Sunday night leading up to it and then it drags all the way over into Tuesday. I actually taught my 5yr olds Bob Geldof's 'I Don't Like Mondays'. Ok, only the refrain, not the 'I want to shoot' part. But, they cottoned on pretty quick and little Ken has declared his displeasure for every day except Thursdays and Fridays.
I got quite a few more LO's done this weekend. there were so many amazing Two Scoops released at Sweet Shoppe Designs this weekend.
Ok, here goes..


OK, well the one with little Jon Jon and a face full of ice cream is with Christy Lyle and Angela Barton's Huckleberry Ice Cream. Of course I have always loved Christy's stuff, but I only discovered Angela's when she started designing over at Sweet Shoppe, and I don't know why I never saw her stuff before. She has some amazing kits - very cool patterns. The pink one with Kelly is with Christy Lyle and Mindy Terasawa's gorgeous Sunkissed Fantasy. What an amazing partnership. And the one with goofy pics of me is with Robin Carlton and Lauren Grier's absolutely amazing Fudge Dream Supreme. The pics were taken on my birthday so I guess I can be excused for a little drunken posing...


These two are with Lauren Reid's very cool Kinda Krafty {Starlight} kits. The Bluer one is number one and the pinkish one is number two. Both are funky enough to be used with anything though! She's got a new one out too that I'm going to play with later. This next layout with James in his oh-so-cool Philippines glasses are with the Beautiful Heart Charity kit 2, that Lauren has put together.

This one is a lift of the very talented Yenny and it's with Vera Lim's lovely Chocolate and Simple Pleasures kits.

In other news we are in the mid 30's here in Taipei with humidity levels over 50. Yup, that's a lot of sweating!!! We went out to Danshui over the weekend and had a bit of a walk around. It's basically just a market area by the river. It's about an hour on the MRT and it was alright - just really hot. Landed up at Starbucks there so really not too much of a change from our usual routine. We are re-watching The Office and killing ourselves laughing. It's such a brilliant show, but seriously painful to watch. We went through the whole first season on Saturday.
OK, I'm off to scrap. Have a good one.

let's get serious

OK, enough with this linking and setting-up business, down to some serious social commentary. yeah right.
Well, the most exciting news in my little life is that I won a prize for the ScrapArtist Anniversary bash. I get free products for a year!!!!! This is seriously like winning the digi-scrapping lottery. I couldn't believe it when they announced me. Actually I would have just thought it was some other Mary-Ann, but they did mention from the Western Cape of Africa...which kind of tipped me off. Very cool
I did some layouts yesterday, big shock...Actually I got quite a few done since we both had the afternoon off. They didn't rank too high on my personal comment-o-meter, but here goes. Ok now this is my first attempt at uploading an image so bear with me.


The one on (what I hope will turn out to be) the left is from the amazingly beautiful and huge Beautiful Heart Charity Kit put together by Lauren Reid and available at OScraps. You can find out more about the kit here. The one on the right is all from Lauren Grier's fabulous new kit Full of Sweetness. Lovely isn't it, you can get it at Sweet Shoppe Designs and it's on special right now.


The left one is from the very funky new Two Scoops by Amy Bleser and Paula Duncan, which is also on sale at Sweet Shoppe Designs. The second one is with the beautiful Adelaide's Letter by Iron Orchid Designs available at Scrap Artist.

This is with Stacie Prinzo's colourful new Bowling Party kit. Stacie is also the featured designer at Plain Digital Wrapper this month, get it here.

Ok, well I'm dying of heat and I have the most amazingly gorgeous kits from Sweet Shoppe Designs and Melany Violette to play with so I'm going to crack open a cold vodka cooler (yes, I am that much of a dork) and get started. Stay tuned for more exciting scrapping updates.
Mom, you can click on the images to make them bigger....I hope.

It works?

I thought I messed this up...for some reason. Mostly because that's what I tend to do with all things webbish. But, it appears not. So I really do have a blog.
I have the afternoon off, so I guess I'll get to work on linking things...