Some Early Holiday Crafting Inspiration

First of all, I just want to thank each and every one of you for your comments and emails on my last post.  I was overwhelmed and might have even shed a tear or two!  Thanks so much for inspiring me to keep blogging.  You mean people actually read my blog??  The most surprising thing to me is that you like my everyday life / out-and-about posts.  When I post those, I always wonder if people just skip those posts and only read the crafting/scrapbooking posts.  I guess for the most part, that's not the case!

Last year I embarked on an overly ambitious "Handmade Christmas", where I planned out tons of handmade gifts.  You can see my Handmade Christmas board on Pinterest here.  Not all of them came to fruition, but I did make 40 handmade trifold holiday cards that took FOREVER to make (like, seriously, 25 hours), and I made several holiday papercrafting kits as well.  I thought I would revisit them again on the blog, since I still enjoy looking at them and a lot of my blog readers are new this year. 

First, the cards.  I made 40 trifold cards.  The front of the card consisted of a strip of patterned paper, a diecut scalloped circle, a punched circle with stamped character, and a stamped sentiment on the bottom.

I actually made many different ones, which was why it took me so long!

I designed a personalized paper ornament in my Silhouette Studio software and cut them out with my Silhouette SD machine.

The inside of the trifold card has a stamped sentiment on the left, our photo with a belly band greeting in the center, and the cut paper ornament on the right.

You can see more photos and explanations of the products I used, and my process, in my blog post last year:  Anatomy Of A Holiday Card.

I also created a few paper-crafting kits and gave them away to crafty friends.  I think these were a big hit.  :)  Everything was handmade by me.

You can read my post last year "Handmade Holiday Crafting Kit" for more information on what I included in the kit.  I had originally intended to make my own kit for December Daily, and made extras as gifts for my crafty friends.  But I've come to realize that December Daily might not be the best kind of project for me.  Because I work in financial analysis and accounting, December is one of the busiest months for me.  Besides the fact that we don't even put up the tree until a couple of days before Christmas, LOL.  Oh well, I think I'm not the only person who LOVES to look at Christmas papers and stamps, but doesn't actually use them that much.  :p  I hope you found some early holiday inspiration in this post.  Go forth and create some holiday cards or mini books!  :)

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The One Where I Almost Quit

I've been blogging regularly for 4 years now.  My blog is actually my main source of memory-keeping, along with sharing of my scrapbooking and crafting adventures.  I have loved sharing on my blog and loved the community and friends I've made because of my blog.  If you look at the "About Me" page above, you can read what I'm all about.  I love writing, scrapbooking, paper-crafting, running, eating, and my friends and family.  My blog has been all about these things and more.  Over the last 4 years, I've made blogging my priority and have put in a lot of time and effort into regularly writing posts for my blog.

This past week, I almost quit blogging.  At least, I thought seriously about taking a hiatus.  Over the last couple of months, I've noticed that blogging had become sort of a chore.  I wasn't getting as many comments as I used to get on this blog.  While that is certainly not the over-riding reason why I blog, it was fun to have feedback about the different types of things I blogged about.  Lately, I had been getting the feeling that I've been talking to myself.  And really, talking to yourself is no fun!  I've talked to other bloggers about the diminishing comments, and they have experienced the same.  We have discussed some possible reasons why blog commenting seems to go the way of the dodo bird.  Some reasons mentioned were Pinterest, reading blogs on mobile devices, shorter attention-spans, etc.  I think all of these are contributing factors to the diminishing blog comments, but there's really no solution to them in general.

As a regular blogger, I'm putting content and sharing my life out to the blogging universe.  Most bloggers who blog are sharing their projects out of the love of sharing and the community.  Most bloggers don't actually make any money off of their blogs.  So the love of our craft, love of blogging, and the community that blogging creates, is all we have.  We do it because we love it.  We spend time taking photos of projects, processing them, and writing our posts.  This is time that could be spent doing something else.  For me personally, it was time that I had to find during the evenings and weekends, since I work full-time as a financial analyst.  What made my blogging worthwhile to me is how much I love going back to read my own posts and all the memories I've made and kept on this blog.  It's also very gratifying that my husband Todd loves reading my blog.  Another thing that makes it worthwhile is having readers who provided feedback and comments on my posts.  I don't make money off my blog, so the intrinsic value for me is intangible.  It is simply that I need to feel like blogging is gratifying to me in some way or another. 

And lately, it hasn't felt gratifying.  I feel like I spend time and effort on my blog and I just hear crickets.  I felt very discouraged.  Is anybody reading?  Why would anyone care about my blog?  I had a discussion on my Facebook wall this week amongst my scrappy friends, and here are some things that were brought up.

"I hear ya, I definitely have had more than a few posts where it feels like it's me...hanging out, by myself, with only the crickets, LOL But I don't know if you can necessarily blame Pinterest. In a lot of ways it's like digi galleries - the views are never going to equal the number of comments because there are lots of people who won't comment for a variety of reasons. That's true for even really really huge blogs. They may only have say 100 comments when they they have tens of thousands of page views. It's just how it goes."

"It seems to me the only thing you can control long-term is yourself. If you want to continue to enjoy blogging, you need to control how you think about it - separate the process from the praise - and not worry about anyone else. There can be intrinsic value in continuing to blog, if you allow there to be. Even though you don't have comments, you have page views. It means people are seeing your posts (or your stuff on Pinterest) and liking it. You built a reputation for being creative years ago, but you're continuing to maintain it now. Additionally, you're helping other people to figure out how to do something they didn't or couldn't do before. Knowing that you're touching those readers' lives, whether or not they express their thanks, has to feel good inside. You are improving the world by putting more good things out into it than bad."

"People don't comment as much as they used to. Myself included. I used to comment on almost all of the blogs I read but don't anymore. I also don't read as many blogs as I used to. I always ready your blog. Most of the time I'm reading from my phone and it's a pain to comment using my phone. I normally will go back and comment later when I'm on my laptop."

After the discussion with my friends, and my husband this week, I had almost decided to quit blogging for a while.  They are right.  The only thing I can change is how I myself feel about blogging, even if nobody is reading or commenting.  And I just wasn't feeling gratified when I felt like I was talking to myself.  That was Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning, I received an email from a reader that changed my mind.  She isn't a Facebook friend (yet) and I've had some casual contact with her in forums in the digi-scrap world.  She wrote:

"Dear Christine,

I am so one of those people that read (and still reads) your blog regularly and doesn't comment. I believe I may have commented once. I want to comment, I think of awesome things I would say but I usually am grabbing some reading in little snippets and run out of time for the good intentions I do have. 

But I love what you share and I looked forward each week to see what cool thing you did on your Project Life pages. Honestly, when I saw you had posted a PL post, I worked some time on my computer with a cup of coffee or tea to see what fun little touches you did. So sorry for never letting you know how much I really love your work. But I break out of my not commenting trend to reach out to you and see if you are still doing PL because I miss seeing them, since your last post I have been checking weekly hoping they would show back up. Or that you were busy and would post a bunch at once. 

No matter what I hope you are still doing them because they are amazing and what a gift to be able to look back on in the years to come."

I can't tell you how much the timing and content of this email encouraged me to keep on sharing on my blog.  If there is one person out there who silently reads my blog and is inspired by my projects and posts, surely there are others who are the same?  I'm not spending time and effort putting it out there in vain.  Even if not many people are commenting, I imagine there are many who do read my posts.  And pin them to Pinterest.  Perhaps even one person might read a post and it inspired them to pull out photos or crafting supplies and make something.  That is worthwhile to me.  Do I wish more people would say hello and comment?  Of course.  Every blogger wants to feel like they're making a difference, and want to be part of a community where there is feedback and discussion.  But I can't make people do it.  I just trust that you're out there silently reading, enjoy that cup of coffee, and thinking about your next project, or what to eat, or dreaming of a vacation to San Diego.  :)

PS - the subject of Project Life warrants a whole post by itself, coming soon, I hope.  :D

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Adventures in Arcadia

On Saturday 9/22, we drove up to LA to meet up with my cousin Bertha, who wrote, directed, and produced the movie “Almost Perfect”, which was premiering that weekend. It was a real treat, because my other cousin Bernice, who is Bertha’s sister, flew in from London to see the movie.  Bernice is my British cousin, complete with a British accent and everything.  I haven’t seen her in like 8 years!

While we waited for Bertha to arrive from the airport, we hung out with Bernice at a French bakery inside the mall in Arcadia. I was so excited to see Bernice.


Bernice is a fashion designer and owns a shop called Deploy in the Marylebone part of London.  She offers beautifully crafted womenswear and accessories including fine tailoring, smart-casual wear, limited-edition occasion and bridal-wear and a full bespoke design service.  Did I already tell you that her sister Bertha is a movie director?  Yea, whenever I’m with these two, I feel like the under-achiever, ha ha! 

Bernice bought me a pastry, yum!

Bernice was also meeting up with all her childhood friends.  We all had dinner together at A&J Restaurant, a Taiwanese restaurant in Arcadia.  Unfortunately, we were too busy eating the yummy food to take photos.  Finally remembered the camera at dessert time.  I had Taiwanese snowy ice for the first time and it was phenomenally delicious!

When Bertha finally arrived at the restaurant, it was too late for her to have a full meal before having to go to the movie theater to introduce her movie to the audience.  So she grabbed a quick bite and went.  We finished eating and Todd and I said goodbye to Bernice and her friends and drove back to the mall.  Bertha and her film distributor and some friends were hanging out at a sports bar outside the theater, so we joined in.

The lady on the left is Elizabeth Sung.  She’s been in the movie “Joy Luck Club”, and various TV shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Hawaii Five-0, CSI, Bones, NCIS: Los Angeles, etc. 

Bertha and me.  So happy to get to see her again.  Last time was October when she came to show the film at San Diego Asian Film Festival. 

We also got to hang out with actress Kristy Wu.  She’s been in many movies and TV shows, and she was the lead character in my cousin’s first movie “Face”.  But Todd remembered her in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer! 
Her latest project is the movie “End of Watch”, the movie with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. As my cousin Bernice said (in regards to Jake Gyllenhaal) in her British accent, “I rather fancy him”. :) 

The next morning we had breakfast with Bertha at the hotel, and hung out briefly with the gang.  Then we drove back to San Diego in 100 degree heat.
Thank goodness when we arrived at home, it was only 85 degrees outside our house! 

It is always a fun adventure when we hang out with Bertha.  This time it was a real treat because we got to see Bernice as well!

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The Heart of Scrapbooking

What is it about scrapbooking that I love?  I’ve posed this question to myself many times.  And at different times, the answer is different.  I scrapbook for memory keeping.  I scrapbook to experiment with art and techniques.  I scrapbook as therapy.  I scrapbook because it fulfills a need in my heart to document and to express.

I’m very excited to let you know that I wrote a guest blog post over at Write Click Scrapbook today about scrapbooking from the heart.  I got to share three of my projects that spoke to my heart in different ways. You can read it here!  :)


And speaking of scrapbooking from the heart… I scrapped a digi page about my friend Monika.  She recently found out that she has a brain tumor.  It was shocking and unexpected.  You can read about her journey on her blog.  I love Monika and her enthusiasm for life. 


I used the new papers and elements from Peppermint’s (One Little Bird) new digi kit “A Day of Possibilities”.  You can find the paper here and the elements here.  They’re both part of the October BYOC at The Lilypad.  Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, One Little Bird has made The Lilypad her permanent design home!  I wrote a blog post at The Lilypad to introduce her.  :) You can find her new store at The Lilypad right here!

A Day of Possibilities Papers (click on image to take you to the store)


A Day of Possibilities Elements (click on image to take you to the store)

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Todd at Dreamforce

The week before last week, Todd went to San Francisco for Dreamforce. It was his 5th year attending Dreamforce.  This year he got to present his project!  In the past I had flown up to join him, but my work schedule was too busy to do that this time. 

Todd at the Ferry Building, with the Bay Bridge in the background.


One of the coolest things about Todd’s trip is that he got to attend a private Barenaked Ladies concert!  In a small intimate venue!  I’ve already mentioned before that BNL is one of our favorite bands.  We saw them at the end of July already.  Todd got to see them again in SF!


Todd got way better close-up photos this time around, since the venue was much smaller.  Here’s Ed Robertson.


Kevin Hearn


Tyler Stewart






Jim Creeggan on the right.


A couple of Todd’s coworkers also attending the conference.


More BNL photos, since Todd was able to capture a bunch!






Here’s Todd presenting in front of an audience inside Developer Theater.


His topic?  Extend your Force.com data into other clouds with the Play framwork on Heroku. 

He worked on the project and presentation very hard for quite a few weeks leading up to Dreamforce.  I’m so proud of him!

Hey, is this where all the programming geeks hang out?


Todd got to eat at the restaurant inside Macy’s, where a famous chef make gourmet hamburgers.


He also got to see the long lines that formed in front of the Apple Store in San Francisco, on the day of the iPhone 5 release.

And he got to hang out with his coworkers.

I wish I could have gone to SF as well.  I know Noodle and I were both very glad when Todd came home!

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