Gorgeous Cambodian silk scarves up for grabs…

I’m a bit late in posting this, but here it is.
My PELUKA sister, PinayWifeSpeaks, is celebrating the third year anniversary of her blog. To mark this milestone, she is giving away gorgeous Cambodian silk scarves to lucky visitors to her blog. These await the lucky winners:

• Cambodian silk (2.5 metres) dark red with embroidery.  You can have this tailored to make a dress or long skirt or anything you fancy doing with them.
• 2 Silk scarves in deep purple and dark red.
  
  Due to the overwhelming response, two additional scarves will also be given away to two lucky commenters as consolation prizes. These scarves will be of different style and design. So hurry up, the deadline is on April 30. Go to PinayWifeSpeaks for more details and join the fun! Just don’t forget to tell her you heard it from me here at Sreisaat Crafts :)

Dabbling in graphics design

What started as a fascination for blogging led me to tinker with my blogs’ templates and codes, and my search for fancy fonts and template designs had made me accidentally venturing into digital scrapbooking and graphics design…

As a starter, I do not have any formal trainings related to these stuffs but I what I love about the Internet is that it provides me with all the online resources that I need. Graphic design books come far and few here in Cambodia and the prices are repressive. Thank heavens for online tutorials and google searches because they are treasure troves of everything I want to learn as a newbie.

 

It is incredibly fun to just let loose of my creativity using my imagination, computer and mouse – a very pleasant surprise since I have no inkling I had a bit of creativity running through my veins! Creative din pala ako if only I allowed myself to be. And take note, I am not colour-blind, too. Hah, what a relief! On the other hand, it also helps that I have like-minded friends (you know who you are) who have generously given me more resources, practical tips and taught me some useful tricks. With that kind of support and show of enthusiasm, how could I not learn?

Without further ado, let me just show off what I had done recently. I know I have a lot more to learn and I’m going to do just that. By no means I claim to be an expert because I’m millions of miles from being so but this is a good start for me… we have to start from somewhere, right? Anyways, please bear with me as I present – ahem, ahem -  my finished works. These are headers I used personally for my blogs:

 

 

So what do you think? Do I have the potential? :)
The pictures used here are not mine but they’re available over the Internet. I do have a list of sites where I took all of these from, but, at the moment I could not locate it. I will have it posted here as a sign of gratitude, as well as, attribution to the sources as soon as I find it.

How do you like my new look?

 

 

It’s pink, it’s girly, it’s love, and it’s from Nymphont for free!

I’m actually using the Echo That It’s Love template which according to Lauren, creative mind behind Nymphont, was inspired by one of the songs of Smashing Pumpkins. This template is fully widgetized, with embedded comment form below the post, highly customizable via the Template Designer and with really fancy fonts. A little tweaking here and there and my site will finally be complete. What do you think?

 

 

If you are looking for something new for your blogger blog, head over to Nymphont as she has more than a dozen of templates to choose from. Add to that, she has a lot of freebie fonts and other tips on graphic and web-designing. Hurry!

Better late than never!

I have always been a late bloomer. In my family, amongst my friends…  I was always behind.

But, as my title says, it is better late than never. Take for example digi-scrapbooking and graphics designing. This was the rage in early 2000s – digi-scrapping particularly - but I joined the bandwagon only recently.  I love being creative and expressing myself artistically, if only my eyes and other body parts don’t complain too much (pains here and there, a sign of getting old, sigh). I may not be a great artist or something but at least I strive to do something worthwhile. I really enjoyed digi-scrapping and I get tireless whenever I scour the internet for scrapbooking tutorials, ideas, and freebies, of course!

So enough of the drama, it took me several months before I could post here again.Better late than never! hahaha. I know a lot of my blog links here have already written me off but that’s okay. I hope they find me back here, if not, for sure I’ll find new ones. 

 

I want to share you one of the digi-scraps I recently made for my nieces. When my friend Lui of My Crafting Den offered the Pink Blossoms Kit, her latest digi-scrap kit, for free, I knew I had to grab it right away! Here is the finished product:

I haven’t seen both of them for three years now and I so miss them much! Beebop was only two years old and Chappi about 6months the last time I was with them. How time flies. I hope they’ll like this scrappy that I made for them.

Please visit my friend’s My Crafting Den for scrapbooking kits and other fabulous freebies.

From my crafting nook to yours....

Happy, happy New Year!

May we make more beautiful handmade stuffs...

and make 2011 our  best year ever.

New crochet project, so wish me luck!

I'm back again after a couple of loooong months. Well, I might have been gone but I wasn't slacking at all. I've been making granny squares for my couch, for one. I don't know long it will take me to finish a 1.5m x 2.5m cover but my game plan is to finish hundreds and hundreds of granny squares like these:

I believe I am doing well, but in order to finish a massive cover like I mentioned, I will have to crochet as fast as I can! I still haven't found an online site that sells cheaper mercerised cotton threads. There is absolutely none here in Phnom Penh.

The idea of a couch cover came from Craft Passion after I saw this lovely halter-neck top she crocheted for her daughter -- all made from colourful granny squares. I am so excited the wheels in my head started turning. The top would look good on my  nieces, too, so I might just make it another project for Christmas, you know, when I'm done with the cover.  Thanks, Craft Passion. I love your tutorials and the accompanying photos. They are so easy to follow!   There are also a lot of neat craft projects and tutorials -- and not to mention cool giveaways -- in her blog! I tell you, you should go check Craft Passion to see what I'm raving about. 

Back in the groove

I was away for a while, got busy with some stuffs that needed my attention that my crocheting projects had to be put on hold. Then there was the holiday, the Cambodian King's birthday, and we went away for taweekend. Oh, that was a lovely two days of pure chillaxing.

Anyways, my younger brother also went for a holiday, but went a little farther, to the Philippines (and came back already) and I sent nine 100gm-balls of yarn in different colors for my mother who was suddenly bitten by the crocheting bug. Actually, my mother saw this blog and the things I had done, and being a crochet-er herself, it didn't take that long for her to pick up her hook and join the crocheting bandwagon again. She told me she liked the yarns I bought and would love to have several balls of them as she plans to crochet stuffs for my nephew and nieces - so there.

Rob accompanied me to buy the yarns and we didn't have difficulty in finding the stall amidst the maze that is the O'Russei market. I like shopping for yarns and choosing colors was fun. I was delighted when Rob paid for all of it. We even bought my mother a pair of new crochet hooks as the ones my mom have are already old and rusty.  I can only imagine my mother's reaction when she saw the stuffs - it was more than what she'd asked me for! *lol*

Okay, so it won't be long till I post here some of the stuffs I am working on. I need to finish some stuffs before I could be able to sit down and work on them, but I will sure give updates on the Afghan square and runner which I've began not long ago.