Ztampfilicious

Are you using an iPhone? Well, good news! Me too! Now you can instantly scrap any photos you took with your iPhone on your iPhone and then share it on Facebook or by email straight away! How?

Check out this neat little Tapn Scrap App! It’s not Photoshop for sure, but it’s pretty cool – and it does the job well enough for a quick digiscrapping once you got the hang of it. (And it’s not hard to get there!). This $1.99 app comes with some free supplies such as basic backgrounds and elements so you can scrap straight away. But if you are a seasoned digiscrapper, you wouldn’t be satisfy with those basic stuff. Worry not! Just go to their Store from within the Tapn Scrap App itself! You will find a listing of kits in alphabetical order with a small thumbnail of the kit’s preview. Tap on it, you’ll get to read the short description and see a larger preview underneath (sometimes it takes a while for the larger preview to appear). If you like what you see, then tap “Buy”! The price ranges from just $0.99 to $3.99 – very wallet-friendly!

I have 3 kits available there now – all has been adjusted and customized for the iPhone. More will be added soon so watch out for them! My first 3 kits there are: “Appliquette No.3“, “Snow Country” and “FireWorks Background” – perfect for the Holiday Seasons!

And here are my very first two layouts done with the Tapn Scrap App on my iPhone this Christmas Eve, while waiting for dinner to be ready:

Oh and I am so excited that my “Appliquette No.3” and “Snow Country” are now on the top two best sellers there! They have only been released several days ago! :D

<< Previously

In 2007 for the following year, I developed another version of Ztampf! CraftyCalendar Kit: the Mini-Vertical! As its name suggests, the orientation is vertical and the size is smaller than the original version, at roughly by half. This size is more compact and more economical to make. Our close friend was going to move out of Hong Kong to Shanghai in January 2008 so I made them a Ztampf! MINI CraftyCalendar as part of the farewell gift. I made us of the many photos I took during the time we spent together all those years, it was bitter-sweet. I also made each of my step-daughters a Ztampf! MINI CraftyCalendar – customised for each of them.

Since then, my parents, my husband and my two step-daughters are expecting their Ztampf! CraftyCalendar by the end of the year!

Here is how the then new Ztampf! MINI CraftyCalendar 2008 appeared in the shops:

And the original version is now referred to as the Half-Legal Size, filled with more versatile elements than its predecessor:

That year I also released the Tent-Fold Card Calendar, that you can use as Postcards as well:

By now many customers have told me how it has became a tradition for them too, to gift Ztampf! CraftyCalendars to their loved ones! I know several customers who made approx. 8-12 Ztampf! CraftyCalendars each year! That is a lot! Like what happened to me, they too, started to get requests/reminders from their loved ones about the Ztampf! CraftyCalendars :).

What was new for the 2009 Calendars? It is the CD Calendar Plus. Why the Plus? Because there is a very simple yet effective template to create a nice folder to keep the calendar pages when not in use!

And yes, the pre-made backgrounds and the Ensembles with Date-Markers are all included the set!

A new Tent-Fold Card Calendar Set was also released for 2009:

The original Half-Legal and MINI Ztampf! CraftyCalendars have became the main-stay and signature calendar products from Ztampf!:

And so the tradition continues on: more and more people are expecting their very own specially personalized copy of Ztampf! CraftyCalendar made with love by someone they know well every year!

The Tiny Ensembles included in each CraftyCalendar Kit have proved to be very versatile and popular. By requests I have bundled them together at a great saving price:

Ztampf! CraftyCalendar 2010:

Ztampf! CraftyCalendar 2011 – can be found here; perfect for last hours gifts that nonetheless very special and useful!

Yes, this year I am so late in releasing the calendars… I know some of you expected the CD Calendar Plus too… I wonder if it’s too late to release one now so close to Christmas already? YOU tell me, OK!

December 2005. It was winter in Hong Kong and I was home alone as my husband was away and wouldn’t be back until the first week of January 2006. I was into my third month of designing digital scrapbooking and Ztampf! was basically all I spent my time on then – it was my baby!

My husband and I didn’t exactly do Christmas then, we exchanged New Year’s gifts instead. So I wanted to gift him something handmade that is not only nice and unique but also useful and practical. Then I got this bright idea of making him a desk calendar that can be collapsed into a flat booklet which he can carry with him whenever he travels – which he does quite a lot. I started to make some sketches to design the look and to work out the construction part of it. After some experimentation, I arrived at what would become the basic of all the Ztampf! CraftyCalendar Kits that came after that.

Then the digital works begun: creating the tabbed pages, the dates and months, the backgrounds, etc. Being totally immersed in digital scrapbooking, of course I made use of my own designs. I used my own personal layouts that I have made since I first started digiscrapping in August 2005 to decorate the calendar pages. I loved how it looked like as if they were actual mini pages stapled or stitched onto the calendars pages! And I was so pleased with myself to come up with the idea of unique Date Markers to mark the important dates in a way that is fun, special and practical! But most of all, I couldn’t wait to see my husband’s face when he saw it later! (Yes, he loved his New Year’s gift; it was such a super special and thoughtful gift. A total surprise too!)

The finished calendar, the first ever calendar I have ever made up to that point – turned out very well! Once I figured out the construction, it was so easy to put together I decided to make another calendar to gift to my parents back in Jakarta. And then it dawn on me that anyone would be able to make their own Crafty Calendars like the ones I just did, totally personalized with their own photos and important dates marked. I just need to provide the materials and the instructions!

So I worked on it, thinking up ways to provide my customers with as many options as possible to create the most personalized, customized calendars while keeping things easy to put together. I photographed the process of making the calendar so I can show how things are done better. The most challenging part for me at that time was to put together a comprehensive instructions, when English is not my first language and I couldn’t ask my husband (who is a native speaker) to help proof-read it as he wasn’t supposed to know about the calendar yet! But I managed to pull it off! The Instructions is in PDF format so people could print it and refer to it easily while creating the calendars. And so the Ztampf! CraftyCalendar Kit was born. It appeared on the first time on Ztampf!Shop on January 5th 2006. Obviously a bit late but perhaps because there was nothing in the market like the Ztampf! CraftyCalendar Kit, people loved it and bought it. Well, it makes a great Valentine’s Day gift… and Anniversary and Birthday – if those happened to be early in the year! So the first ever Ztampf! CraftyCalendar Kit did very well despite its late release!

This is how the first ever Ztampf! CraftyCalendar looks like.

And here is how the first Ztampf! CraftyCalendar appeared in the shops!

The following year in 2006, I made some improvements for the Ztampf! CraftyCalendar 2007 Kit, incorporating some customer inputs. For example, adjusting the size to use Legal size papers instead of A4 size because it is very hard for US customers to find A4 size papers, especially for digital prints while on the other hand, it is easy to re-size down from Legal size to A4. Another thing is to provide two versions: US English with weeks start on Sunday and Global English with weeks start on Monday. Started from this year onward, individual date layers in PNG are also provided to give people greater flexibility in creating their very own calendar pages. I also improved the Folder/Stand part of the calendar; to use thicker material so it is sturdier, and to use the then new Basic Grey magnetic discs for the closure.

Beside the more paper-crafty CraftyCalendars, I also released the Poster Calendar and the QuickCard Calendars that year!

>> To Be Continued

Enjoy your Ztampfever #62 Gift!

[download id=”2″ format=”3″]

Like the new Holiday Recipe Set? Get it HERE!

As many of you must have been aware by now, I just LOVE wings! I have made various kinds of wings from various materials from paper to wire to canvas to porcelain. But I have never made wings that I can wear myself! Not a long time ago I watched The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus on DVD and there I got my inspiration for a wearable pair of wings! So for Halloween this year, I decided to make some with my older step-daughter who was visiting us then.

I envisioned my prêt-à-porter wings to be somewhat steampunkish – with leather straps and brass snap buttons. The wings themselves would be made from wire-mesh sheets that I already have. So one fine day we went to Shamsuipo to get some leather straps and brass snap buttons. Well, leather straps turned out to be a tad too expensive so we got a roll of gross-grain ribbon in nice thickness instead. Then I found this ribbon that has a row of inconspicuous snap buttons already sewn onto it at regular intervals which gave me an idea on how to put the strap together!

First thing is the shape of the wings. I drew a template on a piece of drawing paper, then trace it onto the brass wire-mesh. Next I cut into shape with a pair of craft scissors. The wire-mesh sheet is soft enough so it was easy enough to scissor the shape. Next I took out my tool box to create the embossed ‘feather’ lines. You can use anything with smooth rounded head for this. A tea spoon worked perfectly to create a pillowy embossing inside the lines!

The trickier part is the straps. The black strap is the one with the snap buttons already sewn on it – and I made use of this feature to secure the wings onto the strap, and then inserting the horizontal straps into the intervals between the snap buttons. This way the horizontal straps are still flexible. You put the wings on by inserting your head through the V opening at the top. The horizontal straps open and close with thin velcro snaps at the side. They fit snugly around our ribcage, right under the bust.

Finally I prettied it all up with some jewelery findings and sparkling rhinestones! Phoebe wore the one that I made, and I wore the one that Phoebe made!

And the scary looking guy with her on the right? It’s her father (yup, my darling husband!). For the first time he has agreed to let me transform him into a ghostly, blood-thirsty looking vampire. And he thrived in the role too – scared quite a few people around! No, it was not blood that he was drinking! It’s wine and not even red!

And me? My look was inspired by a music video that Phoebe showed me the night before on YouTube: Jón “Jónsi” Thor Birgisson of arty Icelandic ensembleSigur Rós. I happened to have these black feathers fastened onto a strip of ribbon. And I have this old plastic headband with a slit in the middle. Perfect to insert the feathers in! And voilà! My birdy headress was ready! The make up was supposed to look birdy too – but I don’t think people see it that way. Never mind, I quite enjoyed it myself :). I think I looked quite scary too… especially when I stared hard with my eyes opened wide… It was quite a fun opportunity to dress up and to wear wings! That’s why I love Halloween!

In case you are wondering, the Halloween event we attended was the one in our neighborhood, down at the piazza. This year it was more festive with golf-cart parade (private cars are not allowed in the community, those who can afford it can buy or rent a golf-cart instead!). There was also a Haunted Castle – which was quite fun with kids from a local theatre group playing the ghosts. Some of them were really good too!