Ztampfilicious

Today I want to share with you about Baby Ella! I first heard about her from a fellow SBG Designer, Wendy who is organizing a super special Life is Precious grab bag to help. Many of SBG Designers – including me – are contributing something into this super special grab bag: there are mini kits, quickpages, clusters, bits and pieces and coupons! My contribution consists of a little something that is new and not available yet in the store, plus two coupons! This is such a good deal for a worthy cause!

Here’s the details from Wendy:

Ella Hollingsworth is a very special girl, with a very special family. You can read about her family, their journey and their needs on the Hollingsworth blog. A few of my designer friends were touched by Ella’s story and wanted to help, so we got together and created a small grab bag of products and coupons. It’s not much, but it’s free to anyone who donates ANY AMOUNT directly to Ella’s fund at tendoves.org. Your contribution will be tax-deductible since you are donating directly.

Just send me (wendy at scrapbookgraphics { dot } com) a copy of your receipt (minus any private information) by FEBRUARY 28th, 2011, and I will send you a direct download link to the Life is Precious grab bag on MARCH 1st. The grab bag is still receiving contributions, but will include AT LEAST 5 minikits, 1 paper collection, 7 QPs, 1 mini album, templates & coupons to a variety of designers.
Thank you for supporting Baby Ella and her family!

Go ahead and do something good today :)

This has been an unusually cold winter for Hong Kong and I long for warmth!

As some of you might knew already, I make ceramics. My main medium is porcelain which is fired to 1280ºC (2,336ºF) and the firing typically runs for 18 hours. It started out pretty dark, with faintly glowing embers which then burst forth with bright orange light, bringing with it the warmth. As the temperature rises, the light became paler and paler until it’s almost white when the temperature reaches 1000ºC (1,832ºF).Firing ceramic is perfect during winter: it gets the work done while warms up the surrounding space :). Recently I did a firing and it’s resulting not only in fired porcelain, but also in a set of Paper Pack!

So let’s cuddle up in the warmth of this Furnace Paper Pack! The papers are inspired by the progress of both warmth and light inside a kiln or a furnace. These papers are wonderful to scrap a variety of subjects/themes, from contemplative to festive, from thoughtful journaling-rich pages to passionate Valentine’s love expressions.

Available now at Studio Ztampf!:

And here are some pictures from the firing session:

Believe me, SBG Crew is THE BEST of the Best Teams there are! So go and take a chance!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Wish yours is filled with love and everything lovely!
I have a little something for you… It is not much, but I hope you will like it and enjoy using it too!

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That’s not all! Type in SMITTENWITHSBG in the search field of the shop and you will find more items on special discounted pricing! This is an extra ‘Hidden Sale‘ :)

You knew that there is also a Hot Valentine Sale going on right now under the Valentine’s Day Section of Studio Ztampf! don’t you? Well, on top of that, you will find more items on sale by typing SMITTENWITHSBG in the search field at the shop. Enjoy!

And our next stop is Studio Baers Garten! Click this:

HOT VALENTINE SALE at Studio Ztampf!
February 11-15, 2011
http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/Ztampf/?catid=274

Are you subscribed to Ztampfever Newsletter? Check out your mailbox if you haven’t done so ;)

This HongBao Rabbit Envelopes Set contains 6 designs/templates for ‘Hong Bao’ (‘Red Pockets’ or ‘Lai See’ for Chinese New Year) to help you create beautiful and totally unique ‘Hong Bao’ this coming Chinese New Year! This set is created mostly with the new Year of The Rabbit Kit (coming soon!). The preview just doesn’t do justice to the rich fine details and colors of the actual files. You can see the larger, Zoomify preview at Studio Ztampf! to better glimpse how ztampfilicious they are! And I’ve decided to run the Early Birds Special a bit longer – so go ahead at grab this set now at 20% OFF!

The finished size of each pocket is 3.5″ wide x 6.5″ tall. Just insert your photos/add your own greetings, then print, trim and glue together (or use double-sided sticky tape or tape gun) – quick and easy with gorgeous results that sure to impress everyone who receive them! Simple Instruction is provided with the kit. Tips: You can also crop the front part and use it as a mini card/pages!

Warning: the actual set shows so much more ztampfilicious details than the preview images shown above!

The Chinese Greetings on the pockets read:
– “Gong Xi Fat Chai” means: “Congratulations and be prosperous” the most common greetings used for Chinese New Year (also known as Spring Festival).
– “Xinnian Kuaile” means: “Happy New Year”

All PNG format created at 300dpi for optimum print out quality.
Comments? Questions? Just contact me anytime!

So… As you see now, I have just made some changes to Ztampfilicious Blog :). The design has never been changed from the day this blog went live in 2007. It’s about time for a new look, don’t you think? Well, here it is!

I’d like to keep the free-flowing feel from the previous look, so I decided to use is as the base and then changed the color scheme, images and tweaked some details and coding as well. Tell me how do you like this new look!

New to Ztampfilicious Blog? Here’s how the old one looked like – which one do you like better?

Chinese New Year is just around the corner at February 3rd!

Send beautiful Chinese New Year cards uniquely personalized with your own photos and message to your friends and relatives! It is easy with this CNY 2011 QuickCards Set from Studio Ztampf!: 3 Designs (Cover+Inner) plus a Postcard Back. These are 2-sided tent-fold cards which you can either print on both sides of your paper, or print the inner part on a thinner fine paper then glue the spine to the fold of the front part! You can also use these cards as postcards with the included Postcard Back (just crop the front part). You can choose to have the inner part with or without photos too. Of course, you can also use these to create eCards to send online :).

The size of the cards is 5″x7″ – folded. 2 in landscape, 1 in portrait. 3 front designs: 2 in landscape, 1 in portrait – with matching inner designs, plus 2 extra options. A Postcard Back is also provided. JPG and PNG format. All created at 300dpi for optimum print out result. Questions? Comments? Just contact me anytime!

P.S. Now I am working on a set of unique, personalizable Hong Bao Set like this one – for the Year of The Rabbit!

‘Balance’ is my word for 2011. It might look like a simple word, but it is a loaded one – very tricky to achieve, and even more difficult to maintain. Because guess what? It is not a static condition in which once you achieve it, you then could passively keep it. No. It is fluid, always on the move. It is something that you have to keep on nurturing in everything you do.

For myself, balance means to focus more into the process of things – of doing, of working, of creating, of living. That is, rather than focusing on the end result. Which for me means patience and acceptance of my own limitation: I am known to want to do so many things all at once and all has to be perfectly done! I tend to keep on working almost non-stop until the job is done or until I collapse. I tend to spend impractical amount of time and energy on minuscule details in almost everything I do: from washing the dishes to hanging the laundry to designing to creating art. And I do enjoy it too – most of the time! Some would  say I am a perfectionist – or obsessed. I won’t be happy with my work until everything is just so – even if it’s only me who notices it. Do people notice it in my work? Do people appreciate how everything is done just so? I don’t know. I hope at least some of them do. I don’t expect them to notice the particulars, but just that they notice that it is very well made/crafted/done. People might not be able to pin point what makes it so, but I hope as a whole my work should be able to speak for itself. Yes, it is important for me to create my work as best as I can make it – spare no efforts. And that, my dear, takes time. Plenty of it. So, I just have to accept that I will always take more time to finish my work. (You would think by now at the ripe age of 41 I should have known this already, wouldn’t you. Well, I am an optimist :)).

Which means, no more letting myself get frustrated when things take much longer time to get done – process takes time. Which means, breaks and rest and play time are necessary: they are to be fully enjoyed without guilty feeling whether I have finished a certain set of work or not. My work is never done anyway: there is always more and more coming. So yeah, take breaks often – enjoy play time. Doing nothing is needed to set the balance. But of course, there are still deadlines and commitments to meet… Now… which way is it towards balance again?

In my effort towards balance this year, I have made a commitment to join the Art Journal Caravan hosted by the amazing super woman designer Tangie McMeen Baxter at SBG! Yeah! I’m starting out late – but hey, better late than never never! In Tangie’s AJC, you can move at your own space, you can start any time and jump around to wherever your inspiration take you. The golden rule is you have to enjoy doing what you’re doing :).

So, this is my first page for the AJC 2011. Balance.

Background paper: Shades of Black (Studio Ztampf!). Fonts: Kabel BT and Lacuna Regular. The picture is of one of my works, entitled Soaring V.2.08 (2005, porcelain and wire). I chose this because the wire that forms the cage and the wire supporting the wings is one piece of wire: it is an act of balance ;).

The Inspiration to ponder for the First Week was Process – which is particularly very apt for me as my thinking of Balance has been closely linked to Process. So here it is, my 2nd page for the AJC 2011. Process.

Background paper: Furnace (Studio Ztampf!) . Fonts: Kabel BT and Lacuna Regular.

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