The Return

I've been gone for a while because of wordpress but here I am again returning like the prodigal son. While I was on the other blog it was difficult to connect with other bloggers and since I've started a new hobby that needs frequent interaction with fellow crafters, I decided to come back home. Yay!

So what is this new hobby that totally got me engrossed you ask? Paper craft! I've been totally inlove with paper before I even knew what they're used for. The smell, the feel and the taste (yeah I ate paper when I was a toddler) is intoxicating that I can be lost for hours creating cards and scrapbook pages.

Here's a very simple scrapbook page I made a few months back.

And here's a card that I colored just last week.

I'm not that good yet and I don't have a lot of tools to help me widen my creative perspective so I'm always looking for inspiration among fellow paper addicts out there. I just got bigshot recently but I can only count my dies in one hand so yeah well, I have to keep an eye open for huge sales for dies and stamps too! Oh, and inks ofcourse! And oh, oh! Paper flowers too!

My husband is beginning to put on his upset face because of the slowly growing pile of paper and cardstock on my table but I just tell him to let me be as I did when he bought his power tools. ;)

No Bake Cheesecake Recipe

The finished product ;)

½ cup sugar

8 oz cream cheese

8 oz whipped cream

1 tsp vanilla

1 graham pie crust

1 packet of clear gelatin

fruit topping og choice

Blend cream cheese until smooth, add whipped cream, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Spoon into crust. Chill at least 2 hours and top with fruit topping. Enjoy your no bake cheesecake!

Three brothers suffer a heart attack on the same day in Italy

Three brothers in Rome had a heart attack all on the same day! Weird isn't it?

Guido and Alberto Garofalo were in a family picnic when Guido, 45 suffered a heart attack and dropped dead on the ground.

His brother Alberto, 54, rushed to his brother's side to help him but perhaps he was overcome by his emotions seeing his brother lifeless so he too suffered the same fate.

The third brother however was not present at the picnic but visiting their aged mother in the hospital in Catania and didn't know what happened to his two brothers. But he too suffered a sudden heart attack.

Lucky for him he was at a hospital so he was taken immediately to the emergency room where the doctor stabilized him. He survived but did they tell him about what happened to his two brothers? He might get another heart attack if they tell him.

ESL GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR YOUNG LEARNERS part 1

I had been making ESL materials for a Filipino teacher in a school in Turkey called ISIK OKULLARI for her activities with young ESL learners for quite some time now. Based on the pictures she sends me when I make her reports and videos, it looks the kids have the grandest time when they do my activities. I'd like to share them with you here too and hope it helps you make your ESL lessons fun as it is educational. Have a blast!

Pronunciation Baseball

Draw a baseball diamond on the board. Divide the students into two teams. Each team takes turns “at bat." One by one, ask students different pronunciation questions. (These can be individual words, like "pneumonia" or "premise" or "indict" or "salmon", ones that are not pronounced like they are spelled; alternately, you can give two similarly spelled words with different pronunciations, like "tough" and "dough", "steak" and "beak", "blood" and "brood", "through" and "thorough").

Here are the rules:
1. Whenever a student is "at bat", he or she cannot be helped by other students.
2. If the student answers the question correctly, the team advances one base. (A total of four questions must be answered correctly before the team "scores" a home run).
3. If the student is incorrect, the team gets one "out." Once the team has three outs, the other team will go up to bat.

4. Play until you run out of words. It's good to prepare enough words so that everyone has at least one chance up at bat. Write the words in big letters on pieces of paper beforehand, but you could also post them on the board.

Kangaroo Kang

Instructions:

1. To encourage movement in the class, have students organised into teams.

2. Each team is given a balloon to place between their knees they are not allowed to use their hands to touch the balloon at anytime.

3. One person from each team must jump like a kangaroo forward to a chair in the front of the room, their they must pick with their hands a word, they then turn around jumping back to the next person in their team.

4. This continues until all the code words have been collected and all of the team members have jumped to the chair.

5. The words must then be placed in a correct order and the captain must then read it out to the teacher.

6. Rewards are given to the winning team. Fun, loud and competitive way to engage students in a physical manner with language.

ebay.com is the best!

When I was in college, I don't know why but smoking was as common as if it's the most normal thing a college student has to do during the breaks. Well that was ten years ago. Now my "incurable addiction" as what my husband puts it, is no other than the wonderful shopping site called http://www.ebay.com/. As most ladies out there, I consider shopping as a stress relieving therapy which has a long lasting effect compared to other so-called stress remedy.

Here are some of the stuff I've bought from ebay. I wanted to post all the items I've bought but ebay only saves transactions made within the last 90 days.

This LV CU920 is the best deal of all. Although this is a used phone and may not be that beautiful cosmetically as it has a couple of scratches on the back, this works perfectly. A touch phone for only USD 58! Isn't it amazing?

I don't exactly remember if this one was free shipping or not but what I do remember is that it's only USD .99 and this is something that I really need coz the prayer inscribed is really nice.

This one is USD 1.00 and it's a gift I got for my aunt who is a teacher too.

I usually buy from US sellers but these two items here are from Hongkong. Who am I to resist a brooch at USD 0.99 that will be shipped to the Philippines for free?!

I'm not really a big fan of Laura Mercier but because of watching too much make up tutorials in youtube, I got this one. This is a bit pricey for me at USD 15 but it's a great product so no regrets! ^^

Stay tuned to my up coming online shopping spree!

Withdraw your paypal funds in BDO or Mlhuiller for free

I’ve always had a dilemma as to how on earth am I gonna en-cash my funds from paypal. I have several online students who prefer to pay through paypal since transferring money is free if you just keep on using the personal payment tab option. But the problem is there is only one bank in the Philippines that allows withdrawal of paypal funds.

But my friend and neighbor told me about this amazing way to send money to yourself from paypal. Has anyone heard about xoom.com? This is just amazing! And it’ll probably just take a couple of minutes to wait for the cash you’re dying to get your hands on.

And the best thing about this transfer is it’s FREE! As long as you have the code for free transfer. For this month the free xoom coupon code is TRANSFERSAFE. So what are you waiting for people? Withdraw your paypal fund na!

Mommy's Most Precious Treasure

I'm not really good in video editing and stuff but I hope you'd enjoy watching this video as much as I had fun making it.

Credits to Eva Cassidy for the song "Songbird" used in this video.

Enjoy!!!! ^^