nambah koleksi scrapbook lagi heheheh :P

scrapbook!

yeah.. it's my new craze during my oh-so-relaxing period while waiting for job interviews :p it's digital scrapbooking, not the hard copy.. it's interesting, but a bit complicated here and there. and.. finally i know how to use photoshop a bit :p at least i can do some digital scrapbooking and minimal photo enhancement :p

here are some of the digital scrapbooks i've done. i looked for the layout ideas by googling hahaha.. i'm not that good with layout yet. hopefully will get better and better.

my 2nd piece. the 1st one was so horrible that i deleted it. hahaha. i love my dad's pose. so cute!! hahaha

3rd piece. ran out of idea about the layout. so, didn't turn out to be good hahah. but.. ok lahhh :p

4th piece. dedicated for my eldest sis and bro-in-law. the idea was taken from one of the video tutorial i saw. my elder sis said it looks like my mom patchwork quilt muahhaha..

5th piece. i think the layout can be considered original hahaha... turns out to be good.

6th piece. haha this one completely copying the layout from googling. with a little bit of variation here and there :p

i downloaded most of the embellishment and papers freely online. none was made by myself muhahahaa.. still learning how to make those in photoshop :p

the underland chronicles

yeap. it's underland, not underworld. it's another string of novels by Suzanne Collins, the author of best sellers trilogy Hunger Games.

there are 5 books in this chronicles. i did speed reading almost for all the books and got the gist of it, at least, haha.

the author used several terms in the book:

• Gnawers: the Rats.
• Flyers: the Bats.
• Spinners: the Spiders.
• Crawlers: the Cockroaches.
• Shiners: the Fireflies.
• Diggers: the Moles.
• Nibblers: the Mice.
• Cutters: the Ants.

all of the creatures are named based on what they do, thus the names.

	it's the beginning of the whole story. meet Gregor, 11-year-old kid and his 2-year-old sister, Boots, who accidentally fell to the Underland. they met the Underlanders and the talking animals (or bugs mostly) which were huge in size. in addition, they found out that they were the destined "warrior" and "princess" who will fulfill "The Prophecy of Grey" written by the Underland founder. he went together with his sister and his companions, Queen Luxa and Henry the Royal Blood of Regalia, Aurora and Ares the bats, Ripred the rat, Tick and Temp the roaches, Trevlex and Gox the spiders. story cut short, he found his missing dad during the journey which he must complete, prophecy fulfilled, and went back to the "Overland"
	again, Gregor had to go down to the Underland to help its people from the trouble as per mentioned in "The Prophecy of Bane", written, again, by Sandwich, the founder of the Underland. it was mentioned that he had to kill a-one-of-a-kind white rat (which was very rare and legend said it's huge, larger than the already large rat size in the Underland) to prevent the whole Underworld from doomsday. but, there's a line in the prophecy stating "die the baby, die his most essential part". everybody thought it was Boots, his 2-year-old baby sister. so he had to kill "the Bane" while protecting his baby sister. but again, of course, he was safe and went back to Overland to continue the rest of 3 books left.
	after Gregor left from his 2nd journey, the Underland was struck by a deadly plague, which is some kind of a pox with high fevers. his bat, Ares, was the 1st victim. eventually, his mother, who tagged along this time, also caught the plague. thus, he had to venture on a journey together with the help of rats and roaches to find the only cure in the Underland, as mentioned in another of Sandwich's prophecy, "The Prophecy of Blood". the cure was a plant which only grew in the Vineyard of Eyes. they managed to reach the Vineyard, only to find the ants came to destroy the plants and he lost some comrades throughout the journey. turned out the cure was not only in that Vineyard, but also in Regalia, the country where most Underlanders lived. the Regalian doctor in charge of the plague actually managed to find the cure but didn't tell the officials initially owing to some conspiracy being planned by the high councils. but, of course, then again Gregor was considered successful in fulfilling the prophecy, saved his mother and bat, and the rest of the victims of the plague. he went back to Overland but had to leave his mother in the Underland for further medical attention.
	on the previous journey, Queen Luxa, the soon-to-be-11-year-old-ruler of Regalia made an oath to the nibblers (the mice) to ask her for help in case of emergency. they did, but the Queen and her companions in the journey did not know why. his newly found 7-year-old cousin in the previous journey, Hazard, surprised everyone by saying that the nibblers left the "Dead Mark" in their supposedly habitats. the journey went on, and the found out that the rats had caught the nibblers and pushed them to go to "a place of no return". they can't save all the nibblers and Queen Luxa declared war against the rats. the story was very hanging and continued on the last book.
	the final book. the war took place, a lot of humans, gnawers, nibblers, spinners, diggers, crawlers and flyers died. Gregor's 8-year-old sister, Lizzie, was involved to crack the code used by the gnawers to initiate attacks against Regalia. eventually the code was broken with the help of Lizzie. Gregor joined the war partly because Sandwich's prophecy said so and because he felt responsible of what happened. In the end, Gregor successfully killed the Bane, while in the process Ares was killed by the Bane. the remaining gnawers was ruled by Ripred, who was pointed as the peacemaker by Luxa's cousin, Nerissa, to make the prophecy of Sandwich fulfilled. to avoid future wars with rats, Luxa made a bond with rats, to protect each other until the day they died. in the end, Gregor had to go back to Overland, left his love, Luxa, behind.

the ending was quite hanging also, with Boots made a comment that Gregor missed the Underland. it's not clear whether in the end they moved to other city or not.

well, it's quite a good read to kill time :p but i found it quite strange that this kind of books is categorized for young teens. it's quite bloody even for young teens. hahaha. maybe the time has changed :p