After all these years I’ve ….

forgot to say thank you to all my readers. Yesterday I celebrate three years of blogging at haniz-eyecandy.blogspot.com. This blog has grown from 8 followers to almost 600 followers over the years. I know this kind of blog is not very popular in Malaysia but I hope I have a few loyal readers who enjoy my digital art and my struggle to be a better person. 

Thank you to Ben Ashaari for opening my eyes that self promoting is important to put your blog on the map. I am still behind in the popularity and the political side of blogging but I am happy for what I have achieve so far.

Thank you to Elsie for showing me that you don’t have to compromise who you are just to satisfied other people and to follow your dream. I took her Blog Love online course and it’s really inspiring.

So today I would like to say Thank You to all my readers who have been with me all these years. Thank you for taking the journey with me through the good and bad times.

Feel free to take this thank you card of you like. Just click on the image and you can save it.

I hope you will always come back and experience this journey with me. I’ll be 40 in a few weeks and I am feeling a lot of changes in me. It’s a whole new journey for me.

tips to a better journaling: Series #3 On Location

It’s such a lovely Saturday. Here in Malaysia, we are having a long weekend till Monday because tomorrow is a public holiday (labor day). I am so happy to have one day extra to enjoy it with my family and doing things I love.
Today Journaling Series is all about location. Check out my previous post on this topic  Series #1 and Series #2 for inspiration on journaling.

And today’s Journaling Prompt

#3) On Location

How many states have you visited?
How many countries have you visited?
Where is your favourite relaxation destination?
Where is your favourite place to relax?
What is your favourite restaurant?
Where is your least favourite place to be?
If your could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Where is your ideal vacation?
Where would you like to retire?
Do you prefer the beach, city or country?
How many cities have you live in?
Where’s the place you’ve lived in the longest and how long was it?
Where is your home away from home?
(sources: Creating Keepsakes)

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As always I will choose one of the question above for this blog post.

Q: Where would you like to retire?

One thing for sure, I don’t want to retire and live in this big city. I would love to go back to my hometown. Living a less stressful life. With the High Speed Broadband all over the country, it really doesn’t matter where I live, I can still get connected.

Things that I like about Batu Pahat:

• one of the fastest growing town in the country. basically you can get anything here.
• you can get anywhere in less than 10 minutes when there’s no heavy traffic
• I can go to the movie 20 minutes before it starts and still can get a ticket without waiting in a long queue
• It’s only 2 and a half hour drive to Kuala Lumpur
• the price is so much cheaper.

All about Prince William and Kate–the Royal Wedding

I did get a chance to watch Prince William and Kate exchange their vows in a huge church with a lot of important people attending including David Beckham and Victoria. 

Here are some of the things you can find today, the day Prince William and Kate wedding day.

I love seeing this photo of the late Lady D with her two sons. It is a bit sad that she’s not around to see this. RIP to Lady D

to all the broken heart girls out there, here’s for you

the two brothers

the beautiful bride - Kate

haniz-eyecandy turning 3 today

Three years ago I decided to make a new blog just for digital scrapbook creations and things related to it. I want this place to be a happy place where I can be myself and express myself freely. After a few months I closed my personal blog and focus my energy on haniz-eyecandy and digital scrapbook.

Friday Pleasure Speedlinking–29.04.2011

It’s Friday again and it’s the last Friday of April. I am really glad that the week is almost over. I’m really looking forward to my lovely weekends.

Something great is happening today. It’s the Royal Wedding between Prince Harry and Kate. I wish I can take to day off and watch the Royal Wedding Live!

There’s so many posts around the cyber world and my blog list . So here are the 10 posts  I would like to share. Enjoy!

• Raising three kids in todays world is so stressful and challenging. I love this 5 simple ways to reboot your family from Zen Habits. Once in a while you need to do something fun with your family.
• I love this site. So many great ideas, not only for scrapbooker but also for bloggers too. Journaling This Day In History is another great post about expanding your journaling horizon. Great Idea!
• I am a new reader to Simply Kate blog. I am so glad I found her blog. I like Letters too. Once upon a time, that was the only thing that kept me sane. Reading this post brought me back the memories of the good old days.
• Another great post from Simple Mon - Will we ever see eye to eye? – the art of agree to disagree --
• I’ve been blog hoping from for the love of blogs and really loving all the blogs there.
• Another great find – it’s all about the royal wedding. I still can remember the day Prince Charles and Lady D got married. It was a major event back then.
• Very interesting recycle ideas. Hand beg yang pelik at belog Nur Aynie.
• Life can be cruel, hectic and stressful. Sometimes it is just so hard to stop and smell the flowers. That’s why I like thankful thoughts series from Ali Edward blog. A reminder for me to stop and take stock things that I am thankful for.
• Things like this and this makes me fall in love with tumblr.
• iphone 5 rumors roundup . Is iphone 5 going to be my next smartphone?

Don’t forget to drop by my tumblr to enjoy beautiful things and reblog anything that you like.

American Idol Season 10: Top 6

This week theme is Carole King. I’ve heard some of the songs before but I didn’t know that Carole King wrote them.

Anyway, the competition is almost over and all of them gave a very good performance.  I think from now on I will not guess the bottom three.

From today performance I think the best two performance are from James and Scotty. I love the softer and romantic side of Scotty. Both artists are very unique and I am really looking forward to see their performances. I just hope that they will not be voted off tomorrow!

10 things: dealing with regrets

Living life with regrets is a waste of time. Those feelings will consume you and make you paralyzed. It takes a lot of time and self healing on my part. I’ve read in Cleo about things you can do in dealing with regrets.

#1) Write down your regrets

#2) Examine them – Understood the reasons behind your decisions

#3) Change your toxic thought patterns

#4) Grieve losses that you have suffered. Acknowledge that you feel sad or angry about the situation

#5) Make amends -

#6) Identify lessons – make sure you learn from regretful experiences. Mistakes are fine as long as they are new ones.

#7) Develop compassion – Understand other people’s point of view & empathize. Have compassion for yourself too

#8) Forgive others – this free you from anger and pain

#9) Forgive yourself – Stop condemning yourself
- in order to truly love yourself you have to be capable of forgiving yourself for being a human tornado of emotions, fears and appetites

#10) Live free of regret
  - Accept what has already happened , learn your lesson and move on

Hope this little list will help you deal with regrets. Life is to short to be wasted on negative things. I really need to remind myself over and over again.

the last thing on my mind

Getting fit has been a struggle for me since January 2011. I think when I am approaching 40, my energy is getting a bit low and exercise is the last thing on my mind. I have an on and off relationship with exercise and working out. Sometimes I was so excited to do them everyday and some other times I just dread the thought of doing it.

I really don’t want to get on a scale because I will get stressful with the digit. In my mind I always picture me with my ideal weight at 52 kg but I think I can only go as low as 55kg. Loosing that last 5 kg really tough!

I know I should set a goal for my self. In the spirit on my word for this year – Transform—I really need to do something to transform my weight to a better number like 55 kg.

I have about 2 more months till my 40th birthday. So I would really like to challenge myself to drop the kg to 55.

In order to achieve my goal I need to:
* drink lots of water especially when I am hungry (due to stress)
* exercise daily – I think I want to keep my exercise routine simple. So I am going to do Jillian 30 day shred everyday.
* eat less – especially no solid food after 8:00pm
* walk a lot, use stairs instead of lift (hemm can I really do it?) Maybe I  will try this tomorrow

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Notes: I went for a medical check up for officers 40 and above. One of the nurse asked me, are you really 40? I told her I am. She doesn’t believe me until she saw my identification number. That makes me smile. hehehe

Crazy for Fonts! SF ONTHEDOT

I am hoping that today is going to be a great day. I just want to do my job without being question every single steps.

Anyway back to business, today I would love to highlight this font called SF OntheDot from sugarfrogfonts.com

I usually don’t go for a font like this but I just like to challenge myself with a new kind of style

This is a layout I made using the above font Credit: iLive Kit by Ziggle Designs and Suzy Q. Available at ScrapOrchard

Have fun with this new font!

Bad Day!!! Urgh!!

Somehow at this moment I am thinking of this song (Bad Day) by Daniel Powter. WARNING!! This is going to be kinda negative vibe post. I really don’t want to blog about something negative but today was the last straw for me. I really need to express my feelings, otherwise I would go insane.

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on
Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

***

****

I really wish I don’t have to go through this day ever again!
* I hate feeling this way. I feel stupid and worthless
* I really wish I don’t have to see “that” face ever again
* I just don’t know how to handle this situation. You know you are being psychological and mentally abuse but you don’t have the power to stop it
* there are so many bad things going through my mind at this moment
* I really  hate when “that person” have this kind of power over me
* all I wanted was for “that person” to let me do what I know best and not judging me too much
* I feel trap and this really suffocate me
* being blame for something that is not your fault really makes you hate the world

Lovely Tuesday: 26.04.2011

It’s Tuesday morning and I really dread going to work today. I just can’t take this anymore. I felt so stress out just thinking about it. Even for a moment, I wish I could be somewhere else but here.

Anyway, I wanted to share with all of you, these lovelies layout I found. Looking at these pretty creations makes me feel like I am in different world, even though it was only for a moment. I wish I could create something artistic like these.

Click on the images for credits.

Kit Showcase: Best Buddies Forever

Another fun kit from Inspired Designs called Best Buddies Forever.

“When you're a boy, there is nothing more awesome than having a best buddy! Someone who you can depend on and share your fun times with. This kit is all about celebrating that friendship. With a bright color palette full of blues, greens, browns and yellows, with adorable doodled elements, this kit is sure to become a favorite you'll scrap with again and again. “ excerpt from product description from Sunshine Studio Scraps.

This is my layout using the above kit

Template freebies #16

Todays is the last Monday of April. It’s going to be May soon. The weather in Malaysia is a bit off. It can change from hot to cold almost immediately. This is good for my health. I can easily get flu and headache.

Anyway, today I have a little something for all of you. It’s a free template from me. Can you believe it? This my Template #16! I enjoy making template as much as making a layout. I hope you like them.

Click here to download.

My life unscripted–midnight sunday

I love reading Life Artist by Ali Edwards. It’s not only a book about scrapbook but about life in general. It also has a lot of interesting quotes.

“Life is the supreme creative act. We are always choosing, shaping improvising with what arises around us. The more we accept what is happening and let go of what we think should be happening or what we want to happen, the more free and alive we become” ~ jennifer louder

Credit: Love Potion No. 9 Kit

I love Sunday

This is one of my favourite day other than Saturday. I am happy that I don’t have anywhere I should be, so I decided to get up a little bit late.

I decided to watch a movie today. I intend to watch Rio but ended up with Red Riding Hood.

I wanted to take lots of photos today but somehow that didn’t happen. I really missed my weekend photo shoot. I really need to get out there and get my groove back.

Anyway here are the things I see today.

I am really looking forward to see this movie. I'm up for any movie related to Vampire

If only they have this in 2D. I really want to watch this. I like watching stories about people. He is only 16 and people already talk about him either good or bad.

My son is obsessed with soccer shoes.

I really wanted to do some shopping but somehow after watching Red Riding Hood  for 2 hours, I don’t feel like spending another few more hours there.

tips to a better journaling: Series #2 Statistics

This is the second journaling series. Last time I wrote all about Sensory overload. Check out Series #1 for inspiration on journaling.

And today’s Journaling Prompt
#2) Statistics
What is your full name as it appears on your birth certificate?
How old are you today?
Where were you born?
What is your eye color?
Do you have scars? How do you got them?
Do you have any nicknames?
What are your children names?
If you could have chosen your name, what would it have been?
Where do you work? Do you enjoy your work?
What is your status? – single, widow, in a relationship, it’s complicated
Were you named after anyone?
Do you have any siblings? What are their name and ages?
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Other than great for journaling on your scrapbook, these questions is also great for your blog post. Your reader might be interested to know a little facts about yourself.

How old are you today?

Ah.. interesting question. I think way back when.. women were a bit sensitive when asked about their age. Not anymore. Today, most women are not secretive about their age. Hemm why is that?

Back to the question, I am 39 years old today. I’ll be 40 in June. I’m not really sure how I feel right now about turning 40. Am I a lot wiser than I was last year? Is life really begins at 40? Is 40 the new 20?

One thing for sure, if I could be 20 again, I will make sure she learns these:

• don’t marry someone just because he is there.
• don’t be afraid to fall in love
• have the guts to follow your dream
• enjoy your college years as much as you can
• don’t be afraid to be happy

Kit showcase: Garden Symphony

Introducing Garden Symphony by Jennifer Schmitt. Available at Sunshine Studio Scraps at 30% off till Sunday.

This is my layout using the above kit

And these are some inspiration from CT girls

Enjoy!

BEN ASHAARI CARI BLOG LAH ! eh.. ye ke?

“OK.. untuk join , mudah jer ... Aku malas nak peningkan kepala korang.. heheh .. Sila buat satu entri khas ...

Sapa yang boleh join ? Blog yang punya FOLLOWER di bawah 1000 sahaja ..
Letak header ben ashaari blog
Tajuk : BEN ASHAARI CARI BLOG LAH ! dan linkkan ke entri ini ..
Satu soalan mudah .. Siapa yang mempengaruhi anda untuk membuat blog dan  Siapakah sumber inspirasi anda ? Buat dalam 100 patah perkataan , dalam 4 perenggan ..
Tu je la eh.. ke nak aku tambah lagi ? hahaha ..”
excerpt from benashaari.com.

If you want to join go here.

Siapa yang mempengaruhi anda untuk membuat blog ( someone who inspired you to start bloggin)

Originally I blogged because I wanted to document my life for the sake of my children. Safe to say because of my children I blogged. I wanted my children to know me from my point of view. Long after I’m gone, hopefully they will read my blog and remember me for who  I  am , a working mother, a life artist, a photographer, a woman and so much more.

After a while my blog has evolved from personal diary to things I like, digital scrapbook, photography and life lesson in general. Hopefully not only my children but younger generation can learn something from me. My blog is a legacy I want to left behind.

Siapakah sumber inspirasi anda ( who is your inspiration?)

I usually get inspired by Fliffy, Elsie, Emy and Ali Edwards . These are the blogs I read for inspiration either for digital scrapbook idea or ideas for blogging.

I am also inspired by the story from Juliahoneyshakes, Ben Ashaari, Nisa and yuyu zulaikha. There’s something about them that keeps me coming back.

I feel like the blogging world in Malaysia has evolved from the pleasure of writing into something people do because they can, without having any objectives other than fame and fortune. It has become so competitive and political. Somehow people forgot to have fun. Blogging should be fun. It should be the creative outlet for people to express themselves. ~~ something to think about ~~~

the dare! 10 million dollars ??

Looking for a new and fun way to scraps? How about doing this challenge host by Digi Dare

“If I had 10 million dollars

Dare Flair:
- you must use the colour green somewhere on your page
- a photo is optional, but if you choose to use it, it has to be more than one.
- use at least 2 patterned and 2 solid papers.
- I want to see some round shapes somewhere on your page
- use stitches, frames and buttons. The amount and where you going to place those things is up to you.
- journaling is mandatory
- finally, the most important : HAVE FUN!!” ~~~ source Digi Dares

This week challenge is what  would you do if you had 10 million dollars? Ah.. the things I would do if I don’t have  to think about money anymore. Hemm do I dare to dream that big! Wow! 10 million! Where do I start?

• Quite my job is the first thing I do
• save some of them and forget about it
• of course travel the world – Rome, Paris, South Africa, United Kingdom and many more
• set up an internet business and let it generate money automatically
• open my dream cafe – cupcakes, romance books, internet, digital scrapbook class, pink deco – basically a place where girls / ladies can go to have fun a feel better about themselves
• I probably won’t need a big house, just pay all my debts and hire Interior designer to make my home fit my style
• write a book
• learn new things

This is my take on this dare

Credit: iLive  Kit and template by Ziggle Designs and Suzy Q. Available at Scrap Orchard

So what would you do if you won 10 million dollars? Share with me your dream, paste your blog post in this entry and you might win a special prize from me. Do you dare to dream big?

Friday Pleasure Speedlinking–22.04.2011

It’s Friday and things doesn’t seem to slow down a bit. I am so glad that the week is finally over. I’m really looking forward to my lovely weekends.

There’s so many posts appear in my blog list today and I would like to share 10 posts that caught my eyes. Enjoy!

• If you love blogging late at night then check out this tips from Ben Ashaari.
• I love the tutorial on understanding Aperture from the Daily Digi photography segment. Now I understand what aperture is all about.
• Yuyu Zulaikha tips on Buffered Earning. Very insightful and really helps bloggers to generate more income.
• I can’t barely remember the feeling of being newly wed. It was such a long time ago. She reminded me of how wonderful the feeling was. Congratulation to Ailylrozana .
• the g list.. I like the idea of making my own g list.
• I love all the layouts they choose for April 21st Gallery Standouts. I am inspire and motivated to scraps tonight.
• Keeping my weight off has been a challenge. I like her 5 ways to keep weight management simple. I think living a stressful life can do more harm to keep your weight off.
• this really looks delicious. Always a pleasure reading her blog.
• If you wanted to learn more about running a business, check out Elsie & Ema Dream Job Course. I did take a course from them – Blog Love – and it was so much fun.
• I like conteng-conteng too and I might grab this book on my next visit to the bookstore. Thanks Lyla for the review!

Drop by my tumblr to enjoy beautiful things that I like and reblog anything that you like.

If you enjoy shopping online, visit Firzara’s Collection for the latest trend.

21st century motherhood

Oh boy! The challenge of being a mother in 21st century is so damn high.

Then
* mom worries if the kids go to school or not
* mom worries if the kids smoking or not
* mom worries if the kids get good grades or not
* mom worries if the kids are healthy or not
* mom worries if the kids eat or not

Now
* mom worries when the kids are connected to the internet
* mom worries when the kids good grades are not enough to go to a great school
* mom worries when the kids keep asking when am I going to have a facebook account
* mom worries when kids play outside the house
* mom worries when kids stay lock up in their room
* mom worries  when kids can learn anything they want at their finger tips
* mom worries when the kids keep asking for a hand phone when they are only 8 years old
* mom worries when all they care about is playing computer games
* mom worries when the kids choose computer rather than reading a book

* mom worries when there’s nothing they can do to protect their kids from the world
* mom worries with what kind of people the kids will interact on cyberspace
* mom worries with what kind of information the kids will share on public domain
* mom worries if the kids can make the right choice / decisions when there’s so many too choose from

and.. I’m sure there’s many more that moms worry about right this minute. All I can do is guide them and pray that they will make the right choice.