Sink or Swim

I woke up this morning looking for a clean / minimalist design inspiration for a jewelry website that I’ll be designing next week. I’ve visited a few websites that sells diamond and pearl jewelry too to see the current trend but none of them appealed to me in a creative way. So I’ve decided to search designs instead using clean and white as keywords. That is where I stumbled upon this post. It’s perfect because every element that I’m looking for is already compiled in one article.

They are not exactly “white” but they all use white spaces accordingly, making them all look professional and classy. Here’s one example of what I’m looking for from monashcarpet.com.au.

No need to settle on old, boring blogger templates. Now you can spice up your blogs with these cool and graphic intensive blogger templates for free. Yes, they’re free. So download all of them now but make sure you make a backup of your current settings so you will not lose all your hard-coded scripts and links on your sidebar.

Download from Bcute

Download from Kanata

Download from Magazeenz

Download from Coffee Desk

Download from Color paper

Download from Craftwork

A complete list can be found here.

 
Re-posting an old photo that I used on my other blog.
Join here.

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?

(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

At first I couldn’t think of any books that remind me of summer. But as I thought harder, I tried to remember how I used to feel during summertime, ten years ago. Those times were usually spent cooped up inside cold offices doing summer jobs or internship. Since it’s almost always boring, some employees bring their favorite novels to pass the time. That was when I learned about Jude Deveraux and Judith Mcnaught books. These two authors were introduced to me by my so-called mentor and I fell in love with their stories ever since. Now, everytime I re-read any of their titles, I can’t help but remember how I spent all my summers looking boring in the outside but inside my head, I was happily spending time with The Montgomeries and The Westmorelands.

The theme/prompt for THIS week, June 23, is:

TAILS – “Summertime memory”
Since this is TAILS your summertime memory needs to be a real memory of yours. It can be a childhood memory, a memory from teens years or later. It can even be from last week.

My Summertime Memory

When I was young, about 5 or six years old and my family wasn’t as dysfunctional, we used to go to the beach with three other families and relatives. We’ll ride this huge jeep where all the kids sit on a long bench that was in the middle of the vehicle. High end beach resorts don’t exist then, at least in our family. The jeep with the long bench was an example but I remember having the time of our lives. We have baskets of food — green mangoes with shrimp paste, ripe mangoes, bananas, pots of rice, pork belly for grilling, hotdogs, pork adobo and many more. When we reach the beach, which is almost always so crowded, the adults will start to prepare the meal while the kids can do whatever they want. Thinking about it now, I envy how things were so simple back then.

Now we have these big air-conditioned SUVs, expensive accommodations, equally expensive buffet, white sandy beaches and yet we adults still manage to find something missing. Sometimes growing up really isn’t much fun at all.

How’s your weekend? I’m just taking a quick break and posting my entry for the Camera Critters here.

My friends and I saw an online advertisement on cruise holidays last week and up to now, we can’t stop talking about it. I believe it was the tagline “Experience the world for less” that let us hope that maybe we’ll get a chance to join one of those tours to Italy. I checked their website (travelsphere.co.uk) to window shop for travel packages and here’s what I found:

We are after escorted tours by the way because we want to make the most out of the trip. Plus you appreciate places, paintings and what-not if you know the history behind them.

Best of Italy – 15 days from £1044

A tour highlighting Itali’s scenes and sights from the beauty of Lake Maggiore and popular Tuscany to the eternal city of Rome and fabled Bay of Naples with Sorrento.

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Can’t get any creamier than this.  Open Ravioli Marinara – Folded lasagna sheets filled with shrimps, squid, clams, scallops in cream sauce and little napolitaine sauce, topped with emmenthal cheese and gratinated.