LO for Oona's Uncles

These two were made for my brothers, Oona's uncles, who were both moving out of my parents' house and striking out on their own. I wanted them to have a memento of Oona, to remind them a little bit of home and family. It features snapshots of Oona's first few months.

{Credits: Shabby Princess Harvest Spice, Cottage Arts Hope and Sentiment Pack}

Oona's Second Album: LAST PAGES

It was pretty typical for everyone after that.

Sleeping was our favorite activity. (It still is, with eating and playing a close second and third!)

Before August ended, Lolo Lem got to play with his recovering little granddaughter. She still couldn't see much, as with typical newborns, but she knew how to work the crowd!

It was as if she never got sick!

Oona's Second Album: TITLE PAGE

This album should have taken me less time because all I had to do was basically put in pictures and titling. However, because it was so easy to do, I ended up taking longer: I put in more photos and text, doubling the number of pages in the album and tweaking the second set of layouts to make them a little different from the first set.

I *heart* Photoshop!

I'll be posting all twenty-two pages (Yes! TWENTY-TWO!) in batches, as it's a little overwhelming and long to post them in one go! :D

{Credits: Shabby Princess Piece-A-Cake In the Groove Album}

THE EVENT REMINDER

{Credits: Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity, Festival, Promise Collection,
CottageArtsHopeSentimentPak,
Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life
and DigiKeepsakes Vivaldi Alpha}

As usual, I had to send reminders to everybody.

I was nervous because less than half of the people we'd invited had RSVP'd and most of those were regrets. What in the world were we to do with 100 pax worth of food?! So using the photo from the first draft, I flipped the layout to come up with this. I was sure the others had forgotten that the event was nearly upon us.

Thinking up witticisms like in the godparent invite was a challenge though. So I ended up with something a little ordinary compared to the first salvo.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, the good news is that most of whom I sent this to responded. I even posted this as an event on Facebook just to cover all the bases.

Will You Be My Fairy Oddparent?

{Credits: Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity, Festival, Promise Collection,
CottageArtsHopeSentimentPak, Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life
and DigiKeepsakes Vivaldi Alpha}

The invitation for Oona's Godparents. Since they're all beloved oddballs, we christened them Oona's Fairy Oddparents (yes, a few are fairy gay and most are gayer than the rest!). I know, I went scrap-crazy over this.

{Credits: Designer Digitals AVictoria-webchallenge-mar23,
and Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life}

This was the first draft, using a different set. I know it's also cute and so HAPPY, what with Oona's laugh and the summery feel of the colors...but the whimsical theme kinda won out. It was more in keeping with being a kid. This one is a little bit too grown-up, I guess.

I still want to use this layout for something though. It's too happy to pass up.

Sweet Sixteen

{Credits: Designer Digitals KPertiet_Web111807, mterasawa-web10608}

I made this for my sister, Diday. I was rummaging through old files and came across these pictures, thought forever lost. She's now turning 18 in December, so as this was two years ago, it was a trip down memory lane.

My First DigiScrap Print

{Credits: Designer Digitals Katie Pertiet Scrap Pink, Cottage Arts Hope Sentiment Pack, Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity; Done in Adobe Photoshop CS}


For Our Firstborn

I hope for you a life
of much joy and blessings,
to have all the love you need,
to be able to nurture your gifts,
to be blessed with good health
in order to be all you are meant to be.

For Urduja Isabella G. Florendo
Born on Aug. 15, 2007
Wednesday, 4:56AM

Triggerhappy

What to do with a bazillion photos of your first-born?

We're new parents, so like the tourists in a new country, Mr. F and I can't get enough of clicking away at Oona's every moment.

With today's technology, taking pictures are easy, hence the tendency to having an avalanche of captured moments. You can only look at so much later on and the rest are stuffed in a computer file folder marked: DO NOT DELETE ON PAIN OF DEATH.

You can't possibly print everything. (So very expensive, as I found out) and unfortunately, you can't bear to throw the excess away, no matter how identical six or sixty pictures would look to the next sixty.

Because you would know THE DIFFERENCE.

It would feel almost like a betrayal, casting aside the frozen memory of your little one like it was nothing.

I'm a parent now, so sue me for the drama!

So, what to do, what to do?

In the old days, there were the usual Kodak or Agfa prints and those free cardboard albums. Then Mom would religiously transfer them to nicer plastic bound albums with plastic sleeves. Or if it were a special occasion on celluloid, the big fancy albums with self-adhesive acetate and cardboard pages would be the trophy of the day.


In even older days, the photo albums were bound pages with white-edged photographs neatly arranged by the lady of the house. Handmade albums, usually with ribbons and other whimsy, were elegant in heavy paper and memories were a lot more formal in presentation. Photographs of course were a lot more expensive in our grandparents' age hence the special care in the preservation and presentation of what amounts to a family heirloom. Maybe a lock of hair or a leaf pinned to a photo, a scrap of cloth imbued with memories stirred by a touch. Albums in those days were more scrapbooks, bits and pieces of lives put together to tell a story to the next generation. They had more personality than the plastic, ready-made albums in vogue nowadays.

You can tell where I'm going with this, can you?

So the next best thing if you can't keep your trigger-finger away from the shutter button would be to scrap them all together!

*applause!*applause!*

This blog started that way. Bazillion photos. Little Cash. Lots of Photoshop and Scrapping time. Today's technology in the time-honored tradition of creating your own albums and giving them a little bit of digital personality and pizzaz.

More bang for my buck too since I can scrap together as much photos as I can, arrange it on a nice page with the elements of my choosing and have the whole shebang printed. Ten photos on a page with all the trimmings? So very nice.

And I don't have to feel like such a traitor for trashing anything!

Parental guilt GONE...totally scrapped to oblivion!

{Credits: Shabby Princess Piece-A-Cake In The Groove Album}