It's Good to Be Back!

I feel so good to be finally back to blogging! For not blogging for more than a month,  it took me several minutes to finally remember my password. Can you imagine my fear?! Every time I try to recover my password, I can't tell why I always end up doing the same process and not being able to access it. I was left without a choice but to rack my brain. Until I remembered hehehe.

Well, anyway, I have so many good news to share with you after a month of hiatus! This is going to be a very looong post ...

First things first ... we've moved to our very own home!!! After going through some crises this year, we were able to get a place of our own. Our very supportive parents have helped us finance the downpayment for this beautiful place we found somewhere in the south. We love the proximity of our new home to Ethan's school  - atleast he doesn't have to be stressed out traveling. We are still facing a lot of difficulties  right now but God has always been good to our family, I believe that all of these things shall pass.

I hope to share some pictures of our home but it looks quite empty right now : ) Since we have moved, we have not bought the "other essential" things our house needs but as what I have mentioned, we know that God will provide us with what we need. We just have to be patient. As for now, we are more than  thankful for all the blessings that He has given our family.

Anyway, I was able to capture a photo of the building where our unit is located from this site. I'm sharing it here.

 

Next, Ethan celebrated his 6th birthday with an "Under Construction" theme at Jollibee last October 22! Again, thanks for my in laws for making this birthday party possible! Ethan was the one who chose the theme (as always). We invited only few of his classmates.

 

Most of the party decors are DIY stuff - invites, lootbags, table centerpieces and gift tags. An old friend of mine and a classmate from high school was the one who made Ethan's birthday cake. Her name is Chef Lulu of Foodsense. We love how the cake turned out. I just bought cheap plastic construction toys from SM and used them as cake toppers. All the other cake decors were created by hand by Chef Lulu.

I was lucky to find these plastic lootbags from Gourdo's. The theme is not Bob the Builder though it's still has something to do with construction hehehe : ) The bags are on sale when I bought it.

Ethan still raves about his party days after. As what I have said before, we like small parties since they are easier to manage and Ethan gets to pick only his closest friends.

A week after this party, my parents threw another party for their first apo! Ethan is such a lucky boy! This time we had a Halloween birthday party since it was spent a day before Halloween. I just bought a small round cake and place some Halloween candies as toppers. I bought some Halloween plastic lootbags and filled it up with candies. We asked the guests (only a few of our family and friends) to come in their costumes! I'm trying to figure out where I downloaded the pictures so for now, I can't share it yet.

Before the sembreak, Rosemont had their annual "Children's Day". Ethan was a robot that day! We let him use his robot costume again para sulit! We were asked to make Ethan's lootbag so I used an old paper bag and used up my paper scraps to make a "robot". I used old batteries, screw brads, googly eyes  and a bookplate to make the face of the robot.

The next day is another treat for this little boy. We had our annual trick or treat in AAV. Ethan was a Knight in Shining Armor. It was supposed to be a day to go around the village for some treats but we ended up with a playdate instead!

I have some layouts which I made weeks ago but until now it's either I do not have journaling for the layout or I haven't taken a picture of it yet. Unfortunately, I couldn't use our SLR as often as I would like to. Since last month, it has been showing up the "error 99" on its' screen : ( Owning a new camera is not our priority nowadays though since we have so many things in our plate. Sigh! Here's hoping for a new SLR come next year.

Till my next update. Thanks for dropping by!

{Countdown: 25 days before Christmas}

-Pia
11.30.10

Insect Report

I noticed that I have been sharing Halloween layouts for this month so I decided to post a non Halloween layout for a change.

Hidden inside the envelope are the actual report and actual picture of the Goliath Beetle that Ethan used for his report.

materaials used: patterned papers - BasicGrey, Echo Park, Lily Bee, Crate; cardstock - American Crafts; journaling block - Scenic Route; mist - Memories Mist and Tattered Angels; stickers - Jillibean Soup, American Crafts; pompoms - Prima; stamp - Daisy Bucket; envelope - 7 Gypsies; pen - Uniball

{Countdown: 68 days before Christmas}

-Pia
10.19.10 

Kris Aquino's Halloween Holiday 2008

This post is long overdue. This was my first project for a celebrity and how lucky I am that I did  it for Ms. Kris Aquino! 

My friend, Dedet who is the editor in chief of Working Mom Magazine (ABS CBN Publishing) recommended me to Sheila Quieta, who is the managing editor of K Mag. Since then we've  already made 4 projects for the magazine and we are very thankful for this wonderful opportunity. Unfortunately, my second traditional scrapbook project for Kris was never published at the mag. This was during former President Cory Aquino's illness and Kris had to take a break from the magazine. I did Bimby's 2nd birthday album. My only regret was I never took pictures of my layouts before I gave it to Sheila because I was hoping to see my layouts published in the mag. Anyway, God is really good because before the year ends, another project of ours will be published in the said mag!

Here are the layouts I made for the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of K Mag. The layouts are originally 8" x 8" in size or 8" x 16" (spread). When I got a call from Sheila, I only had less than a week to do this project and to top it all the pictures are still not with them since Kris just recently came from Hongkong. I was just told that the vacation took place in HK Disneyland during the sembreak/Halloween.  I assumed that the photos are Halloween themed. I looked through HK Disneyland's website to have an idea of how the park looks when it's dressed up for Halloween. I already made few layouts when I get to see the photos.

I went to ABS CBN Publishing office  to choose the pictures for the scrapbook. I spent more than 3 hours going through the photos! I also brought my stuff so I can make some layouts.

My layouts were then photographed and the pictures were added digitally by their graphic artist thus I have no hand on the cropping of the photos. I never even get to see the finished layouts till I bought the magazine : ) But it was all worth the wait!

I believe that these aren't my best layouts. I was really pressured while I was creating these. I knew I had to let go when I'm working under pressure. Hopefully there would be lots of next time to do better ; )

{Countdown: 72 days before Christmas}

-Pia
10.14.10 

Creating Keepsakes, October 2010 issue

... just sharing another layout that made it to CK! Woohoo!!!

You can check my layout at page 34 ...

And here's a layout from my friend, Ria.

Ria used our photos that Jeff took during Nadya's party. It's like having two layouts for this issue hehehe!

I will be sharing my Halloween layouts from Kris' Magazine way back in 2008 (finally I was able to take pictures hehehe!) this week!

Thanks for sharing my excitement!

{Countdown: 77 days before Christmas}

-Pia
10.09.10