Your first year ~ CD album

While I am not able to share my Easter project, I’ll show you something I did today. It is Canberra Day here, a holiday, and I had the perfect project for a lazy Monday holiday.

So, it is the first time I do one of those CD albums, I have read many tutorials but where were they when I needed? LOL I have a feeling I did things differently, so I am going to share and you let me know if there is an easier way to do things ok?’

First, I printed out my lovely pages (created from my quickpage album with Lili) on photographic paper sized A4. To get the 8X8 pages to the right CD size, I resized them to 60% of their original size inside a A4 sized document in Photoshop.


I cut my pages to size (real quick ~ with scissors, I didn’t have to worry too much about cutting straight yet). I lightly sanded my CDs with sanding paper (so the paper doesn't slip), I thought it would be easier to glue things together like that.


Then I coated one side of the CD with modge podge and I put that side on top of my cover. (for those who don’t know, modge podge is like glue)


With a craft knife I trimmed the excess paper off the sides (real easy because the CD acts as a stencil)


Modge podge the other side, glue to the first page. You may noticed it is easy to keep the pages facing the right direction when they are square :)


Repeat this for all your other pages. I had two going at a time to give some time for the modge podge to dry (or else the page might slip off the CD, and you don't want that to happen when you are cutting).

Ok, that was the easy part, now onto the hard part. I spent the whole afternoon yesterday looking for a crop a dile. I could NOT find one here in Canberra. Since I didn’t want to wait till whenever I can get one online (which I am doing tonight!!) I decided to go for the hand drill to make my holes. Gosh that was messy! I wrecked some of the holes a little because the cordless drill was loosing power, and I didn’t notice that was why it was all weird (well, weird, like, not making holes anymore LOL). Anyway, sorry I don’t have pictures, but it was impossible to drill and have my camera anywhere near ;)

So, here are the pages without the messy holes:


And the finished album:


















Font for journaling is PookieDoo by Darcy Baldwin.

Hope you like it! Let me know if you have any questions, and if you do, please leave a way I can contact you :)

POD 06/03/08

POD 06/03/08, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

can't wait to share this little project :)

First Steps

Yesterday I mentioned Lucas took his first steps and my sister almost killed me for not telling her first ;)
So here it is sis, the video:


How lucky are we to have both our kids' first steps on video??? It was just luck really. We were on a video conference with my mom when Mateus decided to take his first steps. And Lucas was a little overdue and we were just filming him standing up on his own. He simply decided if he could stand up he could move forward, and off he went! I am happy for my little one!

Today is my "day home with the kids" and I managed to do the housework and just finished cooking dinner. But I am not happy I didn't manage to play with Scrapbooking like I intended to... maybe tonight :)

Happiness overload

Where do I start, it is only the 4th of March and the month is already one of the best I had in a long time. Oh well, nothing is absolutely perfect, but you know how people say the universe conspires? Well, I think the universe just wants me to be happy :)

You know how happy I am about the quickpages, just having stuff with my name out there makes me happy! Then I was over the moon when I found out last week I was going to be guest Dream girl for the month of March at Little Dreamer Designs. I think these hybrid projects did the trick:



More happy
Then today I got a PM letting me know that I am the week’s featured scrapper at DigiShopTalk. I just love the place, it is THE hub for scrappers ALL over the world. It is neautral ground where everyone gets to show their stuff and I just can't believe I will be one of 52 lucky ladies to be featured this year! I mean, talk about lucky!!!

I truly truly cannot believe all this has happened just now, when I needed most :)

Even more happy
I went back to work today. I went to work after spending pretty much 16 months at home with the kids. You might remember the struggle it was when I tried to go back to work in April last year, how conflicting it was to want to go back and at the same time having Lucas not adapting to childcare, etc. Today was a WHOLE different ball game. I was happy from the word go, I dropped the kids off in this new childcare I am thinking it is great. They provide EVERYTHING, nappies, food, milk, bibs, and even extra clothes if needed. I don’t have to worry and I did not worry. Mateus was just so excited about it and he LOVED the place, almost as much as he loves pre-school. Once I got to work, it was such a downpour of smiles and excitement that I just couldn’t help feeling a bit teary. It was such a warm welcome, every 5 minutes someone would stop at my desk to celebrate my coming back to work. I even got actual work done, which I was very proud of! I didn’t think I could catch up so quickly, but it felt like a never left.

Ok, to finish of this long post, I have to catch up with DD's community photo of the day project:

1. excitement 2. addiction (chocolates) 3. Lucas’ first steps (yeah, talk about HAPPY, we caught it on camera and we have a video too, wooohoo) 4. on the way to work.

POD 29/02/08

POD 29/02/08, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

Your First Year QP album by ME & Lili

I have no words to describe my excitment over this... seriously, something I helped create being sold at ScrapArtist? I must be dreaming :)

The album includes 20 quick pages (so you can print it at Shutterfly), covers and some extras.

Use the coupon YourFirstYear20% and save 20%!! Expires Sunday - 03/02.

ETA. I just notcied this was my 100th post :) what better way to celebrate hey?

POD 28/02/08

mesmerised, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

not the best photo, I know, but the best I could do in the middle of the night with no light, no flash and no autofocus. anyone knows why autofocus doesn't work in the dark? LOL
50mm f1.8 1/3sec 400ISO

POD 27/02/08

POD 27/02/08, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

POD 26/02/08

POD 26/02/08, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

Inverted roles ;)

Baby Keepsake

When I created the Quickpages for Twinkle I was thinking about doing a little 4x4 baby keepsake. I did it today and it took me only 15 minutes!!!! So I decided to do a step by step here :)

First, print your 6 pages in 4X4 size, it fits 6 in one A4 sheet (yay for saving paper)

Then get a sheet of 12X12 cardstock and cut a 4X12 strip.

Also cut all your pages to size (good to have a guillotine, but you can do it by hand since it is only 4X4)

If you have a scoring tool, it is best to score your paper every 4 inches. Or else you can just fold it by hand.

Adhere your pages with double sided tape or glue (easy on the glue!)

Voila! You have your little keepsake!

Alex already took this one from me, and I was very happy he wanted to have it at work!!! It is also a relieve to know I can quickly create something like that for a friend.
Hope you liked this, let me know if you have ANY questions :)