First Kindergarten Mini Album

Finally managed to officially finish a mini album of my kids' first (proper) nursery year. 'Proper' because when they were 1.5 yrs old, we sent them to another local nursery school which was supposed to be longstanding one in our area. As it turned out, it wasn't really great and towards end of that school term, kids hated going there. Can't really blame them. In China, it is quite normal to send your kids to nursery school as early as 1.5 years old.

We were very happy when they got in to Sinan Kindergarten which is also walking distance to and from our home. The kids also were happy. So I thought I'd do a hybrid mini album chronicling the first year. The basic layout was based on Ali Edwards' Layered Template #33 but have adjusted size and changed details. Added also some embellishments to give it a bit more tactile feel.

Here's a look at some of the spreads...







I don't really know all the names in their class (I'm really bad with names and most esp. when it comes to Chinese names.) so I added a film overlay and traced the kids outline and numbered them. Then I asked one of the teachers to help write each kids' name so I can add it into the album.



The school organized for the kids to go on a train ride to the outskirts of Shanghai and the kids even had their own 'special' tickets. Added a little pocket to hold the train ticket on the fold-out page. Samuel lost his ticket so I only had Audrey's left.

I wouldn't have been able to put this together without the teacher's help in copying the photos for me. I love the ones taken during normal school activities or outings.

Birthday 'Cards'

My sister and sister-in-law are having their birthdays in August with only a few days apart and I thought I'd send them something different this year using up some bits of scrapbook stuff I had.

Quite easy and quick to do and the fun bit was getting the kids to draw or write something for their aunts as each one had their own pockets to hold a card and their photos. The pictures are using digital scrap stuff from various sources and background paper from the Vines Paper Pack.

Instructions for the accordion pocket book is found here.

Childhood Memories Mini Album

Just before Christmas, I got my copy of Ali Edwards' new book entitled: Sharing Your Story. This book has inspired me to create some hybrid mini albums.

Since I started doing some digital scrapbook pages in late 2007, I've never really done much more than document my kids life except print out the pages and putting them into a scrapbook album. Didn't also think much about getting into the traditional scrapbooking road because I've no place to store embellishments and nor do I have time to spend putting pages together.

Anyway, so I found out that you can do what is called "hybrid scrapbooking" which is mixing a bit of digital and a bit of traditional.

After reading this book, I have done 3 mini projects so far. The 3rd one (first 2 you will find in my other blog) is one I did for my kids. It's documenting a few memorable bits and pieces of things I loved to do, loved to eat, or remember of when I was growing up in Tacloban City, Philippines. It was also something of a walk down memory lane for me and was interesting challenge to find pictures. Majority of the pictures were 'borrowed' from Filipinos I found on Flickr as well as some of my old photos. You can see the pages of this mini album by clicking here.


When all was done, I gave my kids the album and they loved it! That was the most rewarding part. Even if they cannot read what is written inside yet, they were curious to know what I've written and what all the pictures were about. We've revisited this album a few times already as I've included a few pages about songs I remember and they've asked me to sing them a few times... I'm hoping one day I'll get to take them to my hometown and show them the actual stuff...

I cannot thank the Filipinos who shared their pictures enough as otherwise I wouldn't have been able to put this together. So THANK YOU once again...