Meet with Friends

Last night my friends and I had an all night food tripping, drinking and chatting at our favorite hang-out in town "Mang Paeng's Resto Bar". What more can we do but talk and talk and laugh and laugh since laughing on everything is a part of our bonding moments.

So guys out there don't forget to laugh because laughing is a very good medicine to forget all your problems and ease your life's burden.

I Miss My Pet

It's been a month since I last cuddled my pet "MOCHA". We left her in my brother's care in Zamboanga City. Poor Mocha we can't bring her along here in Iligan because she's pregnant so she has to stay until she'll give birth.

Vacation in Boracay

After the wedding ceremony our next destination was one of the 7,107 islands of the Philippine Archipelago, the Paradise Island BORACAY.

Boracay Island is one of the best travel destinations in the Philippines. The small paradise island offers a four-kilometer White Beach hailed as the finest beach in the world. Surrounded by unspoiled coral reefs and crystalline water, Boracay is located one kilometer north-western tip of Panay in Western Visayas.

Our 5-day travel trip begun on May 5, 2008 on board Cebu Ferry from Cagayan de Oro City to Cebu City. Arrived early morning the next day we went directly to Mactan Airport Cebu and waited for our flight to Caticlan “the gateway to Boracay”. Arrived at Bora @ 2’oclock in the afternoon, hotel checked-in and off we've gone exploring the white beach on foot, lazed out at the beach and waited for the dreamy sunset. The next day we had an all-day shopping spree for souvenir items, food trip and sun bathing.

On the 4^th-day, a whole-day island hopping and snorkeling. Destination: Crystal Cove, Puka Beach and other islets.

Our 5-day vacation ended on May 9, 2008, we bid our goodbyes to Bora and took the 1pm flight to Metro Manila.

Some of the my digital scrap projects on slide. Check it out! Enjoy!

DIY Wedding Storybook 2

Not satisfied with the photographer’s assistant work, I made a total revision on the wedding photo layout, a 40 pages layout to be mounted on an 8x10 magnetic album. This time I made use some of the photos that weren’t included on my first work.

DIY Wedding Storybook

Wedding is the most memorable day of a couple who are much inlove with each other. Reminiscing the day after years of marriage is an exciting moment of a married couple.

The best proofs we can get are photographs. Photographs are some of the memorabilia that will last a lifetime and can be shared from generation to generation.

Hiring a well-known professional photographer and availing their very costly wedding package is a good investment to capture your once in a lifetime moment, i.e. is you have extra extra budget. But for a couple with a very tight budget like “us” and with a little knowledge on photo layout and editing why not try settling on a not so expensive photographer and get the very basic package he can offer and then YOU do the rest of the work. Create your own Wedding Layout, explore your imagination, put your best effort on it until you come up with a work of art, your own work of art with you and your love ones in it, like what WE did.

Since I’m a little bit addicted to Photoshop, I searched the net for sample wedding layout made by professional photographers and layout artists got some ideas and started doing my OWN version of our Wedding Layout, “OUR WEDDING STORYBOOK”.

Although it has a very simple concept but still it is very heart fulfilling for me and for my husband. We were able to save from our budget and got the result we can call OURS.

Here’s our 50pages Wedding Storybook, A magazine type album using a laminated metallic photo paper. Had this printed in Metro Manila.

Wedding Details with Personal Touch

While re-arranging our new home, I came across with our wedding album and decide to share some of our wedding details that have my personal touch.

Being a bride was the most exciting unforgettable role of my life. After seven years on boyfriend-girlfriend relationship we finally decided to tie our knot on May 3, 2008. Just like in a fairytale, walking the aisle like a princess with the price charming waiting at the altar and envisioning a happy ever after ending was a typical woman’s dream.

A typical girl like me dreamt something like this, with a little personal touch on some or almost every wedding detail was a perfect fairytale-like wedding for me.

I want to share to you some of the wedding accessories that I made and decorated myself with the help from my very supporting friends.

1. SECONDARY CORD – in a Filipino Wedding, cord symbolizes unity and infinity binding a couple for their love to last forever. The cord we had was a multi-beaded cord with white, yellow and brown accent to match our motif. I beaded this myself using jewelry copper wire and acrylic beads. Yellow and brown shades ribbons were placed to put additional embellishment.

The personalized wine flute was a gift from Jefer Neal our groomsman.

2. WEDDING INVITATION - I wasn’t satisfied with the ribbon used on the invitations, the printing press put instead a golden yellow 1” inch ribbon that doesn’t match our motif (light yellow). So I went to Divisoria and looked for a ribbon then I found a light yellow 1/2” ribbon with gold lining perfect for the chocolate brown invitation.

With the help of my friends in head office Genelyn, Joane and Ronald, we we’re able to replace all 150pcs invitation with a new perfect match ribbon to give the invitation a formal and elegant look.

3. THE HOLY BIBLE AND MISALLETTE – To match our motif, the same ribbon was used on the Holy Bible but this time a strip of chocolate brown satin ribbon was placed on top and a little accent of yellow flowers.

4. MATCH – To be able to light the wedding candle a match is needed. To make it more presentable without showing the face of Rizal I covered the match case with chocolate brown specialty paper and placed also a yellow ribbon strip and a choco brown satin ribbon.

5. PILLOWS – Not satisfied with the pillows that go along with the bridal gown package, Nice my maid of honor searched the web and found this beautifully beaded pillow, simple yet elegant we decided to make the same pillow. I asked the wedding entourage designer to sew 3 choco brown pillows (just the plain one) afterwards I did the decorations, the white Japanese beads and the ribbons and so on.

6. JEWELRIES & HEADRESS – Why buy an expensive jewelries when there’s a much cheaper yet elegant that I can produce myself? Besides that I can handcraft one, I really can’t afford to buy an expensive jewelry just for the occasion so I settled for a personally handcrafted sterling silver jewelries with swarovski crystals.

The Bracelet - A 4 strand silver chain with a combination of 4mm bicone, cube and round swarovski crystal beads in between chain.

The Earrings – A silver earring stud dangled with a pear-shaped swarovski crystals.

The Necklace – A double strand silver chain with round and pear-shaped swarovski crystals to match with the earrings.

Finally the HEADDRESS – This was my work of art hmmm.. an all sterling silver wire bended, twisted to create a vine like headdress. The beads used are a mixture of round, oblong, barrel and rondelles shaped swarovski crystals. I tried using a copper jewelry wire but it doesn’t give out the same shine like a silver wire does.

Wedding Giveaways for guests were sponsored by Jefer Neal and Charry. For principal sponsor's giveaways (scented candle with holder), I made some changes on the ribbons and attached a thank you cards on the principal sponsors giveaways.

Other important wedding accessories are the Wedding Rings and Wedding Arrhae.

That it’s! Enjoy!

Solar Eclipse

After 2 days of gloomy rainy days, the sun finally appear. A solar eclipse is expected to appear today. It is a phenomenon that occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth and the sun is partially or totally covered. A partial solar eclipse was expected to be viewed here in the Philippines around 8am to 11am where as a total solar eclipse will be visible in India and Southwest of China. It was reported to last about 6 minutes and 39 seconds the longest since July 11, 1991, when a total eclipse was visible from Hawaii to South America lasting 6 minutes, 53 seconds. The longest will next be seen only until 2132.

Today's phenomenon will allow us to witness an amazing display of nature that only happens ones in many years. So watch out for it! Hope the sky will be free from clouds for us to be able to witness this once in a lifetime occurrence.

Planning Session

As part of the division’s program, our group conducted a Planning Session for the 2^nd Semester of this year to discuss and assess all activities that we are going to tackle for these remaining months. With a new management another procedures are set-out to facilitate a composed road ahead and for us to figure out how we can get there and accomplished our targets. Brainstorming activities and discussion of existing and projected problems were also brought out for the group to be able to focus on our top priorities and improve what are needed to be improved. Working together as a group gave as a better outcome and made each and every one of us a better team player in achieving the goals we have set-in.

Our Stuffs Arrived Yesterday

6am yesterday, via "carga bilis" our things from ZC arrived and were unloaded in our new rented apartment here in Iligan City. With the belongings we had acquired after all these years including all the gifts we have recieved during our wedding, lifting, moving and re-arranging all these stuffs is very very tiring and until now were not done yet. Hope after a week things will ALL be in place hopefully.

Things & Stuffs in ZC

Last night, my husband left for Zamboanga City to finish packing our stuffs that we have left there and have it delivered here in Iligan City. I wasn't able to go with him because I can apply for leave of absence at work. Anyways, he's expected to arrived tomorrow together with my elder brother and have our things and stuffs delivered directly to our new place. I'm excited to rearrange our new home even though it's a rented apartment and I hope soon I'll be able to arrange our own home.

Zamboanga City: My Best Sunset Shot

I thought photography is just a simple click and of the camera's shutter but I'm wrong, it's all about composition, imagination, the ability to envision a final result in your mind's eye, and make it appear in your camera. This ability is what I long for to be able to create something unique something that is beyond imagination.

Note: No Photoshop adjustments were made on this photo, just a bit of cropping.

I've shot countless of sunset scene but I ended either overexposed or underexposed.
This shot is the best I ever had so far. Shot with a tripod at Lantaka Hotel Restaurant and a bit alteration of camera setting and VIOLA! I had a sunset scene, My BEST so far...

Apartment Hunt - Close Deal!

Finally, we were able to close deal with the owner of the apartment. And guest what, it's the same place I wrote about previously. The owner gave it to us because the first to reserve wasn't able to comply his requirements.
Good thing! Our Apartment Hunt is over and we can begin transferring our things and stuffs from our present pad. And most of our belongings from ZC will be freight by Saturday morning.
Goodluck to our New Life in a New Living Space...

A Fun Vacation @ Panglao Island

Summer of 2009 just in time to celebrate our 1^st Year Wedding Anniversary on May 3, 2009, Jessie and I went on a trip at Bohol, Island, Philippines. A 2 whole day of fun and adventure together with our best friend and wedding groomsman Jefer Neal.

One of my digital scraps… (Actually I wasn’t able to finish scrapping a bunch of photographs taken on this trip…hehehe.. soon…)

My First Photo Try

I started to become a photography hobbyist after my husband Jessie gave me a Canon DSLR camera as a 1st Year Wedding Anniversary gift last May 2009. From then onwards I found myself pointing lens on anything that merits my taste.

And here’s my first picture taken at our backyard in ZC. A butterfly on top of a kangkong leaf.

Apartment: Too Hard to Find

It’s a Monday morning! Before going to work, Jessie and I passed by our prospect apartment to rent somewhere in Tubod area. We went there around 7am only to find out we’re a bit late, we reserved the place earlier but the owner gave it to somebody else. So we have to roam around again to look for an apartment that is accessible, safe and with good water supply. Hope we can find one soon…

A Saturday Alone

It's Saturday, a break from a 5 day work routine. With my husband at work today, I was left alone at home doing one of my hobbies at the same time small time sideline, i.e. handcrafting fashion jewelries. I did some photo shots of the finish product as well to post on the internet soon.

In the afternoon, I went for window shopping at one of the local malls here in Iligan City the newly constructed Gaisano Mall and came across a book and magazine stall called "Book Sale" and I ended up buying back issue magazines of photography (another hobby I want to engage myself more), I got 3 actually and another 2 magazines regarding entrepreneurship. A total of 5 magazines to scan and read. Goodluck to me , I hope I can find time to read. Hmmmm... let’s see...