Thoughts on 9 Years of Blogging, a blog2print review, and a gift!

Yes, I checked - my first post was on 19 June 2006. This was the first layout I posted - look how tiny Jared was then! He was doodling in the sand on the ground, I remember, and was always creating even then, wherever he would be, oh how precious this layout is!

It's been nine years that I've been adding posts on this humble blog. I would never have guessed, that night when I caught onto this blogging bug that it would last this long, and that it will be a precious place I call home on the web. 

As I look back over the years, I find so many posts that are especially meaningful, or memorable for me. Some captured 'currently now' or thoughts and sentiments that are not anywhere else in my scrapbooks or journals. Some posts just make me happy! It's a good time to share some of 

my Favourite Posts 

(from the early years)

The Library

Almost

Overheard

Enjoying the children

Conversations with young men

Walking humbly with thy God

Be Yourself Day

Enoughism

Frog in the Well

Remembering Grandma

my Choice

I started a blog as a place to share my layouts and my designs, but it quickly became a place where I also shared my life though pictures, reflections, anecdotes, and stories. And through this place I have made so many wonderful online friends and even built a store. Blogging is a hobby unto itself, even a career for many, how cool that I've kept it going too!

In recent years, though, I have had to re-think this blog a lot, as the children became teenagers, when their privacy and feelings about that became a priority. I am very careful about what I share now, some pages are never posted online, though I think trip layouts and everyday life are usually okay to share, so that's what I do a lot of. That's why these days I tend to post about techniques or how-tos, anything to do with scrapbooking, of which I can never run out of things to share, :) It's a little sad to become more impersonal here, but it's a choice I am glad to make. I also want to focus more on my own scrapbooking, while posting on the blog and store takes a lot of time. So I'm re-thinking how I share here. As long as I'm still scrapbooking I don't think I will ever stop blogging but it may take on different formats or slow-down, we'll see!

my Blog Books

In any case a few months ago, I decided I will make a more permanent physical copy of my blog in the form of a blog book. For the longest time I have thought about using Blurb who I think has the most flexible and dynamic software for downloading and printing a blog into a book. But because I didn't have the luxury of time (think how much I will want to customise and beautify the layout of the book!) I went with a much simpler option of Blog2Print. Their software and options are limited, the advantage though is I could get a book uploaded and sent for print in an hour. 

my Blog2Print Review

I made three books! They cover my blog from 2006-2008, 2009-2011, 2012-2014 in 3 volumes. Okay I know, it felt over-indulgent, but also felt really great when I received them! 

At over 200 pages each, they were quite heavy, bound in hardcovers. The only option are 8.5"x11" books. The covers are glossy, and I chose the simple completely black option. You can only select from their covers, and insert a picture, but not able to completely customise your own covers. The pages are of good quality fairly thick white paper which feels good to the touch. The paper is not photo paper, but is matte and smooth in feel. I like it!

As you can see you can add your own titles on the front and spine of the books

For each book, you can also add a dedication, or introduction. And all your blog posts will be listed in a Contents page like they are chapters, with the pages listed accordingly. Quite cool! However, I just want to point out, as you can see, from the photo on the left of the dedication pages of my books, that the binding seemed tight, and the papers a little crumpled when I try to open that page. This is a minor issue though, as it does not affect the actual pages further on.

What I'm very happy with is how the colors were presented in the book! All my layouts were beautifully and accurately printed, in vibrant colors even though the paper was not photo-paper quality.

Because I had so many pages to print, (nine years!) I tried to reduce the size and pages to save costs. For my books, the printing options I chose were: 

• No page breaks between posts (each post starts where the last post ends on the same page)
• Medium sized images 
• Not to show comments

The software will arrange the images and centralize them on the page, and put two images side by side because I chose 'medium' sized images. Every page has the post title and page number printed at the bottom corners. Just like a real book :)

The main issue I faced is that you can only select which posts to include or not, but are unable to edit anything within the post that you chose to include. So I could not edit out the 'view cart' button on this page. It was rather irritating, but a small problem that I could live with. 

Lastly, my books cost about US$90 each, after 15% discount, which is quite costly in my opinion, I'm not sure how much it would cost if printed with Blurb though. I went ahead and bit the bullet, over the course of a few months.

Most importantly, I've got my books in print in my hands, and I've been happily flipping through every now and then, it's so great to read some of the old posts and so to me, it's worth it! Hope this review helps anyone who is contemplating this.

my Layouts

Scrapbooking our memories will always be  my priority over the blog and the store, and here are my layouts for May Project 365.

Credits: ribbon by DisasterPiece Studios, blue tab from QuirkyHeart's Currently, blueplaid from TheDaily Digi's MylifeofHappines, paint, arrow, word circle, and alpha by DreamBigDesigns's Downtime and Surprise kits, wordart by LittleButtleflyWings, ribbon, arrows, twine, fabric tab from pink reptile designs' Its a Zoo, ink element by Rosey Posey Studios, Paper from At the market by Mari  Koegelenberg Creations, splatter from playful by Ninigoes Digi, and chip heart from StandTogether by Ponytails

Credits: Paints from ALittleBitQuirky's artsy bits and 
MayaddGroot's InTheGarden, and from TDP's Hello I Love You kit:
gold tag from StudioBasic, heart byAmanda Yi, tags by Mari
 Koegelenberg Creations, alpha by Scooty Gril Design.
Oh my button and Paper by Dream Big Designs, 
Heart and wordstrip by Kaye Winiecki's Electicmoments,
Banner by Mommyish, flower and wordart from Life's Good by RedIvy
and word art from SugarFancy's enjoylife

my Project Life 

May was fun with a lot of family and friend gatherings. We got to play at one of those escape from 'locked room through puzzle solving' games, I got to watch a pre-taped show at our local TV station, Our family celebrated Mothers' Day and received news from two new mothers-to-be, we will have two new grand nephews in November!

I also did up a page of 'Stories from the Weekend; using One Little Bird's At Week's End kit. We spent a lot of time on weekends at home and I loved capturing these routine moments.

Then there is this page which Ryan brought home one day! He had done this page in one of his school's after-school activities! He said he signed up for it since he thought he had seen so much of it at home he thought he would try it himself. I was thrilled!! Not bad huh? He chose all the cards himself, choosing colors of a similar theme, and used a photo of Jared he had snapped with his phone off the picture hanging on our walls. haha! 

my Taiwan Layouts

Journalling reads:  What can we say? Food is glorious in Taiwan! From live seafood selected by us, to market ‘small eats’, to the ‘ChiDaoBao’s, to the yum local shopfare, we were spoilt and fed beyond satisfied!

Journalling reads: We said we must have entered Touhouland! The highland resort park above the ULai water-falls were nostalgically quaint. That old-fashioned haunted ride, haha! the bumper cars, paintball shooting range that were aimed at cute wooded targets! Surreal! and such fun!!

Journalling reads: this quaint little town has the railway running right through it! There was a museum and the remains of a coal mine to explore, we sent a postcard to ourselves, had coffee in a ‘stone’ cafe, and discovered a church!

Journalling reads:  Shopping Anime, doodle for hotel, the LOOT!   More shopping, even at the night market! Digital book, Biffy, vending goodies! gum ball! drawing for girls, puffer fish! night at museum, LTK lookalike! Moulds! cup display, happy train-riding, accident! (note: that last photo was indeed a minor traffic accident we were in on our first day in Taiwan - thankfully no one was hurt, we got to see how the town and village leaders, traffic police and locals act in the situation)

Journalling reads: It was awesome that we found the lantern ‘shifu’ (master) and got him to teach us to make our own sky lanterns! He told us so much back-stories to how this tradition came about. The boys and us did a lantern each, we wrote blessings while they drew manga. Then we lit some sheets of joss paper, stuck them on the bottom, and they were off! What fun watching them lift off, swirling and flying so quickly up until we couldn’t see them anymore.  

my Gift

Nine years is something to celebrate, and I have bundled up these Taiwan page layouts into templates, as a gift for my newsletter subscribers. Find it in the newsletter I will send out soon! Thank you subscribers! It is a great way for me to reach out to you in case I am not posting so regularly, to keep you informed of happenings here :)

Not a subscriber? Go here (or click the image below) to sign up 
and receive the gift in the next newsletter

                                                          

Or you can download this sample (posted last month) to try out this linear styled template (I've added the PNG and .PAGE files in this new link). 

Download Here

Thank you!