Finds, friends and fortune

I may be close to term, but that hasn't stopped me from shopping a bit whenever I can, so here I am about to share with you my latest treasures & good fortune!

Oleg Cassini Paperweights $3.99

I scored these from TJ MAXX. Aren't they pretty, I love blings and these elegant ones are perfect for the coffeetable. :-)

Vases $3.50 & 3.00

Again, another TJ MAXX find on clearance. They don't look like much but I bought them for a specific purpose and it's not gonna be for flowers.

Can you guess? Will share it on my next post for sure.

Tin Nautical Plates $3.50

These goes well with my Summer coastal Living room, another clearance find, but this time from CRACKER BARREL General Store. 

Geode $8

My friends and I recently took a nice trip across the Ohio River to Kentucky and visited a Mineral Museum, hence I scored the one above and the ones below from there. 

Missouri Quartz $6 & 8

This one has sentimental value to me. It was recently given by one of my close girlfriends who recently moved with her family to Texas :-(
She knew I love blue & White, so she gave me some of her treasured pieces and this was one of them. I think it's beautiful, but all the more special because of who it reminds me of. :-)


Lastly I want to share my fortune, or rather, brag about it ...

I won it over at Sandy's from "You may be Wandering", thank you so much my friend!!!!

Our family is a huge fan of DK books because of all the pictures and interesting ways they present facts, so these are perfect for our library and would be a great reference to these cities once we get to go! Now all I have to do is win me some tickets.... ;-)

Lastly, I am proud to say that I made it to Linda's "ORC Linking Participant Hall of fame"!!!!!

The post from Calling it Home

Truly, our nook would not have made it to THIS OLD HOUSE MAGAZINE, if not for the fun and much-awaited ONE ROOM CHALLENGE in Linda's Blog, Calling It home ( which by the way starts again October 2nd, mark your calendars)!!!
I am the one who is super thankful for this wonderful fortune of knowing Linda and her fab blog!

How about you any recent finds or good fortune lately?

Have A Great Labor Day Weekend!

VEL 

 Would love to hear your thoughts! Please share away...

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Anything Blue Friday

Photobook Reviews

There's been a ton of new ways of doing photo books lately.

If your a fan of this way of displaying photos sans photo albums, you know what I'm talking about.

From almost all the stores and the apps around, there are so many types and price range of photo books out there, that It's really tempting to try some,  and I have been a huge fan of this way of showing my photos ever since Shutterfly started.  I have a lot of photo books from this store....

I have recently tried a few of the new ones that are available and I would like to share my 2-cents worth of opinion on each one and let you decide which ones you'd like to try.

1) Sam's Club Premium Photobook

PROS: 

1) Very affordable ($24 for this one, normally $29) but they usually do promos and sales, so getting discount is easy.

2) Great picture quality and love the glossy and thick paper/cardboard, definitely water and smudge proof.

3) You can pick it up from the store! Save you on shipping.

4) You can lay it flat without worrying if the pages will come off.

CONS:

1) The program it uses to arrange the pictures and book takes some time to getting used to. Not difficult, but just different from what I would consider easy.

2) Not a lot of options on the backgrounds and themes (no Halloween for example)

3) Shipping to store takes a while. More than a week. There is no RUSH order, so if your in a hurry to get it and give it away, I would not recommend this.

4) You can't make copies of the book and do different size on it. What size you start with, that's it. 

5) Laying flat will show the prominent crease in the middle though.

2) Artisan State Flushmount Book

PROS:

1) Definitely a photobook worth showing! It's beautiful, sturdy and elegant.

2) Picture quality is superb.

3) Love that you can lay it flat without distorting image quality

4) All the pages are strong, sturdy and also smudge-free and water-proof.
5) Library-bound book.

6) Easy to use editing software.

CONS:

1) A bit expensive, I ordered the 12 X 12 leather one and got a coupon for a sample copy, and still paid $80 for it. It would have been $190 if I didn't. Shipping is free. I think  it depends on the number of pages and size of course, have not tried their $20 black book version yet.

2) Takes a while to get your order, mine took also almost 2 weeks to be delivered.

3) Heavy. Not something you'd lug around to show off, it best sits on your coffee table.

3) Groove Book

PROS:

1) Cheapest one out there with 100 photos/book at $2.99 with FREE SHIPPING, you can order and give away as many as you want. Plus there's always a coupon code for a FREE BOOK for a friend always. You can use this code CRISTE9 and get 1 for free if you'd like to try it out

2) App is FREE.

3) Easy to use app.

4) Good for both iphones and Android.

CONS:

1) Flimsiest paper among all the books I think, very thin and picture quality is not great.

2) Easily pulls apart (which is partly the point since the idea is you might want to just tear a picture up and give it away instantly).

3) It only shows the date & time of the photos from your phone, you cannot add any additional texts.

4) You cannot change the sequence of photos you have. You can choose what to put on the book, but not change the sequence of it.

5) You can't customize covers, they choose it for you.

4) Chat Books

Like the labels on the side

What's inside

PROS:
1) Affordable at $6 for the Instagram and Chatbook series (60 photos each book).  Shipping is FREE.
2) Very easy to use app
3) You can add additional texts to your photos and easily change the sequence of photos around.
4) App is also free
5) You can add tittles to your book
6) Lightweight, pictures are crisp and clear

CONS:
1) Only for iphone users as of now.
2) Custom books are priced higher and but can go up to 300 pages, you pay shipping at $2.95
3) Shipping took longer than I expected, no rush orders too
4) Paper is a bit thin

There are other apps out there that does photo books, I still have to try them. But so far, I enjoyed making these particularly the chapbooks which I can do anytime on my phone.  I would recommend trying any of these since it would make awesome gifts for yourself or others!

Have a Great Week friends!

VEL

 Would love to hear your thoughts! Please share away...

Sneak Peak of our Master Bedroom/Nursery

Hello Friends!

Yes, I'm still here. 

All I can say is between being pregnant and the 'Peak of Pediatric season' (yes, school and sports physical galore), I am just darn too tired and lazy to write a post so I apologize my friends :-(

But today, I want to share with you one of the things that's been keeping' us more busy. 

Aside from the usual normal nesting things that pregnant moms do, you all know that our baby will be sleeping in our room with us, so we started setting this up as soon as the baby shower was done!

So here's a sneak peak of what we've been up to!

Changing area

We are not done yet. 

But I thought I'd share it already because I am just so excited!!!

The changing table was gift from one of Sophia's future godmother. Actually a lot of the stuff here are gifts from friends or family.  :-)

I framed an old "Land of Nod" ABC poster I've had forever (Yes, I have been dreaming of a baby girl for as long as I can remember and I grabbed this poster from the Land of Nod outlet store when we were still living in Chicago... back in 2006!!!), and added the white IKEA picture ledges for displaying toys, Baby lotions etc...

Details of Changing area shelves

Baby's girlie stuff within easy reach

I added Command Hooks at the very bottom ledge to hang her ribbons and put some of her baby socks up top. Isn't it cute?

Since it's a Diaper Changing area, I had to have a diaper organizer right? 

I got this first...

Munchkin Diaper Duty Organizer

It was on my registry and I got it as a gift. However, I realized it was  way too big !

So then I exchanged it to this from TARGET...

Eddie Bauer Diaper Caddy

I thought it was practical since I could lug it around everywhere. 

However, this too was too big as well.

So like any blogger, why not just make my own?!

So I used this $1 wire basket I got from Target a couple of years back and spray-painted it gold.

I think it fit the table perfectly. I added the pink pail (from a gift packaging too)to put
her brush, comb, etc.

I placed  our DEKOR Diaper Pail on one side ( from a friend)

... and the cute Elephant hamper on the other (from my sis)

Here are more sneak peaks...

Bird mobile ready and hung up!

A gallery wall in our room at last? Where? You'll see... eventually. :-)

Like I said, we're not done yet, the room needs some more tweaking and decor upgrade and hopefully, I can share this with you all soon... and of course, enjoy it with my newborn baby!!!

Have a Great Week!!!

VEL 

 Would love to hear your thoughts! Please share away...


Linking back to...

Gingersnap Crafts, The Life of Jennifer Dawn, From My Front Porch To Yours, The Style Sisters, Serenity Now, Jennifer Rizzo, Under the Table & Dreaming, Work It Wednesday, The Life of Jennifer Dawn, Best of the Nest, Serenity Now, The Shabby Nest, Inspire Me Tuesday, Inspire Me Monday, Tuesdays at our home, Fluster Buster, The DIYers, VMG 206

Our RAINBOW Baby Shower

Our weekend was H-E-C-T-I-C!

Hectic in a good way because we had our BABY SHOWER!!!!

Entry to the party room

Everything was planned and set-up by my close friends who willingly called themselves  

"VEL'S BABY SHOWER DIVAS"!

We truly appreciate all the planning, time, effort and love they've given to us for this special event!
I mean the baby shower was probably one of the BEST gift itself!

Only thing I did was pick a theme - RAINBOW, and sent out invites to my other friends!

Take a look...

Wall decoration- check out those trees on the side made up of leaves with green trash bags

Another angle - love the picket fence! There were flowers at the bottom too that I failed to capture!

Ceiling decoration with personalized mobile with our pics and ultrasound photos!

Center table with gifts, prizes, cakes and giveaways

Another view

Some of the baby bottle giveaways!

Baby cake made by a friend - take note, everything on the cake is edible except for the swan & carriage!

Diaper cake I made for my baby - Hey, I made one for my girlfriends, of course I need to
make one for my own! ;-)

Dessert Table

Slide show

Some of the centerpiece

Another colorful centerpiece

All the food

Yum!

We also had games - my friend Luisa was one of the winners in guessing my belly girth! We also had Baby Bingo, guess the baby's weight and height (prize will come later of course)

My lovely neighbors

Former Co-workers

Friends

And these were the ladies responsible for this memorable and fun-filled day!

My Baby Shower Divas

Another fun pose

Our whole family was excited and happy with all this generosity and love...

But for sure, one member of our family, will someday look back unto this special day and know how much she was loved even before she was born!

Although a lot of people could not make it, our baby Sophia has been showered already with so much gifts, prayers and love.

A big THANKS again to all our friends and family!

Have a Great Week!

VEL 

 Would love to hear your thoughts! Please share away...


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Our Home away from Home, The Dedicated House, Dwellings-the heart of your home, Coastal Charm, A Stroll Thru Life, From My Front Porch to yours, The Style Sisters, Serenity Now, The Shabby nest