saplanet originals

I have this blogged in my wedding blog, but I want to bring this here too, because this would be a fantastic idea to print my dolls collection too! It would be so wonderful to look at it when I grow old, or retire from the business. 

This kind of patch on the dream to have my own book published. Not all of the designers get approached by the publisher to feature his/her works. Blurb is wonderful, it will help to repair my damaged ego, or to just get me motivated. Blurb rocks!!!!

I have probably talked about this for ages! When I first bumped into Blurb website, it was newly launched. I had set my mind into using their printing service for my wedding book, in bookstore quality, how cool!

Back then, they were not shipping to Singapore yet, and I had sought for my friend’s help in advance, she is from USA, so I could arrange to have the book printed and shipped to her, and she will send it to me.

I took ages to get this done, because I had been kept busy with work, and with the incident of PC crash wasn’t helpful either.

Everything happened for a reason, and I am glad it’s a good one. In the hindsight, blurb has been growing rapid into a really fine class of their services; and taken the printing industry by storm! They now ship to many countries and the software is constantly upgrading with more features!

I am ordering the book in imagewrap style. I never really like the dustcover, it’s just a personal preference, really. I am printing a smaller book, 10″ x 8″ landscape layout, I don’t want something too bulky.

It’s a breeze to use the software, a no-brainer one, yet so sophisticated. There are tons of layouts, backgrounds, ornaments, borders etc to choose from, to assist user to design a professional looking book.

I want to include many details in my wedding book, which in time to come, helps me with remembering the small little things that happened on that special day.

If I were to print with the standard studio, I would probably have to let some pictures go, due to pages constraint, layout restrictions, or price consideration. I need to have the small little nothings in my book, so this is probably the best option for me.

Some silly takes using my cell phone camera while waiting for the photographer. These images are precious!

Being able to do my own layout, I can arrange the pictures anyway I like. It’s like being able to let the photos express a story on its own, and in my own.

It doesn’t matter so much if they may turn out to be amateurish, it’s my wedding story I am telling here, and it feels great to be able to tell that story in my own way. I have nothing against professional photographers’ layout and presentation, but, being a terribly expressive person, I have my needs to meet, and my wedding is about Mike and I, I want to be able to keep a story that is uniquely mine, through my eyes.

I played around with various layout, I get to highlight what is important to me, and layout other photos in small mosaic layout. Oh well, to be honest, our immediate family members get the privilege to take a larger space, while other friends and relatives (especially the tea ceremony and group photos) take a smaller space..heee.. Yet, with blurb, I am able to include all the photos if I want to, it’s so affordable to print, I can print several copies to give out to our parents and relatives.

For some special moments, I feature them in a full page bleed or just one image page format. Pretty nice.

Apart from blurb, I love my photographer, Wayne too. He managed to capture the candidly strange expressions off me. Well, they may not be the most pretty poses, but they are priceless, for sure. Each has a story to tell you know. Like the one on the top left, Mike’s colleagues and boss were telling me something, and really, my mind was reaching out for the food!

I don’t even have to crack my brain on which photo to ‘kill’, I just put them all in! I don’t really have to choose the best pictures, to me, they are all precious.

Lastly, Mike asked why our plush pet, meow meow wasn’t in the book. Oh well, she is a very important creature in our home, you just have no idea. I bring her to our travel trips you know. Meow meow is a gift from Mike during our holiday in Genting. It was our first anniversary together. I gave her a full page feature, and on the left, is the copyright page. I use a photo of us taken when we were dating.

I am so excited about the book. It will take about 2 weeks to arrive. Meanwhile, I am obsessed with it already, I am doing a travel books for the trips we had taken. It would be wonderful to be able to print our trips into book.

I will give my 2-cents worth when the book finally arrive eh. I don’t know, I have a feeling I am going to love it.

Featured here are just some sneak previews into the book, it’s so inexpensive to print with blurb that I chalked in 50 pages! It was 42 pages at first, and to keep the first price tier, I will have to take off 2 pages, and since the next price tier is just a couple of dollars more, I might as well keep the 2 pages and add another 8 pages! hahaha

I contemplated into having captions for the pictures but decided to let that slide, the photo would tell a thousand words already.