Black Saturday Shopping Spree

Today is Black Saturday (Mar 30 2013), and Chea and I are supposed to spend it buying some groceries in preparation for tomorrow which is Easter Sunday. It's actually Fiesta for our little barangay, so there will be lots of festivities, hence the need for the grocery run.

We went out around 10 am, first dropping by S&R Munoz. We wanted to check out if they sold used big corrugated boxes we need for stage props. Unfortunately, they didn't sell them as they used most of it for their own needs. All we had to show for the effort was a pack of baby wipes.

I didn't have breakfast so I was already hungry after the trip to S&R. We planned to drop by the American Surplus Center along EDSA since it was open, but I really wanted to eat first so we went straight to Max's Restaurant at Scout Tuazon, QC.

Good thing it was open as most of the establishments were still closed for the holidays. We ordered their new dish, Tinapa Rice (which was salty but pretty good), a half regular chicken, and some desserts.

Tinapa Rice. Mmmmm. Salty.

Half Regular Chicken. Kilig to the bones.

Desserts. I like the one at the bottom. It's not that sweet.

After eating, we dropped by Papemelroti on our way to the Divine Word columbary. This was the start of our whole day shopping spree on a Black Saturday of all days.

Papemelroti's items are awesome (but pricey). We bought a few things we thought would be nice as decorations for Thirdy's party.

très cool, paper bag.

First are a couple of wooden racks where we plan on putting some of Thirdy's baby stuff.

We're gonna put a camera here.

I have no idea what we'll put here.

A couple of cardboard mini drawers.

Blue is the party's color motif, dontchaknow?

Next are some letters spelling out his name.

15 pesos for each letter, hence the use of the number 3. im cheap, i know.

And then a couple of figurines for good measure.

This is so freaking adorable that I had to buy it.

Thirdy's birth stone is diamond. Now I know.

After that, we went to visit my brother at the columbary. We then headed off to Trinoma to pay our utility bills, check out some groceries (which are expensive compared to Puregold), and look at some stuff at Landmark.

We ended up buying a couple of candle holders. They were being sold for a 50% off price of 120 pesos.

Candle holder from Landmark at 50% off

We also bought this thing which i think really is an impulse buy.

It's supposed to be filled with pots full of flowers. 

We also bought some ceramic plates we will be using for the cake and dessert tables. However, we couldn't find the right sized square plates we also needed. So we decided to buy those at Uniwide Sales Club.

We then dropped by a Globe Business Center to pay the phone bills, and a National Bookstore branch in Trinoma to look for some glue spray, which they didn't have. We need the glue spray to start assembling the camera boxes. The trip wasn't all for naught though, as I got to buy a couple of artistic papers and some rulers.

We went home and dropped off everything, and then drove out again to Uniwide Sales Club. We bought 9 large square plates for our dessert buffet. I sure hope everyone likes the dessert menu we've planned, especially with all the trouble we're going through.

After that, we dropped by SM Novaliches on our way home, paid some credit card bills and bought some groceries for tomorrow's fiesta. We arrived at home by 9pm. It has been a very long day.

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They're here!

So it's Maundy Thursday (March 28, 2013) and Chea and I are staying indoors today. My sister and her hubby, are heading to Pampanga to spend the long vacation with Gerry's relatives.

By the time I woke up, Chea and Rona were working their way through the paper camera boxes that our printing supplier delivered yesterday. I love those guys. They're so professional and you can really depend on them. And I can't say enough about their artist. We left it to their artists to come up with the design based on what we want, and everything so far has been stellar.

Christmas came early!

After a quick breakfast, I took some pictures first of what we have so far, for posterity's sake. First off, are the picture frames we got from Japan Home Center. They will be part of the decorations for the Dessert Buffet station and the Cake and Candies station.

Thirdy's cuter than this baby,

Next are the easels we also bought from Japan Home Center.

Don't you just love the post WWII Japanese?

And finally, the camera boxes themselves. These are the uncut big versions.

Rolleiflex camera boxes. Big and green.

These are the small cut version.

Small rolleiflex camera boxes.

The design itself, we bought from Mel Stringer over at Etsy.com. I don't know where Chea got the idea of paper camera boxes. But she saw Mel Stringer's design and she fell in love with it. We bought it online at Etsy.com and was sent the files in an email soon after.

We then had it printed with our supplier. These are semi glossy paper boards at commercial quality. So they came out really great.

We had 3 designs: the Rolleiflex, Polaroid, and the regular soap bar cameras. They came in several colors but we opted to use just blue and green.

We spent the entire day cutting them out. We don't have glue right now so we can't assemble them yet. We'll just try to do that on another day.

Also, we finally got the final sample of our invites.

Isn't that adorable? Again, Chea's idea.

They're assembling the rest already. Hopefully, we'll get all of them next week. We only have two more weekends (including this one) before the party, so here's hoping we still get to hand them out before then.

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Cloth Sloth

Yesterday (Mar 24, 2013, Saturday), +maria cessna galecio and I headed back to Divisoria.

Since we decided to do the dessert buffet and cake table ourselves, we needed to style it as well. And since we were styling those two tables, we needed the rest of the place to match. Hence, the need for custom runners and overlays for the guest tables.

We also had to style the stage. We were going with blue and white striped patterns for the tables, so we thought it would be just logical to do the same to the stage. In order to do that, we needed a backdrop.

We arrived at Divisoria around 12pm. We had a quick lunch at McDonald's and then headed to the textile shop we found the last time we went there which had the striped patterns that we wanted.

After that, we went to Hidalgo in Quiapo. We needed something to hold the backdrop for the stage. Initially, i was thinking of making one from wood because I'm cheap that way. But it's hard to make a collapsible support made out of wood, as we don't have a truck to carry one that's not collapsible. So we just decided to get a collapsible backdrop support used for photography. It costs 2,500 at the cheapest.

We initially went to Tay Hua in Binondo before we parked at 186 mall. Unfortunately, it was closed on weekends, hence the side trip to Quiapo.

We asked around, but most of the shops were out of stock. We found one at 24k (I think), but they were selling it for 3.3k pesos, while it had sold for 3k at the other shops. We also asked around for printing photobooks as we wanted to have a signature book for the party. I found out that they were expensive as I saw some being offered at sulit.com a whole lot cheaper. We also asked about > 24 x 30 prints and were told that they cost roughly around 600 pesos. Ouch. We wanted to have 12 prints which would translate to roughly 7,000 pesos. That's just too much for us.

We decided to again ask at 24k if we can get the backdrop support at a cheaper price. I didn't want to come back to Tay Hua in Bindondo or the shops at Quiapo again as the savings we'll presumably get from buying at Tay Hua would actually go to gas and parking costs. If we buy it already, at least we'd get to save on time and effort on coming back.

Chea asked another sales person regarding the backdrop support. She said they had one in stock and it cost 3,000 pesos. I looked at Chea and she just clammed up and asked to see the item. Looks like these guys work on commissions so any additional price they put on items they sell, they get to keep for themselves. Oh well, that's business.

After buying the item, we went back to the car and went to Divine World columbarium to visit my brother. After that, a brief stop at Japan Home Center at Mother Ignacia in Quezon City. We got our hands on 2 more easels and 2 more cork boards that we will be using for our set ups.

Then, we bought some groceries at Puregold, Mindanao Avenue and went home.

We had some photo paper lying around so I tried to print some pictures of Thirdy. But the prints had gaps. Looks like I need to have the printer checked out and I have to shelve the idea of printing Thirdy's pictures myself. I guess I just have to go to a photo shop and pay for the printing service.

I wasted the rest of the night editing 35 pictures of Thirdy to look like polaroids. I'll have these printed and use them for decors.

Nanay Chea and Thirdy at the beach. You can't see it so you'll have to take my word for it.

Today, Chea and Rona headed up to Antipolo to visit Thirdy and celebrate Tita Fe's birthday. I begged off as I'm feeling a bit under the weather.

However, I decided to catch up on some movies and do the layouts for the prints we'll be using with the easels.

Thirdy's party logo.

I incorporated the striped pattern that will be used throughout the party theme. I also used variations of blue and green.

Here's one:

We'll be using this at the cake table.

Here's another:

Dessert buffet

And here's one more:

Registration easel

We still need one more for the easel by the entrance. I'll try to put in the work this week.

The pictures are of Thirdy taken mostly by me. The camera graphic was also made by me. And so are the poems. So they're copyrighted. Lol.

The fonts however are courtesy of TypeDepot and Wete. They make great looking fonts, so check their portfolios over at Behance.

I haven't written a poem for so long. The last one I think was a short 4 stanza verse for our wedding.

Anyway, Chea liked the layouts and the texts so I guess all we need is to have these printed in time for April 13.

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The New Ai

My wife asked me to re layout our Thirdy's invitation as we needed to get a high resolution file to send to our supplier. The original supplier could not accommodate us due to their work load.

I've been using Adobe Photoshop since the late 90s. But it's basically used for editing pictures. You really don't use it to create print materials, as you need more control in creating objects. The go-to application before was Corel Draw, but that was so long ago.

I'm aware of Adobe Illustrator but never really needed to use it. But since I need to work with an invitation, and the layouts reeked of vector graphics, it's the software I'll need to use. I have a copy of it (CS3) lying somewhere and proceeded to install it.

If you're familiar with Adobe Photoshop then you'll be able to use Illustrator right out of the bat.

You just start with the size of the document. What's good with vectors, is if you scale low or high, anytime, the objects don't pixelize. The only objects that will pixelize are the non vector objects such as static images you import. So it's a good idea to start with a large layout, and high res images. You can always scale down later.

I wasn't familiar with creating objects so I had to do some quick research on the internet. I had to create a camera, party hats and merge images into a round-edge rectangular frames. After a few seconds of reading, I was able to make this photo film inspired invitation.

Pretty good huh? I whipped this up in about 2 hours. Lol. 

Chea also asked that I make the design for the body of the photo film canister. Yes, you've read that right. Our invitation is in the form of a film canister.

The design for the canister body was easier. We made it simple as we didn't need to put much information as  all of that is in the "film" invite already.

This took less than an hour. Any longer would be embarrassing.

Hopefully, we get these invites soon. We need to give them out at least a week before the party.

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One Cafe is Yum!

March 17, 2013. We're to bring Thirdy to Antipolo to spend time with my in-laws. We also planned to drop by One Cafe and Events Place to measure some of the tables for the customized table runners and overlays we plan to use.

Around 11am, +maria cessna galecio , thirdy, tita fe, rona (thirdy's yaya) and myself, headed out of the house. We dropped by the Divine Word Columbarium first, to visit my brother.

Turns out, my sister Maricel, and her kids, Figi and Citti, were there too as they had attended the morning mass. We spent a few minutes at my brother's niche, and then decided to have lunch as it was nearing midday.

We decided to eat at Pan De Amerikana in Katipunan Avenue since it's very near Ortigas. My sister was to go to Megamall later along with her kids to meet up with her hubby, Gerry, and we were heading ourselves to One Cafe in Ortigas Center.

I always liked eating at Pan De Amerikana since the food is inexpensive. I ordered the dinuguan, which was around 70 pesos.  We also ordered Everlasting, Bicol Express (i think), a platter of mostly seafood and some liempo and pork barbecue , and two (2) pitchers of iced tea.

All of that for just 1,100 pesos.

We ended up ordering way too much for just four (4) adults and two (2) kids. We barely touched the platter, so we asked the waiters to pack the rest, to go.

My sister and her kids stayed behind as Gerry was on his way to pick them up. Chea, Thirdy, Tita Fe, Rona and I, on the other hand, went ahead to One Cafe for a visit. We arrived by 2pm.

Function rooms A and B were vacant, so we had the place to ourselves. Wyn, one of the employees, was around helping us with the tables and answering some of our questions.

We measured the guest tables, the buffet tables, as well as the stage. I wrote it on a piece of paper which I don't have right now, but I'll update this post later with the measurements.

Some of One Cafe's table centerpieces were lying around, so we decided to try some layouts for centerpieces for the tables.

We ended up using two glass and one clay vases, all topped off with plastic flowers. We then placed the easel and our paper camera boxes along with the vases. We now have our semi finished centerpiece.

Our semi official center piece. 

I guess we won't be going back for the glass bottles and mini buckets in Divisoria after all. That's a good thing as it'll save us a few hundred pesos.

Aniel, the manager, was also there (but was busy in the kitchen) since there was an earlier event at the Lounge. He told us there was some food ready for the food tasting. We weren't planning on having our food tasting that day since we wanted to head to Antipolo quite early. But it was already past 2pm, so we won't be able to do much of anything at Antipolo except drop off Thirdy and Tita Fe.

The chef had already gone home, but as it turns out, Aniel was an HRM graduate from St. Benilde. He said that he was among the pioneer batch of HRM at St. Benilde and had worked at several hotels already. He managed to whip up nine (9) food selections from the time we left Pan De Amerikana and the time we finished measuring.

i like this plate.

As per our plan, we wanted to get the 395 pesos buffet option. It had an order of soup, chicken, fish, pork, noodles, vegetable, dessert and a single round of ice tea. We managed to swap out the soup to upgrade the noodles to pasta, and then we declined on the dessert and asked for bottomless ice tea instead. Aniel agreed to the request when we paid the reservation fee a month ago.

We were served the two pastas first: Linguinni Alfredo and Pasta Pomodoro.

Pasta pomodoro hands down.

The linguinni alfredo was your typical white sauce pasta. It wasn't swimming with cream which was a big plus. The cream clinged to the pasta and wasn't that salty even with some ham mixed in there. So it was pretty good. But the pasta pomodoro was heavenly. It was a bit spicy for our taste, but other than that, it was perfect.

We were then served the chicken dishes: Roasted chicken with Rosemary Jus and Honey Pepper chicken.

They're both so great, but what to choose?

Both dishes were great. We're torn on what to actually get. The roasted chicken tasted good with the rosemary. And the size was just perfect. If you get to the middle of parts you slice off, you'll still taste the herbs. But Chea loved the honey pepper chicken more. The flavor was there, but it wasn't too overpowering. We actually wanted to get both dishes, unfortunately, we didn't want to get two of anything as some guests might be allergic to some food. Which is why we wanted to make sure that we had pork, chicken, fish and vegetable dishes.

For the pork, we were given Hickory Pork and Porkloin in Soy sauce and Citrus, which was basically grilled meat.

Grilled pork at the top, hickory pork at the bottom.  Calories all around.

The hickory pork is just that. Pork slathered with hickory sauce. So it's pretty easy to imagine what it would taste like.

We were also served roast beef. It wasn't part of the menu, but it was included in the food tasting just so we can have an idea of what other options are available.

roast beef with some potato strings and mushrooms. 

The potato strings are a nice touch. It gives the beef extra texture as they're a bit crunchy. But my tendency is to go straight for the beef and ignore everything else. The beef tasted exactly like beef. But as i mentioned to Chea, it was refreshing to see another beef menu rather than the ubiquitous beef stroganoff.


We were also served fish fillet. It's basically pan fried dory with a heap of parmesan cheese.

red is fresca salsa. white is plum and pesto cream dip. both are awesome.

What makes the dish stand out is of course the dip. The salsa tasted great. But the plum and pesto dip was splendid. I had to resist dipping my fingers in them. I'm accustomed to having cream based dip to have some salt in them, so imagine my surprise when this didn't taste salty at all. Mind you, i like salty food, and this wasn't, but i loved it all the same.

The last dish was chop suey with a smattering of fried garlic. The vegetable was soft, but it wasn't soggy. I'm not a big fan of chop suey, but this didn't turn me off at all. I could eat this, but I don't think I'd rave about it. Not to mention, come back for seconds.

chop suey with garlic

Although we didn't get a chance to taste the other option which was stir fried vegetables in butter, we chose that instead. I think most of our guests would prefer the after taste of butter over garlic.

Now, Chea didn't like any of the options for the pork dish. So Aniel told us that they have new dishes that will come out this March, and we can have another food taste by then. But he also gave us an option of getting a pork dish that was only available in the higher price range, such as pork ragu, without additional cost. I'm not familiar with pork ragu (or it's variant), especially at catered parties i've attended, so I thought it would be a new experience for everyone. Some may like it, some may not, but I'm sure the overall consensus is that was something new for most of them, so that's a plus in my book.

Overall, it was among the best food tasting experiences I've had, topping most of the ones we've had when we were preparing for our wedding.

After the food taste, we headed off to Antipolo. Along the way, i mused to Chea about how fortuitous that the chef had left, and Aniel was made to cook dishes that weren't normally in the menu for the package we chose. For one, Honey Pepper chicken wasn't available at that price range. The fish fillet also was ordinarily served with Salsa Fresca or Plum Tomato sauce, not Plum Pesto sauce, which I imagine tastes better as I love pesto. When we asked if we can have both dips (salsa and plum pesto), Aniel obliged.

Also, we were given the option of getting Pork Ragu which was from a higher package in place of the Hickory pork and the grilled pork loin.

I went on some more to Chea about how booking One Cafe was a great decision of ours. For 395 a head, you had Pasta Pomodoro, Honey Pepper chicken, Fish Fillet with Salsa Fresca and Plum Pesto dips, Pork Ragu, Stir Fried vegetables and unlimited drinks. I don't think you can walk into any restaurant and order these dishes and expect to pay only that amount.

At that price, you mostly get the typical dishes like beef stroganoff, cordon bleu, etc. With One Cafe, you get better food options,  you get to rent the entire place and their equipment for free as well.

My only concern is if the actual catered food is as good as the ones we tasted last Sunday. Here's hoping they will be.

On our way to Antipolo, we dropped by a Shoppersville branch along Marcos Highway and bought Thirdy a cake. There was a shop there selling pastries but I forgot the name. Chea asked for the contact info so we can inquire about a fondant cake some other time.

After arriving at my in-laws house in Maia Alta, we rested for a while and celebrated Thirdy's 11th month. We also looked up some bakeshops online. We were hoping to check on some in Marikina.

We only managed to drop by Cafe Feliz where Chea buys me some great tasting cookies. We inquired about a fondant cake for Thirdy's 1st year birthday party. It was nice that they priced their items separately, so you'll know how much it'll cost you for every cake tier you add. I can't remember the exact prices, but a 10" cake layer would cost you roughly 1,500 pesos. A 6" inch layer cake would cost around 600, and so on. So you can put in as much cake layers as you like, and you'll get a rough idea of how much it will actually cost you. Of course, any other customization like decorations will add to the base price, but it's nice to have an actual figure attached to every feature you want added instead of the typical practice of some bakers of giving you on the spot made up numbers just by looking at your design.

After that, we dropped by another bakeshop and placed orders for 70 mini eclairs, 70 mini cream puffs and around 100 mini cupcakes that will be part of the dessert buffet we plan on setting up for Thirdy's party. We will still need to go to another bakeshop for the brownies and another one for the mini donuts. But that is for another day.

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Ay Divisoria

Last Saturday, Mar 16, 2013, +maria cessna galecio and I decided to go to Divisoria so we can check out linens that we will be using for Thirdy's party.

One Cafe already has table cloths and overlays, but we didn't like the available colors. We felt that the colors were too strong and wouldn't match our idea for the table centerpiece. And some of them were satin so they tend to reflect camera flashes.

So we though we'll get our own linens and use table runners for the 12 guest tables. We also needed overlays for the dessert buffet station and the cookie buffet station. Not to mention, another overlay for the memorabilia section, where we will be placing Thirdy's time capsule. And the stage backdrop was too plain so we thought of covering it with linen with striped patterns as well.

We planned to head out early, but we somehow ended up leaving before 11am. We drove straight to 999 mall where we knew we can get easy parking (It was expensive though. We paid 95 pesos by the time we left by 4pm).

I forgot the street name that was lined up with stores selling linen. I somewhat remembered how to get there during the last time I went there with my mother just a couple of months back.

But I'm so bad with directions, that we first ended up at Juan Luna, where stores sold upholstery materials. We walked from Soler Street and traversed the entire length of Juan Luna where we almost ended up at Sta Elena. However, we turned into a side street and found ourselves Ylaya, where thankfully was where all the linens were being sold.

I was hungry already as I didn't take breakfast so Chea and I had brunch consisting of pansit bihon at a small corner chinese resto. Before leaving, I asked where Tabora was as I had read that this was the area where crafts were sold. We were keeping an eye out for centerpieces we will be using for the guest tables. We had a general idea of what we want, but we needed to add more as some of the ones we had in mind for the tables were small.

The cashier told us it was just the next street over. So we started walking the entire length of Ylaya St all the way back to Soler Street. The entire width of Ylaya was peppered on both sides by vendors, leaving just about a meter and a half for people to walk by. We stopped at vendors whenever we saw some linen we thought might be good table runners, but we never found the striped pattern that we wanted.

We entered the Divine Mart as well, which is basically a building with stalls on the ground floor which can get confusing. In it, there were all sorts of linen as well as stores selling barongs, wedding gowns, evening gowns and other dresses. We stopped by a few asking for clothes that Thirdy will be using for his baptism. We wanted the traditional dress. We found one that was plain enough but costs around 300pesos. We decided to go back some other time if we couldn't find any that we'd like.

It was good that the weather was a bit gloomy so there were a few short and light rain showers which saved us from the scorching summer sun.

We ended back in Soler, so we now turned the corner to Tabora Street.

Tabora Street is very much like Ylaya (or any other street in Divisoria for that matter), that vendors lined up both sides of the street, from the sidewalk, spilling into the street itself. They were basically selling all sorts of craft materials, although most of them were already finished items. There were small decors, invitations, giveaways, masks, boxes, and all sorts of stuff you can use in a party or an event.

At a stall where a family was working on big paper face masks, we asked if they could make big 3d letters to put on a stage. He said he hasn't tried it yet, but told us to just use styrofoam boards sandwiched between illustration boards. There was a shop named George Trading at the end of the street selling them, he said.

We found a branch of Anding's midway Tabora Street which sold children's toys , plastic flowers and party materials. We found some chinese lanterns which Chea plan to use for stage decorations. We left without a purchase and continued traversing Tabora.

Before reaching the end of the street, we saw a vendor selling some mini pales/buckets which we imagined we could use as table centerpieces. The lady who owns the stall, were willing to give us the buckets for 12 pesos each. I then discussed with Chea what she thinks she could put into the bucket. There were small bears that fits the bucket but they cost 15-20 pesos each. It's either that or we find plastic/paper flowers to put into them. They were also selling these small clear glass bottles that would look adorable if you put the correct flower arrangement in them. The two designs that I was looking at was being sold for 6 and 7 pesos each.

I told Chea that we should check out sample flower arrangements in the internet that would match the bottles and just come back to buy them when we have a definite idea on what to put in there.

So again, we left without having bought anything yet.

We then continued towards the corner of Sta Elena Street. We found George Trading but they were only selling 2 inch thick styrofoam boards, whereas we need at least 6 inches. Gluing three of them together would be good, but would be expensive as each board (2ft x 4ft') costs almost 200 pesos).

We then found the other Anding's store at the corner of Sta Elena and Tabora. It was tucked inside the corner building. We found a small easel there. Unfortunately, it was the only one left. We decided to just get it so we can try to have someone copy it for us. We also ended up buying Chinese lanterns there as we didn't want to come up empty handed on our trip to Divisoria.

After that, we went into New Divisoria mall, but we couldn't find anything that we want. It was already around 4pm so we were definitely hungry, so we ate at the food court. After that, we headed back to 999 mall, and dropped by the Columbia Wax Trading to buy candles.

We did a quick look around 999 mall before heading out to buy Thirdy a pair of sandals. After that, we got into the car and headed out.

We detoured to Quiapo first as Chea wanted to go to Hidalgo and see if there were any photo video services there we could use for the party. We've been looking around in the forums and we couldn't find an inexpensive photographer that provided video services as well. Not to mention, I was hell bent on finding someone who would give us all the raw photographs as well as the raw video footage. I will rant about that on another blog entry.

So we parked at the side of Quiapo church and headed off to Hidalgo. We entered every single store but didn't find a service that we liked. One offered us their services, along with all the footage and photos, unfortunately, his prices was the same for weddings and simple parties.

We also asked around for light stands. We planned on using light stands to hoist up the stage background. They were collapsible, so it would be easy to stash them in our car. Also, since I'm also into photography, I was planning on using the light stands later.

After a quick walk through Hidalgo, we also strolled along Evangelista all the way to Raon, hoping for anything to inspire us. Nothing did, so we walked along Quezon boulevard back to our car. It was already past 5pm so we decided to call it a day and continue planning at home.

At home, we got some emails regarding some cake suppliers. We were eyeing three cake makers, as they were the ones who were inexpensive and looked like they could execute the cake that we wanted, with the quality that we wanted as well.

I spent the night doodling on my wife's ipad with Adoble Express. That's the app that I use along with a capacitive stylus whenever I want to get that drawing itch out of my system. It's not as good as drawing on paper with a pencil, but it does allow you to easily edit drawings.

I had to revise the cake doodle about 4 times with inputs from my wife.

Hopefully, the actual cake looks better than this.

We need to select a cake supplier soon as most of them require around a 2 week lead time.

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Kiddie Shoot at Starbox Studio

We had a kiddie shoot at Starbox Studio last Saturday, March 9, 2013 at around 1pm.

It was my first time to do a shoot at a studio and using studio lights, so it was a great experience for me. Having +AnGelo Chiu who knows his way around studio equipment helped a lot.

Probably the only decent shot I was able to take of my wife and kid.  Thirdy's getting to be a real handful. Lol.

 The day started with Chea and I (and Rona, Thirdy's nanny) heading out at around 11 am and dropping by an American surplus shop to check out some vintage items. We then went to meet Chea's sister, Chi, along with Tita Fe and Thirdy at Jollibee Anonas as they came from Antipolo.

We had a quick lunch and then headed off to StarBox Studio along Kamias Ave, QC. We arrived at the same time with Gelo and +lysander san jose , along with Gelo's daughter Thea. Wifey Karen and bunso, Ally, had to be somewhere else at that time.

The elevator is out on weekends, so we had to deal with 5 flights of stairs. Probably my only complaint on having the shoot at Starbox. There was a kids workshop at the studio, so we were only able to use the Photo Studio part, which was good enough. There was enough space to go around actually, even with about 9 adults and 4 kids in the shoot.

Yuki, the manager, was there. I also had the pleasure of meeting one of their photographers, Kim, and we had some conversations before they had to head out for a client call. Will, their studio guy, assisted us the rest of the shoot.

Gale, along with daughter Yesha, arrived a few minutes later and we started the shoot. We were still playing around with the lights, so we didn't get too much shots that we liked. Thirdy wasn't his usual timid self around too many people, so he was crawling all over the place, so we couldn't really get good shots of him.

Most of the shots were Bird's eye view, as Thirdy kept on crawling towards me when I tried to take pictures at his level. 

Didn't know he could crawl this fast. At home, he usually crawls a couple of feet then  his head plops down on the mat.

We brought the alphabet mat along with us. Good thing as the floor is vinyl on some solid flooring.

We mainly relied on our own flashguns for the early part, as the studio lights required triggers, which they only had one transmitter I think. There were four of us photographers (Me, Gelo, Lys and Gale), and we were itching to start shooting. By this time, Milan (one of our former co worker) arrived with her son, Lian.

On our second round, we used the grey background and were able to use the 3 studio lights. We had to take turns with the trigger, but it was ok, since we already got the initial shooting urge out of our systems.

Milan and Lian. The lights on the left was a bit low. 

Still wasn't able to adjust the light.

Gale and Yesha. Looks a bit better.

Gelo and Thea. Adjusted the lights so their faces are a bit brighter.

By this time, 3pm, Thirdy was getting rowdy as he wanted to get some sleep. So we couldn't take more pictures of him with Chea. Unfortunately, he was sleeping too lightly, as every time we tried placing him in carriage so we could take photos of him, he kept crying and waking up. So we just gave up and took pictures of the other kids.

By this time, Karen arrived with their bunso, Ally. Too bad she wasn't as trained as her older sister Thea in front of the camera so we weren't able to take pictures of her. Thea on the other hand was great to work with as you didn't have to ask her to pose, as she knew how to work the cameras already.

A few minutes before 4pm, Thirdy was already awake and were able to have a third round of shoots with him. First with a grey background, and finally with a white background.

We just used a studio light to the left and relied on our flashguns and bounce on the wall behind us. And that's our comforter he's on.

White background. Close up shot with my AF-S 50mm lens.

Thirdy tried standing up for the last few shots on his own. He managed that stance for more than 5 seconds allowing me to get this shot. Good job, son!

At past 4pm, Will asked if we wanted to extend the shoot, but I decided that it was starting to get late, and we're starting to get tired.

So we started packing our stuff and called it a day. Hopefully, we can do some studio shots again in the very near future as it's really fun taking pictures of your kids.

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Kiddie Shoot

We'll be having a kiddie shoot tomorrow at StarBox studios in Kamias, QC.

So far, it's me and +lysander san jose and +AnGelo Chiu who confirmed for the shoot. Gelo will be bringing his kids, Thea and Ally, while I'll be bringing Thirdy. Our wives will be there too. Hopefully we get a few good shots of the kids.

Meanwhile, here are shots of Thirdy learning to drive I took last Sunday.

This looks promising. All we need are paddle shifters. Yeah.

Watch out for pedestrians.

Don't look at the sidemirrors when you're turning just like most Pinoy drivers.

That'll do, Thirdy. That'll do.

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