365 Days of Chloe

Chloe’s birthday had come and gone. With the blink of an eye, our baby is now 1 year old. Day by day, week by week, month by month, this year went by very quickly. But looking back at her earlier pictures, some of them seem like they were taken eons ago. There is indeed that mixed feeling of fast and slow, long and short. While her look hasn’t changed much, some features have changed slightly, i.e. her cheeks are smaller, her hair is fuller, etc. If not for pictures, I didn’t even notice these changes taking place.

Speaking of pictures, I completed my mission to take pictures of her everyday until she turned one. I decided to take on this project shortly before she was born. The inspiration came from a newspaper article I read which showcased a man’s project of the same nature, except he took a picture of his baby in the same pose everyday to show the progression of his growth. I didn’t want to subject myself to requiring the same props everyday therefore I simply decided I would take any picture of Chloe, no matter what pose or clothing she wears. Some days this was fun and easy to do. I mean who doesn’t want to take cute pictures of their baby? But other days it was a drag to think of yet another pose because I didn’t want to repeat what I did yesterday. After 365 days, I’ve accumulated thousands of pictures of her. My computer runs smoothly everywhere else except for when I’m in the folder that holds her pictures. There are so many files in that folder that simply being in there bogs down the computer’s processor!

When I first began the project, I intended to select a picture to represent each day, print out 365 pictures, and put them all in a traditional photo album. Well, all that have changed now that the project is done. For one thing, it was difficult to select only one picture per day. Most days had multiple good pictures of her and I didn’t have the heart to eliminate them down to just one. Secondly, the idea of placing prints in an album didn’t sound appealing anymore because I would’ve had to manually label each picture with the corresponding day and add captions. That just sounded too cumbersome to me.

Those of you who follow my Facebook have seen my daily pictures of Chloe and their corresponding captions. While I was diligent in uploading these pictures to FB on a fairly timely manner, I was slacking off in collecting the files for the final printing. I wasn’t joking when I posted this on my status:
"Dear FB: Can you make my life easier and let me order prints of my Photos so I don't have to re-upload them onto another photo site in order to get them printed?"

So what did I end up doing in terms of getting this project printed? I ended up creating a photo book. A photo book allows me to arrange the pictures and add captions more easily than loose pictures inserted into an album or scrapbook. Still it took me almost 2 weeks of spending about 2-3 hours per day to select the pictures, arrange them in daily order, upload them, arrange them into the book, and add captions.

Today I am proud to say the book is completed and ordered. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief that this year-long project is done and put to rest. I’ll breathe an even bigger sigh of relief and satisfaction when I receive the book and see that it comes out as nicely as I hope it will come out. (Fingers are crossed that it will come out nicely.)

Here are the cover and last pages of the photo book for all to peruse prior to the arrival of the finished product.

Cover:


Last page:


P.S. Don’t ask me what I will do for my second baby (if and when I have a second baby). I haven’t the slightest idea!