WeekInTheLife - Saturday & Sunday

{Saturday} kids fair at the y with camel rides, a photo Booth and balloon animals. Avinash wanted a blue monkey and informed us Nandini wanted a giraffe. Brunch at pndicherri where avi lost his balloon in the rafters twice. We went for a picnic in the park and played Frisbee. Then back to pondicherri for desert.

{Sunday} wearing hats on our way to the rice box. They have the best tofu. Avinash quickly made a friend and got the courage to climb all over things. We finally went to the new Asian arts museum. We always loved playing outside under the roof fountain but I love the sitting area upstairs overlooking it. Avinash had a great time opening the automatic doors and running up the side ramps. (So did I). Nandini just wanted help walking everywhere. We watched a Hindi movie at home and had breakfast for dinner. Ryan took the kids to the park and we played candy land after baths.

Reflecting on these pictures I just feel that I like every part of our day.  Our crazy, hectic, stressful, loving, happy days.   I still feel a wrench in my heart when I look at the scar on Avi's face.  A lawyer pulled pictures of this blog and said that he wasn't really injured by the dog attack.  Retouched pictures.  I don't know how it will affect him, but I see the scars and it is a painfully visible reminder of my biggest failing as a parent - failing to protect him.  I pray that he doesn't remember that day, though he still talks about it sometimes.  But, in these pictures I see so much joy in their faces.  So, maybe everything is alright after all.  

Beyond Grey

I was excited to hear about the Design Team Call at Beyond Grey.  I have been doing a lot of project life type scrapping lately and feel like I need something to rejuvenate my regular scrapbooking.  I want to push my work a little further creatively - embossing, stenciling, misting, painting and not just cutting up paper (which I will still love to do) - and these challenges are the perfect thing.

 I love this layout of Avinash.  I used lots of colors from the picture in choosing my papers.  The alphabet stencil is a bit random, but he does love the alphabet, so yeah.  I like the dimension it adds.

{Travel Notes}
 I used brads as pushpins on a map.  I was so happy that this paper was geographically accurate for our destination/arrival points too.  And airmail twine of course.  Can you tell my new obsession is all things airmail? I have decided it is the theme or our Hawaii album and have been pretty happy with it so far, though it is not the first thing you think of when you think of tropical destinations.  But it works!

{Oh what a lovely Rodeo}
 A collage of instagram prints from our night at the rodeo.  Lots of new Studio Calico, OA Sasparilla and Crate chipboard too.  The background paper didn't need much, but I really like how it turned out.  I love using woodgrain to mat my photos now, it is a great neutral background with just enough texture. 

{grass baby}
 The whole approach is pretty basic.  A few sheets of patterned paper and a row of multicolored shipping tags.  I used a very loose rainbow order to arrange them (see? green, blue, purple, red, orange, yellow).  Subtle? Yes, but it takes the guess work out of finding a good color arrangement for me.  I then just added little embellishments here and there to each tag.  Just enough to make them unique, but not too much to distract from the picture.  How cute are those Amy Tangerine fabric yo-yos?  I could use some in every color.



Check out more of my work on 2peas and on my blog of course. 

WeekInTheLife Friday

I thought I was so clever, putting a cutting of a green onion in a bowl and taking picture every day.  The thing hasn't budged since Monday, ha! Also, despite water, ok, occasional watering, most of my plants outside are wilting pretty badly too.  So no real growth in a week documentation.  At least my birthday flowers are still pretty perky.  Some new stitched tags in the shop.  Stuck behind a train on the way back from school.  We found a robin's (empty) eggshell in the grocery store parking lot, which Avi wanted to touch and then accidentally stepped on and crushed.  We looked and looked but couldn't find the nest anywhere.  The birds got back at us by messing up my car.  And then Avi had a huge accident while in the bathroom (how does that happen??).  So, not the best day.  We did meet up with our friends at the Zoobilee - Houston Zoo annual members event.  We got an early showing of the dinosaur exhibit and finally found the 'GIANT SLIDE'.  Exhausting but fun.

I know that some people find it odd, but I like working on pages as the week is happening.  I don't have enough brain cells left to remember all the little details and even with a post it pad handy so many little things just get lost in the fog of daily mothering.  I wrote about enjoying the journey instead of just the usual play-by-play I do for Wednesday.

Doily misted in Overdue red, a little bolder to go with the more subtle patterned paper. Used Sketchbook black foam thickers instead of the stamp today.  I love the font a lot. A very versatile size too, plus the pack doesn't skimp on Es. 

How is your week in the life going?

Week in the life - Thursday

Random laugh out loud moment of the day: I managed to make more of a scene at the museum puppet show than either of the babies (again).  This lady was going on AND on about making a puppet at home until this little kid yelled, "I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT." And I laughed, loud.  And everyone stared and then joined in.  I felt a little bad for that kid until I saw his mom was laughing too.  Later when the puppet lady was going on (and on) about how bad and lazy the first little pig is, the same kid blurts out, "He's going to die." The puppet show was so boring I would have left early, but I kept hoping the kid would have more hilarious quips.  

Thoughts on the photos:
-I like using the cross process filter for indoor shots with no natural light.  Avinash's room has no windows, but that doesn't mean I can't include our playtime in there in this project.  Just have to get a little creative with the post processing.
-Using the polaroid frame really helps eliminate a lot of the clutter around the edges of the photo.  Or unflattering arm angles (if you're like me).
-My photos are people heavy and not stuff heavy.  I took over a hundred photos yesterday of random parts of the day.  After editing, the top 20 or so were definitely skewed to people and not things again.  Another reason why I'm not sure if I'll be including any found 'stuff' in this album. I do like have plants on each page.  I might write down all of our meals somewhere, but definitely not getting pictures of them all.
-Taking and editing all of these photos can be taxing but still enjoying the process.  This project is like a metaphor for life.  You have to enjoy the process and the journey.  Grateful to Ali Edwards for pushing me to do this.


I did my Tuesday page in my album too.

This time I misted textured cream cardstock with gold.

I used my fiskars paper trimmer to score lines on the paper again to help me journal (a little) straighter.  I let the date on an ormolu die cut be my circle embellishment here.  To echo the circle from the doily mask too.  The journaling sort of blends in with the paper, but it you can read it if you try.  I am liking how it is turning out so far.  Different from the pockets of project life, but more streamlined and simple than regular scrapbooking.  More zen.

Week In the Life Wednesday

 My photo collage for wednesday.  Eaiting apples at school. A walk to the park. More circus room pictures (hello theme?).

I started on the first page of the album as well.  Still debating adding a photo or some washi.  I really, really want to keep this album as simple as possible.  Then I started stitching.

Polaroids in the album.  At the suggestion of my friend Smitha, I added a bit of journaling to both the photos and on the facing page as well. Keeping it simple, but couldn't resist adding some strips of washi (red floral, teal airmail and gold airmail).

 I used my paper trimmer to score lines on the page in hopes of journaling straight. The paper is from pink paislee's Nantucket line.

I stamped Monday and added another stripe of pale blue border washi. In keeping with the circle theme from the stitched doilies I punched a circle in the photo and pasted in some Ormolu flair.  Some pages just don't photograph well.  I like this page a lot in real life, but I can't seem to get the colors right on here.  Oh well.

I am participating in Week In the Life with Ali Edwards.  Just taking extra photos, trying to write down some more funny stuff that Avinash says all day long.  I started some very basic foundation pages, one for each day of the week.  Will probably do extra pages on the kids and our plants. 

Week in the Life Tuesday - Getting Started

 I made this polaroid photo collage of my Monday/Tuesday photos.  I printed it out in 4x6 segments of two photos each so that each polaroid was slightly smaller than 3x4.

 I misted kraft and white cardstock in gold, white, red and pink. I was really happy with the coverage from the new opaque white huey.  In retrospect I might have done all kraft pages misted in white.

Using a post bound AC album in red cloth.  I like the way it lays flat.  I wanted something a little smaller than my usual, but didn't feel like cropping all my pages to 8.5x11.

I went through my stash and choose some pretty papers.  I picked colors to match my hueys.  I was also looking for smaller patterns that are a little busier than what I tend to use.  I want to keep embellishments to the bare minimum so I figured I could go for the extra oomph in paper.

My polaroids printed and trimmed, ready to go in to the album.

I decided to use Studio Calico wood veneers and black sketchbook thickers.  I think I will use only these two alphas throughout.  And maybe this stamp. 

Project Life-getting crafty

We spent this week away at my parents house.  I took lots of pictures, but worked pretty hard to narrow it down.  If I include too many, I feel like things start to luck cluttered and the week loses focus.  It is basically a one page spread with a two page Design E insert. Making mini layouts took a little extra time, but was a lot of fun.

This page is all about Easter.  I had fun using dear Lizzy vellum and Hambly white lattice overlays to create pages that would work on both sides of the page. I cut the banner flags from scraps I have been collecting all year. Little JBS plastic doily and Girl's paper flower embellishments on the banners.

 

I used my square punch and picture frame punch to cut the banner edge.  I also slid some papers into just one side of the picture frame punch to get a cool border cut on the edge.

Avinash called egg dyeing beeps & hue'os (huevos) last year and so we called it that again this year.  The paper is Amy Tangerine India Ink. I layered the photo with her die cuts, fabric tape and other washi (blue hearts, pink stripe, turqoise dot and green airmail smash tape). I stitched little eggs and misted them.  Glittery silver thickers because we glittered our eggs too.  These little letters are perfect for project life captions.

I cut this 8x10 photo down to 6x6 to fit the pocket.  Avinash was very excited to pick grass (onion shoots) and have me smell them.  Nandini wanted to crawl after him but we didn't really let her (her nana was worried about poison ivy/oak).

The flip side.  You can see the banner flags from the A-side peeking through the vellum and transparency.  I put washi tape over one of them. 

I made a felt banner while I was away with my mom.  I used the scraps to recreate it here.  Thought it was something different than just taking a picture of the banner.  We just got the tent that goes with it today, so this may be a little series in my project life album to come.

I used a scrap from the DaVinci Science Center that I take the kids to whenever we go home.  I love cutting stuff in half to fit the pockets.  I added SC paper and some journaling outside the lines.  I also swiped this gold dotted bag from some tea my mom got.  We drink lots and lots of chai at home.  No explanation needed really, so just some gold thickers on top.  I filled up a card with lots of OA sidewalk stickers that were very apropos to what Avi was doing all week - playtime! with our neighbors and his cousin. 
I love making flower petal snow, and Avi loves it now too of course.

My favorite card of the week.  A few letter stickers - old SC and basic grey letters.  The stamp is a new one from bananafishstudios.  All over top some stationery picked up from target.  Have used this several times and I always love the way it looks.  Maybe more than most scrapbooking paper I buy. 

Are you doing week in the life with Ali Edwards this week?  I have started with extra photos and note taking.  Mostly just trying to write more Avi quotes.  I have a plan for this album too so that the photos don't just languish on my hardrive like day in the life did.  Just some simple patterned paper and cardstock polaroid frames. 

Linked up with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama for Project Life Tuesday. The PL kit I am using is the Clementine kit. Thank you so much to everyone in this wonderful community. I love all the feedback and looking at everything people do each week. It definitely keeps me motivated. And, please, link me up to any of your inspiring pages this week as well in the comments!

The word of the day.

Pulchritudinous. 

Oxheart

Even though I really enjoyed my family day at home on my birthday I didn't mind it one bit when Ryan made us reservations the day after for a new restaurant downtown Houston.  And, they vegetarian menu didn't hurt either.  Apparently Oxheart refers to a type of cabbage or something. 

 We had squash three ways in soup, it was a little under-seasoned and watery.  The brioche buns and grilled spring onions were the best part.  You cut the onion in half and roll up one leaf at a time on your fork like pasta.  Crispy green stems and the almost creamy white center together in one bite.  Then roasted potatoes on top of swiss chard sauce.  Not as good as mine by a long shot.  Then sunchoke semifreddo.  About as good as it sounds.  I love having so many vegetarian options in one place, but it will take a while for us to go back.

Gratuitous bokeh shot of the porch lights outside.

The check arrived on a branch.  So, then we had the pleasure of working out the appropriate Portlandia sketch that would go along with this.