New baby pages!

Baby pages are pretty much the reason I started scrapbooking.  Avinash was a few months old and I just had to have the Becky Higgins baby album I stumbled upon on the internet.  I thought that one kit would be all I ever needed.  Fast forward more than five years later and I have a room full of stuff and I scrapbook about everything under the sun.  Getting to scrap about a new baby again is still it's own joy.  I have a stack of Lakshman layouts already.  Most of these papers come from Studio Calico's February kit, Sugar Rush. 

These pictures are taken from the family photoshoot we had when he was five days old. 

Love & Cherish | I enlarged this photo because I think it really brings out the little baby on a big bed juxtaposition I was going for.  The large black foam thickers are just so much fun to use.  Especially when I don't want to mess with brush script and all the ink. 

Five | This page was a scraplift of Marcy Penner.  I just love her style.  I tried to keep with her use of white space and scattering of embellishments.  Love how she almost always includes a shipping tag.  The pie chart is cut from a journaling card.  I don't really like using them literally and filling in each slice with a different label.  Instead, I just used the whole thing as a journaling spot.  The rubons (five and woodgrain) are from the lemon lush collection.

Cutie Toes | This is one of my favorite new layouts.  Just so simple and really highlights one simple detail.  Those delicious little feet.  Avinash always used to talk about Nandini's "cutie toes" and the phrase just stuck.  I repeated a few strips of patterned paper, I added a little chipboard and ribbon for visual interest.  I love all the white space, but it does make me nervous, so I splattered the page with a little gold anyway.  I'm not worried about the fact that there is no journaling because I have done so many pages from that one shoot anyway.

Courage, dear heart | Nandini Layouts

Courage, dear heart| I cut out this C.S. Lewis quote for a mini book I am working on about the Chronicles of Narnia.  I wanted to use the negative space and had the cut out words left over.  The words just reminded of Nandini so much that I printed out this picture of her and had to get it on a layout. 

I had the idea to use India Ink to make a scallop 'ledge' for my photo.  I added some soft color with gelatos underneath it in lime green and orchid.  You could get the same effect with watercolors as well.  I used a whole package of kraft butterflies from my latest Studio Calico kit.  I tend to use on or two pieces from an embellishment pack so it was nice to use it all up in one go.  I still felt something was lacking though.  That is when I pulled out the black and white patterned paper and framed the whole layout with it.  I hand doodled a border on the white cardstock to try to tie in the brush script and patterned paper. 

Tiny Dancer| I used this sketch from Melanie Louette for this layout.  I loved the symmetry and the shipping tag on top.  I use them in my Etsy shop packaging so they are always all over the place, I just can't get enough!

I love finding simple alternatives to my go to plain white cardstock.  Here I used old book paper, which I added a little watercolor too.  I like the ethereal, dreaminess feeling it lent the page.  I layered it over some pink patterned papers, added some new My Mind's Eye chipboard and basically called it a day.  I put a thin layer of white paint on the chipboard to continue the painted look.  A little row of wood sequins to finish it up.

Make a wish| I was really just playing around with this layout.  I have my last few Studio Calico kits mixed together and just pulled pieces at random that worked with her birthday photos.  Lots of blues, yellows and few pops of pink.  I used the Camelot card kit stamp to make the cake.  Is it odd that it has more layers than her actual birthday cake?  I love how it turned out on a layout. 

Looking at these all together, I guess I have been pretty Nandini focused lately.  Luckily I have a photo of Avinash printed and all ready to scrap tonight!

Project Life | Yes, please.

This week| I turned 33 (33? really? is that right?), and we celebrated with a hike and picnic at Pedernales Falls.  Lucky had his two month check up and we did fun things around the house like dying eggs for Easter.  I included more pictures from our visit to the wildflower center from the previous week/spread because I can't really keep track of what happened what week anymore and I just go with what I like, ha!

First page| A lot of transparencies and a lot of red.  Most of the cards are from a Kelly Purkey kit.  The two months card is Creative Bubble and the April card is Paislee Press.  I stamped over the letterpress today card with a few different Color Studio inks as my fun 'technique' card and I like how the inks are translucent enough to show through in layers.  I used a vellum word sticker and star over the photo of Avinash dying eggs. 

Second page| I repeated the use of vellum word stickers and stars on this page as well.  Again, using a little more consistency with my usually eclectic look.  I also used a few more transparencies from Kelly Purkey on this page, right on top of the photos.  The photo of Nandini is especially blurred, but I like the effect and there are plenty of regular pictures of her in the album already. I used one card to hold all my journaling for the week.  This really helps to streamline the process for me and get spreads done.  I admit, I sometimes spend way too much time figuring out what to say. 

FYI, Two Peas is having a big Project Life sale right now.  These are the albums I use and I'm really happy with them.  I'm stocking up on page protectors because I am wanting to try out some of the new designs and I need more envelope pages to keep up with all the stuff the kids bring home from school already.


You can see all of my Project Life pages here.  This is my third year of doing Project Life and I love this method of memory keeping for our family.  The PL kits I am using generally are the Studio Calico kit, and Midnight kit, with mostly Design A pages this year. I am linked up with the Mom Creative and the Memory Nest this week.

Now it is your turn!  Add your link back to your Project Life pages here and try to visit and leave comments for each other as well.  Grab a button if you'd like, or just pin it to your favorite scrappy pinterest board, anything works!  Thanks to everyone who linked up last time!  I will be holding a regular weekly link up from now on.

Project Life | Party Time.

Today I am sharing two spreads.  I have been a little behind with posting.  We recently moved and most of my stuff is still in boxes.  I haven't found my PL album yet, but luckily I photographed a lot of spreads before we left.  And, as always, I invite you to leave a link to your most recent PL pages! I know it helps keep me accountable.

This week | We celebrated Nandini's third birthday party.  This event pretty much took over the whole spread.  My parents and brother also came to visit.  I included a few other random moments, like dance class leaps, playing at the park and a visit to the Thinkery. 

 I used an old-school all horizontal 3x4 page protector I had from a BH kit from five years ago.  Not sure what they are called now, but you can see the variety pack they are in here.
I normally don't do this, but this week I pretty much stayed to the color scheme of her party.  Lots of yellow and pink.  On the spread I added in some black and white elements (from a Kelly Purkey kit) for contrast and really like the way it sets off the more colorful elements and helps to break up the photos.

This side got a large dose of black and white from my brush script journaling card (available in a set here).  I kept it very minimalist this week.  I added a few rub-ons to the photos and stamped directly on another.  I used Ranger Archival Black, my favorite black ink by far and it works well even on glossy photos. 

This week| I was on the hunt for wildflowers big time.  We drove around to different places this spring, looking for big patches of bluebonnets.  I think it is one of my favorite family traditions. 

I used to be really into having a checkerboard effect with photos and cards, but I like the flow of a few cards in a row as well.  Here it moves from saturated red to pink to a translucent card, which helps the page flow.  I used a transparent journaling card over the photo of Nandini as well.  I love mixing different opacities on one page.
I also love the trick of snipping off the edge of a journaling card to add to a photo and find myself reaching for those more than label stickers.  

I used a few gold foil printed cards from a Studio Calico paper pad.  Metallics are just so fun to play with and they were easy to match with all the different grass and flower colors in my pictures.


You can see all of my Project Life pages here.  This is my third year of doing Project Life and I love this method of memory keeping for our family.  The PL kits I am using generally are the Studio Calico kit, and Midnight kit, with mostly Design A pages this year. I am linked up with the Mom Creative and the Memory Nest this week.

Now it is your turn!  Add your link back to your Project Life pages here and try to visit and leave comments for each other as well.  Grab a button if you'd like, or just pin it to your favorite scrappy pinterest board, anything works!  Thanks to everyone who linked up last time!  I will be holding a regular weekly link up from now on.

5 days old: Lakshman's newborn photos

Now that we have a smiling, laughing, sleeping, and bouncing 4-month old baby boy, I'm getting all nostalgic for his newborn days.  He was so tiny and fragile.  And so precious.  That's what it made it so awesome. 

Even though we had been through it all before, his first few days were filled with new worries for me.  He had to undergo treatment for jaundice.  They discharged us from the hospital which meant keeping him on a bili-bed at home.  He was supposed to stay on that apparatus for twenty hours a day.  He pretty much hated it and all I wanted to do was hold him.  Instead, we would take turns sitting next to him on the floor while he soaked in all that blue light.  The worst part were the daily blood draws from his tender little heels.  (Ok, remind me again why I miss those days?) I did learn somethings, like, it is okay to insist on them using the heel warmer if it spares your newborn pain. 

Thankfully, his bilirubin levels dropped and he was back in our arms when he was five days old. 

 A friend of Ryan's came over to the house that day and we were able to take newborn + family photos.  These photos are just such a blessing to me, especially since most of the pictures I have with the kids are now just awkward iPhone selfies.

I love all the tiny details.  Tiny fingers and tiny toes.  Ears still squished from nine months in a bubble that have straightened out since.   Even the newborn reflexes.  Brothers + sister.  Our new family of five.

 I have been struggling with wanting time to slow down lately, finding the pause button so to say.  These photos are my pause button.

Throwing a Frozen Birthday Party

Avinash and his friends are all obsessed with Frozen of course.  Nandini would listen to nothing else but the let it go song all day if we let her.  She's particularly good at belting out the "I don't care" part.  I'm tempted to remind her to "be the good girl" she always had to be, but then I think maybe I shouldn't be giving parenting advice from Frozen.

Still, when one of his friend's wanted a Frozen party I jumped at the chance to help her mom plan the whole thing.  Planning parties is so much fun for me, and so far I have only gotten to do it twice a year.  Oh, Lakshman's first birthday is going to be awesome.


The first thing we did was brainstorm.  And by that I mean jump on pinterest for way longer than is necessary. Seriously, how did anybody plan parties before this? 


There are a million ideas on there and we certainly weren't going to execute all of them but it gave us a good starting point.  Like the color scheme for the cake and the idea to get a figurine play set as a cake topper.  Kind of like semi-homemade cake decorating Frozen style. I couldn't find the same figurine set we used on line(update: they are back in stock for now!), but Amazon does the Elsa doll back in stock! Score! Those things were seriously over priced on Ebay.

 I love how the cake turned out.  The snowy mountain cones are something I picked up at Target's christmas clearance.  We did three different colors of frosting on the outside as well to add more color.

 Around the house she put lots of little touches, like purple flowers.

 Purple and blue snowflake cookies. Homemade and pretty simple, but very cute.

Melted Snowman water bottle labels. 

The craft we set up was to make your own Olaf out of marshmallows.  The kids really loved this and it was a nice break from them trying to jump off the top of the bounce house.   We used food markers to paint on the smile and buttons. The eyes are edible too. We used decorating glue and toothpicks to hold the marshmallows together. The noses are orange tic tacs. The hair is little bits of black licorice cut up.

 As favors, we ordered these super cute Frozen Little Golden Books.