Project Life | Be Yourself.

This Week| A visit from Nani is always fun.  We went to bubblepalooza downtown.  Which really should be called like bubble afternoon. It's just not at palooza levels yet. The bubbles need to be at least three times this size for them to call it that.  Also, brunch pictures at a place I half love just because of the lighting in there.  The pancakes don't hurt either.  My chalk drawing with Avinash and a story about his helping spirit. Love that.

 First Side| This spread and the next one have a lot of pastels, which works for summer.  The sun is so bright here everything looks that way anyway. I stapled a horizontal card to a bigger card to write a bit.  I love the look of those cards but it can be a lot for me to commit to a full page with a different orientation. 

Second Side| More pastel, this time with watercolor.  My photos are edited with the VSCO cam app.  Very bright. Silver sticker is on the outside of the plastic.  I love the look of this technique but I only do it when I'm pretty sure the embellishment won't fall off.  Stickers like this and foam thickers are a good bet usually. 

This Week| Visits to the wildflower, which are almost weekly in the summer.  Lessons from camp, after a fieldtrip to the planetarium.  Nandini's new ballet class. And a birthday party for Daisy Duck.  All the important stuff.

First Side| I played around with this side alot.  Especially the 4x6 slots.  Unless I use a full photo I usually feel stumped.  I tried stamping the animals in different colors but ended liking the grey with smudged neocolors on top a lot better.  The pictures of Lakshman and my mom looked just unfinished so I doodled some black frames around everything.  It helped a bit. My favorite picture is the "steeltown girl on a Saturday night" one anyway.  Oh, Flashdance.

Second Side| This side is a little better.  I liked tilting two smaller photos of Avinash on one card.  I offset the photos with washi and a journaling card scrap from before.  Underling the journaling on it also seemed to help.  The other 4x6 card again looks unfinished.  The photo is just randomly floating in the middle of the card and I'm not sure what to do about it. Blah.  I do love the block of color and pattern from the 3x4 slots.

Window pocket| Matching chipboard shapes.  Here I took two diamonds and adhered them to the outside of the pocket front and back.  With a simple shape like this you could also cut paper to the same shape and back it with that if you don't have a chipboard double.

Card Idea| Stack up thickers for a fun longer title all on one card. 

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 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 | Be Free

This Week| In this spread I included Father's Day brunch, new ballet class for Nandini, the Austin Splash Mob and bits around our garden & home.  I have way lost track of continuity this summer.

 

First Side| I really really liked the way this week turned out.  Maybe why I'm sharing it on it's own instead of with a buddy.
The black and white card next to the blue really appeals to me.  It is available here and is one of my own designs :)  The rest of the spread has a lot of lighter blue and green.

Second Side| This transitions to pink and cream with a bit of yellow in between.  It's a rainbow spread and I just love it. I slipped a wood veneer flag under a journaling circle as a sort of prize ribbon simplified. Word art on the photos is from the A Beautiful Mess app again.

Window pocket| I added a wood veneer card I've been hoarding for years I think. The little circle outline cut out totally counts.

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 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 | Black & White and making it work.

This Week| Moving in, getting settled.  Taking time to play and avoiding unpacking.

First Side| Lots of great black and white cards here.  Not a lot of faces in the pictures here, but they still tell the story.  The word art on the photo is from the A Beautiful Mess app.  I used a diamond transparency as my window pocket.  The tag was run through my die cutting machine to the get the 'hello' on there.

Second Side| I wasn't that happy with this side.  I think all the browns didn't match well with the black and white.  I normally love woodgrain, but the woodgrain post card just didn't look right. The watercolor hearts show through from the other side. I added a lightbulb transparency on top for fun.  The lightbulb moment of Lakshman's first laugh maybe?

This Week| Baby checkups. Avinash playing basketball.  This happened every week for a while because he was in two leagues, but I really don't have to document it every time. Also, science experiments at the museum and reading Noisy Nora with Gudiya. Oh, and a bear eating my nose. Important stuff.

First Side| More black and white.  The peonies photo has a lot of white space which is nice too.  I have a bunch of random die cuts lying around and the Love This circle (from Ali Edwards' files) was a perfect fit here.

Second Side| I sort of love how this page is wildly colorful.  Somehow, what wasn't working the previous week suddenly does.  I still have one page of black and white but they somehow mesh better together.  When in doubt trust in white space, here on journaling cards and an extra large border around the photo of Lucky and me. Those colored doilies are just my favorite.  They are from the SC kits and different from regular doilies.  Blue green is always a fun combination.  And, when right on top of red and pink it reminds me of a rainbow.  With yellow coming from the pie chart card, a card I designed myself and for sale in my Etsy shop here. One red asterisk from my SC kit letters is the perfect window page.

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 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.

First Day Of Kindergarten and Preschool.

 Luckily we had plenty of preparation for this day. Meetings with Nandini's teacher at home and at school. We already knew Avinash's teacher from summer camp.  His kindergarten is in the same place where preschool was, so there was no major transition. Still, this was a much anticipated day. Full of excitement and promise for great things to come.

We didn't do anything extreme but some pictures were definitely in order. And, any excuse to pull out my chalkboard. We told them our hopes and prayers the night before. Special outfits were donned in the morning.

A breakfast of dry cereal was eaten in the car (because the fridge was acting up and we had no potable milk).  A special lunch and special water bottle were packed.

 Nandini was too shy to go in first so we all dropped off Avinash together. He found his good friend Emme and held her hand like long lost pals.  It has maybe been two weeks since they saw each other.

Nandini didn't want to talk to anybody at first but was ready to do puzzles. She wanted us to stay with her but let us go without crying. She was still doing puzzles when I peeked in the window a bit later. 

 Nandini got a good report at pick up. I heard her tell her teacher she didn't want to go since she didn't get a chance to color yet. She also informed her that her water bottle was from Target.

I asked her to tell me about her favorite thing at school.  Definitely got a better response than the standard "how was school?".   Her answer? Puzzles. And learning scoottering outside. And talking to Miss Haley. She likes talking to Miss Haley because she is nice. This was a big relief for me since she was so bonded to her last teacher and wary of a new one.

We all went back to school two hours later to pick up Avinash. I peeked in on him at lunch time. Of course he ate his chocolate chip cookie first and was delighted to have the student teacher read the note Ryan put in. One of his friends tattled on him later to me about the cookie. Ha. 

We made borax crystals the night before and I let him bring one in. His friend G was dying to come over to our house and make some with us. C kept asking me what Avinash likes (as a secret) so he could plan something for a play date. I said pirate stuff. So now we apparently need to plan a treasure hunt play date soon. His other friend told me  she didn't know who she was going to marry yet at pick up. Seems like a very full day!

Avinash told me his favorite things on the way home. There were several. First one, starts with G and ends with D (go outside).  The next starts with R and ends with T (art).  Maybe he can learn some more about spelling this year?

These three.

Lakshman:

Seven months old today. 

Has started crawling. 

Had his first two teeth pop out. 

Loves to chew on anything he can find. Bits of paper, fingers, toys.  Spoons are his favorite. 

Such a good snuggler. I love to watch him nap with Nana. 

Has started eating a solids a little bit. He mostly just chews on chunks of watermelon or something. He seems to like soup and had dal with Nana. 

 Loves to explore the house searching for things to put in his mouth.  He will also play with yarn like a little cat. 

Always wants to be in the center of action with his kids. If they are in the playroom, he needs to be in there too. Having them back home is such a big deal for him. 

Nandini:

Avinash's constant shadow. 

Still not 100% sure about the baby. Until recently she thought "he needs to go back to his doctor home" (ie, the hospital). Thankfully we were able to convince her that we should keep him. 

Is getting much stronger after her ballet class and working on her tricycle with Nani. 

Can be either princess Gudiya or super Gudiya depending on the time of day. I think she's always a bit of both. 

Avinash:

Has so much imagination. 

Can play car games with Nandini all day long. 

Dotes on his baby brother. And gets plenty of admiration in return. 

Loves treasure and adventure. I think he may be a pirate. He draws out maps, picks up all shiny rocks he finds and has at least five hiding places around the house. 

Starts kindergarten tomorrow and I'm so not ready but I'm trying to be. 

Home Tour | Playroom Makeover

Sometimes it amazes me that we ever bought the house we did.  Looking back at the old real estate photos it is hard to know what drew me to the house in the first place.  We really did not want a fixer-upper.  We are that couple who didn't even want to worry about painting after moving in, let alone some kind of DIY project.  But, buy the place we did.  Painting commenced soon after once I realized we had over a week lag in between closing and needing to move out of our rental.

I initially was going to just touch up a few rooms myself.  A friend suggested I paint the shelves as well so they would feel fresh and clean when we moved in.  I took Avinash over to the new house and 'we' painted for four hours.  I got one tiny shelving area painted and basically gave up on that plan.  In between nursing the baby and not wanting him near paint fumes I knew this was not going to work at all.  We had a green kitchen, bedroom and bathroom that needed not to be.  Also, the media room.  Was horrific.  Just awful.  A room I can only describe as a dark plum pit in the middle of our house.

 {These pictures are from our real estate packet.  Apparently this room is where outdated furniture and velour went to die.}

A media room was totally useless for us.  We only have one TV in our possession and have every intention of keeping it that way. What we were in need of was a place to keep ALL THE TOYS. So, we had the room painted.  It took four coats of Benjamin Moore's Simply White to cover all that plummy badness, but they finally did it.

The room kind of stayed that way for months.  A few toys were unpacked and then toys and empty boxes littered the room. 

I had ideas but it was hard to move forward.  We moved all of our cheap white metal Ikea bookcases into that room.  We organized the room a little.  Ryan started going to these auctions at Goodwill and buying old, I mean, vintage toys.  Something magical started to happen.  Avinash and Nandini started playing together.  Making up stories.  Mostly about their new old hot wheels.  Each has a name and a birthday.  They recently had a long talk about what their special powers would be.  Oh my word, it is just amazing to listen to them.

I knew I needed to make them a better place to play. 

Then something else magical happened.  We organized the toys.  All the toys.  My mother in law came to visit and she was eager and excited to help me.  And we actually had a fun time doing it.  She loves reading and playing with them.  Her love for them really showed while she helped me sort and put away all the leftover boxes from the garage.  It just really warmed my heart. 

While having flashes of the Berenstein Bear's Messy Room transformation we sorted toys by type into canvas bins (from Land of Nod) and stacked books on the shelves.  We also cleared out a ton of trash.  Ryan took bags and bags of stuff back to Goodwill to donate (our old stuff, not theirs).  The kids went up north with her for a week and we completed the only real project for the room, putting up shelves.

I started by moving Avinash's globe collection out of his room.  It's for the greater good, plus it gives him more space to display his lego creations.  Totally win win.

Sometimes things start to look worse before they look better.

 Luckily, since everything was already organized it didn't take much time to get everything set up. I tried to avoid overcrowding the shelves.  I like to have a balance of display items, like the suitcases, ferris wheel, and globes with regular everyday toys.  The muppets even found their way on to a shelf of their own.

 I painted a couple more things for the playroom.  The dollhouse looks so much classier in grey instead of pink.  Plus, I used chalkboard paint (when do I not?) so they can draw on the walls if they want. The little magazine rack now holds coloring books and art supplies.

Actual playing.  The hallmark of a great play room :)