Playing with paint.

previously published in Scrap n Art Magazine. 
This is one of my first forays into using paint on a layout.  I combined the still well loved OA Rocket Age line with some Smithsonian pictures.  Back then one found a lot more raw chipboard and painting it just somehow spilled over on to the page.  I loved doing it but I still need a push to do it these days.

 This is a more recent page.  I started watching some Wilna Furstenburg videos on two peas and she totally inspired me to try out gelatos.  I started simple with stripes on this page. 

This was also totally inspired by Wilna, and this page of hers in particular.  I didn't have any white ruffle paper so I made my own with tissue paper.  It took up the gelatos beautifully.  I used a water brush (I bought mine at Hobby Lobby for very cheap) after applying them, mainly because it is so easy to use, and it seems to be much better for me than a regular brush to blend gelatos with.  I also used some Freckled Fawn acrylic shapes and scattered sequins rubons around the page instead of mist splatters. 

Even though I tend to use a lot of patterned paper and I feel like paint usually demands a blank paper to start with, I definitely want to keep trying to paint more. 

xoxo,
N

Planning a Pi Day Party .... again

Oh my goodness.  I almost thought for certain we would skip having a birthday party for Nandini this year.  While I do love to throw parties, this soon after the baby's birth is a little tough.  I mean, she has been chattering about her birthday since Avinash's Halloween birthday party (How 'bout me??  How 'bout my birthday party? IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOMOLLOW!!), alternating her sing-songy happy voice and her plaintive-panicky voice.

She had kind of stopped mentioning it after a few months, but I guess we let it slip that it was her birthday again in few weeks and she has started up at full steam.

She even has a full song to sing.  It is a masterpiece of guilt and cuteness. Here are a few verses:
I love my family // They my favorite
Because my birthday party // Say Sooprise 'a me
And my yellow cake ... FOR ME!!!// I love my family

She does this shakey dance thing while she sings and all thoughts I had of skipping her party just vanish out the window.  I really, really want to have a tea party birthday for her, but not this year.  Maybe next year when I have a little more time to plan.  So, we are going with the Pi Day theme again.  And, let's face it.  Having a Pi Day party is just fun.

We did it last year and I was looking at the pictures for some ideas. 

We had cake, pie and strawberry shortcake skewers.  So yum.  This year, we will be having yellow cake I guess.  

We also brought Holi powders to play with.  

We asked everyone to wear white (to make playing Holi more fun) but brought an extra outfit for the birthday girl so she could wear her special party dress while she cut the cake. 

Setting up the pie plates.  Just shaving cream and paper plates.  Easy, cheap and so much fun. 

Then the real games began! I love this type of birthday party entertainment.  It is low budget and instead of all the kids sitting to watch a magician or shoving each other over the balloon animal line, they get to just run around and have fun together.  Isn't that what it's all about?

Project Life: January pages

This week: Waiting for baby, at 37 weeks.  We had snow in Austin and enjoyed that half inch way more than anyone really should be able to.  My dad was here visiting us and we did some fun things, like go out for brunch and for a little trek on the nature trails around here.

First side: I love the open-ness created throughout the entire spread by having one little see through pocket.  I used a printed transparency card here for that.  I also continued my recent trend of using lots of white and white space.  It is a really good option for me weeks I don't take many pictures and i just like the look.  

 Love acetate letters.  Heidi Swapp has a few sets but these here are from a SC kit.

Second side: More red and a little bit of yellow from the first side.  Lots of white, yay.  Nandini is wearing her patented socks for mittens and sledding in a laundry basket.  We keep it classy y'all. 

The '03' card is part of one of my favorite sets of cards from the Cuppa kit, it is simple and graphic enough.  I love how it doesnt compete with my photos but still holds its own.  I'd love to see them make a full set of these.  I found a free printable set here that is pretty similar in color and feel.

This week: The last week of January.  My dad went back home and my mom came down here instead.  We celebrated my Mom's birthday while she was here.  We went to tree day at the Wildflower Center and the Architects of Air exhibit.  It was pretty busy and I ended up using an insert for vertical photos (which is so unlike me).

First Page: I have totally no journaling here, which I'll probably regret later, but it was just easier to get it done and move on. 

 A little wood on wood action here.  I love the texture of it :)

Second page:

 I didn't think I would use the black&white quote card since I don't often like to document the negative.  I prefer to look back and focus on the positive, which I'm fine with.  But including some of my doubts and fears at 38 weeks just felt right, so I went with it. The strip of washi tape on the card is from MT (and available in my shop!).

The insert: My favorite part of this  week's spread, because it felt so light and airy.  I love these transparency sheets from Studio Calico's new Wanderlust line.  I placed my journaling card in the same place on both sides so that the see through element was maintained.   Love how this spread shows Avinash taking on climbing a very tall tree, and Nandini taking on holding a very tall skewer for marshmallows.  Ha!

 More wood veneer.  Love the warmth it adds.

 I used a few midnight cards here.  The happy thoughts speech bubble cut out is great to use for journaling.
I layered another plain card behind the photo of Nandini and me.  I'm definitely becoming more a fan of black&white photos lately.

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 multi-pack page protectors. 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 too!  Thanks to everyone who linked up last time!  I took a month off from this after the baby was born, but I will be back with a regular weekly link up now.

Fibiscrap

Crafty Cherry

KTWare

The Thinkery : Rainbow page

Life is so wonderfully full these days. We spend most days at home since the baby was born. The kids have learned to play by themselves in the backyard more and they look forward to little walks around the neighborhood. This weekend though we decided to try a quick trip to the museum. I figured with Ryan with me it would be a lot easier to handle and the kids would get a much-missed outing in.

I saw a poster hanging up outside and the colorful repeated images totally reminded me of a layout I had done years ago. 

Here is the image:


 Here is (part of) my old layout:

I decided to recreate the look with stamps again.  I love working in rainbow colors, so I went that way instead of using just primary colors.  Luckily I had some awesome rainbow pictures from that day at the museum to pair the idea with.  I borrowed the circle photo idea from the poster as well.

The top photo is actually a panoramic shot I took with my phone. I used a lot of bits and pieces that were laying around my table, mostly my January and February kits.  My collection of Studio Calico stamps was put to good use here, including the new little wanderlust roller stamp - it is so cute!  Seriously though, it feels good to use my stamps instead of just collecting them and hoarding them.  To get the rainbow, I mostly used Ranger Archival inks, with the exception of purple and orange which are chalk ink.  I just got the large ampersand clip from Webster's pages and had to use that on the page as well. 

I am linking this page up with Paper Issues for their Color by the Numbers challenge. 

Announcing our new Baby Boy!

Here he is!  We are so happy and proud to share the news of our new baby and second son, Lakshman Hecker.  He arrived on February 2nd at 5:36 pm, weighing 5 pounds and 11 ounces. 

He looks just like Avinash as a baby.  Avinash was so excited that the baby really is 'twins of him' that he wanted to name him Avinash as well.  Then he told everyone at school that the baby's name is Krishna. 

Nandini cannot fathom that he has a name beyond 'the baby' and laughs like we are joking when he try to correct her. 

And us?  Yeah, we were totally those insane people who left the hospital without a name for our baby.  It took two more trips to the hospital to get it straightened out.  In our defense, picking a name is hard, especially a middle name.  I mean, you can literally choose anything you want.  We almost named him Lakshman Teen Wolf Kumar Avinash Krishna Hecker.  I still kind of like the way it rolls off the tongue. 

Life here is busy.  Feeding, changing, napping, bathing but mostly just trying to soak it all in.  We are all getting to know this wonderful new human being in our lives and falling in love more and more everyday.  We are super blessed to have tons of visits from friends, help with carpooling from schoolmates and the constant presence of my parents in these early weeks.

Despite some early blood sugar and jaundice Lakshman is super healthy now.  He passed his two week check up with flying colors (doctor Nandini agrees) and is not only back at his birth weight, but has gained a full pound. 

Still waiting.

I love being pregnant. Really, I still do.  Every minute of my day has a purpose. Every activity, even napping, contributes to the growing of a new baby human.

I know I will miss this. I love having my baby with me always. I love feeling him kick and flutter and say a silent prayer every time I feel it.

Even these days. As things start to wear on me.

It does give me time to savor our cute little family of four.  To savor some time with Nandini as my baby.  In a flash she is going to grow three sizes after the baby arrives. 

And these days are exciting. I have to give up on my usual need to plan and be in control. 

Every day is full of possibility.

In the meantime, we are keeping busy.

 Pre-baby date night at Uchi.  A bowl of hot peppers here did not help.  Also? Kind of loving showing off my big belly with sequins all over.

 Getting Valentine's cards ready for Avinash's class.  I decided to play it safe and we are giving out bubbles instead of candy. 

Celebrating my mom's birthday.  The kids are a little excited about the ice cream.

So grateful for all of your prayers and well wishes!!! 

Project Life | New Year

 This week | We celebrated the New Year and my parents went back home to PA.  We bought a new car in anticipation of having three car seats in the back at once very soon.  We also just hung out at home and wen to a few outings like yoga and the museum.  A pretty chill week.  Most of these photos all of the photos were taken with my iPhone.  I edited most of them with the VSCOcam app.  I love that thing.  Instagram is too dark for me, I just love the richness this app seems to give my photos.  I also used my iPhone to photograph my spread this week.  A little grainier than usual, but I think it looks similar once I resize it for the web and all.  What do you think? Can you notice a difference?

 First Side | Using lots of the my Studio Calico kit cards here. Lots of white space.  Extra large white borders around my photos because I didn't crop them to 4x6 beforehand and just used the shrink to fit setting on my printer.  Lovely white border and a little breathing space on the layout.  The big XO is some fun new word art from Kal Barteski and Amy Tan.  I have too many regular thickers anyway so this was a fun product to play with. 

This card from SC controversially said '2013' on one side.  I covered it up with a little wood veneer heart.  No way am I going to back to 2013 now.  lol.   Minimal stamping on these pages.  Tried to keep it simple with black ink too.

I used a post it from the new Basic Grey sticky pad.  Love them for journaling spots and their ease of use.

Second side |  More Studio Calico cards, mostly the Copper Mountain kit.  I tried to get creative by cutting the love this card in half and putting my photo in the middle.  Something different anyway I suppose.

I really adore the alpha rubons in the kit.  They are bold and fun.  The shipping tag is just from the office supply section, stapled on for good measure.  

 I tried to get a little extra creative here as well.  First I stitched along the stripes of this card, then cut them apart and glued them back on another neutral journaling card.  The cut file is from Shanna Noel.  I thought the colorful background would let the white stand out.  Love the texture it adds to my spread and making one 'fancy' card really wasn't all that hard for the week.


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 multi-pack page protectors.  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 too!  Thanks to everyone who linked up last week!