Peaches, peaches.

 Found some Texas peaches at Central Market this week. 

So pretty.  I almost hesitate to cut them up and make cobbler.

Except I never hesitate to make cobbler.  Tonight we are watching opera in the park, so making it in muffin tins for better picnic portability.
 
And, in a strange turn of events I'm actually cooking dinner as well.  Having a huge bunch of wild ramps doesn't hurt either.

I remember trying wild ramps from the union square farmer's market like ten years ago and loving them.  Every spring I would impatiently anticipate their delicious arrival.  Never found them in Houston.  Until now.  You can imagine how excited I was to finally get some again.  Hence all the picture taking.

Browning the white bits in butter to toss in quinoa pasta with the green tops. 

What is a boy supposed to do while Mom is doing all this cooking.  Glitter, stamps and some leftover tags on the kitchen table did the trick.  The ABC tag is my hands down favorite. Now I just need to vacuum glitter off, like, the whole house.

Project Life - May Day

Took a little trip to the zoo with the kids. I know that Nandini likes birds, but I had never taken her to the bird house there. She was in heaven. Laughing when a bird flew into the hallway, trying to follow all of the action. I made this card beforehand by wrapping some airmail washi around a blank journaling card. The camera stamp is one of my new Studio Calico sets.  Of course this was the perfect place to use those wood veneer birds too!

I loved including a week in review library card (from this Amy Tangerine set). I used my new Studio Calico stamps again for the days of the week, but ended up coloring over them with Sharpies because I did not stamp very crisp edges on my own. 

{page one.} This spread is no where near chronological. I wrote about Avinash's backwards shirt from Sunday night, but the photo is actually from the next week.  I have been having fun making lots of polaroid frames with my silhouette.  Avinash is 'putting his identity on the page' just like Sokka from Avatar.  I also love those pictures of them looking crazy on the bed.  Not much to say, just two wild babies getting restless. The chevron card is from my latest Studio Calico kit.  I love those white foam Amy Tangerine thickers so much.  You can ink them too to change the colors.  A great font and very versatile.  Plus, this pack does not skimp on Es.  That is crucial.

{page two} I used a Design B page protector for the first time.   It is always fun to switch things up.  I included the super grainy May Day Brunch pictures.  Avinash charmed all the young alumna and spent the whole time chatting with them.  I love his outgoing nature.  Nandini and I spent most of the time eating.  I trimmed two 4x4 instagrams and split them up in the horizontal pockets.  Love the way it turned out.  The center pocket is them in a bouncy house.  I created that circle die cut in my silhouette software (remember Granny's Cupboard? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about).  I included a Beyond Grey card because I also found out that I was accepted onto their design team this week!  Glittery silver thickers and slate chipboard thickers. I suppose I should journal on that card a bit. 

Linked up with The Mom Creative 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!

Cream of the #TwitterCrop

This weekend was so so much fun.  Started out with a #twittercrop on Friday night.  Love that this silly idea of mine and Smitha Katti's is becoming a regular thing.  Just a little extra encouragement and fun when you are home crafting by yourself to chat with friends from all around. 

We also went out to visit some friends in Sugarland with  a baby on the way very shortly.  Avinash could not handle the idea of personal space when it came to touching the baby in her stomach and lifted her shirt up repeatedly.  [Insert cringe here.]  I think he also told her it wasn't a baby, just a ball in her stomach.  Nice.

I did a little crafting when I got home but spent most of my time checking out what everyone else was posting. Here is a smattering of pictures from the night.

I love this grid created by @soapHouseMama, patterned paper, washi, herringbone, chevron and grey with yellow.  What's not to love? Check out more of her work here.

Jennifer, @liveteachcreate, created this one (of many).  She started an inspired by Shimelle challenge using a homemade kit.  Making a grid like this really stretches out a few pieces of paper.  I think it is a great challenge, maybe next time...  Check out more on her site and her 2peas gallery.  

 I continued plugging away at my project life spread from last week.  I had the hardest time getting a good Super Moon picture but I included it anyway. 

This weekend also made a card for my first Beyond Grey Challenge, which will be going up soon, and a quick Mother's Day Card.  Cameo, mists and washi.  All that is left is for me to put it in the mail for my Mom....I know she'll understand if it is a little late ;)


I will leave you with a few other twittercrop projects that I spotted:
Cute birthday card from @L7designs
Project Life pages from @tltorrez
35mm projects from Smitha Katti

Follow me on twitter, play along next time we have a #twittercrop and I would love to feature your project here! 

iNSD

Last weekend was National Scrapbooking Day and there was no shortage of challenges to enter.  After a bit of initial inspiration overload (and Ryan returning home later in the week) I got to crafting.  The day is referred to as NSD by everyone, but I think we need to start calling it iNSD because there are plenty of crafters around the world who love and share their scrapbooking online too.  Just an idea.

I am still getting the hang of my new silhouette cameo, so I tried to use it a lot on my layouts.

{READ.}
This layout has been rattiling around in my head for a while.  I had the pictures and a variety of different school themed papers sitting in a big pile for a while.   I wanted to include some lines from the book and was originally planning on lots of little thickers, but it is hard to find enough vowels!  After I got my cameo everything sort of fell into place. The font I used here is Allegro.  I like it because the insides of the letters are connected to the edge so that the center of the letter is not lost when you use it in reverse.  Know what I mean? 

I was heavily inspired by this, not an NSD layout, just something that I pinned a while ago from Waleska's blog:

Source: waleskaland.blogspot.com via Nirupama on Pinterest

She used AC Chap collection on her layout and I used Crate Paper Story Teller.  I think it is interesting how these 'boy' lines stay popular for a longer time than girly lines which seem to have a much higher turnover rate.  The colors are definitely very versatile - boy themes, book themes and travel all seem to work well with it.

I found these free cameo files online for this one.  I probably didn't need two titles on one layout.  I wanted to make a sweet and simple layout for her birthday, but it didn't quite turn out right.  I thought the circle garland would look so cool with brads and butttons stuck on it, but it didn't turn out that way.  And the patterned paper flags are just too big I think.  I wanted drama, but the proportion is wrong I think.  Oh well, just one of those to put in the album and move on from.

 {Holi Hai}
I made this layout for the Studio Calico go graphic challenge.  I originally planned on doing all white on white so the colorful Holi pictures would really pop.  I ended up having trouble finding a full sheet of white cardstock so used this pretty pale pink striped patterned paper for the background as well.  It took me forever to create the bubble cutout file on the cameo.  I used that chipboard piece from Granny's Cupboard as my inspiration.  You know the one.  The one you can't get anywhere because the company went out of business shortly thereafter (I think...I remember searching for it at the time).  Suffice to say I could not find a similar silhouette file so I spent longer than I care to admit welding little circles together.  I cut out a few and tucked them here and there.  The leftovers became the confetti.  It also took me forever to figure out how I wanted the buttons layterd, but it turned out well I think for all the effort.  I liked the clean look and didn't want to spoil it with harsh black so I journaled on a filter paper circle in grey instead.

We had another #twittercrop last night, and would love to show off the projects everyone made here if that is alright.  Let me know!

Burnt out.

I cried in the middle of the art museum today.  I think it's safe to say that I'm still feeling burnt out from my week alone with the kids.  The kids were actually behaving really nicely, but this security guard told us we had to leave because we might be blocking others people's way.  There was no one else around.  The tears may have been a bit much and I feel awful for losing my cool in front of my kids, but I have never taken being admonished well.  Luckily the supervisor then walked by and assured us we could walk throught the light tunnel as many times as we wanted.  Avinash was so happy that the second police man rescued us from the first, sweet boy. 

Took these pictures in the living room yesterday with Nandini.  And I may or may not have admonished her several times for trying to grab the camera.  Oops.  Linking up with embrace the camera.

Week in the Life

This week I am sharing my week in the life album.  I thought about going back and putting memorabilia and extra photos in my project life album, but time decided for me so I just went with what I have.  I did my regular format 12x12 pages, but kept it simple.  I misted different neutral cardstocks for one side and used different patterned papers on the facing page.  I alternated small polaroids with one enlargement + journaling.  I used a few circle embellishments with washi tape throughout as well.


{Monday}

 {Tuesday}

{Wednesday}

{Thursday}
Apparently I forgot to take a picture of first page.

{Friday}

{Saturday}

 

{Sunday}

{& extras}

I have a quotes page and an outfit of the day for Avinash and Nandini planned as well to fill out my twenty page album as well.  This was a really fun project but it did take a lot of energy.  I tried to take my dSLR almost everywhere we went.  I jotted down notes on my phone and on a post it pad at home as often as I could.  I also blogged about it almost every day last week and tried to work on my pages every day as well.  That way I could do just a little bit each day and had very little to finish at the end of the week. Except for the fact that I'm waaaaay behind on my journaling. I'm way behind on my taxes too. (Get it? Tell me you know this movie too so I'm not alone.)

Linked up with The Mom Creative 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!

BEYOND Thrilled.

I had another pretty crazy day by myself with the babies.  I was pretty excited about all the online crops for NSD going on today and wanted to participate if I got time (hahahaaha). 

I just got a new silhouette Cameo and was eager to use it on some projects.  Thinking about silhouette designs even kept me up the night after I got it.  I am still figuring things out, but I made these polaroid cards yesterday.

Yes, I do most of my scrapping in the middle of the living room.  I need room to spread out.  Plus, it is kind of thrilling to speed clean it up as soon as nap is over.

This is what happens if I don't:

I took the kids to Tiny Boxwoods for brunch today.  I think we were all starving.  I was trying really hard to hold on to both of them and to hold our place in line.  The people behind me did not disappoint and immediately cut in front of me when I stepped one step to the side to get one of them before running off.  Then, the guy said to me, 'Oh I thought you were with them.' and pointed to the only other Asian people in the line.  Whaaaa???  Yeah, I'm with them.  Why wouldn't I be?  Then, after Avinash set our table number down on the last free table inside, his group swarmed the table and one of them came over and asked me "Do you really need your table? I didn't even see your number on it."  Oh no, why would I need a table...me and my children just eat off the floor.  How do you know it is my table if you don't see a number on it.  Argh. 
Of course I could think of nothing to say at the time and just stammered and stared.  This has been bugging me all day.  Don't even get me started on the random lady who brought over dirty dishes to our table while we were still sitting and eating. 

The day alternated good and bad after that.  Just Avinash being three and me being the mom who has lost all patience when she has no good excuse for it. 

When I was laying down with Avinash while he fought sleep I couldn't stop thinking about brunch.  I prayed that I could take my mind off it. 

God is good.

After he fell asleep I quick checked my email, and learned that I am the newest Design Team at Beyond Grey.  I am really honored and excited for my first assignment.

And, I did actually get some scrapping done today but haven't posted anything anywhere yet. 

I feel awful about this picture because it is so grainy.  I took it just as the light was leaving and was also battling Avinash to keep the overhead living room lights turned off at the same time.  It was like, flick the switch, run to sunny spot, cliii [Avinash turns the lights back on] iiick.  And repeat.

This is a kitchen sink layout for me.  Twine twirling, punches, overlays, patterned paper, chevrons, amatuer paper piecing,

watercoloring with mists,

and a silhouette reverse cut title propped up with pop dots.



We also went to the Cinco de Mayo party at Bodega's near by.  They had a ball in the bouncy house.  They even hugged without crying.

Nandini made friends with a seven year old girl who tried everything to get her to laugh.  (No laugh but lots of stunned adoration.)  Then, Avinash and I fought all the way home about how I didn't put his shoes on fast enough.  Or something like that. 

Also I lost five pounds in sweat, and am about to gain it all back in leftover cookies.  How was your NSD?

No Sleep

I just got this as an early mother's day/late birthday present:

I realized I don't have any purple washi tape.  This is another reason I need a scrapbooking assistant.

I can't stop thinking about all the titles I want to attach to little polaroid frames. I made two layouts yesterday but not sure if they are any good..

I can't find the font budmo jig anywhere since Picnik went away. Did I invent it??

Is there a better way for me to access only the cool fonts I love instead of scrolling through 99% of the junk fonts?

And that is the story of how I got next to no sleep last night.  I even got up at one point, designed a silhouette file and then went back to bed.   It didn't help.

Project Life - Birthday Week

This is my project life from last week (all of my posts are a week behind).  I am still working on my week in the life album and am really glad that I started on it early.

{page one} I took lots of pictures on my actual birthday and scattered them throughout. Every room of our house is full of toys.  I used teal airmail washi, teal letters inside a wooden starburst.
We took this photo of the us on our night out.  Love these wooden cameras, misted in yellow. I snapped a picture of that ladybug on our way home from school.  I put it on one of my Art Journaling cards, blue embossed with silver glitter, and added black letters - love this font, it is the perfect size for those looong titles that I love.
We had leftover cake with the babies the day after my friends outing.  I love this top 10 smash journaling pad.  Maybe I should journal more lists.

The trip to Ikea was a definite highlight of the week.  We all had a great time there and we didn't even leave Avinash in the toddler jail playroom. Maybe next time.  Especially since I get free coffee there for joining Ikea Family.  The store map has the best little dotted lines and arrows, so I added some wooden arrows too.  Avi and I fought over the ikea measuring tape and he won.
A playing / almost fighting picture from the bath -  I just stapled one a elle's studio journaling spot. 

The orange and yellow card is cut from a gap flyer.  I pretty much never go there since everyone's closet is stuffed to the brim but I still get plenty of junkmail from them.  All I needed to add were red letters and brown stickers.

{page two}
I used Design F again and cut up two 8x10s down to 8x6.  I slipped in a few squares of the new Basic Grey In flight paper.  The black letters again, striped pink washi, ormolu flair (my favorite set by far), a Crate button (one down, five million to go) and Amy Tangerine stamps.  I like all the soft colors together, with just a little extra pop from the red heart.  It is a little weird that my lip is cut in half, but I like the overall look.

Happy that I am still getting good use of my own cards, martha labels, and washi tape.  I also really like adding titles to my cards here and there.  Thickers already have so muhc color and dimension that they take the guess work out of embellishing for me. I like doing two page spreads instead of inserts, most of the inserts I started are still sitting half done in my binder.  Let's see how I do next week since I am a little burnt out from picture taking right now.

Linked up with The Mom Creative 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!