MORE TODDLER CRAFTS (SECRET MESSAGE VALENTINE'S HEARTS)

Avinash loves making cards for everyone we know and is very into holidays so we have been very busy this week.  Love that Valentine's day is all about toddler crafts now, and no longer about awkward bad dates.

I have a huge amount of scrapbooking paper lying around and decided to put it to good use.  I decided to pull out a big paper pack of Amy Tangerine papers from Michaels.  All the fun papers at half the price, and conveniently one sided.  Plus there are like three of each design so I have no excuse to hoard the stuff!

I don't care for wonky hearts, so I folded the paper into the middle twice, then traced around half a heart outline (with a little help!), and cut it out.  Voila! Perfectly symmetrical hearts.  Write on the plain side in white crayon whatever message you want. 

 

 Then just let them go crazy with watercolors.  The message appears like magic.  Avi loved that part. Nandini very excitedly pointed out E! and O! at random letters then smugded everything with an eraser. 

 

And, just for fun I made a few more for a garland.  I can't resist making a garland and would probably make a lot more but I have no where left to hang them.  I cut out a few more and drew on the patterned side, then painted over in red. 

 
I picked out a few ribbons from my huge stash and pinned the hearts on with some fun glitter clothespins (not hand made, but from Crate Paper). 

After they de-coded there own Valentine's messages I let Avinash make some for his friends.  He even picked out the paper, and after very careful deliberation settled on the camera paper and the flower paper.  He was not impressed by chevron.  I helped him spell out people's names and he carefully wrote them down in white crayon.  Nandini was busy scribbling on hers and tearing the paper off her crayon.  She was so excited to help.  Avinash could barely stop himself from painting all over the cards for his friends, so I let him color the patterned side.  All of which look decidedly brownish-gray now.  True toddler art for sure!

linked up with Craftionary!

Project Life: MWAH!!

This week: My brother came to visit for the weekend.  I took a fun series of photos of him with the kids.  It is hard to get great photos of them together, so I was happy to get these.  Avi and I also spent most of the week by ourselves since Ryan and Nandini were away.  I already documented a lot for Day in the Life, but didn't mind a few repeats.  These spreads start with the weekend and then finish up around Friday, but I included a photo from brunch the next week since I love splitting instagrams between the vertical pockets.

Page One: I added some text to the top photo.  Nandini will give me the funniest cheee faces or start blowing kisses when she sees the camera.  Love it.  I journaled right on top of the photo of Nandini playing in her doll house. 

Adding a Martha label is an easy way to include more journaling.  The sticker looked a little crooked to me, so I added a strip of green washi and silver numbers to distract.

 I used last month's Studio Calico stamps on this 'Black Sheep' card.  It is Avi's favorite new game, I love it because it reminds me of Agricola.  I added a wooden speech bubble and the game name in black letters.

Page Two: I decided to try another vertical page because I just love that photo of them in the middle.  Ryan took it after we picked them up at the airport.  They were just so excited to play together again. 
I trimmed a Seafoam card so I could slip a zoo photo underneath and used another one to hold some extra journaling.  Love that grey chevron, graphic yet subtle at the same time.
I also added a card to talk about Avi & Ryan reading their first LONG BOOK together.  Used my I love books stamp set.  I remember really regretting buying it, but I have loved using it for Project Life.  I found an old OA sticker that fit perfectly (that is why I hoard stuff, ok?) and added a wooden arrow to add a third circle. 

Avi started dance again.  I flipped a clementine journaling card over and adhered on the photo.  I cut out the phrase from a SC printable.  People have been giving me the strangest looks when I mention that Avi is in dance class.  HE IS FOUR< WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL???  Anyway, that's why I put the phrase there.  I mean look at his feet, he obviously loves it!

I was dying to use my new Mama Elephant stamps and knew this was the perfect picture for it. I tried embossing directly on the photo but it didn't work.  I ended up stamping on vellum and just stapling that down.  A little different but still works. 

I used a little Echo park paper, grey enamel dots, wooden hashtag and stamped letters below this picture.  I was going to title it #OOTD, but I keep laughing at this line from Parks&Rec in my head (Four green lights in a row, hashtag blessed!), so I decided to use that instead.  I'm sure that no one will get the reference down the line, but the blessed part will always ring true. 

Tips: And probably the best technique ever for Project Life.  Cutting a picture of yourself in half at the legs to make yourself look taller. Yeah, I was pretty happy when I realized that.  I almost cut it in half across the middle of my body, would not have been a good look for me.  I've made that mistake in the past and once ended up with my forehead in three different pockets, eeesh.  This trick more than makes up for that. You're welcome. 
I also included two 'framed' pictures this week.  One of Nandini through the door of her dollhouse and one of Avinash through the keyhole of his dance studio door.  I really like the effect and need to remember to try this more often as well.

 Let me know if you have any questions. Linked up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday. The PL kits I am using are the Seafoam kit and Clementine kit, with multi-pack page protectors, and grid journaling cards. 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. Also, please include a link to your projects below so we can check them out too!

Pi Day and other projects

I made these two pages for One Story Down while Nandini was away last week.  I guess I really missed her!

The first page uses the Two More Days Nerdy kit.  I decided to cut out the first hundred digits of Pi with the silhouette and put the patterened paper behind it.  She was born on Pi day, so it seemed the perfect collection to use for her.

This page is using some new Peeps&Milo papers.  It is already a new favorite.  I misted the circles on the side and used my craft knife to cut out the circles in the middle.  I did a little stitching as well for texture. 
It is just a random page about missing my baby girl, and how she maybe misses me too.  Though she did get thoroughly spoiled by her Nana and Nani, and I couldn't be happier about it.

I need to start getting ready for her birthday party now.  We will probably play Holi again, but I need to work in the pi (pie) theme somehow. 

Project Life: kite festival

This spread came together surprisingly quickly.  I went to a crop and actually managed to finish the whole thing there (that is a first for me!).   I used a lot of Paislee Press and Seafoam project life cards this week. 

 This week: We had friends over for brunch and a play date. We went to the museum and the zoo after school.  And we went to a huge kit flying festival outside of Houston.  It was amazing and can't wait for the next one in March.  At first glance it looks like these few things dominate the spread, but I also snuck in some random pics around the house of playing the guitar, flowers on my desk and snuggling in the morning.

 Page one: This side is all kites and zoo pictures.  I put a bit of aqua glitter tape under the wood speech bubble.  The paper is from the Echo Park photo freedom line.  I like the colors and having more 4x6 options, but the patterns are on such a large scale they are hard to work into a spread.
I cut around the label in a seafoam card to slip the picture underneath.  I just used some JBS black stickers to say where we are.  I wrote directly over the cow picture to talk about how scary Nandini though it was.  

I took a picture of a checklist Avinash wrote and shrunk it down to fit in a 3x4 pocket.  I traced over the letters with my MS glue pen and added red glitter.  Love how it turned out! 

 I trimmed a painting Nandini made for one pocket.  She calls colors 'daddles' so I had to include that (in gold glitter no less). I added an OA label sticker and wooden SC star. 

Adding text to photos is so addictive.  This font is peach sundress (also free!).

 Page Two: I fussy cut around another journaling card to slip in the picture of Avi with the eagle.  He is so interested in it, I find it so endearing.  Added the title with wood veneers alphas.  I had printed out a sheet of wallet sized photos just to make my life easier.  I glued one down here on a seafoam black striped card.  Really loving how black and white look in the spreads.  The journaling card next to it is paislee press, with a heart this stamp, a little washi and freckled fawn wood arrow.

Love these little BG flag pins.  Love even more that I found a place to use them.  I think I would have hoarded that rainbow one for a long time..  It was so amazing to see the sky filled up with so many clouds, the picture just doesn't do it justice.  Filling in this seafoam card was fun.  I borrowed a friend's PL stamp and wrote in the rest.  The flag is glued on top of the page protector.  

 Let me know if you have any questions. Linked up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday. The PL kits I am using are the Seafoam kit and Clementine kit, with multi-pack page protectors, and grid journaling cards. 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. Also, please include a link to your projects below so we can check them out too!

One Day Mini Album

So, I decided to start a year-long mini album to play along with Day in the Life. 

 I finished up this month's entry in one naptime (that is an official unit of time, right?), including all the journaling. It is three pages with two flip open pages. 

I highlighted one photo and printed the rest as 2 in squares on 3 separate 4x6 papers.  I used a single piece of cardstock for all the pages.   I added a strip of glitter ribbon to the photos and a chevron sticker to the journaling (from my anthro stash). 

I just used washi to attach the photos together at the edge that sticks out of the page protector.

 

 Nothing too elaborate here since I filled the whole page up with journaling.  I took my leftover 6x12 piece of cardstock, creased it in the middle and did a little hand stitching around it.  I put a little ribbon tab on it to remind me to open it later!

I hope to keep this up every month.  I love to play with mini albums and think this will be a fun project, plus a little different from PL since it is more about the observations than the technique as such.  I think it will be fun to put together a mini album one piece of cardstock and one day at a time.

 



 

DayInTheLife: January 2013

I love the scrapbook ideas that Ali Edwards has.  They are always too fun not to play along with.  Very excited to see the plans for a monthly 'day in the life' this year.  She is including them as Project Life inserts, but I have a thing against inserts so I decided to make another mini album instead.  I think it will be really fun to flip through and see the seasons at a glance and hopefully I can store some memorabilia there as well.

I got off to a late start with my pictures (forgot to charge my camera battery the night before) but I got a healthy number.  It is mostly just Avinash since Nandini and Ryan didn't get home until almost 11. I found a good one from the plane on Ryan's phone in the middle there.

I did some documenting before going to carpool, but the rest of the day was so hectic there really was no time.  Going to try and get it all in the album tomorrow though.  I did give my album a go at naptime.

 Really all I got done was the die cut before it was time to get ready for dance class. I like it, kinda reminds me of those prints you see on pinterest.  Couldn't resist a little hambly love in front too.  Somehow a mini album always needs some Hambly it seems.

Hope to print out the collage and finish this off later today. Would love to see what anyone else is working on for this too!


  

On Trend: A layout and free font guide

I recently bought the Trend by Latinotype set of fonts and have been having way too much fun playing with them. Mostly just adding text to photos.

Clearly it is a very edgy font. I mean, look at this promo graphic. I, on the other hand, used it to write Nandini+Bear on a layout.   Ha.

I used a couple of JBS die cut patterns to cut apart some Crate Trend papers.  I really liked the black and white paper and the sort of funky chevron (multicolored herringbone? whatever).  I even let a bit of the Navajo pattern on the back show through, even though it is not really my style. I was actually turned off by the whole collection at first because I am so not into animal print.  Turns out, no big deal.

I dabbed fountain pen paint on top of the paper layers before putting on the photo. I lined everything up down the middle. A little bit different for me, since I tend to scatter things all over the place. 
The journaling card is cut from this graphic paper. Love it for project life too. I added a little washi to the top and bottom to ground it. I'm actually amazed that I mixed this many patterns at once, it really was a lot of fun.

For an extra little touch I used a MS glue pen to add glitter along the chevron pattern. I also used the punctuation from gold glitter thickers next to the happy chipboard and stuck some loose gold thread underneath. What now rule of threes?

If you love this font too, but hate to pay for it (I hate paying for fonts too, this was a major first) here are a few free Trend font alternatives:

Kraft Nine//Neo Retro Draw//White Bold//Neo Retro Shadow//Eclipse//Bergamot Ornaments

Speaking of great free fonts, does anyone know of a free shadow marquee font? Do tell.

I am linked up with Ashli for this month's Layout linky-love, always fun to play along and see her long list of gorgeous layouts.

In progress

 This week has been so hectic, I think I need to just stop and take a breath.  I can't believe it is only Wednesday.  Nandini is spending the week with my parents, so Avinash and I get a lot of quality time. And, I get a ton of extra time to work on projects and run errands. 
 Yesterday alone, I put together some Etsy orders, dropped Avi off at school, went to visit a friend, went to the post office, had uninterrupted phone calls, got Avi some ring pops, picked him up, did three layouts, made dinner, did laundry. Oh yes, and the tapestries and the draperies...  
Nevermind, that was Cinderella not me. 
I think he is starting to really miss his sister too.We have also been playing lots of games and reading books, but he talked to her lovey Bear for about an hour this afternoon after we got home from the zoo.

Here is some stuff I have in progress right now.

1.Working on a bunch of hybrid layouts for One Story Down.  Just too many fun goodies to choose from this week so I went a little overboard.

 

2. Making a mini book with Avinash. We painted a mini book from the Target Dollar spot with some leftover chalkboard paint. He has a lot of plans for the book, chalk, paint, stamp, pictures, using my glue runner all over the place.  And glitter. Lots of glitter.  I am so beyond excited to work on this with him.  Best idea ever.

3. Loving the stuff at the One King's Lane day of furniture event.  These wall hangings would be gorgeous for Nandini's room (if she ever gets one of her own), but I mostly have my eye on the storage furniture pieces.  I really want to get a sideboard, preferably in distressed turquoise to match my raskog, to fill up with albums.

4. Ali Edwards' Day in the Life is coming up tomorrow.  I think I'm going to play along.  Instead of doing PL inserts (inserts aren't really my thing), I think I may make a mini book and add pages every month.  Really excited about this idea. Anyone else playing along too?