Project Life Goodies

I have some new project life goodies to share.  I found out about the new line from Martha Stewart at Staples and basically rushed over and bought everything she had.  My order arrived in the mail the other day and I had almost an hour to play with it yesterday during a very abbreviated nap time thanks to two sick babies.  Thankfully this stuff made catching up with some old pictures easy to do.

I wanted to share because I really loved the stuff.  It is relatively affordable, high quality, versatile and perfect for Project Life!!  I added the new sheet protectors right into my album and stuffed some of the tags and stickers inside the first two for easy access.  They are about 4x5.5 so I can add my vertical photos in with a slight trim (I am using PL style A otherwise and it doesn't have vertical photo slots.)

I also used one sheet for pictures today.  After sorting some new prints I only had time for one sheet (front and back, but the front picture was too blurry to share..).  Some of the stuff is from my stash, like the backing from a set of Jenni Bowlin alphas, the Amy Tangerine die cut.  I also used my new Jenni Bowlin punch to make the little sticker with one of the martha note pad papers. 

Ok, here is the back, even if it is blurry.  Does anyone have good tips for photographing these page protectors?  I used more Martha stickers, a few strips of glittery patterned paper,u and one little strip of a doily left over from a Studio Calico almost a year old.  Hmm..at least this helping me get over my hoarding tendencies.

I was totally inspired by a friend and fellow scrapbooking mom to make something with Avinash using my new punches too.  She made some gorgeous tags that way.  We only made stickers for our shirts by punching the sticky note pad paper, but we had fun.

The rest of the stuff put away in my album.  Those little flags will be perfect for adding the date as I usually do that as an afterthought.  The tags all come with baker's twine around them and are perfect for little journaling spots. 

I also really, really love the quality of the these red label stickers. They are thick and finely textured.  She also has kraft stickers and chalkboard stickers.  I think I'm supposed to use this stuff to organize my home and pantry but we all know that isn't happening any time soon.  I found it to be a great value too because you get a lot with each set (they are $3 to $4 each).  These red ones are 48/pack and the multicolored ones are 120/pack.  They should definitely last me a long time.

Click here first for 4% cash back and free shipping (no minimum).


A sale at TwoPeas can't hurt either. They have lots of great brands upto 75% off, check it out.  I love to buy basics like adhesive, cardstock and albums when the sale comes up.

Check out this week's free printable: boys and girls journaling cards. And get free shipping with the code NY2012 on $50 or more of product.



And, just so I don't get too far behind, some happenings of the week so far.
Sunday: Tiny Boxwoods brunch. Avi dipping his fries in butter while we all eat nothing but pastries.
Ryan and I watch Hum Tum, the bollywood remake of When Harry Met Sally.  So happy that Ryan enjoyed it.  A couples moment of dancing together during a song turns into a family moment very very quickly, ha.
Avi and I walk along the train tracks in the park on our evening walk.  We had decided to see if we could hear lions so we were all walking towards the zoo.  We discover a trojan bear on the way.  Avi can't climb to the top on the way to the zoo, but can do it on the way back.  Nandini is delighted to play peek a boo on the other side.  We don't hear any animals at the zoo but we come upon some bunnies and scare them away and have a great adventure anyway.
Monday: Pondicheri brunch.  Aloo subji and parantha that rivals Bina Mamiji's in Kavi Nagar.  Unlike India, we have to sit at the table with our own kids instead of just letting them run around on the floor by themselves, this puts a slight damper on things.  At least the coffee is amazing too.
The cookie {play}date.  Cuteness, frosting, chasing, crying and kissing ensues.  This time we do just let Nandini fend for herself on the floor while helping the kids bake.
All 8 of us have dinner together outside on the patio (in January, jealous?).  We have pizza and Cupcake Red Velvet, it is so lovely.
Avinash is spinning around like a top after they leave and is running laps all over the place on our evening walk.
Tuesday:  Family breakfast, eggs on garlic ciabbatta.  Children's museum where I show Avi the leeches and tell him how I scared Ryan with them when I did a science project with them in school. 
"You scared Bappi? That not nice"
and two seconds later....
"Can I go there mommy? Please?"
That was like ten years ago.
"YEAH YEAH! I see you ten years old! PLEASE!"
Noodles with tofu and cotija cheese for lunch.
Pancakes for dinner.
On our walk, I put the blanket around Nandini and she grabs with her two tiny little hands and starts lifting it over her head to play peekaboo with us!  The cuteness is almost unbearable.  Avi suddenly remembers that he LOVES peekaboo and jumps in the stroller to play too.  But not with her, he wants us to laugh at him too...ha.
Wednesday: Avi is back to school. After I pick him up the three of us go to the park to feed the ducks, read books and have a little picnic. Both kids fall asleep in the stroller on the way home but won't stay asleep, argh! The rest of the day is lazy since all have the sniffles. Getting frustrated because I know think it might have to do with the dampness still in our walls. The owners of our apartment are willing to get it fixed but expect us to arrange it all, not fun.


{Some affiliate links used, the Martha stuff I just liked.}

And, who could forget Martha's scrapbooking on Arrested Development:

{I can't believe it took me this long to remember this.}

DO NOT READ THIS POST.

Especially if you have weight related resolutions still going on.

I will not be held responsible for any pounds gained from this recipe, hehe.

I saw this awesome recipe on her foodTV show and I was hooked.  It looked so simple to make, plus I found blackberries being sold by the quart at the grocer store that week.  I think it was a sign.  I love pie (and all dessert), but I really love cobbler.  Especially with a crunchy sweet crumb topping.  But crumb topping is a huge pain to make and doesn't always turn out. 

This recipe is easy, simple and turns out well every time.  I have made this at least a dozen times over the past few months and came up with my own recipe.  Mainly because I don't have self-rising flour and apparently can't ever buy it either.  I also like mine with less sugar and much more fruit.

Also, please be amazed that I took some pictures of my food before devouring eating it daintily and in a lady-like manner.

Our favorite cobbler.
1. Measure 1 cup flour (+1.333333 tsps baking powder and salt), 1 cup sugar (save 1/4 cup sugar for later) and 1 cup milk. Melt 1 stick butter. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash 4 cups or 1 quart fruit (no need to dry). 
3. Find a cute boy to butter the baking dish.  Actually, I'm surprised he didn't take a bite out of the butter after that...
4. Mix dry and then wet ingredients together.  Again, little helpers can assist.
5. Pour batter into 8inch round pie dish.
6. Put fruit on top.
7. Sprinkle reserved 1/4 cup sugar and a healthy grating of nutmeg over top. A little extra salt can't hurt here either.
8. Bake for one hour at 350.

Notes:
I have, out of concern for my readers, added double baking powder to see what happens.  The entire crust rises over the berries and is still very enjoyable.  You could of course skip the baking powder and just use 1 cup self-rising flour.  I also really enjoy adding double salt.
I usually use blackberries but also enjoyed blueberries, apple and pear.  This one used mostly blackberries and a few pieces of unpeeled apple, since Avi wanted apple pie.
In numbers this recipe is 11111.333331.33333483501. 
Or, if you want to remember it more easily 111111111.
1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 stick of butter, 1 cup flour, 1 pinch baking powder, 1 pinch salt, 1 quart fruit, 1 pie tin, 1 hour at 350.

My little helper all dressed for baking in his favorite milk and cookies pajamas.

This little stinker has a surprisingly looooong reach when it comes to cobbler.  (And how let her make a mess all over the coffee table? Shameless stuff.)

I can safely say that my whole family likes this, even Ryan who prefers straight hot fudge usually.  I like to think it's a pretty healthy dessert since it has milk and so much fruit, but it's addictive so don't say I didn't warn you.

Make her happy.

*For Stephanie's weekly SC challenge, monochromatic*

This is the final picture I took of our trip to Disney in September.  Nandini was tired and cranky after another long day.  I love how tenderly and intently Avinash is singing to her.  It makes me so happy when he is sweet to her (especially since his jealousy has been flaring up a lot recently).  He sings her ABCs or My Little Pony and of course requests that I sing the Lakshmi ki aarti or Ek ladki ko dekha from 1942 a Love Story. 

He knows most of the words to both these songs and sings a long with me.  He even asked me to sing to another little cranky girl on the Disney shuttle bus one night.

I used a lot of old Sassafrass stuff on this layout and hand cut that heart.  The die cut paper and stamp (in Apricot zing embossing powder) are both Studio Calico.  I couldn't resist one pop of contrasting color with the ribbon, hope that's okay! 

project life - week one

I guess I totally skipped New Years and all that. There are a bunch of things from this week not included, like a trip to the Zoo and a couple of dinner with friends.   But, I'm not one for a lot of eating out pictures and different stuff will work it's way in eventually! 

I used one page protector and two sheets of cardstock for this week.  I really liked Nicole's one page per week idea (fellow brain enthusiasist and scrapbooker), check out her week one here.  I had some issues printing out photos.  I wanted to get it done while everything felt fresh. I tried our photo printer at home and got these pictures.  This one was a test sheet on copy paper.  And? I loved it.  It just looks so unique to me, I had to include it.  I didn't even put it in a 12x12 page protector, just punched holes in the cardstock.  I wanted to keep it super simple and debated about adding anything else at all, but I really love the way the title turned out.  Lots of different thickers and one spare grocery store doily.  I am not going to include any journaling or dates so far.  These are the highlights essentially from husband's iPhone in 2011.

This is another attempt at home printing.  The ink just would not dry on the glossy paper (which I hate anyway, but it's all I have at home).  Ryan thought it looked cool so I added this sheet too.  I knew if I put it in plastic the ink would just smudge all over that so I have a piece of blank cardstock facing this.  I just wet the crayon from this story, slid the wrapper off and stapled that to the photo.  I love the look of layering with die cuts so I couldn't resist doing it again this week.  I really like both sides even though it's not meant to be double sided. I also embossed a little studio calico moon stamp in lavender behind the die cut.  You can just barely see it peeking through the 'window'.

I included three stories from this week, the purple crayon, Nandini saying 'buh', the flood and a picture of Saturday mornings here.  This drawing is as close to memoribilia as I've gotten with PL, but I like cutting it up and slipping it into adjacent windows.  In addition to a couple of Clementine cards I added some OA label stickers and sticky keys letters, washi tape and more thickers.  I used an office stamp to stamp the dates and kept messing up, but I think that adds to the artistry here, don't you?  I guess I'm still into actual titles versus week 1, jan, etc.  I think they just make a page feel complete to me.  I couldn't fit this one entirely on one card so I just stuck one word on the outside of the pp.  I hope that they don't fall off.

Of course I couldn't leave the plain cardstock alone so I added the rest of the coloring pages tied up with twine and the same smudgy photo from the glossy paper printed on cardstock.  I think it's a great effect.  Ryan's reaction was great, "Oh? It's great to experience it and then see it here right now."  Maybe I'm one step closer to getting him to write some more stories down as well.


Post your links in the comments too, I'd love to see more inspiration :)

Avinash is so cool...

I.....

am printing out so many pictures for project life. I tried plain paper, glossy photo paper and cardstock at home. Then gave up and ordered from Ritz. And ended up forgetting the one picture I really wanted so I printed that one from home later on cardstock. Included all four types of photo in my spread.

finished a whole box of mother's milk tea in less than 3 days.  Nandini's weight gain in slowing down and need to do something about it.  Hoping to avoid formula.  Does anyone have any advice or is it too late for nursing to help?

really miss coffee even though I think it probably causes weight gain (something to do with cyclic AMP, I don't know, I worked it all out in my head and then I forgot).

still feel so thankful I sit behind the wheel that we made home through the flood in one piece.
wonder if this blog will someday embarrass my kids in like twenty years.  Makes me laugh to think that it might.

love these random google searches that have lead people here:
lick Nandini story
avinash is so cool (this one has been searched multiple times, ha!) 

All I can say is, not sure who you are looking for, and if it is yourself the answer is probably no, but this Avinash definitely is so cool.

Baby Bath Time

{Linked up with...Paper Mama, 5 Minutes For Mom,Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia,And Then She Snapped.}

Project Life Tuesday

I am still playing catch up from October, but I love these pictures so much. I could never decided which one to scrap and putting them all together made it much easier. Hopefully next week I will also have time to put a current week up as well.

I did two layouts and and used one side of Photo Protector A style.  I love using the diecut SC paper and letting the other side peak through.  I used a mix of Studio Calico and Amy Tangerine goodies.

I was saving that Amy Tangerine camera sticker for something really special and I think these pictures qualify.  Same thing for those older Lily Bee rubons.  Too bad my handwriting came out so wonky.  Ryan always teases me for my weird grammar on layouts.

 I just used the B-side of the same SC paper and kept it pretty simple.  The wood flags add so much texture.

I used my smash date stamp here.  It is not the most even stamp, but I think that adds to the charm. 

I worked on recording some great stories from this week on Sunday.

Yesterday Avinash and I ended up having another adventure together.  Houston weather went crazy and after one morning of rain there was flooding everywhere.  Of course everything seemed fine in the morning when Ryan dropped him off to school, but by the time we took Nandini to the doctor for her weight check the sky had opened up.  I didn't realize how truly bad it was until I set out to pick him up.  Thankfully Ryan stayed home over lunch and watched Nandini.  The normal highway I take had turned into a river.  There were abandoned cars everywhere.  I spent the next hour praying and calling people to ask for help finding a route to the school.  A little over an hour later I made it there.  His classroom was flooded, but I eventually found him and his class.  He was having a good time especially since every kid got a brownie at school.  He very blithely put on the galoshes I brought for him.

So thankful that we made it home safely.  Avinash even fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for a good nap at home.  We stayed inside after that.  I made cobbler and we watched the cartoon Avatar.  Love that show and so happy Avi does now too.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!

So, I'm not sure if I'm going to get time to scrap yesterday in my project life album as soon as I want.  I want to at least write about it here. 

Yesterday was the perfect project life day.  Totally average but filled with amazing moments.

We ate an early dinner of maggi so we decided to go for a walk in the evening.  Avinash made me get out his purple beep for the walk and his drawing thing.  It me a minute to realize why.  We had been doing the coloring activity book all day so I didn't know if he wanted to continue that.  Then he kept taking about the moon.  We drew a map to the moon together, but it wasn't enough for him.  Need to add lot more stuff! Forest, jungle, trees...  Hmm, glad he knows that those are all different things. 

So, we drew a little bit of Harold and the purple crayon on every page.  We have only read the book a few times, but he remembered a lot of it.  We drew the road, the apple tree, the dragon under it, the ocean and boat.  He drew the mountain and the moon himself.  But he couldn't find the window around the moon.

And, when we went outside he was clutching his purple crayon and paper pad in the stroller when we saw this big beautiful full moon.  It was magical. 

The Steelers lost their wild card game.  Avinash woke up from his nap just in time for their first touchdown.  He really wanted to watch cartoons, but he got so excited by the touchdown and grabbed his terrible towel.  So happy about his excitement at least.  And, towards the end, he was wondering why mommy was mad.  I explained to him about the bad blue guys and good yellow guys.  He really got into that as well and started shouting at the tv at the end of the game.  Hey! You kidding me! I said no blue guys.  Blue guys bad, yellow is good!!  Sigh.  And, can I just say I hate how people are turning this into some moral victory.  Pittsburgh is not some godless sinful city.  Pittsburgh is full of good people and most of the team and the fans are awesome.  God loves us too (hello, six rings?!). 

Yesterday was a big day for Nandini as well. 

Nandini learned to say buh.

It was like watching Newton discovering gravity.  Well, not exactly.  She actually discovered a few weeks ago already.  But, experiments are ongoing while she works out a few more equations.  We are here willing lab assistants who pick up all of her various trials - different cheerios, books, papers, balls mostly. 

Avinash was pretty excited to see it.  "B says buh!"  Apparently the big unanswered question that Nandini was struggling to figure out was  "what sound does the letter B make?"



So she spent the rest of the entire evening saying "buh!!!!!!"  with as much emphasis as she could manage.  She definitely said baba, but not quite Bappi.  I wonder, will Ryan be called Bappi by all our children now?  I loved seeing how proud she was to be saying it. 

Not exactly her first word, but it was almost unbearably cute to see.  I swear she did say Ganga in the midst of her babble the other day.  And, when we visited our friend Garima in the hospital Nandini was holding on to the bed rail and toddling around the bed.  She toddled as close to Garima as possible, waved her hand and said "hi" clear as a bell, though i'm not sure anyone else heard her. 

Amazon Mom Prime~r: Baby Diaper Buying 101

Close friends of our just had a baby.  In fact, I know three (four? I can't keep track) couples who had babies this past month alone and several more with one on the way.
I was about to type my friend an email about my diaper strategy and I decided to just post it here.  For everyone. You're welcome.

First- Sign up for Amazon Mom.  It's free and gives you perks like free 2-day shipping and 15% off diaper orders.

Second - Choose the type with the most diapers per box.  For the same price, the sensitive and Swaddlers pampers come with about 50 to 100 less diapers.  Not worth it for a little extra 'softness.'
Baby dry is the best value in my experience.  My most recent order offered a coupon clip at the time I put the bow into my cart for an extra $1.50 off.


Baby Dry, Size 1, 276 count


Baby Dry, Size 2, 246 count


Baby Dry, Size 3, 222 count

Third - Click on the Subscribe&Save option when ordering.  It will save you an additional 15% 20%.  You will have to choose to receive the same package of diapers in 2 weeks/1 month.  Do it, even if you aren't sure you want more diapers.  After the order ships (usually within 24 hours), go to your account, click on my subscriptions and cancel it.  There are no penalties and you keep your extra 15% 20% off. 

Fourth - Use the code BABYTIME when you are checking out.  This unfortunately only works for new Amazon Mom customers. But if you can find someone willing to share their credit card info you can sign up again with a different email address :)

You end up saving 20% off, plus $25 off, plus free shipping. 

The price goes from 47.19 (17c/diaper) to 37.75 (13c/diaper) to 12.75 (4c/diaper).  The boxes last about a month or two. Overall, I think it is a pretty good value.
I sometimes buy diapers from Target or Babies R Us using coupons, but I rarely have more than 5 dollars off, plus maybe an extra 1 or 2 off from pampers. Plus, the boxes I get there are smaller in size not to mention the fact that loading up the cart with diapers really prevents me from filling cart with essentials, like more stationery from Target :)

I have always used Pampers because my babies always seem to leak through the huggies samples I've tried.  And, don't use those newborn size diapers for too long.  Once the belly button falls off they are obsolete so you don't need many.  And, having a snug diaper only leads to more blowouts.  So, there's that. 

Another way to save is of course early potty training.  I have tried elimination communication training with Nandini a little bit, but have trouble being consistent, so we are way off accomplishing that.

Another way to get gift cards for Amazon is Swagbucks.  I have belonged for about a year, but have only recieved 15$ in gift cards.  I recently found a great site that offers daily tips on getting more swagbucks.  The numbers are climbing.

Let me know if there are any questions.  Happy Diapering!

(disclosure: affiliate links used.)