Feb 28th sketch for SOUS

Hi everyone, happy Friday. Hope you are all set for the weekend to begin. Well, here is a sketch from SOUS for inspiration if you want to keep yourself busy for the weekend. It is a fun sketch. I sure had fun using it for my inspiration.

Here is my take on it. I ended up making the top right and bottom left corners the same size. I first used my hexagon mask from Studio Calico and got out my water colors. I first wanted to just spray some mists but I am happy that I changed my decision. I like the ombre effect on the hexagons that I could create with the water colors. I had a little more control on how I wanted the hexagons to look like. I then stuck the sunburst washi tape that I got in my Studio Calico Sugar Rush kit to ground the photo and the title blocks. I then used the Dear Lizzy Polka dot party frames to frame the photo, journaling and title. I got out my ever dependable stickers from Maggie Holmes Crate paper collection to embellish both the blocks. I then stuck these plastic hearts at the bottom of the photo block and the journaling block. I added my enamel dots to go with the colors in the sunburst washi and the hot pink in the stickers. After the whole project was done, I still felt that something was missing, I had backed the photo and the journaling block with a blue patterned paper and felt as if there wasn't enough blue. So I found these beautiful blue sequins in my December Daily class kit. They were a perfect match. I added them to a few of the hexagons just to get the blue in and add a little more texture.

The photo I used for this project is of my little one being a busy bee at the beach. It is as if he has so much work to do when we are at the beach. This photo was taken outside our rental house during our vacation in Hawaii last December. It was so cool to just walk out of the house and on to the beach. The kids had such a blast.
Here is a closer look at the ombre effect created by the water colors:

Here a closer look at the journaling block:

Hope you enjoyed looking at the project and hope I have inspired you in some way. Make sure to add some journaling to your projects so that you can remember the details later. Try to use water colors, they are super fun to use. I plan on using more and more of them. 

Play along the sketch contest and you will be entered to win a fun prize from our February sponsor Scraps of Darkness. You can find more details on the SOUS blog.

Have a wonderful day!

~Neela

P.S. I am excited to add the Supply List feature to my blog. This way, you can see where I get all my supplies and get a visual of the supplies used. Hope you find this useful. I always found it useful when I came across it on other blogs.
SUPPLY LIST

Studio Calico Sugar Rush Kit

Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party Frames

Maggie Holmes Crate Paper Collection

*Kelly Purkey KPST10 ALPHABET STICKERS BRIGHT ORANGE 6" x 12"

Heyday Hexagons Spray Mask

Water Color Paint

InLinkz.com

What do you do with feathers?

I have seen feathers being used beautifully on layouts as embellishments. Till I got this feather paper from October Afternoon in my Copper Mountain Kit from Studio Calico, I didn't own any sort of feather embellishments. A few weeks back during one of our trips to the beach, Surya found a feather and he was running up to me to show me and of course, guess what, I clicked a whole bunch of pictures with my iPhone and I knew exactly which paper I was going to use to scrap these photos. I know, scrapbooker mentalilty.... totally. 

I loved the beautiful colors on the paper. I cut out some feathers from the paper and started thinking how I should use them. I then remembered that some of my friends when we were kids, would make books with feathers stuck in them. I owned a feather or two over my lifetime but never really collected a whole bunch. But I took the inspiration from those books to make this layout. 

I divided up my layout into a grid and kept sections for photos, for embellishments, for title, for journaling and most importantly for the feathers. The background paper coordinated really well with Surya's shirt. I got this Studio Calico paper in my Sugar Rush kit.

For the base of the grid, I started off with water color paper. I painted some pink and blue colors on to it to go with my photos and colors of the feathers.

I then used a thin strip of gold striped washi tape to make the grid. I got this washi tape in my December Daily kit from Studio Calico. The alphabet stickers I used for my title are also from October Afternoon - Daily Flash.

I typed my journaling on vellum and stitched along the edges with pink and blue thread. I love enamel dots. I love the pop color they add to a page and also I like the texture they add to a page. I used enamel dots from MME and twine and ink for some fun along the edges of the photos and the edges of the layout.

I totally enjoyed making this layout. I know more pink for a boy's layout. But what to do, there are such beautiful pink products around, I just can't help myself.
Have a great day and thank you so much for stopping by!
~Neela

A layout with free printables and the winner of my giveaway

I downloaded and printed some Wanderlust printables form here. I love the colors and the designs of these 3x4 cards that Studio Calico is offering for free. Try to get your copy.

I then started my layout from there. I used the colors in the printables as my inspiration. The elements from s from the Sugar Rush Kit from Studio Calico seemed to match really well with these printables. It is a beautiful kit get it if you can. I also want to link to a beautiful layout that Ali Edwards created with this kit. You can find her layout here. I was also quite inspired by Lisa Dickinson's project at Two Peas here. I also downloaded some cut files from Two Peas here for this project.

I know I used a lot of pink and orange in the layout with boys but I am loving these colors this month so I am going to make pink layouts for my boys. I don't know what to do with all my pink supplies otherwise. So here is my layout:

I first stuck all the printables, cut files and photos on a cardstock in a grid and then added the washi strip at the bottom and top. I then cut that cardstock to size and rounded the corners. I then stitched the top and the bottom just for some texture and to add some interest. I attached the two plastic hearts for my two boys at the bottom and did some additional stitching to keep them in place. I then placed chipboard grey and pink heart circles on the photo and plastic hearts. I also embellished it with some enamel dots. Below is a closer look of the plastic hearts.

I also ended up water coloring the cut files from Two Peas to match the Wanderlust printables. I then layered them on the printables to mix up the grays and the pinks a little bit.

I stuck a gray strip of camera paper along the left border and stitched it to get a little more gray in the layout to match the printable from Wanderlust. I am loving all this stitching. I am still not perfect but I love adding it to the layout.

Most important of all I used the photos of my little boys having a walk on the beach outside our resort during our vacation in Costa Rica. The waves were pretty big and Ajrun was holding on to Surya's hand to make sure that he was safe. I love the sentiment behind these photos and I love to see the boys bonding more and more.

Now for the best part of all is to announce the winner of my giveaway that I mentioned here. I first want to say thank you for following me, thank you for the comments and thank you checking out the blog. It most definitely makes my day. I collected all the names from the comments and put them into an excel spreadsheet and used a random number generator to pick the luck winner. The lucky winner happens to be ...

Tracey Gregory

Tracey, do email me at neeladotnalamatgmaildotcom. You can then select a $10 gift card from your favorite store.

Have a great day!
~Neela

Just for fun

I have a giveaway for $10 gift card which is open till Feb 21st. If you are interested in that you can check out this post.

So I was looking at the moodboard at Two Peas in a Bucket. I really loved it. I decided to go with the colors in the moodboard and create a layout just for fun.
I used a bunch of supplies from my older studio calico kits. I have so much of it left. I need to put all my supplies to good use.
Here is the moodboard from Two Peas:

I picked the hot pink, light pink, grey, chalkboard, blue and kraft from the inspiration.  Of course, there are a ton of hearts all over the moodboard and I went ahead and added some on my layout too. There is also some script lettering in the moodboard, I did some stamping with some scripted words on my layout.

I just picked a tiny photo of my little one and went on layering behind it. This is usually not my style but was fun to do. At the bottom of the layout, I did a little stamping with versamark and embossing with silver embossing powder. I also used some embellishments from Maggie Holmes collection from Crate Paper. I also did some machine stitching on this layout. I am slowly getting better but the stitching is not perfect yet. I will get there with time. I know :) . I had a lot of fun making this layout. Hope you had fun looking at it.

Have a great day!

~Neela

February 14th-Sketch for SOUS and BLOG HOP w/ Scraps of Darkness DT

Happy Valentines Day! Hope you have some wonderful plans lined up for the day!

Welcome to a cross promo blog hop from Stuck on U Sketches and Scraps of Darkness and Scraps of Elegance Design Teams!

February 14-16

midnight to midnight

Here is the beautiful sketch that Leah created for this week. We have all created layouts based on this sketch and Scraps of Darkness teams have created theirs with the awesome kits from their shop! 

I really love the heart and it is so appropriate for the day.

Here is my layout based on the sketch:

I mainly used the Maggie Holmes collection from Crate paper to create this layout. I love the pink and aqua with touches of silver that I could incorporate on this layout. I first cut out the large heart with my Silhouette. I then hand stitched around the heart with pink thread. It took time but I love how it looks. After that I had a lot of fun layering all the different embellishments from this collection. I also used some enamel dots and chalkboard stickers from MME. I used silver glitter tape and silver sequins from my December Daily kit from Studio Calico. I also cut out two smaller hearts with my silhouette and embossed them with silver and pink glitter embossing powder. I chose a photo of my family for this. I kept the journaling to a minimum as this photo taken by my friend who is also a photographer says it all. Below is a close up of some of the embellishments.

At this point I want to tell you that you have an opportunity to win a lot of scrappy goodness:

• I will be giving away a $10 gift card from a shop of your choice Two Peas / Studio Calico/ Amazon to a lucky winner who leaves a comment for me on this post and who is also a follower of my blog. I will select the winner randomly from the comments. I will announce the winner on Friday, February 21.
• As you know Scraps of Darkness is the sponsor for this month's blog candy at SOUS and we are so appreciative of them! So don't forget to join any challenge here at SOUS this month for a chance to win that candy (click for more info)!
• SOUS is also offering candy for this hop. A collection of Basic Grey paper and embellishments! Blog candy winner will be announced Friday, February 21. 

Blog Hop Order

Charlotte Brochu Scrapsational

Karen Zueger-Brownell Lost Coast Scrapper

Mayra Duran-Hernandez Mayra's Designs

Stephanie Eaken Bits & Pieces (& Scraps)

Bente Fegerberg Paper and Glue Heaven

 Annette Gearside moment in time

 Patricia van Gelder Patricia's layout 

Laura Gilhuly AngelScraps

Tracey Gregory A lifetime of Pages

Helen Gullett Creating Joyfully 

Connie Hall Times To Cherish

Renea Harrison Renea Bouquets

Nanne Harry  Nanne's Creations

Tracey Kelly Trace-Elementz

Julie Kight Cards By Cricut

Nicolle Kramer NicolleLovesScrapbooking

Monica Lowrance  Happy Scrappn2

                     Neela Nalam MemorableScraps   <---- You are here

                                       Rosie Neustaedter As Seen In My Scrapbook -------> Go here next

Lisa Novogrodski Living In Color

Erica Ortiz Mimi's Paper Dreams

Wendi Robinson Scrappy Day in Paradise

Sarah Routledge -Scattered Pictures and Memories

Leah Schaeffer  http://leahschaeffer.blogspot.com

Sandi Smith Paper Memories

Jane Stirling  Scossie Jane

Caroleanne Wright The Pretty Paper Patisserie

Elisabetta Colavero Scrap-colors

Scraps of Darkness

Finish hop back at SOUS

Hope you have a lot of fun hopping to all the different blogs of my talented friends and have a wonderful day!

~Neela

December Daily - Day 21

If you are looking for SOUS Jan 31st Sketch go here.

When we landed in Costa Rica, Manrique had driven us from the airport to the resort. He seemed very nice and friendly and knowledgeable. He was a very interesting man. He lived in LA for 20 years before moving back to Costa Rica because of all sorts of circumstances. So on this day we decided to hire him for the day. First we went back to Congo trail to the petting zoo and we all got to pet some Howler monkeys. We also got to see all sorts of snakes. We could also hold the snakes if we wanted. Of all, I think Surya enjoyed the most.

From here we went to Tamarindo beach. It was a beautiful beach, so flat and tons of shells. We collected a bunch of shells and threw them back into the ocean. I wish I had taken a photo of the shells that Surya and I collected. The water was so beautiful and warm. The kids had a fab time there. After the beach and after cleaning up a little bit, we went to nearby restaurant for authentic Costa Rican food. It was delicious. It pretty much got dark after that and we headed back home. It was a wonderful relaxing day! Here are my pages:

 Here are the links to my other December Daily pages:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 10

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15 & 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Cover and Intro Page

Have a great day!

~Neela

December Daily - Day 20

On this day, our friends joined us. It was so much fun to do all the activities together. We went to Vandara Hot Springs and Spa for the day. They had a combination of activities there - Horse riding, ziplining, water slide, mud bath and the favorite activity all - Hot springs. We all enjoyed this trip so much. Again on our way to this place from our resort we stopped by at the fruit stall had some coconut water to drink. At Vandara itself along with all the activities we had some wonderful organic lunch with everything grown on the premises of this place. Again everyone there were so amazingly friendly and warm.

For the pages, I again used elements from Studio Calico kit, Kelly Purkey alphabet stickers, Amy Tan Yes please paper, Studio Calico wood veneer and stickers and October Afternoon sticky keys. 

 Here are the links to my other December Daily pages:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 10

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15 & 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Cover and Intro Page

Have a great day!

~Neela

December Daily - Day 19

On this day we went on a river cruise in the Palo Verde National Park. The cruise was along the Tempisque river. The ride to get there from our resort was pretty interesting.We went there in a van. It was smooth sometimes and quite bumpy on mud roads some times ... Reminded me so much of India. Along the way we stopped at this beautiful home which is now a restaurant which was built a while back. I loved the character of this place. Here we got see sugar cane juice being made and all of us got to taste it - delicious. Again just like in India, sugar cane juice is sold along the road side and they freshly squeeze the sugarcane for you.

Along the way we also some Howler monkeys and snakes. During the boat ride itself, we saw a bunch of crocodiles, iguanas, egrets, white faced monkeys, bats and so many different types of birds whose names I already forgot. Our boat went quite close to the crocodiles, but they didn't even bother to move. The only bummer of this trip was the battery in my camera finished midway through the boat ride and I didn't get all the photos I wanted. We also didn't have our phones with us. So I am happy that I at least got as many photos as I did.

Again the pages are simple. My goal was to get the photos in, get the pages done and tell a little bit of the story.

The gold striped washi tape and the 19 circle number are from Studio Calico DD kit. The circle stickers that I used for the title are October Afternoon Sticky keys.

I decided to stick a couple of coins for me to remember the currency of Costa Rica. For this I cut out a piece of page protector so that it could fit on a 3x4 pocket. I then stuck a coin on either side with glue dot. I had to staple it to the page protector or it would fly out every time I turned the page. 

For this page again, I extended with some black washi tape from We R Memory keepers. I used one of the printables from Ali Edwards for my journaling.

And I called Day 19 done.

 Here are the links to my other December Daily pages:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 10

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15 & 16

Day 17

Day 18

Cover and Intro Page

Have a great day!

~Neela

December Daily Day 18

This page is pretty simple. I just used my photos pretty much to tell the story. I used some elements from the December Daily studio calico kit and some paper from Amy Tan 'Yes Please' patterned paper. This was our second day in Costa Rica. On this day we went on an ATV ride. It was too bumpy, dusty and hard for me. We somehow managed to do most of it. It was hard because Surya was falling asleep in the front and I was frightened about Arjun hurting his collar bone even more. But Arjun was having a blast. He got to ride behind the guide and really wanted us to go faster. But maybe next time, the boys can go by themselves and leave me out of the picture :) After the hot and dusty ride, we just hung out at the resort, had some drinks and went swimming. So relaxing.

This is how we started but both the kids ended up with the guide.

 Here are the links to my other December Daily pages:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 10

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15 & 16

Day 17

Cover and Intro Page

Have a great day!

~Neela

December Daily - Day 17

I decided to go ahead and finish the December Daily before posting any more pages as I really didn't have time to do both and I knew that if I did not just concentrate and finish my DD now, I would never ever finish it. So I finally finally finished it and I am ready to post the rest of the pages. Here is our Day 17. This was our first day in Costa Rica. We checked out the resort and did some zip lining. It was such a beautiful day and the weather was amazing.

For this page, I used a  cloud print transparency. I used Heidi Swapp mistable stickers for the letters. I went overboard while misting them with different colors and they got a bit soggy. So lookout for that if you use them. But I really liked the final outcome of how these letters look. I stitched across the chipboard letters because I know that they would fall off  if I didn't.

I got the map of Costa Rica from the Silhouette store and cut it out with this Maggie Holmes paper. I then wrote down some facts on the map. I also used a rub on to show where we stayed but it kind of got lost in the background.

I kept this page simple. The view that we could see from our room is the highlight here.

We had so much fun ziplining. Surya had a blast too. The guides there were so much fun and they really took good care of the kids and they made them laugh a lot.The photos pretty much reflect how we felt.The background mat of this photo is actually an envelope and I slid in the pamphlet that we got for this trip in there.

I had so many photos and wanted to incorporate a lot of them so I cut a page protector and stuck it with washi tape so that I could flip it and find more photos.

 Here are the links to my other December Daily pages:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 10

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15 & 16

Cover and Intro Page

Have a great day!

~Neela