Layouts with the Cirque kit

As soon as I saw the sneaks for the Cirque kits at Studio Calico I fell in love with this kit. But when it finally arrived and I actually started working with it, I realized that it was quite a challenge for me to work with it. There was a lot of hot pink in this kit which I already knew about. But I have two boys and I don't scrapbook enough about myself so it was challenge. I decided to go ahead and use the pink for the boy pages anyway. I then also realized that if I cleverly used the papers, there was a lot of green, yellow and blue in them.
So here are my layouts:

I wanted to play with circles on this layout as there were these fun acrylic circles in this kit. So I just moved them around till I liked their placement. I did a little bit of stitching to connect all the circles to the photo. This photo was taken on Surya's second birthday. His favorite part of the day was to lick the icing off the cupcake. Can't believe he is going to turn 5 tomorrow. I remember the whole party like it was yesterday.

I love this photo of Surya and me. For this one, I am not a 100% sure that I did complete justice to this layout. Again, it was all about the circle. I had pinned this graphic design shape that I loved so much. I designed the circle cut file with silhouette software and cut it out from this gold paper. I think using that gold paper was a complete mistake. I kinda knew it as I was making the layout but just didn't want to throw it away and waste the paper and the effort. It's okay because I have that cut file saved and I know I am going to use it differently next time.

Okay now look at all these blues, greens and yellows I could coax out of that same kit and I love this layout so much. This was inspired by one of Stephanie Bryan's layout. It was so much fun decorating each of those little circles. Again it was all about the circles. The 'hello HAPPINESS' cut file is also from Studio Calico and I have had it for a long time now. It works so well on this layout.

This layout is actually a mix of different kits. The silver paper on the right which actually does not look silver was the speciality paper in this kit. It was hard to use. I had made this layout for Wilna's color theory class at Studio Calico. This layout was made using an achromatic color scheme.

This last layout, I made for NSD 2015 challenge at Studio Calico. I think I already posted this layout but I thought I would add it here for completeness. This layout was inspired by a mood board. The colors in this kit matched the colors in the mood board perfectly. The colors in this kit also matched the photo so well. This is a photo of one of Arjun's first trips to the pool. He is 10 years old now. I love scrapping all these older photos. It takes me back in time and brings back fond memories.

So that rounds up the layouts I made with the Cirque kits. I still have a lot of this kit left. So more layouts to come. Hope you enjoyed looking at these layouts.

Have a great day!

~Neela

Being featured and some plain good luck

I want to start off with the good luck part of it!!! So it was National Scrapbook Day on May 2nd right?! I decided to participate in a bunch of challenges on all these different websites. But of course, I didn't have that much time on my hands. May 2nd itself was a super busy day! One T-ball game, one baseball game, a lunch invitation, a hair appointment, an outing to the fair. My weekends are usually not so busy, but this particular day was. To add to this all the challenges were starting at 8 A.M. EST. I live in California so it is 5 A.M. here. Talk about dedication, I actually set an alarm and woke up at 5 A.M. to keep up with the challenges and find some time in the day to scrap. People, I am night owl, I cannot open my eyes before 7 A.M. in the morning. When I was doing this, my husband thought I was MAD.

In any case, I decided to participate in the awesome challenges at Studio Calico. Again I couldn't keep up with all even though we had the whole week. I made three layouts. Here they are:

This layout was based on a mood board. I mainly went with the color scheme on this one. I used a photo of my older son that was taken a long time ago. I have been wanting to scrap the photos from this day for a long time. The mood board inspo was perfect to get this done.

This one was based on a sketch. I loved the sketch so much that I didn't change it one little bit. We had been to Hawaii recently and I have tons of photos from this trip. I bought a Studio Calico 9x12 handbook to create a mini book of that trip. So I created a 9x12 layout. This photo is a selfie at the black sand beach in big island Hawaii.

The challenge that prompted me to make this layout was going bold. I went with a huge photo and huge title. I totally loved this photo. My son, his friends and my husband are in this pic. The sky was the perfect space for journaling. This layout I think is one of my favorites.

So after all this participation, guess what ?!! I won the grand prize at Studio Calico which is the 6 month free subscription to the kit of my choice. I was already subscribing to the scrapbook kits, so that is what I am going to get free for 6 months. Can you believe it? Anyway, when I saw my name, I was jumping up and down. Totally made my day, month...

So the SB FAIR layout has also been featured in the layouts of the month series for May on scrapbook.com. I was so honored. You can find the other layouts that were featured here.

Then after all that, after a few days, this layout got picked for 'win it Wednesday' series on Big Picture Classes:

This was based on a combination of Ali Edwards' type class and Pam Baldwin's  text trick class at BPC. Both the classes have been amazing. Every layout that is uploaded at BPC based on a class is eligible for 'win it wednesday'. So if you are taking classes there. You should upload your projects.

I just got my amazing bag of goodies from BPC today. I will be posting a photo on instagram. Do stop by my instagram account (neelanalam) and check it out.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

~Neela

Layouts with the Far Far Away Kit

Hi everyone! I always wonder if anyone reads my blog anymore. I have sort of completely stopped posting for the last 4 months. I am trying to be more active on instagram and have been updating my layouts there for the last of couple of months. I am loving it and it is a great way to connect to other scrapbookers.
I wanted to post all the layouts that I made with the Far Far Away kit which is the January kit from Studio Calico. It was one of my most favorite kits. The colors and the patterns were just perfect. I also played along a kill your kit challenge and ended up making 7 or so layouts with this one kit and one 4x6 paper pad. I loved every single layout.
Here they are:

That wood veneer piece is actually a rectangle. After using bits and pieces from it, I cut the frame itself to create a triangle. I love pages with angles like this. It adds a lot of interest. 

I don't think I can get enough circles on my layouts. I used the print and cut feature on the silhouette to cut out the photos in circles. I also cut out all the background circles using the 4x6 pad with the silhouette. I don't know what I would do with this machine.

On this layout, I love those fruit transparencies. I stumbled a bit on the balance of the design on this one. But I still love it as I got my story told. The HARVEST title is actually digital stamp brushes from studio calico that I colored with the colors of the kit. I love mixing up digital and traditional scrapbooking.

This I think is my absolute favorite layout with this kit. I was inspired by a graphic design pin for this. I then designed the cut file with silhouette software and created my layout. The little bit of stitching adds texture to the page. But the circle has my heart and love that photo of my baby.

This is a fun grid layout. I tried to use a bunch of photos with Surya playing with a little cup when he had a whole bunch of toys strewn in front of him. It's funny how that works.

Now this layout is something that is very very different than anything I make. I took Surya's photo against a plain wall and removed the background. I then imported the photo into silhouette software and did a print and cut of the photo. I then used a bunch of digital stamp brushes from studio calico and printed them on patterned paper. I did the same print and cut with silhouette again. I adhered everything on a water colored background. It was a fun fun page to make.

I wanted to document Surya's swim lessons. His swimsuit was orange and goggles were blue so I decided to use this fun patterned paper as my background to have a nice contrast. I printed my journaling on vellum as I don't have a 12x12 printer.

I really love all the fun papers and embellishments I get every month. If only I had more time on my hands.... I would use up every single bit of supply I have.

I would love it if you followed me on instagram. My user id is neelanalam! I will follow you too.

Have a lovely day!

~Neela

Looking back at 2014

Hi! I haven't been blogging much lately. I have been too busy with work, construction and sicknesses. I managed to make a couple of layouts but haven't posted any here in a long time.
But before I post those, I wanted to show off some of the projects that I made in 2014 that never made it on to the blog. I have been posting all of these in studio calico gallery or scrapbook.com gallery.

I took a few classes last year. Color theory class, Sketchbook class and Mixed Media Classes at Studio calico and Wilna's art and design class at big picture classes. I have to say, I learnt something new in every class. Every class was good in its own way.

 Mixed Media Class at Studio Calico

This class totally pushed me out of my comfort zone. I ended up using gesso, modeling past, stencils, paint, neocolor crayons and stamping on my projects. My layouts are usually simple and clean. But using all this media definitely adds a lot of dimension and interest to a project. I had made a couple of more projects that I had actually posted when I did this class!

Art and Design Class by Wilna at BPC

This was such a fun class. I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this class. Wilna's videos are amazing and how nicely she walks you through all her projects. She had so many projects and so many techniques and so many handouts and cut files..... I could go on and on and on. Great class!

Lift the person above you challenge

Every once in a while, in the Studio Calico message boards, they will have challenges to scraplift one of the projects of the person above you in the thread. I had so much fun scraplifting this from one of the members. This is a photo of me and Arjun taken in 2007 in Tanzania. We flew in that plane from Serengiti to Arusha.

Scraplift:

This is a shameless scraplift of one of Marcy Penner's projects. One day I was in a mood to really do some scraplifting, I browsed her gallery, found a project that I liked and made this project. I really like how it turned out.



 That's about it folks. This should round up a bunch of projects that I missed posting in 2014. Wish you all a very happy 2015.
~Neela