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