The best is yet to come!!

 I am officially into the last year of a Tricenarian and oh! there have been so many things I wish for, and many that I have dreamed of that I decided it would be fun to put together a list of activities realistic enough to accomplish before my next birthday.

I love making lists and totally enjoy the feeling of striking them I finish it off one by one! Having said that I must also remind that making lists does not always necessarily mean I would get them all done!(disclaimer alert!😉). It just helps me feel happy to make a list of stuff that I love to do right now!. I believe setting short and small goals will push me a little more in actually achieving them.  This is just a list of things I want to do this year, that would bring me gratitude and joy! Publishing them here will actually make me feel accountable for them I believe!

Arts & Crafts
*  Create a Travel album  - Love creating travel mini albums. My previous albums have been on our Mexico trip and trip to the Smokies.  You can see them here and here. Can't wait to document our CostaRican travel from our Spring break while they are still fresh in mind

* Bottle painting  - I have been hoarding couple of bottles for months now wishing to paint on it!

* An Art Tray -This is something I came across in the feeds of a few IG-ers I follow and I have been so wanting to try it out!

* Letter Monograms of M and Y

* Take a pottery class

* Do a Cross stitch project

* Tamil quote on canvas - I gifted a handmade one to Arul on our 10th anniversary and I so wish to make another again!

* Yuvan's first year photo frame - He has asked me several times why only akka's first year photo frame is there and not his. Making his wish come true is my priority

* Yuvan yaps - I gifted Megha, a fun record of her chit chats as an album named Megha Bytes for her 6th birthday when she was in KG. I wish to get a similar one done for Yuvan as he enters KG this year!

Travel & Adventure
* Skydiving - let me go for it while I still feel brave enough!

* Enjoy a book on a hammock by the beach (again)  - Talk to me about beaches and my mind always races to this dream!

* Visit a new country  - Forever a wanderlust because I believe that wonderful stories are often found between the pages of a passport!

* Visit a new city/place in India/US - Because to travel is to live!

* Fire a gun  - been a fantasy since the days of "thirudan police" games and nancy drew novels.

* Go on a girls getaway trip - My ladies(you know who you are), I so hope we would get this done. The last one was awesome and its been 4 years now!!

* Go on a Camping trip

Home
* Decorate atleast one part of our home - would it be my craft corner? ;)

* Dry vadaams in Dallas Summer - Because I miss amma's semi dry vadaams!

* Do WITL 2018
 - I did a Week in the Life (WITL) album in 2017 and was successful in completing the album. Hope to achieve the same in our new home! (Just realized that I had not blogged my previous WITL album!.A link to my instapost on the album if you are interested in a peek!)

* Create a Travel themed gallery wall  - What wouldn't I do for anything travel related!

Family
* Painting with a twist with Megha

* Teach Megha to draw small kolams  - Revisiting my childhood summers, with her this time!

* Take intentional pics and record memories of kids, their currents, sayings, likes and dislikes for they will not remain little for long

* Enjoy a girls only movie fun night at home

* Read a book with kids every a week

Entertainment and Skill
* Watch IMDB's top 40 films

* Watch a Dallas Mavericks game
 - This has been pending for the longest, probably ever since I came to the US. Entirely no reason to what stopped me from going before, but I want to enjoy my most passionate sport ever!

* 40 Saree pact - For the love of sarees!

* 40 kolams pact - Love drawing kolams and hope to draw better and bigger ones!

* Complete Shiva trilogy by Amish - I had read the book few years ago and loved it and had wanted to finish up the rest of the series!

* Get familiar with my camera modes

* Learn a music instrument or take up a Salsa class

Health & Habits
* Trip to the spa / Nail Spa - I recollect that my last visit to the Spa was in 2006!! Never been to a nail spa though!

* Learn to say "No" more - I tend to say "Yes" even when I wanted to say 'No'.  Its never too late to learn anything!

* Volunteer more (kids school, at work, etc)

* Make self-health care a priority

* Run a 5K

* Use my Kindle more and Phone less!

* Complete a 30 day fitness challenge

* Placeholder for fun things that  may pop up over the course of this journey!

Phew! That's quite a list that I have been pondering on for months now! It feels both good and a little scary now that I have made it official!. But nevertheless I am fully charged to get things up and going!. I know I will be sharing my updates on these goals on my Instagram handle, that is, if you care to know! Until then, Ciao!

Hola!

Hola! Cómo están? For the love of languages, my very minimal knowledge of  Spanish surfaced a little as I worked on my Mexico Travel Mini in bits and pieces and finally came around to sharing my finished album. One of our most memorable trips in Christmas 2015 and it was a joy to relive those days thro' the photos.

The sheer bulk of the album makes me happy. This post is photo heavy as I share a few pages from our trip. I chose a red Becky Higgins album for two reasons - First, the red reminded me of the Christmas holidays when we did the vacation; Secondly and mainly, I got the album on a deal(ha!)

Being winter in Dallas at that time, we longed for some sunshine and Mexico was an ideal choice to have fun in the sun and relax at the beach. 

Aswe drove around town from the airport to the ferry station, we took in the surroundings and felt super excited about our days at this new place. We ferried from Cancun to Cozumel after a dinner break at Senor Frog's. Here I included the ferry tickets and cards from the restaurant.

The story stamps from Ali Edwards are so versatile and awesome to beautify my photos:). I like stamping directly on my photos as I did here using the stamps from the story kits. I used the Sunshine Value kit and cards from my kit subs all thro' the album. The "time to be awesome" is a stamp from a past Studio Calico stamp set.

The Christmas decor around the resort was lovely and we enjoyed the evenings with some traditional dances, fire shows and events for the kids.

One of my favorite spread because of the bright yellow and the stampings. Loved adding simple accents to this page.


I dieted only on desserts through out the vacation! With scrumptious cakes and all kinds of desserts, my breakfast, lunch and dinner was not stressed!!:) The kids however survived on toasts, fries, juices and pizza!

Another of my favorite spread trying to capture their silhouettes in the setting sun! It all started as an experiment and I must thank the kids for being patient with my madness in making them jump on the shore!! The "Escape" 3x4 card was from Ali Edwards' "GO" story kit and I am glad I saved that card to fit here perfectly!

The simple stories pocket pages were perfect to highlight some of the delicacies in the food arena.

On the day of Christmas we left the beaches and went for a day trip to the Chichen Itza.  I included the brochure of the ruins as it holds a map and provides more details about the archealogical site which would be a good read.  The left side is the package cover of my Story Kit sub that I reused here to hold the postcards, bills and receipts from the trip. 

Our trip ended on an exciting note as we landed back home, for the kids got lucky to be invited to the plane's cockpit! It was indeed an amazing experience what with all the controls!

The final album all complete and full!. I am so happy to have added another album to my treasures! If  you have come this far, I thank you for taking time to view my travel mini. Have a wonderful weekend! Gracias!!

Project Life 2016

Back to blogging, this time about a favorite ongoing project that has turned from a hobby into a passion. I had blogged about Project Life in 2013 (that was way long back!!) and as I step into my fourth year of memory keeping through Project Life, I am hoping to share my work on a regular basis here on the blog.

Project Life is a memory keeping system created by BeckyHiggins to capture photos and document everyday life. Some create weekly pages or themed spreads but I do monthly spreads where I combine my photos and journals for a month and document them across several page layouts.

I am going with my usual 12x12 album format this year and improvising upon my process to get the spreads done easy and quick. My stories are the crux of my album and I plan to journal more in combination with my photos. 

Being a Pocket Your Year Creative Team Member has sparked my interest even more and I love that it motivates me to get my pages done. I share my work exclusively to the Pocket Your Year workshop by Megan Anderson  which provides a guided class to the process and tips for pocket scrapbooking. Be sure to checkout their links for more information.

I hope to blog my work here on a monthly basis sharing peeks into my spreads for the month. This helps me stay accountable and current with my PL goals and also keeps my blog alive:) 

For the title page, I used photos of the kids and the firework from Diwali 2015 while the bottom left photo was from our Mexico trip last year. The filler cards are mainly from my Studio Calico Documenter kit and Ali Edwards Story Kits. I cut the phrases from a 4x6 card from the Black&White story kit and adhered them to the firework photo. All my embellishments come from my Studio Calico Documenter kit and Ali Edwards Story Kit

I am so happy to have finished pocketing the photos for the month of Jan and have begun my Feb edits. There were exciting events the whole month, with revamping the home, my Bro and Sil's visit, planning Megha's birthday party, partying with my Minions, not to forget the winter blues apart from everyday normal life!

It is a delight to capture and record the everyday real life and to learn to appreciate the happiness life showers upon us. I love stamping on photos and my journal cards and Ali Edwards story kit stamps are perfect with their bold words and lovely phrases.

Its always fun creating color co-ordinated spreads and I am so totally loving the yellow/blue color combo here. The Minion photo is a tag from Megha's Tshirt that I had saved to include in the album:)

  Thank you for staying this far and hope you enjoyed looking into my scrapbooking.

Smoky Mtns 2015 - A Mini

One of my goals this year on the memory-keeping front was to make mini albums and I gave myself a count of 3 albums considering that I also document Project Life for the whole year that captured the everyday mundane, special, fun and loving moments of our life.  Some moments/events in life call for a book on their own and there begins my path to making minis! There are numerous photos in my laptop waiting to adorn multiple albums that I hope to get done sometime in the future, but I can happily say that I met my goal of 3 albums, each special in its own way!.

You can see more of my first two albums Megha Bytes and Anniversary Mini from the album links. Mini albums are cute, easy and fun to make, especially when it comes to using pocket scrapbooking to document your travel photos. I am so excited to share a travel mini of our road trip this year to the Smokies.

I used the 6x8 Cinnamon Faux Leather album from Becky Higgins with co-ordinating pocket pages. The Road Trip and Outdoor themed cards from Becky Higgins were perfect for this travel mini.

 I love to journal a lot and cannot make do without my travel notes. I dutifully take notes during the initial phase of the trip, but as time flies in fun and frolic, I miss noting down the details and that's where the pictures help out!

I enjoy stamping and most of the stamped phrases are from the story kit by Ali Edwards. I used her 'GO' themed stamp kit which is perfect for travel and adventure!

 I tend to collect ephemera (maps, tickets, etc) during my trip and love to include them in my album. Above I included the race track points card that we used for our rides.

How cute is that hot air balloon transparency from Studio Calico's FairGround Kit!

I went minimal with embellishing my photos and here I just used some mint thickers and a chipboard piece on the 4x6 photos. The photo of the girls on the top right is a retake of a similar pose taken 5 years back! It is a sweet memory of how they have grown and in friendship over the years!

There were so many photos that were little glimpses of a hike we took and the 2x2 pocket pages from Simple Stories were ideal and fun to fill with photos, pattern papers and embellishments!  

I love how the page colors above worked out so well, relevant to the picturesque place and I kept it simple with just the journaling. Sometimes I wish I digitized my journaling so I could fit more story in detail but I would then worry about losing the uniformity in the album!. I need to overlook such differences and focus only on getting the stories down.

 One of my favorite page from the album and I love how the stamping on the photo turned out. The story kit stamps from Ali Edwards are too awesome for words!

Putting down the trip stats as part of the journaling is a fun way to document some facts and figures about the trip. I kept embellishments at a minimal for I wanted the photos to be the highlight, but looking back I feel I could have added in a few more. One take away from this album is that I need to stop hoarding my embellishments and learn the knack of using them well thro' out my album.

It was fun to put the album together and more so to see the completed mini that I find myself wanting to make more of such travel minis! Glad to have added one more book  to my ever growing collection of memory-keeping treasures!

Anniversary Mini

Its good to be back, this time to share a favorite project I completed months back but couldn't get around to post here.

I love making mini albums and one of my goals this year was to scrapbook at least 2 mini albums. I list goals every year, which eventually get carried over to the next year!! :)  But this time I actually worked towards making it happen!! Mini albums are adorable and provide a great way to get creative with photos, words and embellishments. Throw in some mixed media and you are on game! Totally enjoyed playing around, starting simple before digging deeper into the game and it was fun indeed.

Mixed media has always amazed me. The fact that there is no limit to the art medium and stuff you can use makes it all the more inviting, doable and fun. So excited to share the album I made as an anniversary gift to my husband.

The title page was inspired by Paige Evan 's layout and I finally put my Tim Holtz alphabets mask to use, did some watercoloring and handstitched the alphas. The hearts on the arrow is a free cut file from The Cut Shoppe

I started off simple experimenting with colors and medium as I went over each page. While some pages came out good beyond my expectations, few were okay and could have been done better. Its all about learning and not fretting much, reminding myself to have fun playing with watercolors, embossing, stamping and embellishing.

The inside pages of the album. The idea was to do two photos for every year leading to our 9th year. 

The right hand hearts page below was inspired by Geralyn's  layout from the Studio Calico gallery. I love love her layouts and project life but her travel mini albums are my favorite!

Sometimes the mojo would be missing as is visible (to me) on the left hand page below. But the creative mind gets back to you good enough and the results are beyond what you seem to expect. The right hand page is one of my favorite from the lot though the picture below doesn't do justice to it. I seriously need to learn to take better pictures. Any tips for that??

At the time of working on this mini, I didn't have much pictures for the current year with just the two of us and hence used a favorite from the previous year. It's okay to change rules for the better, right;)

I had a fabulous time making this mini album and feeling good with myself for coming out of my comfort zone and trying out new possibilities.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed looking through it!