Shalini's Sewing Space

Scrapping and Shopping weekend ScrapArtist (www.scrapartist.com) is having One Year Anniversary celebration. From Saturday to Tuesday, Aug. 1st, most of the items in the shop are 40% off. How could I resist? This was my first time spending this much on scrapbooking products. And I'm not done yet! Apart from the sale, they have wonderful contests going on. I have entered in 4 so far. Here are my entries- Belly Flop Contest: To turn a bad photo into a good LO. Synchronized Swimming Event: Using one of the sketches provided. Relay Race: Using items from atleast 4 Scrap Artist designers. After Party BBQ: Favorite summer barbeque recipe.

Swamped I'm here I'm here Just swamped at work. I haven't had time to do any LOs in 10 days. Eek! That has not happened since I started Digi-scrapping. I hope I get some time tonight... In other news, we got a little shocker from DS's daycare teacher yesterday. Mehul apparantly hit a boy in the head with a toy. They were both pushing each other and the teacher told them to stop. They kept pushing, the other boy tried to take the toy from Mehul and he hit him! This is the first time he's hit someone. Needless to say, he got a timeout in the class and we had a 'discussion' with him at home. Don't know how much he understands, he's only 21 months afterall. But, I felt awful. His teacher said Mehul was very quiet, well behaved when he first started the daycare but now, he's 'become like the others' - her words. Don't know what to make of it. Well, here's hoping there's some scrapping in my future. Now, back to work.

MyGuys Originally uploaded by flickr.shalini . I wanted to do a layout of a photo album with a couple of pages on the cover of it. Once I started, I found this paper from Shabby Princess that reminded me of an old notebook. So that is how I ended up with a notebook instead. This picture is also from the Cherry Blossom Festival. I promise to take more pictures now that we've replenished the stock of AA batteries. With all the musical toys, they disappear like anything. Credits: Background Paper: IOD Quite Contrary (recolored) Book Cover Paper: Shabby Princess Book Binding: Summer Driggs Warmth Ribbon Flower: Andrea Burns Sample Notepaper: Lauren Grier Clip and yarn: Atomic CupCake

You Are Originally uploaded by flickr.shalini . And a new picture of Mehul. This is the most recent picture of him. We took it when we were at Luray. That mustard polo shirt looks awesome on him..but ofcourse I'm biased :) I'm not really good at extracting images but this one was pretty clean..thanks to the concrete sidewalk he was standing on. It came out nice and clean. I had to remove some more background clutter mainly from behind the plant but it wasn't too bad. Credits: Papers: IOD freebie from ScrapArtist Heart Shape, Inked frame overlay and Tag: Nancie's Digital distressing kit (this kit is so versatile..my best purchase so far) Staple: Nancie's Quiet Love Fonts: Typewriter new roman and 28 Days Later

Arushi Originally uploaded by flickr.shalini . This is my 3.5 year old niece Arushi. She is all dressed up for a fancy dress competion at school. My sister sent me this picture of hers a couple of weeks back and I've been wanting to scrap it. I hope I did justice to the adorable picture! Credits: Red Paper: Michelle Coleman Color Harmony paper pack Khaki plain Paper: Michelle Coleman Color Harmony paper pack (recolored) Khaki patterned paper: Michelle Coleman Candy Coated mini freebie (recolored) Green Paper: Michelle Coleman Candy Coated mini freebie Note Paper: Lauren Grier Girl Notes Black Frame: Nancie's brushes from distressing kit White Frame:Nancie's frame from distressing kit Floral vine: Angie Briggs freebie Ribbon:Angie Briggs freebie Buckle:Michelle Coleman Freebie Flower:SillyBirdNut Fonts: Stamped DSG and English

Cookbooks Arrived! Yep. I picked them up on saturday. And have already tried a couple of recipes from them. Tarla Dalal is the best Indian cookbook author around. The range of recipes she offers is amazing. From Punjabi subzis to SouthIndian Idlis & Dosas, Mexican, Chinese and Italian cuisines modified just a tad to fit Indian tastes. Plus, her whole series of Health books. She's got it down to a science. This time I ordered the following: Healthy Soups and Salads Delicious Diabetic Recipes Healthy Snacks for Kids Punjabi Subzis Curries and Kadhis Desserts Under 10 Minutes 7 Dinner Menus Iron Rich Recipes Healthy Snacks On sunday, I thought of making Mehul one of the submarine sandwich with mixed vegetables from the Kids book. I ended up making it with a Tandoori taste. He loved it! And so did I ;)

Montage_web Originally uploaded by flickr.shalini . I've figured out what a lot of bloggers already know. Flickr Rocks!!! I've posted this photograph by using Flickr. It's combined with my yahoo account. I just signed up for a new account and it was as easy as setting up this blog :) I'll continue using flickr to post photos from now on. OK. Something about the photo. I created this from a tutorial I found at one of the digi-scrapping sites. If you'd like to know the link, let me know as I'll have to hunt for it and I'm feeling lazy :) These pictures of Mehul were taken on April 1st, in DC's Cherry Blossom Festival. He looks so much grown up here (and chubby too) In reality, anyone who's seen him knows the truth LOL. I love these cute pictures and have scrapped them a number of times.

Luray Caverns We live about 1.5 hours drive from Luray Caverns. We visited there when I first got married, 4 years ago. This weekend was our second visit. We had some friends over from Albany who were staying with us over the long weekend. So, off we went to Luray. I have to say I fell in love with the caves again. The caves are natural not man-made. They are not at all like Ajanta, Allora, Elephenta caves in India which are all man-made. The caves are well-lit. The structures are breathtaking. And they say, some of the structures are over 7 million years old. And they're still growing. Awesome. There is one particular place which is the most memorable. Around halfway through, you come to an area where there are hanging structures (that look like icsickes) on the top and there is water underneath. The reflection gives you an illusion of a city underneath. It's breathtaking. Unfortunately, the photos don't come out that well. As R said, some things are only for the eyes. Or ...

Yesterday, when I went to pick 21mo DS from the (awesome!) daycare, his teacher made a comment about how he's suddenly starting to talk a lot. I have noticed for the last 1 week or so that he is starting to immitate words a lot. He was saying some words like mama, dada, doggie, milk, etc. but all of a sudden he has started calling things by their names. We came out of his class and I asked him to kiss mommy. He did. And then said 'Hug?' and proceeded to hug me!!!! OMG! I was still recovering from the shock when he said 'Fishies' and ran to them. There is a small pond with fish and foliage inside the daycare. He had always called all animals, birds, fish, anything that moves and isn't human, DOGGIE. All of a sudden they're 'Fishies'. sniff. He's growing up. In other news, long weekend was nice. We had some friends staying with us. I did get Michelle's Altered QP challenge layout done. Didn't win, but I had fun.