All in a box!

My darling husband decided to wear shirts with cuff-links a few months back. While they do look smart, keeping the little pieces away from my little daughter and away from getting lost was getting difficult! So, What do i do? Well, I decide buy a box! And with crafty wife around, how can the box not get decorated! 

This how i decorated the box - 

Used a lot of washi tapes and really had to stop myself from overdoing since, my husband would not have used it! :D He is wary of using anything thats OTT.

I bought this SHERIF badge a few days back from a local party store and was dying to use it somewhere! And when i was going through my knick-knacks to upcycle something (for LESSology challenge), i found this rather cute handcuff pendant. I gifted this to my husband in those early days of our relationship, when we were *young*, err.. ok, *younger*!! We could wear almost anything and get away with it! LoL!

Challenges entered - 

Lessology challenge #24 - Are you a cover girl?

Beyond Grey Challenges #29 - Press the button.

For the love of crafting #14 - Geo-Graphical.

Guest Designing at Lulupu today

Today I am guest designing at the Lulupu for the "My Mum, My World" challenge for this month. 

A little peak of what's waiting for you at the Lulupu blog.. :)

Amaira's birthday candy winner

Hello peeps,

I am so excited, my brother is here in London for next 3 months. His seniors suddenly wanted him in London office and everything was arranged in a haste. His tickets got booked 5 days prior to his travel.
I could not order for some craft goodness in time (Local Indian embellishments are the best!) but I got Amaira's birthday cards from him. :)They all are soooooooo gorgeous! You will agree with me, have a look -

This card is so gorgeous with so many pop ups and elements around! 

Sindhu

The color combination is absolutely lovely and i love pin wheels..

 Berina

This one's absolutely fantastic, there are flaps on the inside which are so much fun to read. 

Marge 

This envelope card is such a beauty! and so much fun, inside's decorated with giraffe & elephant.

Ujjwal 

This card is another wower for my baby girl!  The message from Vithya in inside is so thoughtful and my mother in law specially loved it because of the message! 

Vithya

This totally girlie card is superbly decorated with chipboard & flowers.. 

Sunehra 

And finally, this super lovely blingy card is absolutely adorable with the handcoloured image. 

Megha

Now, to select the random winner, I made chits of all the sender's names, folded them and gave them to my daughter to pick one up.

And she picked up 'Ujjwal'. Congrats Ujjwal, please send me your postal address so i can have the package on your way. My email address is miss dot kishley at gmail dot com.

Sunburst card

A Little bit of sunshine is all i need right now. Its soooooooooooooo cold, and rainy and cloudy out here in London that i really want to go back to my home for some sunshine. My daughter was getting cold every now and then already, now i am down with cough and cold as well. My throat feels like some one has put rough and dry sand over it! Anyways, here's the card i made last week. I love the toned down effect of the rays through the light fabric-paper sheet.

The sentiment is changeable, which i will probably do when i give this card out to someone. I did the flowers in a 3D pop-up style, which gives it such a gorgeous look! The lace was lying in my stash since a long long time. I realize i do not buy or use ribbons often now, where as i was a ribbon fan a while ago! Crafting styles change over time, don't they?

I hope some sunshine passes over from the card to our lives! How is the weather at your place? 

Four generations

My daughter, me, my mom and her mom we all got together in december last year, when we went for a cousin's wedding and this is the only moment when my daughter and my grandmother had or will have together. My grandmum passed away last month and all the more reason to treasure their pic forever. 

My jhaiji, thats what we all called my grandmother, was absolutely wonderful in her own way! As with all the ladies of her era, she was fond of making delicacies in our kitchen. Mathhis, gujhiyas, namak paras, pickles, almond syrup were some of her favourite things to make! I remember trying to sneak past her when she was in the kitchen, because she would always give us something to help her with. And once caught, we just had to work in with her for a minimum of couple of hours. 

I remember an incident when i saw her reading a Hindi magazine and was so totally surprised. I always assumed she was illiterate! Why I made that assumption, I do not know. But i was so proud of her when i got to know! :) 

Anyways, So this is a small canvas i made with the pic - 

I chose pink color as the background because it somehow gives a very feminine feel and there are only ladies in this pic anyway. I started making this mixed media canvas inspired by Yvonne. She makes hers so well!  

I am always inspired by LESSOLOGY challenges, so went through the house toolbox in line with the current challenge at LESSOLOGY - Whats in your toolbox? I say 'house toolbox' since we dont really have one at our home, there's a small box which landowner left (for us!) in the spare room. It has a random collection of things, spare lights, hammer, multi-screw driver, sample paints, paint brushes $and some other knick knacks. I stole that '4' and those circles from the box. I dont know what those circles are, and numbers were probably to mark flat numbers on the mail box. Ours is flat 9, so i could see all others except 9! :)

I am also entering this for Hands2hearts challenge - celebrating womenhood. 

Some more pics of the project - 

New template

Ok, so this was real time consuming! Somehow my old blog template mysteriously vanished and i was forced to set up a new template... And i am glad i did that.. This template reflects me so well, bright, bold and obviously beautiful! :)

I took background, header image, post dividers all separately and tweaked the html to get what i wanted! It took me my whole day today! Phew! My husband is really annoyed now though, i spent a sunday on a blog rather than talking with him.. Time to make it up to him now.. Well, after this post I Will !!!

I recently made some fridge magnets for friends, I made a lot more though i clicked only a few since the rest of them were all in their pillow-case-boxes and i was too lazy to open the ribbons.

I am also in middle of making a mixed media canvas, but my daughter's sickness is not letting me craft to my heart's content. Weather here is so bad, it snowed yesterday, when its time for spring! I just don't like extreme cold weather now. My daughter catches cold quickly and then i cant even go out to get groceries.

I also have to ask my mother in law about all the Amaira's birthday cards that have made it to her. So please bear with me to take a out a name as the winner! I think I'll let my daughter select the winner by putting all the sender's names on chits and putting in a bowl for her. :) Should be fun! 

Bout of some bad luck!!

I cant help but crib about how some bad luck is not leaving my side!
Looking for a job since 2 months now, got selected in a small company but they dont *yet* have finance backup. Some investment is on its way and they are interviewing people in anticipation!
Some how my blog template has vanished! Somewhere! Need to get a new template now!
Amaira is going through a bad phase healthwise as well.. Running now since a couple of weeks, vomiting, diarrhea and yesterday she had 104 fever.. :( and doctors cant tell what infection she has so she is only getting paracetamol, and telling me,she's doing fine and will get better on her own! Though i know these illness episodes build up their immunity for life, its just difficult to see them so uncomfortable and cranky and clinging to us all the time..

Anyways, i did win lessology challenge #22 and i received the $20 gift certificate today! So not all is bad!

We are planning a small get together at home with friends for Amaira's birthday on the weekend.. And i am making come cute little fridge magnets for every family.. Kids will obviously have their ow. Party favors, but isnt it cute to have something for grown ups as well! 

Amaira is one!

Already! It seems only a few weeks since she was born! Time flies away so quickly sometimes. :) we celebrated her birthday in a different style, instead of throwing a party, we took her to a children centric resort. She enjoyed a LOT!! There were baby swimming pools, play areas, creches, cycle with baby trailers, kids disco, parties for children.. I was so so so surprised to see SO many babies and toddlers in there. And the resort in itself is HUGE.. Surrounded in trees and multiple lakes with self catering lodges and hotel both.. We are surely going to go back again. Amaira enjoyed watching numerous ducks, rabbit, birds and squirrels as well.. :)

I made this special card for her, inspired from Ujjwal's napkin fold card on Lulupu.. I absolutely loved the fold when i saw it n decided to make this special one for Amy's birthday.. I just did a little change, instead of making a band to hold this together, i have a flap system which is glued on the back. The flaps close together using loops through popped up brads. Can you spot them? ;)

This card opens up n show this really lovely pic.We got a photoshoot done recently in 1930s style.. I absolutely adore this pic of hers..

Here's a pic of original card, more details here

Entering this onto challenge - Lulupu challenge#10 Let's Celebrate


A few more cards came by as i had this candy running here. I am waiting for a couple of them to arrive n will show them on a seperate post soon (including the winner!) . Now for the "spreading the word" candy, I used a random number generator and it picked up 2, which is Sunehra. Conngratulations!
Please email me your mailing address on miss dot kishley at gmail dot com, and your package will be on your way soon!

Six things that made me happy today

Just thought i should give it a go after reading it here. So here goes the list-

1. Took an afternoon nap for a couple of hours.Felt so so so relaxed!! Usually i am completing house chores when my daughter sleeps and so dont get time to sleep in the day myself.. And on weekends, we are usually out somewhere..

2. There were lovely snow flurries *out* of my window.. LOVE to see them from the warmth of my house.

3. Did speed shopping and actually managed to buy things i needed and wanted for me and my daughter. Thanks to my afternoon nap, had only an hour before the shops close!

4. My weekly domestic lady gave me call late evening that she is stuck somewhere and if i wouldn't mind if she comes tomorrow morning. I usually do mind when people change plans at the last minute *on weekends*, but i actually enjoyed her off by using up ALL the hot water and taking a deep long dip! Whats the big deal, well, she wants hot water or wont work, we have timed water heater which works only at nights and my darling daughter doesnot let me take a dip whenever i want. You get the picture :)

5. I baked a cake after a long time. Tried the lemon flavour after eating one in starbucks recently. My cake was only half as good, but the smell of home baked cake is pure bliss.

6. My hubby darling took an off yesterday (for our anniversary), So right now it feels like our  usual 2-day weekend is over. I have to remind myself its sunday tomorrow and everytime i do that, i have to smile :)


 Click here for details about the Birthday candy for my daughter, which is running on my blog

Happy Anniversary!

When you are sitting idle on a couch, relaxing, so many thoughts travel through the mind. Sometimes in those lovely moments, you realize how much you have grown and matured. You realize the importance of companionship, of love, of fights, of places traveled, of those laughs you had and all the blessings you have. 

Birthdays are the days i usually introspect these thoughts and thank god for everything i have in my life and how lucky i have been. This year i thought this through on my anniversary as well. I have been married for 5 years now and it seems only yesterday when we started to breathe as a couple. 5 years is not a very long time, but then its significantly long enough time to say, ' have we really spent such a long time together?' :) :) 

I made a really special gift for my husband on our 5th anniversary yesterday.

This is how the box looks from outside - 

The box opens up from front and shows 5 cute little bottles. I bought a box of glass-beads packaged in them, those beads were used way back but these empty bottles remained which are now put to good use!

Some views from inside -

Each bottle has a message on the bottom and some visual details inside. There's chunky glitter on top as well..  Messages i wrote are - 'You hold the key to my heart', 'You are my sunshine', 'You are my lucky star', 'You are my moonlight', 'You are my money bank'.

Details of the charms inside bottles -  

Details of work done on the outside - 

I am entering this in the following challenges -
"Splash of colors" at lulupu 
"Expressions of love" at crafters corner
"How Charming!" at LESSology
"Patterned paper" at itsybitsy

And here's a little reminder about the Birthday candy for my daughter, which is running on my blog. Click here for details. 

Very very very special

I am just so stressed these days, trying hard to get a job. Job market here in UK is not too good and i know from friends that it took them about 3-4 months on an average to find a job! I have been trying for 6-7 weeks now, and only given single interview, which in turn might take another month to reply!!

some crafting and a bit of festivities keeping me cheered up in the meantime.. First V-day, then i had my birthday last week, my wedding anniv tomorrow and my daughters first birthday next month! :) I also have this candy running at my blog for her birthday ---

(DETAILS HERE)

For my anniversary tomorrow, i made this super gorgeous card yesterday, inspired by lulupu's latest challenge - 

Butterfly was made using 5 differeny punches and glitter glued :) background sheet was sent by Piali in patterned paper swaps at swap-central-india last year. I absolutely love how this card has turned out to be..

Entering this card to following challenges -

"Splash of colors" at lulupu 
"Deep in the woods" at kalalayaa
"Expressions of love" at crafters corner

Happy Valentine's day!

Its such a beautiful day here today, a little sunshine in otherwise gloomy and cloudy days is so nice to have! I made this cute little card for my husband for the love-day -

Learned this tissue paper scrunching from yvonne, and i absolutely love the effect. I have coloured the background with metallic acrylic colours. I have taken this image from an old book and hand coloured them with watercolor pencils. I know i suck at colouring! but then i had to try! :) There's little glitter glue on flowers as well. I chose this pic since it makes me remember a really old song called eleven roses. It goes something like i am giving you 11 roses, look in the mirror an you'll see the 12th one! :) dont know who sung it though..
Entering this card for the following challenges -

"Deep in the woods" - For the love of crafting
"Expressions of love" - Crafter's corner
"I love to love" - Without words challenge
"Love song" - CASual fridays

 And here's a little sneak peak into something special i am  making for my fifth wedding anniversary next friday - 

I am trying so so hard to get this completed on time since i have to work on it and save it from my husband eyes at the same time! And when i mostly get time to craft when he's looking after Amaira. 

And Would you like to win this super awesome candy? - Details here.

A couple of friends suggested if they can mail the cards to an address in India, so i think I should let you do that. A few friends are visiting us in summers and i am sure they'll bring those lovely wishes along! :) So if you wanted to participate but would like to send a card in India, pop me a mail at miss.kishley on gmail and let me know where you would like to send the card.

And here's my daughter with my hairband! :) It looks so huge on her! 

Sewing ATCs

Hey all,

I recently got my crafter's mojo back! :) And i hope it'll stay for a while now! My daughter is getting smarter by every passing day and its getting easier to craft now. I finished these ATCs in a matter of 3 days, which is a huge huge achievement for me. 

The theme for this month's ATC is 'sewing - real or false' and this is what i made -- 

Gorgeous!! aren't they? :)
And don't you want to win a fabulous box of embellishments?

More details here. I would love it if you could join in! :) 

Big Birthday celebrations!

Hello reader! :)
My daughter turned 10 month yesterday, it feels like a huge time though! Ever since i held her in my arms she has been changing the way i function. :) And it feels so good!
So to celebrate her upcoming birthday I'm offering a chance to win this fabulous box full of lovely goodies -

The goodies box includes these things - 

15 6"x6" & 15 A5 acid free papers

2 velvet swatches

1 Pie lane stencil

Chipboard girl themed shapes

Some treehouse stamps

1 pck of 50 light pink pollens

A box full of embellishments ( beads, butterflies, sandles, 100+eyelets, hands etc.)

A Border punch

15m x2cm Fuschia satin ribbon
10 handmade fuschia tassles
3 dresses on hangers
13 brads various designs
50+ make a flower jumbo sequins
3D candy stickers
White iris flower pack
Huge mulberry flowers pack
Assorted pack of 10 pink ribbon & fibres (1m each)
Pink embellishment pack (contains sequins n beads)
Self adhesive Fuschia large rhinestone sheet



Phew!! Isnt that good!! But here's a catch, this candy is not about following my blog. Its about celebrating my daughter's birthday. So, whoever sends her a birthday card will be eligible for the draw.This candy will run from now till 6th March (her birthday) and I'll let my daughter choose a random winner for this box. I'll have to figure out a way though to let her have a random pick!

To participate, email me on miss.kishley on gmail dot com. I'll send you my mailing address and you can send Amaira (my daughter) a birthday card! I just so want her to look back and say OMG! so many 1st bday cards! :) You can also leave me a comment here with your email address and i'll get back to you. I am residing in UK and you have the option of sending the card to either UK or India.I will ship the box anywhere in the world!

Now, If you don't want to send a card all the way across, you can still win an Itsy Bitsy embossing folder - music notes & 2sheet pack of Papermania die-cuts -> Tags & frames.

All you have to do is spread the word about this candy on your blog. Please add this image on your blog side bar or post about it. 

AFTER you have posted this image on your blog, please leave a link on Mr. Linky below with the url of your blog. Please note this linky is for embossing folder & die cuts only. To win the big box, you will have to send in a card :) 

Happy new year

Hey peeps!

Here's wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year! 2012 has been a very significant year in my life.. one i will remember forever, for both good reasons and bad! :)
Good is obviously known to most of you, my darling daughter was born in march last year. She has been a source of immense pleasure and hectic schedules ever since she entered my life. On the other hand, 2012 has been a very lonely year as well. I moved to a new country when i was pregnant so obviously missed out on socializing bit, with a baby along you really have limited ways of going out and making new friends.. :(

I hope 2013 continues the good spirits of 2012 sans the heavy baggage!! My 2013 started off fabulously! I got a new laptop (gifted by my darling husband), did my craft room clean up and made a fantastic LO for my honeymoon album (which is still in progress after an year of starting!). And on the very first day of this year, we went out to watch London new years day parade! What a spectacle! Obviously not as grand as our republic day parade ;) (I am a die hard patriotic, so what if i am not living in my own country!)

There's a surprise coming up in a couple of days, do check back after the weekend if you happen to read this post.. A big box of crafty yumminess is going to be up for grabs! :)

Carry on the good work!