Advent is here

I love this time of year and making my advent wreath is my number one necessity for the holiday spirit (not counting the tree.... but that only goes up a few days before christmas).  This is the third year I use a rectangle instead of a circle. What I love about this one is that it sits on a trey that I put oasis soaked in water on.  I then cut down the pine and stick into the oasis. That way I can water the wreath and it stays green for a month :)  I didn't think of taking a photo of the tray before I started so here is one similar I found on the internet.  Mine is all metal, not wood.

I try to do something different every year, but after 20 years, it gets more difficult each year. LOL :D Usually I keep the color combination simple but now I went for all my favorite colors :) White, red, blue/turquoise and brown.  It has taken me a couple of days to get used to how colorful it is, but I think I like it :) OH and to make it all perfect...it started snowing yesterday! :)

Have a wonderful advent!

 

Scrapbooking weekend fun

Packing  "a few" scrapbook necessities, pajamas and a toothbrush and going away to meet a few fun ladies at a hotel to scrapbook together for a long weekend must be one of the most fun scrapbook related things I do.  Unpacking when I get home...not so much :Þ

This fall I did just that... there was so much laughter, great food and an occasional glass of wine it was amazing I even managed to do a few layouts :) 

I had just gotten my dusty attic products and I just fell in love!  TFL! :)

I'm on a Design team

for the gorgeous scrapstore skrappoggaman.is . They have so many beautiful stuff.  Here is what I have been creating these past couple of weeks. 

It´s beginning to look a lot like christmas....

Well...maybe not...but yesterday it started snowing again.  Tonight I made my first christmas card for this christmas. It is really simple but I love how it turned out. 

I used my favorite snowflake stamp (Stamping Up) and Tim Holtz distress inks to stamp the flakes(watercolor style) on white cardstock.  Used a blending tool to ink the edges. Matted on chocolate cardstock and put onto an easel card. Decorated with my favorite snowflake and border punch (Martha Stewart), a ribbon, glass bead and a sentiment stamp (says Happy holidays). 

Are you getting into the christmas cards mood?

Life's rollercoster

Oh my goodness, its been months since I posted something. We had a water leak and had to move out of the appartment for FOUR weeks! yikes! But we are back. Still loads to do but I can finally sleep in my own bed :)

We needed to completely renovate our laundry room and finally today we have both washer and dryer up and running after SIX weeks without them. Today I am LOVING doing the laundry...lol...I never thought that could ever happen to me! 

With all these constructions and renovation I feel like I need to do little changes here and there in the apartment. If I can't work in the laundry room, it's logical to just attack the living room :Þ 

Armed with a white spray can I have altered my old chandelier. I still need a few more chrystals to put around the candles, but this will have to do, until I find something I can work with. Hopefully I can find something perfect when the holiday decors hit the stores.

Before

After

Team Orange

This is my take on the #73 TCR, the sun room :D The photos I used were taken this summer at our yearly family gathering at our summer cabin, a true family fun day! Everyone plays and competes in all kinds of odd and funny competitions. The biggest trophies do not necessary produce the biggest smiles or greatest laughters. This year our team "Team Orange" only won two trophies, two TINY ones. and it was my MIL and FIL who won them for extaordinary "skills" or style. :Þ I used TCR provided sketch for this lo. An unusual sketch and a little challenging to work with.


My summer vacation is over, I started working this week again. We had a great summer, I hope you all did too! :D

Scrap That!

Oh my goodness, I just need to share this with you! ScrapThat have some awesome prices going on! You can read all about it at their fabulous site http://www.scrapthatchat.blogspot.com/

Frost Rose

I'm not sure if that is the correct term in english for the snowflakes, but in Iceland we call these beautiful snowflake forms frostroses. I did this layout for a purple challenge and ladies, did I need to dig deep into my stash for some purple things. I love purple, but somehow I don't have lots of stuff in that color. I used my long overdue prima paintables and painted them with Tim Holtz distress inks. MS punches and a few flowers and blings and voila.  Thank you so much for looking. 

a little detail :D

Altered tincan - brush holder

I still have some papers left from my PION papers I got for my guest design projects for Skrappoggaman.is.

It is so simple and fun to alter cans into brush or pencil holders. I've done I few in the past for nieces and nephews who are starting school. So cute!

This paper is so elegant I thought it was perfect for brushes in a bathroom or a scraproom (they are so elegant too).

Everything is pretty basic about this. You just clean your can and decorate. One cool tip is to glue paper on the back of a clear crystal, using any type of clear glue. I used glossy accent glue, it dries so quickly :D

I am still enjoying my summer vacation. Only one week until I go back to work. It will be good to get into routine again. :D

....and then there was a card

Continuing on my design projects for Skrappoggaman. Here is a card I came up with, using some of the leftovers of the paper I got for this assignment (and I still have some left ;o) ). I used my slice for the notecard under the chipboard letters and a the bigger flowers, the smaller ones are punched. The angel is hand cut from one of the paper sheets and then I just added a little sparkle to it. I love these prima pebbles, they look so jummy :D

Have a great day everyone! :D

Pion design and prima

I am so lucky to be a guest designer for a local scrapstore Skrappoggaman . They have all the latest and coolest stuff in their online store. Fabulous stuff I tell you!  Their latest brand is the PION design. oh my goodness it is so beautiful and I got to play with it! YAY!!!! So here is what I came up with using these gorgeous papers, lots of prima goodies and few other splendrous things! :D Thank you for looking!

oh and the photo, my dear daughter on her day of confirmation. I LOVE that photo of her!

Ladies night

I was so lucky to be invited to a "ladies night" last night.  The hostess needed a guestbook and on a 7 hour notice I made this one for the party. I used brown paper bags and my bind-it-all machine to bind it. Some of the bags I used as pockets and put a tag in it for the ladies to leave comments and wisdom :D

I am back

Exhausted but happy after a 4 day crafts fair. Here is a photo of my booth. And a few close ups of my goodies :D

Sneak peak :D

I am preparing for an annual design/craft fair that will take in two weeks. Here is a little sneak peak of what I am making.

I love messing with my inks

This is a layout of my dd too busy texting her friend to have me take a single decent photo of her at one of the most scenic places in Iceland, Jökulsárlón - a glacier lagoon.

First I used my Tim Holtz inks and made a good mess on white cardstock. Then I decided to cut up the photo. While I was placing the mosaic photo I discovered the background working with me. So I carefully placed them with consideration of the ink splatters. Neat huh! well... can I tell you a secret.... the reason I ripped up the paper was because there was a fault in the misting I needed to hide :Þ Sometimes things just happen by accident. I love that I am learning to loosen up a bit. :D

Thank you for looking, and I would love a comment if you have one :D

Second thoughts

Sometimes I have second thoughts about layouts I am making. Usually I don't do much about it if I am overall happy with the page. This time I had serious doubts about the photo. I took some guts to rip up that cute photo, but I think it payed off. I like the new version even more :D

Mellow Yellow

All my life I think yellow has been my least favorite color. But lately I´ve grown a little more fond of it. Maybe it's because of the lack of sunshine these past months. I challenged myself to do a layout with yellow as the main color! I was surpriced by the result AND it was fun to work with. This might be the beginning of a friendship with the much dreaded color yellow :D

The layout is about the ribbons my dd used in her hair. The yellow ribbon on the page is a ribbon she actually used around the age of 2. Thank you for looking :D

Popup Twirling Card

How sweet it is to give someone a fun card, especially to kids. It made my day when my 4 year old nephew saw the butterfly spin when he opened the card. SWEET! :D

It is difficult to show a moving card in still photos but you can find a great video of the tutorial I used here.

Scrapbooking again

I have been neglecting this blog for the past months. I´ve been to the carribbean and back, so much fun. Now I am on my usual summer break untill the end of August. NICE...I know :D

Anyways, I used some of my free time to tidy up my scraproom and dust off my stash. These past two weeks I even went as far as doing a few layouts. The bottom two I found hiding in a pile of stuff, half finished, pulled them aside, gave them a little love and finished them. :D Most of the stuff I used is old stuff from my stash.

I also discovered that some of my rub-ons are drying up and getting ruined :( Does anyone know any trix to still use them?

Hope the summer is treating you well :D and I promise it won't be months until my next post.