Little Corner of Ania

At this very moment, my husband’s cousin is disputing her doctorate on the African languages Wolof and Fulfulde, and how the local languages gets new life alongside French in Senegal thanks to the use of SMS (cellphones) & Internet…well, something along these lines..:)

Unfortunately we weren’t able to be there in person, but we’re all proud of her & naturally I created her a card she’ll get with her little gift :)

It’s a simple card – yet pretty fresh and summery in colors.. notice the stupid holes along the journal-note? I started sewing around the edge but turns out my sewing machine is acting bleh once again. Really, I should just bite the dust and buy a new one soon, sigh…I do use it a lot after all :/ Nevertheless…once I realized it was fubar I was like, bleh, and continued sewing holes around the note since there were already holes on it sorta.

I used Pink Paislee’s 365 degrees on this card, along with a birdcage-die cut from a Hambly Screenprints-transparency (seriously, these adds such lovely touches to about anything, and lasts forever too :) ). Tag from Elle’s Studio, wooden button that I whitewashed from Maya Road and hm, yeah, edgepunch from Fiskars…think that’s it for this card.

Have a lovely weekend! :)

So, Saturday came and went – we had a wonderful day - especially Amalie, who turned six… she already had gotten her present from us – a bicycle – so this morning she just got some smaller pressies from us and her brother (a locket necklace from this artist – her cousin got a similar one, only with a lighthaired girl :p, and a Hello,Kitty DS-game..while I love the locket and the artist (and more important, Amalie loves it too), it’s unfortunately not too sturdy so I probably need to get it refitted into a better necklace or fix the jump ring or something so the locket will stop falling from the necklace :/).

We had Easter-dinner where we invited some family-members, and she got more pressies…here’s the book she got from my mother – she loves Oistein, a Norwegian artist/drawer who’s featured on the children’s television where he shows children easy steps to do fun drawings..(“he’s so, so, so good!” quote Amalie)

In case you wondered how old she turned…

Later that afternoon grandmother and her cousin arrived too, straight from the summerplace, and with even more gifts. A great day for her indeed.

A while ago I received an email from Sue Mylde, also known as Missusem, asking if I wanted to take part in a creative journey of hers: Words & Perspectives. Never one to say no to challenges, I accepted, and created this layout. You can find my blogpost here.

My chosen word was “jobb” – “work/job” – as this request came at a time when I had just gotten the job I now have (journalist at the local newspaper). It gave me a nice kick in the behind to document this part of my life – thank you so much for that, Sue! :)

I used mostly Pink Paislee’s Starlight-collection, along with a piece of Sassafras (the yellow polka-paper), Elle’s Studio tags and rubons from Hambly Screenprints (while I loved this colorscheme, I found it a bit too dark – so adding a white doily + white rubons helped lots imo).

Last day of the Easter-vacation…break..whatever it’s called in English..been a good one..warm..sunny…lovely..much needed….and oh, we finally finished Battlestar Galactica season4 (left it off long time ago in the beginning of season4) :p

Ps.

For Norwegians: Scrappehuset har et skikkelig flott fotokurs med Nabo’n som må leses for alle som er interessert i å vite mer om kameraets innstillinger – du finner den her.

Wow.

Six years ago we got to meet you for the very first time. You are simply amazing. Together with your brother you light up our lives every. single. day. We all love you so much. And to imagine. Being six years old means you’ll start school this Fall. The school you currently call “my brother's school” will soon also become yours. Here's to hoping this next chapter of your life will become as joyous as the previous one has been. Stay true to yourself always, don’t ever lose that confidence of yours.

Yours forever,

mom

 

Ps.

She got this wand today, along with other gifts (well ok, she got to model the wand a few days ago .p) – it’s created for Glue Arts and their collaboration with Epiphany Crafts (they have these make-your-own-epoxy-buttons and cute felt embellishments). For step-by-step instructions on this wand + a chance to win Glue Arts-adhesive + Epiphany Crafts stuff – head over here :)

Sassafras has another challenge going on, this time a sketch – one that I could not resist. Plus, I had plenty of scraps from the last Sassafras-challenge that I wanted to use, haha. The picture is one that I snapped using my Instagram-app – I was at my moms place, and had been gone all day attending DOK:11, and the kids (my daughter+niece) refused to go to bed until I had arrived home late that night. And when I came home – well, this is what welcomed me – mad dance & cheering from the kids…hehe…love that my mom is peeking out the door here too :)

The layout is a mix of …well, lots of older Sassafras-stuff :) And a doily! They fit in so nicely everywhere sorta..

And I love curling the corners of the papers like this :)

And oh hi! There’s my friends and their cellphones which I decorated for my very first assignment with Glue Arts! :) Glue Arts isn’t only about adhesive, they also have 12x12 sheets of vinyl in lots of lovely colors, called Accent It All. Using it is quite simple, and you can find my step-by-step tutorial here.

 

Right! Easter’s quickly approaching, and so is the little ones birthday. I also just got off my first week at work, including working the whole weekend (which is something everybody takes their turn at doing, before getting two days off the following week). Really am looking forward to having an extra long Easter-vacation doing pretty much nothing (if I had my way…sigh ;p)!

When the ladies at the bi-weekly challenge-site Mission to Create asked me to participate in their challenges as a guest-designer, I gladly accepted. The concept is that each lady, including the guest-designer (aka me in this instance), picks one concept each, and together all (five) concepts yields one challenge. And to take part in the challenge you can chose whether to include at least three of the concepts, or all five – in your layout.

My concept was to get inspired by this image:

I found it on Etsy - it’s a print from this seller, who turned out to be a scrapbooker herself when I asked for permission to use her image as my inspiration-piece. Now that was amusing! Here’s her shop for those curious – she offers a wide range of prints w/quotes in many different colors and themes.

Anyways – this print was my concept to the ladies – to take the print and be inspired by the text, the colors, the letters or in whatever way the print inspires you.

The other concepts were:

D- make a list as part of your journaling
J- Primary colors
N- Use a journalling card
V- Use a mini calendar

Personally, although I could decide to only do three of the concepts, I’m not one to not really do a challenge sorta – so I had to do them all ;p

From the inspiration-image I chose to go for a title that was just as colorful+broken down word by word. The title’s placed on a mini-calendar from Crate Paper’s Portrait-collection – here: the 6x6” paper-pads. I also added a calendar-tag from Elle’s Studio, as well as several other tags from Elle’s.

I also pretty much stuck to using primary-colors on my layout..oh, and I just have to mention how much I love these mini-scalloped scissors! This one’s from Fiskars :)

And here’s me using list + journaling-card.

Materials used: Papers from both Pink Paislee (Old School – papers + stickers) + Crate Paper (Portrait+ School Spirit-chipboard), tags from Elle’s Studio and some of the letters are from American Craft. The layout is about my daughter on her pre-school-day.

Hop on over and join the challenge you too –it sure would be awesome if you did! Feel free to let me know if you did, too! :)

Spoiled rotten…that’s every grandparents privilege, no? To spoil their grandchildren..maybe not rotten, but pretty close. Whenever Amalie’s with her grandmother groceryshopping (or any kind of shopping), you can be sure she’ll come home with little bits and pieces she’s convinced my mother she needs. Currently it’s just smaller things, like her fave cereal, or yoghurt, or even a magazine…. but just you wait till she’s getting older..!

This layout was created for Crate Paper’s monthly sketch challenge found here.

I used a mix of lots of different collections for this one, old and new alike. Toy Box, Portrait, Paper Doll and Restoration – that’s the collections I’ve used here as far as I can recall. Love that bunny :)

As for the sketch – I turned it sideways and shrunk it as well. Check out the sketch here, it’s pretty cute :)

I also added some 3d-foam behind the border-stickers, as well as added some doilies behind the upper top.

 

Have a lovely weekend!

Um. Pretty, pretty colors! Look at these colors for this month’s color-palette over at Crate Paper: Coral, Aqua and Butter Cream! Luscious, aren’t they!

Tara Anderson, the new hostess of the color challenges at Crate, also put together this inspiration-board for the colors…pretty! You’ll find the rules and stuff here, if you feel like joining in :)

The girl’s my sweet, sweet niece, by the way, taken sometime two years ago, before she started school.

Personally I whipped out lots of older Crate-products for this one. The background’s even from a very old collection: the Lemon Grass collection, hehe. I knew it was smart holding on to that sheet of paper ;p

Other stuff include a doily heart, some glimmer mist, Prima flowers and pebble, a Petaloo-flower, pins from Maya Road, tickets from Pink Paislee and papers and die cuts from the Pink Plum-collection.

Even bits and pieces from Toy Box and School Spirit were used..thickers from American Crafts and transparency from Hambly Screenprints. Mm..lots of bits and pieces on this one indeed..

And I like the idea of using vellum to soften the look further, although I’m not sure if it really came through on the photos of the layout here…

 

Psst! Sweet Nathalie Kalbach asked me to do a guestpost on her blog a while ago, and I was only too happy to oblige. You can find me and my answers to her questions here. And if you haven’t already, scroll down her blog and get to know different guests of hers – I love that she’s a mixed media artist and thus have guests from different areas of art – not “only” scrapbooking. She’s presenting guests on her blog whole April afaik.

 

Miss Marple Said,

11:04 AM

Thank you for showing the tutorial here! I love to see how you work an how simple it can bee with the right materials!
Haev a sunny day – Irma

 

Thank you so much! And yes – most of what I create is indeed quite simple and easy to do – I envy intricate and detail-orientated scrapbookers because of what they can do, but personally I often opt for the simple/easiest solutions haha :)

WillieburgScrapper Said,

3:13 PM

I think a disclosure page is a great idea! It's a little different for the scrap world because part of being a DT member is promoting the brand and your participation in the team but other industries (like beauty products or electronics) send samples to prominent bloggers in the hopes you will write about them without ever stating you got them for free. I worked at a fashion and beauty PR firm and that was my intern job- sending out the free stuff.
LOOOVE the accordion design on the mini- I will definitely try that- it's an elegant solution to the problem of binding without special products or stitching.

Thank you so much for the feedback on the disclosure-page, and yes, I agree – it’s different for scrapbookers and design-teams, which’s out there in the open imho. Nevertheless, I feel alright with having that disclosure-page up and going – if shit hits the fan so to speak I know I’ve done my share, having a page explaining stuff…I hope..haha.. :)

 

Maren Said,

3:09 PM

Du.
Kan.
Vi.
Lage.
Sånne.
Album.
Sammen.
En.
Dag.
Snart.
PLEASE?!

Det.

Kan.

Vi.

Vel!

:D

 

Shalini Said,

7:34 AM

love reading yr posts... and yr kids are so adorable... love hw u motivated them to cook...
i have been thinking and been after by DH to buy me a DSLR for so long :)) which one do u use?

Thank you :)

The camera I’m using is a Nikon D700 w/a 24-70 f/2.8 lens. The best tip I learned when being new to DSLR’s and not really knowing what brand I wanted, was to just try the cameras in your hand – and pick the one you feel is you. Most of the cameras out there atm are great and well advanced for newbeginners – so whichever camera you pick you’re sure to get a great camera nevertheless. If you have good friends or close family w/a DSLR already you may want to stick to their brand if there’s a possibility for you to borrow their lenses by the way.

 

~Sasha Farina~ Said,

12:29 PM

she should NOT stop doing those pose.. hahahha.. i love them!

Oh shaddap ;p

*grin* (yeah I gotta admit, she’s at the age when it’s still cute when doing that, but one or two frames is enough :p)

 

Right!

Date-night w/hubby scheduled for tonight – looking forward to that…going out to eat sushi..mmm…need to celebrate (or mourn..whatever way you wanna look at it ;p) that I’m starting at a new (well, new-oldish) job on monday…:)

Been a while since I re-posted some of the older tutorials (to new readers: I’m trying to gather my various tutorials placed randomly around the web – so I can have them all gathered on my blog). Here’s the first tutorial I did for Crate Paper back when I started designing for them (you can also find this one on their blog here).

The below is taken from the tutorial-post:

 

Ania here with my very first tutorial for Crate Paper - Yay! First, let me come clean and admit something. This project - a mini album - came together because I've recently been a bad girl. I promised my mom (as usual) that I'd send grandma a postcard (as usual) during my vacation, but some how, I kept putting it off 'til it was too late. Ugh. Bad & Embarrassing, I know. So, I figured I'd make up for it by making her a mini album instead..but, don't think I'm good because I made her a mini. I'm actually terrible at making amends...

There - I said it! Let's continue, shall we?!

Here's what you'll need:

• At least two sheets of Patterned Paper (Restoration Collection)
• Embellishments (Restoration & Pink Plum Collections)
• Scoring Tool/Bone Folder
• Ruler
• Mod Podge/Sealer/Multi-Medium Matte (Claudine Hellmuth)
• Adhesive (Both Liquid & Double-sided)
• Sewing Machine
• Bazzill Cardstock
• Fiskars Edge Puncher
• Staples
• Adorn It Letters/Alphas
• Prima Flower

Cut a strip of the patterned paper you'd like as your cover. Based on my photos (which was four images printed on a 4" x 6" sheet) I determined my mini would be 3 1/4" tall and 4.5" long (the cover is slightly longer - the inner pages are 4.5" though). Using a center finder ruler, measure the area in the middle to create a series of accordion folds for the binding of the album (an extra inch or two of paper length required for this part of the album - think about this when trimming paper for your own album.)

Note: In hindsight, I should of probably used a separate piece of cardstock or double patterned paper for this part (accordion section), because in the end, there was a noticeable amount of white between the pages. I loved the edges of the die-cut paper though, so I had to use it!

Measure so that you can create nine creases between between the front and back of your album (yielding four "inner-tops" = 8 pages (front & back)). This part is when I wish I had some kind of scoring tool! :P If you're without one, use a metal ruler or bone folder instead.

 

Take a sheet of patterned paper, cut one side to 9", then turn and cut it into "four" 3" strips. The inner pages should be slightly smaller in height.  Fold them in two (yielding 3" x 4.5" pages for your mini).

 

Optional: Paint the cover with mod podge/sealer to make it stronger.

While the cover is drying, create a cover-embellishment for your album. I opted to create a frame using pieces from the Restoration collection: Chipboard, Paper, Rub-Ons & Stickers. Test your embellishments loosely before adhering them down.

Here is my finished cover piece: Layered Paper, Chipboard Frame & Flower, No. 19 Rub-On, Label Sticker, Rhinestones & Button w/Tie.

Decorate your inner pages. I loved this pattern paper, Slipcover, so much that I didn't want to cover it up. Hence this simple set-up with bare patterned paper, photos and an occasional brad or chipboard piece.

Note: you can also trim the pages individually, though I wanted to preserve the folds.

After all the pages are done, adhere the pages together. Apply liquid glue to each crease and insert page into crease - press the crease around the page to ensure that page adheres appropriately. Make sure the page is deep into the crease and all the way in. Rinse & repeat with the other pages.

When done, press the mini together (watch out for adhesive between the pages themselves - wipe any spilled glue away)

I decided to make a small spine cover to place over the creases of my album. Pre-measure and trim to size a small section of pattern paper to fit over the spine and punch edges using a decorative border punch (fiskars). Don't forget to apply mod podge/sealer to this one as well!

Apply adhesive the sides (not middle section!) of inner spine cover. Add to album and leave in place!

 

ll righty - all that remains is to adhere the cover-embellishment we made earlier on!

And here's the finished mini in all it's glory..let's hope grandma enjoy this so much that she'll forget I didn't send her a postcard this Summer *cough* :)

 

 

There you have it :)

 

By the way, after much hemming and thinking, I’ve decided to create a disclosure-page – found on the top of this blog. Tbh, to me it’s pretty evident that when you’re part of a design team, part of your “job” is to create samples and stuff with their products and then sharing what you have created – plus the occasional promote-post re. things they do and stuff. And even after your term with them ends, you usually still have lots of products from the time w/the manufacturer, and you still find the time creating stuff w/them and stuff – even if you’re no longer “obligated” to.

 

I join design-teams because I love the products they produce (more or less – you can’t really love *everything* although some manufs really come close ;) – and even products I initially go “uhm, no, that’s so not me” about – have usually been the ones I’ve used the most/loved more and more over time, haha), and the love of using said products doesn’t end within a date.

 

However, there’s a Norwegian discussion about bloggers and promoting, and although I personally never really compared myself to the bloggers the discussion’s been about (plus, my design teams haven’t been “secret” either), I figured it’d be better to come clean w/an own disclosure-page explaining how things are for those not really aware how scrapbooking&designteams work just in case. Better safe than sorry? :p

 

I dunno..have you seen disclosures on scrapbook-blogs? (apart from the sites like Craft Critique, who receive samples to review them)

If you’re fast enough, you still have time to enter the grand giveaway over at the Crate-blog & get some spring-y inspiration to boot. Here’s my contribution: a simple spring basket filled w/chocolate-eggs…(my favorite: the ones w/marzipan as core…mmm…)..materials: pretty much all but the flowers hails from the Crate Paper Portrait-collection.

 

I was also asked to write something about me for scrapping.no, who wants to hm, what’s it called – profile? put the spotlight on? feature? – various scrapbookers. It’s a bit lengthy (I was sent a list of questions and I just wrote my answers back, but in the article only my answer’s in print, not the questions…so I’m not really that good at talking alot about myself and what I do in scrapbooking, haha :p) It’s in Norwegian by the way. Thanks a lot for featuring me, scrapping.no! :)

 

Right. Have lots to do this week, so better get going!