Little Corner of Ania

I am serious. I have no idea how I ended up here.
I am (too) used to rejections. I am used to way lousy "successratios" when trying out for things. And that's completely fine, it's a part of the game, and maybe even the fun too? But all of a sudden. Things starts to improve? o.O Unreal.

That being said, I am like o.O about this. Fancy Pants Designs. Hello?!? Totally love their designs and I've been stalking them ever since their first hint about a DT-call leaked on their blog in May - been impatiently waiting for it since. So. No. I could not resist the temptation to apply. Figured it most likely wouldn't go through at all and then I could have said I tried instead of regretting not having tried..... *cough*

So very pleased to see Jolene on the team too!!!! She is what I would picture like, the Ultimate Fancy Pants lol- her style goes so very well with them! And Staci!! How very fun haha :D It's like starting in a new class at a new school - it's good to "know" someone already to hold on to haha :) I am crossing my fingers that we'll see some more of my friends as runner-ups....you know who you are..

Ahwell.....Scrappedugnad :)


Scrappedugnad started up again after a long hiatus -- the summer vacation got to us all :P
So--we're starting again today with Tove Tyll -- that woman has quite an unique and eclectic style -- lovesit! She challenged us to make our own pp and to use candypaper on the page. I was contemplating really making one, like, you know, from elaborate stamps and vintagepaper and do some collage stuff, but in the end I just went for the easy solution - slap a little paint on a black cs and add some Hambly Screenprint rubons just for laughs :p Or something like that :p
The "frame" to the color-photo was made by using black cs, scalloped scissors & white signo-pen. And oh yeah -if you look close-- the y in the candy is upside down. Cba to fix that when I noticed and well, uh, eh, it has its charm?? :p Totally heart my niece - she looks *so* angelic.....but she, uh, has a will of her own :P Sigh. Miss her! Lately I've been hating not having journaling on my pages, but when I was done with this I didn't find any room for journaling -- I mean-- it wouldn't fit aesthetically methought, hence the little tag begind the colorphoto. I don't know. I try to tell myself that layouts wo journaling is just swell but.. it's just a lil quirk I have atm.

Last week or so I got a sweet peamail - Aussie Scrap Source - the blog of an Australian distributor - chose Luxe Designs for their Weekend Inspiration and they picked up two of my Luxe layouts for that post. Thank you! :D Check out the first layout there by Carole, I loved that tree - so cool!

Ahwell. Shan't bore you more -- have a lovely weekend!! :)

The bathroom, that is. Or well, the two walls we're renovating atm.
Tiles are up on one wall now. Tomorrow we'll do the other wall. Or well. My husband will do the other wall :p I'm guessing two maybe three more days before everything's ready and good to use. Yay. More photos below for whoever's interested.

Today (or well, at this hour of the night it's rather - yesterday) we were sponsed by Bad Girls kits over at Scrappedugnad - Tracie guested & challenged us to use ribbons! Here's my layout made with the June-BG kit. Love these vivid colors against white :) The winner will get the same June-kit from Bad Girls - now how's that for a prize??? :D The deadline is July 4th - so chop chop get started!! :D

Speaking of Bad Girls.. July is the anniversary...and as an extra special treat for y'all there'll be FREE classes from the DT throughout the month at the message board..there'll be pressies.....there'll be scrappy stuff to do....in short..there'll be lots of fun! I think all the news will be posted here. Oh and the above is yet another peek from the July-kit. Seriously, loved this month so much, can't wait to share it all with you!!

Oppussingen av badet fortsetter -- hittil har vi (Simen da) fått opp flisene på den ene veggen - imorgen er det på'n igjen med den andre veggen. Fugemassegreiene og sånn innimellom flisesprekkene tenker jeg vi tar enten imorgen kveld eller på søndag - og da burde vi vel være ferdig med badet...enten da eller iallefall på mandag om ikke noe uforutsett skjer!! Og bra er det - det snakkes om at sommerværet kommer til uka - så da blir det greit å få badet ferdig slik at vi kan nyte sommerværet!! Simen sier han gruer seg til når han blir ferdig med badet - jeg får vel en ny dille og vil få noe annet gjort i huset...tjah... om dere ser på bildene nedenfor så ser dere hvordan veggene i gangen og trappegangen og loftet ser ut (tre etasjer) -- disse veggene skulle jeg gjerne sett malt i hvitt!!! Haaaater det ekstremt gul-oransje preget alle bildene tatt her får.... Og om de skal males hvitt (latte ellerno tenker jeg..gah husker ikke hva slags farge stueveggene har :p) bør vel trappene pusses opp samtidig....mhmm..det får vel bli neste års prosjekt ellerno for det er seriøst en masse vegger å dekke =)

Ha en finfin helg!!

Yay!!! Have been waiting for today for a while -- 3ndypapir kindly agreed to sponsor us at Scrappedugnad and here is my layout - made with Gudruns gorgeous papers from "Sommerhus 08" :) :) So sweet and summery - really makes you think of romantic vintage cottages :) Love the paper with journalingspots..I cut them out and used them as frames for my photos, which are from the preparations to 17. mai - the Norwegian Constitution Day - we celebrated at our place so mother in law insisted on helping us buying & planting flowers (and a herb!!) for us...with good help from the children ofc. ;)

Used a lot of glossy accent, crackle paint, glimmer mist (Pearl). Papers from 3ndypapir, Hambly & American Craft (the firefly), flowers from Prima, Bazzill and stuff, vintage paper, ribbons & sewing. Our task was to use 7 diff flowers, four of them handmade/customized )

Have a wonderful weekend! :)

~More stuff!
This book was made after Gloria Froeses AMAZING class over at Bad Girls - make a DIY-book, LOVELOVELOVESIT! I gave this one to my mom and I used a bind-it-all to make the papers inside - once it's used it can be swapped out for a new one by loosening the ribbons. I also added this to the Scrappedugnad-challenge, which was to make storebought tags (from clothes etc). Mine has a bit of paint on the edges - love the dimension it gives to stuff!!

And last nights Pencil-Lines - made it using the BG June kit. If you check out the Bad Girls site you can see that the same sketch is used in a challenge where the prize is a 3month subscription to Bad Girls!! WOAH!!!!!!! All you have to do is to use the June kit and do the sketch! :D Love this photo fo AMalie and her cousin...they insisted on sleeping in the same bed and promised to sleep..ha ha ha...they were little pixies giggling and doing silly things and hiding under the stairs and god knows what - in the end we had to separate them to make them sleep!!! Heheeee....cute :) Miss her cousins around!!

I love what they have done with the übertalented Vibeke Spigseth as their main (??) designer - at least I love the direction they seems to have taken with her aboard - Scrappedugnad was so lucky to be sponsed by Scrappers Choice this time - a Scandinavian provider of scrapbook-stuff - their spring papers are mostly themed papers - something I normally don't do but hot darn, these are b e a u t i f u l for reals! I lucked out and got the wedding papers - ahh the quality of this paper and its structure is to die for and it's so beautiful... perfect for the weddingphotos I shot last fall of my husbands cousin. I wanted to make this simple - let the paper and photos take the mainstage while accenting it with sewing & a splash of color from Prima.. oh, and I almost forgot the challenge itself - use stamps - blush - uhm, right - this cute lil stamp in the middle there is cute eh?? Design Linda Mortensen - love it and love it even more that I got to use it - it's too underused!!

Come join the challenge - use stamps ;) - and you can get the chance to win some of these yummy papers & embellies for yourself too!

In other words. Age of Conan is launcing tomorrow. We have preordered so I guess we're ready to play tomorrow. I haven't been playing any MMORPGS in a good while now - longest break ever since I started playing such games at 16. The last game I played was World of Warcraft, and we kinda quit it a few months ago - in the end I was just raiding and it just wasn't enough. I do miss the big games though, the excitement, the cooperations, the people - I guess the game itself just grew..old? I haven't been missing playing too much - so I wonder how it will be playing Age of Conan. Will I get back on track playing hardcore or will I keep on carrying a laidback approach as I have the last year or so? Hm. We'll see. I kinda like having time to scrap in the evenings, but I do miss playing and experiencing&doing things with my husband in the games. Oh. And I'm also looking for D&D miniature sets for my kiddo - he seem to have taken a keen interest in these small figures when my husband came home from a D&Dgame with some friends. He really got it quick and tried really hard to learn the diff stats and stuff - cool. The nerd generation is safe. Sooo to keep him happy I'm looking for D&D sets on ebay...he is reeeeeally giddy about getting new figures and daddy keeps telling him to tell mommy cause it's mommy who's doin ebay! Right! I'm not even sure what I am looking for or what's a good buy or whatever. Hrm. Feel free to help out if you know :p

Ps! Luxe has just gotten quite a few new collections into their store and are celebrating the new lines with giveaways..check it out :)

Ps! Layoutkurset imorgen er fullt, men det er fortsatt noen plasser igjen på shadowbox-kurset 15-18!! :)




Here's my contribution to todays Scrappedugnad, where we had SILJE ♥♥♥ guestdesign!!! She challenged us with fabric - duh, what else?? (apart from paint maybe haha ;) ). Lucky me Mari gave me some fabric last weekend so I had something I could use - only that I'm like, a procrastinator these days...did I mention this already..?? Sooooo I finished it just now (lots of Prima (love Teas & Silk - perfect for old-day-photos - yes - another photo of myself..) and a lil hambly) which means I have two and half more hours to pack my personal scrapping-stuff & clothes and get ready for Stavanger!! (The weather's lovely - YAY! My only regret is that some friends are heading to a cabin for scrapping this same weekend - bleeeeh! I'm sure we all will have fun wherver we are at though :) )

Btw. Sorry for the angle of the layout, had to do an uneven angle due to the light-reflection in the Hambly.

Sooo remember my rant in the last post about six year olds demanding spa and beautytreatments and stuff?

Well lookie lookie - a doc - a plastic surgeon natch - is launcing a book called "My beautiful Mommy" (at Mothers Day in the US ;p). The plot? Not how beauty comes from within - Heaven forbid - it's a book explaining to six year olds that mommy's gonna get a lil nip&tucked. Like. Nosejob, tummyjob and breast augmentations. YEAH that's exactly what I've been looking for for Amalie!

Nonetheless, Mom reassures her little one that the new nose won't just look "different, my dear—prettier!" Naturally, the ending is happy. Mommy is "even more" beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.

Right.
Now don't get me wrong - getting stuff done is a personal business&choice but uhm, a book exploiting this & turning it into a childrens book with the values it translates and all? Uh. Once again I just have to quote Perez Hilton; "So wrong, but so right for these times we live in!"

Have a lovely weekend!!! :)

So I get a permission to leave and I grab it cause, well, I don't do much but sleep and stuff at the hosp but hm, tbh, there's like a reason to why sleep all the time at the hosp no? Sooo admitting defeat I'm going back there tonight and hopefully I'll be home tomorrow in a much better shape than atm. Cause atm it sucks being me ;p

Alright. Didn't get the piccies to work yesterday so. Leaving the text as is. Went home for a bit yesterday (sunday) and then back to hosp same night. Am home again today and well, I am feeling better but if I like, rock a bit and tug deep deep inside I can feel the dizzy tingle of sitting on a merry-go-round. Funny eh? Ohwell. Nuff boring talk.

Wanted to share the Fancy Pants loving lately - looooove these papers so much...the photos just doesn't yield them any justice! :/

The first layout bears an explaination maybe - you see - we went BBQing in Vienna last summer and our little girlie went to sleep - and slept through most of the evening. When she woke up she instantly wanted in on the fun and grabbed the first and biggest sword she could find, went down the stairs and joined the game. You see, our hosts were RPG-players - as in playing roleplaying games for real - having a wonderful arsenal of totally cool weapons made of soft foam :) Lots of fun - dunno who had the most fun - our kids or the big kids ;p Anyways - love how Amalie just flung herself into it - alright Athena had a spear as her official weap but ey, details ;p Can't get over how cool she looked carrying a sword larger than herself haha...

The second layout is for Pencil-Lines (with Corinne Delis as our guest this week - love the circles!!), and the third one for Scrappedugnad with Dina Wakley and hey, even more circles! ;p

I'll get around to the other tags as soon as I'm able to think straight. Which I'm not really atm sorry!

Corinne Delis guested us at Scrappedugnad on friday - challenged us to do a layout with journaling from the heart. Loved her challenge. Mine's about how stupid I find this parenthoodthingie....I mean - from the moment you know you've concieved someone there's nothing but worries, worries and even more worries and it never seem to end!!! ;p

AND YAY!!! Me soooo happy!!!! My BG kit arrived yesterday and from the moment I went to fetch it and open it I've felt a mojo I haven't felt in ...WEEKS! You know I've complained about my layouts lying around on the table for 3-5 days before I finally get around to wrap them up...well, I finished two layouts and almost a whole minibook just yesterday!! Wrapped up the minibook today and am on my way into my third layout with this kit!!! I have to confess though.....when Wendy (the owner of Bad Girls) told us what we'd expect from this kit...I went...uh-oh. Yes. I had my doubts. Really. But hot damn!!! I'll NEVER EVER EVER doubt her again!!! I've had SO MUCH FUN with this kit.... I would honestly never buy most of the papers in this kit on my own so I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw it irl and how easy things got together.... yay!! And the embellishments she puts together....they just totally rock... as usual this is such a jam packed kit with LOTS of stuff! (okok, that's todays commercial - but really..I AM that stoked!!)...and look what was inside the box too......*swooon* the BG Apron!!!!! The one with LUSHIOUS (is that a word? well, it is now! :p) blingbling spelling out "Bad Girls".....so so so totally freakin cute!11!! Ofc I had to take a photo of myself in it and Amalie thinks we're gonna bake when I wear it on (ok I havent unworn it since I got it yesterday :p) so I've baked brownies and bread now so she can be satisfied :p Oh, and she demands wearing her own apron too...here she is after we made the brownies....yes..I let the kids eat the leftovers of the dough.... yes.. it might take some time before I remember to wash her.... yes.... sometimes she likes to put on the skiing-glasses and walk around telling us she looks funny..

Ps...that apron is available for you too - all you have to do is to join the monthly challenge at Bad Girls using the current kit or add-ons or project-kit :)

Ohwell! Peeks on the BG kit?
I'll post more peeks later - but here's two for now :)



And here's Amalie again :)
I lucked out with this one - was taking photos of a layout in front of the windows and she came up to me asking if I wanted to take her photos...basking in the grey light coming through the windows :)

Ps! Minneriket is going through a number of upgrades....good stuff inc ladies... but it also means that the site will be unavailable & stuff at times...but should be done sometime tonight or tomorrow... drop by the blog for updates during the downtime :)

Ps2! Check this out - Pink Paislee has launced their Live Pink site - complete with lots of nifty features...

First. Pencillineslayout for sketch #70 - our guest this week was Anilu Malgoire, a woman whom I've secretly admired for a good while now..she damn rocks the layouts!!!

LOOOOOoooove rouge de garance..esp this line.....sososoo love... perfect for the photosession-photos from a couple weeks ago :)

And I gotta say: SOSOSOSOSOOO sorry!!!!!



....for hoggin the Norwegian magazine Vi Scrapper to such an extent as I did this number...apparently....*blush* *blush*

You see...originally I was just gonna write this article about kitclubs...making layouts and stuff for the article aswell..obviously....(thank you SO SO SO much to Bad Girls, Sweet Spuds, Månedsscrappen and Scrapping Kits for your help and support!!!)

...then we learned that they wanted to write about Scrappedugnad aswell, which we started Dec last year....cool enough! But um, piccies of all of us four? Uh yeah right, Christine didn't get the idea about Scrappedugnad until after we all had met and stuff, so we never really got a piccie of the four of us only.....all we had was.....piccies of me and Christine.... me and Mari....me and Ingunn..all from Papirfesten....and Mari and Christine never got the time to meet up for a photosession before the deadline, so that was all we got... ohwell! Figured they could like, crop or somethin...but noooo all three piccies was used...with the lovely mug of yours truly on every one of them...riiight..

..and then we learned that they did write about Papirfesten in that mag and oooh guess what..another mugshot of me and Ingunn cause we both were teaching there too...o.O

Oh and I scrapped the piccie of me and Mari which was chosen as one of the layouts for the kit-article aswell...
So um.

It all boils down to.

sorry. sorry. sorry.
For you having to endure my face a couple of times in that mag.
sorry. sorry. sorry!!!

My name is mentioned in another article aswell but thankfully the layout didn't show my face in it....I abused Kine for that mwahahha :p

Right.
But!! I'm so excited still!! Wohoo!! :D And you just gotta see Christines fabulous layout in that mag....wow!! And I've got hm, 3 or 4 layouts for the kitarticle that didn't make it, I'll prob show them here soon, this mail is long enough atm anyways :p

Now.
Scrappedugnad.
YAY!
We got two new members now!!!
DOUBLEYAY!
Eli and Catrine - TRIPLEYAY!
So happy!!
Drop by Scrappedugnad and greet them .... and stay tuned for a WICKED COOL thingie tomorrow (weds) :D


- Hen'e'niiin?? Hen'e'niiin??? (hvor er kaninen)
- Vet ikke. Nede kanskje?
- Hent mamma hent! Hent mamma!
- ....
- Hent mamma!
- Værsåsnill?
- hæsåsnill??
- Ok...

Sukk. Den ungen altså. Sooo demanding ;p
Anyways!! Det nyeste nummeret av Vi Scrapper er straks til salgs rundtomkring og uhm, BIG DISCLAIMER INC: SORRY FOR AT BILDET AV MEG DUKKER OPP HIST OG PIST DER I LØPET AV HELE BLADET!!!!
*cough*
*småflau*
Tilfeldigheter altså!!!
Men. Så det er sagt. Nummeret er et av de kuleste ever!!!!
:D :D :D

Og så må dere holde et øye med Scrappedugnad imorgen - ja - nå og for den saks skyld, vi har fått to nye medlemmer - Eli og Catrine - HIPP HIPP HURRA!!!!! :D :D :D

Tudelu skal raide nå straks ;p

Funny thing. I did a little quiz at Glassbooth to check who I'd support/share beliefs with if I was to vote for the US President Campagin. It was just a fun lil' tidbit as I do not have all the insights to how things are or work in the US - like the No Child Behind thing they asked about (just briefly looked at the resume at Wiki - the intentions looked good but good intentions are like, one thing - another is how it's actually executed and the consequenses...I guess.).. but... apparently if I was an American I'd be a Democrat and share 79% similarity with Mike Gravel (who??), 78% with John Edwards and 76% with Hillary Clinton. Right. But then again - if I was an American I'd probably have more and better insight when it comes to what the questions really was about and stuff and the results woulda seen a lil different..maybe? :)


Ohwell.
Letseee.
Scrappedugnad went live last night yep - with Amber Skolnick as our guest and this yummy challenge: use stars and paint in your project. I created this layout way back in November for this challenge - sometimes I'm too fast for my own good which means loooooads of waiting until I can finally show and by then I'm not happy about the layout at all (a typical trait w/me - I usually don't like layouts older than 2 weeks). Ohwell. I'm happy I made it though - it's me and Ingunn when we were in Stavanger for Papirfest :) When I got to know Ambers prompt I just HAD to make a layout like this - 'cuz Ingunn's a star ya know... true story! ;) *snicker* I joked with her that it'd be the first of many "star"-photos and layouts she'd have to endure lol ;p Right. The stars - yummy Lil Davis' stars painted w/ dabbers and smudged with vaseline and then repainted and then wiped. I like that technique - a very cool tip that originates from Emily Falconbridge. Papers used here are um, Making Memories and Sassafras Lass :)

Now. Off to take the kids down to watch a basketgame and do some grocery-shopping :)

Two sneakies for Bad Girls (*wave Eli* :D). Full reveal tomorrow - yay!!
AND!! This sundays Pencillines is a DOUBLEPAGER!!!! Oh yes!! Been ages since I did one but gee this was fun! I think I like mine :) And wait till you see the guest ;)

I wrote a little how-to for Scrappedugnad the other day, about how to make your own action in Photoshop. The example I used was how to make a resize-action. Actions are just premade settings and yeah, they can be used to automate the resize process for you - nifty if you have several photos/layouts you wanna resize at once. Self made actions are also cool to use on new tips&tricks you find for photoshop - just store the process in an action and you're safe to have it within reach kinda when you need to refresh how to do that process. Anyways. As I wrote in Norwegian for Scrappedugnad I thought I'd rewrite it here in English and all. This goes for PS 7.0 CS CS2 and CS3. Don't have Elements 6.0 so dunno if it's appliable there but it isn't in 5.0.

So!
To make your own action: first you have to make your own folder - this is where you'll store your own actions if you wanna make several. Ofcourse you can organize the actions your own way - whatev - but an own folder for the ones you make is a nice start anyways :) Push the folder-icon which says "create new set" :) (oh, and if you can't find the action-window - just hit alt+f9 or look in "window->action")

I called mine "resize stuff" as I plan to have different resize-actions gathered in one place.
Now. Open a test-photo and hit "Create new action"

Now, type in the name of your action and you're good to go!
Once you have made this new action the recorder's on! That's the red circle - yep - it'll be red now indicating it's recording (duh) which means all you now do in Photoshop will be recorded in the new action. If you need a break - simply hit the stop button. You can delete steps you didn't intend to do by dragging them over to the trash-bin-icon next to the "create new action" icon. When you're ready to continue - just hit the recorderbutton again :)


Now, my new action is a resizer so the first thing I do is to go into "image->image size" and type in 500 pixles in the width column.


Tada! See - it got recorded!

Now, next step is a lil sharpening - "filter->sharpen->unsharp mask"


Then I save the photo for web and close it. Even the folder it's saved to will be recorded so if you want a more generic resize-action you should stop it before you save the photo and all.
Anyways, I told mine to go into the layout-folder so all is good for me anyways as I'll use it for layouts. So. I'm done - so I'm stopping the action.

To play the action - just do as normal - pick the action and hit play!

Now, to the nice stuff.
You may want to do this to a batch of photos at once - without having to pick photo by photo and click the same action over and over again. What to do then?? Use the batch-function ofcourse!

"File->automate->batch" - make sure the right action is loaded in the batch-window and chose how to pick the files - from a folder (it'll take all the photos in that folder) or the opened files in photoshop (= you'll load the photos you wanna use the action on into photoshop in advance before opening the batch-window). You can also decide what to do with the finished photos (that is, unless the action already tells the photos to close themselves :p).

Mind you - using batch on multiple photos takes a while depending on the number of photos :)


Have a nice weekend!! :) Tomorrow's Bad Girls januarykit reveal day! Yay! :D I'm sure you're so gonna love this one1!!1

Ahh...it's 2.15pm and the NY Turkey is in the oven (I like cooking Turkey for NY/Jan 1st), the Waldorf salad is finished, the dessert (chocolate fondant - mmmh) ready to go when we'll need it and I'm pretty much done cooking for today. Just need to finish the stuffing (which will be cooked in its own pan, not inside the turkey :p) but needed more apples so am waiting for that. Going for a fruit-y-stuffing as one of the guests can't eat shrooms....normally I prefer shroom&bacon stuffing...yum :) The turkey is HUGE - we got one on 8kg (17.6lbs) and I think it's the biggest turkey Ive ever made....we don't have turkey that much kinda ..esp as we don't do Thanksgiving in Norway :p

Oh yes - I'm not sick anymore and I'm relieved because that meant I was able to cook & able to look at food without feeling queasy...yay! Think I'll be careful with the eating-part though...haven't eaten too much the last few days so I assume I shouldnt start eat a lot all of a sudden kinda...we'll see :)

As it's NY I figured I'd share some scrapping-resolutions I've been thinking about a lot lately..do share your resolutions too! :)

• Focus on journaling
  Not necessarily page-long novels, but I really want to focus more on the journaling and the contents of it. I've always had a problem with the journaling - what and where are usually fine, but when it comes to stuff like emotions and stuff..well....I've tried to steer clear of that kinda stuff or just been a lil careful with the words because..well I don't really feel like that kinda person and whatever I write looks so silly and so clicheish and stuff (you know when you think stuff through in your head and it sounds great and then you put it on the paper and you just go uh where's the hole in the ground because you feel embarassed about how utterly silly it sounds? kinda happens to me a lot :p) One way to solve it (to me anyways) was to write it down in English. I feel like I can distance myself from the "silliness" easier if I type in English. It's like some of the English songs which sounds totally cool and great but when you think about the lyrics and stuff and what it really means and translate it to Norwegian it just sounds silly/stupid. Sorry! :p Hrm. I'm kinda derailing here. Anyways. More focus on journaling - content/meaning. Not all pages needs journaling - I'm happy to do both - but when I do add journaling I will try to take more than just 1 minute on it (*cough*)
• More layouts with multiple photos
  I don't think I'm too badly off here - I think my layouts have had a nice balance between single & multiple photos lately. Still, doesn't hurt to not forget about this one. Besides....these days I'm all about using several small small photos. Yumminess!
• Include more of the surroundings in the photos
  I admit it. I'm a total sucker for closeups of my (adorable!!) kids. I mean, c'mon, look at them!! ;) BUT. I really knew this in advance, but I seem to have forgotten - then I got some old photos from mom some weeks ago and it all came back to me - I LOVE to be able to see the surroundings in the photos. Me as a two year old in my grandmas kitchen....the kitchen's just the same as it's always been all these years.. ahh..the lovely memories.. my recent layout to Pencillines (see above)...that's like 5 mins from my childhood-home, and I remember me and my sister cycling down that slope....I think the barn in the background's gone now...it's things like that I believe my kids will appreciate more than just seeing their own face for the umpteenth time when they grow up.....
• Be better with embellishments
  I sooo suck at embellishments! I see fancy layouts all around with clever and superb embellishmenting (??)... I wanna be better in that dep too!
• Use more colors
  I want to be more bold with colors, use more contrasting colors ... maybe have 3 or 4 maincolors or something like that....without it looking messy....! *smile*
  
• Play more :)
  Ok, that was my 2007-word but I think I could reuse that one for 2008 :)
  

That't it.... for now anyways..:)

These two layouts above - first one is for the Pencillines one - with sketch by Russian scrapbooker Olga Lvova! How cool! :D I find it intriguing..no sb-stores in Russia and stuff...check the page to see her tale and layout ..and all the other gals! :) I used dark brown cardstock, some Daisy D & Scenic Route leftovers, Jenni Bowlin rubons (bird), See-D (inque?) stamps and the ubercool journalingspot is from Eli ♥♥♥ The photo shows me one year old with my mom...dad took the picture...we were out strolling.. love this photo ...love scrapping old photos :)

The second layout is for Scrappedugnad and shows the kids+ the neighbourkid making Christmastree-ornaments... with one of them adhered to the layout :) 3ndy Papir was so nice and let us use some of their papers for this Challenge - which was to use Christmastree-ornaments as a part of your page :) My papers are from Lene Solhaug Design :) Thank you so much! :D You have until jan 9th to join this challenge :)

Happy New Year everybody :) Don't drink too much ;)

Kalkunen er i ovnen, desserten er klar (sjokoladefondant) til å stekes og Waldorf-salaten er også klar. Bare stuffingen og sausen gjenstår, men det fikses om ikke alt for lenge :) Årets nyttårskalkun er svær - hele 8 kilo...littegranne mye til ni voksne og to barn, men sånn går det når man shopper kalkun lørdagen før nyttår ;) Kalkunrester er heldigvis godt :)

Jeg er happy - føler meg frisk og håper jeg holder meg sånn nå :)
Ønsker dere alle en riktig fin kveld og et godt nytt år!! Ikke drikk alt for mye da ;)

Alright, first: two new layouts - or well, I made them like a month or more ago and hm, the funny thing about me is that I usually like my layouts at first but then when it's been a week or so I go "why did I make that layout!?".......and I'm ashamed to say I kinda feel it that way with these two now...*blush* hmm.... ohwell....practice makes better no? That's what I keep telling myself when I feel this way or kinda low about my scrapping-skills. Ohwell.

First one's for Pencillines: Kathrine was our guest this week!! Am sooooo happy for her!! :D And her sketch really is cool and different from the others - go have a shot yourself! The photos are from the hotelroom in Ålesund - was kinda "normal-hotel-room-bored-behavior"... lovely Sassafras Lass papers, American Craft thickers, Maya Road chipboard, lil Hambly and embossed Autum Leaves stamps.

Second layout is for Scrappedugnad - we had a fun lil challenge from Celine Navarro this time - to use brads in a fun and unique way. Well that was a nice excuse to get rid of some old Queen & Co brads mixed with some MM and bazzill ones + a lil Heidi Swapp bling in between :) Papers from Sassafras Lass and Scenic Route, aswell as AC thickers and Maya Road chipboard.

I also played some with the camera and the bokeh (blur-thingie). Found a cool lil tip on Photojojo about how to customize your own bokeh. Tested it on my new lil tree :) Pretty cool huh? :) Can't wait to make star ones and test both star and heart ones as soon as the Christmas Tree is up (yeah, we don't put the Christmas Tree up until like 23rd or so :p)

Har lekt litt med kameraet her nede som dere kan se - med ute-av-fokus-bilder (også kalt bokeh).

Normal state:

Normal bokeh:

Heart bokeh! Just...the wrong way ;p

Aaaand there we go;: heart bokeh the correct way!


Have fun! :)