Little Corner of Ania

Short but piccieheavy post:

• My big heart in the window is melting!! (I didn't have eggs at the time when I made the icing so I just used reg. water and powdered sugar. Apparently not a good idea as it's making quite a stalagmite on the edge of the window! No sight of an equally impressing stalactite yet, but the pink lettering and the heart are melting away :p Jeje. :p
  

• I we got HAPPY MAIL today!! Candies! Lots of candies from Silje!!!♥♥♥ And a card too! Aww thanks you're the best! And the kiddo is like, woah, candies in the mail, how totally cool :D (The little missus is just "look! eye!" haha)
  

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• And this is what happens when you take candy from a little missy for a few more seconds than she can handle ;p (to my defense, I was just gonna open it for her and delayed the handback for a lil so I could snap these piccies ;) bad mommy bad!)
  

• She's signing "mine!"
  

• And poking her cute lil tongue out :) (yes blurry but still cute :p)
  

• In other words, I also finished painting the middle-ceiling, baked gingerbread-cookies (I'm gonna make teacandle-holders) and made the dough for the flat-bread I'm gonna bake tomorrow. BTW what's your thought of the two latter photos below - the first one not having its whitebalance adjusted and the other having the it corrected. Although the correct one is, well, technically correct I kinda do like the warmth the yellowish indoor-hue is giving out kinda. Makes it more "real".....instead of the corrected, sterile one? Hm.
  

I promised some more Christmas-stuff! This is a frame made with hm, Technique Tuesday, Cherry Arte and Gudrun Loennecken stamps...all embossed....I esp. love the latter one - it's the round one - so cute! Gathered some Christmaspapers - Daisy D, Basic Grey and Creative Imaginations - cut 1" squares and mounted them on 3d foam. This is a lift of last years frames (I made some to give away but forgot to make one for myself :p) which again was inspired by Ali Edwards.

Right. We moved in to this house like a little more than seven months ago this month. And moving houses means you have a ton of things you'd like to do to make the house more "you", no? To me the major thing was to paint the walls and ceiling in the livingroom white. Pretty much all the mainwalls and ceilings in the house is wood....worn wood (livingroom, the loft, the entrance-rooms). I got kinda sick of the "color" wood from our old house - lots of wooden walls and ceilings there too! I wanted bright colors making it easier for my flash to bounce and give good lightning for my indoor-piccies in the winter! (It's all about photography you know ;p) So with that in mind we painted half the livingroom white (the other half was already in a "washed" white - I want it painted opaque white too but it'll have to wait) and started on the ceiling. 1/3rd into the ceiling and we got guests from Sweden, prompting us to take a break. Then we were leaving for our central-Europe-vacation. Then school and work started. And here we are now, in the middle of the busy busy month of Christmas, and we decided to at least try wrap up the ceiling. I need all the help I can get to make this years Christmas-photos good!!!! Besides, my mom and stephdad are coming over from Oslo to celebrate Christmas with us, we're hosting our very very first Christmas in our own home (w/ Simens mom & grandparents and possible bro/fiancee)... and the Swedes!!! They're coming over for New Year aswell - the same ones who was here this summer - can't let them see that our ceiling has not been worked on since they left!?! (not that they would notice tbh, but ;p)

So, here we are, frantically trying to wrap up what we should have done long time ago. Procrastination FTW! Oh, and know what? I totally forgot what shade of white we painted the ceiling in, and we have three or four different buckets stored here and I was like....um....err.....right......eh... so late last night I spent an hour searching my local forums and this blog for any mention of what kind of colors I did where - and I made a minibook-journal about the move and the new house and stuff but I never got as far as to write about the living room.....grr!!! And everywhere I looked - the message board and this blog and the journal - I just mentioned how unsure I was about what shade to choose for the ceiling and which choices I had and that I still was not sure what to pick and yada yada blah blah blah. Duh! We're guessing we went with egg-white - it's probably correct but it would still be nice to know for sure :p But there - now I've mentioned the choice we're going for this time at least! Egg-white! For future reference! :p

While looking through my old posts I did kinda miss writing in Norwegian - even though it means the posts will be soooo long.....as if they weren't long enough already. We'll see. I know you Norwegian readers thinks it's easier to read in Norwegian aswell instead of having to go through my whacked English :p

Showing a piccie of my preps - see the plastic on the floor/fireplace? Dexter's aint got nothin on me!! ;)


Ps. While workin the paint I was listening to MTV's top ten Britney Spears songs.....seriously...somebody save BritBrit!! I miss the old her. So fun to make fun of her and she did have cool upbeat popsongs....now? It's no fun to make fun of her anymore :(

Edit2: ok. 2 hours of painting. Kinda fun and boring at the same time. 2 more hours and I can paint again. Free time!


Oh! My heart. Yes I know! The windows really needs to be washed!!! :p

Pencillines went live on sunday (I know, I'm soo late posting) and our guestedsigner was noone other but the fabby Shimelle - you know - the gal of cupcakes & classes and stuff :) I'm in a period where I'd rather scrap other stuff but my children (shockin I know) - so...these photos are from Stavanger - me & Ingunn havin some fun w/our cams....(yes I took the piccie in landscape but I cropped it for this layout). Lovelove these Maya Road chipboards!!! Need to buy more - they're so totally cool & versatile!

We went to the childrens grandma to have dinner on sunday too. When we were done Adrian wanted them both to play WoW, only that grandma's laptop didn't quite work - the laptop woudln't do the latest patch so she coudln't log on to WoW. So while they were lookin at her laptop she mumbled to herself that she might buy a new pc because the laptop was starting to get old and stuff, and Adrian wondered why she didn't do it straight away. "It's expensive" she explained - "but I could still do it - I could buy a whole new computer for myself and then knit socks for you for Christmas. That would be the only thing you'd get for Christmas though, because a new computer costs a lot of money.". Adrian thought about this for a while then brightened up "But if you wish for a computer for Christmas, that would solve it all - you wouldn't have to spend anything and could buy Christmaspresents for us still!!" Yey! He's got it figured out alright! :p

Here's my best buddy atm btw. I've got a toothache but can't figure out where it comes from!! Am going back to the dentist today to remove my wisdom-tooth in an hour (WISH ME LUCK!!!!!) and to repair a minor cavity - hoping either will solve my problem. Originally wanted to show you two of my latest Christmas-creations but time's running out - gotta run. Maybe later tonight or tomorrow for sure!! :)

Yey!! The cat's outta the bag - yesterday we finally opened Scrappedugnad, Norwegians first (and only ..well...if it's the first then it's ofc it's the only uh.. :p) challengeblog. I was contacted by Christine and Mari two months ago asking if I wanted to partipicate in this...and duh, ofcourse I'd love to! They've been two great little busybees fixing and pulling strings and getting stuff ready for today (and more to come) - there's a lot of wonderful prizes lined up - everybody's been so entusiastic and positive to this - and our guestdesigners are nothin but fabulous...!! The only bleh thing is that Christine didn't get this idea sooner cause we'd be able to do a groupshot of us four - me, Christine, Mari and Ingunn - while we were in Stavanger...that'd be cool.... ohwell... :p

I've had great fun doing my layouts for these challenges aswell - those knowing me knows I'm the kind of gal who prefers to get stuff done in advance and stay ahead of the timetable so I'm ready and don't have to panic about deadlines and stuff - and with those great prompts from the guestdesigners I coudln't help but just do them pretty much straight away.... now my biggest problem comes; the &%%¤&% waiting until I'm actually allowed to show my layouts......hrm....:p

ANyways - I'm able to show my layout for this first challenge at least! Kerry Lynn is a fabulous sweet gal who's crazy about Hambly and totally the enabler (I've been able to resist Hambly for a good long while thinking I really really don't HAVE to have these yummylicous transparencies or rubons until I did her class and totally went over to the dark side)....anyways... while in Stavanger I wanted to do one on one shots ala Kathrine so I totally bugged people around me to take piccies with me - KL included. Soo for her challenge I just had to scrap this piccie of us two - so perfect uh? I made a "flower" outta Hambly transparencies - heating the edges so they'd curl some and stickin them together with 3d gluedots...made curled "ribbons" of transparencies too to match.




Anyways. We're two days into December and today's the first advent... Advent = candles and uhm, I have to admit I've sucked on this tradition before (I know1!!!!!) but not so this year!!! This year I made my own Advent-candles from plain candles & red Heidi Swapp chipboardnumbers.. heated the candles somewhat w/my embossinggun and pressed the numbers into it =)

I also decided to make another batch of my yummy Christmas-cookies....double batch this time, as the single batch I made a week ago or so is...uhm.... *cough* all eaten.... *cough* I really shouldn't make cookies and stuff this early, they'll never make it to Christmas!! (hubbys solution: make non-delicious cookies, that'll solve your problems!) Hrm,...we'll see.....got some help "cleaning" the bowl at least :p

Here's the reciepe in Norwegian if you wanna try too - they're YUMMILICOUS true story!


Julecookies

300g romtemperert smør
250g sukker
200g demerasukker (eller annet brunt sukker)
ca 450g hvetemel
100g egg (ca 2 egg)
150g grovhakket mørk sjokolade
100g hakkede hasselnøttkjerner
100g hakkede, tørkede aprikoser (har ikke prøvd med aprikoser før da, pleier droppe de)
1/2 ts hornsalt
1/2 ts bakepulver
1ts malt kanel
4ts kakaopulver

Bland smør, sukker og brunt sukker i en kjøkkenmaskin med grind. Kjør ca 1 minutt på halv hastighet. Tilsett hvetemel og egg vekselvis og bland dette inn i deigen. Tilsett resten av ingrediensene, og bland alt godt sammen,. Rull deigen ut til pølser som er ca 4cm i diameter. Legg dem i fryseren så de blir harde - ca 20minutter. Forvarm stekeovnen til 180grader, ta frem pølsene og skjær de i 1 1/2 cm tykke skiver med skarp kniv mens de er harde. Legg skivene på bakepapirkledd plate og stek de ca 10 minutter til de får god farge. Avkjøles på rist.

Like. Omg. We're at the last month in December and I'm seriously wondering where the time went..? By the end of the year already -- feels like yesterday I was dreading to this year because of all the surgeries to do.. now I'm supposed to be done but as usual stuff got postponed so I won't until a little bit into the new year still. Ohwell. Am looking forward to the last one of them and am looking forward to be completely recovered from these surgeries aswell... Hm. Jeje, that was a lil personal but ohwell. Have a LOT to share - the Bad Girls December layouts, pictures, a cute card I'm in love with.... so I guess I'll just go ahead.

So, last night I prepped the calendar - prepacked surprises from grandma - love how she always does this every year - goes looking for random small stuff for all her four grandchildren... so that all we need to do is to assemble them onto the calendar and watch the kids open them....:) The kiddo saw me doing this and ran to fetch my cam.... I was like "uhmm thats nice of you but be careful don't do that wo asking again" ...then I went to get the flash so that he could have a better chance of taking ok piccies as it was dark :p Isn't he good? He went around me taking piccies from various angles while I worked..... he's learned his lesson well I dare say ;)




I also managed to do other christmassy things last night...
Looking at the remaining challenges I needed to finish for the Designing With 2007 calendar-challenge-thingie going on at Lifetimemoments (if I do 48 out of 52 weeks I'll get a RAK. I've done 41 weeks so far. The RAK better be rockin cause this is tough!) I decided on a whim to do the one based on Nov 28 - Create simple, yet striking, cards with vintage paper and accents. I just knew I wanted to make a tree outta the textpaper.....so I did....totally love how this turned out - and it was so fast to make it too! I'm not really fond of repeating myself but I'm totally gonna lift this over and over again I think. Need more small cute buttons tho.
Also wrapped up my Christmas-journalbook (note to self: do NOT ever ever get such bright ideas that you're gonna sew on 24+ pages ever again!!!!!!!!). Now. Remains to be seen wheter I actually manage to fill them aswell :p Also started on two identical Christmasframes - didn't get to finish these so hope to do that today. Will show you when I'm done - did this last year too after an idea by Ali Edwards but didn't make one for myself back then.


So. The big day!
And I slept thru it. At least the opening-part - which hubby helped the kids with. Without the camera. Ohwell. :p The kids got caps in their first packets - very useful - Adrian keeps forgetting/misplacing his :)




This months Decemberkit at Bad Girls... it's delicious! I love the fact that I can look at a kit and go "nrgh pretty but so not me!" and then after being "forced" to work with it come to realize how much I seriously love the projects made with the kit..... it's like I'm being forced to really really work it and it kinda shows...(imhhho haha :p)

The first photos are from Papirfesten - the ladies featured in here are; Kerry Lynn, Kjersti, Mari, Ingunn, Christine, Trude Julie, May Lis and Joanna. I seriously wish Catrine and Oddbjørg was in this picture too. Hrmf. I guess it's true what they say about photography; If you want specific photos - don't hesistate to take it! I *loved* this stair from day one when we helped carry stuff from Scrappejungelen through it...I was so picturing this picture then but didn't have the guts to tell the girls "Yo ladies get over here I need (anoher) picture!" (cause I kinda did that twice earlier that day downtown :p)...so this is one of the last photos from Papirfesten before I had to go..


This one...I struggled with it! Seriously. I wanted to show another style contrasting the prev. layout...I really wanted to go kinda elegant clean & simple...I had four photos and had cut the scalloped CI paper already.....but never got it to work. Nrgh. Gave up and went to bed. Next morning I looked at the photos and well......realized they were like, duplicates. Slight different in the movements is all - you know? So hard to chose them away still... but really could just aswell work with just the two of them w/o "missing" anything. After deciding to ditch two photos everything just fell into place. Yay. Love it when it happens. And it turned out to be so much different from the original idea I tried to battle but me like :p And hey there's 5 diff pp in this layout! =)



Lemme tell you a secret. When I purchased my little sewing-machine one and half year ago I did so solely because I already loved to sew on my layouts but the machine I used back then was so big and lunatic (sometimes it'd do as told, sometimes it'd do....different). So. From day one my new sewingmachine was used on paper only. No fabric....I was afraid to break my machine on fabric...*cough*. Anyways. Looks like scrappers around me are like, "I scrap therefore I sew in fabric aswell" (Hi Silje! =) ). So. It can't be thaaat dangerous :p This is the fabric-debut of my sewingmachine ;) Just had to do something where this gorgeous trim would be number one kinda (Check out Cari's totally lovely wreath on the DT pages - oooooh soooo pretty! Almost wish I didn't sew my trim to this now, I wanna do that too!!). Anyways. Pouch. Needed a minialbum to put into it. So. Made one using the Daisy D rubons & papers from the kit. :p (ps. LOVELOVELOVE the red note-paper from CI!!!!!! And the pink one aswell...mmm!)


Did you really read through all this? Wow. *waves*
Have a wonderful, joyous, peaceful, non-stressful, lovely great advent! :)


Ps. Might have another post later today ;)

Hrm. They called from the kindergarten. Amalie's sick. Ohwell. She's just a lil hot, but otherwise her normal, active self. I went down to the kindergarten to fetch her. Nice excuse to bring the camera along no? *smile* Just wish I was able to get her whole reflection in the little puddle..need to practice thinking like that....thinking about the whole frame kinda during shooting..

She loves her wabbit. It was lost for a while but refound after some months - dirty and all but still just as loved...

I love how she has such superb taste - I think she's starting to be as addicted to Gwen Stefani as I am!! She loves singing to her songs..... so cute to hear (and watch :D)...and sometimes her timing actually hits ;)


Anyways. Seen the news at Bad Girls? Starting with the Dec kit; if you're a subscriber or you purchase any of the current addons/project-kits....you can join the monthly challenge and get a chance to win one of those aprons.....which are very exclusive - they will be available through this monthly challenge only...12 of these..... and apparently it's not regular rhinestones, but 100% Swarovski crystals.... for more information, read the official challenge-info on the boards here :) Me wants!!


And uhm. Yikes?? Is this really the last day of November?? *faint*
I've put up the Christmas-light for the window...opted to go for a little lightglobe from Ahlens (Sirius) instead for the normal star thats more common but now that it's up I think it's a lil too small. Hmm. I also need to fix the Advent-lights before this sunday (no I don't have any. shame on me) and put up the Christmas calendar and uh. I guess I should look for more Christmas-pressies as I'm far from done. *sigh*

Anyways - happy Advent everybody - I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning - to watch and take photos (*teehee*) of the kids opening their calendars (my kind mother always does the calendar for us) and to the start of a new Christmas - it's truly magical through the eyes of the children...(sappy I know but it's oh so true!)... as we'll be home this Christmas my aim is to try and do at least 4-5 traditional Christmasstuff together...I really suck at keeping traditions kinda but am tryin to redeem myself!! :)

Ps! HUGE congrats to Iris!!! She made the cover for the MM Magazine's January-issue.... check her blog to read her cute lil inspirational tale :)

Ps2. Will post a layout or two tomorrow ;)

Alright girls. LOADS of peeks today.
Some of them will be revealed soon (like the Bad Girls december-ones), some of them won't be revealed until like two months into the new year. Sooooo apologies in advance for being such a tease but I just really wanna show I *have* been working on stuff lately ;)

Ps. Dexter!!! Holy shit did anyone watch this the other day???? Omg. Wtf. Omg! I seriously went wtf when they ended it like that....helloo...now I have to wait another week?? Grrr..... so.good!
Ps2. Sorry for the language but really. The last ep was that great :p
Ps3: oh. first peek is just the bad girl candy I got in the kit....which the others got in the november kit for halloween...totally cool Bad Girl m&ms!