Stadi skräppää ja oikein urakalla :D

Hei te ihanaiset ihmis-paperisilppurit ;)

Mulla olisi teille tarjota neljä (kyllä kyllä, neljä!) lauantaita tämän vuoden puolella, jotka voisi samantien merkata kalenteriin:

24.9.

15.10.

5.11.

3.12.

Laitan tuosta ekasta kerrasta sitten heti syyskuun alkuun lisäinfoa. Vanhat tekijät kyllä tietävät missä mennään, mutta uudet kasvot voisivat vaikka klikata tuota "stadi scrap" tunnistetta tämän postauksen alapuolella niin saatte tietoa mitä olemme puuhailleet.

Collage Middle Earth style.. kinda :)

At work I had the kids start on tissue paper collages on canvas this past week.. I love watching them really getting into it.
Personally paper is my favorite medium.. so naturally I grabbed a canvas of my own and just started laying on tissue paper that was nearest.

After a while I began seeing something emerge.. quite by accident..
Or maybe because I had just watched "Lord of the Rings: Two Towers" and had Middle Earth in mind :D

I just had to add Sauron's eye in between those black peaks.
Welcome to Mordor...

Last night I grabbed a bigger canvas at home and started cutting up some maps I had found in my Mom's stash. There's bits of London, Vienna, Hamburg, San Diego, New Zealand, Switzerland, the Arctic Ocean, the Alps and Copenhagen on there.

After the decoupage I added paint washes and a quote from Lord of the Rings.

As a final step I glazed it and then squirted extra glaze that I just let dribble down.

Baby blanket for a dear friend

I already met the sweet little boy this belongs to a couple weeks ago.
The blanket however was not ready yet...

I finished it last night :)
It is made of the softest bamboo/cotton blend yarn. The four middle pieces were knitted, then sewn together and the border was crocheted.

Can't wait to deliver this!

Sometimes I just get an urge...

..to bake. This might hit me quite unexpectedly on a week night, but most likely during the weekend.
The fact that I have found some great recipes on Pinterest, helps the matter.
I found this one for Portuguese apple fritters through there as well :)

But as I have childhood traumas over anise (I had this lovely great aunt who unfortunately always gave us kids anise candy.. and as it was offered you couldn't really decline.. blech..) I opted to change the anise liqueur to the much tastier Cointreau I had.

This is the perfect apple season treat! Oh my goodness were they tasty..

DT work, part two

These are pages I have previously shared on the AMLT blog :)

-Royal weddings-

A little frivolous fun :)
And yes, the Union Jack was sewn from fabric scraps.

-Stop lights-

I loved the angry looking red men on the pedestrian lights in Paris.

-Ring Day-

Lots of bling on this one.
The colored bits of paper are trash from another hobby.. last year I made miniature hydrangeas for the miniature fair.. the left over trash was far too pretty to throw away!

-knock, knock-

Super simple...

-the benefits of FB-

So what is the benefit of Facebook?
The fact that even if you haven't seen each other in years, you are up tp date in teh goings on in each other's lives :)

-love legos-

..brick stories..heh..

-Weasley twins-

I used the my blog entry as journaling. I ended up printing it out as I wasn't able to fit it in otherwise.. the tag slips behind the photo.

-Magic-

Even though the page has the HP movie posters, the journaling is more about the books..

The page came when I came across the die cut doe.. :)

DT-work part one

These are all for Get Inspired, you can find the link on my sidebar.

#158- handwriting
-Love being you..-

A bulky page as I made a fabric flower and used jeans fabric behind the photo.
The title was written with puffy paint :)

#159, nostalgy
-Fly me to the moon-

My birth year was when man first walked on the moon. It's always fascinated me, the thought that those footprints are still there.. if I could travel back in time I'd love to witness a Apollo rocket lift-off.

#160, bunting
-oh Amy-

Amy Butler fabrics landed into my local fabric store.. I don't dare to go there half as often as I used to :P
The bunting is made with small punched paper circles that I sewed together. The flowers are circles cut from fabrics, layered and topped with a button.

#161, cardboard
-amour-

Cardboard torn from a box :)

#162, turning embellishment
-Michigan talk-

I dug out the trusty exacto knife, my old Detroit street atlas and printed out an outline of the MI map. Then I cut. And cut. And cut some more.
You can turn the circle embellishment to reveal more explanations to some of the MI sayings I sometimes found confusing ;)

#164, speech bubble
-the places you'll go-

My daughter and her closest friends, ready to take on High School life in the fall..

#166, photo collage

-Paris-

Pretty buildings all together.

#170, lace, lace, lace

And then some :D

Shooting the moon...

There has been the most beautiful full August moon the past days.
These past two nights I've been outside staring at the night sky, wishing the city would turn off street lamps...
Apart from the moon, Orion has been clear above my head and my favorite Venus has been amazingly bright.

Last night I also found something pretty closer to the ground..
My 4th grader ;)

She's 10. Stubborn. Kind-hearted. Sweet. Loud. Silly. Worrying about the Independence Day Ball (more on that later in the year, I promise!). Excited to have new teachers. All legs. And she's getting braces next month... that gap will be gone soon enough... sigh..

To-do list

(photo is completely unrelated, but you can't just have a post without a photo, right? Besides you get to see how silly I get while baking..heh..)

Today's list, in no particular order

• scrap one page



• get a Flat Stanley package ready to mail back (Nolan, it's coming, I promise!)



• load one, load two,load three, load four, load five of laundry, the weather is great for line drying :D (the rest will be done on Sunday)



• go to the grocery store



• vacuum downstairs



• nag keep teen motivated to clean the upstairs



• make sure the kids clean the bathrooms p.r.o.p.e.r.l.y.



• lacquer baseboards (moved until tomorrow says Mika) :)



• crochet more on the nearly ready baby blanket while watching a movie, it came a long way during yesterday's drive visiting (this proved difficult as we watched the movie on the big screen in darkness.. good movie though, Tourist, with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie..set in Venice..so beautiful)



• clean the oven



• clean the oven in the other house



• change wilted flowers to fresh ones



• cut down the dead thorny rosebush that catches me in the arm every time I walk by it to hang up laundry

Off I go.. I'll come and update!

I like it pink

Only this summer did I bother to wonder what makes lemonade into pink lemonade..
I had no idea it was my favorite kind of juice :D


Of course, cranberry!

We've enjoyed this during this hot summer.
I think lemonade is doubly as good when it's pink <3

Back to school...

School starts today...
Our school anyway.. most of Helsinki starts in one week.. sigh..
We spent three days (well half days, hour wise) last week getting the Club room ready for 30 (yes, THIRTY!) kids..ugh.. looking forward to the fun, just not the noise..

I started with hanging up a garland I made by punching shapes from paint chips.
Hey, free materials.. gotta love that. I stuck with shades of the primary colors that fit the general color scheme.

We sharpened color pencils.

And I organized my craft cupboards so I was able to fit in the new supplies.

My hands are itching to make samples now :D

And ba-da-bing we have a comfy chair in da house!

This was an old chair of my Grandma's that has been hanging around gathering dust. We purchased a cotton bed cover from Ikea, and it fits right in.

I hope I won't have to fight Sven over who gets to sit here ;)

And lucky us, we got a donation. A cute Lundby dollhouse. I'm thinking of ordering Playmobil furniture for this, as it is about the right size and won't break so easily.

This year will be interesting with less school assistants... wish me luck.

Matchy, matchy...

On my day trip to Tallinn last month I bought three matching summer dresses, just for the heck of it and my teens consent :P

The littlest recipient however was not too keen to try hers on..
I hope that my sister-in-law can convince her to put it on one of these days, I'd love to have a photo of all three cousins in pretty butterfly ruffles.