Sayonara winter!

The spring sun is turning everything to slush and puddles. Can you see the water drops on the branches? Go away snow! Most likely winter will come back full blast but at least it's started. Lovely!

/Magdalena

iPhone4

I've scrapped my first Hipstamatic photo. Literally! Here it is:

I used the stamps from the County Fair add-ons "Shooting Gallery" and "Photo Booth". These two stamps are my favorite stamps to come in a SC kit ever. That little arrow is SO cute!

I used a sketch for this layout as well, but I don't know where it's from so I won't share it.

/Magdalena

Using Pinterest

I found this amazing pin where Elizabeth Kartchner had used patterened paper for printing out her photo. So cool! I had to try it. I wanted to use the photo as a background for my layout, so I went into Photoshop and added a 30% opacity white layer on top of my photo. Then I printed it out in size 8.5x11''.

The journaling is about us finally taking the plunge to buy our own house. I used part of this pinned quote for my title.

I love this H&M t-shirt I'm wearing on the photo. It has a cool collage-y print, and I used that as inspiration for my corner cluster.

Materials: SC Daydream Believer kit, February add-on PP and the journaling stamp is from the SC Field Guide add-on "Almanac"

/Magdalena

PS: I bought an I-Phone yesterday. Woohoo! So looking forwards to scrapping some fun Hipstamatic photos.

More sketches

I've decided to go with sketches this month. Here are two more layouts based on SC Sunday sketches.

Every morning this time of year our walk to pre-school takes us straight into the most beautiful winter sunrise. It really feels like the sun is telling us good morning. And here's the sketch I used:

I found a fun quote on red heads and decided to scrap it with a photo from my daughter's 2nd birthday. She has crazy bright orange hair. The rest of the family is dark haired. On both sides. Four generations back. How does it happen?! 

And the sketch:

I really disliked the butterflies when I first saw them at reveal. They are so far from my scrap style. Then I started seeing projects in the SC gallery where clever ladies had taken them apart and thought YES!

/Magdalena

Using sketches

I've decided to use sketches for this month's SC kit layouts. I have a whole file on my laptop with SC Sunday sketches that I've saved but often never used. This is my first layout using the February kit "Daydream Believer".

This layout is about my son's very first purchase with his own money. He picked out a pirate kit at the toy store. I put the receipt and part of the packaging in the envelope.

And here's the sketch I used:

/Magdalena

This stands on it's own...

Following up on my 2012 scrappy goals

So, as I wrote in this post I have some new scrappy goals for this year. One of the goals was to keep a file for each Studio Calico kit on my laptop, and photograph every single layout I make. That way I can go back and see what I've gotten out of each kit, and which ones should give more. Today I've flipped through all my albums and taken out all the layouts that I hadn't photographed before, because I wasn't planning on sharing them. Then I sorted them into my laptop files. This is the number of projects from each kit:

• Paper Moon: 13 (killed)
• Mind the gap: 13
• Boardwalk: 14
• Glee Club: 17
• Field Guide: 11
• Handmade: 10
• Brooklyn Flee: 7
• County Fair: 14

Glee Club keeps resurrecting itself! I made two more yesterday:

This is not as far from my scrap style as you can get, but at least half way there. Let's just say there's a reason why I prefer placing my elements crooked from the beginning... But I still had to try this one out when I saw Stephanie's insider tip on the SC blog.
I can't figure out how the straightening tool in Photoshop works, so it looks to be leaning to the left. (Feel free to share tips!)

Then I have a photo I absolutely love, but that I haven't been able to scrap. I've tried many times, but I'm never happy with the results. I think it is the colors in the photo that makes it hard to scrap. Then I remember a layout by Tina Aszmus in the Glee Club gallery, so I ripped her off completely. Not a thing my own here, but I love the result!

Tomorrow's Monday again, so back to work!
/Magdalena

Digging into past kits

I've recently started digging into past Studio Calico  kits. They're piling up and I don't like it! Glee Club really had a lot more to give. It was the first kit since my sub started that really, really felt like me. Some of my fave layouts ever has been made with this kit. Here are two more that I've made recently:

I made this for the SC Sunday sketch challenge. The title and journaling is about the number of stuuffed animals my daughter keeps in her bed. She is hanging off the edge just to fit them all in, but she won't go to sleep without them. The title is also a little stretch your kit tip from me: When the letter thickers are running out, use the numbers for your title!

I  had to tell the story of my daughter's first injury. She flipped downhill in the snow and landed face first. She really hurt her mouth and nose. We had to get a dentist appointment to check on her teeth as well. They seem to be okay. I usually journal by hand, but there was too much to write about this time. My printer doesn't take 12x12 papers so I used a scrap piece and printed the text out vertically instead, and glued it to my page.

I've also made a third Glee Club layout that I've blogged about here. So that's three more. And I've got sooo much stuff left!

Loving winter

This is how it looked walking to preschool this morning -15 C/ 5 F. Sunrise. Beautiful!

I love Friday mornings because my classes don't start until 1 PM. I still have work to do but we're never in a hurry. Today my son was home sick with his dad, so it was just me and my daughter(2 y.o). We walked and talked, and I realized we never do that. I hardly ever get to spend time with her alone. Need to start doing that! We looked at the birds, the yellow snow (and she learned what that is...) and tried to reach the lampposts, which she thought was hilarious. This is a little conversation we had:
She: Daddy loves me.
Me: Yes, he does.
She: Mommy loves me.
Me: Yes, I do. Very much!
She: Daddy plays with me. Aeroplane.

Aww, she's so sweet. She has much more thoughts in her head than I ever knew. I want to hear more!

/Magdalena

Scrap your celebrity crush...

... is the February challenge over at the Creative Type. The challenge is presented by the mahvelous Tina Aszmus. Go look here! So, who's your crush? Here's mine:

I scrapped my teen crush (gee, that was like 25 years ago!) Nikki Sixx of Moltely Crue. If you know who it is you know what I mean, and if you don't you never will. The title is inspired by the Pink Paisley Halloween line, where the fab black brad is from. I used the SC kit Glee Club and add-ons. The Halloween theme went so well with the photos.

What will you make?

/Magdalena

I made a card

I will post this just so you'll actually believe me! I made  a card because I had to. It was for the SC CHA challenges. The challenge was a to make a card with 4 punches. So this is it:

Not only did I make a card but I used some of the Basic Grey chip shapes that I didn't like. Also turned out to actually like this card. Don't know what I'll use for yet.

/Magdalena

Past kit faves and thoughts

As I wrote in this post, I have made some new plans on how to go about scrapping my Studio Calico kits. Two of those things have really been helpful to me in working with the January kit. I have made a file on my laptop for every kit I've recieved (8 so far). In each file I've collected photos of the projects I've made with that particular kit. This has really helped to see that the kits have been worth their price even if it's not killed. I've decided to share my favorite project from each kit:

1. Paper Moon - love the Amy Tan tag!

2. Mind the gap - this was too hard. I'm picking two!

3. Boardwalk - this was hard for a different reason. I'm not 100% happy with any of my Boardwalk layouts, but I decided this one is ok.

4. Glee club - this was the first in a long row of kits that really, really suited my taste and scrap style.

5. Field Guide - I think this is my favorite layout ever.

6. Handmade - I'm nuts about the lime green alpha stickers:

7. Brooklyn Flee - this is the kit I need to get back to. To my surprise I found only 4 layouts in my file. I think a few have gone into my albums without being photographed. I will have to track them down. This was DD month, and I just didn't have the time to scrap regular layouts also. Again, nothing feels a 100% in this file but I'll pick one I'm ok with:

8. County Fair - my fave kit of all! I've made sooo much with it and I love it all. I got 3 add-ons, which I have never done before. It's the most amazing kit. So hard to pick only one, I'd like to post all of them, but I'll show you these two:

And my 9th kit is in the mail. Yay! But I'll have another 2 weeks to spend with County Fair, and I don't mind at all.

PS: I've completed my SC CHA challenge post down below. Here!

/Magdalena

28 things I love in February

I'm taking part in Alison Waken's photo challenge "28 (29 this year) things I love in February". Take a picture of something you love each day in February and post in the Flickr group here. Easy, huh?!

/Magdalena

Quote

I'm engulfed by Nikki Sixx's photo book "This is gonna hurt" right now. If you love dark photography and gaining new insights this one's for you. You don't need to like the person or the music to get some new thoughts on life. Wake up! Read it! I love this quote from the book, and made a page about it.

Love!
/Magdalena