A BUSY WEEK

This has been a busy week for scrapbooking. I have lots of projects that need finishing. There are two projects for NSD, one for the Stromsvigt "12 in 14" post that goes up on Monday and also my part of this challenge at the SC forum. As you may also remember I have committed to making 5 scrapbook layouts and 8 PL pages using the "Bluegrass Farm" kit. Here is my 6th PL page made:

I'm running out of cards that I like from Bluegrass Farm so I mixed in a few older cards as well. 

Here is a small sneak to my "telephone" challenge layout. I will blog as soon as everyone in my group has finished the challenge.

/Magdalena

APRIL PL CONTINUED

It's been quiet here since Thursday because I became ill with the flu on Friday. It has a hold on me still, almost a full week now. I'm mostly in bed and I'm so bored! Trying to catch up on some old TV-series. My eyes are too tired to read anything. If I take some pain relievers I am able to stay up for an hour or two, so that's what I'm doing now. 

Here are two PL pages I made last week:

I have committed to making eight pages with the SC Bluegrass Farm kit, so this means I'm half way there. We actually celebrated Easter on Long Friday this year but for some reason I took no pictures at all. I'm so angry with myself! It totally slipped my mind until every had gone home. After they left, I took a nap and then woke up with the flu. So I guess maybe that had something to do with me forgetting to take pics. These are all the photos I managed to put together. The picture of the eggs is from an ad. I put this page together an hour at a time during four days or so.

In Sweden we go "trick or treating" on Easter. The children dress up as witches and make Easter cards that they bring to their neighbours, hoping for sweets in return. Traditionally the little witches carry a coffee pot to collect the sweets in. That's what the top left picture is. But my daughter and her friend didn't want to be witches so they dressed up as prinsesses instead. They wouldn't let me paint their faces the traditional way either. My dressed up a bit more traditionally in my father's old hat, but he didn't want facepaint either. Hey, at least they looked cute!

Happy belated Easter everyone!

/Magdalena 

MARSHMALLOW SQUARES

Three ingredients are all you need to make these pretty marshmallow squares for Easter. Originally I saw these using multicolored mini marshmallows, but those are hard to find where I live. Instead I used the regular white kind and added rainbow sprinkles instead. The sprinkles add a nice crunch to the squares.

Marshmallow squares

2 bars of white chocolate
2 bags of mini marshmallows
rainbow sprinkles

Melt the chocolate according to the instructions on the packaging. Let the chocolate cool for a bit, or the marshmallows will melt. Stir in the marshmallows and spread out onto a waxed paper. Add the sprinkles. Put in fridge. When hardened, cut into squares. You could also punch out shapes with large cookie cutters. Eggs for instance!

Happy Easter!

/Magdalena

WORKING WITH DESIGN G

One of the things I wanted to do for my 2014 PL album is to mix up my page protector designs. It does take a little more work than using all design A, but I like the element of surprise that it adds. So far I've used A, B and F. This time it was time to try G. 

This design is great for me because almost all my photos are portraits. I would say this is because I almost always use my phone for taking pictures. I used quite a bit of digi on this, both stamps and journaling. For the top page I didn't add any embellishments at all. 

I did have some problems when adding the printed journaling to the white/woodgrain card. I always use washi to tape the card to the printer paper but this time the washi removed the print on the card. I never have any problem pulling off the washi on the PL cards from the SC main kit. This card was from an addon and it seems they are of a different quality. I will have to remember that and use my taperoller on the back of the addon cards instead.

And today this was announced on the SC blog!

See you you there on May 3rd!

/Magdalena

FILTHY THIEVES

Filthy thieves stole my wallet this weekend, when me and my daughter went to have lunch and do some shopping in the city. So all of a sudden we were stranded in town with no money and no buss pass to get home. Luckily my mother lives within walking distance and she lent us some cash to finish the shopping and go home. Cancelling and replacing all the cards is a hassle, but what was worse is the tickets from my daughter's dance recital and the wardrobe tags from the D-A-D concert we went to were still in my wallet. I was going to put them in my PL, but now I can't. That's the sad part. Blergh! I guess I will have use for the "NOT MY DAY" overlay in the Bluegrass Farm PL kit...

Well, here's my PL page about the concert, without the wardrobe tags.

Materials: Bluegrass Farm PL kit, the washi is from the Tabasco addon, the alpha card is from the Office Hours PL kit. I also used some digital templates from Paislee Press.

/Magdalena

SILLY FACES

Our daughter wanted us to make silly faces and take pictures and send them to daddy at work. So we did! I just like the photo and didn't have anything special to say about it. Journaling is not always necessary.

/Magdalena

SUPERSTAR

That is what I named my most recent layout with the April kit "Bluegrass Farm" from Studio Calico. This month I got the scrapbook and PL main kits plus the Tabasco addon. Out of those kits I have committed to make 5 layouts and 8 PL pages. See this thread in the SC forum! 

I started out wanting to use one of the fabric patches from the scrapbook main. It's not something I would've bought myself, so I had to figure out a way to "make it work", in the words of Tina Aszmus. I remembered this layout by April Foster made with the December 2011 kit. (Yes, I remembered it!) Making the patch one of many same size circles would keep it from standing out too much. 

I already knew what I wanted the topic to be. The story of how our daughter finally overcame her shyness and stagefright and performed with her gymnastics group at a really big gymnastics event in our city in front of several hundred people. 

The plan was to have the photo be one of the circles, but there were no photos from the occasion that looked good cropped into a circle. So instead I did this:

I added a few items from earlier kits too, to decorate the circles. I didn't add as much dimension as April did, because I like things to be flat. I can fit more layouts into my album that way, hehe.

/Magdalena

12 IN 14 April

It's time for another monthly challenge from Nina Christensen and the Stromsvigt DT. For April we are working with grids. If you visit Nina's blog she will have links to all the participating DT members, so you can see all our work for this month.

I love grid layouts because it's almost impossible to mess them up. If your grid consists of photos, that's where you need to put your energy. Picking the right photos and balancing them up.

What I think about when picking my photos:

• The photos should go together by theme and color
  (if the colors don't match try adjusting them or go b&w)
• There should be a mix of closeups and wider angles
• Anyone pictured sideways should be facing inwards
• The weight of the photos should be balanced
  (don't put all dark photos on one side, or that side will get weighed down)

Then all you really need to do is add a title and a few embellishments, and you're done! Journaling optional. Easy, huh?!

Materials: Studio Calico Copper Mountain kit, Studio Calico Wanderlust Vellum Sticker Phrases, Stromsvigt The Good Stuff stamp set by Nina Christensen

Now, go visit the other Stromsvigt DT members! Right here!

/Magdalena

IN WITH THE NEW

This PL spread is all about new things. New cousin, new helmet, new bike, new pajamas and new haircuts!

I LOVED the Office Hours kit. The colors fit my photos so well, and all the embellishments were my style. Here's a closer look at the first page:

For this page I used lots of digi brushes. Most of them are from the Bluegrass Farm PL digital stamps. The OK cork circle I put there to hide a tear cause by the washi I used when I ran the card through my printer, but I like how it turned out. I also added these gold star sequins to the currently journaling card, and stuck some tiny enamel dots on top.

And here's the second page:

Lately I've had a bit of a Fringe obsession so I wanted to document that. I printed out a photo from the internet and added my favorite Walter quote. "We're all victims of our own genepool. It looks like someone peed in yours." You gotta love him! This pin made me think of Walter too, so I printed that out and added some thickers. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but I stapled some matching sequins to the dotted journaling card. What would I do without my tiny attacher? For the two bottom pockets I used templates from Paislee Press. These and these.

/Magdalena