ONE WINNER AND TWO LAYOUTS

The winner to my giveaway is....

"Changing that bookshelf made such a difference! It looks like a much more pleasant spot to work in now, and certainly much more organized and clear than mine! Thanks for sharing! [SC = meegs]"

Congrats Meegs, I will contact you through Studio Calico!

I also have two pages to share. One I made a while ago, and that I actually did handwritten journaling on. Something I rarely do. 

And a two-pager I made yesterday. It's extremly simple.I scanned the patterned paper and used PSE to put the journaling lines in the right places, than printed it out. I wrote about my daughter's fifth birthday. The photos are all from that day too.

/Magdalena

FAVORITE SCRAPPERS BLOG HOP

Fun fun fun! I've been nominated by Ginny Hughes and Tara Elias as one of their three favorite scrappers. I was so happy to recieve their e-mails. It's such a compliment to be nominated of two people I so greatly admire. I have so many of their layouts on my Studio Calico inspiration board. Please go visit their blogs!

Accepting the bloghop nomination means answering a few questions:


 1. What am I working on right now?

Right now I'm trying to finish my August PL pages. It's going well. I also need to make a few more layouts with my Sandlot scrapbook kit. There have only been two layouts from that kit so far, and subber's reveal is tomorrow! Also, I have an assignment to finish for Laur Kurz' Pen and Paper class. I'm SO excited to be asked to be part of that class. Sneaks will be posted as sonn as I'm done with my project.

 2. How long does it take me to create a project?

Usually about an hour or two. PL spreads can take longer, especially when I'm starting to run out of cards from the kit I'm using. I can ache over a spread for days then, before I'm happy with it. That can't happen with a layout because I know if it takes that long to finish I won't be happy with ever. Either it falls together in one sitdown, or it goes in the trash!

 3. What are my favorite things to create with at the

 moment?

PL spreads for sure. It might seem a bit contradictory to my latest answer, but the spreads are so much easier to put together. The page protector are like having a template, and the SC kits make it so easy. Just print your photos, pick som matching cards and embellish. 

 4. How does my writing/creating process work?

Usually I pick my background paper first. Then I'll look through my photos to see what I want to use. I start thinking about where my journaling and title will go, and then print my journaling on the background. I rarely have a plan so after gluing everything down I'll look through my embellishments and try to add something. That's the hardest part for me. I always feel like everything I add is too much.

 5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?

Recieving my scrapbook and PL kit boxes from Studio Calico is my main inspiration and motivation. I doubt I would still be scrapbooking if I hadn't stumbled upon the Studio Calico website and later become a subber. Other places of inspiration is the Studio Calico galleries and Pinterest.

 6. What is my signature style?

It's so hard to describe your own style, but someone on the SC forum once did it for me. I was so flattered by the description I saved it. I so wish I would've also written down who wrote this, but I didn't. If you should read this and recognize your quote, I'd love for you to tell me who you are! Here's the quote:

"I think of you as having a very distinct style that I do really admire - graphic and edgy are adjectives that spring to mind, and you tend to approach shapes in an interesting, novel way! I can see that you experiment with techniques and styles, but your layouts also seem to have an essential, distinctive quality - sort of akin to, say, how Ann Demeulemeester releases collections that are more gauzy or "girly", and others in which leather predominates, if that makes sense."

Thank you, whoever wrote this!

Now it's time for me to nominate three scrappers in return. At the moment I only have two names to share as I'm still waiting for a response from my third pick. (Also why my post is a day late!) I've decided to wait a little longer since this is a person I'd really like to include. When, and if, I get a positive response I will write another blog post.

In no particular order, my nominees are:

Kelly Xenos: Kelly is a fairly recent discovery of mine. Her layouts and PL pages have taken me by storm! If you have missed them in the SC gallery you can find her projects right here. Her style is clean and simple and I feel like she always manages to add just the right amount of embellishments to compliment her page. Also I wish my handwriting was awesome enough to use in my PL like Kelly does. Love it!

Jenny Mira Lambert: I have been adding Jenny's layouts to my favorites at Studio calico for a few years. Her style is completely her own. I would call it rock n'roll style! Go check out her gallery and see for yourself! Isn't that awesome? It takes talent to make your pages look so effortless, whether they are or not. 

Thank you ladies for letting me pass you the torch! Looking forwards to seeing your favorites next week.

/Magdalena

A COUPLE OF SHOUTOUTS

And my PL album continues into August. I haven't shared the first page of the month with you yet. I love starting a new month with a fresh Studio Calico kit. This month it's called Sandlot.

The two pages after this one are all about my daughter's fifth birthday. If you haven't seen them, you can find them in this post.

And here are pages four and five!

If you like the golden best year yet card I recommend you visit this Etsy shop. That card is part of a beautiful birthday themed printable by Little Lamm & Co.

And if you like my daughter fun knotted hair headband, you can find the instructions here. I sub to the Cute Girl hairstyles youtube channel, and she makes some amazing braided hairstyles! I've tried a few and they really look a lot more complicated than they are. 

And don't forget to enter my RAK in yesterday's blog post! It's open until Friday.

/Magdalena

A FRESH SCRAP SPACE

My brother and his girlfriend just moved in together, and because of that I have a re-made scrap space. It's one of those "if this goes here, then this needs to go there and then that needs to go over there" kind of things. He's giving us his couch, so we're throwing out the one that's in our game room. And that's what led to the whole refurnishing carousel and so I have a nice new scrap space. Love it!

This was the old space:

It was nice, but I hardly ever sat there because the shelf blocked out the natural light from the window. It was also not practical because it was very unorganized. The black boxes hadn't been sorted through since I started scrapping in 2008! 

This is the same space now:

All my albums went with the larger Expedit downstairs to the kitchen. And to answer a question posted to me on Instagram, yes this does fit all my scrappy stuff! Here's how it's organized:

So what's in the jumble box, right? Empty crop bags, my heating tool (it didn't fit in the toolbox), a cutting mat, water colors and my half finished December Daily from 2012. Yeah. That's not going to get finished either, but I couldn't throw it out.

And yes, all my veneer is mixed into one bowl including the alphas. No, I can't find anything. No, it doesn't bother me, haha! I hardly ever use them anyway.

On my desk I keep the things I use all the time. My tiny attacher, my acrylic blocks, black ink and four circle punches. Behind the door on the left I have my mists and embossing powders and the tiny drawer on the right has dimensional adhesive, tiny attacher refills and new cutting blades for my paper trimmer. The large drawers has a few stray things like half used Thickers packages and some lovely LLP screen prints.

And guess what?! There is something for you on my desk as well. A whole bag full of unused items I cleaned out when reorganizing. All you need to do is put your name in the comments below. If you have a SC user name please post that, so I can find you easily should you forget to check back! I will randomly draw a winner to be posted on Friday August 29th. 

/Magdalena

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Our daughter recently had her fifth birthday. I've made a spread all about that. On left side I put photos from opening her presents in the morning. I also thought it would be fun to do a number 5 collage. That may have gotten a bit out of hand, haha! Once I started I couldn't stop adding 5's.

 

The right side of the spread has a photo I took later that day, plus a favorites interview with her. I asked her a whole bunch of questions like what's her favorite food, color, movie, song, game etc. What does she want to be when she grows up? All fun things to read about when she's all grown up.

 

 



And here are the pages together:

/Magdalena

VACATION PL PAGES

As it turned out there were a lot of photos that needed to go into my PL album for July. All together there will be 12 pages, one insert and one intro page for the new album I've started for the second half of the year.

These three pages are all about our trip to Norrköping at the end of July.

I've been diving into my stash because the Penny Arcade kit is disappearing. The second page are all photos plus our tickets for the Kolmården zoo. The Paislee Press 4x6 templates are so perfect for adding lots of photos to one page. Love them!

/Magdalena

THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD

I think the bad news are quite obvious. We've all been shocked and saddened by the recent passing of Robin Williams. He was such a brilliant actor, doing both comedy, drama and voice acting. I cried several times yesterday seeing his picture and reading beautiful articles about him and quotes from his movies. He will be dearly missed!

I was feeling down the whole day yesterday after reading the news with my morning cup of tea. Last night I was in need of some happy news and boy did I get them! I can't tell you what it is, but the news involves one my very favorite scrappers. She is so incredibly talented and I'm a huge fan! I love her layouts and her blog. I predict many of you will be delighted to hear the news as well. I'm SO excited!

Today I am also sharing my very first layout with the Sandlot kit. Aren't these acetate alphas amazing? And I found just the pin to inspire me! Here's the pin: 

And here is the layout I made from it. The photos are taken on my daughter's 5th birthday. I'm completely objective in writing my title of course. ;P

/Magdalena

A LAYOUT WITH A CHALLENGE

I was asked to post a challenge on the Studio Calico blog based on this layout:

Here is my text for the challenge:

Hi, I'm Magdalena! I love using old photos in my projects. I've put them on layouts, in mini albums and in Project Life. Sometimes to commemorate a birthday or a special event and sometimes to document a memory. I know you are supposed to scan your old photos and use a copy, but I don't always do that. This layout uses the real thing! The photo was given to me by my mother a while back. She found it going through some old things. I was very close to my grandmother so this picture brings up a lot of feelings that I wanted to document. The pink patterned paper from the Skeeball addon reminded me of old wallpaper so it went really well with an old photo.
My challenge to you is to put an older photo on one of your projects. Use your grandparent's wedding photo, your father's baby pics or that yearbook photo with your hideous 80's hairdo. Looking forward to seeing what you make!

And here is the link for the challenge post. Come play!

/Magdalena