GISHWHES

For those of you not familiar with GISHWHES, the word is short for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. It's masterminded by actor Misha Collins who plays Castiel in Supernatural. A large part of the hunt is spreading love and joy to our fellow humans (and animals) but also to forget how to adult for a week. GISHWHES is being weird and not apologizing for it!

I've put together a compilation of our collected items, and I really hope that if you haven't gished before you will want to do so next year!

Gish on!

/Magdalena

PINEAPPLES AND DONATIONS

This week I'm taking part in GISHWHES, the great international scavenger hunt created by actor Misha Collins. The idea is to spread a little kindness and weirdness to the world. In the last leg of the hunt we are being asked to raise donations for two Syrian refugee families in dire need of medical help. I ask that you click on this link , and if you want, donate to these families in need. A little bit from us means a whole lot to them!

I will be sharing my team's GISHWHES adventures after the hunt ends!

To also share a little happiness I present to you this pineapple page I made for Catherine Davis design class. The second lesson was all about scale, and since I'd already made a large photo layout for the class I decided to go small for my second project.

I knew I wanted to make a paper piecing pineapple so I searched pinterest and came up with this pin, that is actually a quilting pattern. I also found this quote which I thought was cute.

Peace and love to you all!

/Magdalena

JULY REVEAL FOR KELLIE STAMPS

Hey peeps!

As you may have noticed my sneak didn't go up on Tuesday as planned. The issue is that I had 2 spreads for our July PL  completed, and I hated how they looked. I had decided on doing 12x12 for the second half of 2016, and the format wasn't working for me at all. I ended up redoing the pages and going back to 9x12. 

So, instead I'll be sharing a layout for Kellie Stamps July reveal. During the summer me and my collegue have a reading competition with the kids in our class. If they read more pages than us during the summer, we will throw them a reading party after returning to school. So far I've read 10 books and 2805 pages. I've made a layout to document it.

The title is made up of two separate digi stamps. This one and this one! The SUMMER digi stamp came out earlier in the year, but the "reading list" is brand new. And, it also comes as a clear stamp! I borrowed my daughter's water colours and painted in my title. The ink from the printer blead a little, so I cleaned up the lines with a black marker. The patterned paper is from the most recent Studio Calico scrapbook kit, Pool Party, and the thickers are from my stash. I stamped the dates for which the competition is open in red ink.

Which means there are only two more weeks of summer vacation for me. Sigh.

/Magdalena

SUMMER PAPER CRAFTING

First off, I want to let yuou know that the Slim Jim clear stamp alpha set in now in stock at Kellie Stamps. I've had a lot of fun with these stamps! Here's another card I've made using the Slim Jim alphas.

My July sneak for Kellie Stamps was meant to go up this weekend but I ran into some problems with the pocket pages I was making. I'm hoping to be able to post them tomorrow.

Are you taking Catherine Davis' design class at Studio Calico? I signed up the moment I heard she was teaching it. I knew it would be awesome, and it is! The first lesson was on editing. This is my first lauout after taking her class.

I was inspired by this pin for the title:

Instead of the strict grid, I followed the flowing line of the grass on the sand dune my daughter is running down.

Hoping to see you with some Kellie Stamps sneaks tomorrow!

/Magdalena

PL JUNE

With the June pages finished I'll be starting another PL album. I'm planning to do a 12x12 album for the second part of 2016. I've taken lots of photos this month so there is quite a bit of work left to wrap up June. Here are my first 5 pages of the month.

I'm loving the square cornerns of the documenter cards this month. So much easier to work with. I've lifted an old spread by Catherine Davies where she used punched circles to pull the page togther. I've lifted it many times before, I just love how it looks! Find the YEAH! digital stamp here.

While I have you here reading my blog I must really, really recommend the graphic novel series "Love & Key" by Joe Hill. It's a bit brutal but the story is really amazing for those that enjoy stories about the supernatural. It centres around a family that inherits a large, very old house filled with mysterious keys that unlocks anything you can imagine, including a great evil.

In this spread I used a mix of old and new cards to give it a summer feel. Instead of punched circles I did some messy date stamping to create cohesiveness.

I really love doing pages in all one colour! Here I pulled every red card I had and picked my favorites. This whole page is about a day spent with my collegues celebrating the last day of school. Summer vacation, whoohoo! (Faces blurred for privacy.)

Here is a mix of photos from our first week off. I stuck maintly to black & white plus bright yellow. Pineapple sunglasses FTW!

This week I have a challenge posted on the Studio Calico blog. Hop on over and see what it's about!

/Magdalena

MAKING CARDS

How I miss Studio Calico's card kit! I only got it 3 times or so, but it was enough to fill my stash of birthday cards and other greetings for a long time. I easily got 20 cards from one kit. Recently SC had a sale and they had a bunch of card kits in the shop. I only really wanted one, the Galileo kit with the cute bunny and ice cream stamp. It got sold out before I managed to grab it but another member kindly sent it to me since she had several already. SC rocks that way!

Me abd my daughter sat down to make a few cards today, and this one is my favorite!

It looks like the little bunny is popping up in the window waving it's arms and going "Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello..." It's a top folded card that I punched a window in and then glued a strip of the hello paper inside. The bottom of the bunny lies flat but I tucked some foam adhesive under the ears. The card still looked a little empty so I stiched on the silver banner in the corner.

In the card below I stamped the strawberries in red ink, then I flipped the stamp over and used the back of the stamp with pink ink to color them in. I love the contrasting blue cardstock I used as base. I added the gold heart for a little additional color and texture.

I hope you haven't missed out on Kellie Stamps June release that includes clear stamps this time! Here I combined the Galileo bunny stamp with the Slim Jim alpha stamp set to create a fun bunny birthday party.

My daughter let me borrow her water colors to paint the bunnies in, and then I added some sequins as confetti.

And here are two more cards I made today:

I'm not a card maker, and only sit down and make them in batches like this maybe once a year, but I hope I have given you some fun easy card making ideas. I don't have the patience to spend more than maybe 10-15 minutes per card, I'm sure there are more you like that.

Keep on making stuff!

/Magdalena

ROUNDING UP MAY PL

I've wrapped up my May pages in our PL album. I've used a whole lot of Kellie Stamps digital brushes, old and brand new. First up is a page about a family day in Stockholm. For those of you that don't know Swedish geography we live about 100 km north of Stockholm. By train it takes us just short of an hour to get there. Usually we have some sort of cultural and educating activity planned when we go there (teacher moms, sigh), but this time was just for shopping and having lunch.

The "DID SOMEONE SAY ___________________" is so awesome! I love it! I see myself getting so much use of that one. All digital brushes on this page are from the June release and you can get them here. This month there are also TWO clear stamp sets and a sticker sheet in the release. Don't miss these!

I rarely record anything sporty because we're not a very sporty family, but in this page there's a whole lotta sports! The top two photo are from a 5 km run I participated in with my collegues. It's a race aimed at recruiting blood donors. I forgot my running shoes at home so had to run 5 km in my Chucks. But I did it! The bottom photos are of our daughter who started soccer practice. She has since quit soccer practice... We'll see if it is an interest she wants to pursuit again in the future. 

On my last page of the month I recorded the books I've read in May. You can find the book rating digi stamp here. I found this fun photo of Stephen King on Pinterest and kept the heart on his shirt red while changing the rest of the photo to black and white. I've read his Bazaar of Bad Dreams. It's an anthology of short stories. I liked the stories and the fact that he has written a short introduction to each story talking about how he came up with the idea for it. I've also read parts 5 and 6 in the Locke & Key series by Joe Hill. It is BRILLIANT! If you like horror and graphic novels you need to read it. So good! I got them from the library, but after I finished the series I ordered the set from an online book store. I know I'll be reading them again. My last book in May is "Kunskapens frukt" (The Fruit of Knowledge) by Liv Stromqvist. It's about the role female sexuality has played throughout history. It's presented in the form of a graphic novel. Very interesting and enlightening!As you see in the photo I'm currently reading The Fireman by Joe Hill but I haven't finished it yet. All books are added to my 2016 Reading Challenge Pinterest board.

Yesterday my June documenter kit from Studio Calico arrived so I can finally start in on my June pages. Looking forwards to it!

/Magdalena