Off-line at the weekend...

I am so used to blogging every day that I almost feel like I need to apologise for not being on-line this weekend. LOL! But we've had the best weekend!!! My parents came over from Sweden to stay with us for the weekend. So there as been lots of "sightseeing" done, walks, eating out (and cooking at home) and photos taken. Really we have had a great time! And I feel a little sad now because we have only just dropped them off at the airport. Still, that is something you can't avoid and totally normal to feel like that.

I'm sitting here typing this and looking at two surprise gifts which they brought for me. A 320GB LaCie external harddrive (designed by Porsche!! - how cool) Wow am I happy!! I only mentioned in a conversation to dad that an external harddrive was something that I really wanted/needed. I wanted an additional back-up for our photos on top of keeping them on the computer and backing up on DVDs. I had no idea that they'd gone and bought one for me. Also he must have really listened and remembered what I said because I mentioned I was running out of USB ports. (Using 4 on the back of my docking station and 4 on a USB hub). As a surprise they had also bought me a new USB hub with 7 (!!) ports. So I'm such a happy girl!!!

And if that wasn't enough of nice things, on Friday my Magnolia stamps from Sweden also turned up. But I have to confess that I have not looked at them yet. I wanted to spend all my time with mum and dad. But I'm hoping that I can sit down tomorrow and stamp them all and show you which ones I picked.

Now I'm off to catch up on all my mail and forums etc. I think I will curl up in the sofa with my laptop on my knee...

Customizing backgrounds...

Thumb is still blue...

I've been playing with my "Lola" and "Riley" stamps. I had this paper from the "Riley" collection by Elsie. Brown with blue dots in white circles. So I tried to make it a bit different by using some of my new stamps.

I stamped some of the flowers onto a plain blue paper from the Riley collection. Then I used a small round punch to just punch out the centres of the flowers. These I glued in a few random places onto some of the blue dots on my background paper. Then I outlined them with two different pens. I really enjoyed doing this and the different look your paper got! The photo is of my mum & dad when we were on a day trip (from Sweden) to Denmark in the summer.

N-O-T my day...

It's definitely not my day today...

First I battle for THREE (!) hours installing some printer software which keeps claiming it can't run because it needs "such" and "such" files etc. Back and forth. Back and forth. *tears out hair* After 3 1/2 hours, countless installs/un-installs/re-installs I finally get it to work. Only to receive some stamps in the post... Nice you think? Yes but my expensive woodmounted stamp is faulty. The foam cushioning is not done right. It's not as thick on one side which means it won't stamp that part of the image. I'm sure it will be sorted and everything, but just not what I needed today.

Then I go to put away one of those folding down stands that you hang washing to dry on. Only the leaver that you need to loosen is really stuck. I have to pull it with both hands (having to let go of the top of the stand) and it collapses down onto my thumb & index finger with such a force tears start running down my face and I can't help screaming out loud. *hand quickly held under ice cold water for what seems like an eternity*

...and here I am nearly two hours later and my fingers still hurt soooo much :( So no scrapping for me today. Instead I'm going to put up this little cute Xmas kitty with I just watercoloured. (Not as neat as I normally would - but hey, I am injured, right?)

He makes me smile. :) I need it!! LOL!

Love reading your comments...

I think it's time to say "thank you" to all of you who leave comments again. I really love reading them!! Sometimes when you sit here blogging you don't actually know if anyone will read it, or who and where in the world you are. So I really enjoy reading the comments *you* leave. Whether they are from people who leave them quite regularly, you know who you are (Margaret, Cynthia etc), or from totally new people like Kim yesterday. Thank you for that Kim - it's always nice to hear from people who read my blog every now and then. Honestly, it's just as nice to read comments from everyone however often you post, so thank you very much for taking a few minutes out of your day to leave a message :)

Guess what I got in the post today? Some "Love Elsie" stamps which I have been wanting for many weeks now but they always seemed to be out of stock. Anyway, they are here now and I love my new "Lola" and "Riley" stamps!! :)

In fact I feel the urge to go off and create something with them right now...

Some Tuesday scrapping...

Feel like I haven't scrapped for days. Which is true actually. I have been making cards instead with my yummy Magnolia stamps. Even before I bought my own, I thought the images of Tilda etc look like a hippo. But a cute hippo. And I like hippos!! So I like the stamps :) Should have some more coming soon because I placed an order from Sweden on Friday...

Anyway I'm getting off topic here LOL! Back to my scrapping. What do I pick when I don't really have any idea of what I want to scrap? One of the "Love Elsie" collections! They instantly make me smile and want to start scrapping. :)

This is a layout using basically only stuff from the "Riley" collection (papers, epoxy stickers, cardstock stickers etc). The photo is taken in the south of Sweden at a place called Brösarps Backar (not that you can see anything of it LOL!). Ross climbed up on this big stone and I immediately saw a photo opportunity (as we scrappers do!) I wanted to get him, the stone and just the sky - from below. So imagine what people walking by must have thought...me down on the grass, lying on my stomach, while trying to tilt the camera upwards at a good angle. Anything for a fun/good/perfect photo, eh? :)

I've just been cutting card and stamping lots of Magnolia images for a stamp image swap which I'm taking part in, so I'm off out to the post office in a little minute to get that lot sent off.

Tidying the harddrive...

So are you doing anything crafty today? I have just finished another card using one of my Magnolia stamps. Again all the patterned papers etc are leftovers from scrapping. I just LOVE making cards when you don't actually start cutting up a brand new sheet of paper or card :)
(Grattis is Swedish for "congratulations")

I think I will spend the rest of the day doing through my harddrive and sorting out/deleting files, backing up my photos etc. Got an appointment in the middle of the afternoon so it's only a few hours left to get started on this. Have *you* backed up your photos recently? If not, maybe it's a good thing to do after you have read this... :)

Got an e-mail from BPS today regarding the "Doodle All Day" class which I'm taking. Maelynn has given us two fun little pre-projects to get started on. Just little things, but they made me smile and it's just the thing to get you really excited about starting the class. Only I'm a bit stuck as my pens which I ordered for the class have still not turned up *small sulk* And I NEED them for this. Why is it that everyone else get theirs and you're still left waiting for the postman every morning...? LOL!

Oh yum...

We baked cupcakes yesterday afternoon. So much fun!! Cupcakes that are seriously bad for you, but at the same time seriously gooooood :) They just turned out incredibly yummy. Almond & marzipan cupcakes with raspberry jam. At first I thought "Raspberry jam....with marzipan?!". But it works. It really works!! And they are even yummier today if anything. I better not confess that I have already had two today and it's only the middle of the afternoon LOL!

We had a little mishap overfilling some of them so they got a little oddly shaped. But who cares. They taste just as nice :)

Now I must pass on big thanks to Shimelle for this seriously nice recipe.

*** We Love Almonds Cupcakes ***

Ingredients:
250g unsalted butter
150g sugar
100g brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
70g ground almonds
150g self-raising flour (you may need a little more)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
100ml cream
50ml milk
Raspberry jam

Heat oven to 170c and line cupcake tin with papers. This recipe makes about 18 average sized cupcakes.

In a mixing bowl, beat softened butter with an electric mix/whisk until fluffy. Add sugars and continue to beat.Add eggs one at a time and continue to beat. Stir in almond extract. Add dry ingredients gradually, mixing throughout. Stir in cream and milk until texture is consistent.
Spoon into cupcake papers, filling just over half full. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a chopstick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Use a melon baller or a knife to remove part of the top of the cooled cupcake, and spoon in raspberry jam. Replace top and add frosting.

Ice with almond buttercream (unsalted butter, icing sugar, almond extract and a little milk). Roll out some marzipan and cut shapes with a cookie cutter.

...and I bet you'd like to see what ours turned out like, right:

*Busy* baking...

I'm busy baking cupcakes....

Will be back tomorrow *smile* :)

Doodling...

Those of you who read my blog quite regularly probably know that I signed up for the "Doodle All Day" class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking about 2 weeks ago. The class runs from October the 4th to the 31st. As part of the on-line 4 week class you also get a book posted to you. "Doodling For Papercrafters" by Maelynn Cheung (who also holds the class on BPS). And today was the day that my book decided to turn up in the post.

I have just had the quickest of flicks through it - as it literally just arrived - but wow does it look great!! I knew this class would be for me anyway (I have been waiting months for it to be run!) Seeing the book in real life has made me even happier that I signed up as soon as the details were launched. I really can't wait! Bring on October the 4th!! :)

Halloween...

I couldn't resist colouring in these images when I got them yesterday (thanks Heather!) - they were just soooo cute and colouring them with greens, oranges and purples just made me smile. I even kept dreaming about Halloween cards in my sleep last night! LOL!

Now neither we nor anyone we know really "celebrates" Halloween...so why I started making these cards this morning I have no idea. I just know I had lots of fun doing some different cards for a change (rather than the normal birthday and Christmas cards). It was fun, fun, fun working with such bright shades and colours!

Cards are made from one piece of 12x12 black cardstock (it made two card blanks) and the rest are scraps of paper left from scrapping. Doesn't it make you feel soooo good making cards from scraps? I know it does me :)

I think these cards will be out little "Halloween decorations" for the house come October...

Evil Thing...

Can I just make a statement please: I H-A-T-E vacuuming!! Like Really. Seriously. Very seriously. Just hate it. And so does my very achy toe!

...and a little scrapping has been done using some silly photos plus papers & die-cuts by Sassafras Lass.

I'm off to comfort my anger & pain with chocolate chip cookies...

Thank you...

Thanks to all of you who left comments on my cards yesterday! :) I'm really pleased if it inspired some of you to get your stamps out and have a play. That's what crafting is all about :)

As I type this I just got a question from Gillian wondering where I got my stamps from. I got them from Bryony at Silly Monkey Crafts, though I do believe that most of the Magnolia stamps are sold out now unfortunately.

Not been doing so much crafting today. Well actually now I'm lying. LOL! I did go to the dentist this morning (just a normal check-up/everything was fine) but since then I have worked on my monthly class for ATDML which I have just finished and sent off.

And here are some more pages for the "Learn Something Different..." class by Shimelle which I'm taking at the moment...

Making cards...

I have been busy all weekend with my new Magnolia stamps. Stamping. Colouring them in with watercolour pens and having lots of fun. I have surprised myself. I didn't think it would be half as fun and therapeutic as it was. In fact I have done so many images I don't even know if they all will ever get a home on a card etc. So I thought it was only appropriate to at least start making some cards with them this morning.

I actually can't even decide whether I like these cards or not yet (I blame my headache for that LOL!) but here are the first two:


Sorry about the funny background shades. The base cards are white. The top right corner looks like I have used grey cardstock and the bottom left like the white cardstock it is. When it's bad light outside (rain-threatening like now) I always have this problem. If anyone have any ideas of how to get around that - please leave me a comment, thanks :)

Okay I better continue on my Design Team work...

Magnolia stamps...

Got my 6 Magnolia stamps in the post today (thanks Bryony for great service!) and I just wanted to have a play with them straight away. But first there were other things that needed doing. (Putting clean sheets in the bed, putting the washing on, watering plants etc etc). After that I sat down and stamped my new images onto thick watercolour paper and then grabbed my watercolour pencils.

I have had so much fun the last hour colouring in the images and making them come alive with my aqua-flow water brushes! I had no idea it would be so addictive!! LOL! I am so glad I bought my set of Caran D'Ache "Supracolor Soft" watercolouring pencils a few years ago rather than going for a £3.99-type-pack from a stationery shop. Wow do I love these watercolouring pencils!! I tried to put quite a few images in each photo on here, so unfortunately you lose a lot of the shading which doesn't show up too well in the photos.

This is what I have been doing so far:

And even Ross joined in and water coloured some images so I have to show you his cute dog and sheep too:

Exhausted...

I'm totally worn out and exhausted, my head feels like mush. I have been working on my monthly class for ATDML all day. I'm not doing a layout class this time. I'm doing something else instead. Can't say more at the moment. It's a nice little project though.

Having spent several days trying to work out how to show certain parts of the projects in photos...and then worked on it this morning (it's not even finished yet), I ended up with 150 photos to edit! Yep you read that right...

Of course a lot of the photos are duplicates (in case I'd get out-of-focus ones) but there are still a LOT of step-by-step photos to edit and sort. This took far longer than I could have imagined, so I'm having to continue after the weekned, but I'm thinking I might end up with about 40 step-by-step photos in the end. Of course making the project (for any of you) does not take that long time at all...but it does when you have to stop and take photos after every step LOL!

Anyway, as I'm sitting there editing photos guess what turns up? This month's Scrap-Room kit!! Yummy!! I totally love this 4-in-1 kit!! Best kit I have ever subscribed to. In fact if you haven't tried it, you should head over there for a look right now. :) And if you sign up, tell Tammy that I sent you LOL! She'll be very happy :)

Kit:

Embellishment Add-On:

Stamp Add-On:

Doing Design Team work...

I've been busy all morning working on some Design Team projects. I managed to finish my last layout this morning and I have just taken photos of my projects, edited them and sent them off. I can't tell you too much about it yet but let's just say that there were some pretty obscure Basic Grey involved ;) *wink*

Ooooh and I got something nice from the US in the post this morning which I have been waiting for to turn up the last few days. The new special issue of Card Creations. Volume 5. I love these issues and need to get them every time they release one (which I guess - in a way - it's good that they don't do too often LOL!). Also I got the special CK issue called "101 Things You Can Do With Your Scrapbook Supplies". It's by Jennifer McGuire. I always admire her creative ideas of using supplies in her regular Creating Keepsakes articles. I'm very interested to see what this special issue will be like. Hope I'm not expecting too much of it.

With me working on the DT projects this morning I have to admit I have not done today's page for the class by Shimelle. But that doesn't bother me too much - I can easily catch up on that tomorrow. However I do have the next set of pages to show you:

Before I go, I have a message for someone:

Marja - Get off that chair, go get your Bind-It-All and start USING it!! LOL! I know you will love it, so please start a little project today :)

Wednesday scrapping...

So...when you get new stash, can you resist it? I can't! I was sitting down to scrap this morning. Reached for some "old" random papers to use. But I couldn't get the "Jack + Abby" papers by Elsie out of my head. The ones that arrived yesterday. So the old papers came off my desk and I reached for my new stash. The result? This layout of my sister and her huge surprise catch in April this year while fishing in Sweden:

Supplies: "Love Elsie - Jack + Abby" patterned paper, tiny and big ribbon packs, cardstock stickers plus epoxy stickers. Apart from that, not much else: staples, Bazzill cardstock, Rhonna Farrer rub-on and some pens. I really loved the cute little tree on the journaling sticker by Elsie. So I got my black Zig Millennium pen and some colouring pencils out and tried to freehand some similar trees on the right side of the layout. How did it turn out? Well I guess I'll leave you to decide that...? I think we all are guilty of failing to see anything good with our own doodles.

I'd almost forgotten to post more pages from the "Learn Something Different Every Day" class by Shimelle wich I'm doing. So here's the next page - from the 7th:

Oh and some Christmas stamps turned up today....

Baby books...

Been doing these cute baby books of my brother's little daughter for the last two days. Do I love my Bind-It-All, or do I love my Bind-It-All?!?! I L-O-V-E it!! As you can see in the pic below I have made three more books with perfect result now! I am SOOOO glad I bought one!!

So these baby books were supposed to be a quick project of mine. Black & white photos, each photo is a page, no journaling, Bazzill cardstock as the backcover and a transparancy as the frontcover. Until I decided that I wanted each page quite chunky. Which is fine. Until you discover that you have no chipboard. Solution? Cutting millions (okay maybe not quite...) of cardstock pieces and double-sided-tape them back-to-back. Any idea how much double-sided tape you use up? LOTS!! Still, they are done and I love how they turned out!!

Unfortunately the photo doesn't really do them justice as I had big problems with reflections in the transparency covers - this is the best of a bad bunch of photos.

Stash delivery - yummy yumminess...

Is that even a word? Yumminess? Not sure... But I am sure that my big stash delivery from the US a few minutes ago really was full of yummy yumminess! LOL! Didn't expect it for another few days so I was really pleased and surprised!! So, time to drool *giggle*

SEI:

Cherry Arte:

Back of Cherry Arte papers:

Room To Room magazine and Rhonna Farrer rub-ons:

"Love Elsie" Jack + Abby papers:

"Love Elsie" Jack + Abby goodies:

Mmmmmm...

*goes off with a smile on her face*

More pages...

Right time to share some more pages from the book I'm doing for Shimelle's class. These are the next two sets of pages. For the 5th and 6th of this month. And before you think there's something wrong with the image on the 5th - there's not. Neither is there anything wrong with your monitor. Yes I know it displays a big pink square across the page and that is very much on purpose. The photo features a shot of a Design Team project which I made the other day - so I'm afraid for now I can not show you that one. So sorry for the big pink square. Hey, at least it's better than a big brown square, right? ;)

I'm feeling really good about this class and it's nice to stay on top of it. Well, now I'm kinda lying actually. I have not done yesterday's page yet. And it probably won't be done until tomorrow if I'm being really honest LOL! But I do have the photo taken and I know what to write about so that means I'm more than halfway there. :)

And there has been questions for me again:

Cynthia - Yes I have heard of Darin but since I don't live in Sweden now I'm not too familiar with him either. Hope that makes sense :)

Susanne - Så jättekul att du kunde förbeställa en Bind-It-All!! Skall visa fler bilder när jag har gjort fler böcker. Håller på med en med bara kort just nu. (For those who are a bit confused about what I have just written I have just replied to Susanne who asked about the Bind-It-All the other day - in Swedish)

Building...

We went to IKEA yesterday afternoon to buy a bookshelf. And of course spend a reasonable amount in the "Sweden shop" too...can't go there without getting some "food from home" :) And no, before you get excited and thinking I will show some pics of my scraproom with a new shelf - it's not going to happen. It's for the bedroom. I really wish it was a shelf for my scraproom but it's I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E to fit another shelf in here, not matter how much I'd like another bookshelf....or two....or twelve! LOL!

Anyway we have spent the morning building the bookshelf and it's now in place (who am I kidding - it took 25 mins). It's for books. You know, normal books...not scrapping books. But on a happier note, I have negotiated the bottom shelf for scrapping magazines (held in neat folders of course!) So that gives me another 38 centimetres of space in my scraproom (where the magazines would have been) - I didn't say it was a big bookshelf, did I? LOL! Only a narrow one, but it fits perfectly.

This is a layout that I did for Make The Moment Last as part of my DT work. Bazzill cardstock, Dream Street papers, Maya Road velvet flower ribbon, Making Memories metal embellishments, Autumn Leaves stamps plus some buttons, chipboard and staples.

Enjoying the class...

Really enjoying the class. I have finished some more pages for my book which you can see below. And yes I know it's a bit strange to do one with a phone on. But after our phone stopped working and we had to chase BT nearly every day (guess who promised to keep us informed of the fault and let us know how it was going...and didn't?!) and it took T-W-O weeks for them to fix it. Yep 14 days we were without a working phone. Well that kinda deserved being the subject of the day I think LOL!

Okay I have had some questions in the comments section again so I want to answer them before I forget:

Susanne - (I'm from Sweden too - though I live in the UK!) I ordered my Bind-It-All from Ness at Papermaze. She's really helpful so it might be worth e-mailing her and ask if they ship abroad and how much the postage would be. Worth asking at least! (And I just realised I could have written this bit in Swedish LOL!) Lycka till! :) Och kom gärna tillbaka och berätta hur det gick.

Debbie - you wanted to know about the date circle stamp. It's from Banana Frog and the set is called "postage". And do you want to know something good? They have 15% off for the next week :)

Now I'm going to start teaching myself Photoshop Elements 5. Have been wanting to try this program for a while now and you have to start to learn sometime...

Learn Something New Every Day...

Not sure if I mentioned a little while ago about the "Learn Something New Every Day" class by Shimelle? Anyway originally it was an on-line class that she held last September. It's being re-run this September (think you can still sign up) and she has this little nice thing (just like with her Christmas class) that if you have already take it, it's free to take again.

So I thought ---> should I do it again? Uhm...hrm....YES! I gathered my bits for the class and then I kinda didn't get any further. I was waiting for some supplies in the post...and well I'm sure we all know what a handy "excuse" that can be to put something off LOL!

I wasn't putting it off because I didn't want to do it, but simply because I couldn't decide on what format book to make. In the end I decided on 15x10 cm (6x4 for those of you who use inches!). That way I could make a double-spread each day, letting my photo be one of the pages. A neat format I have used before and really liked it. So yesterday was the day to start (catching up!) for me and here are my first few pages. I decided to go with a very simple style which I could vary a little each day:

And talking about classes. There's this BPS class which was mentioned already in April as "coming soon". A doodling class - how fun!! I have been wanting to do it ever since and today was finally the day you could sign up for it. :) It's called Doodle All Day and runs in October. You even get the doodling book (yay have I been wanting this or what LOL!) so make sure you choose the right option if you sign up. There are different prices depending on where you live - for the shipping cost of the book. And want to know something else - a nice little extra bonus - if you sign up before the 9th you can use this code: btsatbps and you get $5 off the price :) Anyone going to join me...?

Love it...

Right it's official ---> I LOVE my Bind-It-All!! I have only bound two books with it so far, but I have got a perfect result both time. And if I can do that - being a beginner - then there's no reason that it will change. So I love it and I'm sooooo pleased I bought it :)

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon doing this cool book by Maria Grace Abuzman which you just print out and put together. You can find it here. I haven't filled in or decorated my book at all yet, but I just wanted to show you her cool idea and also what I had done with my new Bind-It-All machine. (For anyone instrested: bookcovers are 18,5x12,5cm - 5x7,5 inches - and I have used the black 3/4" owires to bind it)