Movie Night...

I just had to share this rather unusual themed but really cool kit that Kate Hadfield released together with Holly Designs on Friday at the Lilypad. Don't you just love all the great detailed cinema-themed doodles etc? This kit is certainly mega filled with great themed embellishments.

...maybe the perfect time to scrap that visit to see Twilight or some other great film you saw at the cinema? :)

[Supplies: Spacey Templates Mini 5 - Amy Martin, Movie Night - Kate Hadfield, Holly Designs
(both from The Lilypad)]

Hope you're all having a great weekend! :)

I can't believe that the Winter Olympics are over... :(

Day 27...

Christmas journal time again :) The picture on the left is one that dad took of me and Ross at my aunt's & uncle's on the 26th of December. The big family gathering :)

On the right side we jump to day 27 and for most people Christmas would be over at this stage...

For us it was kinda a second Christmas instead. My brother, his girlfriend and their daughter spent Christmas with his girlfriend's parents this year. So on the 27th we had a 2nd Christmas together with them, complete with presents and the traditional Christmas food. Cool :) And definitely something that should be part of my journal.

I Love My Kindle...

Yep I do :) And this new kit by Kaye Winiecki was the perfect thing to use to make a layout about it:

...isn't it really cute? And it appealed to me straight away since I love reading. And I love the combination of lime, aqua and kraft. Makes me smile :)

So anyway, as I said, I love my Kindle and I love reading... and I love this kit, so this is what I created:

[Supplies: Arctic Ice - Gina Miller, Chubby Paper Alphas 3 - Gina Miller, Essential Paper Petals - Gina Miller, Project 365 Templates 2 - Gina Miller, Valentines Doodles - Jenna Desai, Bookworm - Kaye Winiecki (all from The Lilypad)]

And what a great day it is... soon weekend - yay! Though I feel a little sad too as I have loved following the Winter Olympics (go Sweden!!) and it's coming to an end now... *sob*

Day 26...

Not many days left at all now :) I'm running my Christmas journal of 2009 to the 31st of December, just like I did the previous year too.

If we start on the left side, which is the back side of the 25th, I decided to go with a cosy-feel Christmas tree photos and some journaling about that day.

The 26th (right side) is a day that's now become something of a tradition. My aunt and uncle invite us all to dinner. For every year we seem to be more and more people coming (and next year there will be yet another two little ones) yet they somehow manage to squeeze us all in every year. A really nice tradition and usually the only time of the year when we're all gathered together at once.

Playing 'Kubb'...

I assumed Kubb was a Swedish game and after checking Wikipedia it turns out that I was right (I needed to double-check so I did't give you the wrong info). It's a great outside family game and lots of fun is always guaranteed. :)

We played it several times in the summer in Sweden and I decided to use some of the photos to make this layout:

[Supplies: Angels Of Love - Lliella Designs (from SSD), Love Of Space Templates 2 - Amy Martin (from The Lilypad)]

... do you know what else? I just love it when you can take a super cute Valentine's Day kit like this:

...and use it for a layout which has a completely different topic :)

Out Of Action...

I'm having some major computer problems at the moment. It's a big possibility that I need to replace my hard drive asap. Nearly didn't get it back up this morning. So I'm putting all my scrapping on hold for today and I'm going to be concentrating 100% on backing up everything to external harddrives & DVDs etc...

Day 25...

I had so many photos that I wanted to feature in my journal from Christmas Eve, that the back side for the 24th kinda just became a page of photos - but that's okay too :)

The 25th is another big photo page of the table being set full of yummy Christmas food :)

Day 24...

And it's time for Christmas Eve in my Christmas journal. Possibly the best day of the year I think. I love Christmas and this (the 24th) is the big day you celebrate in Sweden (you have the Christmas food, presents etc).

The left side is still the back side from Day 23 and features my little niece and their cat. Super cute and cuddly he is :) Love him to bits. And my niece too of course :)

Day 24 (right side) is loads of journaling about the day plus a photo as we just sat down to eat. Yum!

More From The Tablet Class...

I didn't know too much what to expect from the tablet class by Jessica Sprague. Some parts I did parts I did assume we'd go through and other parts have been rather surprising. All good though :)

This was the main layout class for week 2. We learnt a lot of cool techniques including how to create our own PSE brush. See the pale blue paper with the leaf overlay? I did that - the leaves are my very own created PSE brush. That felt cool - LOL!

We learnt how to take digital alphas (see the title) and create them into a "sticker effect" with white background and how to take a scanned chipboard piece and create the scroll effect that you can see in lime green at the top and the bottom.

I wish I could remember every single technique now... and of course you can't when you learn so many new things all at once and you only do them one time. But the cool thing is that I can go back to anything and check up on how we did it anytime I want :)

Day 23...

How exciting. It's the 23rd of December (in my Christmas journal that is! LOL!) Christmas is only a day away and since I totally love the cosiness of Christmas, this is a very good day.

Everything that isn't already sorted for Christmas is coming together on this day. And going to bed, knowing that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, is just the best :)

Only a few more pages left in my journal now. And I'm soooo happy that I kept going with it rather than giving up because it was not December anymore. It will be such a great album to have and look through in the future :)

Day 22...

This is the next lot of pages in my Christmas journal from this Christmas:

The left side (which ends at the bottom of the orange paper) is the backside of Day 21 and features more sledge riding photos with my little niece.

For Day 22 (right side) I decided to use one of the large Bingo style cards by Jenny Bowlin. And it's also time to wrap Christmas presents with mum & dad :)

I hope you're all having a great Tuesday afternoon. :) I'm off to catch up some more on my Tablet Class now.

Happy Valentine's Day...

I hope you all have a great day filled with fun & love! :)))

Doodle Fun...

Another fun thing that Jessica had us do for the Tablet class was to get used to just using the pen and the tablet by creating a huge sheet of 12x12 doodles. Love themed because of Valentine's Day, but otherwise we were free to just doodle away and getting used to the feel of the pen.

I have to admit that at first I wasn't going to bother doing it. It kinda felt a little "pointless"... like I "wouldn't learn anything". But then I told myself to stop being silly, stop (possibly) worrying what people would think about my doodles and focus on that every exercise was part of learning and would add up to what I got out of the class.

So I sat down with my tablet and pen and created a full 12x12 sheet of doodles. Of course, I think it's only natural, that you hate your own handwriting and you hate your own doodles, but I have "made" myself "be brave" and put it up here anyway. I just see it as another step for the class.

Fun With My Tablet...

I'd so intended to blog yesterday but I was feeling really rotten with a bad upset stomach so here I am today instead. :)

Anyway, I wanted to share what I have done for a really fun class that I'm taking. Some of you might know that I have a Wacom Bamboo tablet (since about....I don't know...1 year ago? Or is it 2 already?) which I really love. I use it a LOT. Basically daily I would say. But I only really use it as you would use a mouse.

When I saw that Jessica Sprague was doing a tablet class way back in ...I don't know, October or so, I signed up immediately. It started on the 1st of February and we have done so much fun things already.

This was the first full layout project that we did and we learnt so many great techniques. I just wish I could remember them all LOL!

The two that I loved most I definitely remember though, check this out:

See the dotted red line with EVENLY spaced dots that marks the route on the map? How cool is that!! And the scallops, the scallops!! *I* have done those!! I can't believe that. I love scallops and I'm in heaven knowing that I can make these with my tablet and some PSE brushes. Maybe this is something really basic, but I'm sooo happy I have done this :)

Day 21...

Not so many days left of my Christmas journal now :) I know Shimelle does her class to the 6th of January. Ali Edwards does hers to the 25th of December. Me? I want to include New Year's Eve in my journal but I really don't see a point for me to continue my Christmas journal into January either, so I have the 31st of December as my end date.

The left side, which is basically just the photo where I sit wrapping Christmas presents, is the continuation of the extra "photos only" page which I talked about the other day.

...and if we continue onto the 21st and the right side, I'm journaling about how it was snowing a lot that day and how we were looking after my little niece and had lots of fun outside in the snow sledging etc.

Anyone else still working on your Christmas journal? How's it going? End in sight yet? :)

Another One For The Lilypad...

Following on from the Lilypad BYOC post that I made on Friday with my top 3 picks for the month, here's a quick update with another layout that I created using the kits:

[Supplies: Lovey Labels - Amy Martin, Spacey Templates 2 - Amy Martin, Sweets And Tweets Rub Ons - Amy Wolff, Sweets And Tweets Paper Pack - Amy Wolff, Paper Confections - Gina Miller, Sweet {Hearts} - Jenna Desai, Let's Make A List - Designs By Lili, Let's Make A List 2 - Designs By Lili, Smooches - Nikki Beaudreau (all from the Lilypad)]

I just had to use those cute cupcake images :)

Day 20... Take 2...

As I said before, there were a few days during December where a lot of things happened. Or rather, a lot of photos were taken. Photos that were important to me because they showed part of our Christmas traditions. So in a few places in my journal I have simply added some extra pages of photos glued back-to-back, so I could fit in some of these "important" photos.

Day 20 was such a day. Lots of things happened. These photos show me and my mum with a rather new Christmas tradition. Last year mum decided to buy lots of little flowers (like hyacinth's etc) and make her own little Christmas flowerpot arrangements. It turned out so nice that we continued the tradition this Christmas too and I really enjoyed helping her with it. :)

Day 20...

Okay time to continue with some more from my Christmas journal (and no I'm not giving up LOL! This journal WILL be finished!)

On the left side (back of Day 19) you can see my little niece at the table waiting for us all to sit down to the Swedish Christmas tradition of Glögg (kinda like mulled wine) and Pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies). The page is actually a transparency with photos on both sides. You can see the black circles of the transparency on both sides of the photo.

Day 20 is just capturing one of the many parts of Christmas - Christmas presents wrapping time! :)

BYOC...

It's Lilypad BYOC time again :)

I've been busy downloading kits and scrapping this week :) At first, as usual, I want to go through my top 3 kits. This month was harder than usual to do my pick. So many kits with so much quality. But here are my top 3 choices and why:

Firstly, cupcakes! That's all I need to say really, isn't it? :)

Then these seriously gorgeous journaling blocks. In fact I'm going to go as far as saying that this is my absolutely favourite release for February's BYOC. The variation of sizes, the styles, the colours...it makes the kit so great.

... finally this kit which I guess you can call a "title kit". I just love how it instantly gives you some really great ideas for some fantastic layout subjects :) It totally makes you want to scrap as soon as you start reading the titles. I love it when inspiration hits you like that.

[Supplies: Lovey Labels - Amy Martin, Spacey Templates 2 - Amy Martin, Sweets And Tweets Paper Pack - Amy Wolff, I Luv Brad - Amy Wolff, Heartsong Cardstock - Gina Miller, Paper Confections - Gina Miller, Love Wordart - Gina Miller, Love & Romance Doodles - Kate Hadfield, Let's Make A List 2 - Designs By Lili, Love Snips - Valerie Wibbens (all from the Lilypad)]

Above is a layout which I made yesterday afternoon using some of the BYOC kits that I loved most :) There will definitely be at least one more layout out of these kits to come.

A Very Cold Day...

I had a checkup and lens change at the eye hospital today. The eye surface (cornea) is healing but it's still not totally smooth so I have at least another month of a protective lens in my eye, antibiotics and 2 lots of different eye drops about 10 times a day! Sigh! And it's the usual stuff with me not being allowed to get anything in or near my lens eye (not even water) so it's another few weeks of not even being allowed to wash my own hair etc.

I wish I could at least focus on that "it's soon over". But the fact is that it's never over. I will always live in fear (and yes it is fear, the pain when your eye lid rips off part of your eye surface is faaaaar worse than I can ever describe) of it returning and I will always have to take lubricating eye drops at least 6 times per day (sometimes more like 10) plus other sticky stuff before bedtime. This is what I'm doing with my "good eye" right now (the one that went through the surgery last Jan and has *touch wood* stayed ok since). It's a lot of interruptions in your day, everyday, always, esp if you're out and about.

I'm really trying my best not to think about it. To think that it will be "forever" just freaks me out...

[Supplies: Spacey Templates - Amy Martin, Arctic Ice - Gina Miller, Snowdrops - Gina Miller, Buttoned Paper Strips - Jenna Desai (all from The Lilypad)]

Day 19...

First of all, I must say a big "thank you" to those of you who are leaving encouraging comments on my Christmas journal posts. No-one can say it's not tough to catch up on something you're "behind" on, and of course the easy option is to just give up. So I really appreciate all the supporting comments you leave, encouraging me to go on :) Thank you :)

The back of day 18 (left side of the picture above) shows a photo of my mum's homemade Christmas toffee which we all love (and frankly it wouldn't be Christmas without them!) - so that definitely had to have a place in my journal.

Day 19 and it was time to bake gingerbread cookies. Since we left for Sweden earlier this year, we ended up baking them with mum at my parents' house and this is a quick picture I snapped of my mum when she started baking.

Right I'm off, it's BYOC release again at the Lilypad on Friday so I'm busy downloading some kits to work with :)