Scary!

Sorry there was no blog post yesterday - we had a bit of an emergency to deal with. Woke up at 02:08 in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday by a huge bang. You know when you wake up and your heart throbs so badly you feel it in your whole body? That type of bang/scare!! After investigating we discovered our kitchen window was broken and there was glass all over the place in the kitchen and livingroom. Of course with it being downstairs, we had to sit there all night "guarding". We talked to the police and they sent someone around in the morning.

No-one can work out what happened. Nothing makes sense. All we know is that out doble-glazed kitchen window was completely smashed with such a force that it had knocked glass all through the bottom floor of the house. It's now made secure and boarded up and we're waiting for people to get back to us regarding having a new window fitted. At least we were reassured that the window is actually safter now with the big board and tamperproof bolts that it would be with glass! LOL!

But it was very scary, especially sitting up all night guarding...having no idea if someone was hanging around outside. And it will take some time until we can sleep completely relaxed again I think...

"Deck The Halls" Layout Class

Please feel free to use these instructions to make your own layout. You are free to link to this page from any forum etc if you wish. Please do NOT copy this information and/or photos to use for your own classes/forums/webpages without permission.

Supplies needed:
Love Elsie – Noel – Soft Charms
Love Elsie – Noel – Rub-Ons
Love Elsie – Noel – Cardstock Stickers
Love Elsie – Noel – “Recipe Book” paper (unless you’re really careful with cutting these and keeping an eye on the pattern of both sides of this paper for what you need, I would advice you to get two sheets of this)

Also needed:
Glue (I use Herma removable)
Small piece of white cardstock (long & narrow)
Black Slick Writer
Charcoal Chalk Inkpad (optional)

Start by cutting your patterned paper to size. I scrap in true A4 size, so I cut mine to 29,7x21 centimetres (cm). Please feel free to adapt to another layout size if you prefer. We will be using the snowflake side of the paper for the base of the layout.

Also pick your photo. I’m using a standard 15x10 cm (6x4) photo of a Christmas tree. If you’re working on a bigger sized layout (say 12x12) then a larger photo would also work great.

Get your piece of white cardstock and use your black pen to draw three border strips (see photo below) – make sure you do this by *hand*. The whole point and charm with these are that they should not be perfect and done with a ruler. Fill in black squares (again vary the length for a handmade look). You need to end up with one about 14 cm long and two at about 18,5 cm each.

Cut out your drawn borders. Also cut a piece of the white wavy line from your patterned paper. This needs to be the length of the shortest side of your photo (ie. 10 cm in this case). Then locate some nice strips on the patterned paper that you like the look of (see below for what I chose) and cut a piece about 15,5 cm long by 5 cm tall. Ink the edges of these if you wish.

Time to assemble. I’m putting my photo slightly off centre. Add your paper piece with the strips about 4 cm from the bottom and 2 cm from the left side of the layout. Centre the photo on top, half overlapping the paper (see photo below for placement) and glue the scalloped paper piece at the top edge of your photo.

Glue your handmade borders in place following the lines of the photo. Pick a journaling square from the cardstock sticker sheet, journal and add in place on the layout. I like to outline this with my black pen for it to stand out a bit better.

Pick some cardstock stickers words that you like and add them near the right top corner of your layout. Again outline in black if you like. Cut out the “Deck The Halls” from the rub-on sheet and add to the left of your photo.

Finish off by adding a little dotted border in black around your journaling block, add some rub-on parcels above it and some cardstock sticker stars above the “Deck The Halls” rub-on. And you’re done!

I hope you enjoyed my class! Wishing you lots of fun creating your own version!

Sketch Scrapping...

I hardly ever use sketches when I scrap. It might only happen once or twice a year. But this morning as I was blog surfing I came across this sketch at Trish Jones' blog:

Since I had some photos that I wanted to scrap on the same page today anyway, I thought I might as well give the sketch a go. :) For it to work with my photos, I adapted it a bit and turned the sketch onto it's side. I had one photo of my niece which I printed at standard photo size, 15x10 cm (6x4) , and I printed the remaining four photos in a small strip.

Supplies are: Scenic Route "Loveland" papers and journaling die-cut, American Crafts Thickers alphabets, Junkitz brad & photo anchor, Hambly frame transparency...and of course I couldn't resist adding a few peridot green jewels. :)

Yum Yum With Sassafras Lass...

Been doing some more scrapping! This time using some papers from Sassafras Lass which I bought a while back...

Other supplies are: KI Memories Pop Culture lace cardstock, Rhonna Farrer and Creative Cafe rub-ons, Maya Road felt snowmen, Amercan Crafts Thickers title and some journaling stickers by Creative Cafe.

And while we're talking Sassafras Lass anyway, how cute is this paper?

I totally love it and can't wait to get my hands on it :) I'm definitely going to use some of it to make a little inspiration book for creative notes. I will probably make the covers from scratch, cut inside pages to fit and then bind it with my Bind-It-All. Can't wait - it will be a fun little project :)

Easter Cards...

Have you made any Easter cards yet? Do you make Easter cards at all? I'd love to hear :) I just love the cute bunnies, chicks, eggs etc so I make a few cards for close family just because Easter stuff makes me happy :)

The following cards are made using the super cute "Spring Tweets" doodle package by Kate Hadfield. I changed the colours of the eggs to suit my fave Easter colours (green, pink, yellow, orange and lilac) and played around a bit with the chicks. I'm not sure how visible it is in these photos but the chicks are all handcut and 3D on the cards. Oh and before you wonder: "Glad Påsk" means "Happy Easter" in Swedish :)

Ever since I did the Christmas Journaling class, I have been waiting for the "There's No Place Like Home" class by Shimelle to start. I signed up early this morning as soon as it was available and I really can't wait until the 24th of March for it to start. Sounds like this class will be a bit different (lots of projects instead of one minibook/album) so I'm looking forward to see what that will be like...

Scrapping And Card Making...

Today has been a great day. :) First I spent the morning making Easter cards, for family, which will be sent off to Sweden late next week. I used some great new doodles by Kate, so my cards will go on my blog as soon as the doodles are officially available. The doodles are just too cute!!

...and then I spent the afternoon scrapping :) If you saw this post the other day, you would have seen a photo of my desk and a layout being worked on. It's now finished...I went a little mad with circles and the final result is this:

Supplies: Bazzill cardstock, Doodlebug patterned papers, Creative Cafe stickers, Heidi Swapp chipboard heart, Rhonna Farrer & Creative Cafe rub-ons plus two types of American Crafts Thickers.

New Class On-line...

My latest class is now on-line. I have been playing with the funky Pop Culture papers by KI Memories. Yum, yum!
They just make you smile :)

If you have a moment spare, please head over to A Trip Down Memory Lane and check out my new FREE class here. Thanks for taking the time to visit :)

Tuesday Scrapping...Kinda...

Was feeling really, really rough last night with some sort of stomach bug. Don't really know what happened, but I don't think it was due to my food intolerances as it was totally different. Anyway, this has totally zapped me of energy today so I have no new project to put on here today I'm afraid...

But I *am* scrapping still :) I'm just trying to take it nice and slow (and drink lots of water LOL!) This is what my desk looked like about 10 minutes ago (just before I came to post this)...

And It Turned Out Like This...

If you saw my Work In Progress post the other day, you will have seen a layout about halfway done. And you can't post a "work in progress" photo and then not show the finished item, right? LOL! So here we go, this is how my layout turned out in the end:

As I said in the Work In Progress post, I really have *no* idea how my layout will turn out when I scrap. No plan whatsoever. I don't even know what item or embellishment I will use after the one I'm currently using. I'm sure that sounds totally mad to some of you, but for me it works. It's a style...or I should probably say: "system", which has gradually developed for me during...I'm guessing, about the last two years. I have found a way of scrapping which truly makes me happy - so I'm sticking to it :))

Oh and the supplies for the layout are as follows: KI Memories papers from an old Christmas collection, Fiskars scalloped scissors, Colorbox chalk ink, Doodlebug jewels, Collage Press stamps and American Crafts Thickers alphabets. Plus some doodling, mini jewels, staples, buttons and embroidery thread.

Trees And A Bird...

A quick update with another card using the Come Out And Play kit by Kate, Catrine and Birgit, (available at Catscrap). White smooth cardstock for the cardblank, trees and bird are in 3D with lots of buttons and thread plus some black chalk ink.

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