banner
Get off the cross we need the wood

About Me

Maybe-not-really-20-something-anymore from Norway who likes to scrapbook and take photos documentarystyle and dreams of photojournalism when not working as a photojournalist and that's pretty much what this blog is about. And I like it this way.



My Scrapbooking

Been scrapbooking since late fall 2005. Currently fortunate enough to be a part of the design teams for Hambly Screenprints, Fancy Pants Designs and Pencil-Lines. ♥



2/2


My grandmother-in-law asked me to help her out with creating a wallhanging for a poem she wrote for a nursing home/hospital she attendes at times. Used some old papers from Prima, flowers from Prima and Papirloftet, swirls, transparency from MME, cracklepaint, glimmermist, feathers, pin... I daresay this romantic vintage-style is quite typical for Norwegian scrappers these days by the way...:)

I promised a giveaway - Scrappers Choice was totally generous when I had my demonstrations for them, giving me way more than I needed (oh and Im NOT complaining haha). I thought I'd be nice and pass on the generiousity...so I'm going to give away the small themed embellishment-bags. These bags contains various stuff - some 3d-diecuts, rubons, stickers, flowers, metal-embellishments, epoxystuff - ..and they all contain a leaflet with a beginners guide to scrapbooking (you can also purchase these bags from Foto Knudsen-stores by the way). It's a huge lot and especially great if you're a new scrapbooker and just started out...:)

All you need to do is to drop a comment here below letting me know you're interested...you're also welcome to suggest someone else for this prize...I'll draw a winner Saturday evening :)




Title: "A few small bruises" - Maria Mena

15 lovely comments

So.
The Pencil-Lines sketch #128 went live last night, guested by Birgit Koopson and I did a couple variations of it during my demostrations w/the Scrappers Choice products two weeks ago. Might aswell enclose the rest of the stuff I made during these demostrations too...nothing spetacular, just...stuff..you can probably find these layouts around in the stores I visited for demoing, they all got to keep most of them.

Speaking of Scrappers Choice - I got a LOT of stuff from them to work with for the demos, but now that I am done I don't really have any need for most of it..so I am going to sort the stuff then there might be a giveaway or two here on the blog sometime soon.






Title: Xander - Buffy season 1


Jeg har forresten presentert bloggen min på Bloggurat.

1 lovely comments

~~ Now we know what not to do again ~~

Posted by Ania On Saturday, March 28, 2009 5 lovely comments

Don't look at me - these days it's hard to capture them "naturally" -
they're always making some kind of faces towards the camera :p

So typical.

Amalie and Adrian ran ahead of us, hiding.
Playing along we said out aloud: "Hm. Where did Adrian and Amalie go?" "Hm. Can't see them. Ohwell. We'll just have to drive home without them."
Amalie (hidden, yelling): "We're hiding!! ( short pause) Here! Behind the bins!"
Adrian (sighing, coming out of hiding): "Oh Amalie! Why do you always have to do that!!"

Poor, cute little thing. She loves to hide but she doesn't have the patience (or see the point?) waiting to be found. She always have to a) tell people she's actually hiding and b) in case people didn't get it the first time around - tell them specifically where she's hiding.

*smile*

Have a lovely weekend!! :)

Ps. Anyone's got the Scrapbook Trends April issue yet? Haven't gotten mine but I'm supposed to have three projects in that issue, please lemme know if you've seen them :)

Title: "All this time" - Maria Mena

5 lovely comments
| | edit post

~~ Poor little misunderstood baby ~~

Posted by Ania On Thursday, March 26, 2009 26 lovely comments
Um. First.
Let me just say.
Sorry for the zillions of photos shortly incoming.
Creating this minialbum was fun and annoying at the same time. Fun because I loved all the papers and the photos and I felt really good about myself actually using a lot of embellishments and rubons and little bits and pieces (I think I normally suck at this). Annoying becuase I am so so s l o w these days and I itched to do other stuff aswell but I felt like I had to finish this one first.

The album itself is a Mixed Media Bracket Book, an album that comes in different materials - raw chipboard, thick delicious felt and gorgeous transparencies - some w/white patterns printed. I just used a few of the pages in this book, and traced the rest on cardstock and corrugated cardstock to mix it up and stuff. The papers are mainly from Summer Soiree, but I used quite a few bits and pieces from older collections aswell. The embellishments (apart from the butterfly which is thanks to my daugher who loves making these ;) ) are all mostly from various Fancy Pants collections apart from a few flowers and bling from Prima and Heidi Swapp. The flaps/minipages are made of bookmark-protectors which I got from Kine before Christmas because I was supposed to send Christmas-cards in these but as usual, that project sortof fell apart cause I suck at Christmas-cards.... the original idea/concept of using protectors for layouts however I believe originates from Karen Russel - at least that's where I first saw the useage some months ago...but didn't really feel inspired to try myself until I saw some pages in Stavanger from a woman who took one of her classes. So. Freakin. Cool!

Oh. And with so many photos I wanted to add...I couldn't help but having to do a mini within a mini using leftoverpapers from the big mini :p

Right. LOTS and LOTS of photos incoming, so I'll quit yappin' :p

The text is FP rubons on the transparent frontpage while the photos are safely behind it on the next page.
Bling!!!
The two first pages - the page to the left is chipboard from the Bracket Book, while the corrugated one to the right was made tracing the outlines from one of the bookpages.
The gang@ the beach. Love the felt heart!!
I used Glimmer Mist here (Jazz Blue & Snow Angel), let it dry before adding white Crackle Paint randomly over the page + the edges. The chipboard is from "The Daily Grind" - mixed it w/some old felt&buttons from FP.

The page to the right is actually a transparent page.
Using a shape from the "Sugar and Spice" chipboard-collection I taped around it w some hospital-tape and added glossy multi-medium to seal the surface before adding white gesso.


Amalie LOVES butterflies and made this one for me :)
Figured I'd use it here so I'd at least know where I had it..
The journaling-circle was cut out from "On a Whimsy: cards" w/my new patterned scissor. yay ;p


Notice how good I have been here using rubons? I'm so proud of myself ;p
The pages here were made from two bookmark-protectors folded in half & sewn to the page. Ribbon-handles makes the pages a bit easier to turn.

Um yeah. Sorta tried to doodle here. Right. Moving on ,p
The flowers were made using Glimmer Mist (Peach & Watermelon) before applying crackle accents on the petals.
More rubons! More inner pages! And hidden journaling! Sorta!
& check out the tabs - some from diecut-sheets and some from Transparent Die Cuts Creative Books :D)

When you put in pages like that (standing) - make sure you actually check how the pages look folded before sewing them......so they won't acccidentally turn out to be like, upside down. Both of them. Cough.
This is one of the felt pages. Lovesit!
Decided to sew around the edge and decorate this side w/paper & a pocket for the mini-within-the-mini :p

This little photo was a leftover from the cover - figured it'd be cool for this mini too.
Like. Mommy-album and baby-album. Eh.
Right!

The mini is kinda an oversized matchbook-album w leftoverpages in varous lengths sewn in.
Haven't finished the journaling in here by the way.


And finally! The last page!! This is the back of the album - I put a photo inside a protectorpage and stitched it onto the felt. Protector because well, that way the photo will be protected still despite being on the outside. Oh and note to self: DO NOT PUNCH HOLES WITHOUT ACTUALLY MAKING SURE YOU WONT CUT OVER YOUR CAREFULLY STITCHED THREADS!!!!!!! *sniff*

Phew!
Long post, lots of photos and blah blah. Just kinda like this mini and thought it deserved a lil closer description.. lemme know if you have any questions :)

Thank you so much to Eli, Marie, Monica, Oddbjørg and Vibeche for the fun & company & the photos for this album!!

BTW! The classes for the PrimaDonna tour that Jen and Tracie are doing this spring has been posted at Steffens now. They're also dropping by Bikuben the next day afaik, in case you miss them at Steffens :D Gogo girls!


Title: Just Hold Me - Maria Mena

26 lovely comments
Apparently today's Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. It made me think of Sherry Turkle and her highly intriguing work on computergames and the internet and multiplayer-games. I am fairly sure I first learned of her as a part of some mediabook (darn, can't find it atm) and became intrigued by her viewpoints and attitude towards children and gaming - the research was from 1984 (the research was put together into a book - "The Second Self - Computers and the Human Spirit" - but I am fairly sure I haven't read it - just an excerpt). Wow. A researcher, and a female one at it, who wasn't as judgemental as one might think (I guess I am the judgemental one thinking in stereotypes now) towards games and new media combined with children. Shortly after I purchased "Life on the Screen - Identity in the Age of the Internet". It opened my eyes on how I viewed certain things, put words to how I myself experienced the whole thing growing up w/the Internet and ofcourse - it inspired me greatly. I wish I had gone further down that path re. the University and my study-choices. Hm. Definitely wanna reread that book + "After the death of childhood - growing up in the age of electronic media". Does anyone who reads this blog happen to know of more & newer books on these subjects? I'd love to try update myself some in the field for fun :)

Anyways. Kinda sparked my curiousity and I went to one of my fave-sites when I was an active student and fooled around some. I recall a gamergirl-research site aswell, but I can't for the life of me seem to relocate that one. Ohwell.



Suppose I need to insert something scrappy here...so I guess I'll share a peek at my soon-to-be-finished minibook..just some more embellishments needed, some tags or maybe a mini-within-a-mini and pondering on how to bind it is all that's left :)

Title: Metrodad

4 lovely comments
| | edit post

Sketchy sketchy sketchy!
This weeks sketch was made and guested by Sharon Ong from Singapore - she made an awesome sketch which I just loved :D
Love the Hambliness here (yep..I am totally inventing that word ;p) :D A mix of new (backgroundpaper & titleframe) and old (pink circles - loves!) stuff :) I have such a hard time picking which photos to use lately (need to stop taking multiple photos!!) but I just adore the expressions of my sister and niece talking together so I decided I'd use them all :p I am even able to spot a few signs here and there in their conversation :D

It's soon Easter - hmm - need to decide wheter I wanna do something springy or not...guess we'll paint a few eggs and stuff at least :)

Speaking of spring - mother-in-law dropped by for dinner yesterday and brought this flower with her (for Amalie :p). When she arrived it had no flowers at all - and by the time she left it started to bloom some....

And this morning Amalie was pleased to see it bloomed even more..


And tonight? Yeap. Almost all the flowers had sprung..
kinda cool how fast it went ;p Makes me wonder if this means I'm gonna kill it quicker than whats normal with my plants ;p


Have a lovely week :)

Title: "Only a fool" - Marit Larsen

4 lovely comments

~~ Oh, oh, tell me have you seen her? ~~

Posted by Ania On Friday, March 20, 2009 7 lovely comments
So cute!! Courtesy of Kine!! :D

Fridayfaveeeee!!

  1. This tea (see above). And this girl. Unable to locate this tea at my local supermarkets (which aren't much to brag about really) she sent me this cute package in the mail :D LOvesit!! Thank you so much!!! The scent makes me nostalgic, thinking of my childhood-candies.. and it tastes like heaven!! :D (not sure about the decaf-part though, I've kinda grown accustomed to coffeine lately ;p)

  2. I have been totally in love with this Martha Stewart Butterfly-punch ever since I saw someone have this one at the crop in Stavanger and somehow it sorta dropped into my preorder-basket from Papir i Hjertet...along with the doilyborderpunch I've been drooling on for a while....*whistle*


  3. I adore Maria Mena. "Belly Up", "All this time", "Fragile", "Lullaby"...and many many more if only I had time to look & link them up but alas..not much time to blog right now sooo!! Her lyrics are so vulnerable, raw and so real...lovesit..


  4. Still waiting impatiently for more info about when 3ndypapirs newest paperlines will hit the shelves, especially Gudruns colorful one! Just look at the sample above - doesn't make you so happy?? I hear they're off to Scraporama this weekend and will bring the new papers along....*sigh* Definitely know it'll be one of my faves as soon as they (hopefully) hit the LSS! :)




  5. Not really like I can call these layouts faves, but I have truly loved working with the Scrappers Choice-material I've been demoing all week..these three are from the FotoKnudsen stores I've been at on tues & weds and they are displayed at the stores there too (hence the bad quality of the photos - I had to hurry snap photos of them in the store when done with the demos) along with a small selection of altered stuff & cards also created during the demos. Really love the papers and thickers (with norwegian letters!) and the cute rubons :D And yes - the layouts are pretty simple - nothing fancysmancy when I'm supposed to demo and have limitations on stuff to use ;) I'll share the rest of the layouts later, I forgot my camera yesterday so I had to ask the store manager to help me out - and the images he sent me contained 0 bytes - ouchie - and these were my fave layouts of the bunch I've made till now too!! :p I've created an average of two layouts, one-two cards or similar and two chocolate-boxes or calendars (only a couple pages!! duh :) ) per demo :) Speaking of Scrappers Choice - Vibeke just launched some new papers, embellishments & stamps - check them out here! :D

In other (scrappy) news -

  • feel free to check out the Fancy Pants designerspotlight on me *smile*
  • Prima has a really cool promotion going on right now - free bling!! :D
  • Speaking of Prima -- the PrimaDonna International Roadtour is coming along nicely, going around Scandinavia and stuff and I'm happy to see they're coming to Oslo (28. april - @Steffens) at least (hopefully more cities in Norway too but these are yet to be finalized afaik) :D You simply can't miss it -- Jen Starr (US) and Tracie Hudson (UK) are the teachers for this tour and they are simply fabulous and will awe you with their dazzling techniques (they know their stuff and tricks alright!) and just imagine the lovely prima-stuff you'll get to play with....ahh!!! (and sigh yes - thats the opportunity I was speaking about a few posts ago)


Title: "If you seek Amy" - Britney Spears (What!! I like it!!)

7 lovely comments

Doing some demonstrations this week in Bergen for Scrappers Choice:

Tuesday (today!):
FotoKnudsen, Oasen - 12.30-16.00

Wednesday:
FotoKnudsen, Lagunen - 12.30-16.00

Thursday:
Binders, Minde - 11.00-15.00

Friday:
Binders, Åsane - 11.00-15.00

Do say hi :)

Title: "Freeway" - Aimee Mann

3 lovely comments
    -Get off the cross we need the wood-