Little Corner of Ania

• I don't like my current editing style. I'm not sure if it's the lousy lightning that forces weird editing, or if I'm just stuck at this over-expose-everything-with-harsh-contrast thingie but I'm fed up of my indoor-photos atm. Time to go out and do a real photosession or something like that...
  
• ..or wait for my two new books currently on their way to me from the overseas: Scott Kelbys Photoshop for Photographers and 7-point-System Photoshop. Pressies from my hubby. Can't wait!
  
• I ruined the Christmas dinner!!! Gah! Didn't cook the meat (pinnekjøtt) long enough :( The guests said that it was fine, it's the taste that matters....but still..the meat was supposed to kinda "fall apart" from the bones...it didn't which involved a lil more chewing than normal :/
• Our Christmaseve was spent with mom, stephdad, mother in law and hubbys grandparents. A nice and quiet evening :)
  
• I redeemed myself today though, cooking it again (this kinda food - "pinnekjøtt" - is almost always better the second time it's prepared anyways) and stuff.
• Amalie was sick all Christmas - also all Christmas Eve...slept a lot....cheered up when we were unwrapping pressies though, to the point to devoting time to and playing with each of the toys she got in turn - resulting in a little queue for the still unwrapped pressies waiting. Ofcourse it helped having two grandmothers at each side helping her unwrap and play with the toys.
  
• Adrian, soon seven, doesn't really care for reading much - "you know I can't read mommy" he just shrugs when I try reading with him. He's the laidback kind of type who'll well, learn it sooner or later...later I guess. Anyways, he can read his own name though and recognize some of the letters. So, every time he found a pressie with his own name in it he hurried to one of the grownups urging them to help him; "either it's a pressie TO me or it's a pressie FROM me". He's got that part right!
• In Norway we eat different kind of meals at Christmas, mainly depending where in the country you're from. At north there's mostly fish or reindeer. In the west (and north) we've got "pinnekjøtt" - salted, dried and sometimes smoked lamb ribs which is steam- boiled. In the east, and the most popular Christmas-meal all around the country there's pork. I'm used to the pork growing up, but after I moved to the west I've grown to love pinnekjøtt. Yum! But - whatever we're having at Christmas - we always have the other kind of meal the next day. So, as we were having Pinnekjøtt at Christmas Eve we had the pork at Christmas Day. That's what happens when you've got two whos used to different kind of meals at Christmas Eve marry kinda.
• I haven't scrapped in five or six days!! Yikes! But - just shipped mom and stephdad to the airport now - so there's hope for me getting some scrapping done later tonight :)
• I am going to put a lot of photos up for well, whoevers interested. Mind you, I don't really like the way they're edited but I wasn't really having other ideas atm. A little mix between flash and non flash photos.
• Getting invaded by Swedes again tomorrow!
  

Amalie with her gingerbread cookie from the kindergarten.


Amalie enjoying gaming with her brother


Amalie and grandma decorating the tree

The children playing around while my stephdad is reading a book

And more playing..

Last touch on the tree ..
Me panicking the day before Christmas - need to bake more cakes!
(lefse - trad food thingie :) )


Breakfast..


More bokeh-playing :p
Handsome boy :)

Sick and tired lil girl

Pressies with grand-grandpa




The familypiccie :p
(darn I shoulda kept the shoes on :p)

Happy birthday my beautiful, gracious littlesis! :)

Skjønne kjære lillesøstra mi - gratulerer så mye med dagen!! Kjempeglad i deg vettu :)
Håper dere kommer dere over fjellene på besøk snart, savner dere spes Tuva og Becca ;)


And for those who wondered, I'm home again, had to stay at the hosp overnight but am okay for now. :) Mom and stephdad are here now - it's soon Christmas! The tree is up - will decorate it tonight. Looking forward to it :)

Lil quick post.
How come I always get ideas for layouts and stuff while at the hospital? I always end up looking for pens and drawing sketches and writing down notes on concepts. Even did so while at the bus heh. Not all have been as um, nice - I recall sketching a doublepager in the middle of the night in a scrapbook-magazine (Scrapbooks Etc I think - usually read Etc and CK while at the hosp in addition to photomagz :p) and in the morning looking at it and going "eeeehhh riiight :p"

Anyways. Felt a little disappointed about the whole hospitalthing and really felt the urge to put it on paper. Kinda like a diary. An open one. Writing in English feels kinda okay - although it should be like, completely opposite - English exposes it (and myself) to way more people than writing in Norwegian would have done....still....it feels more alright writing things down in English and I guess it's a good thing that things gets written down nevertheless uh? Hm. Ohwell. I think it's ok to share it. It's ok to feel this way. It's ok to let people know I'm feeling this way. I don't want pity nor consolidation really - I really am fine and there's no reason to feel sorry for me - I just felt like that for a moment and had to get it down - and it felt so much better when I was done. I really think I'll work more on my journaling for 2008. *adds that to my ever.-growing-list of what needs to be done better for my scrapbooking in 2008*

Oh. And after a long period where cardstock was like, limited to journaling only I think I am starting to find scrapping with cardstock cool after all. Besides. Gotta get rid of all the cardstock here uh? I'm kinda only using black, white, brown, cream, (army)green...in emergencies babyblue... have to try get rid of the other colors too and I thought orange-yellow fit the mood :p

Ohwell. Better hit bed. Have to take the bus to the hosp tomorrow. Veeeeery early. Um. Or today :p Should be back home by the evening though! The doc promised! (well..he said *probably* :p)

Oh, and as I know Christmas is a busybusybusy time for most of us - Merry Christmas if you're just dropping by and doesn't plan to return before Christmas! heehe :p

Mhmm. Nytt besøk på sykehuset idag, og enda et besøk til imorgen. Får forhåpentligvis komme hjem igjen til kvelden - satser på det ihvertfall! Sykehus er....ikke morsomme greier :P

Jeje. God jul og sånn :p

Sick child, broken car & random hospital appointments = me not able to do too much these days. Ohwell. I did get to wrap up my last pencillines-layouts for this year++ - don't have anymore PL-stuff to do until far into January :) Wrapping up another assignment atm then I just have the jan Bad Girl kit to do over the holidays and I believe I'll have at least first half of january free for any SB-related assignments - ahhh! Gonna plan and line up some class-samples for 2008-classes methinks - got some fun and interesting stuff I hope to be able to share soon about upcoming stuff - just need to get stuff 100% confirmed :) Oh and I managed to sneak in a non-assignmentlayout! Yay! :p Had to make a layout about Siljes candymail - the kids really did think it was so exciting and cool to get candy in the mail haha...esp Adrian who understood a little more than Amalie who's just concerned about "candy - eat now!" - and not really where the candy comes from :p

Showing photos of Amalie: first one of her thinking we're making noises when we were fixing things in the livingroom with a hammer :p She loves demostrating we're making noises and that she so disapporoves! The second one is with her little pony which she got from grandma when we were at Ål - she loves the Pony and her rabbit - the rabbit gets to go with her everywhere outside the house while the pony gets to stay home: "goodbye horsie!" - poor us if she's not able to find the horse to say goodbye to!


Sidenote: Pictures from the UNICEFs Photo of the Year 2007. Really urge you all to have a look at all the photos and their stories. So many beautiful and sad photos, and some just intriguing ones...


By the way, what makes it Christmas to you?
Well, this song is among the little things making christmas Christmas to me kinda :)
(Fairytale of New York - the Pogues & Kristy MacColl)




And while we're on the subject of old songs (they're the best ones hm?) - here's another fave of mine (not Christmas-related :p) - Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield :)

Alright, first: two new layouts - or well, I made them like a month or more ago and hm, the funny thing about me is that I usually like my layouts at first but then when it's been a week or so I go "why did I make that layout!?".......and I'm ashamed to say I kinda feel it that way with these two now...*blush* hmm.... ohwell....practice makes better no? That's what I keep telling myself when I feel this way or kinda low about my scrapping-skills. Ohwell.

First one's for Pencillines: Kathrine was our guest this week!! Am sooooo happy for her!! :D And her sketch really is cool and different from the others - go have a shot yourself! The photos are from the hotelroom in Ålesund - was kinda "normal-hotel-room-bored-behavior"... lovely Sassafras Lass papers, American Craft thickers, Maya Road chipboard, lil Hambly and embossed Autum Leaves stamps.

Second layout is for Scrappedugnad - we had a fun lil challenge from Celine Navarro this time - to use brads in a fun and unique way. Well that was a nice excuse to get rid of some old Queen & Co brads mixed with some MM and bazzill ones + a lil Heidi Swapp bling in between :) Papers from Sassafras Lass and Scenic Route, aswell as AC thickers and Maya Road chipboard.

I also played some with the camera and the bokeh (blur-thingie). Found a cool lil tip on Photojojo about how to customize your own bokeh. Tested it on my new lil tree :) Pretty cool huh? :) Can't wait to make star ones and test both star and heart ones as soon as the Christmas Tree is up (yeah, we don't put the Christmas Tree up until like 23rd or so :p)

Har lekt litt med kameraet her nede som dere kan se - med ute-av-fokus-bilder (også kalt bokeh).

Normal state:

Normal bokeh:

Heart bokeh! Just...the wrong way ;p

Aaaand there we go;: heart bokeh the correct way!


Have fun! :)

The winter edition of Scrapbooks & Cards Today are out and available in PDF format - they do both print and PDF - which can be downloaded here (part 1). Why I'm excited? Well, I've got a layout in there!! OH yeah baby! Page 36 - sharing the same page as my fellow Bad Girl designer Cari Fennell!!!! YAY! I *love* Cari - if you've been to the Prima blog you've probably noticed the most gorgeous stuff from her in there - she's one of my faves in that team...well...maybe *the fave* one (shhhh!) - so being displayed at the same page as her was like *wow* and *too cool*! I'm looking forward to my very own copy in the mailbox - they were going to email me two copies I think. Fun! :D Tbh I don't really like looking at sb-stuff in pdf, but while scrolling hastily past the pages (I was looking for my own layout duh!) I did notice a lot of gorgeous stuff in there making me go *uhoh and they really did publish my layout among all these fab stuff??* ..... can't wait to flip thru the mag irl to have a proper look at all the wonderful layouts in that one :)

Any news in this home? Well. The last wall is done. And on a whim hubs decided that we needed to finish the last part of the ceiling tonight too, starting around 9pm. We're getting guests tomorrow and can't really paint then which means we have to wrap it all up tonight - 3x layers of paint, 3hours to wait between each layer..yay :p

Hm, don't have any new piccies to show so I'll put up a layout I made quite recently just because! Kinda still in the middle of a number of different deadlines and stuff and that always makes me antsy and thus makes me go "bleh Ill scrap something totally different just because!" :) Kinda like me rebelling against the deadlines and stuff I have to make =) Look! I made a layout with stripes!! (I love shopping striped pp but I pretty mcuh never use them....)

And on the subject of sharing tips for those nightshots... well....I personally found that going totally manual was the best way to get the pictures the way I wanted them.. did a testshot, adjusted a few times then pretty much stuck with what I got with minor adjustments accordingly.. ISO 1600, aperture between f/1.4 and f/1.6 (with this wide aperture you have to mind your focusing and your distance to the subject) and shutterspeed between 1/50 and 1/80.
With my 50mm lens I had to make sure to try hold the camera extra steady on such slow shutterspeeds... as far as I know the rule of thumb is that a shutterspeed equal to the lenswidth = good base to take sharp photos...but because of some tech stuff (don't look at me - something with the format of the card or something) I have to multiply that number for my camera/lens so for a 50mm my "safe" shutterspeed would be 1/80 not 1/50 as one would think...to be able to take sharp photos in normal situations kinda. If I understood that stuff right ;p So I was trying to keep the shutterspeed at above 1/50 at least to not get too blurry stuff :p

I've shared some more phototips on the Bad Girl forum here; basically just saying - turn off the flash if you want some nice and cozy seasonal photos - experiment with manual modes (which is pretty much the best way to go for such a photosession where there's like, huge contrasts (dark surroundings vs bright lights), put the camera to lock the lightmetering only (I believe that the default is that it'll lock both lightmeter+focus) and use that when shooting in aperture, shutter or programmode...provided youre using spot/center-metering...not sure if that would work for matrix-mode too?? And oh - if you have to use flash - try slow-synch flash...it should make some interesting photos at least :p

Jeje...time to start painting again - 2nd layer!! :p

...my true love gave to me,
a Partdridge in a Pear Tree...

Oh yes. We're totally doing the twelve days of Christmas (I kinda like this one - it's at least definately shorter than "99 bottles of beer"...:p) over at Bad Girls. I was banging my head on the wall over this one for two days or so... kinda knew I wanted to do a Maya Road birdie (which Ive grown to love - soooo cute!) but I wanted it to be kinda "more" than just that.... then I emptied my gluedot-roll and was like....ooh...what if I put this into that..... and tada.... kinda cool Christmas Tree Ornament!! I even used the Bad Girls Decemberkit on this one too and had one extra empty roll to make two (hoarder anyone? :p) :) I've attached a "how-to" on the Bad Girls message board - basically just dress the ring and the birdie (remember two wings - one for each sides) and tie it up using small buttons as uhm, "stoppers".

So what else has happened in Happy Christmasland of mine since last time? Well. Ive got two more walls painted. Fun I know ;p. I attended a school-event for my kid - mother in law was so kind to attend aswell (hubs could not go :p) so I was free to take piccies!! Wohoo!! Taking pictures in the dark was so much easier than I expected!! I'm serious - a lot of the photos I came home with didn't really need any editing at all - I was both surprised and amazed about that (well ok, RAW files but still....pretty much no tweaking needed to several of the photos. Cool! Well, maybe a lil tweaking of the wb but not that much cause I really like the orange glow - makes it more alive and realistic). Adrian was excited holding a real torch while Amalie was a tad more sceptical about the whole thing and hung to her Winnie-teh-Pooh-lights. We brought hot chocolate in a termos too as we were outside for a good while that evening. Oh and may I just say???? Adrian looks unbelieveable pretty in these pictures. So gorgeous. And I'm not sayin' this 'cause I'm his mommy...noooooonoono.... sigh...my little boy is growing up so fast.. dang.

I need to paint more now then I have to wrap up a layout (I haven't scrapped in three days!!) and hopefully bake more old trad. food. Oh, and a new RAK post is up at Scrappedugnad - this one a very fun one from Ingunn - lol - I guess one of the answers are way easier than the others ;)

Ps! Ey did you see!?! W00t!!!! Word of the year! W00T! haha. (ok, I love sayin woot, but usually with normal o's :p) Yeah - finally |337 speak is getting...eh..recognized...or something like that :p

ps2! I'm HOOKED on Gossip Girl these days! *blush* I think it kinda...uh..sucks when you think these boys are so pretty intriguing and then notice how much younger than you they are and it makes you old and uh like.....more old!

ps3! Scroll way down for some real amusing YouTube-vids about where Santas really comes from. Really. Teehee. Not really suitable for children I guess.....maybe....i dunno..:P

Har laget litt juletrepynt og ellers tatt med guttungen og Amalie på fakkeltog på skolen - gikk herfra med alle de andre folka og ned til skolen og greier. Snille svigermor var med så jeg var "fri" til å kunne ta disse bildene ;) Ble overraskende fine disse bildene - veldig gøy å ta bilder av fakkeltog og greier :) Adrian fikk holde ordentlig fakkel mens Amalie holdt Ole Brumm-lommelykten sin ;) Og så hadde vi med varm kakao i termos - noe barna satte veldig pris på for det trakk jo litt ut nede på skolegården :)

ps. Idag har mormor bursdag - 92 år - hurra!! Kort på vei til mormor! (jada mamma ;p)





Ps. You ever wondered where those pro Santas are coming from? Or even how they're turned into jolly good Santas? Well, wonder no more!

Ahh I am really remembering why I actually love this season....
We've been doing lots of small nice things lately...like inviting family over for brunch, having the children paint stuff for Christmas and well, enjoying ourselves. Tonight there will be a small celebration at school where we'll walk in a small parade with lights and all and listen to the children sing at school and stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to take some nice pictures in the dark....contemplating wheter to do the 50mm or the 18-200 one. Hmm....anyways..before we move on to the picturgavanza once again - a few words about Pencillines :)

This time we're joined by an italian lady, Patrizia - who provided us with a totally gorgeous sketch - I really loved this one. My own layout however..hm..I think it's dull and missing something, but what? Hmm... love these sassafras papers though! I've added diamond glaze to the dots so they'd turn into epoxystickers kinda - lovely effect but doesn't show properly in the scan...love these photos - Amalie is quick to bring out the tears if she doesn't get what she wants - but she's also pretty easy to distract sometimes - making her forget she's supposed to cry. First photo shows her cryin her lil heart out - on the second she discovered something making her curious and on the third she's trying to get back to crying but not wholeheartedly.....all in mere seconds :p

Ok. Lots of piccies - among them the kids painting Maya Road snowflakes and glittering them for the Christmas tree...me baking flatbread....old tradition stuff, kinda diffcult and timeconsuming but really fun... and oh, I promised mom (and sis) to write in Norwegian aswell so here's a few words in Norwegian :p

Yay - her kommer litt norsk for de som har ønsket seg det (hei mamma og søs! :P).
Vi har gjort en masse små juleting i det siste - malt både gaver og juletrepynt, bakt og invitert folk på søndagsbrunsj, lagd pepperkakelys og pyntet de (amalie elsket denne delen - spiste to nonstop for hver nonstop hun pyntet med - klæsjet masse melis på pepperkakene og pyntet med bare en stakkarslig nonstop midt oppi det hvite etc etc :)

Ellers har vi malt porselenkopper (julegave til oss selv så det gjør ingenting at jeg skriver det her ;p) og chipboard-snøfnugg fra Maya Roads og pyntet med glitter...og så legger jeg ved et par bilder fra flatbrødbakingen min - det tok mye lenger tid enn jeg trodde men det var veldig gøy - har lyst til å bake mer og må iallefall prøve å fikse lefser og....

Ellers fortsetter vi å male stua denne uken - idag hadde jeg en liten pause men imorgen er det på'n igjen! :)