Little Corner of Ania

Alright. This Pencillines-sketch was made by the totally deadly talented Janine Langer. I'm so in love with her scrapping-style and she's been so lucky that she's been playing around in a studio twice with totally gorgeous results - have a look! (Eli! Ellen1!!!!!!!! LEIE STUDIO???????? PRONTO!!! :p) Our guest this time was Pam - also known as PamT on the forums..love all the layouts....we were so lucky to be sponsed by Fresh Pages this time - I got a totally yummy Scenic Route-kit - YEAH!! Oh, and in addition to a chance on this months prize at Pencillines (A kit from A million memories) Janine is also offering a RAK of her own to those who does her sketch and link it to her. Yay! And the sketch's in both 12x6 and 12x12.... no excuse to not do it! :)

Right. Mine's w/ the kids looking for blueberries..:)

Renée wondered what kind of filters/actions I used on my photos in this post.
First photo (wet log) was just me goofin around in RAW then doing finishing touches in curves & levels in photoshop for the extreme hues - I'm not that familiar with that kind of editing in RAW yet. (I'm doing all basic editing in RAW first tho, tryin to do advanced editing in raw too but usually end up doing that in photoshop). Photo no 2 (water-measurer) was done in RAW aswell and got its finishing touches with a lomo-action. The street-photo entirely in RAW w/some extra sharpening in PS when done. The two last photos (of the kids) - RAW & lil adjusting in photoshop next (soft light/screen++) . Oh and all resized and stuff for web in Photoshop.

For photosessions (like the recent one) I usually do basic stuff in RAW then adjust the levels if needed before running an action, like the Itty Bitty Actions. Love to do vignetting in RAW tho & extra vignetting w/ the burn tool in Photoshop if needed :)

Basically for my own "homephotos" I just goof around w/raw and photoshop playing & trying to learn more on my own. For the more "serious" sessions I tend to rely more on the precious actions when done in RAW - maybe because these kind of photos usually are more suitable for the actions I have, while the homephotos are of various quality (think bad home-lightning :p) *still waiting for my very first photoshop-books from Amazon!!*

Anyways. Leaving you with more favephotos..... some are a tad too blurry....esp cause they were like, cracking me up which is like, not too good cause like - intentional camera shake??? Tsktsk. Note to self: If you're laughing, stop taking piccies! Such a lousy photographer :p Howeveeeeer.....totally loved the chance to do a photosession with those tho and would love more chances to practice because I really do need that *smile*

Her kommer flere bilder fra fotosessionen med K&M. Ca litt over 200 bilder ble til litt under 100 bilder - CD kommer i posten om ikke alt for lenge! Fotosession er gøy - håper på flere sjanser for jeg trenger virkelig å øve meg ytterligere :)

Some piccies from todays photosession - met up with an old & dear friend & her sister. Done with the crude culling + editing, just had to fine-edit these before giving up - have to head to a party where I'll meet up with these + more tonight. Fun times!
(and yes Eli & Ellen I simply just LOVE LOVE LOVE that wall. Sooooo ♥♥♥xoxo!

Right. First. For the scrappers out there. My layout to Scrappedugnads challenge re using "found objects" - given by Colleen from Cupcake Scrapshop. Who's by the way giving out a january-kit to the winner of this challenge so head over and check it out ;) This is Kine, one of the very first Norwegian scrappers I got to know through blogging...back then there wasn't that many of us Norwegians blogging kinda...*smile* My "found objects" here are a gameboard-chip she found at a backyardsale and challenged me to do something about....and her sweet Christmas-card...which I "found" on my table ;) Papers are Rouge de Garance, Hambly & KI...and a Scenic Route star :)

Now. I was strolling yesterday - out looking to take piccies and stuff...it was raining though...so I didn't snap that many photos...my precious cam and stuff...only when the rain paused for minutes kinda... anyways.... a few of my photos from yesterday. Hope to take more today - haven't really taken my "community" picture for the week yet - too much rain to plan any sensible shot kinda. But - am soon headed out to meet an old friend I haven't seen in ages...will snap some piccies along the way :)

Re. last post: Would still love to know more about you too!
And - Kathrine thought I should mention this: You get to be a paid SAHM for about a year for in Norway. Depends a lil about how long you've been working prior to the pregancy. Otherwise you get a one-time-payment. And she thinks Tromsø (Romsa?) will host the Winter Olympics in 2018. Well they can hope :p
Oh and the city I live in atm? It's best known for it's rain. As in. Always rainy. (Not really, but... :p)

A wet log :p

A water-measurer..

Met my kiddo at school..
Kiddo & his gf ;)

Alright. There's an interesting thread over at Bad Girls where people tells a lil about their homearea.... I find it amusing and interesting reading about other peoples countries/areas...in their own words....I wrote this about Norway.....please don't take it for pure fact....this is my limited knowledge/experience.... I might have gotten the facts wrong some places....but I tried to write what came to my mind when telling about Norway....figured it'd be fun to share here too :p
And because I can't post without a photo of some kind; here's an old one from last february..one of the rare days when there was snow around..taken in my backyard/back of the garden at the old house..look! Flare!!

Funny :) Well, I live in Norway...I grew up in Oslo, the capital of Norway...actually I was born in South Korea but I was adopted when I was 7mo old so I have no memories from my time there....

Norway is a fairly large country really - slightly larger than Germany.... but because of the landscape (lots of mountains) there's not that many people living here.....close to 5million people atm... the density is 12/km^2 according to wikipedia...(to compare.....in England (England only, not GB) the density is 388.7/km^2 ...Germany..which's only slightly smaller than Norway in area's got 230.9/km^2.... quite a diff :)

Norway is part of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark)..... lots and lots of fjords along the western coast....(According to A hithickers guide to the galaxy the creator of Norways fjords got a prize for them ;) )

Hm. Oslo.... I used to love the city...it was my city...despite what the papers wrote I felt safe there....I didn't mind walking home from the subway or nightbus after a night out.... now...Im scared and sad heh... I don't know if it's because I moved from Oslo when I was 18 or because I got children and another perspective on life....I think the latter....hm...I digress...

Oslo is the capital and the biggest city.... at the SEish part of Norway... about 500.000 people lives there I think...big concentration of foreginers... everybody moves to Oslo kinda... I moved to Bergen when I was 18.. to study here and fell in love w/my hubs so I stayed here....it's at the western coast of NOrway... Bergen is the 2nd biggest city in Norway..I live about 10min outside of the city at an island with like only 30.000 people (hey correct me if Im wrong!)...

In Norway....there's a lot of wooden houses....I mention this because I know wood is kinda sacred at some parts of the world.... so some foreginers usually remark that there's a lot of wooden houses here.... esp outside the cities.... while there's a lot of "blocks" (not sure on the spelling? tall/large buildings where theres lots of apartments together) in the cities there's also a lot of people living in their own houses esp outside the cities...

The roads sucks here.....seriously.....we have had a number of swedes visiting lately....they all go wtf the road sucks once they get in to NOrway from Sweden... :p

We're a monarch...we got a king and stuff.... but he has no real power..it's mostly just name/tradition.... we have a parliament..democratic parliament....prime minister...

The religion...we have a state Church of Norway....everybody who's born are registered to this automatically....you have to tell them to not be in their lists kinda...according to wikipedia about 83% are members of Church of Norway.....which is lutherian btw.. only 10% attend church regulary though... and there's huge debates (but has been so for the last 20 years or so at least :p) about separating state and church....guess it'll go on for another 20 year :roll:

Hmhm more? *scratch* We have a nice health service...well.....it's being complained about at lot..but at least it's free when it comes to necessarities (sp?).... like.... someone in my extended family married a woman from South Africa...and she was amazed that giving birth was free....according to her they had to pay for all the controls during the pregancy and equipment and stuff used for giving birth at hospitals in SA (which in turn amazed me - please correct me if this is incorrect..I believe there's someone from SA here too?).

We don't homeschool... at least it's very very unusual that I know of. All children are required to attend school from 6-um... 15 I think... then the majority continues school (high school?) from 16-18...but it's not obligatory.... a large number moves on to college/university..more and more the last years..

Military...boys are required to serve the military for a year when they're 18...usually they're like, sent up north haha.... if they can't do the military due to various reasons they're to do community service instead (a lil longer than a year)...girls can apply but for now it's not obligatory for them...

Sports....soccer (which we call football) is the main sport no 1 I guess :p Skiing and stuff are popular too... oh yeah..we have snow...sometimes :p At the western coast (where I live) it's more usual having a much milder climate than north/east.

I'm contemplating taking part of a photochallenge that's about taking photos of your community once a week. I'll share the photos on my blog if anyone's interested in seeing how it is around here...havent started yet but fairly sure I will...:)

If you actually have read all this...and would like to tell me about your area...I'd totally LOVE to read! On the BG forum or your blog or in the comments whatever - just let me know and I'd really love to learn more :) Norwegians..feel free to correct me haha :p

Now. New dugnadschallenge coming tonight! Stay tuned cause it's seriously a cool one! :D

don't need to think it over
if I'm wrong I am right
don't need to look no further
(..)
should I give up?
or should I just keep chasing pavements
even if it leads no where?

Can't help but being mezmerised by the lyrics of Chasing Pavements by Adele.
Such a beautiful song...love her voice...

Photochallenges
Leaving you with photos of my fave cup used for tea (although Amalie seem to think it's her cup! Grr!). Bought when in Southampton on one of my visits to my hubby when he studied there. There's several new challengeblogs out there now, both for photography and for scrapping. I'm wary of committing myself to new weekly or even daily stuff though. Kinda feel like I stretched it with last years Designing With 2007-challenge over at Lifetime Moments (managed 49 out of 52 weeks yay! even won three of the months so it wasn't that bad all in all :) ). Hm. Digressing! Um right. Cup. Thought it looked interesting - Ashley Wrens lil challengething Overlooked. Think I'll follow the photoprompts, not sure about the scrapping part though. We'll see.

I was contemplating taking part of Anna's 365 Days challenge, but um, problem is I totally hate to take photos of myself. I did try but totally gave up after four or so fugly snapshots (I think it's the subject that's the problem, not the cam ;p). So. No. Can. Do. We'll see, I'm watching and cheering her up though, maybe I'll feel braver later this year. Do have a look though - I believe it definately makes you a better photog when you have to think of creative ways & solutions to take photos of yourself kinda.

The last photochallenge I was looking at is over at PhotoChallenge.org - there's this dude talking about taking a photo a week that tells you something about your community. Hm. I like the thought. Document your community throughout the year. Wonder if I'll be lynched or something like that if I keep standing outside my kids school or kidergarten taking photos for like, seemingly no reason? Taking a photo each quarter of the life outside these areas kinda sounds like a cool idea among other subjects to take photos of hmm.

Here's his simple rules:

1. Shoot one great shot a week, each week in 2008.
2. Try to plan out your shot.
3. The goal is to document your community.

It really sounds cool. I really think I'll try this one. Shame the weather's so....grey & dark... these days...bleh.

Sometimes I feel like a marionette dancing in the oh too unpredictable strings of my daughter. "Oh! No! Do self! Oh! Mama!" Yes miss Pwincess anything else I can do or not do for you?

~sigh~

Chose your fights they say. Chose them wisely.

~doublesigh~

I am counting to ten.

At least she loves Gwen Stefani.

YAY! Did you check out last sundays Pencillines?? (I'm always so slow at posting mine up here, really sorry bout that!!) Anyways - first Pencillines sketch for 08 and we got Stacey Julian aboard AND she did an amazing doublepagesketch1! When I first got it I was like "Yay doublepager how fun!" then "omg yikes you gotta be kiddin me, that many photos??" ...but the beauty with sketches is just that - you don't have to follow it exactly like it is - I mean cmon, it's your layout.....shake it up some, swap stuff, rotate it, mirror it, add, substract.... the most important part is that it gives you a kick off to start your own layout and that you feel happy about it in the end! I did have a number of very very similar photos that I loved and coudln't pick between so this was perfect for them...they were already printed out awaiting the Big Inspiration about how to scrap them.... the first time it snowed in here (for the 07/08 season anyways) it was such lovely lovely snow.....haven't seen the snow since ;p... the kids LOVED it....stayed out all day to play and make snowmen.....ofc I had to snap lotta piccies ;)

So this is my take on her sketch: Basic Grey, Scenic Route (one of the good old lines from 2005....looove), Crackle Paint along the edges, sewing, those ultracool Maya Road snowflakes paired with some teal embossing on them and with the lovely MM brads in the middle....and good ole Heidi Swapp for the titles :)


I also scrapped an old photo of my sis & me -love scrapping old photos, did I mention?? (um yea I guess...several times recently :p)...look at our dress....our grandparents bought them for us (and our cousin) straight from London....we used to dress alike when we were little (doesn't most sisters/brothers do?? Isn't a bit annoying?? Guess I'd be guilty of the same too if I had two kids close to age and stuff tho :p). Mom said she still has these dresses .... she said she'd check them out and Amalie and Tuva (her cousin) might get them this fall ... that'd be so sweet :)
I used papers from 3ndy Papir (Lene Solhaug), Basic Grey and Daisy D and embellished w/American Craft & Prima :) Oh and check out the cool brad in the middle - with ruby glitter on it :)

Veldig artig å scrappe en dobbelside - denne gangen etter skisse av Stacey Julian for Pencillines. :) Scrappet også et gammelt bilde fra 82 eller noe lignende til Minnerikets romjulskonkurranse :) Sjekk ut kjolene våres, mormor og morfar kjøpte de til oss jentene da de var en tur til London...mamma mener hun fortsatt har disse kjolene på loftet så hun skulle sjekke om de fortsatt var like fine sånn at Amalie og kusinen hennes kunne få de :)

Ok. I suck at titles and I'm listening to Green Day atm. YAY GO GREEN DAY! Don't you think eyeliners on boys are just so damn hot!? *crush on Billie Joe since the early nineties* ;)

I just signed up for Minnopol at Minneriket. COOLEST. GAME. EVER!! :D Do join! (ok, so this is pretty much for Norwegians only, but just look at the cool gameboard :D)

Right. On we go! Love this time of the month - when it's time for the Bad Girl kit layouts! And to be totally honest, I hate hate hate it when I get kits I just totally love. It's like I get petrified when having to represent the kit as best possible kinda... buuut I made it...after sorta ruining and trashing two early-stage-layouts..trashing a number of precious papers in the process....bleh! Good thing the Bad Girl kits always includes so many papers - kinda feels like they include more papers than the average kit (11-12 pp)! BUT. I did manage to come up with something still and I really adore the results! Which in the end counts no? :)

I really wanna elaborate a lil more about these layouts so please allow me to.....:)

My two year old is so good at drawing faces these days - seems like only a week ago she was just barely trying to draw circles...now she's doing faces complete with eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair and legs...sometimes arms and body aswell....like a complete pro! The title reads "headfeet" in Norwegian. "Headfeet" is the Norwegian name given to a childs first drawings - kinda like stickmen drawings. I've scanned one of her first headfeets and put it in the middle of the layout :) *proud mama* :)


What more fun is there to toddlers than a huge dam of water?? She'd be staying at that spot forever if I didn't drag her away from there - after I was done with the shooting ofcourse ;) I embellished both brads and clear buttons with glue and lots of lovely glitter for this one, aswell as cut out the drops from one of these shiny sparkly KI papers. One of the Love, Elsie frames was cut in two aswell to contain the title.


I love my scrapping buddies - friends who totally get why I get so giddy about stuff like CHA and great glue and lovely mailmen...friends who joins me for photo sessions with the kids and hunting tiny pumpkins across the town, waiting patiently for me while I'm totally lost in the traffic (soso sorry haha)...this is one of the oldest and dearest *waves a lot* :) I painted the Love, ELsie cardstock at the area where my journaling would be at, and stitched the cardstock to the KI Lace paper. Embellished the Maya Road journaling spot with the title, cut down Love, Elsie frames and ribbon and adhered it upon some strips of Love, Elsie and KI paper.


I've watched some movies lately (gd writers strike - I miss my House M.D!!!!!!)..one of the more beautiful and funnier ones has been Stardust. Lovelovelove. Oh yes, Neil Gaimans presence's really noticeable here imo - love his wry sense of humor and ingenious imagination. And the actors really seem to get it - love the small displays of facial expression & stuff really showing off...(Just watch when Michelle Pfeiffer turns young again - her look in the mirror...priceless...or the look De Niro gives that blonde boy in the end of the movie..snicker :) ) Now. Really. Need. To. Read. The. Book!! Oh. And Charlie Cox's just darn cute. Now that's always a big plus :)

Btw. Have you heard this gal?? British Adele - she totally rocks. Love her - do listen to her Chasing Pavements. Really really lovely and her voice is pretty intriguing :)

Have a nice weekend - the kids are going to a Christmas Party at the lodge tonight - an annual tradition they got with grand-grandpa. :)



Ok, er ikke så flink til å skrive så ofte på norsk gitt. Men! Er du norsk scrapper så bare MÅ du bli med på Minnopol på Minneriket!! De er knallgode på å finne på kule konkurranser på Minneriket og denne er en av de kuleste ever :D Bare sjekk ut spillebrettet (øverst) - kul eh? :) Ifjor var det en del konspirasjoner og greier involvert og (taktikk er viktig her altså!), jeg vet ikke om jeg orker blande meg så mye inn i sånt iår - tror jeg personlig skal la spillet gå sin naturlige (??) gang *fnis* ....men seriøst - "kuleste spillet siden trekkspillet" reklameres det med og det er nok sant! Hihi.

Ellers viser jeg her noen LO'er laget til Bad Girls Jan kit..og så må dere sjekke ut Adeles "Chasing Pavements" - nydelig sang :) Fortsatt god helg - idag skal vi på juletrefest ...eller, ungene skal på juletrefest i losjen med oldefar mens vi damene skal på kaffe hos oldemor i mellomtiden :p

Two sneakies for Bad Girls (*wave Eli* :D). Full reveal tomorrow - yay!!
AND!! This sundays Pencillines is a DOUBLEPAGER!!!! Oh yes!! Been ages since I did one but gee this was fun! I think I like mine :) And wait till you see the guest ;)

I wrote a little how-to for Scrappedugnad the other day, about how to make your own action in Photoshop. The example I used was how to make a resize-action. Actions are just premade settings and yeah, they can be used to automate the resize process for you - nifty if you have several photos/layouts you wanna resize at once. Self made actions are also cool to use on new tips&tricks you find for photoshop - just store the process in an action and you're safe to have it within reach kinda when you need to refresh how to do that process. Anyways. As I wrote in Norwegian for Scrappedugnad I thought I'd rewrite it here in English and all. This goes for PS 7.0 CS CS2 and CS3. Don't have Elements 6.0 so dunno if it's appliable there but it isn't in 5.0.

So!
To make your own action: first you have to make your own folder - this is where you'll store your own actions if you wanna make several. Ofcourse you can organize the actions your own way - whatev - but an own folder for the ones you make is a nice start anyways :) Push the folder-icon which says "create new set" :) (oh, and if you can't find the action-window - just hit alt+f9 or look in "window->action")

I called mine "resize stuff" as I plan to have different resize-actions gathered in one place.
Now. Open a test-photo and hit "Create new action"

Now, type in the name of your action and you're good to go!
Once you have made this new action the recorder's on! That's the red circle - yep - it'll be red now indicating it's recording (duh) which means all you now do in Photoshop will be recorded in the new action. If you need a break - simply hit the stop button. You can delete steps you didn't intend to do by dragging them over to the trash-bin-icon next to the "create new action" icon. When you're ready to continue - just hit the recorderbutton again :)


Now, my new action is a resizer so the first thing I do is to go into "image->image size" and type in 500 pixles in the width column.


Tada! See - it got recorded!

Now, next step is a lil sharpening - "filter->sharpen->unsharp mask"


Then I save the photo for web and close it. Even the folder it's saved to will be recorded so if you want a more generic resize-action you should stop it before you save the photo and all.
Anyways, I told mine to go into the layout-folder so all is good for me anyways as I'll use it for layouts. So. I'm done - so I'm stopping the action.

To play the action - just do as normal - pick the action and hit play!

Now, to the nice stuff.
You may want to do this to a batch of photos at once - without having to pick photo by photo and click the same action over and over again. What to do then?? Use the batch-function ofcourse!

"File->automate->batch" - make sure the right action is loaded in the batch-window and chose how to pick the files - from a folder (it'll take all the photos in that folder) or the opened files in photoshop (= you'll load the photos you wanna use the action on into photoshop in advance before opening the batch-window). You can also decide what to do with the finished photos (that is, unless the action already tells the photos to close themselves :p).

Mind you - using batch on multiple photos takes a while depending on the number of photos :)


Have a nice weekend!! :) Tomorrow's Bad Girls januarykit reveal day! Yay! :D I'm sure you're so gonna love this one1!!1

Hm.
I was gonna go through my fave layouts for 2007 and well, I didn't think I had that many faves....usually I feel like bleh about my layouts after 2-3 weeks but hm. Still there was this thing I liked about that layout or that thing...a happening I loved, a photo I loved, some papers I loved...so...the number of my faves kinda raised to uh...70... I haven't counted my total layouts for last year. I'd guess it's somewhere around 140-150 or so. Still have a number of layouts I can't show - future Pencillines, Scrappedugnad, Bad Girls and publications - not sure wheter to put them into the 2007 or 2008 category then? *boggle* ohwell :)

Anyways. NY. Contemplated back and forth wheter to take piccies or not - I mean - taking piccies of fireworks = I have to open my verandadoor = let the cold get in = me no like freezing! And I've never really been one to go out for fireworks anyways - I don't like the thoughts of what might happen if accidents happen and stuff...scary things .... fireworks are best at a distance....looooong safe distance... anyways. The weather was nice, the cold wasn't that bad and I figured - next year it might rain or be cloudy or whatever so I better grab the chance while I had it...(besides, private fireworks will be partially forbidden next year - good!) So. My first time really playing with firework-photos. Not too bad but not too spetacular either.

Happy New Year! :)