Little Corner of Ania

Yay! I rediscovered my CDs! That is - I've always loved music, but after the move and all we put all of our CD's in a huge box and I haven't really looked in it since. Pulled it out yesterday and now I'm rockin around with mostly old CDs...(atm it's Gwen Stefanis L.A.M.B - yay - it's so much better than I remembered it and I yes did like it a lot before :) ). Also going down memorys lane with Bryan Adams (*blush*) and Aerosmith and Seigmenn and Knutsen & Ludvigsen lol...

Anyways! Wanted to share two things...or..maybe..three :)

One; One down, three to go in the Grand ScrapJack! This is my take on Missy :) Yay!

Two; Bad Girls is having a huge badass cool contest!! I mean cmon -- a 800$ prize package for the Top Designer..?? And not one, not two, but three runnersups gets prizes too! There's stuff from Daisy D's, Hambly, Maya Road, MME, 7gypsies and more in there.. and no, not all is shown in the picture. Yummy! And the best part?? It is open for International scrappers too! (cmon I KNOW there's a buttload whole lot of talent among the Norwegian scrappers...=) )

All you have to do is to get ready for school... Bad Girls Design School, to be more precise. Head over here, register on the message board and get started! School starts Sept 7th and goes on for 6 weeks :) Or was it 7. Hm. Can't recall. *blush*

Three; It's friday - don't forget about the Bad Girls Patrol! *whistle* It's such a nice day for a stroll around the bloghood don't ya think? *smiles innocently*

Ohwell...back to tryin to wrap up my All In entry for Minneriket.

And! Don't forget the "alter an albumcover"-contest at Papirprat :)

Sjekk ut den premiepakken...!! Og enda er ikke alle premiene med der liksom.... nei, jeg har ikke vunnet alt det (I wish :D) - Bad Girls har nemlig en ny, stor konkurranse going on - Top Design School - alt du trenger å gjøre er å sette deg ned på skolebenken og være med på konkurransen i seks uker ca fra og med 7.september. Vinneren får en 800+$ pakke og de som havner på 2-4. plass får også premie! Yay! Og ja - det er åpent for internasjonale entries og! :)

Ellers er LO'en min take på en av Grand ScrapJack-LO'ene - den av MissyJack :)

Yay!

I feel so happy today! I'm done with my DT-stuff for Bad Girls - yeah - that's the peek above - I told you this kit is de.li.ci.ous! And I've been cleaning some around now - (and when I say cleaning I mean cleaning as in really cleaning to be me but not quite by "normal" standards I guess cause I'm no housemaid either much to my hubbys disappointment :p) - BUT! As said - I think I did good :p

And the best part - when I went to the mailbox to check todays mail...I got something totally totally cool and unexpected and I'm *so* wanting to use them now and looking forward to show you all but I just can't right now...not the showing part...not quite yet but soon afaik...... but..if you (who sent this) read this; THANK YOU A LOT!! *so happy* and they're just totally wicked cool!

Ohwell...off to clean some more..just had to share this happy mail :) :)

Looking for the weddingpics? Scroll down past this post ;p

Love ScrapJacked. Love challengeblogs in general actually. So much fun and in a way so different from the "normal" contests and challenges at random forums around kinda - they feel more laidback & relaxed. Anyways. Sorta stressed with finishing my September-DTstuff for Bad Girls. Esp. since I wanted to join ScrapJack aswell & didn't realize the deadline for that one was today (yesterday). Sooo finished the last layout and altered project, mailed them away (I'm so nervous & excited about this one by the way! Really hope I managed to do the kit justice kinda - it's so pretty! And yes I guess all those on DTs keep saying that about "their" products, but it really is oh so true here :p). Checked the time and it was "only" 1.30am so I was like....right! Next layout! (only my third layout for today and I did an altered item aswell...I've been productive ;p)Figured the timediff would work for me as it's still tues over there so I'd be able to finish this one before the deadline aswell :) So. This is my littlesis - she just got herself a new SLR - Nikon d40x - ofcourse we had to take pictures of each others during my brief stay at her place last weekend :) So. 7gypsies pp, may arts ribbon, sassafrass lass stamps and a page from a random nikoninfomercial I had lying around :)

Adding some photos from my visit to my sis aswell -- totally in LOVE with the wonderful lightning in her livingroom - so so so perfect for photosessions! Dang I'm so jealous!

And oh. I was kinda feeling a bit let down today but then I got the swedish Scrapbooking mm magazine in the mail and noticed they had one of my layouts featured. Yay. Felt a lil better then. Just a lil. Not my favourite layout but ohwell. Wonder when they'll feature the second layout they requested..I liked that one better.....and wonder when I'll get them back. Jeje. Zzzz now.

En liten post for mine kjære hjemme i Oslo (eller, søs bor langt ute på landet nå da haha); en LO med søs og noen ikke-bryllupsbilder fra helga. Digger lyset i stua til søs - nydelig naturlig lys som er helt perfekt for fotosessions! Vil også ha en sånn fin og lys stue!! Hrmf! (Ikke bli sur på meg nå søs...digger det bildet av deg...nydelig!! Miss you!)

Done with the crude culling; 245 pictures deleted - 644 pictures remaining. And that's from the wedding day only. (Cue Simen: Jeeze, they don't NEED 644 pictures, cull more!) And yikes....fineediting (because I kinda need some of the pictures fast) takes AGES. Just spent an hour and half on only two pictures. I'm sure they might have been satisfied with the brief editing but I kinda keep pushing myself..hmm..we'll see....it's a darn lotta pictures if I'm gonna be this careful w/the editing all the way kinda. Hmm. Will have to rework my routines - after I'm done with my personal faves anyways. And yes. More culling to come -- when I've got more time. Adding a picture I really like - although it's not as crisp as I'd wanted - still - there's a dreamy quality over it sorta.


Now. Continuing with the Bad Girls kit - this one is oh so perfect for these pictures! ;)

Ps. What do you think of my new watermark-stamp? Thanks to Cecilie for helping me finedraw my symbol for PC :)

And may I just say...wow!
What a blast! Seriously!
Alright, the cartrip over the mountains wasn't all that with a kid who got carsick and couldn't express anything else but "my stomach hurts" and hm, yeah, let's just leave it at that. You see, Norwegian roads aren't exactly on par with normal European standards - at least not the ones going over the mountains.....which kinda do have it's natural reasons, but still... :p

Anyways. We arrived Oslo late night on thursday, stayed with my mom and went to visit my sister on friday. I hadn't seen sis & her children for eight months, which's way too long - so I'm very glad for this chance to get to drop by her and her new house while going to Elverum for the wedding. So. Left the kids with my mom and went on to Elverum for the pre-wedding-party - a BBQ at the brides' parents place (a former farm w/ their own barn and bakeryhouse and stuff).

The next morning - saturday - the bride and her sister (who also was maid of honor) picked me up at the pension we stayed at and we went to the church for rehearsals, to the makeup-lady and to the girl who did her dress. May I just say. I'm *so* happy the bride agreed to have me come along for this. I got such an unique chance to take part of such a big and important day of her life...a peek behind the scenes....I'm so happy...and I so hope my pictures...although not all of them too good......that the best of them...will make her happy in return... I really dunno what to say because this was such an opportunity and I'm still in awe of being allowed to well, be a part of her day that special day.... ohwell... nuff sappy babling.

It's interesting shooting for others but yourself - it makes you have to look at the pictures in a new light and with way more critical eyes than normal and thus discover certain things you maybe didn't realize before..) At least that's how I feel right now.

What I learned:

1. Give more space around the borders/edges.
2. Stop giving so much unnecessary space to the upper part of the pictures. Nrgh! Note to self, pick focuspointthingie more often - the one where you can decide where it's gonna be - I think it might be the blame (having it at the middle the majority of the time) combined with the urge to catch the moment before it's gone (and I/the camera's actually ready).
   
3. Invest in another memcard or two...or actually, preferrably a media-storagethingie which can take the card (so it doesn't require the camrea to be occupied while I'm backuping the memcards. Hm. Or both. Enough cards for a whole wedding (I only had one 1gb & one 2gb card) so I don't have to delete the prev pictures immediately *and* something to backup them with without having to leave the camera occupied for that (2gb = 45-50minutes transfer :( )
   
4. Learn how to use the friggin flash properly. Esp the slavestuff.
5. Don't be so friggin stupid & shy to ask to move the darn candles away from sight while seated for the dinner. ARGH! Sorry but I was thinking about it but didn't want to be even more trouble than I already kinda was. Thought I could work my way around it. Bleh. :(
   
6. I want D300. Although I wouldn't mind D3!!! *smiles sweetly*
7. I want better lenses! (Hm. Maybe I do need some kind of sugardaddy. *cough*)
8. I so want to learn MORE!
9. I so hope shooting in RAW was worth all this post-hassle. (and Im not even done looking thru the pictures briefly - the postediting is yet to come ...sometime this week....so many things I need to get done...argh!)
10. I felt more comfortable during the preparations - not much pressure & we were mostly static so I could take good time taking each photo etc. The church was..well...I was at my most nervous there I think as it was like, well, no retakes and stuff and things happened so fast and it's like, the most important part (like, getting hitched duh). The dinner and stuff - well - the darker it got the more difficult it was taking pictures. See note 4. Although I do believe that no-flash for the dinner is best esp as it kinda conveys the special atmosphere. Sorta. Ohwell. Overall I think the quality of the photos went slowly down from the beginning of the church and onwards - but hm, I did tell the bride that I'd focus on her especially and her preparations as I'd feel more ok with that than the other important stuff. Kinda.
    

Anyways. I'm not quite sure how many pictures I did shoot - but I think it must be close to 800-1000 - atm I'm transferring the pictures to my pc while at the same time going through them to delete the worst pictures. Gonna go through them at least twice - once to convert them into jpgs and a second time to more post-editing. I think. The plan is to fix jpg's of them and web-sized versions of some of them so they're ready to be presented the bride&groom in DVD-format. Maybe a webbased one aswell with the web-piccies. I dunno yet. We'll see. Reminds me. Need to get Lightroom!

I couldn't resist editing a few pictures while waiting for the transfer of piccies to be finished -- so here's some peeks :)

For those who rather wants to read about scrapbooking; move on down to the next post about this weeks pencillines-layout.

Yay for en helg!!
Kjørte over til Oslo torsdag ettermiddag - startet ved tretiden og kom frem ved ellevetiden. Kjøreturen var - tja - grei nok, bortsett fra at Adrian ble skikkelig kvalm et par ganger :( Amalie var oppslukt av DVD-filmene så det var jo kjekt nok - men det var nok akkurat det som gjorde Adrian kvalm. Veldig kjekt å se mamma igjen - når en bor så langt hjemmefra så blir disse treffene som regel alt for sjeldne. Spes kjekt å besøke det nye huset til Pia og å se ungene igjen. Og så kom pappa også - perfekt! :)

Etterlot ungene i mammas varetekt og dro videre til Elverum der bryllupet skulle være. Fredagen var viet til en stor grillfest (og paintball/gokart for de som ville) på gårdstunet til brudens foreldre. Dagen etterpå var den store dagen - og det var skikkelig flott å kunne få være med og ta del i brudens dag på en slik måte som jeg fikk lov til -- jeg ble med henne og hennes forlover - som også var søsteren hennes - og tok bilder av dagen hennes. Fra øvelsene i kirken til sminkingen og kjolepåkledelsen og kirken og festen etterpå. Spesielt det å få være med "bak scenen" på dagen var helt supert og ja..veldig veldig spesielt... utrolig glad for denne sjansen og håper at hun blir fornøyd med bildene... har jo mye å lære... spesielt teknisk...mht komposisjon... jeg tar ofte bilder uten å egentlig ha tid til å komposisere (sp?) skikkelig fordi jeg er så redd for å miste øyeblikket.. jeg må prøve å få til dette litt mer automatisk - at jeg tar de riktige bildeutsnittene og sånn uansett... føler jeg har lært kjempemye bare av den ene dagen - litt fordi jeg føler disse bildene er så viktige at jeg vier mer fokus og tid på disse enn "vanlig"... håper jeg får flere lignende sjanser til ;) Spes gøy å ha "lov" til å ta bilder av noe helt annet enn ungene!! :p

Hm. Klokka nærmer seg tre nå, jeg må opp om fem timer og ta med Amalie til barnehagen (og få Adrian opp av sengen og bort til skolen) og jeg er enda ikke ferdig med å overføre/se igjennom alle bildene for grovsorteringa. Hrmf. Jaja. MÅ bare vise et par bilder da -snikkikk for bruden m.fl. til jeg blir ferdig med de andre bildene...sånn en gang neste år ellerno så mange bilder som jeg har tatt *cough*.

PS!! Kristin!!
Ikke få for høye forhåpninger nå da, jeg plukket bare ut noen VELDIG få bilder (og klokka er eek...halv fire og jeg er alt for trøtt til dette).... og ikke prøv å ta "lagre som" for å skrive ut disse bildene: de er optimalisert for web - mao - IKKE egnet for utskrift! Vent heller på CD'n i posten..en eller annen gang forhåpentligvis snart...
*yawn* zzzzzz....

Okay, first lemme just say - I've got a new post upcoming about this past weekend - yummy lovely wedding & stuff - but realized that I preferrably should split the posts in two - one scrapbook-related (this one) and one for the weddingpeeks. So. As I'm not quite done with the quickediting I thought I'd post this one first :p SO yeah - stay tuned for the very first weddingpics coming up shortly - in another ten minutes or so :)

So without further ado; here's this weeks Pencillines-sketch with the fabby Gigi from SIStv!! Totally LOVED what the team did this week - they truly truly outdone themselves! Seriously! (mine's one of the simpler ones...kinda embarassed of it now that I can see the others versions *blush*).

And!!! I got my Bad Girls kit while I was gone! Can you imagine, it only took eight days for it to arrive! Can't wait for the postoffice to open tomorrow - so gonna grab this kit & work on it straight away! (I have to with such a tight deadline anyways hehe :) ). It's for the September kit. LOVELY from the piccies I've seen. There's some peeks up on the Bad Girls blog too :)

OOkay!
In an attempt to try catch up on some challenges I kinda got got on a roll - and combined four challenges in one. When I was done and looked at it I was like - oh - that's it?? I thought the layout would be messy at best - but I think it turned out pretty decent and surprisingly "clean". Maybe this means I should have a go at Kathrines personal challenge to me..? Naaah..not yet =)

Challenge #1 (from HSS):
* 1 photo
* 2 colors of cardstock
* 3 pieces of pp
* 4 pieces of ribbon
* one of my fave stamps

Challenge #2 (also from HSS):
* 3 pieces of chipboard (but can also add more)
* 5 buttons
* 1 quote (can be from anyone, even yourself)

Challenge #3 (from Papirprat):
* Paint
* Chipboard
* Handwriting
* Overlay
* Ribbon

Challenge #4 (from One Little Word):
* Include the word: "balance"

Sooo..check, check, check, og oooh waddayaknow - check =) And the kiddos comment? "Oooh I get it mom...the buttons here are because of the bubbles in the picture!" Bright lil kid I tell ya ;)

Anyways. Leaving in a few hours for a seven-eight hours drive to Oslo. Yay. Got a DVD-player so hopefully the kids will stay entertained for the whole trip. *crossing fingers* - going to my moms place, will get to see my sisters new house and leaving the kids in Oslo while travelling further to Elverum for a wedding. So looking forward to it - and a bit dreading aswell - I'm gonna tail the bride the whole morning and most of the afternoon/evening too. It's just for fun and practice - but still, I'm nervous. Been practicing shooting in RAW the last two days (I know I know - Ania - you should at least practice weeks ahead!) and I love it!! Well, it takes time sure -- but I love how I'm so less dependable on actions when done with the picture in RAW....at least at the testshots...which, come to think of it, was just static stuff..not moving, unpredictable humans..hm...eek..*starting to get panicattacks again* Right. Then there's this flash-stuff. (tell me why Im blogging instead of reading manuals??) I'll read it tonight and do some testruns tonight too when at moms place. *breathes*

Really looking forward to see mom & sis & my cutecutecute nieces again and taking pictures of them and stuff :) Kinda growing tired of scrapping my own kids - so expect some layouts w/my nieces in them and stuff soon ;)

Oh. Guess I'll show my cards. Did I mention I totally suck at making cards? So not my area of expertise. But when you're a scrapper you're kinda supposed to know how to make cards right...so..... two cards for the wedding (mil is supposed to have one of them..I dunno which one yet tho)

Did you know what's inside a battery btw? I didn't - and wow. Maybe I'll try someday. Must be great for those with a hearing-aid for sure!

Ny layout -- der jeg ble litt revet med og fluet fire forskjellige utfordringer i ett (kids; don't try this at home ;) ), to kort til bryllupet denne helgen og ja - ser frem til å kjøre over fjellene i flere timer med ungene (not) :p Har med oss DVD-spiller og sånn - så det går vel bra... gleder meg iallefall til å se mamma, søs og niesene mine igjen - og grugleder meg til bryllupet :)

Ok....må skynde meg å fikse ferdig alt det andre som må fikses før vi reiser.....god helg!! :)

Yesterday was the day; the day that my big boy hit elementary school. Surely it was a special day..? Well..he insisted on keeping the apprehensive attitude - you know, the "I-don't-really-buy-into-this-school-thing-mom-what's-all-the-fuss-about"-attitude. Ohwell. As long as I'm allowed to take pictures I'm happy - he'll figure out the school thing soon enough...besides..it's good that he's got this laidback approach to school no? That way he won't be disappointed and rather pleasantly surprised if he finds out it's not that bad...or..?
At least he has friends in his class + older cousins attending the same school.

Love the two latter photos - he went like; "Look out Amalie, car incoming!" and reeled her in towards the edge of the road to make sure she was safe while the car drove past :)

Alright. I've got a "friends album" project going on here w/ a lot of the Norwegian scrappers at Minneriket - need to make 25+ minipages about myself before sept 15th. Starting early so I can take a break when I get bored of this hehe.

Så var tiden kommet - første skoledag for skolegutten vår! Joda - her var mamma'n fortsatt mer fornøyd med tanken på store gutten enn gutten selv - "jada mamma" var svaret til spørsmålene mine om det ikke var spennende å være skolegutt og sånn. Noe særlig spent så han ikke helt ut til å være på det første bildet heller...ohwell. Satser på at det går bra med skolen for det - han har venner i klassen som han kjenner fra før av og hans to eldre fetre går på samme skole. Digger de to siste bildene forresten - det kom en bil kjørende og Adrian, som ellers pleier å påpeke overfor meg "det kommer en bil nå mamma!" passet godt på Amalie som stod ved siden av ham - dro henne inn mot kanten og holdt fast på henne hehe.

Once again it's sunday (is it just me or are the days really, really breezing past??) and this sunday we've got Vicki Chrisman along with us at Pencillines :)

Me? I really adore Rouge de Garance & their new lines (here: aile ou fleur). Pretty papers - soon available at Papirloftet too :) Feels more scrapable than the former lines too, although I know that's just my personal opinion right now :) Used the leftovers from the MM stickers we got in a former sponsorkit..and I love how cool things look when you use the small scallop-scissor along the edge on circles and eclipses and stuff...who needs a scalloped puncher when it's so easy to do it yourself? :)

Quiet sunday. Had three extra kids here today. The internetconnection is still fubar - it's such a "joy" to browse around and still I can't resist not to (I had to upload this layout three times before getting it right thanks to the slow connection :p). Tomorrow's a BIG day here -- it's Adrian's very first day at school. And yes. I'm still more excited about that than he is. :p

Playing around with photoshop today - took some pictures earlier and the light by the big windows at the sportshall we were at was really nice.... and with some editing the photos kinda turned out neat imho :)

Let me show you...(okay, they're resized and saved for web - so the quality isn't all that - but hopefully they still give you an idea)

Actions is nice and cool but most do still require either perfect photos or good prepped photos..kinda...imo.. and as I'm still pretty average when it comes to shooting I have to prep my photos some to get the most out of certain actions..

The original straight out from camera photo:

One side is a bit dark. Manually taken at f/5.3 1/125s and at 123mm. I'm thinking that the shutterspeed should have been at 1/100 or lower. Hm. Or rather. He should have been turning his head a lil more to the left to let the light on his face more evenly. Or wait. I should have been doing this in a studio with perfect controlled lights. yeah. right. ;p
Now, if I used the action I had in mind for this photo directly I'd get something along this kind of result:

Notice how the shades really doesn't look good here?

Now, I took the original picture and played with curves - smoothing out the shades (first picking a general point and brightening it up then picking one of the darker points and brightening just the area between that + the medium area kinda...err..hard to explain in words :p) then marking the darkest shadesome before running the same action again:

Tada! Much better! The colors were a bit "plain" as I had to lighten up the shades (and thus the already-lit areas became lighter too) so I added a warm photofilter to the picture in the end.

I know. A tad work which could be avoided if I did the right take in the first place - but ohwell. I think my point is more like...I know some people have been disappointed in actions..thinking they could solve everything & anything.... but no...it really does help if you know what to do manually (or like me, just likes to play wo knowing what things really do ;p)...then these actions just like, enchantes it even more kinda. Like the last touch or something like that. *babling away*

I know for sure that I find before-after photos pretty cool myself - but that's prolly because I'm such a photonerd atm. Still wanted to share w/you :)

Gotta share this one of Amalie aswell - love her positure here...her hand on her chin....aww...

The whine
Gaah!
Two nights ago we lost our connection to the net. As that happened around midnight I figured that was a cue for me to go to bed and didn't think much about it - I was sure the connection would be back & running the next day. And sure enough - the net was back again the next morning - just in an altered state. A much much much slower state. The 0.5kb/sec kind of state. Joy! I might tend to be a lil nostalgic every now and then but I do not really want to actually go back to the days of the 2400baud modems (my very first modem!) and stuff (neither 14.4 nor 28.8 and stuff).
Anyhoo.....calling Telehor they confirmed that indeed, there was something wrong with our connection and yeah, they would fix that within monday evening, true story and all. Now, they might fix the connection any time now but considering it's Telehor I somehow have my doubts and eek the thought of enduring browsing and stuff with this kind of connection all through the weekend is...scary!! o.O

Ohwell. I'm still pretty addicted forcing myself to browse around multitasking (I can't help it! Need at least 4 diff. tabs up and running in Firefox!) yawning growing tired of waiting for anything between 10seconds to 20 minutes for a page to load. *sigh*

Look what I got!
Anyways! Over to funnier stuff!!
Today was a GREAT mailday! No, I didn't get anything new in the mail really - no big parcels or anything -- but I got this gorgeous, most amazing card from Kine!!! Oh. My. Gosh. Kine, you really really made my day!! I won a pair of beautiful lace-angels from her blog the other day, and she sent them along with this amazing card and a number of large flowers attached! *huge hugs* - you sure have mad cardmaking skillz (along with being an amazing scrapper) - no doubt why Magnolia snatched you to their DT-team!! The card is sitting on my shelf right above my corner so I can watch it all the time & soak in the details. Jeez. I mean, just check out the glitter crown and wings.. the cute little rubonbird on the swirl...I could go on and on and on.... :)

The layout
The flowers in her mail inspired me aswell to add flowers as the last touch to this layout for the DareJack #3 - jacking Gen (the big, yellow flower behind the happiness card was from her too). Her use of small pictures inspired me to make this photobroder last night cause I coudln't find anything on the net (that I didn't have to pay for :P And with my slow-ass connection I coudln't bother search for long). Just let me know if you'd like this photoborder for yourself, I made it in .psd so it's available for those w/photoshop at least.

Don't forget!
Today's the first Patrol Day at Bad Girls! If we catch you using our blinkie on the net (2peas, WillowTrade, scrapbook.com etc & even your own blog) - you might very well be the winner of our RAK :)

Gaaah!! Telehor altså! Linjehastigheten vår har droppet ned til 0.5kb/sec - joy joy! Telehor lovet at dette skulle bli fikset innen mandag kveld...uhm right.... en hel helg med en slowass connection? Dette blir gøy gitt! Heldigvis funker MSN ganske så bra - men skal jeg sjekke nettsider og sånn så tar det alt fra 10 sekunder til 20 minutter til aldri å laste ned sidene......*sukk* Har fortsatt et bittelite håp om at linjen kanskje fikses i løpet av idag - men klokka er nå snart tre og ingenting har skjedd enda sååååååååå håpet er litt vel svinnende...:(

Jaja. Slow connection = mer tid til å scrappe..eller...? Kanskje....:p
Lagde denne LO'en til DareJack #3 - fant ingen gratis filmstripe på nett (litt vanskelig å søke med denne hastigheten også gitt ;p) så utålmodig som jeg var lagde jeg meg min egen fra noen rammer jeg hadde liggende her. Den er i .psd fomat så om du har photoshop og lyst på en filmstripe du også så bare gi meg et lite pip :)

Og så fikk jeg en utrolig hyggelig overraskelse i posten idag -- var så heldig å vinne noen søte små englevinger hos Kine, og ikke bare sendte hun englevingene, men også en del store, tøffe blomster (den gule på LO'en er fra henne) og det utrolig superflotte kortet!!!! Seriøst, holdt på å dåne, så flott er det!! Ikke så rart at Magnolia kapret henne til DT'et sitt gitt!! :D

~Yeah...funny thing, after making my first sponsored layout with Pencillines (aka w/goodies from MM which they sent out) I figured why not add it to their gallery seeing as it was 100% MM. Some days later I got an email from them saying they looked through the gallery and wanted to use my layout in an upcoming blogpost. Now, it's no biggie I know, it's just featured on a blog, but still, it's pretty cool that they picked my layout outta the gallery! Head on over here if you wanna see what layout it was :)

This morning me and Adrian was at the VilVite center (translated it means something like wants to know center) while Simen was at the university. It's a pretty cool place - lots of stuff which you can experiment on and learn more about physics and stuff. I tried the bicycle making you cycle inside a circle. Yes! I kinda span upsidedown all by myself - haha. I let the kiddo have the camera and well, the three photos he took came out very dark - this was the best of them. Ohwell.

Jeg sendte inn en layout til Making Memories sitt eget galleri her forleden, siden jeg hadde laget en LO med 100% MM stuff på. Noen dager etterpå fikk jeg mail fra de - de ville bruke LO'en til en blogpost. Det er nå "bare" en blogpost men ganske så artig for meg :)

Ellers var jeg og guttungen på VilVite senteret idag morges mens vi ventet på Simen som var på universitetet på et informasjonsmøte.. senteret er ganske morsomt og underholdende - basert på en del matematiske og fysiske ting med masse praktiske ting barn og unge (og voksne!) kan prøve for å forstå ting i naturen bedre. Jeg prøvde sentrifugesykkelen - jeg syket rundt et svært hjul - jepp - opp-ned og greier. Haha. Artig.

Had taco today and wow, this may be old news to you but it's new to me -- look at these cute cute minitubes! I know - I'm kinda silly for taking pictures of my food just to show on the blog but I couldn't help myself. Cute! And so much better - I love taco but there's no denying there's a lot of mess involved...usually...at least w/me :p (And how come we always forget one important ting when having tacos? Last time we forgot the sour cream, this time we forgot the salad....ohwell..the little tray didn't hold much anyways so I guess it didn't matter that much)

No new layout I can put up, but wanted to show some pictures from the other morning - love walking Amalie down to her kindergarten, it's just a ten minute walk and she's been a good girl and haven't complained and stuff.. so I brought the cam along and snapped these photos. Every time I kneel down to take photos of her (to get to her height kinda) she almost always sit down herself too..... :p

Speaking of layouts - looking through the Rouge de Garance blog the other day I saw Celines post about them looking for RdG layouts. Why not, considering I've started to actually use their papers lately (been liking them for a while but not felt that this was something I could use) - and ooh she even featured it on their blog! Cool! :) The post is this way.

Har dere sett de søte minitacotubene? Digger de! Har ikke sett de tidligere - er nok bare meg som er treg - men yay - kommer til å ha de til middag ofte fremover tenker jeg. Ikke bare er de søte, de er ganske så praktiske og du søler ikke så lett sånn som med vanlige taco'er eller de store tacotubene...liksom... synes jeg iallefall! :)

Har ingen nye layouter jeg kan vise frem enda - men fikk lyst til å vise noen bilder fra forleden dag - Amalie og jeg går ned til barnehagen om morgenen (når det ikke regner iallefall :p) og det er da kjekt å kunne bruke litt tid på veien - som feks til å ta noen bilder :) Hver gang jeg setter meg ned på huk for å komme til Amalies "høyde" og ta bilde av henne så setter hun seg ned på huk hun også! Haha. Hun tror vel at det er meningen hun skal det når jeg gjør det...:p

Ellers ligger en av LO'ene mine på Rouge de Garance-bloggen - kult! :)

Was tagged again! :D By two great and unique gals - Banglamarie (she's so creative and crazy talented with a lot of things, not only scrapping) and Silje (whom I kinda feel I'm starting to get to "know" through forum and blog/layouts....a totally cool chic w/mad coloring skills like her friend Christine). *still blushing* It's kinda silly how words can make you ...I dunno...embarassed in a positive, good way. Gee.

I could add a number of girls to the list of RGB but let's face it, we all (yeah, I guess me included) rock in each our different ways. Rock on! :)

*off to "rock" the lawnmower* (hah hah hah :p)

Pencillines
Yesterday was Pencillinesday and here's my layout. Our guestdesigner this week was none other than the ever so fab Nisa Fiin - and I totally heart her! She seem to be cool and she is such a good scrapbooker and photographer.. Gotta admit I didn't really know what to do with her sketch though - have two photos like that? Hmm.... I was dying to know how she had pulled that off because there was no doubt that she had being fabby and all...but I just didn't think I would be able to... so...I split my photo in two in Photoshop adding a transparent white layer to the left side of the photo for easier journaling and dropped the distance between the two photos. The layout turned out pretty simple - cardstock and American Crafts pp + alpha - kinda boring. Added a few brads but it still looked pretty boring, so I pulled out the pen, drew some swirls along the border (inspired by the pp) and added dabberpaint (watermelon) on it and well, it did look a little better.... still somewhat boring but definately better :)

Spilling the beans!
I'm so *excited*!! You see, I was asked to come down to Stavanger for the Papirfest and do a few classes there for deaf people... how totally cool is that?? I mean - Papirfest is a weekendcrop (oct 5th-7th) with instructors invited all the way over from the US from manufacturers like Bazzill and stuff...and oh it looks like one of my fellow DTmembers will be coming too...and that I'll do a class with her....don't think I can tell who/from where yet, as the final details aren't set in stone...but I'm so excited...!!! And I think it's so cool that they actually thought of deaf people and wanted to give us a chance to attend! I hope I'll meet a lot of deaf girls there too cause you gotta come right? ;p



Look at this mess!
Yikes. "Somebody"'s gotta clean up. Been kinda scrapping pretty much intensively due to various assignments and stuff. Fun, but I get so lazy with putting things back where they belong so *cough* yeah - I guess this is what you get. Ohwell. I'm off to...uh..try to find my desk again. It's somewhere under there I know it!


Yay!! Døve se her:
For døve scrapbookere som måtte være interessert; det blir kurs for døve under Papirfesten i Stavanger 5.-7. oktober! Alle detaljene er ikke helt fastsatt, men det blir muligens et kurs med meg og så skal jeg kurse sammen med en av de amerikanske damene som kommer. Dette er stort; at folkene bak Papirfesten ønsker døve velkommen er jo helt supert og fantastisk!! Så om du ønsker å være med; ta kontakt med meg eller send en email til Papirfesten eller via nettskjema - husk å skrive at du er døv og interessert i å vite mer om kursene som blir tilgjengelige for døve. For de som ikke bor i Stavanger kan jeg fortelle at Papirfesten er ikke bare for stavangerfolk - det kommer flere scrappere fra hele landet og de har egne spesialpriser for hotell: bare ta kontakt for mer informasjon om den biten. Håper virkelig jeg ser mange døve med - dette blir gøy! :)

Ellers ser planen for Bergen slik;

19. september: introduksjonskurs
3. oktober: teknikkurs
17. oktober: minialbumkurs

:)

The layout
Soooo the skirt-picture kinda did inspire me and as the photo for the assignment I originally was supposed to work on didn't really turn out that great and I didn't find out until late and thus had to wait for today to retake the photo I figured I might aswell get started on that (skirt) photo instead. So there! I was challenged to do the All About Eve challenge (scrap your booty) plus I wanted to do the ScrapJack #2 (Meghan Dymock), so I did both challenges in one and same layout - what is that called? When you manage to do two things at once/fit two things in one ...eh..something..? Anyone?

Anyways. Kinda like how this turned out, and I esp LOVE that I was able to use (to me) real OLD stuff on it - the pp is from an old Scenic Route collection (Harvest), and the alphas from Lil Davis - I LOVE them but they keep sitting on my shelf like, forever...esp the big blue ones...other stuff include the big Heidi Swapp photocorners & blingborders...and the MM alphastickers..

There was a question on Minneriket about styles - she asked if we felt we made layouts in diff. styles according to the theme/who we were scrapping for - separating the styles of pics of the kids and pics of ourselves. I hadn't really thought about that, but now one thing hit me; yes - aside from the thing that I sincerly feel that I do a lot of diff. styles randomly I have noticed that most if not all of my layouts for such blogchallenges as the Dares, ScrapJack and OLW have been on the more.....hm...what to call it....whimsical, laidback, urban-street-kinda-style-side. Kinda? For contests and assignments however I usually stick to the more "nicer/prettier" style... hmm... I think. Ohwell. Something to think about?

Things to come
Tomorrow is sunday, and sunday = pencillinesday. Tbh I'm not too satisfied with my own layout - a bit too boring (but the theme is an important one to me), but -- I'm very very excited to see what the (fab!) guest-designer have whipped up - and ofcourse the other ladies interpretion of the sketch - which was a bit interesting one designwise - at least to me :) So make sure you tune in to Pencillines tomorrow - and please ignore my poor layout :p

And aside from the Bad Girls Patrol there's even more stuff planned for Bad Girls everywhere - now, I hate the word (I think it's overused) but I really really am thrilled to see how that will turn out. It will be rockin' for sure :)

Moar photostuff!
Intriguing - photography is dead, and here's the proof. Thanks to stalking Scott Kelbys blog I keep finding lots and lots of cool photolinks - like finding this exciting photosite called The Online Photographer, where both of the above links could be found plus the link to the Wedding Photography 101 (one of the most amazing and most informatical (is that a word? :p) reads) and many more. Oh yes, I'll be stalking this site from now on! No, I have no real illusions being a real photographer, but it sure is damn fun reading up on such stuff and maybe maybe like 0.05% of this will actually stick into my brain and help me further. Besides. I think it's fun read :)


Det er virkelig gøy å være med på diverse blogutfordringer - men når utfordringene en har så lyst til å være med på blir alt for mange så er det enda gøyere å kunne flue de sammen, sånn som på denne layouten her. All about Eve hadde en utfordring som gikk ut på å scrappe rompa di (vel, jeg følte ikke heeeelt for akkurat det men det ga meg en ide til et tema og bildet er da rimelig "snilt" eller hva :p), og denne ukens ScrapJack gikk ut på å lifte en ganske så kul layout av Meghan Dymock. Så - da slo jeg bare sammen begge utfordringene - lagde en scrapjack med AAE tema. Me smart! ;)

Ellers er det søndag imorgen og det betyr seff. ny Pencillineslayout, og jeg kan ellers fortelle at foruten Bad Girls Patruljen som jeg skrev om igår så er det en del ting & tang som er under planlegging hos Bad Girls og jeg kan iallefall love dere dette er tøffe saker!

Ps! Lindakvakk - ja - jeg husker deg - samme klasse/trinn som Andreas eller noe sånt? :) Veldig hyggelig at du synes det er kjekt å lese bloggen min og det jeg gjør på :)

Ahh..this fall will be filled with lots of fun stuff happening - that much I can tell you!
It's like things are brewing ...like...everywhere!

Pencillines will soon turn one year old - and I would assume that when you turn one year you'll throw a birthdayparty or something like that ;)

Bad Girls Kit-club just introduced a fun concept - Bad Girls Patrol! Every friday, starting next friday (17th), we'll go Bad Girl Hunting - that is - looking around blogs & forums for Bad Girls to club them down and drag them by their hair to our cave and...er..no..that's wrong... well, one lucky Bad Girl will get a goodiesurprise from Bad Girls! Now, how will we recognize a Bad Girl you may ask? Glad you asked! We'll simply look for anybody with a Bad Girl blinkie in their signature or blog. Head over here to read more about this patrol & to grab a blinkie for yourself! :)

I'm also in the middle of finalizing my classes for this fall; the dates for Bergen are ready: September 19th and October 3rd and 17th. Possible dates for Oslo and Stavanger will be announced as soon as the details are good to go - hopefully very soon!

What more? Oh. I was challenged by Heidi to lift this layout. Gee. Lovely and totally ultracool layout, but I don't really feel like mine came anywhere close. Ohwell. LOVE this photo of my beloved & our little one. She's *such* a daddys girl. And I love the papers and diecuts from Rogue de Garance (& a lil Scenic Route - ofcourse :p).

Yay! Her kommer en liten oppdatering på norsk og!
Det er en god del ting som skjer for tiden -- og som er under planlegging -- blant annet Bad Girls Patruljen - et nytt konsept som går ut på at hver fredag (fra og med neste uke) kommer Bad Girls teamet til å lete etter blogger og innlegg på forum som inneholder blinkien fra Bad Girls. Den heldige får en pakke med goodies fra Bad Girls! Funfunfun! Alt du trenger å gjøre er å gå inn her og legge til blinkien du finner der -- hvem vet - kanskje du blir den heldige en fredag...?

Kursene mine for høsten er under intens planlegging - foreløpig er datoene for Bergen klare -- 19. september, 3. og 17. oktober. Ta kontakt med meg på ania krøllalfa papirloftet dot no om du vil vite mer. Det blir også kurs i Oslo og Stavanger -- men datoene og detaljene der er mer uklare -- kommer tilbake med mer info så snart jeg vet! Lover dere en liten go'bit her...nesten nesten helt sikkert...:)

Ellers da? Tja, jeg la ut en konkurranse på Papirprat der oppgaven gikk ut på å dekorere en postbound/ringpermalbum. Ellers har Catrine lagt ut en layoutkonkurranse som går ut på å scrappe hverdagen/hverdagsbilder. Ta en kikk på den også :) Kule premier er det iallefall til begge!!

*smiles innocently*
Had a short & fun photosession w/Eli today outside Hobbykroken -- can I just say one thing...... remember to turn that &/%&/¤&%¤%& ISO down to 200 after you're done with adjusting it!! Grr!! Turned out the cam was set to 1600ISO *blush*. Sigh. Ohwell. Got a number of cool piccies (yeah - that's me....*blush*) though and will use them nevertheless - thanks a bunches Eli!! The photos are for a challenge I got from Kathrine (she's so sweet with those challenges you know :p) about joining the All about Eve's challenge Scrap that Booty. Hm. Right. Well, I got the piccies now....we'll see if I manage to complete next step :p

So. Why am I bad? You see -- I've been so incredibly lucky to join the bad ass design team for Bad Girls Kits. Seriously. First, the kits looks fantastic fabulous, second, I LOVE the concept behind the whole Bad Girls theme, third, Wendy Rago, the owner behind Bad Girls is such a darling (granted, I don't really know her but she seem to be really really cool and nice despite being Bad Girl and all ;p), and fourth....look at these ladies..!?!? And I was lucky to be picked to be with them?? Omg. I mean - look at this intro of the DT...wow!!!! (and lookie -- my fellow Pencillinesgal TRacie H is also among these bad ladies! yay!!! A familiar face! /waves :D)

So yeah! I' m bad! :D

Btw, added two new links -- do check them out -- Neil Gaimans blog -- can't wait till Stardust is out here in Norway (and I NEED to kick myself into getting Anansi Boys, Stardust and Good Omens - which is coauthored by Terri Pratchett...you know..the dude behind Discworld). Second - I went down memory lane and looked through the quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ahhh. It was such a GOOD show. Talking about TVshows, I'm currently watching Dexter. Although I don't really like the acting at times (too stiff, too stereotypical) I do find myself drawn in to the story. Intriguing. Maybe I should buy the book(s?) too. Hm.

The new Pencillines sketch & layouts are all up on the Pencillines blog. Yay!
I like how my layout turned out this time - struggled some with the sketch then suddenly it all felt right kinda. Or maybe I like this so much because I love the picture..hmm...nevertheless..

I brought the camera with me one morning when we were walking down to the kindergarten - Adrian forgot his sweater at home so he ran back to fetch it while Amalie and I continued....once she heard Adrian run towards us she turned back and asked "Adrian?" (okok, she said "Aian?" cause she can't pronounce his name right yet)...loved that I was able to photo this cute moment just as she turned backwards :)

Sassafrass Lass and 7gypsies pp, Hambly rubons on white cardboard, cut out and inked and put on the pp with foampads, Bazzill/Heidi Swapp flowers, Sassafrass Lass and Cherry Arte stamps and Heidi Swapp alphas :)

Looks like I've missed blogging badly since I came home from the vaccay -- this post is the third one in three days....and there will be another post tomorrow as it's a new Pencillinesday too...

Anyways - finished this layout last night -- it's for the DareJack -- aka ScrapJacks tributechallenges this month. This week they jacked Kristina Contes - yay! I love all the Dare-girls so I'm *so* looking forward to play along this month! Must. Find. Time! :) Played some with Rogue de Garance 12x6 paper (seems like theyre starting to grow on me these papers - finding their way to a number of my layouts lately :p) and a number of little bits I had lying on my table. Funny that. I'm such a messyhead and whatever I let stay on the table keeps getting used over and over again - too lazy to reach into the drawers to find something else to use ;p

Been missing scrapping so as you can tell. This was my third layout since I got home four days ago and I've already finished a fourth and started think about the fifth. Obsessed much eh.... :p

Wrapping up this post with a little nugget from the Indie Art Photoblog; she's a photographer and also the lady behind the Indie Actions - (I've got the Rich set - it's a steal for only 20$ :) ). In this post she shares some of her editing "secrets". The color-balance trick to add warmth is an interesting one - it sounds so simple.... I haven't fiddled too much with that option yet - maybe it's about time to experiment some more :)

And oh yeah. Happy Bday Hubby! Had a lovely dinner and am soon about to have a yummy cheesecake too! =)

Midlifecrisis?
Sooo as I was about to pull out my brand new Dior lipstick my hubby eyed me with such a funny expression on his face in the doorway. "What!? I wanna start being a real grownup and start wearing makeup every time I leave the house" I told him. He kept looking at me like I was very very silly and to tell you the truth, I was. Sigh. I don't know what it is - maybe it's me realizing I'm really really soon turning like, old and stuff and that this is serious this time....like some kind of midlifecrisis. I dunno. I've been thinking about trying to make an attempt to learn how to put on makeup for real kinda. It oughta be handy when you turn old no? Not the kind of heavy makeupstuff (although it does kinda look cool once in a while I guess), but the subtle kind that you don't really notice but which kinda do help your face in a stealthy way. I think it there is such a way. I did however realize how silly I was this time and put the lipstick back on the shelf and went out as my normal self with a sigh.

You Go Girl!!
Waddayaknow. I'm so proud of you and what you actually accomplished in mere three days while being sick and all - gee, I did feel a bit mean in between but you know....it's all for the greater good no? *snicker* So huge congrats to Smultringen (Ingunn) as a SOY-finalist!!! Us Norwegians are soooooo happy & proud of you now! Weeee! Can't wait to know more at Memory Trends!! **hugs**

A tribute?
So while I was working on this layout last night it suddenly hit me - gee - it looks so Smultringsk. Once I realized it I decided to go the whole nine yard; one of her (to me) trademarks is the way she does journaling: serif in white text on colored background. I didn't add any primas though ;p

A sneakie!
I love looking at other peoples sneakies, personally I usually find them so much fun to watch....so maybe I'm not the only one thinking sneakies are fun, and hence should do some myself too..? At least when it comes to DT work it's ok I guess...so...here's a sneakie of this sundays Pencillinelayout...which actually features a Guest DT who's on the other DT I'm also at, Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking. How fun! :D

Sigma vs Nikkor
Okok. It's unfair to compare the old Sigmalens I've got to the new Nikkor one, as they do have different specifics, but still.. dang....the Nikkor one looks *so* *so* promising! You see, I bought a new 18-200mm lens. From Sigmas f/3.5 - f/6.3 to Nikkors f/3.5 - f/5.6 with SWM and VR. Faster focus and vibration reduction that is. That being said; Sigma recently came with a new 18-200 lens that's more close to the Nikkor one with both better focusing and VR aswell if I'm not too mistaken. Still stops at f/6.3 though.

The biggest noticeable difference to me (besides the faster focusing :p) is actually that while you turn the lensring to the left on the Sigmalens to focus you turn it towards right on the Nikkor one. Gee. I guess it'll be a while until I get used to that! :p It's also slightly heavier and bigger - it's 72mm I think while the old one is 62mm.

Love the way it focuses - it's way more silent and feels so smooth. Like it fades in and out kinda - very fast - very smooth. Dunno. Maybe it's not very noticeable but I do notice it because I'm looking for differences from my old lens.

Qualitywise I'm positive I do see a difference -- although -- it may very well just be in my mind kinda and it doesn't mean the Sigma one is that badly off - it's good - the Nikkor one is just a notch better. And after all....it is a new lens -- wait a month or two when it starts getting worn out and gets a dirty coating on the lens and stuff.....? I dunno...I do know that I need a better cleaningsystem for my lens for sure. *cough*

All in all I'm happy about my new allroundlens..now, time to start saving up for the next one............... :p