Little Corner of Ania

Scrappy stuff first, rite?
Spent a few days at Gry's summerplace with Gry and Eli - ♥
Was amazingly unusually effective, whippin' up three finished (!) layouts & a project. Yay me!
The above is one of the layouts I made - figured I'd join ScrappeHusets 3ndypapir-freestyle-challenge. Never really understood wheter you had to use 3ndypapir or not, but it doesn't matter- I love 3ndypapir and jumped headfirst at the chance of using it again :) :) It looks freestyleish doesn't?? I mean. I even sewed all over the layout, creating curly, whimsical stems for the star-flowers :p ♥ Eli and Vibeche on the photos - hey Vibeche, see - Gry and Eli made sure I did scrap at least some of these photos!! :)

Oh, and I am totally in love with Gry's alcove - it's got the most gorgeous natural lighting I've ever seen and I want that room attached to my house liek, now!! (for photographing kids&layouts in ofc :p and look at the cute blanket that backdrops the layout - so - summerplace-y!!)


We brought Gry's cat along - and I have to say I'm intrigued re cat-photographing sorta. Loves!
(and ya, I got Gry's permission displaying her cat on the blog ;p)

Gry & Eli..
Summerrrrr!!
Um ya. Gry and Eli teased me for lying on the ground takin photos of the grass, so I sorta bent backwards and snapped a photo of them upside down as they were behind me. Ha-ha. I know. *rolls eyes* Will make a cute layout!!
Look! There's the cat again!
Made tzatziki. Mmmmm :)

O. There's the cat again! ♥
(and - can you imagine - ISO800. Looovessssssss ♥♥♥ Taken at like, 11pm :p)

Then I had to hurry home early this morning, to pickup this girl:

My lovely, gorgeous niece ♥♥
(and my dad - but he's off to some meetings, won't see him again until tomorrow)

We went to pickup Amalie from the kindergarten, and to take some photos. Look at how cooperative they are *cough*

Then I told them they wasn't allowed to laugh.at.all.

No laughing!
Duh!

♥♥♥

Off to pickup my sis at the airport now - she's arriving late because she had an exam to take (am so proud of her and her achievments :) :) ).

Have a nice weekend!! :)

Title: " Happy Phantom" -Tori Amos

Last year at approx this time I sent in a box with layouts (well, strictly speaking - one layout and several photocopies of layouts) to Memory Makers for consideration for their MMM (MM Masters) 09-contest.

I ended up with a runner-up-spot - yay! (there were 10 winners and 10 runner-ups - I think someone mentioned there were 500+ contestants)
I haven't shared these layouts before, as becoming a runner-up made these images&layouts the property of MMM for a year - but well - it's been a year (and no requests, sniff) and with the magazine folding this fall (double-sniff) - I figured it doesn't hurt sharing the layouts now?

So.
To whoever it may concern - here's the layouts that helped me get that runner-up-spot :)




Making this layout was a bit nervewrecking, as this was the only assigned layout we had to make for the contest - the theme was "wish". Surprisingly it came together quite easily, yay!

I could have done layouts w/sappy wish-stuff for my kids, which would have been the most natural choice I guess - but I figured I'd focus some on me and my wishes instead to hopefully stand out some.

At that time I was soooo coveting the D300 and I knew I would own it some day. Mhm. I was wrong. I now own D700 ;) And ♥ to Christine/Xstine modelling for me here haha (she owns a D300 :p).

Most of the materials are from Prima and Hambly.

My only lettersize. I think it was the last layout I made for this contest too, as I felt I needed something more simple (and having discarded two bleh-layouts I felt a bit GRRR I gotta finish this!). The kiddo endured a quick photo session w/me the last day of school - and his first summer-vacation :) Used Rouge de Garance, Sassafras, RiffRaffDesigns and corrugated cardboard.

Because I don't really feel like I have one specific style I wanted to include a freestyleish-layout. Amalie was busy trying to count at that time - hence this layout - her counting wasn't too steady (still isnt!) - figured a freestyleish-layout would reflect some of that. Used various manufs here- most fond of the heart that I covered w/ribbons here. I was reeeeally hesitant as to wheter (sic!) include this one or not - in the end I was just like bah whatev!



One of the layouts I felt was more "me" of the bunch I sent in and one of the layouts I still love today. I love how effortlessly this one came together - I just knew what I wanted to include here before I started. Oh. And Amalie still loves getting her nails pampered w/black nailpolish. Mwahahahaha :)

Materials include Fancy Pants, MME, KI, RiffRaff Designs, Hambly, Glimmer Mist, Rangers.


RiffRaff Designs+Glimmer Mist+Glossy Accent = match made in heaven!!!!

I was really happy w/how this layout turned out, yet I felt this was the most boring of the bunch. Made this w/leftovers from an old Bad Girl kit :)



Two of my discarded layouts:

Trying to pick just five layouts was a pita - having friends who suggested different layouts was ugh aswell (thanks for the help tho! :) ). I was really close to adding this one instead of the other freestyle-layout. Still thinks this layout is better than the other one - but the other one is more uhm.."look-at-me-ish"?

Tried to do a romantic layout but it didn't quite work out. This is the layout I liked the least. Ugh! Still don't like it :p


It's weird lookin at these layouts again after a year..mm..I think I only really like four of them - "D300", "Endelig sommerferie", "Miss Fancy Nails" and "Schröder".

Mmm thanks for lookin -gotta wrap up packing & stuff, heading out for a much needed girltrip w/some scrappy friends :)

Ps!
Mhmm, just got this in my mailbox. *boggle* Color me intrigued for sure!! :)

Today we said our goodbyes to Ma - the great-grandmother of the children and a dear familymember. It was a lovely ceremony.






Had to snag some photos of the beautiful flowers..the sky was overcast so it felt pretty easy snapping gorgeous (imo :p) photos of them..
(wtb macro-lens!!)

Mm it's not often that I get a chance to take photos of the oldest nephews - yay :p

Title: "De nære ting"

♥ this little boy.
Will see him tomorrow.

Pencil-Lines sketch#136, by Anna Louise Bowkis & guested by Maria McPherson :)
Materials used: Prima's "Mommy & me" and "Spring fling" - loves!!

Title: "Elf"

Photo-comments courtesy of Amalie, four years old.


Amalie hanging up yet another of her little arts. Ran outta reg tape, so she's using my Prima-tape.


Thanks to Gyda who shared how to make a simple mocca at home wo fancy moccamasterstuff :p


We've been planting up a storm lately and today we started harvesting the fruits of our labour (for our magnificent pasta carbonara :) ). Well, just from the Basil. The other herbs&veggies aren't quite as ready :p


Amalie's been crafty - she made this larvae all by herself (yes, alone - all she needed help for was to get some more glue as the one she was using was dried up). And yeah. She doesn't know the meaning/use of "her/she" yet - she says "he/his/him" for girls too :p


One of Amalies fave things to do is to cook us breakfast, dinner, desserts and supper on this kitchen :p Oh, and candies, cookies, and cakes. No idea where she gets that from *looks around innocently*

Ps. if anyone wondered. Adrian spent most of today at a friend of his. Hence no photos involving
him :p And if there were any it'd just be like, him and his ds :p And I really just wanted to test a webdisplay-action I just made, hence this post :P

So mm...that was our neventful, yet nice day.
How was your day? :)

Been busy lately creating a commissioned minialbum.
Er. Well.
Intended minialbum turned into an album sortof.
I mean.
I was supposed to create 6x9" pages. Which I did.
Only that I had the genius idea of creating each page on corrugated cardboard, because the receiver was a man turning 50 and well, it's manly and stuff and I had a leftoverpile here from a previous class. So like. 22 pages. All on corrugated cardboard. Genius. It honestly didn't occur to me that 22 pages of corrugated cardboard would make a friggin' HIGH pile of pages until I was on like, page 14 or so. And by then it was a tad to late. Ahem.

Ps. 22 pages = 3.5" high :p
Yeah, I paniced slightly when I realized how thick it would actually be.
So um.
No binderrings large enough for this. Forget about using the BIA. No way there would be albums thick enough for all the pages. Wasn't too keen on using ballchains or ribbons (thanks for the suggestions tho - I'd do so if it was my own mini, but this wasn't for me so!).
Urgh!
Ended up dividing the pages in two and creating a 10x14" album for this one, like this:


Certainly not what I had pictured, and quite a workabout that took me a few more hours (and adhesive :p) than I thought, but it worked.

Just hope the receivers will think it's okaaaaaaaaaaay............................!!
x-fingers!

Anyways! A few words on this album:

• The customer wanted it to be simple, so I kept it that way - mostly!
• DO NOT, I repeat - do NOT use embellishments thicker than ..err... well, do not use thick embellishments :p esp not when the pages themselves are thick sorta *cough* (well, it does look nice :p)
• I used the same base on all the pages - 1 photo - 1 corrugated cardboard at 6x9" - 1 sheet of patterned paper at 5,5x8x5" - sewing around the pp - then I customized each page individually. That way they all were somewhat uniform yet individual, and it gave me a much easier start on each page.
• Totally enjoyed being given the photos&text in advance, not having to spend much time pondering about that part as usual!
  
• I spent approx 35-45 minutes on each page. Putting them together for the album however, took a little more than an hour (I used both double sided tape+liquid glue to make really sure the pages would stick to each other :p) and creating the album itself took about 3 hours (hey it involved a lot of thinking of how to solve this best way..which was only my own fault I gotta admit :p).
• Right. Not entirely done w/the cover, going to add "50 år" or something like that to it.
  

Anyways, here's the complete album:



Have a nice weekend!

Title: "Amazing Grace"

First - some scrappy stuff :p
Pencil-Lines #135 went live with Noel Culbertson as the guestdesigner - she made such a cute sketch that was so hard to resist!! I decided to use a mix of random Fancy Pants products for this sketch - mostly from "About a Boy", "Celebration" and some newer Kraft Kuts aswell. The images are from when baby K. visited us with his fam - Amalie was so into the whole "baby" thing and this was one of the first things they had to do (she's a good hostess ;p)



Speaking of Fancy Pants, it was my turn to do stuff for "Fancy This" the other day and I made a candy box from a Fancy Pants button box for my mom. She loved it :) And this is such a quick and easy project to whip up too :)


The Constitution Day came and went (May 17th).
We were lucky with the weather that day - sun!!
Here's my mother in law and her mother..and the kids..who disappeared when they saw me pull out the cameras...

MIL doing the "reveal-the-kids-behind-our-backs"- trick :p

After lots of songs, poems & speeches it was time for the parade..
Amalie didn't want to go with the kindergarten, and insisted on being with big-bro and his class.

I kinda like this photo - K. and T. are trying to take care of Amalie (who was like "Mommy! Mommy!" all the time not even wanting to say hi to her best friend from kindergarten..prob all the people making her insecure) while Adrian can be seen in the background with J. and S. up to mischief :p

Adrian and his cousin saying hi :p

Mm.. icecream. The pesky kids got two icecreams, one soda & one hotdog before we went home :p

Amalie being upset when Adrian tells her she's too small to be shooting w/airguns :p


Shooting w/airguns for the first time proved trickier than thought - luckily great-grandpa was close and able to help out :)
(oh, and only one outta five bullets hit the paper at all :p Adrian's not too discouraged tho - he's looking forward to try again next year! :p)

And then we went home to eat sour cream porridge & cakes - yay!!
(and yeah that's me on the spoon :p)

Title: " Bouncing off Clouds" -Tori Amos