banner
Get off the cross we need the wood

About Me

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



My Scrapbooking

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



2/2

~~ Heat, friends and stuff ~~

Posted by Ania On Monday, June 29, 2009 5 lovely comments

Ugh.

I'll go with the popular subject these days and whine some about the heat. It makes me drowsy. Drowsy drowsy drowsy! I don't like it! (ok I like that I can wear summery & light clothes now, but other than that - too much sun and heat is ugh)

Anyways. Don't have much to say (blaming the heat here making me drowsy..did I mention that already hm? :p), just wanna share some recent stuff..


My two last layouts for the Bella Artista-guestthingie for Bella Blvd :)

Pencil-Lines #141 w/Christiane Muller :) :)
I borrowed the title (the idea of "name"²) from a layout I saw not long ago - I am so sorry that I can't recall whose layout, just saw how she did the title and thought "Oh neat!". Thanks whoever this was...I am sure it was a Norwegian....(and sorry for not recalling who you were :p). Anyways. Point is - my Amalie loved playing with Banglamarie's Amalie in her adorable pink dollhouse..so hence the title: "Amalie²" :)
I used various bits and pieces of old and new Fancy Pants for this layout :)

And then we got Nikki Sivils' "My Sweet Cherry Pie" - easily my favorite from her :)
Seriously, when thinking of my friend whom I made this layout about I can't help but smile - she's such a genuine force of nature - I am so glad she's my friend :)


More "My Sweet Cherry Pie"- this time a card - I also used one of her stamps on the twill-ribbon - I really like how it turned out :)

Right. Hope you're surviving in this heat - have a nice week :)

Ps! Just finished the Twilight-series. Mhmm. Personal opinion? The two first books were a bit dull. Like, blah blah blah yadayada. Third book was (thankfully) more interesting, and the fourth book was very enthralling. Please don't burn me for saying the two first ones were dull!!! :p (and yes I still had to read them all - I'm like - once I've started I had to finish them all) Oh and my personal favorite is Alice. Ofc. ;p

Ps2! Need more books for the Summer! Got any suggestions? Now that I'm done w/the Twilight-series I'm gonna move on to "Good Omens" then one or two of the unread Mo Hayder-books I have here and hopefully "Neverwhere" aswell - mhm.. and that's it for now...


( jf2tr5npkq )


5 lovely comments

~~Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for ~~

Posted by Ania On Wednesday, June 24, 2009 16 lovely comments


Mm just sharing two more Fancy Pants stuff for June :)

Materials include:
(top): Papers & stamps from Delight, punches from Martha Stewart, random buttons&ribbons from FP, letters from Adornit and Prima, glimmermist (on the prima-letters).
(bottom): Journalingsheet from On a Whimsy, diecuts from Kraft Kuts, cutout from a sheet of Summer Soiree-paper.


Today is the oldest kids last day at school - a day he's been looking forward to for a good long while. Eight weeks without school - he's marvelling joyously just at the thought of it :) And then he'll start in third grade. *insert long where-the-heck-did-the-time-go-mommy-type sigh here*

Random stuff:
  • Regina Spektors newest album (Far) is gorgeous!
  • Hambly Screenprints just released a peek of their newest transparent sticker-designs! Yum is all I can say!!
  • I got my Nikki Sivils stuff yesterday and I'm happy!!! :D

  • Browsed around and found this image sorta funny (the original game is more than ten years old..I remember the anticipation when it was released...good old times..). Looking forward to this one (although I always found the terrans the most boring races of the three and they're the ones being released first. Mm..)


And by the way - I wanted to let you know that I so totally appreciate every one of you who checks in on this blog just to read, glance, look, get inspiration, quickly scroll past, laugh, roll your eyes, whatever - and mmm, maybe an extra thank you to those of you who take the time to drop me a visible proof of your stay on this blog (I don't want to make those of you who doesn't feel bad, cuz I'm not so good at it myself either so I totally do get you, but at the same time - I am happy every time I get a new comment so thank you for making me extra happy :) ).

Thank you so much for bearing with my less-than-perfect-English (I am aware that I'm doing the same mistakes esp when it comes to the grammar over and over again but I can't seem to correct myself, grr) and thank you for the patience to those who wish I wrote in Norwegian too (I will. Once in a while. Promise. It's just..Blogging in English has just become a habit and double posting in both languages sorta makes the posts even more annoyingly long methinks. Feel free to object!!).

In short - thank you so much - it totally makes me so happy :) :)
(Just wanted to let you know :) )

Title: "Mary Jane" -Alanis Morisette


16 lovely comments

Haha yeah.
1. The photo's supposed to be like that.
2. And if you're following Pencil-Lines, which this layout is for, you might (or might not) notice that this isn't about any fathers or anything, but about my friends instead. Cuz I totally missed the date and stuff thinking it was last week ;p

So there.
This weeks guest was Elodie Touze, a talentful french scrapbooker (love her style and LOVED her layout for this one) and she also provided us the sketch. I just decided to add some more photos to my interpretation of the sketch.

Creating this layout sorta made me feel... old-skool :p It's something about the way I made this that made me feel that hm. Maybe it's because I decided to do the layering quite flat sorta, and not w/distressing or sewing on the edges..like..just plain.. mm. Ohwell. And the upside-down photo? *snicker* Well, the photo was taken that way so figured it'd be scrapped that way too (after being teased about taking some photos while lying flat down on the ground I rolled around and snapped a photo of the teasers while on my back :p)

Materials used: Scenic Route, Hambly transparency & rubons, glimmermist (the beautiful blue frame - love this color - jazz blue I think it was), KaiserCraft rhinestones..

Title: "Mr Bad Man" -Tori Amos


6 lovely comments

~~ London piccies ~~

Posted by Ania On Saturday, June 20, 2009 10 lovely comments
So last weekend me and hubby went to London, England for a lil weekendtrip - just the two of us :) We stayed at this posh hotel - The Royal Horseguards - which was smack in the centre of the city & had flatscreen in both the livingroom and the bath (so you could take a bath while watching the TV) and it had its own iPod-dock which I found pretty cool (esp as we brought the iPod with us :) ). Mm I'm easily impressed, I know :p
(oh and the above photo was the first one I snapped of the hotel when arriving at like 10pm in the evening - loved the blue hue it had from the sky & lovelovelove my camera allowing me to take not too shabby handheld pictures in the dark :) )

Oh, and the hotel itself had a real nice history from both the World-wars and had served as an embassy for several countries and Secret Service-HQ and stuff. As I said - I'm easily impressed :)

For our first breakfast we had to get ourselves a real British breakfast at a pub - ofc ;p
Bacon, some kinda potatostuff, shroom, beans, scrambled eggs and sausage. Heh.

I kinda liked this one. The quote that is. "The glorious dead".

I love the tubes of London and the cool signs there :)
Hubby sorta patiently sat closer to the sign so I could get a nice piccie of both :p (you can tell he doesn't like to be taken piccie of, but uhm, w/no kids around I had to snap some of him no? :p)

"Everybody" recommended Camden Market in advance before we left, so we hit that one first. Totally loved the colorful food-stations and hubby regretted buying food at the first one we saw when we realized there were lots and lots of them there from diff countries :)





After spending some time at the market we had sushi for lunch. SUSHIIIIIii ♥♥♥

In the evening we met up with an old friend of us - Pete :) (yes he sorta looks anxious here and not like the very lively&animated person that he was during our evening. Must be the camera doing that to people :p )

Personally I've "known" him for close to nine years - ever since our EverQuest-days back in '99 or '00 (we play WoW together now) - but this was the first time I got to meet him in real life. Hubby met him once at his last London-trip :) It was great finally getting to meet him, and we had dinner (yummy ravioli at Kings Cross) & an evening out together :)

When the night ended we took a pirate-taxi (for the first time in our lives haha) back home. He was a sorta club-taxi (chatting up w/the bouncers at the bar we spent the rest of the evening at so it seemed safe enough + it was raining :p) and it turned out he was a Somalian raised up in Finland teehee (I know I'm silly finding that somewhat amusing, but seriously - Finland of all places?? Sorry Fins!!! (but..when I think of it I guess it's just as amusing as me ending up in Norway hmm!). Couldn't pass up the chance to snap a nightphoto of the Eye (which was like across the Thames from the hotel) & the Jubilee Bridge. Beautiful :)

We spent some time at the pubs during the weekend (isn't what Brits do - go to the pubs? :p) - gotto have my refill of Guinness!!! ♥♥♥

I thought the reminders of which direction to check before crossing the streets were sorta cute. And useful!! :p

For dinner at Sunday we found this little Korean restaurant downtown. Now, I'm adopted from South-Korea, but I've never really tasted Korean food before (I came to Norway when I was 7 months old) so this was a nice experience to me :) I was sorta worried the food would be like, somewhat funny, but the menu we went for was really yummy :)


We went to the London Eye at our last day in the city - a nice touristy thing to do :)
Tbh I wasn't personally sold on getting up there and was still undecided until we met a sweet friend of Pete who lived next door to the bar we were at and dropped by to say hi and she was sooo into the Eye and loved taking it whenever she could and then I was like hmm alright I'm a tourist dammit :p Turned out it was a nice relaxing trip (& thank god for A/C inside each of these "boats") and I had fun trying to squish the buildings & humans from atop :p

Then we tried to find The Forbidden Planet, and roamed around in circles for about half an hour before giving up & getting some breakfast instead. Found this really nice italian cafe (Cafe Milan) which had great, yummilicous food & cappuchino. Yum! Totally recommended, and when we finally found The Forbidden Planet it turned out it was like 3mins from this cafe - further down the street :P (oh, and the store was great - thanks for the recommendation!! We bought some minor stuff and some books (X-men & Blueberry Girl) and I was totally oogling the Tara McPherson-stuff in the store :p )

And I totally get the obsession some people have w/Starbucks. My fave was Dark Berry Frappuchino (if I recall the name correctly) - although at the first Starbucks we got it w/bits of chocolate and at the second there were no bits of chocolate - bit bummed about the latter cuz that was what made it so extra yummy! (and not sure what I did wrong cause I am fairly sure I did order the same thing twice :p)

At Charing Cross station we saw this cute little mouse. Although hubby thinks it's a rat but I thought rats were like, bigger and not so cute :p *cough*

All in all it was a nice getaway, and it was great having such a nice hotel to return to - esp as hubby wasn't totally recovered from his back-op which meant we had to return to the hotel a lil more often than we probably would have normally. But as the hotel was very central (across the street from the Embankment tube) and with the very nice & spacious room we had it wasn't that much of a problem and it was nice resting the feet when insisting on wearing high heels most of the time ;p We didn't get to hit too many clothes-stores which I'm slightly regretting now (but the wallet stays happy :p), and I'm still a bit torn about the Diana-camera I didn't buy at the Photographers Gallery (which by the way wasn't really what I had imagined sorta - wish we had found the time to drop by the other photo-exhibition w/Marilyn Monroe & Audrey Hepburn - which I only found about the last day :( )

Also, wherever we went and mentioned we were from Norway everybody seemed to know that "Oh yeah Norway, it's that highly expensive country isn't?", and that a lot of Swedes loves to come here to work because the pay's much better than in Sweden :p They all seemed to have had some friends/relatives visit Norway at least once and apparently that's what they remember the best - ouch :p

Oh and I'm so happy I brought the 50mm along instead of the 18-200mm. Sure - the latter would have been more practical I guess, but I was so annoyed about the quality on that lens on my D700 (the lens being a DX and the body being a FX - fullformat - and while it's a great lens on DX-bodies it's not so great w/FX-bodies imo. It's probably totally not noticeable in the grand scheme and no big deal, but just the very knowledge of its inferiority on this body did annoy me soo) and I guess I could have brought the d70s instead for that lens but bleh. My D700 makes me happy and my 50mm makes me happy soh!

Anyways. Amalie is going to her very first "real" birthdayparty tomorrow and is totally excited about it (she's been counting down the days since she got the invitation on tuesday and kept reminding me about having to buy gift&make a card), we have a sleepover here atm (our youngest nephew) and actually both kids are off for diff. bdayparties tomorrow. Mm. Interesting I know :p

Have a nice weekend! :)


10 lovely comments

~~ Guestdesigning at Bella Blvd :) ~~

Posted by Ania On Wednesday, June 17, 2009 5 lovely comments
I'm guest-designing at Bella Blvd this month - love the presentation they made of me :D
(and yes, I know the descriptions sorta contradict themselves but hey, I had a hard time coming up with stuff about myself so I asked some friends instead and this is what they got me :p)



This is the first layout I made for them - a pretty classic/trad style layout (??) about the kids & their cousin totally all over our blueberry-bush (we got an American blueberrybush which yields HUGE blueberries - much much bigger than the wild ones growing at the little hill next to our garden :) ) I used Family Tree on this one :)


Here's my designer challenge - the theme was "an awesome gift". It's more funkier and you can see the rest of the layout at their blog here. I used a mix of Swing into Spring, Sweet Celebration and Pack Your Bags on this one.


They accept applications for guest-spots atm by the way - give it a try! :)



5 lovely comments

~~ oops ~~

Posted by Ania On Tuesday, June 16, 2009 4 lovely comments

Cough.
Scheduling posts is quite nifty.
It's great, actually.
Not so great when you realize you've misunderstood and got some facts wrong.
Like.
It wasn't Fathers Day (this past) sunday.
The many posters for Fathers Day 21st at several storewindows told me that much.
But I couldn't do much cause I was in London, the post went up as scheduled and I didn't feel like running to the nearest Inet-cafe to fix it, so I just filed it away under annoying stuff to correct when getting home.

Anyways.
Quick-editing 400-something photos from London atm and resting out after the vaccay (vaccays can be exhausting. Esp when insiting on using high heeled shoes half the time :P).
Just thought I'd mention that yeah, I know it's not Fathers Day for another week yet (for most English-speaking countries that is).

Totally gonna share some photos and more scrappy stuff when I'm done. But for now -
sharing my Hambly-lift of the amazing Amanda Johnson aka CandiMandi :)
Had so much fun channeling my inner CandiMandi w/gesso, scrap-papers, stickers, yummy rub-ons & stuff. Love her style :D

Go check out what the other girls did!! :)

4 lovely comments

~~ I had one more stupid question ~~

Posted by Ania On Sunday, June 14, 2009 2 lovely comments
Mmm Pencil-Lines w/sketch 139, guested by Marla Kress :)
Whenever it's been a while I get the urge to go back to my old, beloved Scenic Route papers (don't you love old loves?) - here it's mixed with diecuts from the journaling-notes (boy) from Prima (Love these notes so so so much :) ), butterflies from Martha Stewart, a dash of glimmermist (Jazz Blue) and bling from Kaisercraft.

Happy Fathers Day for those of you who celebrate it today!! :)


Title: "Forgiven" -Alanis Morisette


2 lovely comments

~~ you better bring your own sun sweet girl ~~

Posted by Ania On Friday, June 12, 2009 3 lovely comments
Sorta have a zillion of things on my to-do-list for today, and making a blogpost isn't really one of them, but what the heck..(I also want to scrap, but that really has to be put on hold for a while. I think. At least until I've checked off a few more stuff on the list.*focus ania, focus!*)

Anyways. Point is - I wanted to share some Fancy Pants Designs-stuff for June :)

Above: A layout I struggled with. Not the layout itself, but the title and stuff. I really really wanted to scrap the photo - I love it (and yes I'm highly subjective now I know)...but it's kinda one of those...pretty photos that doesn't really tell a story, unless I make up one...sorta? And I'm really not one for cliches (I try not to anyways). Yet. BLeh. COudln't figure out a better title, and I wanted to move on to the next project (I can be quite impatient), so...

Fancy Pants Materials:
Papers from: Summer Soiree, Kraft Kuts (Pink Forest), On a whimsy (cards)
Journalingbook: Summer Soiree
Glitter Cut: Arrow Frame
Ribbon: The Daily Grind
Minitags: Bag-o-tags
Felt: Playhouse

Other: Letters from Prima, sprayed w/Glimmer Mist

A sweet summery card made with my old paper-faves "Celebrate" and the new Delight-stamps (embossed). And look at the orange flower inside the card. LOVES! It's called "Orange me happy" (from gel-a-tins) and I LOVE it. It's an old fave - don't understand why I don't use it more...the name is perfect - it truly makes me happy (along with the fact that the FP stamps are so crisp and a delight to work with) :D


Another card - made it for my mother-in-law who needed a confirmation-card. Am in love with the awesome fiskars-borders :) :)

Fancy Pants Designs: Papers from "Simplicity" and "The Daily Grind"
Other: Prima and Scrappers Choice flowers, bling from Prima, Borderpunchers from Fiskars, glitterframe from Making Memories, tulle



Right!
Maybe I should go back to my to-do-list now? Hm :p
But before I go - just have to say I'm so so so happy "Weeds" is back and it looks like it haven't lost its touch - YAY! And that "Glee" looks promising - has potential - will definitely watch more of it when it starts for real (Can't wait to see Kristin Chenoweth when she appears!!) :) Oh, and that I'm totally looking forward to new "Entourage" aswell :)
Have a nice weekend :)

NB: Have gotten feedback that some of you might have problems commenting on this blog - feel free to lemme know what's wrong (what message are you getting) - I'd like to know and see if there's anything I can do to fix it. Email me here - I'd really appreciate it.


Title: "Welcome to England " -Tori Amos


3 lovely comments

~~ Well, maybe you did something to deserve it! ~~

Posted by Ania On Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5 lovely comments
MMm..
It's about time to share some Hambly Screenprint DT-layouts, no?
We got some lovely products from other manufs to play with our Hambly-stash - thank you so much! :)

For this layout I used some of the products from My Little Shoebox. Love the fresh, summer-y papers I got - so perfect for my dandelion-photo of Amalie :) Love the cute, scalloped circlepaper with its faux stitches, the cute animals I cut out from another of their paper and the journaling-diecut :) I cannot mention enough how much I adore the Wings-transparency (the butterflies). Swooon!

Other Hambly-products include On Edge rubons (orange!! YAY!!), Mod flowers-rubons, On Edge clear stickers (love this), and the Frame Wallpaper (brown) tucked underneath the MLS-diecut.

This is my usual point of view on hikes. Their backs ;p

Oh, spot the funky red edges here? It's made with the Ultimate Trimmer from Purple Cows. Totally love this trimmer and it's click-blades and built-in storage :D I loved my MM trimmer but when the edges got loose it was so hard to refasten it so I quickly grew tired of having to reposition the edges all the time and still having it not cutting straight. Then I bought the orange Fiskars-trimmer not long ago - and I do still love it -- it cuts sweetly as long as it's not broader than 5,5" -- the extension arm on mine isn't straight making all the cuts above 5.5" non-straight aswell. I have a lot of friends with this trimmer and while most of them lucked out a few also have the same problem as mine (I tried to let Fiskars know I got a defect one since there obviously are cutters w/straight arms out there but I have yet to get any feedback :( ). Soo you can imagine I was happy to receive a new trimmer and totally superhappy to learn that it cuts straight & smooth - just the way I like it :D And judging from the construction I don't think it'll go non-straight with me at all - yay :) And one of the cool things with it is that you'll always have various blades & room for scraps with you wherever you go w/this one. Loves! :)

Materials include: Hambly: Woodgrain paper (Teal blue ink on bronze- swooon!!!), Photography, Twigs and Dandelions, Vintage Banners, and Mod Flowers rubons (I filled in the negatives w/white pen :) ), letters from My Little Shoebox and ofcourse - the Ultimate Trimmer (blade #2809) :)



Couple cards..
Papers: Mod sheet & Woodgrain
Rubons: Mod Flowers, Stars, Chandeliers, Elegant Labels
Other: Glimmer Mist :)

And last: A keychain made from a sheet from the Mini Deco Album from Clear Scraps & some Hambly-rubons (Stars and Dingbats & Robots). I attached our phone# to it so the kiddo can look it up quickly when he's at friends (it's just to be used for the backpack).

Will share more dt-layouts later on - gotta spread'em out uh :p


Speaking of DT-stuff - I just got the news that I'm now a part of Nikki Sivils design-team (we're called "Willie-B's Leading Ladies" :p). It's a new manufacturer that will debut at CHA-Summer with 6 collections including several embellishments & accessorizes. I'm really excited about this and looking forward to get to know their products :) And I love spotting a few familiar names on the DT-list :)


Title: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"


5 lovely comments

~~I gotta get this right ~~

Posted by Ania On Monday, June 08, 2009 7 lovely comments

Pencil-Lines sketch #138
was guested by dutch Hilde Janbroers and we used a sketch by Anna :)
I didn't really find the time to do the sketch this week, but then I needed to whip up a quick hostess-favor for a BBQ yesterday so I decided to transform the sketch into a tag :)

Used Fancy Pants Designs - mostly Delight papers&stamps + a kraft kut.

As for the spice - rub a dub - it's a darn good BBQ-spicemix from Craig Whitson..I usually triple this recipe and store it in airtight glass-jars...totally yummy for BBQing and to spice up minced meat (makes yummy meatballs for your spaghetti :) ). Totally recommended :)
(and sorry...in Norwegian only :p)

  • 5 ss malt paprika
  • 2 ss salt
  • 2 ss brunt sukker
  • 2 ss chilipulver
  • 1 ss malt sort pepper
  • 1 ss malt hvit pepper
  • 1 ss tørket oregano
  • 1 ss hvitløkpulver
  • 1 ss løkpulver
  • 1 ts kajennepepper
(gir ca 2dl blanding)

Mm. Some photos from yesterdays BBQ - thank you so much for having us Marie & thank you gals&guys for the company!! (Vibeche, Gry and Ellen - you were missed!!)

BBQing is for..eh..men? (thank you :) )
Love the smoke here btw :)
Chillin'. Eli made us sun! (originally it was supposed to rain)

The two Amalies :)
Every time someone called "Amalie" both of them perked up saying "yes??" :)

Um. I have one word. Poor wabbit!! (ok, that was two)
The kids played "hunt the wabbit" like 80% of the time chasing it all over the garden. *cough* :p

I SEE HIM!!!
WHERE DA WABBIT BE!??
WE GOT'IM!!!


Rinse&repeat a zillion times ;pAmalie enjoying some dessert :)

Oh I just gotta add this one: Amalie drew herself as a "Hello, Kitty" :)
*look mommy I'm Hello Kitty!*


Title: "Fire to your Plain" -Tori Amos
(mmm her newest album is starting to grow on me)


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