Little Corner of Ania

This year, I’ve been an extra, extra good girl. Honest. I’ve been trying at least, and that’s what counts?

So please, here’s my wishlist – now promise you’ll take a good and long look at my very short list and uh, eh, do your best? That would rock my world!

• Lensbaby Composer with Tilt Transformer (this one allows you to attach Nikon lenses to it!)
• Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VRII (I know, I know. Expensiiiive. But oh, so needed. Especially when you have an FX body methinks)
• Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR II Micro  (I so so so need a macro-lens. I wanna do cool closeups too!)

(Sigh. It’s ok to hope, no? Personally I think the lensbaby should be within reach in not too long, but it’s the two other, esp the 70-200 that I so so so need the most….sigh) Just needed to get this outta my system. Again :p

I don’t think I’ve shared this picture before. It’s taken earlier this summer, out at Herdla. These kiters love to kite out there, and I found it amusing that the local cows were their spectators. :p The paper ran a few pages on these kiters based on my photos earlier this month.

I’m so sorry, this sketch totally slipped my mind :/ Crate Paper has this sketch-thingie going on every month, and this month I joined in. It’s closed and the winner’s chosen already, but uh, yeah. Join the next sketch? :p However, if you have a 70% Fall-inspired Crate-layout, don’t hesitate to send it in to Crate Paper for a chance to be spotlighted on the blog and win a full Crate-collection of your own choice :)

My bday-card is created w/paper and chipboard from School Spirit, letters and green paperflower (seen at the bottom corner here) from Fancy Pants Designs and the bday-tag is from Elle’s Studio.  Love this technique – add paint to the edges like this.

Last weekend a former colleague invited us ex co-workers over for an evening at her new home. Couldn’t leave home without a hostess-gift now, could I? :p So – rummaged through my Fancy Pants-stash and whipped up this.

Paper from the Frosted-collection, epoxy-brads from both new and old collections.

The gift was a pair of lovely magnets from Carambatack Design (Epla-store / Etsy-store). I also ordered a print from there, and can’t wait to get it framed in. So, I basically just took a sheet of matching paper & wrapped it around the gift to create this envelope.

   The notes-tag is from Elle’s Studio, the buttons, chipboard & papers from older FP-collection. The tape from Pink Paislee, and the orange circles are transparency from Hambly Screenprints.

Speaking of Fancy Pants – join their layout-challenge (just create a layout w/FP-stuff on it) and post it to their Facebook wall before October 1st for a chance to be one of five winners to win a prize package :) More info can be found here, and it’s open for both US and Internationals. Go, go! :)

Aquarell Said,

7:41 AM

Så herlig LO! Høye hæler er ikke praktiske, du har rett i det, men å, så flott man føler seg i dem! :) Ha en flott helg!

Jaaaaaa :) Denne helgen skal jeg til Stavanger, og jeg tror nok jeg går for kjedelige, trauste joggesko hele helga. *sukk*

Eli Said,

9:18 AM

Ja vi begynte vel å lure litt på deg - på tur på Herdla i høye hæler; ingen andre enn du som kan finne på noe sånt *fnis* - og trenger jeg å minne deg på turen rundt i Stavanger sentrum på brosteinen? :P Men ja; høye hæler er stilig og du "bærer" dem med verdighet og kler det absolutt. Jeg har vært for voksen og kjedelig lenge men det har vel mest med å gjøre at jeg ikke klarer å gå på sånne hæler og ikke det at jeg ikke syns det er flott ;):) Digger neglelakken!!!! Me borrow i Stavanger - yes?? :) :)
KLEM

*hosthark* Herdla + stillettos = kule bilder ;) Jadda. Iår skal jeg være kjedelig og fornuftig. Sådetså. Med mindre vi stikker innom spennende skobutikker i Stavanger…?? =) Klart jeg tar med (et lite utvalg) neglelakk =)

I truly adore this style, and I want to scrap in this style more but usually end up with boring old “lots-of-patterned-papers-together”. Nevertheless, it felt good when I was able to stick to this style for this layout, which was created for the Pink Paislee Thursday Trend post.

And yeah, the layout is about my (not really fading, but…maybe..different) love for high heels. I love high heels, I really do, and always done so – but let’s face it – it’s not really practical. Even I have to admit that (took me a few years, though!). Especially not when working as a photographer (and seriously, all these doctors and policewomen on TV running around in high heels at work? Really guys?). So, when contemplating whether I really do need new shoes or not, I more often than not think “sigh, love these but I can’t use these for work which means I can’t really justify the spending which means I really need to look for flat substitutes”. My theory is that I’m growing old more mature (or I just need more shopping-money :p)

Ahwell. Back to the scrappy specifics.

Look at that yummy splotch! And the lovely colors of these cushies (foam-alphas from Pink Paislee). Not to mention the awesome grid-tape! Oh yeah, really felt satisfied with this layout. I have no idea what this style is called (anyone??), but I think it’s the kind you can see with Debee Campos, Jennifer Johner, Tara Anderson, Kara Haupt and Amanda Johnson et al.

Pretty much used Pink Paislee only on this one, apart from the transparencies which’s Hambly Screenprints. Oh, and Tattered Angels when it comes to the misting :)

You can find more closeups + prod-info at Pink Paislee.

Brenda Hurd Said,

3:10 AM

great card and layout!! That cake looks sooooooo yummy. And i really really need that color of polish. My new fave has been a purply black - but doesn't even compare to that. Can you get it online. I NEED IT!!

The color pictured is First Class Ticket by China Glaze, got it off ebay bundled with a few other Vintage Vixen-polishes (their webby doesn’t show the real colors as far as I can see).

Right now I am sporting “I’m with Brad” by Opi Sephora (ignore my dry fingers please :p). It’s an amazing color, deep, brownburgundeybloodwineredish – very dark but I love the shine although I’ve seen some complain it’s too dark for their taste. Think elegant dark velvet vampire color :p (yeah yeah, again – this is a three-day-wear-photo :p)

Did you see the peek for the new Christmas-tags for Elle’s Studio? (um well ok, now you did :p)

Elle’s Studio is celebrating the new tags by giving away the whole Christmas-line to two lucky winners – just head on over here, comment and wait in anticipation! ;)

Have a lovely weekend – mine will be busy but fun :)

You knew it had to be scrapped, right? The layout w/these doors…

The papers, apart from the backgroundpaper for the photo, are all 3ndypapir. The backgroundpaper+the tags are Elle’s Studio. Letters from Prima, buttons from Fancy Pants and cherries from Kitschy Digitals.

Sweet layering :) The cherries are digistuff, which, in this case, I printed onto cheap glossy photopaper and cut out.

I love the date & place tags from Elle’s – so versatile! I keep using them everywhere.

These 3ndypapir-papers makes me happy – love love love the colors and patterns :)

This is a layout about Amalies most common saying these days - “Jada jada” in a tone that suggests she’s like, bored, like, saying “yeah yeah” just to get rid of you. But it’s just the way she says these words. I think :p Hrmf, cheeky *rolls eyes*. Papers from Fancy Pants Designs, tag and (the embossed) deer-stamps from Elle’s Studio, chipboard from Crate Paper and Making Memories, felt flower from Maya Road, bling from KaiserCraft. Love the cute heart on this deer :)

You can see more Elle’s Studio creations here as the Sept gallery is now live! :D

I have to say I often want to comment/reply to your comments, but am often unable to reply directly back to you (unless you have left back your emailaddy, or maybe not, I am not quite sure why/how). And it feels sort of silly to “bring you forth” on the blog to comment back public. Or, is it not? I think I’ll make a few attempts, at least if you have direct questions or similar, just to see if it indeed feels silly or not? Let me know what you think?

Zarah Said,

6:50 AM

Beautiful stuff - I especially adore the card!
(I'm a nailpolishoholic in peroids too! Tried Orly? They rock! You can get small bottles on ebay cheap and afford many! *grins*)

I have! Or well, only one bottle of Orly, and I wouldn’t call it small. I found it to be a bit too thin and thus difficult to apply nicely (but the color is lovely when done right), but I am thinking it might be because it’s a matte polish (Purple Velvet) and thus not a normal one sortof, so I can’t really judge on it I guess! (I have two Zoya matte polishes who applies on fabulously though, so it doesn’t mean all matte polishes are a pain to apply!)

Hilde Said,

4:39 PM

Hi! I just discovered your blog and I love it :)
Er N-Joy litt som Banksy? (Banksy er fra England. Jeg har vært i Bergen før- veldig penn! Og jeg gleder meg til min først norsk juleferie

Hi Hilde! :)

I have no idea who N-Joy is, and googling didn’t turn up too much info. But yeah, apparently (s)he’s a street artist like Banksky – (s)he’s done another piece of Bush and Obama someplace else in Bergen. Oh, og lykke til med din første norske juleferie! Håper det snør der du skal være :)

Title: “I’m just a girl” – No Doubt

Things gets confusing sometimes. Like this card, which I now see I’ve forgotten to share. A weddingcard. Wedding = Hambly. No doubt about that.

And I love the copper-paint partly applied to the edges here. This fleur-thingie is from Tattered Angels by the way, sprayed w/lots of gold & peach mist and embellished w/a primagem. Yeah, a sort of traditional wedding card – love that Hambly have these lovely designs perfect for such stuff.

Hm. Made this layout for Pencil-Lines, but no, I seriously don’t like the result. Too boring…too plain.. too bleh.. hrm…well. At least I got rid of a few scraps from my ever-flooding-table. That’s good for something, huh?

Despite the simplicity of this layout there’s a mix of Fancy Pants Designs, Sassafras, Hambly & MLS on it…

Feeling mellow..

made this cake yesterday (well, hubbys cousin baked the cake when she was here earlier this week, and I put it together & decorated it for her)..

It looked like a huge slab of chocolate, but tasted yummy..esp the frosting :)

I also made this little cake-topper from Elle’s Studio-tags, red cardstock and letters from Pink Paislee. Sorta more quick and easy than buying & adding 85 candles…. :)

See ya :)

Ps. Random.

Nailpolish has sort of been “my” kind of makeup – considering I rarely use any makeup at all (mostly because I can’t put on makeup to save my life…I need to learn some Asian makeup-tricks! If there are any..?? Lately I’ve tried to add some eyeliner w/various results..but I digress). Anyways. The interest was huge in college but has been up and down the last few years, but is now resparked (blaming Xstine for that). Here’s First Class Ticket from China Glaze’s Vintage Vixen collection (worn for three days at the time the picture was taken)…swoon! I’m crazy for Deborah Lippmann’s Bad Romance & Across the Universe, but she don’t ship Internationally, duh >< (and the ebay’ed stuff I’ve seen is so expensive when it comes to shipping :( )

Oh, and edited to add – it’s still 30 more minutes of today (19th): In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day – Top Ten Pickuplines for Pirates ;)

Lalala…see yas!

My nephew had his confirmation, and hubbys granddad celebrated his 85th bday. In other words, the weekend was filled with lots and lots of (way too) great food ;)

I had to work some – that is, creating cards and stuff for these celebrations – but am only able to share this one now though, as the two others are part of future tutorials. I have to say I love this paper from 3ndypapir – totally perfect for youths. It’s so colorful and funky, so it’s not really “necessary” to add a lot to it – just add a label (I used Kitschy Digitals’ Kawaii labels – this card was for mother-in-law who gave him a full fruitbasket) and you’re pretty much done. Letters from Fancy Pants Designs.

Here’s the inside – I made room for a giftcard plus a pad to write on. I sort of felt bad for the card being so simple (but really, it didn’t need much more methinks), so I sewed on the journalpad and punched funky edges w/my fiskars edgepuncher. And notice the cute button? It’s from Pink Paislee – had to use something to keep the giftcard in the card. The lined paper is from Crate Paper by the way.

Speaking of mother in law, she made a 60 metre long song for the celebration of the confirmed. It started on one end and ended on another – namely where Amalie sat. All the guests were to sing the part that came along the paper – while it was moving around. It was pretty amusing and actually worked out well :)And for the celebration of the granddad, he brought all of us to the VilVite-senteret, a very popular interactive science centre where people can experiment scientific stuff themselves for a day of knowledge activities and food at their restaurant by the end of the stay. And uh, here’s the restroom – I’m sorry but I just HAD to snap a picture or two inside there – look at the bright, funky doors! Amalie was thrilled and picked the pink one (ahwell :p).

Here’s me cycling this bike around the circle :p (it’s very funny until you’re stopped mid-air hanging upside down for a sec :p). They film you too, you know, your face while you’re biking – I opted to say “no thank you” to having the movie of myself downloadable on the web :p (to enter this centre we get our personal cards we’re able to swipe at the different attractions, to be able to access our own data later on the web)

And here’s the kids and their cousin experiencing various grades of windstrengths.

Wrapping this post with a layout I made for Crate Paper, using their School Spirit-papers and some Hambly Screenprint-rubons. I’ve noticed I like to try put down some thoughts and reflections on layouts lately..like, instead of using an art journal I guess. Whatever works for me, I guess.

To make the journaling+rubons more visible against the patterned paper I rubbed gesso on the area to sort of whitewash it. Worked out nice, didn’t?

Oh, almost forgot. A street art piece from the University-area. Do you find it peculiar? I’ve written down my thoughts about this one on my other (Norwegian) blog. The artist is N-Joy (thanks Eli, wasn’t entirely sure how it was signed – could just make out the word “joy” with something in front :p).

Created a card for the last Pencil-Lines sketch, guested by UKs Karen Aldrin :) 

I used mainly 3ndypapir-papers and little bits and pieces of Hambly, Elle’s Studio and Fancy Pants Designs.

The insides couldn’t be left boring, so I decorated them some too.

Last Sunday was my birthday. I turned another year older. We spent the day out at Hanevik, hubbys fam have a summerplace there and there was a sort of market/celebration that day – Hanevikdagen – so we dropped by to check it out. Most of the activities were taking place at the pier. The weather was beautiful.

Like I said. Beautiful weather. It has continued this week so far – but I am ofcourse spending most of my days indoors – either at the university, or, like today, at home (I’ve decided that Wednesdays will be the days spent at home, splitting my attention 50-50 to scrapbooking & school. Am spending pretty much rest of the week at the university though, where I now have gotten my own place&pc to work at, yay).   I think I like the first picture of this motif better, but I also like this one, where we can see more of the pier. Just wish I didn’t cut the large cloud on top like this, it sort of ruins the picture. Ahwell. I brought my 50mm this day by the way. Both are taken at f/5.6 and 1/2000 sec.

I had some friends over on Saturday, but for some freakin’ reason I didn’t break out my camera once. D U H, what is wrong with me? Probably the nervousness from practicing stuff :p Am waiting for pictures from the evening – spent it going through two of the classes I’m going to have at PACS and learned valuable things, like, paint dries  s l o w l y  so I really oughta put that part in the beginning of the classes, and stuff like that. Plus, I practiced my spoken English, yay! :) Thanks a lot for the company and help, ladies!! :)

I’ll wrap this post with this picture of the gorgeous flowers I got from Ellen.
Love the flowers, and I actually broke out my D70s and 18-200 lens, detaching the lens. I wanted to turn it around and snap a photo via the “other” end but it didn’t work out like I thought it would, being waaayyy blurry and closeupish, so I just loosely attached the lens the right way (but not attached :p) and snapped this photo. Got a sorta dreamy, 70ishy look – me like :) Need to experiment more :)

Title: “Piece of my heart” – Janis Joplin

I dunno. I’ll admit it, I like this layout. Despite the ambivalent feelings I’ve put in this.
It has, however, after two days, not garnered any comments on the Pink Paislee blog so far. I guess it’s too controversial (how come?), and/or people dunno what to say (most likely). Or it’s really an ugly layout and I don’t see it because of the feelings invested in it.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I scrapped it. I like the mix between the lovely and the not so lovely (like, the heart and the spidey-button. I HATE and am terrified by spiders).

And to play with bling.
This layout consists of a mix of all the new collections by the way, Parisian Anthology, Hocus Pocus and Sweetness.

And I love the new shape of the flip notes.And I’ll say it again. It’s funny how words can change personal connotations, turn into meaning something completely opposite for one self. And I think it’s weird that if I see or hear that word, I get ever so slightly physically sick. Still. So thank you so much for doing that to me.

(yes yes the latter was tongue in chic if you didn’t get it :p)

Nevertheless.

In other scrappy news:

• 3ndypapir is debuting their new Christmas-collection this weekend, at the StempelScrap-convention in Oslo (mkay, Lillestrøm, not Oslo, but eh, closeish :p). If you're dropping by their booth, say hi and have a closer look at the stuff :)
  Oh and if you drop by the 3ndypapir-blog, be sure to check out Ingvild Bolmes marvelous creations as she guested 3ndypapir this fall :)
  

• Fancy Pants Designs are looking for new designers - here's their Creative Team Call! It's been a true delight to design for them the past years (hm, I think it's been two and half years? Or maybe just two..), and a scrappy dream come true to me. Do apply if you're lovin' their designs - you won't regret :)
  

Have a nice weekend – I know I will, with good friends to practice my English with for the upcoming PACS-classes ;)

Title: “You Oughta Know” – Alanis Morissette.