Little Corner of Ania

Now, I don't know how you do kids birthdays. That is, birthdays of the kids schoolmates and stuff? Around my part of Norway, the parents at the school/class normally try to agree upon a maximum amount when it comes to the value of the kids presents. And as long as the kids are young, they love presents that's stuff. You know, playthings and stuff. But then - to me it seems like there’s a change in preferences when the kids are around nine-ten (or maybe their parents gets more lazier? cough). Anyways,….the kids starts giving each other money instead, or even gift cards.
Although I personally think it's more fun to give toys or similar, I'll also admit that money or gift cards aren't that bad an idea. Especially when my own kids tend to fail to notify us parents in advance that they got a birthday invitation, and three out of four times, only notifies us the same day, giving us mayhaps one or two hours advance before the party starts. Kids!
Wow. That was a long winded explaination! Sorry! Let's move on to todays project – which’s a project for a Maya Road and Epiphanie blog thingie!

It's a box (duh).

And inside: Room for a short note (my kids usually don't write much - so the kraft journaling tags from Maya Road are the perfect little size for them :p) and room for money.

The box is an old card game box, one that's old and not used any more. But instead of throwing the box away when the game could not be used any more, I figured I'd alter it so it could become a stashed away birthday gift for the occasions of "uhm-say-you-have-had-the-invitation-in-your-bag-all-week-but-decide-to-let-us-know-one-hour-before-the-party-starts" examples :p It's much more fun to arrive with money inside a fun, decorated box instead of money in a plain evnelope, imho (although that has happened too :p). Nevertheless, I covered it w/gesso then wiped around the edges with smoke grey chalk ink.

The tag/moneyholder is quite easy to create - just cut a strip that's as wide as the box, but longer - then make folds&creases so it'll fit. I've used a circle punch to punch the folds then slit more room for the journaling tag and the money with a craft knife.

Cover the box with paper, and decorate the lid. I find the scallop frames chipboard set perfect for this purpose - the shapes are fun and the size is perfect for numbers (I used jonathan mini chipboard numbers here). The fun thing with the Epiphany Crafts epoxy tools is that you can create your very own epoxy shapes, giving "old" paper new uses and looks. Love this star one!
Plus, the scraps are fun to use too - it acts just like a regular paper punch!

Hope you liked this project! An inexpensive way to make "boring" gifts more fun and seem more thoughtful too *smile*
If you read this in time, there’s a giveaway going on the MR blog! Make sure to go read the details on his post.
Maya Road supplies:
Maya Mist - dark cornflower mist
Jonathan Mini Chipboard numbers
Twine cording - clementine orange
Scallop frames chipboard set
Kraft journaling tags
enjoy!

Remember the old baby collections Oh, Baby! Boy and Oh, Baby! Girl by Basic Grey?

Hands down the best baby collection out there ever, methinks..these papers has been with me through numerous attempts on destashing my paper collections…. (how old are these papers really? From 2006?)

Nevertheless. Was asked to create a baby card for a colleague, and well, last time I went through my papers to destash stuff I came across these and thought; mkay fine, once again –  I’ll keep these – but next time I’m supposed to create something that has with babies to do – I’m totally digging into these papers! No mercy!

So…I totally did!

Added small accents from Prima, Hambly Screenprints and Maya Road (love the vintage wood rabbits!).

Based the card upon this sketch found on the Basic Grey blog.

Even managed to sneak in these fun & cute elements on the inside of the card.

And remembered to actually use one of my many “handmade” stamps on the back of the card (yay me..I’m so bad at remembering to add these…this one’s from Craft Origine).

Hope the people getting this card will like it…!

No, not me. But a colleague of mine. I’ve actually scrapped her a gift&card once before, but now that the vacation is over & everybody’s back at work I was asked to create her a card from all her colleagues.

I was more than happy to oblige…been eyeing this Prima BAP sketch for August, and thought it would make a wonderful starting point for the card (besides…it gave me an excuse to jump on the sunburst-wagon…love the look :D)

 

Here’s the sketch by the way…and it’s still time to join the challenge :)

 

Using a sheet from the Almanac collection as my base, I pulled different Prima-scraps from my stash for the “rays”. To pull a “wholesome” look I dabbed the scraps with distress stain (picket fence) – I totally, totally love distress stain – adds a milky white, sheer (and matte) look to the paper – great to subdue vivid colors with…and add a more romantic look to papers like these.. oh, and I love the canvas butterflies!! Colored it with Glimmer Mist in snow angel (and vintage rose just in the middle – yielding a sort of ombre look…to add to the ombre look I also dabbed distress stain on the tip of the wings, to make them more whiteish after the coloring)

I just love these vintage trinkets from Prima! *sigh* it hurts every time I use one of these….but as I am telling myself….stop.this.hoarding!

Mixing various flowers…

..and adding little details like this extra folder inside, decorating it with a chipboard-word.

 

Yasmin Said,

11:28 AM

Ååhhh.. så nydelige baby bilder du har tatt.. Det er noe magisk med bebisser det er helt sikkert.. Jeg digger måten du skriver i bloggen din.. Du snakker rett fra hjerterota. Det er herlig å lese! :)

 

Ja, og tusen takk! :) Synes nå ærlig talt engelsken min er blitt verre (og at jeg var mye, mye bedre i engelsk da jeg var 20), men jeg fortsetter å knote på det språket lell…

 

rosemary Said,

6:55 AM

Love this LO, its so classic you! Btw, which camera did you bring on vacation with you? Your shots are incredible :)

Thank you so much! I brought my Nikon D700 with battery grip & my go-to-lens 24-70 f/2.8 fitted to it.

Last vacation I decided to skip it, and just rely on my Fuji x100 and iPhone, which was a great freedom (not having to lug that big&heavy camera) but still…I haven’t really practised much w/the x100 so I wasn’t entirely happy w/the results (loved the iPhone pictures mostly taken w/the Hipstamatic app tho). So to sum it up….well…I thought that maybe when I grow old I’ll wish I had better pictures from the vacations taken and stuff… so..

Having the D700 along was great, I really got to take the pictures I wanted to take. Having the hubby help carry the bag every now and then helped as well (he was surprised at how heavy it was…and yet, I carried it 80% of the time :p).

 

Psst. Am totally hooked to The Newsroom atm! :D how ‘bout you…any great shows out there worth checking out? :)

So. So. Adorable.

We visited little baby E & his parents in Montpellier, France, and couldn’t resist snapping a few impromptu photos of him only…sigh…it’s a baby! Need I any other reason?? (I shot his parents wedding back in 2009 by the way, as seen here and here..one of my first three or four weddings, was still learning back then..am still learning ofc, but… think I’ve improved slightly since then..so there’s hope for me you know..in a few years time? :p)

Nevertheless. Look! Baby!

We were sitting underneath a red shade, which created an ugly, red cast to most of the photos..he looks way handsome in b&w don’t he? Hm. I think this photo needs to be cropped a lil by the way.

Cute in color too :p

And look, he’s yawning…all together now: Awww!

There’s something weird with babyeyes by the way…so glassy…and oftentimes sort of unfocused, like …misty…inside? Or is it just me/the babies I’ve met..??

I don’t think I’ve been so thrilled about paper in a good while the same way as I have felt about the papers from I lowe scrap. I know. Chevron is everywhere. Still. Love the way they did this chevron paper! And they have so many amazing papers..I think their Xmas-collection is one of the coolest ones out there…  (and I am loving the b side here too…so so special….I so hate this about two sided patterned papers – when both are equally amazing..sigh…!)

 

I used sketch #171 from Skissedilla for this layout:

And used three different stamps from Craft Origine on this one (note to self: stamp first, add paint after…not the other way around). The one above is the stamp clic. Also, added a strip of notepapers from SODAlicious – another Polish manufacturer I really admire (I purchased SODAlicious paper + the ILS papers at their webshop).

Pulled the Hambly Screenprints transparency for this one….*love*

As well as finally got to use this Pink Paislee doodad…truly loved these….and truly did not want to use these at all, just save save save….but that’s like..hoarding…and I’m trying to quit that!! (haha right). Letters from Websters Pages. And if you look closer underneath the orange letters on the transparency….you can see the Dentelle 5 stamp embossed in white.

The dark splatters are Earl Grey Maya Mist from Maya Road, white drops are white enamel accents from Rangers (I wish the liquid pearl would create such gorgeous, perfect drops like the enamel do every.single.time.)… Gem from KaiserCraft (I consider this red colored gem a must have for any stash). The paint threads are distress crackle paint…I tried mixing some of the acrylic paint I have here with mist to create paint that would do such “thread” paint prettily like the crackle paint, to no avail…sigh…must buy more crackle paint I suppose, unless you know of the perfect paint that’ll allow for easy “threading” or whatever you call this??? All mine are too thick :/ ANyways… wooden star from Prima Marketing, brad from Crate Paper and I adore this geometrical stamp from Craft Origine – one of my faves – Dentelle 6.

See the numbers on top? I’ve had this little, cheap stamproller from Glitz for like, forever…can’t believe I haven’t opened & used it until now..it’s so, so cool! And if you look at the papers, the chevron one is resting upon a sheet of turquiose-green paper from Crate Paper. Right. Wooden button from American Crafts, lovely glazed brad from – I’m almost positive – Basic Grey.

And the layout? Well..the kiddo has his way of sitting when doing homework…or watching tv,..or anything that involves sitting actually. Silly kid.

So, wanted to cheer up a friend of mine, so I made her some homemade treats. And you know how the story goes. Homemade treat = homemade wrapping as well.

 

I was inspired by the Crate August Color Challenge…look, so pretty!

So I used a mix of the old Crate Paper collections for this one, notably Brook and Emmas Shoppe. I swear. The Brook collection is such an “oldie but goldie” collection! Added bits and pieces of Maya Road embellishments to the mix as well.

The seam binding was colored with granny smith apple green maya mist. Love coloring the trims myself :)

Last installation!

In Montpellier we stayed at a cool part of the city – Antigone. We stayed at a Suite Novotel hotel, which was pretty nice (all the Novotel hotels I’ve stayed at has been nice ones..esp the breakfast…this one had an awesome breakfast, but darn, an expensive one too, so we only had hotel breakfast one day). The kids were delighted to stay at a “real” hotel, as our previous ones had been more of apartments/small hotel.

Nevertheless. This little dude played a large part in why we chose to end our trip w/Montpellier. And his mama, ofc. And as always – Amalie around a baby is a happy Amalie (I’ll share his photos in a separate post. BABYPHOTOS!!).

We visited & got treated w/BBQ, and the kids took a great interest in this table tennis (and the hammoc)…

..although I’m not sure if the game is supposed to be played with your eyes closed…

…at least she looks good without the ball :p

We paid a visit to a nearby lake, but when we returned the kids weren’t done swimming…so they got to play in the pool while waiting for the BBQ to be ready…

We got to try bubble tea for the first time ever…not too shabby.

And this little missus loved to dress up like a real lady :p

And this one loved me photographing him ;) (really, it’s just one of the faces he puts up..he loved it :))

My sweetiepie..:)

Every Friday there’s a market/wine festival in the main streets (well..place de comedie I think?) of Montpellier….buy three wine tickets, get a glass & then wander off & about and taste samples from wherever you wanna…cool concept. There’s more than wine though – there’s nougat stands, handmade stuff, food samplings and lots and lots of life…

On our way home from the Friday market..I think it’s cool to see the same style on the buildings throughout Antigone..

On Saturday we went to the big market in Sommeliers.

I wish we had food markets like that here in Norway. Sigh.

Lots and lots of food, and ofc various market stuff mixed in, like these colorful scarves…

And lots of cheese! *sigh*

And churros. Yum.

And tapas…tapenades (my new food love) and olives..and…yummy food… the best thing? You can buy whatever you like from the market, sit down at a nearby cafe table and eat the food you’ve purchased at the market…as long as you (preferrably anyways) buy drinks at the cafe, it’s perfectly fine to have picnic w/the food you just purchased. Lovesit.

Ofc we met up w/this dude and his mama and papa for the picnic in Sommeliers :)

Then we drove straight ahead to..uh, I must admit I don’t know where this is, apart that it’s the closest spot we were able to catch the Tour de France caravan in time from Sommeliers. Fun experience! (And dangerous…they throw stuff at ya from high speed…haha..)

Then we watched the fireworks in the evening along with everybody else in Montpellier (it felt like)…by the end of the river, huge place…can’t recall the name atm…something with Marianne maybe…nevertheless.. fun experience for the kids, being the National Day of France and all. (But the celebration sure is different from Norway)

Had to return to Sommeliers for the medieval thingie there…lots of hunting birds..bowshooting...history…

And this hm…shaman? Witch? Which the kids insisted on visiting, to hear their fortune tale and get a custom made lucky charm. Intriguing. The items the kids chose and her tales to the items sort of fit the kids personalities, amusing. Although I guess you could read a lot of their personalities within 5 minutes of watching them together anyways :)

And that’s it.

Hope you enjoyed skimmin thru the pictures =)

Be back with scrappy stuff..and babyphotos =)