Little Corner of Ania

Love the things external flash can do, wish I knew more about this stuff. So instead of wishing for better equipment as I usually do I decided I probably needed to get to know what I have. So pulled the sb-600 away from the TTL & just messed around w/manual power stuff. Shrug. I don’t know this stuff, I just mess around until I find something which looks somewhat okay-ish. Even though I’m sure people who knows this stuff will just say it looks so flash-y…but whatevs..

Being used to not using flash at.all. I welcome this change in style. So there.

Had a family dinner last night and figured I wanted a group photo of the younglings…forced’em all out in the dusk and did my best to get all seven to cooperate…

Needless to say..it was NOT easy…the kids were racing roaming the street while waiting for everybody to come outside, and when I finally got’em gathered they just yearned to go back to racing roaming…

Then I worried about getting everybody somewhat in focus…and too small aperture vs available light and too high ISO and spreading the flash evenly out and have it blend in somewhat and stuff..but I think…..guess it turned out fine-ish.

Still couldn’t get everybody to like, pose at the same time…but I guess that’s part of the charm w/these photos…

I mean..their attention-span is random, goldfish-ish and so not coordinated…

But again..it’s ok….cause…at least I got them all within the same frame and stuff…guess that’s the important part..

She loves to chase him. Every.time.they.meet. She truly adores babies, but have a special eye for him. And there’s no doubt he feels safe around her.

*love love* this sheet of ILS paper. That graphic? The color combo? Total loves. Shame I only have one sheet of it, but I knew these pictures totally deserved this kind of paper. Added droplets of liquid pearls, random buttons from my Fancy Pants Designs jar of buttons, glitter stickers from Pink Paislee, washi tape and strips of papers from SODAlicous.

This clic-stamp from Craft Origine is an absolute fave. It’s colored with two different Faber Castell PITT pen (walnut brown and warm grey), but they seem the same color…hmm..weird…maybe the last ink I used (which was black) wasn’t entirely washed away by the time I used the pen+stamp? Hmm. Need to experiment further!

I joined the Faber Castell challenge on TwoPeas w/this layout by the way. Have no illusions of winning – I mean – they’re looking for unique, artsty ways to use the different coloring products (you have to use at least three different FC prods, one of which has to be the gelato). And with artsy I mean AJ-ish style which’s so popular among scrapbookers these day. Nevertheless. Fun to be challenged to use products I normally do not use! I mixed regular art grip coloring pen w/yellow gelato for this resin bird (by Prima).

And colored red/orange/yellow gelato pen on this sheet of SODAlicous-paper and punched out all these butterflies. And look! Hambly Screenprints transparencies!

For good measure I added some childish doodles on the sheet haha. Anna-Maria is good at this, I need to learn her secret on how to do these effortless yet stylish & cool doodles on layouts!

Right. Had an exhausting week w/lots of brainmush (you know..when you feel your brain’s turning to mush? yeah..no comments, please :p). Looking forward to relax (??) this weekend…maybe even pick up some energy to scrap! :p

Browsing through my blogfeed I realized I totally forgot to share this card. It’s a goodbye/good luck card for a colleague of mine who just quit/got a new job.

I didn’t quite know what phrase to put on the front, so I just sort of stuffed it full of various lovely flowers and what I could find that I thought fit the colortheme of the Prima PPP.

 

 

See? Hard not to join this challenge w/that lovely color palette!

It’s a tri fold card, or whatever you wanna call this kind of card…

With two bookmarks inside (as she’s a lover of books). Papers from Crate Paper and Sassafras, along with a split tag from Pink Paislee. One can never have too many bookmarks (says the person having two or three half read books placed around the house…an improvement as I just finished two books…but started on a new one haha..)

Oh, and you know the heart wires that Prima has? Never managed to use it to anything sensible, so I cut these white flower stems from it to use here…and on the next project of mine I actually managed to use the leftover heart shape. Hah.

I suppose I’ll share it in a month or two (uhm,,..or in two and a half weeks, as I just noticed on the calendar…eeks…time flies!) as it’s a future gift wrapping….(but it was made for the same challenge, so a picture of it can be seen on that result page for the august bap/ppp blogpost of Prima ;p)

 

Ps. Feels like yesterday last time it was this day – but actually, today’s the Talk Like A Pirate Day! arr! :D

I like boxes. Especially the ones perfumes comes in. Such pretty cardstock & usually lovely colors! Besides. They’re often a nice size to turn into little giftsets w/set of cards inside. Although I’ll admit…I just decorated the box here, but do plan to add at least three cards inside!

The papers and non-flowery decorations are all from Pink Paislee – mostly the good old sweetness collection. I’ll be honest – when I first saw that collection I was like, mm sure, pretty, but not my style..I probably won’t use it much. Well. It’s one of the most used collections along with another one I also didn’t think I would use much…..

The flowers are a mix of Kort&Godt and Prima. And I added crackle paint to the artisan elements because I first painted it with some mist then decided I didn’t like the look. And figured I’d do crackle paint + slight dabs of distress ink. But when the crackle paint….uh…crackled…the color of the mist shone through. Haha. Cute, I like happy accidents! Also painted the flowers with iridescent gold glimmer mist…see the subtle sheens of gold on the petals?

Back of the box. Or front. Whatever. Wooden snowflake from Maya Road, wooden button from Prima. I never really knew what to do this big die cut shaped sheet of patterned paper…but the effect it gives here is pretty nice. Oh, and if you’re curious about the perfume..it was SheWood by Dsquared^2. Love that perfume, have emptied two bottles by now and am using another one because I could not find it in the tax free shops last 4-5 times I went..tried 3 diff countries too :((pretty much the only time I buy perfumes haha).

Wrapping it up with the top of the box. I love dimensional flowers, but usually have a hard time using them on layouts and cards…but on altered projects like this they’re awesome. Almost a must.

:)

Am joining the So Cute Surprise 8 on That’s just so cute with this box. The challenge is to use mist or paint on your project, and well, I did both :)
Have a lovely weekend y’all! It’s rainy and stuff (BIG surprise…heh), but I have a few tings planned over the weekend still…at least tonight – we’ll see how I’m feeling this weekend after tonight! :)

Sooo.
Thanks much for the lovely comments on my photos from the confirmation! I’m still in awe myself at how grown up my little babyniece has become…and at her mature actions, mixed up with sweet glimpses of childhood innocence…ahh..
Right.
I promised scrappy stuff.

This was our gift for my niece.
And may I just say? *love* *love* the papers from I {lowe} scrap! (yes, ILS spell it w/w)

I took an empty Maya Road box, made a card that fit inside plus a “belt” so I could decorate the front properly as well…. the decoration was quite simple: A dressed up chipboard filefolder from the road signs box from Maya Road, and various scraps that was either on or close to my desk ;p Even got to use an old, glittery plate from Making Memories, the ubercool vinyl thicker (which had to be glued on – its own glue was long time gone)…a canvas butterfly (MR) which I tested some stamping on then decided against using on my project way back…well..got to use it here…and love the pins + the vintage pearly gem :)

I *love* the jewellery we gave her, made by Sara Christine Warholm. The inscription reads “gjør det umulige mulig”….”make the impossible possible”. Added a little matchbook-album w/photos of her (one each year…well..almost..those I could find on the pc…blush) & room for money on each sides of the box.


It started w/1998, and I think I had a photo for each year following 2000.

And finally..the card…
A very simple once, since the paper’s pretty graphic. Just…patterned paper, a doily + the chipboard portrait (sprayed w/sunflower yellow & covered w/iridescent glitter + glossy accent on top…oh, and the banner chipboard…both chipboards from Maya Road..

Right! Working on more scrappy stuff…going ever so slowly, adding little bits here and there…now that the # of design teams I’m on is down to two, I don’t have that many deadlines to reach…which’s pretty boring whenever I wanna scrap more (I’m used to scrap following deadlines or challenges, I need either one to actually scrap :p). Although I’ll admit it’s nice too when work’s keeping me so busy I’m exhausted and just hits bed early in the evenings...which admittedly happens more often than not! :p

So! Happy to be taking my sweet nieces photos! We stole half an hour between the church and the dinner (bit short time, and since church took longer than expected we were slightly stressed) to sneak away to a nearby location to get some photos done.

She’s wearing my late grandmothers bunad from Hedmark – a folk dress my sister herself wore to her own confirmation (I inherited and wore my mothers bunad from Østfold).

Gorgeous, isn’t she?

And so cute along with her boyfriend..

I forgot to bring the reflector along, which was especially notably in the regular photos from this spot. Sigh. Still, with some fiddling in photoshop the photos came out alright. Note to self. Fiddling in photoshop is boring. Remember the reflector! Or get a better flash….

Haa. Bonderomantikk! ;)

I did however not forget to bring my Edge 80 along, and found time to play a bit. Love the dreamy photos they produce, and they seem to perform awesome in bright day/sunlight, although I do see that I need way more practice w/these..esp when it comes to figuring the various tilt angles out….(and maybe I probably need to get my eyes checked again soon).

I have a hard time finding a favorite I like…

I do love the 70-200 for portraits, though.

She’s so grown..

Here’s my sister dearest…she borrowed a bunad from her mother in law.

Love these girls! And so happy to get to shoot my niece on her big day :)

Right!

Done w/the photos – back to regular scrapbooking shortly! :)

I liked this church. Small-ish, but well preserved and painted in gorgeous, rich, warm and well, to me, farmer-ish colors (not unlike its neighbourhood church, pictured here).

My sister, the proud mama. I like this photo because of the triangle of different angles of my sister, my father and my daughter. Haha.

I did everybody’s hair. First my sister, then my niece, then my daughter. Sure. I’m not good at doing crisp lines. Still. Fun =)

My step-father snapped this one of me doing my sisters hair earlier that day…

And this one of her hair. I forgot to snap a decent photo of it myself…*snap*

My nephew didn’t quite agree with me snapping photos of him…

:)

I’ll share the photos from the photosession shortly. Just wanted to share this one of my step-father sneaking in a photo… since he did this one of me…


Did I mention I loved my sister’s speech? Personal, fun and lovely…

I think my niece loved it too…

And found it amusing….

…and downright embarrassing (just like a speech’s supposed to be *grin*)

*love*

We tried to do some photosessions in the backyard, but this little man didn’t wanna cooperate :/

My niece makes me so, so proud. She surprised us (well, at least me) with insisting on having her own little speech as well, thanking everybody for coming, for the gifts and for the labour behind this celebration. *so proud of her*

…and at first she didn’t wanna do her speech, because she coudln’t find her notes….then she found them, and was a bit anxious to start with…

..before growing more comfortable. Comfortable enough to do her speech. *proud!*

Just had to add this one…I just wanted to snap a photo of my dad, when this little troll almost jumped me…

And this is my mom, my uncle and my dad…:)

And here’s my crazy kids….

…and me…..my step-father apparently snapped this one of me while I snapped the above photo..haha…!

No doubt these kid’s crazy…

My poor, poor niece…sandwiched in between them crazy kids…

Turns out she’s a tad crazy herself, though =)

*aww* Love this bunch!

Silly..

Which often turns into crying…

..just one more..

Wrapping this one w/my grandma…loves :)
Right. Just gonna share my photosession-photos, before resuming sharing scrapbookrelated-stuff. Am itching to start scrapbook again after like a week with no scrapbooking…..just gonna watch some dinosaurs in a spaceship first!!
*wink*