Little Corner of Ania

Ugh. I haven't updated my blog in like four days and that's like, too long :p
But before I keep you updated on wassup (like that's anything interesting...Im doing what most people are doing these days, preparing for Christmas w/the occasional crop thrown in ;p) I wanted to share this Hambly-layout of me and Kine...made this one a while ago but didn't get around to share it. And because it's her birthday today (HAPPYHAPPYBIRTHDAY!) it made me think of this and like, "oh right, I have to share this" :) I have to admit....I've been looking at Kara Haupt & CandiMandis works lately and thinking.....I totally love their styles..... and personaly I love to alternate styles (or well, at least I like to think so ;P) and I think I'm gonna revisit this cool minimalistlaidback style more often. Paper, transparencies, kraftborder-stickers and rubons from Hambly Screenprints, alpha and button (LOVELOVELOVE..sniff..this was my last one...sniff) from American Crafts and flowers from Prima.

Speaking of scrapbooking -- you gotta check out Graphic 45's blog - they have been featuring Bad Girls this weekend and the creations with their papers are amazing!! :D


I love making these little gingerbread-lights. It's kinda a tradition to me.....one which I love to share with the children.... anyways. For the first time in several years however, I made the "walls" too thin...*grumble* And I didn't make backup-walls either, so ohwell - I had to repair the walls on my own.....:p Hm. It has it's charm uh? (just say yes) ;p

En av "mine" juletradisjoner er å lage pepperkakelykter. Vet ikke hvorfor, men jeg begynte med denne etter at jeg flytta til Bergen for mange år siden. Synes disse er så koselige å bake, pynte og bruke! Og ungene synes det samme og (men jeg begynte med dette lenge før de kom altså) :) Uansett...iår lagde jeg disse litt for tynne og to av veggene knakk....grr...og selvfølgelig hadde jeg ikke lagd backupvegger (pleier ikke å lage de for tynne altså), så jaja - litt reparasjon måtte til :)


And while I was taking photos of the lights Amalie insisted on me taking photos of her and her pressie in the calendar that day (thanks mom!)..
I love how my mother puts time (and money!) into these calendars for the children..every year she sends us 24x2 little presents in little Calendarbags, ready to use - all we have to do is to find the corresponding number on our sewn wall-calendar and put them up. And she does this for all her four grandchildren. Lovesit. Thank you!

Amalie insisterte på at jeg skulle ta bilder av henne også da jeg tok bilder av lysene - hun ville vise frem dagens lukegave. Mamma er utrolig snill - hvert år pakker hun sammen 4 forskjellige sett med 24 kalendergaver til alle barnebarna sine med masse småting hun har samlet i løpet av høsten. Tusen takk mamma, både vi og ungene elsker denne tradisjonen!

Amalie kjevler kakemann-deigen..


Adrian pynter pepperkakelyktene..


Og joda, noen må stå på stolen for å kjevle pepperkakedeigen..


Igår hadde jeg forøvrig en kjempekoselig gjeng på besøk :)
Vi scrappet (vel - de fleste av oss...noen strikket eller organiserte scrappesaker dagen lang ;o), skravlet (så mye at enkelte måtte roe seg ned ;p) og spiste god mat (Fatimas tomatsuppe og nybakte rundstykker) og masse cookies og snop :) Og gløgg :D Dere som ikke kunne komme - dere var savnet, men desto mer mat og plass på oss :D

Ut på kvelden kom veslefrøkna hjem igjen og insisterte på å være med og klippe ;p (barn og mann ble kasta ut av huset mestparten av dagen ;p)

Her kommer forøvrig oppskriften på den hjemmelagde tomatsuppen til Fatima...den er skikkelig nydelig, blir ganske kremete og tykk og er kjempeenkel å lage - bare bland alt sammen og la gryta putre :)

Suppe

2 løk som hakkes smått (stekes blank i litt olje før resten has i)
2 fedd hvitløk
2 bokser tomater
2 ss tomatpurre
2 ts sukker
3-5 dl kraft gjerne kylling ( jeg bruker kylling fond) men kylling buljong kan også brukes
frisk basilikum etter eget ønske( sett frem potta)
1 ss tørket estragon
salt
grovmalt pepper
3 dl fløte( ikke mat fløte)

Det hele kokes lenge. Jeg bruker også stavmikseren for å ikke få så mye tomat klumper. Finner du det som heter moste/passerade tomater bytter du den ene boksen ut med det. Da får du en jevnere suppe.

Det med stavmikseren er viktig synes jeg, for suppa virker veldig tynn helt til du bruker mikseren oppi (brukte 5dl kraft) - da blir den mye mer fyldigere og yumyum med en gang :) Lagde forøvrig dobbel porsjon igår og det holdt til flere omganger og til varm frokost idag =) Smaker enda bedre oppvarma :)

Som garintyr er finrevet ost og en klatt rømme til godt, og hardkokte egg i båter funker supert og. Rundstykkene har jeg ikke oppskrift på for de bare blander jeg sammen på måfå :p

Or well, just one (or two) actually. Christmas-specific stuff that is.
Altering chocolate boxes is a big trend in Norway these days, much thanks to these delicious (and fairly reasonable priced) chocolate hearts. I suck at the shabby/vintage-thing most do with these boxes (but I LOVELOVELOVE the look! *sigh*), so uh, I just do my own thing instead :p The trees are handcut & mounted on 3dfoam. Kinda looks like cards uh? :p Used Fancy Pants "Happy Holidays" papers, rubons & buttons.
Thanks to Piale for the idea of decorating the "inside" too!! :D

I Loveloveloevlove "About a boy" from Fancy Pants --- such a COOL & FUNKY boy-line!!! *sigh* Am soon out of papers from this line *cry*
This handsome lil boy is my brother in laws cute&adorable steph-son, who just turned five :)

Marit Larsen concert. Nuff said.
Mixed "Arctic Chill", "About a boy", "Celebrate" and "Splendid" here. :P


Thanks for the comments and comforts about the shelf. It's still not fixed, but hopefully sometime tonight or tomorrow....now..off to watch Amalie in the tub (& get started on Anansi Boys) then either bake gingerbread cookies or fix more Christmas-stuff...hmm.

If you ever get the (rare rare) urge to actually attempt to clean/reorganize your scrapping-stuff. D O N ' T.

This is what happened to me last night, I got the urge & thought I was SO SO SO SO freakin good cleaning the mess on my shelves & reorganizing it, placing more papers & almost my whole glimmer-mist-collection on it.

B a d . I d e a .

The shelves coudln't take the extra weight and waddayaknow, pretty much all my stuff ended up on the floor *grumble*

So yeah. Don't clean up if you're not the kind who usually do so. It's not worth it.

...how sleepy the little one looks at around midnight?

Yeah. She's this sleepy. She even insists on posing.
And is fascinated of photos with herself in them (or me when I was little, insisting it's her. Or other asian kids too, insisting they're her (like when I browse Yuko, Sasha, Sri or Iris' blogs...and she'll sneak up on me shrieking "Amalie!!" pointing on the screen). Hm well, asians really do look all the same uh? ;p *cough*) Anyways. Here's "Amalie and Bambi" as she puts it.

For the November-issue of "Vi Scrapper" I wrote an article with different suggestions for Advent-calendars. And along with the article I created a number of examples....using mostly products from Basic Grey, 3ndypapir and Scrappers Choice.

Thought I'd share the images here....

Above: jars with little chores and suggestions for activities.
Below: boxes - both self-made and altered ones from IKEA (love the Scrappers Choice stamp - I embossed it- turned so crispy and nice)


Tracies matchbox-calendar, I think most Norwegians are familiar with this one by now ;)

Little Advent-gifts in decorated brown bags. My childrens calendar are of this style.


Plain paper-calendar. Love this pretty paper from 3dnypapir!

A premade Christmas-minialbum. Pretty plain and classiclookin and hm, a bit boring compared to the cool Ali-style-minis that's popular for advent-journaling :)


(and yes, making these back in September kinda made me fed up w/Christmas for a while ;P)

Oy!
Sandie Vincent guested this weeks Pencillines, and I decided to do some tags from the sketch...Christmas-tags. I think the image is a bit messy, and tbh, if you've seen one you've seen them all...but ohwell-...:p Some of these tags go attached to Cookie-bags (lazy me), others will prob be "to/from" tags for the Christmas-pressies. Lots of leftovers and little bits and pieces on these, and ofcourse - Glimmer Mist!!

And I got to try out these ProMarkers that's been quite popular these days -- I am NO stamper but I have to admit it was somewhat fun to do this..kinda intriguing...thanks a lot for letting me borrow your pen Ann Hedvig!! :) Hope you don't mind me attaching this photo of you below, you're laughing so heartily there (while Ellen's totally unaffected checking her cellphone :P)
The images below are mostly borrowed from Maren - thanks! I forgot my camera for this class/crop at Hobbykroken on tuesday :P


Super-effective roller Gry!
(almost everybody begged her for help rolling during my class.....she's amazingly fast, rolling 3 at the same time as someone else rolling one :p)

And here's Ann Hedvig again - she won the Prima-prize :D


I also had another class on Saturday - Anne Marit won the Prima-prize then :D


Wish you a nice, peaceful evening and thank you for dropping by :)

BTW, I'm done with my classes for this year - and I do have some very few leftoverkits from "It's in the box" - (three layouts made especially for hanging on the wall) which I am fairly sure I am going to retire.. so if anyone's interested in the complete kit AND an online-class (you'll get access to a private blog with images & step-by-step-instructions in norwegian :p) let me know. 300NOK+ shipping.

Har forøvrig noen veldig få (3 eller 4) leftoverkits fra "It's in the box" hvor vi lager tre layouts spesielt med tanke på å ramme de inn og henge på veggen - både kittet og komplett online-kurs er tilgjengelig for 300kr + porto. Dette er et kurs jeg etter all sannsynlighet ikke kommer til å ha igjen :)

My lil cookie-bag made for Hambly Screenprints went up on their blog yesterday.
Lovesit. Head on over there to check out the closeups & material-list :)
And keep your eyes peeled on the blog - the Hambly Design Team will totally WOW you throughout December with lovely Christmas and/or Winter themed stuff.

And oh, thats "kakemenn" in the photo. I think it's a Norwegian speciality, although I am sure it's baked in other countries too called different stuff...?? It's especially popular here at the West Coast - I didn't really know about these until I moved here from Oslo a decade ago.

Anyways, here's the reciepe by Catrine;

Hvite kakemenn

50 g smør
1 1/2 dl sukker
5 dl hvetemel
1/2 ts hornsalt
1 dl melk

Smelt smør og rør alt sammen. Stekes på 200 grader i ca. 6-8 min.

Dette er en liten oppskrift - jeg ganger med 3, helst 4. Og da lager jeg kakemenn minst to ganger før jul.

Letsee....for a small portion (she usually makes this x3 or x4):

50g butter
1 1/2 dl sugar
5dl flour (all purpose)
1/2 tsp salt of hartshorn/sal volatile (Thanks TJ for the translation :P)
1dl milk

Melt butter and mix everything together.
Baked at 200 degrees celsius for 6-8min.

This is quick, simple and yummy :)

Yay!

Finally the Bad Girls kits opened their DT gallery for December, and here's my stuff.
LOts and lots of pretty lovely vintagey papers and embellies (Graphic 45!! :D)...those of you who "know" me knows that I'm not really that into vintage and such papers (despite admiring the prettiness at a distance knowing I can't really do that), but to my surprise I'm actually lovin' what I made with this kit!! It's kinda what I love with kits - stuff are so...effortless to put together and it (usually) turns out great!! :D :D

Do check out what the other gals did w/this kit (lovelove what Iris did with the embossed paper below -- check it out - maybe I'll add something similar to my layout too). The full releval of the kit is somewhat postponed, but I think it'll go up soon :)

(The crepe-paper kinda makes a smaller frame around the middle..not easy to see against black tho, but it's pretty irl!!) Amalie loves "Twinkle twinkle little star" although all she sings is "twinkle twinkle little star...." then looks at me to continue the song..right! :P


A mini from a trip w/a Veterain train in 06 - totally perfect for these papers!! :D


Love these munchins :)

Thanks for lookin! :)


Bad Girls kits for desember -- masse Graphic 45 og vintage yumminess i dette kitet :) Strengt tatt ikke helt meg, men jeg digger at ting man lager med kits ser ut til å bli bra uansett - fordi kitet er laget for å funke sammen :D

Ellers - holder mitt siste scrapperkurs for iår i Bergen (Hobbykroken) imorgen. Det er fortsatt plass om du ønsker å være med -- sjekk sidebaren til høyre for mer info :)

Ha en super helg!!

Anette and Kine - this one is for you ♥♥
(it's nice to meet people you've secretly (or maybe not so secretly) admired at a distance for years and they turn out to be just as nice & sweet as you had imagined :) ) I wanted to create a layout w/Hambly-products I kinda feel "is" them :) Just missin the skull but wanted to save that rubon for another layout *blush* :P

The kiddo suddenly noticed that "hey, I used to be small but now Im big enough to reach the watertap on my own!" and illustrated it for me. Ofcourse I had to make him redo it for the sake of d o c u m e n t i n g ;)


Allison from Hambly recently got married to her Zack :)
These projects were originally gonna be a blogsurprise for her, but due to technical difficulties w/the Hambly-blog I think they dropped it (and now she's got them so it's no longer a surprise :P). I also made a little tutorial for ScrappeHuset on how to create the wrapping-paper I used here from leftover-papers (a cool idea if you scrap a lot of lettersizes like me and is left w/several strips of cool papers :) )

And -- some photos from the recent Girls Scrap-Night out :)
Totally shamelessly stolen from Maries blog :) (if you haven't been at her blog, please do drop by her - she's so full of creativity...all the ladies are...must be the waters....:P)

Scrappejulebordet vårt - noen bilder stjålet fra Maries blog (mwahaha) ♥

Deciding who'll get which Christmas-pressie :)

Me & Vibeche ♥♥♥
Aren't we cute?? ;)
A little bit of Gry, Late, Anne Marit and Marie :)


Okes. First class in Bergen tonight -- at Hobbykroken. Looking forward to it gals...just be nice ;p
I am also teaching the same class on Saturday, there's still room if anyone wanna attend :)

Kurs ikveld med Bergensdamene på Hobbykroken....så treff etterpå, yay!! Kurset ikveld er fullt, men det er fortsatt ledig plass på kurset på lørdag for de som fortsatt ikke har slengt seg på liksom :D

Um.
So we're now at the first day in the last month of the year.
Makes me wanna go wtf and wonder where the heck the year/days went??? We're soon done with 2008?? Really?? It's soon Christmas?? EEK!! *entering panic-mode*

These thoughts and feelings are like, tradition, and I know I am not alone thinking/feeling that. We attended a Christmasdinner (pinnekjøtt!!!) at my husbands grandparents yesterday, and she (the grandmother) proudly exlaimed that she was done with the Christmas-presents and would we mind helping her handing out the presents to our nearby family-members? We brought home three bags full of pressies yesterday. I'll aim being like that...sometime in the not-so-distant-future. I think. She's had more than 80 years to practice. Personally I'll aim to shorten down the practice-time :p

Anyways. Over to scrappy stuff.
Pencil-Lines was guested by the ever-so-talented Ingvild Bolme yesterday. She's oozing of talent & attention to details. When I was doing her sketch however, I was in a bit of a flunk. Ruined one layout because it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to (and ruined some lovely cool papers in the progress :(), then I was like, grr I give up and just did this quick layout - the title says it all - "meh"! :p. It seems that when I know who the guest is in advance and want to do my very best (because the guest is Norwegian and a friend), it's like, scrapping-antidote. Meh!

Used some Fancy Pants on this layout w/a lil Prima-transparency & Maya Road chipboard.

On Saturday I attended a Girls-Christmas-Night-out. The scrappy version of it anyways -- had such a fabulous time -- thank you so much girls!!!!! :D :D :D We spent the two first hours - 11am to 1pm - rummaging through everybodys trade-market-stuff (kinda our own fleamarket..just trading stuff) - oh the things people doesn't want - I scored a few alphas and papers despite me thinking I didn't need more papers!! Got rid of a good deal of stuff too so all is good :)
Then we finally remembered why we were there - to scrap - duh - and got started, interrupted by a break to eat (Egons - yum) before continuing the rest of the evening till 3am :)
No photos yet - I didn't bring my camera (shock, horror) - so pleaseeeee send me some pictures gals :D :D I ended up with 3 finished and 3 unfinished layouts - I am happy!! :)

Have a lovely December 1st everybody!! :)