Little Corner of Ania

Just some snapshots from this week.

Someone's been painting (Amalie ofc). I kinda like the splotches of colors here. And yeah, it was brand new before I used it on the table she painted on :p

Adrian playing hard to get, so Simen had to capture him in order for me to finally get a photo of him :p (at the summer-celebration at kindergarten)

Making faces..
More faces..
Sillying it up with the kids at school (instead of paying attention to the school-play)
Happy Amalie..she kept saying over and over again how great the kids who sang&danced were :p (she's easily impressed that kid ;p)
Hubby w/his bro and bro's wife..still at the school-play.
Flare on!
Somebody's been a good girl!!
(me and Regina Spektor painted the terrace today)

The kids found a funny insect/moth/butterfly/whatev. outside It was HUGE! Way too huge for my liking. (um....5 cm or so :p)
And pink. Ick!

Anyone's got an idea what this is at all?? Looks like a mix of a moth and butterfly...
Double-ick.
The kids are outside petting it atm :p

Update: it's got its own house now :p
Update2: Thanks to AnetteS's Pej - it's apparently an Elephant Hawk Moth - more commonly found in England, Ireland and Wales and some areas of Scotland....NOT common in Norway as far as he knows. Right! The kids let it loose now, I hope it flew away cuz I don't like insects no matter how pretty colors they have :p

Kids :p

Oh by the way. What do you do with photos of kids at plays/singing/entertaining at school/kindergarten?? Do you share them? Even though you have no idea wheter it's ok or not to share images of other peoples kids on the web? But it's like. They're up there on the stage entertaining w/a zillion other parents taking photos aswell. And with a lot of people on facebook and stuff these days you know there's bound to be some putting photos up there sorta hm? Hm.

Gawd.
It's June already. Which's pretty crazy. We're past halfway into 09. Seriously!
Before I can share new June-stuff with you I need to get rid of my May stuff still not shared here, so here goes ;p

Above: A summery, messy Hambly-layout feat Prima & Maya Road.

My final Luxe-stuff (well, as a Luxe-DT-member anyways). A layout made with Ecology & a bit of Lovey - both new Luxe-lines :) Featured in the photo is our family & my husbands two cousins+family (well, cousin + cousin+her family :p).
Decided to write all our names on the layout -- I mean - even though we know very well who's who right now, I suppose it might not be that easy for the kids to know in like 20 years or so hm? Or when we're gone and like, our grand-grandchildren looks at this and goes woah who's all these old people and noones really sure :p HAH! :D


More teacards, this time w/the Lovey-line :)



And speaking of Luxe -- check out this peek at Simply Handmade for their June/July-issue -- mm I spot my Luxe-mini in the first photo :D

Right!
Thank you so much for your suggestions for London -- and if you're Norwegian, do check out Kari's lovely London-pages here and here feat. her class' teddy bears :) So cute and so educational :D

Will definitely drop by Camden Market for sure - so many of you have suggested this market! :) Any more suggestions still totally welcome - like, any fave eateries? Be nice if you'd care to share in this post if so so it's easier for me to have them all in one place :)

Title: "Leather" -Tori Amos
Ps! Her newest album was uh, disappointing wasn't? Ugh. Hate it :( Still a few nice songs though, but have to admit I had higher expectations :(

Vis Londonturen i et større kart

So soon me and my husband will be headed for London for a minivaccay...with not too many plans but to, uh, stroll around and stuff.. We're staying at The Royal Horseguards (The red drop), which's close to Convent Garden and Charing Cross if it tells you something..

We're planning a trip to Portobello Market in Notting Hill, I'd like to check out the markets in Covent Garden (the Apple Market and the Jubilee Market), was suggested to check out The Forbidden Planet and Hamleys (definitely on the todolist, thanks Kine!)..and a quick trip to the Photographers Gallery would be fun methinks - all these are marked in blue (the gallery in green).

As for eating we were suggested to check out the Blackfriars Pub, which seem to be nearby, and we thought it would be fun to check out one of Gordon Ramsays restaurants hm? Dunno which..? Otherwise we're pretty much opting for good food in the cheap price range ;p Oh, and we're gonna need breakfasts too mm...suggestions? (eateries marked in yellow) Oh, and ice cream parlors..!!

So.
If you have any suggestions we'd totally greatly appreciate them - any - what to see, where to eat, what to take photos of??... where to shop? Not really going to shop a lot - that's not the main goal of the trip - just wanna experience stuff & chill out and stuff :)

Ps. you can click on the drops to see more info about them :)

Pencil-Lines sketch #137 by Anna Bowkis and guested by the lovely, fabulous ♥Dena Coe♥!! :D
I used Fancy Pants here - papers from Summer Soiree, transparency from Arctic Chill, journalingpapers from Delight and Summer Soiree and felt from Playhouse. Other stuff includes glimmermist, bling from Kaisercraft and alphas from American Crafts. I have a thing for sheep. Sorta. *snicker*. Couldn't pass up the chance to take a photo (or ten) of Grys adorable sheep at her summerhouse to scrap my relationship w/sheep ;p

And oh - speaking of Fancy Pants -- please join their Fathers Day challenge here - internationals welcome too! :) Even though it might not be a Fathers Day for you in the near future (ours is the second Sunday in November), pay tribute to the fathers in your lives with Fancy Pants :)

Here's some more photos of this past weekend w/sis, my youngest niece and my dad :)

We went to the beach on Saturday - the sun was shining but the water was ice cold :p The kids loved playing around by the beach though, and Adrian was absolutely thrilled when he caught a crab like 1min after we arrived :p

All in all, we had a lovely weekend w/nice weather :)

Title: "Perfect" -Alanis Morissette

Scrappy stuff first, rite?
Spent a few days at Gry's summerplace with Gry and Eli - ♥
Was amazingly unusually effective, whippin' up three finished (!) layouts & a project. Yay me!
The above is one of the layouts I made - figured I'd join ScrappeHusets 3ndypapir-freestyle-challenge. Never really understood wheter you had to use 3ndypapir or not, but it doesn't matter- I love 3ndypapir and jumped headfirst at the chance of using it again :) :) It looks freestyleish doesn't?? I mean. I even sewed all over the layout, creating curly, whimsical stems for the star-flowers :p ♥ Eli and Vibeche on the photos - hey Vibeche, see - Gry and Eli made sure I did scrap at least some of these photos!! :)

Oh, and I am totally in love with Gry's alcove - it's got the most gorgeous natural lighting I've ever seen and I want that room attached to my house liek, now!! (for photographing kids&layouts in ofc :p and look at the cute blanket that backdrops the layout - so - summerplace-y!!)


We brought Gry's cat along - and I have to say I'm intrigued re cat-photographing sorta. Loves!
(and ya, I got Gry's permission displaying her cat on the blog ;p)

Gry & Eli..
Summerrrrr!!
Um ya. Gry and Eli teased me for lying on the ground takin photos of the grass, so I sorta bent backwards and snapped a photo of them upside down as they were behind me. Ha-ha. I know. *rolls eyes* Will make a cute layout!!
Look! There's the cat again!
Made tzatziki. Mmmmm :)

O. There's the cat again! ♥
(and - can you imagine - ISO800. Looovessssssss ♥♥♥ Taken at like, 11pm :p)

Then I had to hurry home early this morning, to pickup this girl:

My lovely, gorgeous niece ♥♥
(and my dad - but he's off to some meetings, won't see him again until tomorrow)

We went to pickup Amalie from the kindergarten, and to take some photos. Look at how cooperative they are *cough*

Then I told them they wasn't allowed to laugh.at.all.

No laughing!
Duh!

♥♥♥

Off to pickup my sis at the airport now - she's arriving late because she had an exam to take (am so proud of her and her achievments :) :) ).

Have a nice weekend!! :)

Title: " Happy Phantom" -Tori Amos

Last year at approx this time I sent in a box with layouts (well, strictly speaking - one layout and several photocopies of layouts) to Memory Makers for consideration for their MMM (MM Masters) 09-contest.

I ended up with a runner-up-spot - yay! (there were 10 winners and 10 runner-ups - I think someone mentioned there were 500+ contestants)
I haven't shared these layouts before, as becoming a runner-up made these images&layouts the property of MMM for a year - but well - it's been a year (and no requests, sniff) and with the magazine folding this fall (double-sniff) - I figured it doesn't hurt sharing the layouts now?

So.
To whoever it may concern - here's the layouts that helped me get that runner-up-spot :)




Making this layout was a bit nervewrecking, as this was the only assigned layout we had to make for the contest - the theme was "wish". Surprisingly it came together quite easily, yay!

I could have done layouts w/sappy wish-stuff for my kids, which would have been the most natural choice I guess - but I figured I'd focus some on me and my wishes instead to hopefully stand out some.

At that time I was soooo coveting the D300 and I knew I would own it some day. Mhm. I was wrong. I now own D700 ;) And ♥ to Christine/Xstine modelling for me here haha (she owns a D300 :p).

Most of the materials are from Prima and Hambly.

My only lettersize. I think it was the last layout I made for this contest too, as I felt I needed something more simple (and having discarded two bleh-layouts I felt a bit GRRR I gotta finish this!). The kiddo endured a quick photo session w/me the last day of school - and his first summer-vacation :) Used Rouge de Garance, Sassafras, RiffRaffDesigns and corrugated cardboard.

Because I don't really feel like I have one specific style I wanted to include a freestyleish-layout. Amalie was busy trying to count at that time - hence this layout - her counting wasn't too steady (still isnt!) - figured a freestyleish-layout would reflect some of that. Used various manufs here- most fond of the heart that I covered w/ribbons here. I was reeeeally hesitant as to wheter (sic!) include this one or not - in the end I was just like bah whatev!



One of the layouts I felt was more "me" of the bunch I sent in and one of the layouts I still love today. I love how effortlessly this one came together - I just knew what I wanted to include here before I started. Oh. And Amalie still loves getting her nails pampered w/black nailpolish. Mwahahahaha :)

Materials include Fancy Pants, MME, KI, RiffRaff Designs, Hambly, Glimmer Mist, Rangers.


RiffRaff Designs+Glimmer Mist+Glossy Accent = match made in heaven!!!!

I was really happy w/how this layout turned out, yet I felt this was the most boring of the bunch. Made this w/leftovers from an old Bad Girl kit :)



Two of my discarded layouts:

Trying to pick just five layouts was a pita - having friends who suggested different layouts was ugh aswell (thanks for the help tho! :) ). I was really close to adding this one instead of the other freestyle-layout. Still thinks this layout is better than the other one - but the other one is more uhm.."look-at-me-ish"?

Tried to do a romantic layout but it didn't quite work out. This is the layout I liked the least. Ugh! Still don't like it :p


It's weird lookin at these layouts again after a year..mm..I think I only really like four of them - "D300", "Endelig sommerferie", "Miss Fancy Nails" and "Schröder".

Mmm thanks for lookin -gotta wrap up packing & stuff, heading out for a much needed girltrip w/some scrappy friends :)

Ps!
Mhmm, just got this in my mailbox. *boggle* Color me intrigued for sure!! :)