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Ok, so here’s a silly thing: I like sketches, but I’ve hardly ever done a layout based one. It’s a bit like when I’m cooking; I LOVE inspiring recipes but I hardly ever use them when cooking. I just wing it. But I felt like trying it out some more, and found this sketch challenge on a new Swedish sketch blog, lillblommanskissar.se. Fun! Perfect timing, too! The rules were quite lenient, I could twist and turn the sketch and add or withdraw element, as long as it shows that the layout is based on the sketch.
As I dug through my box of printed photos (I have a stash of photos I love, just waiting for the right moment) this photo of my friends Sara and Cecilia jumped out at me. It was a wonderful summer, many years ago, when the three of us spent a week together at Sara’s summer cabin. It was the three of us, hanging out in the sun, going to the beach, cooking good food, drinking some wine, having a little summer vacation together. You know that feeling when summer is so intense and perfect that you can just close your eyes and smell it and feel it on your skin? That was what it was like. This is my friends on the steps to the main house, having ice cream:

On the same steps we also had some perfectly chilled Russian champagne and smoked shrimps. It leads up to a small nook of the house that is called a “Punch Veranda” in Swedish, which could be translated as a Punch Porch, or a Toddy Porch (ha, I love that!). Anyways, it was a very happy time, and I just live the photo with it’s sharp sunshine, the old steps, the bare feet, the roses growing wild.
I wanted the layout to feel fun and carefree, like that week, so I played around with some paper tape, colour wash and some watercolour splatter.
Here are some details:


Thank you for coming by and reading my blog *s*. Hope you had a great weekend. Tomorrow is MONDAY! Onwards and upwards, my friends!
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Today’s prompt was to make a unique print, and cut an image out of a potato (But, I’m sick to death of potato prints. There’s just something about the mixed smells of potato and ink… *shiver* So I used an apple instead). I wanted to use the shape of the apple itself, since it’s simply so beautiful. Also, unique organic print for almost no money. Pretty neat!

I tried to do a couple of prints with different inks on some watercolour paper. Most of them came out really well! I worked on them some more by blending some distress inks, and also used a bit of watercolour and mists. I got 3 prints I really like a lot, and think I will use them as backgrounds in my 2012 book soon, and also in my recipe binder. Here’s an example of one of them:

Thanks for stopping by!

Day 10 in my endeavour to create something every day for 365 days. Today’s prompt was to make something with water or be inspired by it. I didn’t have the best of days today and felt a bit moody, so the water park fun land I was going to build (who doesn’t want a water slide in the living room?) will have to wait for another time. Instead I Tried out some mixed media techniques, which cheered me up (if you can’t have a waterside in your living room, at least you can splash around with it when creating some sort of art).
Result:

I’ve said it before: I really can’t draw. But maybe I can learn?
Thanks for stopping by! Stay safe! And dry.


Today I didn’t follow the daily prompt in the creative diary. It had to do with going outside, and since there is a storm going on right now I didn’t feel to compelled to do that, hehe. So instead I stayed in my crafty corner and put together a layout based on the journaling I created yesterday. Since the project is about creating something every day, with no boundaries or rules, and I managed to do an entire layout in one sitting (I’m not a fast scrapbooker) I’m pretty pleased with myself. Yay me! Day 4 is done!
Reflection: It’s weird how I find myself constantly using yellow and blue, when these are my least favourite colours. What’s up with that?
Another reflection: It took me a LONG time NOT to put a lot of extra stuff on this layout. I realise it’s not very well balanced and that the upper left corner could have used something, maybe, but in the end I, after rummaging through my entire stash, I settled for splashing some blue watercolour up in the corner. So there you go. Sometimes it’s more about the story than the pretty shiny things, I’m learning *smile*. And this layout was really about the journaling and the story in the photo.

Hey, if you want to read the text I did a poor attempt at translating it yesterday, and you can read it there if you’d like. Thanks for stopping by! Happy scrappin’!


Handmade decos are always a nice touch to a card or a scrapbook layout, I think. It just feels great to be able to make something from scratch from the supplies you have, and it gets a little more personal, which is what I always want with my Christmas cards. Sometimes a Christmas card is only thing you send someone that year, maybe to a friend or a loved one that lives far away and you’ve haven’t had a chance to see or talk to in a while. That’s why it feels important to me; I want the recipient to know I’m thinking about them.
So here are some of the Christmas cards I made this year. I decided to hand paint some baubles with watercolour. I really can’t paint at all, but this technique is fairly easy: Draw a circle on some watercolour paper, dampen the circle with water, then add colour, a little bit at a time.Make it a bit darker around the edges and leave a little spot where you don’t put any colour at all, which makes it look a bit shiny.

When deciding on size, I punched out a circle with one of my punches and used that as a template. That made it easy to punch out the baubles perfectly circular after I’d painted them. Also, I used some of my small snowflake- and heart stamps to make a decorative pattern. I stamped the pattern in water resistant ink before I added the watercolour. Lastly I sprayed the baubles with some shimmer mist. To make the card a little dimensional I adhered the baubles with some foam dots.

I was really pleased with these cards, I wanted to make more like them, but I went on to other ideas, more posts to come!
Stay safe, everyone. :)
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The Christmas cards needs to go in the mail next week if they are to arrive in time, especially the ones I’m sending overseas. So I have to get a move on! I thought I’d done rather well so far, but when I sat down and reviewed my list I realised I still have a few to make. Gah! Glue glue glue! My problem might be that I never like to make the same type of cards more than a couple of times, 2-4 for the most of any card. It’s much more fun that way, getting to try new techniques and motifs and colours. But I guess it’s not so great when it comes to speed and productivity, hehe…
I like to add handmade embellishments to whatever I make, if I can manage. So I tried to paint these X-mas baubles in watercolour. I don’t really know how to paint but painting different layers of the different shades worked out quite well. I made them the same size as one of my circle punches, do cutting them out was a breeze. I have soem pics of the finished X-mas cards to post, I just need to get them off my camera. But here’s a sneak peek at least! Have to get back to stamping and gluing and making more cards! *Hurries back to my crafting nook*

P.S. What’s the chance of me setting up a Craft Signal light, like in Batman? It could be a monkey. I could flash it towards the ceiling and make an alarm noise and run to my work space shouting: “To The Craft Cave!”… Seriously have to look into this… It feel very important… Maybe I should write a theme tune…


I think it’s fun to add a little extra, not only to the Christmas card itself, but also to the envelope. It makes it all the merrier to find it in the mail, don’t you think? A pretty envelope with your name written by hand, and a little something extra cute, at least you’ll know for sure it wont be a boring invoice ;)
I got these little stamps with a crafting magazine, and they were perfect for this! I stamped them on a nice thick paper with water-resistant ink, and then hand-painted them with watercolours. The motifs are tiny! It took some patience. But overall I’m pretty pleased, they feel very cheerful!
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It doesn’t have to be the most fantastic photo that makes you remember, and it doesn’t have to be from the most special occasion. Of course even the every day things can be just as memorable as the big events.
Going through my photo stash I came upon this photograph; it is ten years old, a friend of mine took it, and it’s a photo of me in my early twenties. What struck me about this picture were two things: It was a picture of me just being myself, and it was a photo of me in my first apartment.
Seeing it made me remember a thousand things in a matter of seconds. It reminded me of what I used to wear, of my favourite necklace, of my nose piercing, of my first SLR. It reminded me of moving away from home, of my small one-room studio and all my favourite things in it.
I lived for almost eight years in that small place and a lot of things happened there. It was a place where I wrote stories and made up new recipes, and a place to invite my friends to.
So that is what I wrote in my journalling:

I couldn’t find a paper I thought went with the photo and the sentiment, so I painted this pattern by hand on a piece of recycled paper. There are some better photos of the details in my last post. I also embossed the clock and filled in some of the details with some acrylic paints.
Overall it feels great to have gotten this photo out of the dusty box it used to be in. I sort of represent that whole time in my life. Yes, this layout took quite some time to finish, but it was a happy project to complete.
Stay safe, everyone!

I started on a new 12×12 layout the other night, and I sat for quite some time going through my stash trying to fins something I thought went with the photo. I couldn’t find one.
The photo is one of myself, about10-11 years ago. A good friend took that photo of me, sadly though we lost touch many years ago. I think that photo of me is one of the few from that time I really like. I was in my early 20′s, an sure, when one is young and pretty (harr harr) of course there are a couple of nice looking pics of you, but at that age it’s not often one poses on a picture as oneself. This photo though, is just me in my messy room in my first apartment, holding a camera. The colours are sort of murky (so was my apartment) and there’s a lot of clutter (MY clutter) and I look rather scruffy. But it’s me, at that time.
I felt that none of my patterned paper really matched. So I started to paint one of my own, on a piece of 12×12 recycled, unbleached paper. I’m not quite done with the layout yet, but thought I’d show a few pictures. Hope to share the whole thing with you soon!

Stay safe and thanks for stopping by!

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