Small gift for the hostess

Since it's Valpurgis we're going to barbeque with some friends this evening. The weather is crappy but the company will be good so it won't matter =) The guys that will be there are devoted gamers so hopefully Amanda will be a happy bunny playing Wii with some of them and we won't have to go to a bonfire and be scared senseless by the firecrackers. Fingers crossed!

I altered this little After Eight box to bring as a gift to the hostess and thought I'd show it before I dash off. And I noticed that it fits the Polka Doodles challenge this week too, how convenient =)

WoywW, week 17

Time for What's on your workdesk Wednesday! I have the start of a project lying on my desk, I will hopefully come around to finishing that...
But this evening we have the annual Spring Show at our school so I've been kinda busy! An event where our students get to enter the stage and really perform - no playback allowed! =) It's a blessed mix of all sorts of styles and apart from parents and such we always have old students showing up in the audience. Loads of work with preparations, practising, building the stage, setting lights and putting up curtains (we don't have an auditorium so we use the gym hall) but well worth it cause it's an enchanted evening!!

For those of you that were here last week you will notice the tote that is now filled with all my precious "can't live without-thingies".

Oh, and I just noticed that I have my second stamp-box on the desk as well (one just couldn't handle all the stamped images). What is that doing there??? Well, it's either leprechauns or old age...


Another thing - that is not on my desk but very much in my heart - is the picture of hubby dearest singing at my sister's birthday party. It's my nephew playing (the youngest of her boys) and he really wanted to play something for his mummy so he asked if Chris would sing. They rehearsed for like 5 minutes, that is why he's holding the I-phone (he has the lyrics there hehe)

Monday morning and time for yet another challenge at Die Cut Dreams. This week Karen has a fab tutorial for handmade flowers and handmade flowers is the theme of the week. I almost managed to follow it... almost =).

I made a fan card, using some gorgeous digi images from Digistamp Boutique and the flower is made by two different punches.


The picture below is the card folded for easy posting =).

Lotsa challenges =)

Yesterday at the scrap event was a fantastic day! Lots of space, lovely people and loads of laughter. There were a couple of competitions as well and I won two first prizes and one second prize!! Unfortunately I can't show you any of the cards right now, but they will be revealed eventually on the challenge blogs I represent ;)
You can see what I won though.


But I made one card that I can show now, a card that fits a bunch of challenges.


Just Magnolia - anything goes

Simon says - things with wings

A spoon full of sugar - happy birthday (it says so on the ticket but in Swedish, you'll have to live with that)

Creative Card Crew - happy birthday

ABC challenge - S is for sparkle

Our Creative Corner - blooming blossoms

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - distressing

One stitch at a time - flowers

Sophisticats - distressing

Crafty creations - distressing

Allsorts #49 photo inspiration

Today I am on a scrap event all day, crafting with about 50 other adorable scrappers and cardmakers. So Mr Blogger better post this for me or I will feel very neglected and suspect he loves another...
The challenge at Allsorts this week is to be inspired by this picture below. Is that a yummy bracelet or what?I made a card using a Magnolia image, coloured with distress ink (mainly pumice stone) and a large spellbinder butterfly. DP is from a paper swap so I can't tell you much about it. The background to the image I can though - it's regular white paper stamped and distressed with victorian velvet. I adore the text stamp cause it's so versatile. All edges had their fair share of vintage photo distress ink =).

SFTW Getting to know you

This fortnight over at Stampin For The Weekend the theme is Getting to know you, make a project based on favourite book.

Our sponsor this week isMichelle is offering a set of 12 of her greeting cards and one digi image, of the winner's choice, from her store

Tracey from Spesch Designer Stamps is also sponsoring this challenge with some Digi's!

I made a card based on my favourite book Lord of the Rings. I used DCWV paper for the ring, a suiting Magnolia image coloured with distress inks and flowers from Wild Orchids. The lock charm is from stash.
The background paper - to symbolize the king - is made with a TH stencil and distress ink in antique linen and vintage photo.

WoywW, week 16

Morning,

woohoo, another Wednesday!! Snooping around workdesks on Wednesdays is truly addictive so here I am again.

This morning I took a picture of my desk before I rushed off to work and I have the stamps I just got from Skogstokiga that I stamped up to see what they looked like and I have the tool bag I got from a very dear friend. In that I'm gonna put all my pencils and stickles and glue and rulers and scissors and... well you know... since I'm going to a scrap event on Saturday and will need all my stuff in one place. The idea is to get all the bits and bobs in this tool bag and all the large things, like punches, paper and such in a bigger bag on wheels.

Scrap events are so fun but packing - and unpacking - is a nightmare =)

Just Magnolia sketch

This is my contribution to this week's blog hop sketch at Just Magnolia. I made an accordion box for all my stamped images (like one box was gonna hold them all, yeah, right!), following a Scor-Pal template. You know where to find those =)

Sorry for the short entry but if I don't wash my hair about now it will fall off in protest. The theme on my sister's party was "I come from..." and I went for "straight out of bed" which meant pyjamas, slippers and styling my hair to look like I slept a week in it. I stumbled to bed after a fantastic party, dragged myself out of bed yesterday to do some work in the living-room and today - my day off - mum and sis came over so the day just ran away. And here I am now with a hair due that will - I kid you not! - seriously traumatize an innocent child.

DCD #44 Tear something

Monday morning and time for another challenge at Die Cut Dreams. The theme is tear something and it will be so exciting to see your take on that.

I used my beloved vintage book paper, a WoJ image coloured with distress inks (mainly victorian velvet and frayed burlap), spellbinders label 10 and flowers from Wild Orchid.

Don't forget to send grats to the amazing Vikki when you pop over to the DCD blog, it's her birthday today!
I'm entering this in the Sophisticat challenge too since the theme is distressing.

Allsorts #48 In stitches

Our sponsor at Allsorts this week is Fred She Said who specialize in digital images for paper crafting that have a floral and feminine flare.They have offered a wonderful prize of $20 to one lucky winner, who will be chosen at random.

The winner will be one happy crafter cause the images are absolutely stunning!!! The DT have used some of the Fred She Said images this week so hurry over and check it out.

The theme is Stitching so I used faux stitching as a border on the card and the pattern around the flower is also a Fred She Said image. I used it as a template to prick holes with a needle. Time consuming but well worth the effort :).

Paper is from my paper swap, butterfly is a MS punch and the image is coloured with distress inks (mustard seed, spiced marmalade, forest moss and peeled paint)

Ashes

Sorry for not having left any comments on your blogs today, but I can't really focus. Hubby, who works in Stockholm weekdays, was booked on a flight home tomorrow morning... Are there any flights Stockholm - Umeå tomorrow? Nope!

And we have planned to put in new floor in the living room this weekend, paint the walls, move the furniture and record a song for my sister who has turned 40 and is having her big party Saturday. Life is good! He said he might rent a car to get home, let's just hope that works out...

A Volcano eruption on Iceland cancelling all flights to Umeå, what are the odds on that?

WoywW, week 15

Morning. Since I got back to work yesterday after two months of sickleave my workdesk today is clean (that sounded like The Poltergeist "this house is clean").

I have put up new shelves though, so now my distress inks have a shelf of their own and the ink pads have one too. Since it's the stuff I use the most I want it handy and now it is =).


I know a lot of you ladies are starting to tend your gardens so I thought I'd show you a picture of my backyard as of today =). I will do my gardening later. My precious furry ones are eagerly awaiting grass too.

I'm too thick to be real...

Honestly!

I - no! correction, my hubby - formatted my harddrive yesterday and then he cheerfully buggered off to Stockholm again and I just realized that I saved my images, my documents, my internet bookmarks but not my downloaded favourite fonts.

So here I am, trying to write pretty sentiments and tickets with Arial and Times New Roman. Very sexy I tell you!

And I can't remember the names of the fonts. I totally adored the font I'm using in my headline on this blog but can I remember its name, nope! Not for a million bucks.

So if anyone knows the name of this font, or has suggestions on other pretty fonts, give us a holler. I'm in dire need!!

DCD #43

Monday morning and time for another challenge at Die Cut Dreams. This time it's Vintage with No colouring of the images.

The design team was generously provided with a kit from which to make a card. The giver and also sponsor of this week's prize is Victoria.

So here goes my first ever attempt using Stampin' Up material.

Sugar bowl, piecing, stitching

I just had to try Debbie's technique for paper piecing images. She's a pro so don't judge me too harschly :). And she uses silicone and I don't have that so I used the trusty old glue gun. Makes blobs of glue that gives dimension and dries ever so quickly.

The sketch is from The Sugar Bowl, faux stitching for Stamp Something, paper piecing for Crafty Creations , bows for Our Creative Corner and homemade flowers (the punched out ones on the edges) for Cupcake Craft Challenge.

Quality time!

Today the perfect challenge appeared! Susie and Vikkie's Christmas Club has blue and silver and they have a special section for crafters under 16. A wonderful colour combination and a perfect opportunity to spend some time with the wee one.

So me and Amanda stamped up a Panduro image each and sat down to make a card each. We had loads of fun and the focus was 100 %.

This is Amanda's finished card.


And here is mine. I wasn't too excited about the "covering the whole card with tulle" but looking at them now my card looks a bit dull in comparison. I sense some competition growing =)

Allsorts challenge 47

This week at Allsorts it is the fantastically talented Brenda's turn to host the challenge. She selected the theme "Petals and Pearls", and I'm sure you can make something absolutely gorgeous out of that.
I took this old notice board and painted the frame with linen acrylic paint. Distressed it to get the shabby look, put a new hanger ribbon and attached some petals and pearls. To make the brown cork plate less brown I used a sponge with acrylic paint. Images (Karen's Doodles and Whiff of Joy) are painted with distress ink - victorian velvet and pumice stone. Pearl swirls made with pearl makers and the help of my trusted home-made swirl template.

The compulsory "before-picture" ;)

Our Creative Corner has a bow theme so I'm entering that as well =).

My Amanda Panda :)

I got my digistamp today, the one I got to design and name for Karen's Doodles and I just had to print it, paint it and put it to use :).

I love it, she's such a cutie and Amanda is over the moon!

Challenges I'm entering:

Simon says - card for a child

Karens Doodles UK challenge - 3 embellies, 2 papers, 1 image

Cuttlebug Challenges - Showers of Love

What's on my desk today?

Mess!

But the postman just came with more roses from Wild Orchids and a the spring paper stack from DCWV. I thought I'd try these brighter colours to get a change from all the vintage brown and dusky pink =)

DCD challenge 42

Welcome to a glorious day in the swamp!

But I guess most of you have a day off today so it's not that bad =)

It's Monday and therefor time for a new challenge at Die Cut Dreams.

This weeks challenge theme is Boots & Shoes

This week we are being sponsored by Jolanda of

And I made two projects - one card and one gift tag. On the card I glued ribbon on the boot and also used the image as backing paper. The gift tag I distressed with weathered wood and victorian velvet, using a swirl stencil from Tim Holtz. I printed out the sentiment which is my own.

Buying a cutting machine?

I've thought about buying a cutting machine but I have no idea which one is the best? Silhouette or Cricut or is there another one to bear in mind?

Any suggestions?

Sir Stampalot

The post office was closed yesterday so this morning when they opened I was there waiting to pick up my ordered spellbinder's label 10. I had decided I wanted that shape on my card for the monthly Sir Stampalot challenge and nothing else would do. You know how it is... =)

So I could finally finish it.

And I might as well spam the Simon Says and Creative Card Crew and Charizma Cards blogs as well, hehe

Allsorts challenge

Picking a top 5 for my Allsorts challenge was really tricky. Go over and see if I chose you!

This week we have our fabulous regular monthly sponsor with us

Sally-Ann from Digistamp Boutique

One lucky winner will have £10 to spend online - you will be spoilt for choice from all the wonderful images available.

This week Debs challenges you to create something without using any (ready-made) Design Papers. Of course you could have a go at creating your own or you could keep it really simple and have none at all, maybe even do some embossing - whatever you like or better still have a go at something you wouldn't ordinarily do.

I cheated a bit cause I normally do my own paper :). I distressed a white paper using victorian velvet and spun sugar, then I took a stencil and embossed the pattern with Reprint bridal. Hanglar image is coloured with victorian velvet, framed with silver paper. Lace is from one of my grandma's pillowcases. I made a small back on the card so it wouldn't bulge from the tiny candy bag :)

Giraffs

Happy Easter to all you lovely scrappers out there. I used one of the papers I got it the paper swap and made a birthday card this morning. Those giraffs are so cute!! The background star is embossed with Reprint bridal, the scalloped circle is from Die Cut Dreams and I've distressed the edges with antique linen/dusty concord.


Challenges:

Simon says - distressing

The pink elephant - pastels

Charizma cards - animal magic

Colour Create challenge - pastels

Crafty Creations - anything goes

SFTW recipe

A new challenge is up at Stampin for the Weekend, this time a recipe.
Ribbons and Bows with an option for 3 papers, 3 embellishments and 1 charm.

Sponsor is:

with a $25 Shopping Voucher

I used two stamps from Skogstokiga* that I masked together, DP from God knows where, a piece of old lace, punched out flowers and pearls. I finished it with perfect pearls all over the place =)

I can't for the life of me figure out why my inside pictures always turn out like crap, maybe I just suck as a photograph...


* Skogstokiga is a Swedish rubber stamp company. You can browse her blog to see the stamps and then you send her an e-mail to order the stamps you want to buy.