There is a time for everything

I made this page about one of my quirks this morning. I´m really a one-thing-at-a-time person and thats what I´m talking about here.

 If I read a novel I don´t like pages of descriptions of the surroundings, that makes me skip it to get to the story. If I like to read things like that I turn to a gardenbook or other kind of book about a specific subject. Like this book about a garden that I bought on the book sale this week. She tells the story of how she made a garden out of a bare piece of land.

 I also quated my Father who used to say that if you are not the way you´re supposed to be, you have to be the way you are, just to show that I´m aware that this is an odd way of being.

Have a lovely sunday!

Bragbook

My little project is a bragbook where I will have all my family. I found an old pocket calender, when I was going through some old things and immediately came up with the idee to use it for this.

This is how it looks on the outside before the tranfigurasion.

After I torn out all the pages I glued a black and white checked fabric to the inside of the cover, after I had sewn four folded light weight cradstock pages (the kind that comes with albums sometimes) to the center of the fabric. So on the inside it now looks like this:

I used diffrent coloured threads for the four pages when I sewed them to the fabric and I will use bright coulors decorating it too, it will look really nice to the black pages.

I don´t think I will work on it right now because yesterday I started making plans for my 2010 pages in my year-in-rewiew album, so that´s what will be done first, together with some other plans for ordinary pages. There´s really no end to ideers to make new things in this wonderful hobby. Life goes on all the time and new thoughts come along , so it´s a lifetime challange and I really like that.

Have a lovely Friday and a beautyful weekend!

Keep blooming

In the effort of trying to reduse my flowerish papers I made another page with blooming background. This time it´s a page with me and my sweet Little E. She is such a darling! Dug deep in my chipboardstash too. All the decorations are chipboard except the small journaling sticker (which, of cause, is October Afternoon...). I quite like it.

I´ve started a new little project too, but I´ll show you the beginning of that another day! But I can tell you that it´s a "take-something-old-and-make-it-into-something-new" project. And it has so far contained tearing apart, cutting, ironing, sewing and glueing...

See you!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to me! Yes, it´s my birthday today, I turn 51. The sun is shining and that is a very nice present indeed. You feel so happy whenever the sun is shining.

Mr A aked me last week: "Have I bought any present for you yet?" I usually prefer buying my own presents so that I get something I really like, (two reasons; surprises are highly overrated, in my opinion, if it isn´t someone who REALLY knows exacty what I want -  like this pitcher...

...Mrs S gave me as a joint Christmas and birtday present (since it was so expensive) last year - and I´d rather get no present at all than getting something I have no idee what to do with) and my dear husband doesn´t have to truble himself trying to figur out what to buy me, which is not an easy task, since I have very specific likes and dislikes. So I´d rather spare him that trouble.

So I´ve ordered some things from Studio Calico, two sets of the alphabet set Addy (you always needs more than one of some letter) and some journaling stickers. All about my beloved journaling! So this I look very much forward to getting in the mail.

Here´s my latest page I made yesterday, it´s about Mrs S and Mr T and their engagement. The title says "Love blooms even in the middle of winter".

I used to buy a lot of patterned paper with flowers, like the one from Daisy Day´s I used here, but most of them I still have because they are quite difficult to use, at least for me. I´ve have finally learned that lesson, so nowadays I buy other patterns. Put at some point I just have to use them, so I challenged myself to use one on this page and I´m actually quite pleased with it.

If anyone wonders, yes, I love pitchers... Isn´t the one with the tulips in it beautiful?! It´s designed by a swedish designer called Lena Linderholm and I have a small bowl going with it too. I bought them and also these two...

...as a birthday present some years ago.

 A good friend of mine is coming over tonight. Mrs L and Little G called and sang so beautyfully to me and I got a handmade card from Mrs S and I´m sure she was very pleased to be able to write both her own and Mr T´s name on it...

Enjoy your day, or what´s left of it, depending on where you live!

The history

I had  planned to show you the pages about The History of Mrs S and Mr T first, before the wedding pictures, but then I thought that you probably would like to see the photos from the wedding first, since I didn´t got around to posting pages before the wedding. So here they come.

Nothing special, just something to tell the story in a little nicer way than just on an ordinary paper. Mrs S doesn´t want them since she want to tell their story with more detail in their album, so I´ll keep them instead. She did like the flowers though, so I´ll buy her some more, she will proberbly need much more than these if she want them for a whole wedding album (just give me a note, will you!).

As soon as I´ve gotten all the wedding pictures from both Mrs L and the friend of Mrs S, who made most of the photografy during the day, I will begin the wedding pages, that will be great fun!

Hope you all have a lovely day and a fine week!

Wedding day

Wow, am I tired! But I´m happy, it was a lovely day Friday when my sweet Miss S became Mrs S and we welcomed Mr T to our family. They were married in the Kopenhagen Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. When we came back to Sweden we had a wedding lunch for the two families and in the evening there was a recepsion for extanded family and friends and there was a lot of people. It was very nice meeting persons we hadn´t meet in years.

My sweet girl was very beautiful and very happy. Here´s some photos of the happy couple and some of the bride.

This is outside the Temple.

This is after they cut the cake, which my mother-in-law made on Mrs S´s request.

Mrs S made the dress, vail, hair and wreath herself and Mrs L made the bouquet.

I´d better go since we soon will be off to church, where our family will sing in sacrament meeting today. I do hope it will go well even if we are a little weary. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Travel mini

sTaking a short break in my packing and other preperations to show you a travel minibook I made when I and the children took the train to Mrs L and the children while Mr F was away for 10 days to work in Stockholm, when we had a royal wedding there in June.

Tomorrow we go south and on Friday my sweet Miss S becomes Mrs S, at least here on my blogg, in real life she will be Mrs something-else... I made a 4 page history about them to show at the reception, but since it is not complete with all the photos I will show it to you when it´s finished. It´s in green and white and I think it is in Miss S´s taste (she would NOT like it if I made it the way I usually scrap!! we have very different taste when it comes to scrapbooking).

Back to my packing! Have a wonderful day!

More cathing up

I keep working on my catching up on Mrs L´s album. I fit that in among all the preperations for the wedding on Friday. We will go south on Thuresday and stay until Saturday. Miss S has asked me to scrap some layouts about her and Mr T´s history (to show to the guests), so tomorrow I will go and see if I can find some nice paper for that. The reception will go in light green and white so that´s what I´m after. Mr T has written down their story, including the piece about Miss S thinking years ago that she should make sure Mr T would marry Miss V. Well little did she now what would happen instead!

Here´s the two layouts I´ve made yesterday and today.

This layout is about them preparing to move back to Sweden and us meeting Little G for the first time. The small journaling spots on the photos is from small scraps I had. Nice to be able to use that.

This is about were they moved when they came back. Isn´t outside summer photos wonderful?! I always like to not distract too much from them, just reinforce the photos. I really like this layout. I think it the colour combination, tan, green and red. Nice!

I´ve also made a card for the bride and groom, but I can of course not show that one to you yet!

Have a lovely new week.

Catching up

I haven´t created something for a whole week and haven´t had any inspiration for blogging either, but today I got back to my normal self and have so far done two layouts.

I´ve began catching up on Mrs L´s My grown childrens´ album which lack a lot about the small childrens births and moving back to Sweden and so on. Today it became one layout about Little G himself and one about Mrs L becoming a mother. The second one was really getting out of my comfort zone with pink and girly stuff... But she loves pink so what´s to do, I like the layouts to reflect the personality of the one being told about.
Here they are.

My girl became a mother... That´s a very powerful feeling. Full circle, kind of. And they where on the other side of the ocean... Not what you wish for but I´m not the kind of person who linger on what is not perfect and I´d rather have my children on the other side of the world and know that we love each other, than have them next door and we can´t stand each other. And I´m so fortunate that I love my children and they love me, and I speak of my children by marrige too.

So back to doing something useful, for more than me that is... Have a lovely saturday!

Scrapbooking magazines

I love reading magazines, and especially scrapbooking magazines. Simple scrapbooks used to be one of my favorites, so it was really sad when they had so put it down. The british Scrapbook Inspirations, where Shimelle Lane was one of the contributers, was also a favorite, but that one isn´t anymore either. So sad. But there are still some to enjoy and these three is the ones I use to read.

This is my favorite nowadays. I really like it. Nice veriaty, nice layouts and nice articles. It´s a feast every time it comes in the mail.

Still one that I read, though it´s not as good as it used to be. When Ali Edwards was writing for it, the first thing that I read was always Ali´s column. It used to have such great articles, about the reasons why people scrapbook and now it´s a lot of  "how to" with decriptions on how to copy a layout down to the smallest detail. Who needs that, can´t people think for themselves? Isn´t this a way to be creative in your own kind of way? That´s to sad, I must say. It´s obvious that not all people is equally as good at putting together a good magazine. But apart from this, it´s still a good magazine, it´s just that it used to be so much better than all the others, now it´s just one of the bunch.

Here´s a magazine I recently discovered. It´s very nice and it´s so nice to get an australian perspective on life. Like in this latest number, where there is back-to-school pages since their summer break obviously is over this time of the year. That is one thing that I miss so much about there not being any Scrapbook Inspirations any more, getting  the british perspectiv. There is another british magazine, but I´m not a fan of that one.

Scrapbook Trends is a very nice magazine, but its too expensive for a monthly magazine, and has much too little text for my taste. If the layouts are not in your taste this month, then you stand with noting.

So what do I want in a magazine? Obviously, I like layouts that is nice, ones that talk to me. I don´t like a lot of flowers and frill. I like letters and numbers and bright colours and a lot of photos. But I also want interesting things to read. Like articles about life and how you scrapbook it. And I want to know something about the background to the layouts, who is the person behind it, why did she create this and so on.

Well, it was a very opinionated me you meet today! Hope you could stand it!! Have a lovely week!

Two good bargains

I went to the big town yesterday to leave Miss E at a friend´s house, where she´s gonna stay until tomorrow, when we meet at church. Had Master E with me because we should shoehunt. He needed a pair of sunday shoes to go with his suit. I knew this shoe store had had really nice shoes before so we went there and big signs said: "half price on everything, the store is closing". We found two very nice kinds of shoes for him and baught three pairs, in different sizes, of cause. We got them all for 200 Skr, which would be about 25 USD. I truely like such bargains.

The other bargain I made last night was this:

A small album with white cardsstock pages. For this I paid 20Skr (2.50 USD). The former price was 99 Skr. I think I will use it for an album about Miss S´s wedding, besides the pages I will make for the family album and the Our grown children´s album. I only have one regret, why didn´t I buy the other one that was left too...?

I´m a dvd junkie. I don´t watch much TV, but I do watch films and tv-series on dvd and right now this is what´s rolling:

I love The West Wing (in Sweden it was called Vita Huset, The White House). I whatch it once or twice a year and I have all the seasons. I do not agree with all their oppinions, like morals and family values, but I love the intelligent dialog, the crazy humor and the insight into this special world, even though I do understand that it is fiction... It is such a great production, you don´t see that to often, unfortunatly. I would so not be able to live this kind of life, with the constant pressure and everything. They must be very extrovert persons.

 Kathy Osmond wrote on her blog, http://onebadappledish.blogspot.com/ , about a book about being an introvert or an extrovert. Very interesting. I´m a very much an introvert. And since 75% of all people are extroverts they kind of don´t understand how we others function at all, and that make us very strange to them. But I am very happy about the way I am and if others think I´m strange, who cares...?

Well, time is flying, so I´d better be running. See you!

This is why I scrap

Shimelle Lane had a class called This is why I scrap and that inspired me to do a little album about just that, why I scrap. I had some coloured 12x12 chipbord lying around and I cut them down to 6x6 and made this album. They´re in my most happy colours, orange and green and I used a lot of colour and some really old stuff in it. It was so much fun making it. Here it is!

The left side is kind of obvious, Shimelle made me do this album, and the right is about how scrapbooking is like the air I breath...

About how I wanted to document my familys history long be fore I knew anything about scrapbooking and how I want my family to remember our times together and how much we love each other.

I believe all people need to be creative ("skapa" is creat, in swedish) or we will not feel good. And I have always been a paper-person so this is kind of the obvious hobby for me. I couldn´t not qoute the Moomin father who in an episode about his writing is saying "Paper, paper" in such a funny way. I love Moomin.

I want to show my family that I love each and every one of them and want to point out the relationships between different persons. On the left is us when we were young and only had two childen.

The two women in the scrapbooking world who´s meant most to me and my scrapping, Stacy Julian, who gave me permission to do my scrapbooking in what ever way I want (and who made me love this green after exposing me to it so much..., and to love dots), and Ali Edwards, who has inspired me so much to care more about the story than the design. I can´t thank them enough.

I want to forward the wisdom that I have managed to get during my life, and the faith, gratitude and joy of life.

When I first started scrapbooking I mostly scrapped events and if there wasn´t any photos it didn´t make it to my albums. Today I scrap life, with photos, without photos or with photos from another occasion than what I´m telling about.

This is just such a wonderful way of expressing myself.

And finally about the inspiration I get from bloggs and magazines. Which magazines I like and which ones I miss, like Simple Scrapbooks and Scrapbook Inspirations (and CK, which is not as good as it used to be).

This is a happy little album showing me off in my most colourful way. Hope you liked the peak. Enjoy the day!

Quilting

As you perhaps has seen in my profile I like making patch work quilts and I will start showing you my quilts. This one is the first quilt I started making, twenty years ago. I made five blocks and then nothing happened for fifteen years... By then I had just made a babyquilt for Master E and that was so much fun that it got me getting back to this one and finish it. The inspiration to this quilt I found in a swedish sewing magazin. Miss E has it now.

I like making the blocks, both on the maskin and by hand, but what I really love is handquilting them, that is so much fun. I can´t explain why I like it so much, I mean you just put the neadle up and down, up and down, but I love it. It´s such a nice way to do something with your hands without having to think, so It´s a perfect thing to do while watching TV or when you sit and talk. And it´s a good project to do in the winter time, having a cozy quilt in your lap when it´s cold!
I like having a hand sewing project going on in the summer, so you can take it with you outside, in the car aso and hand-sewing patchwork blocks is perfect for this.

Here´s a close up look on one of the blocks of this quilt.

The sun is shining today and that´s a thing to treasure, it´s not always like that these days. I feel almost well so I think I will have to do some more baking for the wedding reception today. Have a lovely wendnesday!