Scrap process for PL

I thought I'd show you some photos of the process when I made my personal Project Life for April. I want to apologise for the bad quality of the pictures, took them with my phone.

I start by choosing papers I like. I prefer when they are light and quite neutral, here I put some ledger papers over darker cardstock. When I do this I have a sketch on where the different stories will go, but as you will see, they do not always end up where I first intended.

I had three photos for this page (I don't feel the need to have photos of all my stories, epcially since I love the look of the written word) and placed them where I wanted them.

Now I have started to put some more things down, the month pocket is almost done and I have chosen a journaling card for the dotted paper.

Here I have done the book pocket and after I was done I realised that there were two round red journaling stickers right next to each other and I didn't want that so I moved the books down, but then I had to move the dotted paper and I didn't want to just swich places for then I would end up with three pockets with red in a row... And the dotted paper pocket holds the journaling to the baking photo so I wanted to have them side by side. Sigh... Oh the trouble of designing! You should now too that I can't move around the papers any way I want since I have cut down the pocket page both at the top and at the bottom to fit my American Crafts modern album. The pocket is swedish standard A4 which is slightly taller than 11".

And here's the finished page. I really have to use my utter most self dicipline not to over embellish the pockets, since it is so much fun, but I like the end result much better if I contain myself. If there is too much going on in all the pockets it just looks messy, so I will have to save the great embellishing for my ordirnary layouts.

Talking about ordirary layouts I have to say that doing Project life has changed the way I do my other scrapbooking. I used to do a lot of "we did this"-layouts and they were often quite simple, but now those stories end up in my PL and that leaves me the oppertunaty to do more layouts about feelings and connections instead and this pages tend to be more embellished and that is FUN.

Hope you enjoyed seing my process. Bye!

Blog award

My sweet daughter Sarah got a blog award, well deserved I have to say, for her so well written sewing blog. The award asked you to then give it forward to other bloggers that inspire you and she was kind enough to include me to her list. Thank you dear!

So now I have to give it forward to blogs that inspire me. I do read quite a lot of commersial scrapbooking blogs, but I don't want to include them here, they get so much attention as it is. In the catagory of commersial blogs I also include those of personal nature, but that seems to merely promote a certain company and I have to say that is kind of dull. So here is a variaty of blogs that inspire me.

Project Life Sverige  Four swedish bloggers, who do Project life, have started a blog in swedish talking about how they do their PL. They are in different stages of life and do it in different ways, which make it very interesting to read. I was so happy to see that it had been started and await each post with great antisipation.

Sockergrynet is a swedish blogger that I have followed since I saw her work in the first swedish scrapbooking magazine Scrapbook m m, which is no more.  I just love her style! She is SO talented. She is also one of the four at Project life sweden.


Lisa is also one of the girls at Project life sweden. I found her blog through write.click.scrapbook, were she also writes, and which I love. It's always nice to find swedish girls on the international scrapbooking scen. Lisa is doing her own thing and I like that.

Scrap-impulse is a german online scrapbook magazine/blog that I follow. German was my favorite subject at school so it's always nice to get a chance to read it again, and Barbara, who has this blog also makes gorgous scrapbooking all kinds of things. If you like smashbooks, don't miss to check out her amazing travel smashbook from the US. You can find it here.

Landet krokus is a swedish gardenblog about a garden that I have fallen in love with. Can't wait to see it evolve.

Wild and precious is written by a mother of five, with two pairs of twins, all children born within four years. It is just so charming and lovely. You never leave untouched.

Fröken gröns blogg is a swedish blog about this ladys home and garden. I first saw her home in a swedish home magazine and much later found her blog. I love it all, but especially the green painted furniture that pops up here and there in the house.

Who´s this chick! is yet another lovely scrap blog, I just love them. The chich is a lady called Laura and she is a woman with a lot of helth problems who still wants to stay positive. Go positive! I always leave with a smile.

So much of the scrapbooking world is full of mothers and it's so much about everyones children, but there is a lot of women out there doing this thing who doesn't have any children and I love to see their lives (I'm very interested in peoples lives and what they think aso so the scrapbooking scen is a wonderful place for me!!) and one of the most charming blogs is In a creative bubble, written by Geralyn, who also design and sell her own printable tags aso. Her scrapbooking is lovely and her love for her family is so heartwarming.

So...besides passing the award forward to other bloggers, you shold also tell some odd facts about yourself, so here we go!

I always wear a skirt or dress. The only exception is when I´m working in the garden. Some people find that quite strange, since they find skirts the most uncomfortable clothing ever, but I think just the opposite!

I like stuff. I mean. I like well stuffed rooms, with a lot of furniture and things. My husband doesn´t so I have to compromice, right now anyway. When he dies I can have all the stuff I want!! He´s made me promise to NOT die before him, he couldn´t bear that...so it´s not that I wish him dead or anything.

I am an anti trend person. If something is really "in" and "everyone" is doing or having it I refuse. Even if I actually like it, which at times makes me want something but it is too late to get hold of it. Being stubbern surely has it downsides...

I like dirt. I´m a famers daughter and I love the dark, rich soil. I like the sight of it and I like to touch it.

I´m careless. When I sew I don´t do everything as well as I ought to...it´s just too boring. Don´t tell the fussy ones!!

So that´s it! Hope you enjoyed the blogs I love. Have a lovely week!

Vårtecken vecka 19

Våren tickar på, fast min man sa att de sagt på TV att det finns ingen vår längre, utan det går direkt från vinter till sommar och visst ligger det något i det, inte är det som när jag var barn inte... Och om de håller vad de lovat så ska det bli nästan sommarvarmt i slutet av veckan. Ja ja, man lever ju på hoppet, men jag kan ju upplysa dem om att på onsdag för 31 år sedan var det sommarvarmt på riktigt. Vi gifte oss nämligen då så därför har jag koll på den dagen!!

Alla bilder är från lördagen och då hittade jag det här hemma hos mig.

Björkarna har blivit mer och mer gröna för varje dag och för mig är det ett av de underbaraste vårtecknen. Skirheten i deras växtsätt kombinerat med den ljusa grönskan fyller ens själ med lycka.

Vårkragarna är som små solar som lyser, SÅ underbara. Fast de är bara hälften så höga som de brukar vara, alla hukar i kylan. En del praktiskt taget hatar gula blommor och vägrar släppa in dem i sina trädgårdar, jag däremot älskar dem, det lyser så vackert.

Pionknopp... Jag blir, som så måmga andra, fullkomligt knäsvag av pioner och en sån här knopp sänder rysningar längs ryggraden av förväntan. Läste att pioner behöver mycket vatten när de står i knopp annars kanske knopparna torkar och blir inte till några underbara blommor. Det har jag aldrig hört förr, inte oviktig info eftersom jag har haft knoppar som betett sig just så.

Och så min stenrabatt. Har klippt ner allt gammalt visset, så att man kan se allt det nya som kommer, men titta inte för noga för det finns ett och annat ogräs som jag inte tagit bort än...

Låt oss hoppas att det blir en härlig vårig vecka för oss alla!

(I) NSD: Journal in form of a letter

When I saw this challenge Shimelle I defenetly wasn't going to do this! I have never journaled in letter form and it felt really strange to me. But...I changed my mind and wrote a letter to my husband. I read this thing someone had written, that she loved wearing cardigans, but that she had realised her husband wasn't wild about it and it really hit home with me since I love cardigans too and wear them every day expect when it's really warm, which is not very often here... And I'm so grateful that my husband likes me just the way I am, I don't feel any pressure to be chic or anything.

My youngest daughter took this photo of me last Christmas and I had no idea what to use it for until now, it was so perfect for this.

I had to choose something to write the letter on and found this old Websters pages 6x6 paperpad with beautyful but hard to use papers and thought I would try to work one of them into this page. I had a couple of others I liked but as I had to cover up a corner of the paper by the photo I just had to use this one since the others forst me to put hte photo so that I would look out from the page. Not that this isn´t beautyful, I think it´s lovely.

I matted the photo with two different papers, coloured the raw chipboard "a" with an inkpad, used woodweneer letters for the title, some buttons (the blue flowers are buttons too, but I cut off the thing on the back) and pearls and the "me" stamp, that has "Monica" written all over her!!

Voilá, a layout about both me and my DH all at once!

(I) NSD: Scrapbook yourself

So I did some more things for International scrapbooking day, but never got them posted, but here is couple, in induvidual posts, since I had done most of the journling already...

I scrapbook a lot about myself so it was not very hard for me to go with this challenge from Shimelle. But instead of using a photo of myself I often use photos of things that means something special to me, and I did that here too.

I love purses... I very rarly go somewhere without my purse. My brother used to tease me about this when we were young and ask when I would put up my own shop... So at one point I took this photo and it has been lying around for a long time, so this was a perfect match for this challenge.

The photo wasn't very exiting with all these black and brown purses, so I was wondering how I was going to do this. I choose the cardstock for the backcrond and then the butterfly paper that went well with it's toned down colours but still brought in some colour. To divid it from the background I put a strip of black cardstock behind it. I chose this "old letter" tag to hold the title. I have had this piece of paper for ever and haven't had a clue what to use it for so I was really glad I finally found a place for it. And I think it looks nice.

I matted the photo and the title card with dark grey cardstock to make them stand out a bit. The next issue was getting the journaling in, but I found a salution for that too. This really isn't my typical layout colourvise, I usually use brighter colours, but I like this one too.

International scrapbooking day: Scraplift yourself

Today scrapbooking is celebrated all over the world! Horray! Lucky for us non-US folks, some have already started the celebration so we can jump right in and start getting inspired and challenged.

I have already made my first layout, after a challenge from Shimelle about scraplifting yourself. You can find the post about this challenge here I chose one of my favorite layout from my personal album to scraplift. This was it.

Home again-layout

The elements I ended up lifting was the vertical paperstrip to the left, the big mat under the photo, the horizontal paperstrip up to the right and the placements of the embellishments. The new page looks likt this.

Every day-layout

Instead of the horizontal paper under the photo I now chose a vertical strip to the right and I put my journaling spot at the bottom left instead of the upper right since I had to move my title more to the right for it not to disapear into the bold paperstrip with the numbers and I also moved the upper embellishment away from the title since it looked better up there where it covered both the background paper and the two patterned papers.

This was really fun. I'm not much of a challenge person, but if the challenges is within my normal way of scrapbooking I like it.

This challenge really is the same Studio Calico has on it's blog .... so I will enter both with this layout, I just happened to not see the one at Studio Calico until after I already made the page.

Hopefully I will be able to squize in a little bit more scraptime today alongside driving Elias to a party, shopping, washing clothes and watching the world snooker championships on TV!

Vårtecken vecka 17

Jag måste erkänna att luften har gått ur mig lite när det gäller att spana på våren. Visst går det framåt, men det känns inte som att det går tillräckligt fort! Har visst fotat framsteg både här och där i trädgården (både den här veckan och förra...), men ändå. Det är måndag när jag skriver det här och ovädret har kastat sig över oss, med både blåst och regn och det kanske är ett vårtecken? Fast det känns lite sent och inte känns det ett dugg inspirerande!!

Häromdagen var det dock vårligt i luften på riktigt, riktigt skönt och fåglarna sjöng och man fick lust att rensa ogräs... Eller det kanske är alla motorcyklister, som man ser på vägarna nu som är vårtecknet?! Hur som helst så kommer här lite bilder på framstegen hemma hos mig.

 Jag blir alltid glad av min härliga vårflod, som flyter fram utan att översvämma någons källare.

Om man kikar riktigt noga ser man både det ena och det andra på väg upp i min stenrabatt. Men kolla in vad som finns i min andra rabatt!!

Pion på väg upp - himlen!

Min svärmor tjoade av lycka igår över att ha sett vitsippor för första gången, här har de dock synts i flera dagar.

Och så mina rabarber där i sin pallkrage med en glasskiva över, det gör verkligen skillnad.

Är det lönt att önska er en glad vårvecka, med tanke på vädret, fast de sa ju att det skulle bli sol på onsdag, kom jag just på, så ha en härlig vårvecka!