Who Knew

Whew!  Work week done - hello, weekend!  I'm looking forward to another crafty weekend but I still have one more LO from last Sunday to share with you.  Remember how a week ago I posted this photo?

A photo badge of my childhood self, my mum and my granny from the '80s.  Unsurprisingly, many people commented that I simply had to scrapbook this little treasure and I couldn't agree more.  So I pulled out my new Hello Again collection by Carta Bella and got to work and here is the final product:

I have to admit, I was channeling Glitter Girl's episode #85: It's All Hunky Dorey for this LO. Like Glitter Girl, I used the same background paper because it's my absolute favourite in the whole collection.  I liked the idea of using the pop of black and great typography for contrast.  I also added that lovely map print from Webster's Pages, which ties in with the journaling.  And I couldn't resist including a View Master slide reel to re-inforce the '80s timeline.

I've been steadily working my way through my bag of Basic Grey Knee Highs and Bow Ties chipboard pieces but hadn't yet used any of the circles.  I was so thrilled to find this largest one was orange with tiny pink dots and worked really well with the other papers.  The extra large scallop die cut is from OA's Woodland Park pack.

The journaling card was part of the Hello Again cut-apart sheet and the glasses with the 'looking back' is from my favourite KI Memories stamp set - just so perfect for this LO.  And I took great cheeky pleasure at throwing in the 'be awesome' chipboard.  I used my first puffy sticker geotag here and a 2Peas star-shaped paper clip.  I added my estimate for the date - 1984.  I'm really happy with this LO and now I really can't wait to get scans of more childhood photos.  I'll have to see about doing that when I'm back home visiting my parents over the winter holidays.

In other news, last night I stopped into the big craft chain store here in Sweden, Panduro Hobby, and was super excited to discover a bunch of new scrapbooking goodies on offer:

That's right - the Simple Stories Snap! line!  And it doesn't appear to just be bits and pieces this time, either but - dare I say? - full line!  The binders, inserts, page protectors, papers, envelopes, journaling cards, etc.  I just picked up the 6x6 paper pad and one of the 3x4 journaling card packs for now but then I realised that this will be perfect to make a special birthday gift for a friend so clearly I'm going to need to go back and get more supplies for that project.  So exciting!

And check out this phrase and date roller stamp - love it!  This is a Panduro Hobby own brand stamp and it's in English, which is awesome.  I really like the variety of phrases, from the simple 'date' to several that will be perfect for travel themes and some fun symbols and pictures (totally love the little cutlery set for Thursday dinner photos).

All right, that's all I've got for now.  Check back later this weekend for more.

Are You Ready for Adventure?

So last year my Granny came to visit me in Sweden.  It was a pretty big deal, considering she was 82-years-old and the first member of my family to visit me in the 10 years I've lived here.  Needless to say, I documented every day we spent together and then worked my butt off creating identical albums for the both of us to remember this special time together (I gave her her copy as a Christmas gift - she loved it).

Anyway, having taken Shimelle's Cover to Cover class (which I highly recommend, btw), I've been keenly aware that I needed a page to link my annual 2012 and my Our Story: Sweden 2012 albums together.  Without this link, I have a huge gap in my annual album, which is obviously not representative of reality.  I just hadn't figured out how to make the link, since I didn't want to re-create another identical page as the first page in my upgrade album to live in my annual album.

Then I remembered that I had a second shot of that same photo already printed and that I'd pre-pulled the fabulous map print from Allison Kreft's Composition & Colour series and Amy Tan's text border stripe from Yes, Please - the beautiful pastel colours work wonderfully together so I got down to work yesterday and came up with this:

Are You Ready for Adventure?

Initially I had intended to use an OA Cakewalk teal/green grid print for the background but then I spied this adorable Little Yellow Bicycle cloud print that I've always adored (and bought like 4 pages because I loved it so much) and I knew I had to use it.  I love how the combination of sky/cloud and rotated map print gives the impression of looking down while flying, which I thought was rather fitting for the topic of flying overseas.  In fact, I had originally planned for the map square to be straight but when I saw it askew on my work table, I loved how much more interesting the page became.  I was also very happy to finally use this chevron arrow transparency, also by Allison Kreft - I bought it a few months ago and every time until now that I've tried to use it, it just disappears in the busy patterns/colours of the paper I've tested it on.

I'm also making a conscious effort to start using my BG Knee Highs & Bow Ties chipboard pieces and I broke into my new MME word stickers for the title.  You can't see it here but on the opposite side I needed the word 'for', so I had to cut it out of a phrase but it works well regardless.  I was also pleased to have another opportunity to use these green flocked Thickers - they were sent to me as a free gift from a magazine and to be honest, I really dislike them.  Green is my least favourite colour so they don't get used much but I like how they work in this design so bonus points, indeed!

One more detail shot to leave you with for today.