Mini Album: Sweden - Part I

Welcome back!

So over the summer last year my oldest friend growing up, Adam, came to visit me here in Sweden (finally - yeah!).  I had toyed with the idea of making him a mini album of the trip for his Christmas gift and then got busy with work.  As the holidays suddenly landed on top of me, I found a great set of Simple Stories travel themed SNAP! products at the local craft shop; they were even rather masculine colours.  I hemmed and hawed over whether I should buy them, for fear that I wouldn't get the album done in time but I just couldn't resist so I bought them anyway.

And then I dragged my feet in starting the album.  I mean, I really dragged my feet.  The second from last weekend before I was set to fly out, I finally ordered the photos.  Then I fretted over whether they would arrive in enough time for me to actually put together the album.  They did - but only just.  I whipped up this puppy in two days straight!

The album is divided into five chapters and today I'll share with you the first chapter, which features general sight seeing around Malmö, Sweden.  And apologies for the photos - due to having left this project so late to create, I had to photograph it away from home before handing it over so there are weird reflections and stuff that couldn't be helped at the time.

Cover

I love this photo of us together:

Chapter 1

Itinerary

I marked Toronto and Malmö on this world map:

World Map

For these journaling cards, I filled in two and left one with space for writing blank for Adam to fill in himself.

Journaling Cards

Accent cards

Some photo enlargements of special sights nearby:

Turning Torso

Öresundsbro

And a panoramic of the bridge with a really pretty sunset:

Panoramic

Paddling on the canal

Touring Stortorget

I added a journaling card for a top ten list and a little envelope for tucking away saved tickets:

Top ten & ephemera envelope

Sights of Stortorget

Sights around Malmö

Malmöhus Museum

Whew!  That's all for today; be sure to come back for the remaining chapters.

Little One...Hello

Earlier this month friends of mine had a baby boy.  Naturally this meant that a baby card was in order.  I got to work straight away and in very little time came up with this (if I do say so myself - and I do) adorable card.

Now, would you believe that this card was entirely made from supplies from the Project Life baby girl kit?  Yes, indeed.  Everyone I know recently has been having baby girls and so my stash of baby related papercrafting is overloaded with pink, frilly cuteness.  And then suddenly a baby boy.  Well, I was up to the challenge.

I started shifting through the Project Life cards, looking for any non-pink possibilities.  Now, don't get me wrong, I see no problem in little boys having pink things and dolls and I certainly see nothing wrong with little girls having blue things and playing with Tonka Trunks but it's probably safest to play the gender neutral card in these situations.  So...I went with the fab retro orange and brown combination.

The elephants, stars and moon are from the Simple Stories baby girl collection kit and aren't they just the cutest?  I piled the elephants up on the bottom in a little family train.

Having added the elephants, there was suddenly this yellow from the baby elephant that was out of sync with the rest of the design and colour palette so I searched the Simple Stories sticker sheet for a way to bring more yellow into the card.  I found the moon and added some stars to make a visual triangle.  The cork cloud was a nice way of anchoring the stars and adding another texture and dimension of brown at the same time.

Finally - and I didn't take a photo of this part - I added the sentiment inside.  And to my horror, as I was writing out my note to my friends, I misspelt one of the words!  No!  What to do, what to do?  I grabbed for a package of word stickers and found a selection that not only fit with the message but even worked with the colour scheme and completely covered up my faux pas - whew!

What a Weekend!

So, intended plans for this weekend:

* Saturday - Midsummer Day, lounge quietly at home
* Sunday - hold baby shower for friend Alice (due date mid-July)

Then, actual weekend reality:

* Saturday - text arrives; water has broken, baby is coming!  Spend all day at Alice's helping out, keeping her calm and pre-occupied, coaching her through contractions and getting her to hospital later that night.
* Sunday - Wait at hospital until baby is delivered (June 22, 12:12am, 48cm and 2.87kg), just made it to term by a mere 12 mins!  Finally crawl into bed after 2am, sleep fitfully, get up and return to hospital to visit mum, grandma and baby Saga!  (Baby shower has been postponed to August.)

Anyway, despite all of that excitement, I did a little crafty work this morning before heading over to the hospital.  I've had some supplies to make a bump book with/for Alice but we've both been so busy that we haven't gotten started on it (and we thought we'd have 3 more weeks into the summer holidays to get to work on it - wrong!).  I had bought a package of Project Life journaling cards for her to add to the album so I decided to prep a handful with some misting and stamping, which she could then start to fill in while in hospital while things were still fresh in her mind (in between all the breast feeding, nappy changing and sleeping...  Haha!).

Bump book journaling cards.

Stamped cards - rag dolls & circular phrase icons.

Misted cards - various stencil patterns.

For the stamped cards, I stamped the images on both the vertical and horizontal sides so she has flexibility in which direction she wants to use.  Since the misting tends to warp the paper, I only misted one side of those cards but did some in each direction to still give her choices.  Then I threw in some blank cards to round out the starter pack.

Now I have some cot sheets to sew up and clearly I need to get working on that bump book for real!