Soaking Up the Sunshine from Top to Toe

Do you ever have times when you're working on a layout and you think to yourself, "This is taking forever - what's wrong with me?!" and then you have days when you think to yourself, "I've been at this for hours - I love it!"  Well, this new layout is totally that second one - guess I was just really feeling the creative groove yesterday.

Soaking Up the Sunshine from Top to Toe

The inspiration for this layout came from one of the starting points from Shimelle's Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking class, which I'm currently working my way through.  I have a particular weakness for designs that use layered up stripes of patterned paper; it's one of my favourite designs that I'm happy to go back to and scraplift repeatedly.  The colour scheme inspiration for this page actually came from one of the photos I took at this beach, that featured the pretty sun umbrellas in a soft, candy floss pink, which lead to the monochromatic palette.  I knew I wanted to use a variety of arrows but the heart motif that repeats around the page was complete serendipity again (until I realised just how much had hearts on it and then I ran with it).

I actually started first by designing the central embellishment for the page - the twine flower sun.  The lovely cream/gold twine was actually sent to me in a package and I paired it with some gold sewing thread in my stash.  Then I used this tutorial to create the twine flower, layered up a patterned MME brad through the eyes of a shiny yellow button and popped it on top of the flower.

Then I got to work on the page design.  At first I didn't think I had much soft pink in my stash but to my surprise, I actually had more than enough and decided to use up those scraps.  The original starting point was quite linear and I wanted this page to have a breezier, airy feel about it so I tilted the paper stripes and staggered their heights and layered the washi tape borders underneath the stripes so it just peeks out here and there.  Since I wanted the sun to be the focus of the design, I separated out the photos and got to work on that long title (there is something wonderful about long titles, isn't there?).

Finally, embellishment clusters.  I used a variety of Amy Tan/AC, EP, MME, BG and Simple Stories items and I punched little gold hearts from some gold ribbon tape, also saved from the same package as the twine - I seriously need to buy myself some of that.  I also discovered the cute banner paper from EP's Hello Summer collection features a number of pink banners, including one that reads, "I have sunshine in my heart today." - perfect!  Snipped those out and layered up with some dimension on the top, then used an Amy Tan/AC branding stripe with adorable pink hearts to ground the page.

I haz a happy.  <3

WIP Wednesday

So I have a few things going on in the craft department lately.  The largest is the age-old issue of organisation and functionality and at the moment, it's my scrapbooking supplies and process that needs the most help.  I have a reasonably small flat - a very comfortable size for just the cat and I but no spare room that can be used for crafting purposes.  This means that my supplies are spread out between the lounge and kitchen - the majority of the stash and stuff I'm not using at the moment is stored in various nesting baskets in the lounge while my current stash is in one big basket on the kitchen table, where I work.  I've also realised recently that I do most of my scrapping standing up these days.

So, I'm toying with the idea of buying a moveable kitchen island that I can use to scrap standing up and can choose whatever room in which I want to work.  I like the look of the Ikea Förhöja - a decent sized table top, drawers and two shelves.  I'm also thinking I could install some rails on either side to hang organisational pails and such.

To test out this theory, I spent Monday scrapbooking on my ironing board, which I set up at the same height as the förhöja island and it's nearly identical in measurements on the top.  It went quite well.  A very comfortable height and while I would love for a little more table top space, I think this will be a flexible solution, especially if I get the rest of my supplies stored better.  My lounge features a large Expedit-like shelving unit so I'll see about getting some baskets and perhaps pretty tins to fit into the bottom squares and possibly the famous ol' Raskog cart for extra storage and portability, which should fit nicely between my old computer desk and wall.

I also have designs for two new scrapbooking layouts rolling around in my head right now.  One uses the rest of my Kate & Co. Oxford Lane papers, which I discovered through chance while sorting through papers on Monday during tidy-up that they match beautifully with an Elle's Studio and Lily Bee Designs paper I bought in my last shopping spree - sweet!  I love when serendipity happens like that.  Here's a quick shot of some of the supplies I've pulled:

And finally, I've been making some more progress on my Albertan Relief quilt blocks.  I got the second green block sewn up last weekend.  Still need to do a second orange block and I definitely have enough red scraps to do one more red one, too.  Hopefully I can get those whipped up before next week so I can ship them off to where they're needed most and not laying around hogging up my ironing board (since it's apparently now doing double-duty...).  Here's the new green block:

Oh!  And I nearly forgot, I'm taking two scrapbooking classes!  I took advantage of the recent 2Peas 20% sale and bought access to Shimelle's Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking and Amy Heller's Through the Kaleidoscope classes.  I've decided I'm going to focus on one at a time and I'm starting with Hitchhiker's, because I always think it's important to review the basics (and I adore Shimelle :P ) but I'm super geeked to check out Amy's colour theory class afterwards.  Right now I'm enjoying a chapter a day and I think one of the sketches from chapter two will be put to good use with the second layout that's mulling in my head at present - fingers crossed!  And Wilna mentioned in yesterday's In the Mood to Scrap video that she'll be releasing an Art Class II this autumn - how exciting!  Her current one is still on my wishlist but you can be sure it will be the next class (or set of classes, now it seems) that I take.

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.

Summer on the Horizon

I feel like I've sewn my brains out these last few days (not a bad thing, just saying) so I'm switching gears back to scrapbooking.  I've had one partially started layout sitting on my table for far too long for my liking and while I wanted to get it finished over the weekend, that didn't happen but today was the day - hurrah!

So for this layout I tried something different from what I normally do.  Using colour palette charts seems to be all the rage in scrapbooking lately and I do love the Design Seeds palettes so when I saw this one, I knew I had to use it - orange, yellow and turquoise - *happy place*...

I pulled entirely too much paper and 'stuff', which resulted in being overcome with choice - never a good thing for me.  I worked on whittling it down, thinking I knew what I wanted to make and in the end it went in a rather different direction - different but good.  Here's the final layout:

Summer on the Horizon

I made the sun burst from vellum, which I misted in a bright orange, then cut out the rays and stitched them down with my sewing machine.  For the sun itself, I painted a doily using the same orange mist.

For the water I layered up stripes of different turquoise papers in an ombre effect and tilted them here and there like moving waves.  Then I layered up some turquoise sewing thread over top for some texture and held it in place with pearls for 'sea spray'.

I kept the few embellishment clusters small because I really pushed myself to go into excess on the rest of the page - something that is hard for me to do but I really wanted that boldness and overpowering feeling of joy that a multitude of gold sequins gives (or is that just me?).  And that adorable butterfly shaped paper clip?  I found that at an art/stationery shop in Ystad the other week - sooo cute!

Lastly, I used this page to play around with some homemade texture paste (talcum powder, glue, paint and a bit of water) and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  I cut my own triangle mask from some cereal box cardboard to use with it.  Easy peasy.

Feels good to get this project completed and I feel like I've stretched myself with some fun, new or different techniques.

Pinspiration Sunday

It's been a lovely, long do-nothing sort of day today and since it's closing in on midnight, I'll keep this one short and sweet.  Go grab your hot beverage of choice and enjoy the photo love.

Currently:

* reading - Papercraft Inspirations (August issue)
* making - slab quilt blocks
* drinking - water
* wearing - PJs
* weather - partly cloudy, 16C
* feeling - excited to be starting two scrapbooking classes tomorrow (more info soon)
* wanting - to do everything and nothing at the same time
* needing - to get to bed
* planning - how best to rework my space & better organise my scrapping supplies
* thinking - not much right now
* loving - having spent the day playing Sims 3 (geek alert)
* enjoying - my summer holiday

Just One Slab

I have officially started sewing/collecting my own blocks for this project and should shortly have the last of my donation blocks ready to post to Alberta to assist in the recovery project.  Again, if you're a quilter and would like to get rid of your scraps and help others in need, please check out this awesome initiative.

Hedgehog Pincushion

OMG, how freakin' cute is this hedgehog?  I *love* hedgehogs (they're right up there with owls and cats).

Hello Jane by Paige Evans

This page reminded me that I've been wanting to use triangles for a while now and have yet to do so.  I have one final photo unscrapped from a quilt exhibition trip last  year so this could be the perfect inspiration.  I have some plans...  I've just not been very good about follow-through lately.  *sighs*

Washi Tape Brads

And a follow-up on the washi tape buttons idea from last week, how about covering brads with washi?  Love it (although it seems very fiddly, considering the average size of most brads).  However, I do have some extremely old - as in, one of the first scrapbooking supply kits I ever bought old - large brads in drab not-me colours that could seriously benefit from this idea.  We shall experiment.

Photoshop Tutorial: Remove Tourists

Okay, I haven't actually tested this yet because I don't have a series of photos for it but this sounds reasonably awesome for those of us who travel regularly and sometimes you just want that perfect shot without people you don't know standing around in it.  If you try it, I'd love to know what your results are like.

Kelly Perky Foody Stamps

So I've been catching up on listening to PRT and in one of the semi-recent episodes, Amy Tan and Kelly Perky were on discussing scrapbooking food.  Now, if you know me you'll know that my girl friends and I go out to supper every Thursday during the academic year and we love to take and post photos of our food.  Yeah, we're foodies all right.  So you know I'm interested in these awesome stamps.  I also know there's been a lot of chat lately on the 2Peas board about the generally not great service at Simple Simon Stamps but I just have to have these (there's a second set, too).  I'm thinking I'll order them sometime before Christmas and have them shipped to my parents in Canada, thereby cutting down on the shipping cost and if someone in the family wants to claim it as a gift for me, everyone's happy.

All right, the cat's freaking out and I need to get to bed.  Cheers and sleep well, folks.

Albertan Relief - Block Update

So I spent a lovely day today stitching away, sewing more slab blocks for the Just One Slab - Quilts Recover Southern Alberta project, all the while listening to episodes of the Paperclipping Round Table.  Way to marry together two hobbies, I say.  Anyway, I stitched up three more blocks and this time I have photos to share with you.

Blocks from yesterday:

Initially I had all of my pink fabric in one group but I was finding that I just couldn't bring myself to pair the hot pink alongside the cooler, candy floss pinks so in the end, I decided to split them into separate blocks and I'm much happier with the results.

Then today's blocks:

Okay, so now for confession time.  I think I've sort of fallen in love with the green block.  And possibly the orange one, too (orange is my favourite colour, after all).  However, I'm not about to rob a charity of something I've chosen to donate.  I have plenty of green scraps so I'm going to sew a second one to donate.  And while I have less orange scraps, I'm going to try to squeak out a second orange one, too.  Then I can keep two and still have seven to send along to the project.

So basically this means that I've decided to make my own rainbow slab quilt, which is sort of cool.  I'm thinking it can be something that I work on as scraps pile up after projects - sort of like doing a scrap purge every few months, which can only be a good thing.  Since this is likely to be something that I work on over an extended period of time and I know I'm fairly rubbish about getting to the sandwiching and quilting phases, I'm planning to approach this project as a quilt-as-you-go.  This will mean that I won't suddenly choke once the blocks are finished.  It also has the added bonus that my sewing machine, which has tension problems, is too old for walking feet and has general difficulty with quilting, can better manage the smaller-sized blocks compared to full-sized quilts.  So, wish me luck with this new project!

Finally, something papercrafting-related.  Today I listened to probably the last eight or so PRT episodes.  PRT #164 - Eight Years Lost was quite profound to listen to and if you haven't, I would encourage you to go listen to it now.  What if you woke up one day and couldn't remember the last five or eight years of your life?  It really puts scrapbooking into a new light, I think.  I've always struggled with journaling and I know I'm not alone among scrapbookers with this element.  I have consciously tried to work on it and I do think that I've made progress over the last year but this episode in particular just highlighted the importance of continuing to improve my journaling skills.  Anyway, just some food for thought to share.

Just One Slab - Albertan Relief Quilts

Last night I was browsing through Quilter Blogs and stumbled across a great charity project:

Naptime Quilter Blog

Here's the run-down: As you may be aware, southern Alberta suffered a horrible flood recently and while the immediate danger is gone, many people are still suffering and in need.  Cheryl Arkison is organising quilt block donations - just the blocks - which will then be sandwiched and quilted by local quilters and donated to recovering southern Albertans.  Sounds absolutely awesome and brilliant!

I've long thought about making a scrappy quilt.  I'm one of those people that hates to throw away even small scraps, be it fabric or pretty paper, so the idea of using up those little bits really appeals to me.  However, the OCD part of me often struggles with the complete randomness and lack of cohesion scrappy quilts typically embody.  But the colourway slab idea that Cheryl is using is awesome - scrappy but organised enough to make me happy inside.  I also love that there's no pattern involved, no measuring - just sew randomly as you please; it's like a fun jigsaw puzzle figuring out how to put all those scraps together in the best possible way, such a fun challenge.

So first thing this morning I dug through all of my fabric and picked out scraps and pieces of fabric I knew I wasn't going to use or was happy to donate.  Here's my piles:

It doesn't look like much here but there's plenty even for 15.5" blocks!  Next I sorted everything into colourways and got started sewing.  Oskar made sure to lend a hand with the tedious job of pressing the fabric.  He's extremely helpful that way.

So far today I've sewn four blocks and I have plans to continue with more.  I'll take photos to share tomorrow when there's better daylight so stay tuned for more.  I've been enjoying sewing these blocks so much I'm even thinking of making one for myself after I've done a set for the charity; they're just so fun and easy to whip up and they look really striking - a modern twist on the scrappy.

If you're a fellow quilter, I encourage you to please visit Naptime Quilter and help Cheryl with this thoughtful project - a little goes a long way!

WIP Wednesday

Here we are at another Wednesday - seriously, how do they fly by so quickly?

The wind today is really whipping outside and been making me feel restless but I have managed to putter around with some scrapbooking today.  While I generally consider most layouts 'finished' once they're off my work table and photographed, sometimes I'll look at one I've done recently and realise that there's something missing.  I'm quite happy to go back and tweak as necessary in these situations, because I'm a firm believer that I should be happy with my creative work.

So today I pulled out this layout that I created in April:

I <3 Malmö

After I finished it, something just felt missing so I kept it out to mull over what it was and how to ultimately finish it.  I felt like I wanted to frame the photo and that with all the delicate colours, it needed something dark to help anchor it.  I also felt that with all the straight lines in the design and the papers, it needed something circular beyond just the buttons and the sticker.  Then I remembered one of Shimelle's older sketches (here), that uses brads in a circular shape.  So today I broke out a package of alpha brads I've been hoarding and got to work; I filled out the rest of the circle with gold sequins (totally obsessed, it's a sickness, really).  For me I found a tighter circle worked best.  After:

And a detail shot:

I feel confident in calling this project done now and have slipped it into its album.

Then I decided to work a bit more on a layout I started the other week with a sun and surf theme.  I discovered, however, that the recent humidity, low as it was, curled my vellum so I'm trying to press it out, as it's making the layout a bit tricky to work with curled up.  I did, however, add the bottom layer of papers today:

By that time I'd lost steam so I've put it aside again to flatten out some.  I am hoping to finish it off by the end of the week, though, since I don't usually leave pages to sit like this; I'm more of a start to finish scrapper normally.

I'd also like to take a moment to thank the people over at Quilter Blogs for linking to my blog.  They have a lovely selection of quilting and sewing related blogs so if you also love stitching, please do check them out.

I Can Sleep Anywhere

Went to bed last night planning to spend my morning basking in the glorious sunshine on my balcony, stitching up a new embroidery block.  Instead, I woke up to a completely overcast sky - so disappointing!  However, it was an excellent opportunity to get back to scrapbooking without feeling guilty for not being out in the fine weather.

I got to thinking about the start of this layout over the weekend.  Not that you'd know by looking at the photo, but this is from my recent trip to Barcelona.  It was Good Friday and my girl friend and I were heading back home - unfortunately, there were no direct flights with SAS from Barcelona to Copenhagen so we made a loop around all three Scandinavian countries on the way home!  Barcelona to Oslo, Oslo to Copenhagen and finally Copenhagen to Malmö (that last leg is just a 20 min. train ride, thankfully).  Alice (my friend) marveled at my ability to fall asleep despite noise and everything else so she snapped this photo as documentation.

 I Can Sleep Anywhere

I don't have a lot of dark coloured papers in my stash but I had recently picked up this Panduro Hobby-brand paper.  It was distressed with a bluish wash around the outer edges so I cut it up and turned the edges into the center to help draw focus into the photo.  The rest of the papers are from Yes, Please by Amy Tan for American Crafts and I added in some vellum to add some softness.  I layered up the word definition strips from Yes, Please, which I thought worked really well to reinforce the story in the journaling.  I also topped the page with a strip of Dear Lizzy white crepe paper border and a pale blue velvet ribbon; I really liked the curtain-like effect it added to the layout and again, more softness, texture and a dreamy quality.  Then I sprinkled a bunch of vellum and blue scrap paper punched stars onto the background with some rhinestones for twinkle.  Oh, and just for some silly fun, I added a few glittery 'z's and an asterisk.  :D

For the title, I wanted the 'anywhere' to be large so I used the new Amy Tan vellum alphas in the turquoise, mixing the lighter and dark letters.  A bit of silver glitter Thickers, Amy Tan again, for the word 'sleep' and some small Basic Grey letters for the rest.  I also stitched with my sewing machine a few times underneath 'anywhere' to literally underline the word.

The pinwheel I made from some Yes, Please paper that has triangles/squares in an uncut pinwheel pattern.  The original was a little large so I trimmed it down to 2" square and then cut along the diagonal lines - super simple - popped in a decorative brad and done.  There was a large bit of negative space in the photo just above the pinwheel that was really bugging me so I stamped out a bit of vellum to tuck into the space.

I also toyed around at including some clear and white chevron transparency but it wasn't working the way I wanted it to.  Then I realised that the little triangles I had cut out along the chevron edge made neat little semi-transparent arrow heads so I stitched them down pointing toward the photo.

And now the weather is back to being sunny and lovely - hurray!

Sunny Stitches

The weather here in Malmö has been gorgeous lately!  Last week I spent some time out at friends' cottage and we sat sewing in the garden, soaking up the sunshine and listening to the Wimbledon games.

I took a few hand sewing projects to work on and got quite a lot finished, including those super cute citrus felt coasters I posted about previously.  Here are the finished pretties:

Aren't they lovely?  They were ridiculously easy and fun to make!  In fact, I sense a possible addiction coming on.  I've decided these could make a cute little Christmas gift for my grandmother so I'll make up another batch for myself - thinking I'll stick with just the brightest colours (hot pink, orange, yellow and possibly the light pink), since they were may favourites.  If I can find more of lime green, that would work, too.  If you'd like to make your own, the tutorial is free from The Purl Bee.

I've also returned to working on my embroidery quilt, Nice People, Nice Things.  I loved this project when I first saw it - the sample was a cute little wallhanging and I thought, I could do that pretty quickly.  Little did I realise that the project was not actually intended to be a wallhanging but a full-sized queen (or king?)-sized quilt, double-sided!  Needless to say, it's been anything but quick but at least I always have hand sewing on hand when I need it...  Anyway, I finished all of the picture and sayings blocks for month #6 - hurrah!

I've even been very good and cut out the remaining fabric pieces for the last two months and ironed on the transfers for the next month's batch.  The weather tomorrow is suppose to be clear and warm so I foresee another morning spent lounging in the sun, stitching away.