Oil pastells

Hi there!
It's been a while! I've not been scrapbooking since my scrapbooking vacation a few weeks ago and I blame the weather. It's been so gloomy and I've had no energy at all. When the kids have fallen asleep at night I just want to drop dead in the sofa infront of the TV.

Then on Friday I got a delivery from AliExpress over in China and got myself a lovely set of 36 different oil pastell crayons which I had to try!

I remember we used them in school and I hated them, never saw the point of using them, but now I see how lovely they are to work with! I must buy more white ones because i have already used up more than half the white that came in the set.

I've made several different background papers and we'll see how many of them that actually end up in my album but this one surely will. The photo is of hubby, the kids and the cat reading a bed time story together :) after taking the photos I joined them too!

I hope that this is the start of a new scrapbooking period! I have so many new things to try!

Take care!
//Åsa

Birthday photos

Hello!

Birthday photos are hard to scrap. These have been waiting in my photo box since early March but they were not fun enough to get scrapbooked until now. This double page is from my daughter's 6-years dinner with the family...

 

 

 

... and this layout have photos from her birthday morning when she got a pink wig :) 

 

 

I do like the patterned papers on all three of these.

 

Have a nice day!

//Åsa

 

Embossed chipboard

Hello!

Here are three layouts using the chipboard alphas that I embossed the other day. It was really fun to use them since they were ancient and really in need of a face lift.

 

These photos are so precious I might need to make enlargements and scrap them again!

 

 

My son and hubby.

 

 

I took my son on a bus ride down town and it was so much fun. We bought chocolate, explored the sights and rode escalators up and down - just for fun!  

 

 

Hve a nice day!

//Åsa 

 

Mixed media #2

Hello again! 

For a couple of days I've been working with a Mixed Media project for this 2013 photo of my son in his new pirate t-shirt:

I did a Google search on Internet to get some Pirate ideas and decided to make a ship. With many pictures as guides I drew this quick sketch:

 

Then I cut it out and glued it onto a 12x12 cardstock.

 

I added 3D paint (Gloss Touch) for some of the details.

 

 

I added two grunge board skulls and twine and covered the whole thing with a layer of Gesso. I covered the ship hull with modeling paste and made lines in it to give a wooden texture.

 

 

I used Liquitex inks and distress inks to color everything. I added sails made of thin paper, canons made of QK-circles and pirate accessories stamped with stamps from Magnolia. I made the bridge out of woodgrain washi and painted the windows with Glossy Accent. I cut out my son from the photo and made holes by his hand so that he could hold the anchor. I drew a brown marker line around all the edges of the paper.

 

 

I gave it all a much more weathered look with some black ink and filled in more of the pink in on the sky to even the evening sky.

 

It is now in my album and it was so much fun making it!  

Have a nice evening!

//Åsa

Haul from CiLi in Papers

Hello there!
Happy National Day of Sweden! 

Today I'm sharing a haul that came in on Wednesday. It had been on hold for several weeks awaiting some stuff on back order and now it finally arrived!

The fact is that I just ran out of album space and the same day I got my new 3-ring albums! Couldn't have done it better! I've already moved all my 2014 layouts into the first album  - it is already full, 50 layouts total. That created room in the previous album for more "2013 and back" layouts and then I have the second new album for coming 2014 layouts. I don't scrap chronological but I store them like that and I thought it would be good to start my new album system with a new year - this year! As for now I'm VERY happy with my choice for both albums (Pioneer) and page protectors (WRMK). 

With the albums came my Pink Paislee haul together with some random stuff. I ordered the cards from all the three new lines from PP and then I got some papers from Pen Pals and the bits & pieces for both Pen Pals and Hello Sunshine. I already got some stuff from these collections with my Mei Li Paperie order and I can't wait to get started with the scrapbooking! I need to take more photos, I'm happy summer is here woth lots of photo ops!

I bought some papers from Jillibean Soup. I will use the B-sides. I also got two sets of those JBS alphas that are so colorful and nice and one set of the die cut cards.

 

I got the MME woodgrain tape set and another glitter tape in aqua/teal from AC.

...and last an embossing folder with cameras from Amy Tangerine!

 

Have a wonderful day! 

//Åsa 

Å-some fun with Mixed Media

Good evening! 

My mega-super-scrapbooking-days are over, at least for this time, and I'm so tired! It's been two wonderful days and I have made nine layouts and gotten myself into a new creative direction. I'm exhaused by all the inspiration I've been given and I wish I could sit up the whole night and work on my ideas, but since I stayed up very late last night I'm so tired and I need some rest to be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

Anyway, a quick update on the day that is almost over.

Hubby and I went to Artistica before lunch and I got these things - and the CMY-color wheel for hubby, ofcourse!

I started playing with it right away and punched out some circles to make a background with my new Gesso. I took a Bazzill cardstock in a boring color I never use and started painting! The quality of that stuff is amazing! I already love it and just working with it gave so many exciting ideas for future projects!

 

 

When I had covered the whole surface it looked like this and I was so happy I laughed out loud!

 

 

Then I sprayed with some inks and  put on even more Gesso.

 

Is it even possible to do wrong with Mixed Media? I tried out my Modeling Paste and it was sooo smooth! I felt I could have made anything with it! I used my Heidi Swapp stencils and made a chevron movement around the centre of the page.

 

Then I mounted a "funny filter mobile photo" of our crazy cat on top of the background and added some burlap accents together with some old news print tissue tape from Ranger. I think I could have worked with this alot more but I was eager to come to a finished product, maybe next time I'll take my time to stamp and color some more layers and saturate the page a bit more.  

 

This far I have learned:

1. I expected the cardstock to warp when I had applied the Gesso. It didn't. It was amazing!

2. The Gesso took up the color from the ink, I will need to seal the ink with the transparent Gesso if I don't want that to happen on future projects.

3. My home made acrylic washes didn't make much color on the Gesso but hubby's inks were great! I just need to find other color combinations than the obvious yellow-pink-teal. Can't wait to try my new watercolors when they arrive!

4. It was really hard to cover up the background with a photo. Perhaps Mixed Media works best with tiny photos?

 

Can't wait to:

1. Cover other stuff than scrapbook paper with Gesso (newspaper, twine/string, paper flowers, chipboard, paper piecings etc)!

2. Make different textures in the modeling paste!

3. Watch lots of Mixed Media videos on You Tube for more inspiration and ideas! I'll make sure to have a note book close by for all the ideas that come to me during the days!

4. Ask my cousine if she would like me to make a 2nd year album for her son! That would be so much fun with all my new ideas and possibilities!

I'm now going on a spending freeze on all crafty stuff except photos. I have been buying so much I need to stay away from the web shops and just play with the stuff I've bought. I can't think of anything that I need to buy anytime soon. It would be great to concentrate on the learning and spend my computer time on the blog instead of in the shops.

Tomorrow I'm back at work and I have secretary duty for the leading board and it will be very interesting. I love that part of my work! On Friday is Swedish National Day so we only work half the day tomorrow and are free on Friday. Feels good! 

Good night ladies and see you soon. Take care!

//Åsa

PS! The heat gun is now officially out of the closet (oh, I mean the basement)!

The beach in March

Hello again!

It feels abit like I've been hit by the creativity truck, if you read the previous blog post you'll know why, but I decided to make a layout share before I venture off into scrapland again. It is day two of my "being home for scrapbooking staycation".

Today I'm sharing six layouts from the same morning at the end of March 2014. We had been ill with colds and what not and needed to get out of the house sooo bad. It was a sunny morning and we decided to drive to Alnö, an island just outside Sundsvall where we live. You go there over a beautiful high bridge (yeah, you know I love bridges) and it is truly the Hawaii of mid-Sweden with lovely beaches and sand, sand, sand! I took hundreds of photos and it was such a beautiful day.

This will be the first page from this morning and I have written the name of the beach where we were. For all the layouts I have used mailny two paper pads, Americana from Pebbles Inc and  Anchored by Authentique. With this layout I used my new roller stamp with the "Heart/Like" sentiment which is so NOW! This page also has the journaling for this event. The rest of the pages are mainly photos+title, yeah, be prepared for some multi photo Åsa-craziness!

I'm really pleased with the clusters for this one!

 

The mason jars on this layout are lovely! I added some roller stamping which was really fun! All layouts in this set has some of that brown ruler washi tape.

 

 

This became a bit too dark for my taste but that's OK.

 

 

I'm also pleased with these clusters. It is hard to embellish pages that are almost all photos, but all the sand made it possible to steel some space for a couple of goodies.

 

 

I needed to cover up that brown/white wash paper a lot since it is such a 4th of July heavy one with text and expressions that had nothing to do with a day at the beach in Sweden. I really love the photos of me from this day. I look so happy, with the kids, the sunshine, the water and the soft drift wood finds in my hands! I love going to the beach!

 

 

Now I'm off to the scrapbook table to try out my new Heidi Swapp stencils that I got from Mei Li Paperie the other day! Have  a wonderful day!  

//Åsa

Been shopping and planning more!!!

Hi there!
These days devoted to scrapbooking can be quite expensive... Yesterday (or it was really past midnight so I'll put it on today's account) I placed a huge order on A Cherry on Top and this morning I've already placed another at Creative Mode! The only reason for this total shopping bonanza was that I was watching Irit Landgraf on You Tube the whole day and I really don't know if I've even been so creatively inspired in my whole life before! You need to watch her!

I've seen her around for a long time and I've always loved her scrapbooking layouts, they are vibrant, romantic and beautiful and she is a truly amazing mixed media scrapbooker! But yesterday was the first time I watched her You Tube channel. Oh my goodness, I have been struck by lightening!


The clip that really got me on the bandwaggon was this one:

 

This will be the first day in the rest of my life - 

Åsa is going Å-some with Mixed Media! 

So I went shopping. I can't really say that this was totally unplanned. I have been curious to try all these before but I have been lacking true knowledge of the posibilities and the truie spark of creativity that Irit Langraf finally provided me with yesterday to start the actual action. 

For my new mixed media life I have ordered some stencils, Gelatos and watercolors. I choose stencils with simple patterns that can be used over and over again, dots, graphs, chevrons and such. I choose three sets of Gelatos, the reds, the blues and the 50's diner. And I ordered the Joanne Palette from Peerless Watercolors. 

Down town there is an artists' shop called Artistica. I have never been there but hubby is a returning customer. I will make him take me there for some additional shopping. I've been on their webshop and made a shoppinglist. I will buy white and transparent gesso, modeling paste and an aqua brush. I found a new CMY colorwheel that I showed hubby and I hope that will help me get a ride there, because he absolutely "needed" it ;)  I'm such a clever girl!

Are you coming with me on this new creative journey? Stay tuned!

Hugs!

//Åsa

Cleaned hubby's studio...

Hello!

Good morning! Today I'm at home scrapbooking! Hubby is at home too, but no kids. This is our way to stay sane, we treat ourselves to a couple of days off now and then and do our hobbies. This time hubby has a new computer game to explore and I have so many crafty ideas there will be no problem finding things to spend time on.

I started off lightly with some "window shopping" at A Cherry on Top. I'm not sure yet if I'll press the buy-button or not on that huge order I've put together; the shipping cost is still kind of awful and when ordering from the States the package is more likely to get stuck in customs and those fees are horrendous! But then at the same time its 20% off on their already very low prices and they pretty much have everything there is to wish for. I need to think on it some more...

Then I decided to make some embellishments to put in my box of bits and pieces. I stamped on cork as a warming up exercise...

  

...and then I went on to embossing! 

We have a room in the basement which is like a tiny workshop. The previous owner of the house used it for different kinds of "manly projects" like wood crafts, electric work, repairing household machines and such. To us it is our studio for messy crafts, mainly it is my hubby who uses the room for his air brush painting and for when he uses paints and varnishes that smell alot. I'm seldom there at all to be honest. But - it is where I keep my heat gun!

So I took my stuff and went to the workshop!

I'm not very skilled with embossing since I don't do it very often (perhaps because the heat tool is in the basement... I don't know), but this time I didn't care for neat, I did it for the difference in texture that embossing gives. This time I stamped on vellum and embossed with gold, black and white. And oh, how I love the effect of that!

While I were at it I also covered some very old chipboard alphas with some embossing powder in hope of using them in my scrapbooking. At least they look more fun than before :)

 

The whole time when I was embossing I felt super embarrassed because I made such a huge mess on hubby's work space and I got glitter from the gold embossing powder all over the place and you know how hard it is to get rid of glitter! So when I was done I hurried to get the vaccum cleaner and I cleaned the whole place before he even had the chance to see it. I hope I got it all so the glitter won't come back to haunt me later ;)

Now I'm going to finish the four different layouts that I've started the last week and then I hope to start a new project!

Have fun! 

//Åsa

 

A new week!

Hello!

Today I'm sharing three fairly new layouts. First is a series of photos of my wonderful son! I've used the fun stamps I bought from A Cherry on Top, stamped them in black on blue cardstock and then filled in details with my white Uniball Signo pen. I love that effect and I will do it again! I also love the paper from Studio Calico, it is so NOW!

 

 

On April 30th we have a traditional spring time celebration called Valborgsmässoafton (Valpurgis Eve) which we celebrate by lighting large bonfires and partying. This year the weather was horrible and we stayed indoors grilling marshmallows in the fire place. The backgroundpaper is also from Studio Calico.

 

 

Last is a layout with my beautiful daughter! She had a loose front tooth that she could bend over her lip and I had to take a photo :) I used cards from my new WRMK's Album Made Easy set.

 

 

Now I have two days off from work to relax, scrapbook and be creative! That is å-some! Have a nice week!

//Åsa 

 

Ebay haul!

Hi again!

I bought this on Ebay. It is cheaper than ordering a punch due to shipping and I'd love to sprinkle my summer layouts with butterflies just like Nicole Jones does. These are tiny and sweet, just the perfect size for "sprinkling".

 

 

 

They look lovely in ledger paper!

//Åsa

Haul from Mei Li Paperie

Hello!

Last week I got my haul from Hong Kong based shop Mei Li Paperie! The box was a bit smashed, but hey; it had travelled all around the world!

 

First some papers.

 

 

  Yeah, I work in the exchange, couldn't really resist this line!

 

 

The bows and the labels are gold foil, very pretty!

 

 

 

Unfortunatley Basic Grey has lowered the quality on these wonderful and very useful mini alphas, but I like them anyway. The Thickers are lovely, I got them on sale.

 

 

 Some embellishment for the Switchboard collection.

 

 

 A bunch of stencils from Heidi Swapp, but callin' it 12 pieces is really a joke! There are six stencils and six blank white cards.

 

 

 These are wonderful! I hope they will continue with this format! There are 4''x4'' and 2''x2'' cards both die cut and journaling cards and they are so easy to use! Love them! This is my second set.

 

 

 I've already started using this fun stuff! I'll be back with proof!  =)

//Åsa