Haul #2

Goodies!

I couldn't fetch that new package at the post office on my way home yesterday but when I got home I had another package waiting on my desk! It was from a UK webshop called Crafty Charlie. I haven't ordered from them before, mainly because I didn't know they existed. I have been looking for UK-based webshops for some time but never found any with a good selection of new supplies. So when I found Crafty Charlie I ordered within the hour! The prices were a bit higher than I'm used to in Sweden but the selection was great and I found supplies that haven't even found their ways to the Swedish web shops yet. I think the lower price for shipping and the lack of taxes and additional custom fees made it a good deal compared to ordering from the States, but I will need to do some counting to see if that actually is true for future purchases.

 

Here is my haul from Crafty Charlie!

 

First I got this camera die from Die-namics! I love it! I was about to buy it when I saw it the first time back in spring but when I finally got about to order it was alredy sold out. It will be so fun to have cameras in any color I want! I will also use the tiny mobile phone!

 

 

I ordered the Hey Day collection on 6''x6'' and cork arrows from Studio Calico.

 

 

Here are three more 6''x6'' paper pads that I have had on my wishlishlist since the moment I first saw them. Can't wait to play with these papers and colors! It is Down by the Shore by Fancy Pants, Hello Again from Carta Bella and Kneehighs from Basic Grey. 

 

 

From Simple Stories collection I {heart} summer I bought the sticker sheet and a 6''x4'' card pad.

 

 

And I saved the best for last! This must be the prettiest collection ever made!! I bought the chipboard stickers and the 6''x6'' paper pad. I think I have bought a couple of the 12''x12'' papers in an order from a different shop and I hope I'll get them soon. I'm especially looking forward to the 3''x4'' cards.

 

 

I had no energy for scrapbooking last night since previous night had had too little sleep but I feel very inspired by all my new stuff and I'm looking forward to next time I'll be able to sit down and scrap!

 

Have a nice day!

//Åsa

 

Raining away

Hello!

Going to work today was a bit like swimming! I forget how much it can pour this time of the year! Hopefully it will dry up until it is time to go home again!

After 510 phone calls answered in 7 hours I feel somewhat tired but I still enjoy every minute of my work! I was clearly made for talking and talking and talkning :) and scrapbooking! Happily I'm able to spend most of my brain on scrapbooking even when I'm working and I even more when the kids have gone to sleep in the evening.  

 

Yesterday I had time for two layouts with new photos. I need to appologize for the bad project photos, again.

 

 

Before I went to bed I pulled out some old white paper flowers and sprayed them with ink like crazy. I added some glitter and I hope they will look good with some of my new papers and photos.

 

 

Today I got a reminder on text message on my phone that I needed to come and fetch my package at the post office and I'm soooo happy about that. But at the same time I wonder why I didn't get a first notice!?! And I was starting to wonder where my new scrapbooking goodies were! Can't wait to open the box!

 

Take care and have a nice day!

// Åsa

 

 

 

 

Inspiration

Hej!
I can tell already I'll have lots of time for writing today, seems like folks got all their municipality business done earlier in the week. When I sat on the bus this morning I was moping about not  having any new projects to show you and I was thinking about dong some inspiration search for myself this day and share my finds with you guys here in the blog.

Paint & ink
Crackle paint and running ink 
Lovely aqua on grid

Banners & arrows
Banners in all directions
Stacking rainbow triangels
Triangles with stitching

Design
On a line with more lines
Many small photos in a vertical line, empty space
Chevron and ink over, yellow and black
Six cards
Envelope, cluster, spray
Squares
T-shaped with bits and pieces
Hexagons in all kinds of ways (perhaps use negatives from punching to draw hexagons?)
Great design!
Geometric pieces just perfect!

Layering
Layers, scraps and stamped background
Lovely layers
Wonderful colors

//Åsa

Thoughts on shopping

Hello!

I've been thinking about scrapbooking and scrapbooking shopping over the last couple of days trying to figure out my feelings about both and how they work on my creativity. I think it is interesting to evaluate why and how these things work since I really like to understand myself and be as creative as possible.

 

For a couple of months I've been a member of a Facebook group called 50 projects where we have been challenging ourselves to scrap our stashes and not shop before we've made 50 layouts. I did two rounds of that challenge and it has been very very good on my creativity and 100 layouts in just a couple of months is more than anyone can wish for, isn't it. So, it's been very good for my productivity. But has it been good on my creativity? I'm not so sure.

 

About the same time as I started that first challenge round I also started this blog. Blogging has been super fun and I'm so greatful for all the sweet comments I get and all the wonderful blogs and bloggers that I have found as being a part of the daily bloggers and readers on Two Peas in a Bucket's forum.

 

When I had finished my first round of the challenge I made a small purchase, I bought a couple of decoration packs and some paper pens. No papers, no dies and no stamps. But now when I finished my second round I went crazy with the shopping! I think I have been wishing and planning so much that when I finally got to shop I thought I needed all of it. I will love every one of all those supplies and I don't regret any of the purchases. But I think that I have become way to focused on shopping by staying away from shopping, if you know what I mean.

 

But at the same time, when you have made 100 layouts your old supplies seem to become really old and you have been flipping through those boxes so many times you need something fresh to even get started with a new project.

 

It is hard.

 

I will try a shopping freeze now, without counting layouts, without hurrying and without making shopping lists. I will try and convince myself that there will always come more pretty supplies and I will focus on learning more design theory and making beautiful layouts instead of just producing to be able to shop.

 

This is a layout I made yesterday. It is from the kits I made the other day. I just love that hexagon paper and I went with the lovely color combination aqua, yellow & white. The kids are sitting in bags waiting for us to start packing for our trip to go see my mother in June. The title says "Ready to travel".

 

 



 I don't know if I've become any wiser but atleast I have a plan and a goal. I will stop focusing on products and I will become a better scrapbooker!

 

Take care and have a nice day!

// Åsa

 

Layout and haul #1

Good morning!

Today I'm sharing my first hauls! They are from Scrap & Hobby and Kristinas Scrapbooking and I ordered early from them because I bought albums and just added supplies so that I could get the free shipping. I bought three black postbound albums, 100 12''x12'' page protectors and cardstock (red, vanilla, kraft, yellow, aqua) and then I made some random finds that I thought I'd show you here!

 

They didn't have a style of papers that attracted my attention at neither shop but at Kristina's I found these two. That KaiserCraft collection with the farries was really cute but I decided that it would be hard to use with the kind of photos that I take, but I bought the cards because I thought the sentiments were really sweet and then I also got some ferries. The paper with the cars is from Karen Foster. The assorted doilies were a bargain and I thought they were cute and easy to use.

 

 

The Prima Marketing stencils I bought at Scrap & Hobby and the alphabet stencil at Kristina's.

 

 

 

At Kristina's I bought the pink paper pens and the very tiny alphastickers and hubby bought the Uniball Signo pens for me at an art store called Zinkvit, they should last a while :) I've been very pleased with the paper pens from Viva Decor that I already have and they give just the right "enamel dot effect" that I was looking for.

 

 

At Scrap & Hobby I got this as a gift! That was sweet, I think! I love that viewmaster reel!

 

 

When I had reached my goal of 50 layouts I went trough my stash of fairly new papers and made 20 "kits" with coordinating scraps of paper and I added some of those fairy cards that I just cut apart. I think that I found a couple of kits that will be really successful for my photos so if I can use atleast a couple of them I'll be happy.

 

 

In the top right corner of the photo above you can see a pink spot, that's the kit I started with! It is a background paper that I've painted myself and some scraps that had the same colors. I think the green card from Kaiser Craft fitted perfectly with the quirky photos of my kids and their aunt. I added some green washi to give the green card a bit more legitimacy amongst all the pink papers. The card sentiment will do as my title. It was fun to work with this type of design, I think I normally do my designs more to the left of the page =) 

 

 



Unfortunately I didn't scrap anything yesterday evening eventhough I was in the mood all day long, but bedtime with my oldest took like forever and that kind of killed all the inspiration I had going. I wish for better luck this evening. Perhaps I have a scrapbook package waiting for me =) 

 

Take care!

//Åsa

 

I'm done!

Good morning!

It's ringing like crazy here at work, seems like people are starting to get back on track after vacations, yet another sign that summer is coming to an end weather we want it or not. We have had the warmest days of the summer this weekend and it sure feels like summer still!

 

I have taken lots of summer photos during the weekend, you know the kind with kids on the beach, kids in the pool, peppers ripening in many colors and raspberry cup cakes on the porch table. I love photographing and I even had my hubby take a couple of photos of me so that I can prove I've actually been there and done all that too :)

 

During the weekend I've managed to make 4 layouts! And you know what that means, don't you!?! I've reached my 50 layouts challenge goal!! Wohooo! Happy!

 

Today I'm showing layouts #48-50. They all have photos that passed the huge photo box cleanout last week and the first two are from 2010 and the third is from 3013.

 

Here I've cropped the photos heavily because they had so much wall, floor and furniture. The title is an expression we use in Sweden for dancing, something like "a turn around" and I think the chip board arrows were just perfect. I colored them with my brown fluid ink that I use for the paper edges. The flowers are glossy chipboard die cuts that I have got from a penfriend a while back.  

 

 

We are art & crafts people here at home, I love paper crafting and hubby is painting gaming miniatures. Our kids grow up with colorful projects going on everywhere and naturally they want to try for themselves. Here Freja is painting one of hubby's models, the paintbrush is as broad as the model but it gives good coverage :)  

 

 

This layout became so top heavy I had to do something about it.

 

 

I cut off a good piece of the background paper and the layering at the bottom and mounted the whole thing on a pice of white 12''x12'' paper. The result was so much better I had to show you so you can see the difference.

 

 

 

When my daughter saw this layout she said "Mummy, I want to do like that with the papers sticking out from underneath the photo next time I make an album page" Yeah! Of course we can!

 

And now it's shopping time!! Actually I've already done all the shopping so now I'm waiting for it all to arrive. My first plan was to do yet another round on the 50 layouts challenge but when I summed up all my purchases I was feeling kind of guilty and I needed to be "punished" in some way so I've put a shop stop on myself until after Christmas. Yes. It is true. I'll allow myself to buy adhesive, albums and paper copies, that's all. But I'll be in no pain because I have been shopping a lot! I will show you all of it when it arrives - starting tomorrow!

 

Take care! Hugs!

// Åsa

My photo stash strategy

Hello & Happy August!

Can you believe it is already August!?! In only one week the kids will be back to day care and we have raspberries in the garden, typically late summer happenings. It is raining like crazy and feels like autumn so I guess it is hard to convince myself it is beginning of summer any longer. Soon it will get darker and colder. I only wish the kids could have some warm summer days at home before the "grey normal" starts.

 

I've been having trouble finding my scrapbooking mojo the last couple of days. It is not a scrapbook block in any way, just a boring kind of tiredness at the end of the day that makes me want to sit in the sofa rather than by the scrap table.

 

During the weekend I went through my small photo box and took out all photos that wasn't interesting anylonger (I only left about 10 sets) and replaced them with the new paper copies I ordered using that coupon code that was to expire on July 24th. It was fun to sort the new photos and it gave alot of inspiration. But I had already decide to save them for when I start the next round of the Facebook challenge "50 layouts before shopping". At the same time I decided to "un-plan" all my planned layouts that I had in page protectors as small kits of papers and photos. I realized that if they hadn't inspired me uptil now I wasn't likely to use them any time soon. Instead I made 8 new kits with the photos I had saved from the last photo box and I immediately felt more inspiration.

 

This far I've made two layouts from those plans.

 

The photots of the layout today are grey and the colors aren't showing up properly and I blame the weather! It is so grey and boring it was impossible to get good light. It was this or a massive glare in the photos. I need to get a better photo set up for my projects.

 

This first layout is from earlier this summer. My son and I were home alone one day and we packed a picnic basket and had a snack in the play house in the garden. I've used grungeboard again, colored with fluid chalk. The foundation of the page is white with random aqua splashes.

 

 

These photos are so old now we can't even understand she actually looked like this in 2008 :) It was really hard for me to use this strawberry paper because I think it is so beautiful and I covered up almost all of it and I only got a tiny strip left over! I need to stop being this clingy to papers that are pretty! Now when it is done I think it fits perfectly with the photos so now I'm happy I used it. The foundation is a light pink cardstock.    

 

 

These are layouts #46-47 of the Facebook challenge round 2. Soon it's time for shopping again! Fun fun fun! I keep updating My Shopping List!

 

My photo stash system

 

In case you're wondering what I do with the photos I take out of my small photo box when I do these photo box cleanings that I described earlier - I'd like to tell you about my system.

 

As you already know I have a limited space for my scrapbooking and I challenge myself to stay in that space and not grow out of my boxes and cabinets. Therefore I don't order too many paper copies from every occasion, it is hard but I try to be good. The new photos I keep in a small photo box on my desk. It holds about three inches of photos and I use small cardstock dividers to sort them roughly. Most of the time I only care about these photos.

 

But then when I get that feeling that I have no interesting photos left to scrap, no paper copy orders coming in anytime soon and all I do is flip and flip and flip and nothing sparks my creativity, then I go to my big box!

 

I have a larger photo box in my stash where I store photos that didn't make the cut when I have been cleaning out my small box. At these times of photo dispair I go through the big box and I always seem to find a large bunch of photos that I'd love to work with and can't understand why I haven't already used them. Usually I get a big spark of creativity and everything feels new and fresh again!

 

So when I clean out photos that seem boring at the time, I know they will be perfect for another day's projects. So this is why I might seem to scrap only new photos and then suddenly there is a photo from way back in 2008, like today.

 

I hope, hope, hope that I'll be able to scrap some more this evening! If I do, I'll post tomorrow again! Have a nice day!

// Åsa