Vintage card

Just got home from work, so here´s a quick post on a vintage card I made yesterday:

The pink patterned papers are from beautiful Pion Design (From My Heart collection), so is the vintage image. I´ve also used a Prima scrap.

The heart pins are from Inkido, lace from Magnolia.

The paper flowers have been distressed with walnut stain and got some Smooch Spritz vanilla on them as well.

The butterfly has been cut out with my Gazelle. I distressed it with Tattered Rose and used lots of Star Dust stickles.

TFL, now it´s time for some episodes of 24...

Carpe Diem

I really need to put all my time into finishing the scraphouse, but I couldn´t resist try out my new space so I made this card:

To my own defense I can say that this was a real quick one. :-) Papers from Inkido, mixed paper flowers that I have distressed with Walnut Stain.

The Tim Holtz stamp says "What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it."

That´s kind of the conclusion of what I´m trying to say. You only live ones. The scraphouse can wait. Carpe diem...

Coolest ribbon storage?

We have an old beautiful iron wine rack that has been collecting dust. I really couldn´t resist making it into a ribbon storage rack:

It holds 52 wine bottles, which means that I´ll probably need to keep three ribbons in each bottle. I discovered that I have much more ribbon then I thought I had. Recognise the feeling?

I still keep most of my ribbons in my old home made reversed pull-EZ box since I need more bottles to fill up the rack. It seems like I need to drink more wine. :-)

My mess-totally uncensored

I´ve been practically bombed with e-mails the last week. All concerning the same thing-an update on the house. Most of you seem to have noticed that I got the kitchen cabinets last Friday. :-)

The people who delivered my cabinets seriously thought I was going to open up a store! Quite embarrassing.

I spent the weekend assembling the cabinets, but I´m not quite there yet. I´m missing a countertop and some doors from IKEA, hopefully they´ll arrive on Monday. I also got a wardrobe left to assemble. I picked up the countertops for the huge desk solution, but I haven´t fixed that area yet since I´ve been working all week.

So here it is... The mess- totally uncensored. As today:

I couldn´t resist carrying out some of my stuff. I totally panicked when I realized that all cabinets are going to be full! When I planned for the cabinets I thought I bought tons of them to avoid being overcrowded. Well... Didn´t work out, did it...

Confessions of a desk-aholic

When I was four years old my mom went through surgery. She wasn´t very mobile afterwards so we had a maid to help her out with the five kids and the household.

Ann-Margaret saw my little restless soul running around, screaming for knowledge. She wrote down the alphabet for me and told me that you combine the letters to form a word. She gave me the word "apa" (monkey) as an example and that was it. The next minute I was running around all over the house writing APA on the walls. Mom was going crazy and she realized that they probably needed to give me a desk to keep me still.

I got a spare table, a jar full of pens and some papers. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was love at first sight. From that moment I was stuck for life. I spent all my time in my room by that table. I wrote my first mini books in notime. The first one was obviously about a monkey, the second was about a princess who burned down her castle. I didn´t pay much interest to her, I was more interested in how good I could make the castle look. I still have that book with it´s blue cover in a drawer.

Since that day I´ve had them all. The spare tables, the cheap desks, the luxorious ones, the office models. I´ve loved them, cared for them, painted roses on them, fixed them when they have been falling apart, kicked them when I´ve been mad, weared them out until their last breath.

Now it´s time for the next generation. Yesterday I picked up my kitchen countertops. May they last long...

Quick Tim Holtz cards

I played around with distress ink and some of my Tim Holtz stamps this weekend.

I came up with a rather fun and quick card version that you can variate depending on season...

I used a piece of white cardstock (5 3/4 x 3 3/8) and a printer paper in the same size. I tore out the middle of the printer paper and placed it on top of the cardstock. I inked it with an ink blending tool, using Pumice Stone. I stamped a filmstrip on the side (same colour) and removed the printer paper. I stamped the man with the umbrella (Frayed Burlap) and the text (Black Soot).

Here´s another one, same technique.

I stamped the text with a watermark ink pad and embossed it with clear embossing powder before inking the background with Tea Dye.

Pysseltagen challenge-BIA mini album

I made this mini album for a challenge at Pysseltagen. You were supposed to do a mini-album of free choice with five spreads so this is what I came up with.

Me and my husband have gone through some really difficult times the past five months. We are trying to live a normal life again and I made this album as a reminder that this is a fresh start and life goes on. All pages are left blank so we can fill them up with our new life. I therefor named the album "A blank slate".

I´ve used all my leftovers from the Basic Grey Cappella collection. They were quite a few. ;-) All patterned papers are from Cappella, so are most decorations.
I made a window with a Nestabilities frame on the front page so you can see right through it to the first spread.

The Prima rose has been sprayed with Smooch Spritz Vanilla, bling is from Prima as well.

The Dusty Attic butterfly has got some white acryllic paint on it. I used distress ink Weathered Wood on the upperpart of the wings and Tattered Rose+Spun Sugar on the lower. I added Crystal stickles on the pink parts and Icicle on the blue. The middle got Black Diamond. After it dried I covered it with Crackle Accents.

The Bind It All wire is 3/4 Antique.

First spread:

Left:

You can see the backside of the Nestabilities window. The flower is a distressed (Walnut Stain) paper flower from Magnolia. 3D stickers are from the Cappella collection, so are the journaling card with transparent overlays.

Right:

The pink paper is the one you can see through the window on the front page. The pink and green paper has been cut out with Nestabilities and distressed with Walnut Stain. I´ve also added Crystal stickles around the green one. The clip, 3D sticker and ribbon is from Cappella.

Second spread:

Left:

More Cappella...

I cut out these tiny flowers with my Gazelle and added some Pearl Maker blue to them. They turned out kind of cute.

Right:

I put some stickers on the overlay to give it and extra dimension.

Third spread:

Left:

Notecards and brad also from Cappella. I had the black paper flower in a jar, not sure what brand it is. The flower centre is a mini glue dot that has been rolled in (Martha Stewart) micro beads.

Right:

I´ve added Rock Candy distress stickles to the large blue Prima flower and attached a black rose to the middle. The smaller ones has got Black Soot distress stickles.

Fourth spread:

Left:

Butterfly from The Graphics Fairy, everything else Cappella.

Right:

More miniflowers with Pearl Maker.

Fifth spread:

Left:

Have to say that this yellow patterned paper has started to grow on me. Didn´t like it at first, but now when I´ve nearly finished it I kind of like it.

Right:

Another spot for a photo and some journaling on the little card.

And now to the conclusion and last page:

Stamps from Tim Holtz, doodling with a black Zig pen.

I hope you got inspired!

Wallpapers and curtains are up!

I put up the last wallpapers on the western wall last week. It became really... flowered. Lucky I´ll cover some of it with my desk. I like it, but it´s a little too much.

I found these curtains a month ago and thought they were way to expensive for a scraphouse.

My mom has been cheering me on, knowing perfectly well that I absolutely hate ironing so I´ll probably not change them for ages. Our car was at a workshop for a week but I managed to get my hands on them last weekend when I borrowed a friend´s car. I thought I might as well buy them, would probably not be satisfied with anything else anyway. And they were on sale! I grabbed the last fabric they had.

My sewing machine broke down when I finished them. It really puffed through the last stitches before it gave up completely. I handed it in where I bought it, they were not sure they could fix it, still waiting for them to call me. Really need to get it back or get a new one, can´t live without it.

The couch in the corner is a dream in itself. It´s huge. It´s comfy. And it fits ME! All couches are too small for me, so when I tried this one out I was stuck. It appeared to be a little too big though. I´ll have to get rid of some of my stuff. Believe it or not, they will not fit in the room.

My husband has been on duty for the past week, so he´s having a day off today. I´m getting my kitchen cabinets for the scraphouse today, so I´ve taken the day off too. Really looking forward to assemble them.

I´ve got a huge dough that´s yeasting downstairs. Going to make some teacakes for Johan so he has them fresh for breakfast when he wakes up.

My rebuilt kitchentable

I rebuilt and painted our old kitchentable for my scraphouse

I´m still missing some splines that will be custom made, but otherwise it´s finished and it turned out exactly the way I planned. I´ve put shelves on one side of the table and the other side seats three people. I´ve also got an extra flap on the side if I need some extra space.

I found these cute baskets at Åhléns last summer. That´s when I formed the idea of rebuilding the kitchen table and have them on the shelves. I had to go to the store several times to get all the baskets. I must have looked really stupid on the train on my way home, baskets all over the place. They are larger then they appear to be.

I´ve labeled them so I can see what´s inside. They came in two different sizes, so I keep the small ones on the upper shelf and the larger ones on the lower.

I cut out the labels on my Gazelle and used the Ella Blue line from GCD studios as usual. It´ll cover my room in the end. I mainly keep stickers in them, organized by theme. Autumn, travel, wedding, christmas, house etc. I keep punches in one of the big ones, they swallow a lot of stuff.

I embroidered this tablecloth ages ago. I think I was 12 or something. I have tons of embroidered stuff since I started it at the age of 4. I never use it though, so I was glad when I realized that this line would fit my scraphouse. I´ve got another cloth that I´ll be having on the kitchen cabinets.

The candle holder is dear to me. It´s the only memory I´ve got from my grandmother. I thought she would be happy if she could see my house, so I´ve decided to have it on the table. She was a really talented craftswoman who was brilliant at absolutely everything.

30

Here´s another attempt to get rid of some of my "can´t live without" papers that have collected dust since I bought them. I love the So Sopie line from My Minds Eye, I just haven´t used all of them yet.

This is me when I turned 30 a couple of years ago. My sewing machine broke down when I was sewing my curtains for my scraphouse, lucky I managed to fix this layout before it happened.

I´ve sprayed the background with Glimmer Mist Juneberry Wine. I´ve stamped it with a swirl stamp (Frayed Burlap). All black rub ons are from Åhléns. The small pearls on all scallops are Pearl Maker Cream. I´ve used the sewing machine around the entire background.

Osiris got his paws on the large Prima flower. He actually opened up the package while it was hanging on my clip it up! Clever cat. Lucky I caught him in the act, otherwise it would have been torn into pieces. So I thought I might as well use it while it´s still intact. Once he gets his focus on something... Well. Those of you who have cats know what I´m talking about.

All the other flowers and bling are from Prima as well. The key is a gift from Angela, bless her for keeping my stock full.

I´ve stapled the white lace and used Nestabilities on the frame.

I used my sewing machine to attach the lace to the circle. The circle and the scalloped circle has been cut out with my Gazelle. The little white vintage frame is from Melissa Frances.

Hail-playing with the new Distress Stains

Hubby is out of town on a business trip and I can´t sleep when he´s gone as usual. So this is what I came up with tonight:

We had a hailstorm last year and I took this photo.

I got some of Tim Holtz´s new Distress Stains from hubby last week, so my bathroom looked like something from kindergarten this night. Lucky he wasn´t at home.

I used ordinary white cardstock and stamped some swirls on it with embossing ink. I embossed it with clear embossing powder.

I used Distress Stain Weathered Wood closest to the edges and then Faded Jeans. I added some Antique Linen here and there. I distressed the edges and added Walnut Stain (also Distress Stain). I stamped some bubbles with Faded Jeans.

I took the cardstock to the sink and washed it with water to get a water colour effect. I let the Walnut Stain stream down from the edges to get a different shade on the background. The bubbles turned out like this:

The embossed red cardstock has been distressed with Aged Mahogany and I´ve also added Glimmer Mist Burnt Red. I used a Tim Holtz embossing folder on it and distressed the embossed area with Walnut Stain.

I took a coffee filter and drenched it in Distress Stain Walnut Stain. I made a tag to put in it. I used Distress Ink Walnut Stain around the edges and sprayed the tag with Glimmer Mist Frost. I stamped the tag with a note stamp (Tim Holtz), also Walnut Stain. I wrinkled it and distressed it with more Walnut Stain.

The letters have been distressed with Aged Mahogany and I´ve also used Crackle Accents on them.

The Dusty Attic chipboard has got Distress Stain Faded Jeans on it and some of the new Stickles Midnight Blue. Love that colour.

All flowers are from Bo Bunny´s Mamarazzi collection. This one has got a bling flower from Zva added to itself. I have painted the bling flower with Alcohol Ink Eggplant.

The fabric is a baby wipe drenched in Glimmer Mist Frost.

Stickles chart

I´ve rebuilt our old kitchentable into an island with shelves on one side and seating area on the other. It turned out exactly the way I wanted it. The table is finally finished and I´ve started painting it. First layer, only four more to go. :-(

Anyway. When I came out of the scraphouse it started snowing. So depressing. I really don´t want more of that.

My sweet husband have discovered that I´m more happy about scrapsupplies then flowers nowadays so he gave me the new nine Stickles the other day. Amongst other things. :-) So here´s my new updated Stickles chart, now with all colours:

I´m posting my Distress Stickles as well. I´ve never become friends with them, but I do have a bunch. The only one I like is the clear Rock Candy, obviously not in the chart.

Distress ink tag pad

This is my second distress ink tag pad that I made last year. A lot of people liked it, but I haven´t posted it on my blog since I´ve just started it. A lot of you haven´t seen it on Scrapbook.com so I´m posting it here as well for inspiration.

I cut out all the tags on my Gazelle and coloured half of it with an ink blending tool. I stamped the other half with a swirl stamp. I used a ribbon to tie them together.

I used a ballchain on my first tag pad:

Unfortunately I spilled some water on it, so I decided to make a new one. It was very clumpsy to use so that´s why I chose to use a ribbon this time.

I love all sorts of colour charts, I´ve got tons of them. I think they are very handy. I really don´t want to try every colour I´ve got to find out which one to use.

Reminds me. I just got the nine new Stickles from my sweet husband, so now I have all of them again. :-) They are not in my Stickles chart. I guess the afternoon is saved.

How I store my distress products

My picture rails were so full I had to do something about it. I ordered three ink pad towers from Netherlands. Unfortunately not the best quality, but nothing that a little glue and spackling paste will not fix. I put all three towers together and painted it white. I used some walnut stain on it to get a more shabby look.

It holds all 36 colours. I keep my distress ink tag pad on top of it.

And now to the embarrassing part. I´ve got 25 ink blending tools. And yes. I use them all.

I drilled some holes in a leftover beam and put some blocks in each end of it. I´ve used tons of alcohol inks to colourize it. Don´t remember which ones I used. It´s five ft long, so I´ve got room for more tools.

I keep distress ink refillers, distress stains, distress stickles, distress crackle paint, distress embossing powders and tons of other stuff on my picture rails over my desk. Reachable and totally in view.

Another folded card

I really liked doing the folded card, so here´s another one. This time in green and with a Tilda stamp.

I´ve used a Nestabilities oval for the frame. Tilda´s dress is painted with Peeled Paint and Forest Moss. All leaves are Pine Needles, basket and skin Vintage Photo, wellingtons Black Soot, hair Brushed Corduroy.

The punch around the page is Embroidered Floral from Martha Stewart, all patterned papers from Maja Design (Fika collection again). All papers have been distressed with Walnut Stain.

Well, need to start unloading the car. It´s full of tiles for my scraphouse. :-)