CCG 196 Golden Days and a birthday card

Monday came and went and so did Tuesday. These next few weeks up till Midsummer (24 June) will be completely hysterical at work, everything has to be finished before the Swedish summer hols set in. It doesn't leave as much time for scrapping or for commenting as I would like, so I apologize in advance for my at times seeming absence.

Anyhow. Last Friday saw the release of beautiful summery palette 196 over at CCG; don't you just love the names Debbi and Janet came up with!

This week's Designer Challenge: Focus on Topic - What do you love about summer? So what is your favorite thing to do? How do you enjoy your summer? Such a broad topic, hope you have fun with it! Create a project - layout or card, using this themed topic. Cardmakers can create a fun summer card!!! The Designers made a fabulous job this week, I hope you are inspired!
A little note: Grease is one of my all-time favorite movies, this challenge week is dedicated to Jeff Conaway, the actor who played Kenickie, Danny Zuko's best friend. He passed away May 27, 2011.

Swedish winter sets in at the end of October and doesn't release its icy grip till March, it gets pitch black at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and people hybernate, desperately dreaming of spring and summer to come. No wonder Scandinavians live life at triple speed during June-July and August just to savour every single second of the light and warmth. So asking what I love about summer or how I spend it is pushing my happy button!

I love that its light, almost 24 hours a day. Living where I do, also means a lot of my life is focused on every aspect of water; being in it, on it, by it, near it. The first day of my vacation is blissful, I'm letting my feet out of their high heels, I'm not wearing any make-up, I take long leisurely breakfasts, stay up as late as I want, and ... finally I get to read all the books that have been waiting to be read. Summer is just a long string of Golden Days.



I chose this photo of my MIL (to the left) and her SIL half a century ago, because it shows them doing exactly what I do today; loving the sun, the scent of green grass, flowers and enjoying a perfect summers day.



Here I have cut strips of cardboard rather than used a square of it to mimic the ground and placed scrunched up torn pieces from an old book in between the cardboard strips as symbols of the books I read. The two text strips say the same, the one in English says "Reading books in the hammock". A daisy of course, the typical summer flower.



More flowers of course. The torn out threads of muslin is like the white fluff of dandelions that fly about in the summer. I'm really letting my hair out! The buttons are for unbuttoning my office clothes and stepping into my baggy comfy shorts.



The splatter of TA mist in Patina is for the omnipresent water and the strip of canvas for the garden umbrellas and sails.



I used these papers because I think they are pretty and have both a summery, maritime and old-worldy feel to them. All of them, except the teal one, which is white cardstock that I have misted in TA Patina, are from Swedish designer Maja. Same lines that I used in my previous LO 195 Paradise. Oh yes, and the scattered petals and stamens are there because I was cutting up a Prima flower and dropped the whole thing on my page. Thought it looked rather whimsical so I decided to stick them down where they had more or less ended. I matted the photo in black and hand stitched on the photo and on one of the papers. Black card stock used as well.

Yesterday was the 60th birthday of one of my colleagues at work and I had been asked by the other ladies to make a card that we could leave together with our present. Margareta, as her name is, loves flowers so with the scraps I still had sitting on our kitchen table after having made the page for OUAS' 1 June challenge, I made this:



The papers are K&Co Julianna and the sunflowers I bought at John Lewis' haberdashery department in Oxford Street, London. The doily is from Chip Chop Shop and the tiny glazed brad is BG Curio. "Grattis" means "congrats" in Swedish.



Thank you so much for your visit and for bearing with my ramblings! Hope you have a good rest of the week, take care all of ya!

xoxox Eila