OUAS 15JUN2011 "Duckie" and Swedish Midsummer

Today is the day before Midsummer's Eve, the longest day of the year and the lightest night. This is the day/night that fairies dance in misty rings leaving traces in meadows and grassy patches, pixies make mischief, it marks the start of Scandinavian summer!

Girls of any age make flower wreaths of birch twigs and decorate them with wild flowers and wear them today. Pretty summer dresses, bare legs (itch itch itch - we have moscitoes the size of B52 bombers but today nobody cares!) Never does people check the weather forecast more often than on this day as EVERYTHING is planned with a sunny, warm weather in mind!

Most places in Sweden have the same set-up for the Midsummer celebrations. My MIL lives in the first capital ever of Sweden, called Sigtuna. It was renowned viking headquarter in the 800th and 900th centuries and the nation's first mint can still be seen there. Sigtuna is located about 1 hour's drive north from Stockholm and in the summer it is invaded by tourists from all over the world. Midsummer in Sigtuna is as traditional as it can get.

People dress up in their national costumes and fiddlers lead the march from the meadow where the pole (looks like a maypole) has been dressed in birch twigs and wild flowers. Two huge wreaths crown the pole. Masses of people have been waiting in another huge open grassy area with pick-nick baskets for the pole to arrive.

Now we're getting to the exotic bit; children and adults alike gather in rings around the pole and start dancing and singing the traditional songs that make tourists think that Swedes have lost it entirely. That's because the dancers are mimicing movements in the songs and what looks like a mad waving behind people's bums, is actually them acting the movements of a frog, and jumping like one too ..

Strawberry cream cake of course. In Sweden the ultimate summer cake is based on sponge, whipped cream, crème Anglaise (cold vanilla cream) between the layers and strawberries - the more the better!

So there's to give you some Midsummer feel from last year and now to UOAS 15 June 2011 challenge that you can find HERE

Journalling Criteria: The theme 'A Moment In Time'. You can interpret this any way you like, but you must journal at least 4 sentences on why your pictures are memorable.

Go check out what the mind-blowingly talented girls from the team of sponsors at Webster's Pages and Imaginarium Designs have come up with!!! My goodness do I feel like the girl from the country farm in the hicks seeing their creations and what is uploaded in the gallery. Ahem, be gentle with me when you see what I've come up with ... me thinks I deviated a bit from the sketch too, that's not good Mrs S!



Dear hubby in the pic as you can see, it's taken on the same day that my LO for TCR 63 One Happy Dude that you can see in my previous post.



Papers are all from K&Company's old lines and bought at the fabulous Dutch online store Scrappapier that you can find HERE







On 8 May 2011 I was thrilled to bits to learn that I had won the weekly draw over at Imaginarium Designs blog, I was over the moon as I had been seeing their chippies in several gorgeous LOs and desperately coveted them. Here I have used the frame and the butterfly.

Both were first painted with TH crackle paint in White Fence, then in Rock Candy. The butterfly was then dabbed with acrylic paint in Cloudy Blue and misted with TA chalk in Cornflower that I rubbed on to the cracks with my finger. The frame I rubbed with brown acrylic paint, really like how the cracks came out, and then I used Lindy's technique for distributing paint splatter with some white acrylic dollops and finally I poured out some Shimmers Blingz in December Sky. Rather pleased with the result considering it's my first real try with chippies.




The rest is then distressing, chalking, misting the edges. Some machine stitching, MS punched border and paper strips under the pics, fussy cutting of course and red liquid pearls, torn muslin and some jewels. The flowers are a mix of Prima, John Lewis in London, and internet. The twig with leaves that peeks out from bottom cluster, I snipped off from a really old table decoration.





For those of you who have actually read the whole post and finally ended here - THANK YOU! From me to all of you - a very happy and sunny MIDSUMMER or as we say in my own lingo; Glad Midsommar!

Have a wonderful wonderful weekend all of you and thank you warmly for your visit and any love you may want to leave for me!!

xoxoxox Eila