Les Papiers de Pandore - Autumn Glory

Hello week!

Hubbs and I thought we had been invited for coffee at a friend's place on Saturday afternoon and were looking forward to some rich scrummie cake. Our friends have just moved into a fabulous apartment on the 8th floor with views over Stockholm and had asked some friends to come over. As it turned out, the coffee was a bucket of Cosmopolitan and the cake had been swapped for cocktail canapées. Ooops! not exactly in the habit of knocking back cocktails at 3 o'clock but when in Rome ... Ha ha I'm sure you can guess the rest!

Last Friday didn't only see the release of new palettes over at TCR and CCG, Julie Blanc also posted one of my pages on her blog Les Papiers de Pandore. Here's a quick post to share that page with you.



The papers are of course LPdP. I cut out the leaves from one of the pps from the autumn 2010 collection and doused them heavily in TA Glimmer Glaze in Pink Tutu. It made the leaves curl up and gave them a fantastic shine, the heavy coating also pooled at the edges which gives a beautiful effect IRL.



Faux stitching to give an effect of the leaves twirling in the wind. I also double stitched the border in fuchsia and silver grey.



I printed out the photo in several copies and fussy-cut the leaves and the cress flower, which I then stacked in different layers with popdots to give a 3D effect.

The chippie window I first painted in white acrylic paint and then "dirtied" it with different shades of brown before dabbing randomly in Adirondack Snow Cap. Repeated the whole thing several times till I was happy with the result. This is something I learned in a tutorial by "Willea" over at Dusty Attic.



The bricks were made with my belowed "snowpaint" which is like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand, and a stencil.




Alphas are BG Hello Luscious, as are the fussy cut leaves in the cluster of Prima blooms. Some TA splatter in purple and lilac hues finished the page.

I have another intensively busy week at work, a big conferens is coming up and we are in the final stages of putting the details in place. Wish you all a great week! Ciao!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #77 Not A Penny Wedding

Cannot believe how quickly this week has flown by, nothing but long days at work every single day and no time for extra me-time or scrapping. Hooraah for Friday!

Autumn is definitely here to stay, most trees are blazing in wonderful colours and the mornings are getting rather nippy. Wonderful to reminisce about warmer days and happy moments, like weddings.

This week TCR is in his room and the colours are rich and muted; Rich Burgandy, Light White, English Mustard and Cool Grey.

It was the rich burgandy and cool grey that set my mojo moving this time.



Here's my friend L who lives in York (as in old York, UK) and her Scottish relative at a family wedding in Glasgow, UK last summer. I just loooove her dotted dress! and what a handsome man in his gorgeous kilt and the beautiful bag pipe!



The cream paper doesn't look much unless you see it in the right angle so that the subtle floral pattern shows. It's from Anna Griffin's Georgette collection.

The next layer is grey cardstock. Both the script and dotted papers are from MME Lost & Found 2, as is the white&grey striped punched border between the MME lace and the burgandy punched out border, which by the way is a paper from one of the spring 2011 Prima collections.

I have piped out liquid pearls on the burgandy dots.

In the cluster you will find rolled up music sheet from MME L&F 2, really old ribbon from BG courtesy of my scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, cut out rose buds from K&Co Julianna, a stamped clock face and 3 embellies from MME L&F 2.



Fussy cut blooms from K&CO Julianna. The rest of the flowers and the mustard crocheted doily are from Prima. Pearl swirl is MME L&F 2 and the black alphas are Prima. A TH book plate that I have dabbed in white acrylic paint.

A penny wedding is a wedding where the guests bring food with them. Well, this Scottish wedding was anything but a penny one!







I am so looking forward to my me-time this weekend, had a parcel from the US yesterday and cannot wait to get going on the scrumminess it contained!

To all of you out there - have a fantastic weekend and thank you so very much for your visit! Your comment makes me very very happy!

Toodeloo! cheerio! xoxoxox Eila

#76 Remember

Hello weekend!

I was away for 3 days from the office Wed-Thur-Frid together with my fellow PAs/Executive Assistants. We were on a workshop in "7 Habits of Highly Efficient People" (Stephen Covey). Just imagine 11 women in the same room discussing and role playing around really difficult situations and topics, talk about energy! so much laughter and so much shared fun! With the one rule that what is said in the room, stays in the room, there was a lot of honest sharing I can tell.

Feels really great to be home again with my darling hubby and the kitties. The list of must-do's is as long as my arm, so I'll go straight to the TCR palette #76 and my layout.

Even though the colours are yet again so very pretty, I found it very challenging to find the right shades of all colours. Here's palette #76 for you; Prettiest Pink, Raincloud Blue, Avocado Green, and Openly Orange.

And here's my page.



All papers are again from Swedish Pion Design, but from their spring collection with the exception of the brown paper that I've used instead of cardstock. That one's from their Love collection.

The gentleman in the photo is the father of my girlfriend M, and the young lady is her daughter L. The pic was taken last summer when they were together on summer hols in Cornwall, UK. Grand dad lives in Norway, so this was a real family treat to them all.



Crocheted doily (that's my only contribution to the Raincloud Blue) and Prima blooms. I made the green flower with the pearl centre myself from one of the Pion papers. The flower trail at the bottom is fussy-cut from a Prima Pixie Glen paper.



More fussy-cutting from Pixie Glen and another hand-made green flower.



We got 3 birdcages in one of the kits at the Ingvild Bolme workshop. Now I only have one left - boohoo!



The chippie lamp post is from French online store Embelliscrap. They don't come in craft as most other chippies do, but in a shabby cream with faintly "chalked" edges in brownish. I just stippled some white acrylic paint on it and left it more or less as it was.

LOVE the Prima Alphas! and have them in almost every colour available. Just the perfect size and the sheet has so many of each Alpha, both upper and lower case.



Couldn't resist cutting out the single birdie from one of the Pixie Glen papers and placing it on the gate post so that it looks as if its friends are flying in to join him. The gate is once again from Embelliscrap. I first painted it in TA Glimmer Glam in Espresso Bean, zapped it with my heat gun and then spread out Viva Decor liquid pearl in bronze and copper with my finger for some shine. Looks really nice IRL I have to say.



No stamping or misting/masking as I wanted the papers to only subtly frame the photo, which I know is very very precious to both my girlfriend and her daughter.

Et voilà, that's all!

Have a super weekend! now off to the supermarket. Cheerio!

xoxoxox Eila

UOAS 1 September challenge in combo with CCG #208

Both TCR and CCG have gorgeous colour palettes this week, TCR with lilacs as main and CCG with a soft, pretty palette of pastels and PEARLS as product prompt. Just look at the yummie inspirational photo! "Mulberry Tea, Porcelain Pearl, Sugared Lilac and Blue Fairy Dust".

The UOAS 1 September challenge closes in about 2 days. Here's Nadia's wonderful sketch:

This time the journalling criteria is "A Memorable Year". The title must be a year, and you must journal at least 2 lines on why this year is memorable for you.

Pastels, pearls and a memorable year, there can only be one specific year that covers it all: 2000. It was a year of the greatest possible sorrow, but also one that ended in great joy. My mother gave up her battle against cancer and only a few months later, I met Bengt whom I married before the year had come to its end.

It was truly a year when one door closed in my face, but another one opened and beckoned me in.

So, without further ado, here's my page:



The blue paper is K&Co Watercolor Bouquet. I've also fussy cut flowers from the K&Co papers. The alphas are Prima and the stamped sentiment is Cloud9. The resin key hole is from Melissa Frances.



The scrunched ribbon/lace is MME Lost&Found 2. The little birds are cut-out from a Prima Pixie Dust paper. The music sheet overlay is KaiserCraft. Have to admit I've forgotten where the chippie frame/flourish is from as I had removed the wrapping, but I definitely know it's from Australia!



Some more Prima, this time Romantique (circle and square pieces of paper) and the triple layered cut-out b&w frames are Prima Printery Line. Prima bling and some liquid pearls.



The lilac flower has more sugar to it than its colour, it's sprinkled in glitter too. The creamy/yellow one is KaiserCraft and what looks like fuchsia here, is actually a dark mulberry colour. The conditions were not the best for evening photographing, sorry about that.

That's it folks! Thank you ever so much for your visit and for any beautiful comment!

Have a great rest of the week! xoxoxox Eila

Celebrating 75 with the Sweet Serenity digikit and a page for Les Papiers de Pandore

Hello dear friends!

Have you seen anything as beautiful as the digi kit that Lydell Quin and Emma Stafrace have designed to celebrate the 75h palette of The Color Room?! such incredibly talented ladies and what amazing layouts the DT have come up with using the digi kit!! This is a HUGE release!

You do not have to be a digital scrapbooker to enjoy a digital kit. You can print off the elements either on paper (the white backs of paper you know you will never use are a great option to cut down and print your elements onto as it is a heavier weight than just a piece of copier paper) or on transparency and then use them in the way you would use any physical product you would buy.

So we have a special printable giveaway for Members this week, and the option to purchase this fun kit that the DT used to create their works of Art for just $6.00......Remember you don't need to use this kit digitally if you are not a digital scrapper. You can place any element on an A4 or 8.5 x 11 sheet in your editing software, and print it out and cut it out as you would an element in your printed paper. You can print on Paper or printable transparency.

Proceeds from this kit will go towards the running of the site. We ask that you donate $6.00 to TCR by using the 'DONATE' button then email me and Lydell will send you the link to download the kit...........lydell@exemail.com.au

Here are the A4 sized sheets. The first is a .jpeg file the second is .png all saved at 300dpi for optimum printing, so save both or the relevant one depending whether you want to do a digi page or traditional/hybrid one by right clicking and saving...Can't wait to see what you guys create using this little giveaway :)

And for those who like me are totally lost when it comes to digi scrapping, here's this week's palette with Lightest Lilac, Luscious Lilac, Cornflower Blue and Deepest Brown. BEAUTIFUL!!

And here's my page created with old-fashioned paper and scissors :))



This is my friend L's mother IH and her daughter K on my friend's special birthday last year. They live in York (as in "old" York), UK. Granny is a bonny Scottish lass. I called my page "Together" (.. is the best place to be). This page is now framed and hangs in granny IH's house as I sent it to her for her recent birthday.



I printed out two copies of the same photo, silhouetted one of them and mounted over the other one. It gives the photo a subtle dimension without getting chunky.



The papers are a mix of two different collections from Swedish Pion Design. Lookie lookie - fussy cutting! :))

The flowers are from Prima and Petaloo. Some TA splatter in 3 different hues of blue and lilac. Stickles Star Dust on the cut-out butterflies. I cut white mini doilies from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop in half and placed them in a fan-shape above the photo, then added a PP Artisan Element and some pearls and a mini Prima resin flower. The alphas are Prima. Liquid pearls for the centres of the violets.



My GD assignment over at Les Papiers de Pandore is nearing its end, but I've still got some more pages to share. Here's the one that was posted on Wednesday, 7 September. I've called it "Little Friends". All the papers are from the summer collection.



As I have mentioned before, dear husband and I love taking drives into the countryside and having coffee and cake somewhere in a picturesque place. In the summer one really has to guard one's cakes and cookies as little friends very quickly come to say hello, i.e. little birds.



The yellow crocheted doily is from Leeann's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy. She has doilies in all sizes and almost all the colours of the rainbow, just delicious!



To continue on the outdoor feel of the page, I've used wooden buttons and very rough twine on the page as well as hand-stitched a golden brown frame. The photo is double matted in green paper and a roughly cut piece of frayed muslin, and then I hand-stitched in zig-zag around the pic.



For the title I used alpha stickers and a label from the summer collection and mounted them on a piece of corrugated cardboard that I cut in the same shape as the label. I initially planned to crochet a border à la Stacy Cohen and therefore had already punched the holes in the cardboard when I changed my mind. What to do? I simply cut off half of the holes and got a stamp border instead!



I painted a chippie border from Imaginarium Design in white acrylic paint, thicker dollops in places to get an uneven surface. Then I cut it horizontally in half to mimic a garden balustrade.



I loved making the felt blooms and cutting out the leaves/stems from the back of one of the papers.

The weather forecast promises lovely balmy weather this weekend, the sun is already showing its pale rays from a clear blue sky. All of Stockholm seemed to be out and enjoying the unexpected warm weather on Friday evening, even I sampled a Frozen Strawberry Margharita and hubbs and I had a wonderful leisurely stroll back home from the cocktail bar.

Wishing you all a really great weekend! Thanks for popping by and leaving a hello!

Take care! xoxoxox Eila

Ingvild Bolme fan club and TCR #74 Reaching for the Taj

Touched by the magic and lived to tell ya all!

So we're back home after yesterday's workshop with Ingvild Bolme and boy what an awesome experience it was!

Some 50 ladies from all over Sweden and from Norway as well, gathered in eager anticipation of meeting Ingvild IRL. She had the same workshops both on Saturday and today. I took the one yesterday but as it is a 6-hour-drive home one way, we decided to stay over night.

It was absolutely fantastic meeting Bente (Fagerberg) for the first time ever. Big was the hug exchanged and high the mutual cheers! It was lovely to meet Bente's daughter Alex (Alexandra) as well, such a pretty young lady.

To our utter disappointment, Prima had not delivered the ergonomic tools designed by Ingvild, not yet released on the market. Nor had they shipped the new flower collections. However, we got to work with the distresser tool, crafter's knife and a couple of Ingvild's chalks that she had brought with her from Norway for us to borrow during the workshop. Heavenly to use I say and definite must-haves!!

Here's Mrs Shrek goofing around with them ;)))

We all had 2 bags with products to be used for the two layouts that we were to make, lots of Prima's of course. Incredibly fascinating to learn how Ingvild plans her pages and the variation of techniques she uses. This is a lady with graphic designing in her CV and it certainly shows!

Here's the "skeleton" of the first layout that we made. I've left out the actual photo that goes in under or on top of the cut-out frame to show you what would normally be hidden under the photo.

Ingvild has combined 4 different paper collections on this page. See the itty bitty birds sitting on the branch to the far bottom left? they are cut out from a Pixie Glen paper. The butterflies at the top left are from Pastische. The soft soft soft papers are from the Printery collection.

Soft & calm backgrounds and plenty of white space are something that Ingvild underlined several times. DO NOT cover your pages in flowers! is something else she warned about. Don't line up your elements in straight lines and don't overly distress your edges, are other words of wisdom from this goddess of shabby chic.

Lean (de Ruiter) if you're reading this; the next photo is especially for you! and yes, the flushed old woman with double chins is me .. DH took the pic and did neither Milo or myself any justice by LOWERING the camera instead of RAISING it when taking the pic grrrrr!

Dear me, the next one is not particularly flattering either ... we were not the only ones wanting to take a snapshot of themselves together with La Ingvild. Here's me from the left, Bente and Alexandra to the far right.

The name of this young lady rings a bell in many quarters; Camilla Ekman. Such a soft and gentle lady with distinct flair. She's on the DT of Glitz Design, Zva Creative, Swirlydoos Kit Club and Get Picky, as well as Swedish Country Scrap that hosted the workshop. Camilla is holding the second layout that we worked on but didn't quite have the time to finish.

Fantastic, colourful, creative, funny, awesomely talented and inspirational Mahlin Wiggur was also at the workshop. A true vitamin injection! Mahlin designs for Nikki Sivils, American Crafts, BoBunny, and a couple of Swedish sites. I'm even more flushed now, me thinks the windows needed getting opened up at this point in time.

The day just swooshed by and I wish it had been a two-day one, soooo much to soak in and soooo much to learn. You girls Down Under, you sure have something to look forward to in November!

Reversing time to Friday now and the release of the new palette #74 over at TCR. Just taste the names of the colours; Light Blue, Riverstone Brown, Clotted Cream and Deep Red.

I have a friend called S who lives in Los Angeles, USA. She used to work for a major American airline for a great many years and have travelled around the world to many exciting places. Earlier this year she and another friend of hers, C, whom I don't know, were invited by a mutual friend from the airline industry to his Bengali wedding in India. S and C of course had to visit Taj Mahal.



It was her red scarf and beautiful embroidered Indian coat/kaftan that decided the papers and layout for me.



The chippie lock and handle are from French online store Embelliscrap. I embossed them in gold and then chalked everything in Chestnut Roan. The rose is cut off from a Prima bouquet and the crystals are from a local craft store. What looks like a die cut is cut-out from an MME Lost & Found 2 paper.



The b&w floral paper is also from MME L&F 2. The brownish backing paper is from BoBunny Etcetera. The red sparkly frame is cut out from another MME L&F 2 paper as are the b&w striped and the flourished pieces with parts of the title on (the Taj). The ornate pale blue chippie square is also from Embelliscrap, I dabbed it in Adirondack Sky and then painted it over in Shimmerz December Sky before embossing it in Diamond Glitter. The metall embellishment and amber rhinestone are both BoBunny Etcetera as are the script chippie alphas. The tiny red ones are Kaiser Craft.



White oval swirly frame overlay is from Hambly and the strip of red circles with white liquid pearls is from an old MME paper.



Here you can see the photo itself a bit closer up.

Really wanted to get this up before it was bed time, it is another day in the office tomorrow! Love to read your comments and love having your for a visit, thank you very much and please do come again if you have the time!

Take care! cheers! xoxoxo Eila