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