Darling I'm home! catching up with TCR and CSI releases

It's Monday and I'm back on home turf. My goodness, I am totally bowled over with all the comments on my previous post! sooo many! THANK YOU so so much!! and yes, hubby was mighty chuffed reading the praize tee hee!

For the first time in the odd 30 years that I've been going to London, I've now actually seen it snowing there. Really so weird seeing snowmen in Hyde Park.

England being England, it was smouldering hot and stuffy indoors in the conference room and freezing outdoors though the temperature was a mere springlike -3C or so. Back home we had sub zero temperatures of down to -30C up north.

Even if the aim of my trip this time was not shopping, I can still report that colour blocking very much à la Mary Quant op pop 1960's, and unusually fruity and vibrant spring colours alongside with classic navy/red/white/creams and black/amber/dusky blue/creams were filling all the shops. Stripes are definitely hot hot as are dots.

And yes, I really did meet with sweet Doreen aka Tinkerbell! here are a couple of shots to prove it.

My colleagues and I had booked a whole pod on the London EYE for ourselves so of course Tink and I had to sip some bubblies together with the other ladies. L-O-V-E-L-Y!!

Yup! that's me to the left!

After our ride, Doreen took med to the former town hall of London, now converted into a posh hotel, where we had yummilicious champagne afternoon tea. Think I was a bit tipsy having drunk more than 2 glasses of the golden drops tee he ;))

Time truly flew and before we knew, the London sky turned pink and the lights across the Thames shone like fire flies and it was time for us to say good bye. Words don't describe how fantastic it was to meet Doreen IRL and with the flutter of her gossamer wings, off she went on the Jubilee line. Next time Doreen, next time we'll make sure to have more time!! Thank you so much for a gorgeous day!

With a little peek at the nook of the breakfast room of my hotel - cosy huh! - I temporarily say farewell to London. I will share some more pics in my next post.

Catching up with both TCR #97 and CSI #6 releases, this will be a longish post.

First the inspo picture from CSI:

We are astounded by the response we've had to our little challenge! Debbi actually had to create a second album for Case File No. 4 because we went over the limit for the number of photos that fit into an album! We had over 100 layouts for that challenge. Thank you so much for your enthusiastic participation!

We have Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits as our February sponsor. If you haven't had a chance to check out their kits and their cool concept, you must. And you must play with us this month because you could win one of their awesome kits!

We continue our February theme in honor of Exotic Vegetables and Starfruit month with another gorgeous color scheme that is making me wish for summer to get here. We're sure you will find the colors very versatile. This week, we've arranged our team's layouts by dominant color or background, according to the order of the colors in The Scheme.

CSI Members, get out your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 6 . . .

Detailed clues, as promised...

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

goldish-green: 220.213.82 - curtains
orange: 244.153.13 - oranges
brown: 164.134.78 - front of table
yellow: 253.240.111 - lemons
brownish-black: 40.26.3 - lamp

EVIDENCE DETAILS

Choose two (or more)of the following elements to include on your layout:

glass or wood transparent elements
wood or wood-grain accents
combine two different patterns that have the same colors
fabric
pleating
metals

JOURNALING DETAILS (TESTIMONY)

Choose one (or more)of the following to inspire your journaling:

Tell three things about your subject.
Use a transparency or vellum "container" to hold your journaling.
Illuminate your subject: shine the light on something the viewer wouldn't know by just looking at your picture.
Inspiration words: clear, comfort, shine. --Use one or more of these words as a jumping-off point for your journaling.

I have to admit I have always found orange a little bit challenging, so this week's case file was quite tricky for me. Even though I'm not pleased at all with my page, this is what I eventually came up with:



Only 6 months ago I would not even have considered buying Jillibean, but here I am, with a couple of her collections represented on this page! And check out - no Prima blooms on this one either!



Everything except the buttons, the two small chippie hearts and the wood leaves are from Jillibean.



I made the accordion bloom from the same orange paper that can be seen under the photo for instance. The leaves are from KaiserCraft, I cannot remember where the buttons are from.





I suppose it doesn't come a complete surprise to you that DH is mean with the vacuum cleaner. He had the whole apartment cleaned when I came home yesterday. The cats were brushed and they stood all on parade when I fell in through the door last night. Oh the joy of coming home to loved ones!



I have seen so cool multi-layered hearts on internet, but when I tried making them, they turned out anything but cool. Also my sewing machine decided to give up on me with a big bang, almost shredded the pleated paper.

Now over to TCR #97 where we are in His Room this week with colours bearing yummie names like Royal Blue, Chocolate Brown, Cool Cream and Dusty Burgandy.

It is the second week that Swedish Maja Design have sponsored the DT with papers, this time from their fabulous collection called "Vintage Winter". Marie, the owner, has been unbelievably generous with her donations - we are not having just one RAK at the end of the month but one RAK each WEEK (the same collection that is featured respective week)!!

Here is my page:



Looksie - I finally got to stick down some Prima blooms on my layout! :))



The boy rolling a big snowball and the snowman on the other side of the chippie flourish, were cut out from one of the papers. The stamps are BoBunny and from my January kit from Swirlydoos, as is the brown glittery horizontal strip.






Yummie dusty Attic flourish that I have painted in white acrylic paint and doused thickly in Ice Stickles Crystal Ice and Star Dust. The white rose is from Prima and I very very carefully just touched some of the petals with a cotton bud dipped in Tattered Angels Midnight Blue before drenching the whole rose in Tattered Angels Dazzling Diamonds to make the blue bleed. Also the rose got several layers of the same Stickles as the flourish.



Once again the photo is not mine, I found it on Finnish internet. It could have been though as this is exactly what can be seen here in Stockholm. Only thing is I don't have a red tricycle sitting on my yard!



Beautiful Tania Martyns once had an overlay that she had stamped with white swirls and flourishes. I had this stamp from BoBunny sitting on my desk and found a sheet of acrylic in one of my drawers, the result was this big snowflake stamped with Gesso. I really like the effect if I may say so.



The flowers are from my January Swirlydoos kit. I also misted some gauze in different blue hues before kneading and pulling the gauze. My goodnes, it must have taken me 3 days to get rid of the blue stains from my hands! note to myself: use rubber gloves next time!




The cross stitch letters forming the word "snow" are from Marianne Design.

Et voilà! we have reached the end of this post. Absolutely wonderful having you for a visit, you know how I read and treasure every little word you leave for me! Thank you so much for taking the time to have a look at my pages!

Have a souper douper week! Toodelipip! xoxox Eila