Meg's Garden "New Spring Shoes" and TCR # 104 "Memories"

In my previous post I wrote about the soothing effect of rain. Well, the soft patter on the roof tops was quickly changed into a loud ra-ta-ta as the sky opened up to a sudden outburst of hail. The ground was quickly covered in a blanket of ice pellets that still hasn't melted away entirely.

With the brrrr outside, I am painting up some sunshine in here instead. My second page to be released (have a few coming up in the next few months) as DT over at MEG'S GARDEN is created with one of the papers in the new absolutely gorgeous new collection called FORGET ME NOT.

The new papers are a paper-and-scissor-girl's dream, so many gorgeous details one can cut out! I really love the stripey old-fashioned paper combined with the sweet forget-me-nots.

Here are some of the papers:

Blue Forget Me Nots

Blue Butterflies

Nesting

Shades of Blue

Forget Me Nots Toile

Butterflies and Blue Forget Me Nots - strips

and the paper that I have used in my page - Birds in Forget Me Nots.

Here is the page itself - New Spring Shoes.



The photo is not one of my own, I found it in our county photo archives. However, it could very well have been me standing there on a visit to town in the 1960's, although this photo was taken in the 1950's.



A yellow flower from Manor House Creations.



Each spring mummy and I travelled into town to buy us both new spring shoes. For as long as I can remember, they were always brown and very sensible with shoe laces. My dad used to polish the shoes of our family on Sunday mornings before going to church. For him it was important that they didn't look scuffed. I don't think I have to say that the first pair of shoes that I bought with my own money were RED!

The grey tendrils around the photo were cut from the FORGET ME NOTS TOILE paper.




See those yummie feathers in there? they come all the way from South Africa and are a gift from my sweet friend Helen Tilbury - thanks a bunch for the pressie darling!

The alpha stickers are Prima, as is the lime green cut-off flower branch. I have fussy-cut the bird's nest and mounted it on foam squares on top of the same image on the paper. All fussy-cut details on the page have undergone the "plumping-up" treatment that über talented Gerry van Gent so generously shares on her blog and in her tut over at Miss Art's. Thank you for sharing Gerry!



Another MCH bloom  and snippets left over from some cut-out strips from the Butterflies and Blue Forget Me Nots - strips paper.

The script stamp in Swedish is from a local store.




Quite some dimension in there if you look at it from the side. Just loooove all the butterflies!

See that itty bitty black bird sitting in the top right corner of the photo? it's from a scrap of a Prima paper that was on my desk.




Yesterday also saw the release of palette # 104 over at TCR. A very challenging palette for this shabby girl but that's what challenges are all about, serious butt kicking out of the comfy box. Might I add that I still have a gargantuan bruise on my touche ...

First the palette especially made for the Swedish scrappy magz called INZPIRA. Unfortunately the original photo and sketch that Lydell made for Inzpira got lost due to a computer glitch, so there are no HEX codes this week and the photo is photographed from the magazine itself.

The colours are Pale Blue, Sunflower Yellow, Plum Burgandy and White.

Here's what I came up with after serious procrastination:



The backing paper is from Teresa Collins collection called Everyday Moments. Once again the photo is not mine (gosh where DO people get all their photos from if they don't have kids of their own and live in a dark corner of the map with nothing to photograph?!). Once again, I found it on internet.

I really want to point out that I never ever use photos taken of people that can be recognized, especially not of children unless I have been given permission to do so. That would be a serious and unforgivable breach of personal integrity and against my morale beliefs. I try to use photos of objects or from nature whenever possible, but if the photos are as old as 50 years and posted in public archives for anyone to use, I consider it OK for me to use them too.



I had lots of scraps sitting on my desk from making my page for the UOAS 15MAR2012 challenge, all so very pretty that I couldn't just throw them away. The backing paper has a grid/schedule with week days, so I though I would fill all the squares with the scraps I had and then cover the whole thing up with something I don't know what.

There has been quite a lot of issues with copying and scrap lifting other scrappers' work in blog land as of late, so I especially want to say that I know that Geraldine Pasinati has made it an art form to cut up her whole  backing paper in squares, but my page has not been made with scrap lifting in mind nor have I been inspired by anything or anybody else but the pieces of left over scrap on my desk and the grid of this TC paper.



I fussy cut 4 of the yellow flowers from one of the papers and layered them, finishing with a brown Petaloo bloom that had a burgandyish pearl centre. I also fussy-cut some berry branches from a very old K&Co paper and added a couple of really dark red/burgandyish mini roses. These 3 details are the only ones in burgandy on my page.



The wooden button spools are from PinkPaislee London Market. The music sheet overlay is from KaiserCraft.

I cut two circles, one of brown corrugated cardboard and another one of yellow paislee paper from Teresa Collins' collection Fabrications. Then matted the photo in rough linen fabric, the edges of which I frayed before winding some paper twine around it and adhering a trinket to it.

Before I put the layered photo in place, I first masked/misted a floral pattern in TA Suede over the pieced grid and then when that had dried, I very roughly painted a cirle in Gesso to make a crude frame around my photo "package".



Totally LOVE these alphas from Prima, they come in so many colours and are just perfect in size!



Saturday has dawned upon us in Stockholm, Alice is stealing scrappy stuff from my desk and Elsa is tearing down the kitchen. Think it's gentle reminder of that the lions need feeding! and so do I.

Thank you dear sweet ladies for bearing with me through this long post. I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your near and dear wherever you are. Take care!

Toodelipip! xoxoxo Eila

CSI #12 Finding You

Somehow I find rain really soothing. Love the sound it makes against windows and roof tiles. If it rains during a weekend, it's a good reason for some serious cocooning. No weekend today though, so I had to settle for some admin work in the office. Treated myself to sugar and calories for the afternoon coffee break instead :))

Am late with everything this week, well not just this week, so here's the CSI case file #12 which is a monochromatic in green/teal:

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

Magical Forest - dark green with a slight touch of blue - drawn from the dark part of the clouds - 50.112.95

Surreal Teal - medium green with a slight touch of blue - taken from the clouds right above the dandelion 125.193.166

Green Enchantment - seaglass green - taken from the middle part of the clouds - 201.229.196

Celestial Celadon - pale, pale celadon - taken from the lightest part of the clouds - 232.243.229

Silhouette - greenish-gray-black - taken from the dandelion - 47.50.37

EVIDENCE DETAILS

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

hot-air balloon image
flowers
clouds
use something fluffy
silhouettes images
silhouette-cut a photograph
stars

JOURNALING DETAILS (TESTIMONY)

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

Document a journey.
Document a dream.
Write something unexpected about your subject.
Use something unexpected to hold your journaling.
Tie string to or around your journaling spot.
Get carried away with your journaling (interpret that in any way you wish!)
Inspiration words: magic, mystery, drift

Have you seen our CSI Coordinates? Michele Singh created these awesome printable patterned papers, images, and journaling spots to coordinate with our Case Files! In case you missed their debut last week, you can still download the CSI Coordinates for Case File No. 11 at the bottom of the reveal thread.

Our gallery has been rocking the past few weeks, and we can't wait to find out who's applying for our design team call!

Without further ado, here's my page:



My evidence this week are flowers and something fluffy; the fluffy bit being feathers and the flowers, well not difficult to see them :))

My journalling is both about a dream come true, but also about the journey that took me there. That's what the title of my page - Finding You - is about. It's rather personal, so I've kept it in a letter that I've put at the back of my page.

It's about me, a disillusioned divorcee without husband, home or job and dreams in shreds actually finding love again when I thought there was none left for me to have. I met my DH Bengt under different circumstance and also he had been left with a broken heart. So two halves of a heart found its matching other bit and we became one again.

Finding love a second time is a gift to be treasured and I couldn't be blessed with a kinder and more loving partner! So yes, the photo is from our wedding back in 2000.

The backing paper is from Pion Design's collection "For Father". The rest is from MME and Pink Paislee's latest collections.



Flowers, stamps and embellies from Prima, Petaloo, Maya Road and Tim Holtz, as well as from a local store.



That fussy cut bit with the little birdie is from KaiserCraft.











Have just ordered 15 easter eggs filled with pick&mix sweets and each weighing 4 kg (that's 8 pounds!) to the office. That should set the sugar rush rocketing to the ceiling for days to come :)) and on that sweet note I finish this post with a toodelipip and thanks for your kind visit!

xoxoxo Eila

Note to myself: I must remember to photograph the eggs.

UOAS 15MAR2012 My Girl and TCR #103 Bountiful Spring

Oh glorious glorious Friday!! spring has sprung in Stockholm even if we can get some occasional snowfall as late as in May. Snowdrops are nodding in the sun and the grit and sand from last winter has been cleaned off the city streets. Had a cup of coffee in the yard outside the office today, it was really nice and warm up against the wall and people thirstily let the sun warm their faces. Will have to go and get myself a pair of new shoes tomorrow!

This wonderful Friday I also photographed my page for the OUAS 15MAR challenge. We have a fantastic orangery in the office with glass walls that run the height of 3 floors and a HUGE brass and crystal chandelier that hangs from the centre of the dome. There I have the perfect spot for photographing my layouts.

The journalling criteria is to finish this line; "I miss ...." To tell about someone I am missing right now and why together with this lovely sketch:

The passed few weeks have been rather upsetting in many ways, several friends have become seriously ill, some have even had their time on this earth measured for them. It has brought back many painful memories of my mother and father, who were both unexpectedly and hastily taken away from us in the ugly decease called cancer.

It has also reminded me once again of how precious our time is and how we have to love and appreciate everything in our lives each and every day.

My journalling for the page I am now going to share with you is written with my tears on my heart, I have not put it in any form on my page as I will never ever forget.

After 5 miscarriages, my DH and I resigned to the fact that we were never going to have children. Hearts full of love we decided to have two four-legged family members instead; Ludde our boy, and Bettie our girl. They were both Sacred Birmans. Very shortly after Bettie had come to us, we discovered that both her hind knees were dislocated and had to be operated on.

If you have heard an animal in excruciating pain, then you know what I am talking about. I spent many nights awake comforting her in my own bed and many days feeding and stroking her tiny little body. We bonded in a very special way and she grew up to be an amazing personality. Very, very intelligent with a fierce love for me, her mummy. Each night for 14 fantastic years, she slept on my pillow with her little face on my cheek.

Here she is, My Girl:



Really weird how the colours photographed this time. What looks like a solid teal paper with tiny white dots, is actually green IRL.



Bettie never grew up to be a big cat, all her life she looked like a kitten and everybody meeting her just melted for her soft charm.



The Stickles in Gold och Fruit Punch are my tears and a very free interpretation of the horizontal elements of the sketch.



There is some pale green glitter strewn on the Gesso on the gauze, all the happy moments we had and how she will always shimmer in our memories.



The blanket stitch is a symbol of her favourite fleece blanket that had a stitched border, and the flowers are the blooms she loved to inspect every morning.



So sorry the 4 different Gessoed strips of lace don't photograph particularly well. I misted them in TA Sand + Garden Fairy + Fall Breeze.





The strips of lace again.

Now to something else.

We have come to the last sponsorship week of Pion Design over at TCR. Palette #103 is based on their Collection called Fairytale of Spring and boy are the colours really so springlike and pretty! It has been such an honour working with the papers that Jenny so incredibly generously donated to the DT.

Spring Skies, Scent of Lilac, Spring Leaves and Blushing Pink.

Here's what I came up with:


First of all the photo is not my own, I found it on internet while browsing but I just love the pastoral dreamy feel. Of course it's been staged, how else can one find a fabulous pick nick set up amongst sheep in this perfect setting ;))

The folded and inked "frame" was made using a tip from an Ingvild Bolme workshop that I attended last year.














Bleepers and bloopers; I just realized I hadn't seen the glue dot on the chippie fence when photographing. Not doing my checking properly, sloppy me.






And with spring in the air and hubbs on his way home from work with some Tikka Masala and Nan bread, I say todeloo and wish you a fantastic weekend! Thank you so much for your lovely visit!

xoxoxo Eila