CSI # 43 "Mice"

First I want to thank you so so much for all the lovely comment that you leave me!! Mwah to ya all!

Bummer! thought I had photographed close-ups of my CSI # 43 layout but had obviously not, so this post is a day late in coming. Sorry about that.

Short and sweet today in this week of the autumn school holidays in Sweden. Getting text messages from friends in warmer places. Well, I just light my scented tea lights and snuggle under my blanket. God excuse for nibbles and watching The Mentalist on the box!

First the case file itself;

and the detailed clues; 

THE SCHEME (USE ALL 5 *3OLORS) 

Black Tie Event - black, taken from the table cloth - 45.37.34 

Lemon Chiffon - bright sunny yellow, taken from the flowers - 251.224.111 

Green Grace - pale spring green, taken from the middle tier of the cake - 237.240.185 

Alabaster Elegance - pure white, taken from the boxes in front of the cake - 255.255.255 

Fancy Foliage - medium green, with a hint of olive, taken from the leaves - 145.163.53 

EVIDENCE (USE AT LEAST 2 ELEMENTS) 
damask
ribbons 
frame 
foliage 
something transparent 
create curtains 
patterned brad 
flourishes 
include a black-and-white patterned paper rub-on (inspired by the watermark in the lower-right) 

TESTIMONY (USE AT LEAST 1 ELEMENT)  

Document a special event. 

Format your journaling as if you were writing a formal letter. Here are some tips for writing formal letters. 

Frame your journaling. 

Use an older photo and tie the past together with the present in your journaling. 

Tie two ideas together: Write what first comes to your mind about your subject. Then, choose a connective from this site and write what comes to mind next. 

Inspiration Words: formal, tie(s), event -- use these as inspiration for your journaling, not just as a title.

The deadline for completing Case File No. 43

is Sunday, November 4, 11:59 p.m. EST.

For the first time ever, I made my page in A4 format instead of the normal 12x12. Well, have to admit cutting off the sides was to save the page from a nasty misting accident. Looks kind of neat this way me thinks.
 
 
This photo of the little chap in the hayfields sometime in the late 1950´s could very well have been one of my Finnish cousins. Some of you might remember that I spent all of my childhood summers with my aunties and uncles in  northern, rural Finland not very far from the Russian border. The photo is from our country archives.

One of the aunties had a farm with cows and always when the summer guests came, i.e. us from Sweden, it was the season for bringing in the hay. Very very hard work and dirty too. We kids sort of played that we were helping but didn't do much else than eat sandwiches and drink fizzy drinks.

 
I adored my childhood summers and particularly staying with this auntie. I also adored my oldest male cousin Juha and wanted mum and dad to buy him so that I could have a big brother. I loved spending every day with him. Poor, poor Juha had to put up with me.

 
The evidence I have used are a resin frame and also a damask patterned brad that you will se further down.

My testimony is a mish mash of tieing the past to the present and writing what comes up first in my mind. I'm afraid it's far off anything formal, nor about one single particular event. More of fondly reminiscing many idyllic childhood summers.

Anyhow, mice. Back to the hay field. At least once a summer one of the adults stumbled on a mouse nest with newborn babies. Inevitably we rescued them from their imminent cruel fate as mummy mouse was nowhere to be seen. We carried them in our palms, bedded them i shoeboxes and tried to feed them milk. 

Life in the country is far from the sheltered one I lived in the city and I was absolutely gutted when my worshipped Juha resolutely sent the babies to mouse heaven. I was heartbroken. That was the beginning of the end of my adoration of him. All these years I have never been able to date a guy who doesn't love animals or who doesn't show compassion with those who are not as fortunate as we are.

My husband is a true softie and wouldn't hesitate to give his own food to an animal in need. His heart is beautiful. No wonder I married him!

 

 

 
Here's the damask patterned brad.

I'll be back on Saturday to share two pages with you. One that is for a GDT spot that will be revealed tomorrow 1 November, and the other one is my TCR # 135 page.

Wishing you all a beautiful rest to the week! have fun!

Toodelipip! xoxo Eila

TCR # 134 "Magic"

Woke up this Saturday morning and practically bounced off my bed. WHAT a glorious day it promises to be! the first snow came the other night but disappeared quickly, just a teaser. The sun shines crisp and cold over the roof tops of Stockholm and there is not a single cloud in sight on the ice blue sky.

Hubbs and I are going to the opening ceremony of the National Arena of Stockholm this evening. It's a mega indoor stadium, seats 43 000 people, for sports and concerts. My stepdaughter Emelie works for the TV company broadcasting tonight's show with HRH Crown Princess Victoria and her husband HRH Prince Daniel as guests of honour. DH and I are really looking forward to this evening's festivities!

The Color Room released palette # 134 yesterday. Lydell Quin creates palettes for the Swedish scrappy magazine Inzpira several times a year and the current one is one of them.

This week we're having teal, red, silver and white. Pile on the sparkle ladies! it's less than 60 days to Christmas!

I wanted to make something with a winter theme but with a whimsical feel to it. Here's my take that I have called "Magic".

My base is watercolour paper that I have brayered with cream acrylic paint and gesso before misting really wet to get a watercolour effect.


The DA chippie branch with birds was dabbed in white acrylic paint, smeared in modelling paste, misted in blues and teals, embossed in ivory, misted in silver grey and misted in Mister Huey's Opaque White for crispy winter texture. I then randomly used a script stamp.


The angel is fussy cut from one of the MME All is Bright Christmas papers. The wings are from Norwegian Tilda's Christmas 2012 collection. I brushed some silver mist and Stickles in Crystal on them.


Masking/modelling pasting with TCW 6x6 template with bubbles and another with stars. Brushed some Winsor & Churchill Iridiescent Medium over it for some subtle shine.


Strips of ripped crocheted doily, lace, tissue paper and canvas under the banner. The silver alphas are ancient American Craft. The Melissa Frances resin flourish I snapped in two and tucked into both bottom clusters.


The silver star is also from Tilda's Christmas 2012 collection, the rest is Prima.


The cute die-cut deer is also from Tilda's Christmas 2012 collection. The photo of the apples is from internet.


After the brayering and misting, I sprinkled on Shimmerz Enamelz in Jack Frost and zapped it. Then I unevenly brushed some glue here and there and sprinkled glitter and embossing powder that I also zapped. Used the same treatment on the chippie window frame. Bubbles very nicely! Mister Huey's Opaque White makes the best wintery fine splatter!


Tone on tone stamping. I also used an old small plastic doily and TH Old Linen to stamp subtle doily patterns over the whole page. Amost invisible, but quite lovely IRL.

Before I sign off, here's a peek of CSI's case file # 43 that was released last night European time.

I'll be back on Tuesday to share how I cracked this gorgeous palette with you. Till then, happy weekend to you all!! 

P.S. I am visiting blogs and commenting every single day, don't for a second think I've forgotten you!!!

Toodelipip! xoxox Eila

CSI # 42 - All You Need

Tuesday, wonderful Tuesday! Thicker tights and bootlets make this chick nice and cozy on her way to work. We will most likely get our first snow by next week, time to bring in the flower pots from the balcony in other words. Bye bye flowers, sleep tight till spring comes!

So happy for you guys in the southern hemisphere who've got summer around the corner! enjoy warmer breezes and days in the sun.

Last week the gallery over at CSI was positively dreamy with the soft pretty colors and gorgeous pages that the members had been adding! The new Case File released on Friday brought a bolder palette.

THE SCHEME (USE ALL 5 COLORS) 
Rose Red - true red, taken from the bouquet of red flowers on bottom row - 198.39.44 

Buttercream Frosting - off-white, really close to white, taken from the frosting - 251.252.244 

Spring green - pale bright green, taken from the flowers in the second cupcake of the middle row - 226.236.150 

Bluems [pronounced "blooms"] - navy blue, taken from the lightest part of the dark blue flowers - 76.93.123 

Aqua Blossom - turquoise, taken from the third cupcake in the middle row - 107.216.211 

EVIDENCE (USE AT LEAST 2 ELEMENTS) 
circles 
woodgrain background 
flowers 
grass 
mushrooms 
polka dots 
pleating 
texture/modeling paste 
grid design 
textured/embossed paper 

TESTIMONY (USE AT LEAST 1 ELEMENT) 
List a dozen things you can't live without. 
Use the Dirty Dozen Friday journal prompts to inspire you. 
Add flowers to your journaling spot. 
Choose...would you rather? Be inspired by this site or choose a dozen from here. 
Format your journaling as a circle graph. 
Here are some ideas to get you going: My Life in Graphs and My Life in Charts

Inspiration Words: small, better/best choose/choice-- use these as inspiration for your journaling, not just as a titel.

Here's my take - "All You Need". I'm really sorry for the poor photo quality, it's been cloudy over here for several days so I had to lighten up the photo quite a bit in PS.

 
I used card stock in kraft as base and then went about adding texture to it. 


The evidence I have used are circles (the embossed pattern you can see here), modeling paste, flowers and polka dots.



My journalling is at the back of the page and was sparked off by the inspirational word "small". I could of course have written a list of 12 things that I cannot be without but there are actually just 2, both will be revealed at the end of this post.

The things I cannot be without are not big or ostentacious. On the contrary, it's the very small things that are most important.

Waking up before the alarm and seeing my husband still peacefully asleep.

Feeling little paws climbing over me in our bed and seeing their darling little faces checking if I'm awake. 

Seeing that I am, hearing them purring contently when they curl up on my pillow.

Tasting the very first sip of the very first cup of coffee in the morning and seeing the sky over Stockholm get ligther with the rising sun.

Hearing the patting of my husband's feet when he comes into the kitchen with sleep-tousled hair and hearing the cats' hungry miaows.

Knowing it's Saturday/Sunday and we have a whole day together to look forward to.

Seeing the smile in his eyes when he looks at me and the tenderness with which he wraps me in a fleece blanket because he knows my feet are cold.

Coming home from a long day in the office knowing that I have a warm home waiting for me. 

Putting up my feet and being allowed to catch my breath before we cook dinner together.











All you need is actually love and, some chocolate! Talking of which, I think I'll go and see if hubbs has emptied the choc box we got yesterday. That man has a mean sweet tooth but not a cavity in sight!

Thanks for your lovely visit and have a fab rest of the week!

Toodelipip! xoxo Eila

OUAS October - looking for a snout and tail

Hello dear dear friends!

After a couple of weeks of serious battling with all sorts of emotions and my own fear, scrapping has brought back the essence of happiness to my life. I have been scrapping together with my friend during these weeks, but the pages I have made will never be seen anywhere else but on her bedroom wall.

Seeing how my scrapping brought life and joy to her eyes and a happy song into my own heart, I realized that life can be celebrated in so many ways and what's better than sharing it with other people. So I'm back and slowly starting to catch up. I am overwhelmed by the incredible kindness you have all expressed in so many different ways during my absence - thank you! and thank you again!

Now to scrappy business.

Over at OUAS the reveal of team B, the one I'm in, went live on 15 October.

Theme: The following quote..

We would like you to create a layout based on this quote. You can interpret it ANY way you like. There is no wrong or right way to interpret this quote but your layout must incorporate something from this quote AND the sketch below. Please make sure that we see some sort of journalling on your layouts and please tell us where your journalling is . Hidden journalling is perfectly fine.

We are very fortunate to have a gorgeous Danish manufacturer with us this month. Please welcome..

Riddersholm Design is owned by Connie Riddersholm and was founded in 2010 in Denmark. Connie has a background as a graphic designer and has earlier been into Web design and worked as partly self employed since 2004. It all started with Connie designing digital scrapbooking kits for her selves and later moved onto a few digital prints in 12X12 to see how they looked for real. Connie then had a group of hardcore scrapbookers to look at her designs and asked for their “honest” opinion. They liked it and believed in it. So she decided to give it a go and invested her spare money into Riddersholm Design! Today Riddersholm Designs sells paper lines in 10 countries and launch their new collections every spring and fall/Christmas

Go HERE  to see where you can get Riddersholm Design paper from.

Here is my own take on the sketch;


All the beautiful papers, the tag, the sweet white lily blooms and the white roses are sponsored by Riddersholm Design. Thank you so so much for your generosity Connie!

 


 

 
The journalling is at the back and was inspired by the bit "... capture the good times ... if things don't work out, just take another shot". Well, I have to admit it was rather tricky considering I was scrapping Christmas papers, but then I remembered this photo that I downloaded from internet last Christmas. It reminds me of all those thimes that my mother made her own gingerbread dough and we spent what seemed like an eternity baking them because she insisted on rolling out the dough very thinly. In the photo you can see a punched-out pig (counting from the rolling pin - first the heart, then the fir tree and then using a lot of imagination; the pig).

I was always punching out the hearts, while my mother was doing the pigs. It was a proud moment the year my mother entrusted me with the piggie cookie cutter. Greater the disappointment when almost all my pigs lost their snouts or their curly tails when I lifted them from the baking table onto the baking tray.

My mother had me squash all the disabled pigs into a dough ball and re-make them until they were perfect. Even today, more than 40 years later, I lift my piggy gingerbreads very carefully onto the baking tray.

Kind of far-fetched journalling this time, but it also applies to life. If it turns out snoutless, it's often possible to repair. Sometimes we have to limp through life without a curly tail, but it's still a darn good gingerbread!

 

 

 

 

MEGS GARDEN
Other scrappy news is that I have with sorrow decided to step down from my full-time DT assignment over at Meg's Garden, but Sandie Edwards and I will be back as Guest Designers several times over the next term. The new DT was announced on 14 October, go HERE  to see the  fabulous line up!

THE COLOR ROOM
This morning The Color Room launched its new website and blog. Lydell has put in a LOT of work to make it look so amazing! Some changes have been made in how to upload your pages. You can read all about it over at the TCR blog.

The new link is www.thecolorrooms.com - you can also click on the blinkie!

This week's palette is a rather interesting and unusual one:

 

CSI
The latest addition to the design team of CSI detectives, along with the returning Detectives, was announced earlier this week. Their term will begin with the first November reveal:

Aida Domisiewicz (Ayeeda) - Poland

Beth Ervin - United States

Debbie Standard - United States

Helen Wallace - Australia

Jasmine Shea - Australia

Jeanette Lee - Singapore

Lindy Gillespie - Australia

Lou Collins - United Kingdom

Maria Schmidt - Austria

Riikka Kovasin - FInland

Sascha Schmidt - Austria BEHOLD! A MAN!

Yumi Takasaki - Japan

Zaneta Glowa (Zanka) - Sweden

And here are our returning Detectives:

Adrienne Ford - United States

Anna-Karin Evaldsson - South Africa

Annette Gearside - Australia

Brit Sviggum - Norway

Debbi Tehrani- United States

Eila Sandberg - Sweden THAT'S ME

Heather Jacob - Australia

Helena Virpi - Italy

Maiko Kosugi - Japan

Michele Singh - United States

Shaunery Wharton - United States

Sylvia Mellander Ekman - Sweden

Tina Walker - United States

Case file # 42 will be released this night European time. Here's a sneak of the palette;

I will be back on Tuesday to share my page for CSI. Till then, have a wonderful weekend and thanks ever so much for your popping by!

Toodelipip! xoxo Eila

Prima September BAP and CLOSED FOR REPAIR

This is going to be my last post in a while.

Thank you each and one of you who have kept coming for a visit and leaving beautiful heartfelt comment during these passed few weeks. I don't know exactly when I will be back. Until I do, I will re-read all of your comments, often, and send you my loving thoughts.

I have been called elsewhere to help someone in great need.  We cannot repair her back to what was, only give her our love to postpone her journey to the stars.

In this post I am sharing my Prima September BAP. It is a gift to the beautiful lady in the photo.






This is my friend C with her much much loved fur baby F shortly before he crossed the bridge to Rainbow land. It's all about love.

 


 


 





 

I am not a religious person in the sense that I believe in God as some know him/her/it. I do however believe that there is good and bad, that things happen for a reason and that the only thing that matters, is love whichever shape we choose to see it - give it - accept it.

Life is wonderful, bountiful and full of amazing people and experiences. Live it, don't let it slip by! Now I understand what Carpe Diem really means.

Toodelipip! xoxo Eila

Prima September PPP and GD at Studio75.pl

Once again it's Friday but this time I have no page to share with you for The Color Room # 131 palette that looks like this.

I am pre-scheduling blog posts with already submitted pages as all my time and energy currently go to working full-time and also supporting two very, very ill friends.

Today I will instead share my Prima September PPP. Here is my take that I have called "Tranquil";



The photo is by the Finnish photographer whom I have mentioned many times before. I have her permission to use photos off her blog as long as I point out that they are not mine.

 
Used mask/modelling paste on acrylic film as I wanted the misted background to show through the masking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have some happy news to share with you. Lovely Aneta Mencel, owner of Polish site Studio75.pl asked me some time ago if I would like to play with their collection "Summer and Latte" and be their GD in October. I of course said yes.

HERE is the link to the announcement and here is my page;





 

 

 
The lovely young lady is the daughter of sweet Agnieszka, aka Bellaidea whom most of you know from blogland.

 

And with this I have come to the end of this post.

Thank you lovely ladies for popping in even if I cannot come for a visit to you at the moment. I thank you for your kindness and hope to be able to spread love on your blogs soon.

Have a really wonderful weekend! I'll be back on Tuesday with my Prima September BAP instead of a page for the CSI case file # 40.

Till then, cheerio! xoxo Eila