TCR 65 "Sommarbad" (summer dips in the sea) and TCR 65B "Stockholm In My Heart" and the page I tried to upload yesterday

The colours in the palette that TCR released on Friday are among my absolute top favourites; blue and tan with a hint of mint. Here's the gorgeous palette:

The tan made me think of old and battered sepia photos and as you all know, I love old photos. This one is from MIL's photo album and shows DH's two cousins with their dad one summer in the early 1950's. DH spent all his childhood summers with his maternal relatives on the Swedish island called Gotland. It has the most magnificent fine-grained sand beaches but also a coastline of soft, round cliffs. THE perfect place for mainland holiday makers, even now.



I used craft cardstock on top of a patterned blue/tan/newspaper print paper from Swedish designer Pion Design. I dry brushed Gesso and misted with TA in Suede before I used a heavy hand to distress the edges.



The big alphas were in craft before I misted them in TA Glimmer Chalk in Cornflower and then glazed them. I really like the shine to them, reminds me of the surface of water.



Some flowers that I snipped of a bouquet of silk flowers and the golden puddle is Universal Ink in Gold. Just like the moonshine on a clear night and the reflexes of the sun in water.



This one is to show you the "snowpaint" that I've used before. It's like Gesso mixed with very fine sand. Gives a fantastic texture IRL.



And the WP lighthouse that so many have used before me.

As I love any hue of blue, I couldn't resist making a second LO for TCR #65. I called it "Stockholm In My Heart". Any Swede immediately starts humming this song when they hear the first bars being played. It's an ode to my hometown Stockholm and how beautiful she lies between the bracken waters of the Baltic Sea and the sweet waters of the lake Mälaren. As I've mentioned so many times before, it's all about water in Stockholm and no wonder, the thousand-year-old city is built on 11 islands connected by bridges. Enough of geography.



The pic is of me and hubbs on a balmy summers evening a couple of years ago, we're having pick-nick with our best friends and the skyline of our hometown can be seen in the background. I handstitched around the whole page and also stitched some leaves and flourishes along the left side. The alphas are Prima and originally green, so I altered them by dabbing some Sky Blue and Chestnut Roan on them.



More gorgeous Imaginarium Design chippies, just love them. I started by chalking the flourish in Chestnut Roan, then dabbed it with Sky Blue before I Stickled in Cinnamon, Waterfall and Patina. Some minty pearls and jewels to finish it.



All papers are from Swedish designer Inkido. Dotted lace/netting from WP.



And a close-up of the pic and the misting. Mask from Prima. I would like to suggest you click for a larger image so that you can really see the blue/cream/green floral paper under the tan one. I just adore those brand-new papers from Inkado! I fussy cut loads of the roses and layered them along the left-hand side of the page on top of the stitching and in the cluster at the top.

Yesterday Blogger wouldn't let me upload a page that I had made just for myself. Let's see if it works now instead.



More typical Swedish summer images. This time the photo is of grass straws of wild forest strawberries, sweeter than any cultivated strawberries, laid out on the soft round cliffs found in the Stockholm archipelago. Even though its very late in the night, the cliffs are still warm from the sun earlier in the day. Here you can also see some of the famous summer light. Remember we're talking of almost midnight here!



All the papers are Anna Griffin Franscesca. Absolutely divine, soft, mild greens, blues and pinks. Here I have experimented making accordion flowers for the first time ever. Lesson learned is to use really strong glue and not fib with the pleats ;))





Just like old wallpaper! and a sweet posy of a Prima branch, scrunchy seambinding and a trail of fussy-cut blooms from another line by Anna Griffin.



Dear me, now I must have bored you stiff with my florals and fussy cutting. Hope you scrolled down and skipped the uninteresting pics. For those of you who have actually, yet again (boy, this is getting a habit) come all the way down here - cudos to you! and a really really big humble thank you!!

Should you generously also want to leave some comments or tips on how I could have made them better, I thank you a second time!!

Wednesday is coming to its end over here, it has been a really warm and sunny day. I think we'll settle for some Italian antipasti and cantaloupe for dinner. Some rosé of course and Doreen, if you read this - here's to you sweets! psss, I have had a couple of them Mojitos too ...

Cheerio for now! xoxoxox Eila

CCG 198 "U1253" and something summery just for my pleasure

It is the second day of my summer hols and I've spent a couple of days making a frightful mess of our kitchen after a weekend of sleeping, sleeping, eating and sleeping again. Finished my take on CCG 198 this evening - Janet's prompt is to use something vintage. I heard you, something vintage coming up!

First the palette itself so you have the colours fresh in mind. The DT call allowed for brown, black, white and craft to be used in addition to the four colours of the combo. Am a bit hesitant about whether it still applies, went for some additional brown anyway.

I did find the Retro Red rather challenging, but I managed to squeeze in hints of red in the Prima jewel branch and a touch of smeared out liquid pearls on some leaves. Not near any Retro Red though.



The inspirational photo made me think of what the US in the 1950's and 1960's stood for; dreams, hopes, everything is possible, super fridges, super markets, super malls, hamburgers, jeans, checkered shirts, music, and freedom. Rather than concentrating on an actual 1950's car, I thought of the feeling having a car gave MIL and SIL in 1952. The freedom it gave them and the feeling of a bright promising future.

This is MIL (to the right) and her best friend Inga (to the left). The same Inga that I scrapped in my CCG 175 "Memories of Inga", another summer around the same time as this photo was taken.



The papers are all from G.C.D. Studios Ella Blue. Fussy cut layered flowers and some Primas and Maya Road trinket leaf pins. The brads are from a local store, have no idea what brand they are.



Oh heavenly bliss! the much longed for postman arrived this morning with a padded bag from Australia and in it were my precious chippies from Imaginarium Design. I simply HAD to have some of it on my page! First I painted it in white acrylic paint, then I smeared on some TA Glitter Glam in Esspresso Bean before applying some dollops of something that is like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand. Then a squirt or two of TA mist in Sand to finish off the look. Me likes it big time!





Here you can see the third layer of paper the edges of which I have folded over. IRL it gives a really neat effect of almost a shadow box, adds wonderful depth. I have also applied liquid pearls around the rim/frame of the whole page.



Delicious Imaginarium Design chippie corner!



Have to show you a close-up of the alphas. They were originally craft and I misted them in Shimmerz Concrete several times before I glazed them. "U1253" stands for the number plate of the car.



Oh happy days indeed!

While we're on the summer theme, I also made a page just for me. But because Blogger is suddenly having issues again, I cannot upload the pics. I will try again tomorrow.

I thank you dearly for staying with me this far. Your comments are truly precious to me, thank you so much for any you may want to leave!

Have a fantastic week! off to feed the felines of our household or else they'll be up to some mischief for sure.

xoxoxoxo Eila

TCR #64 Special Childhood Memories and release of new DT at CCG

Finally - last day of work before blissful summer freedom! Having a late start to the day and am working from home yay!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I absolutely adored TCR's palette #64 but got seriously stuck with my mojo deserting me. Good thing was I got to play just for fun making the other two pages. Anyhow, as I got home from work yesterday evening, our cats had pushed down some papers that I had sitting our kitchen table onto the floor. As soon as I saw what had come up on top my mojo banged me on my head and demanded some action. I normally NEVER have any energy left to scrap during weekdays but now I got such an extra energy boost from nowhere that dear hubbs and cats just stared at me in wonder. They all quietly retreated to the family room ..

Here is what my frenzied tearing, cutting and pasting resulted in after an hour (seriously no joking, I NEVER produce anything in less than 4 hours!!):



I bought this floral Glitz paper just because it is so pretty, had no project in mind at the time.



Isn't the Imaginarium Design chippie title just the yummiest?! their products are out of this world gorgeous! I started by dabbing it entirely in Sky Blue. Then misting it with TA chalboard Cornflower. Traced some Shimmerz Blingz in December Sky around the edges and finished off with Stickles Diamond. The pearly shimmery effect is divine IRL, as always nothing of it photographs any good.

I've placed an order with them for some more of their amazing lovelies, will start stalking the postie next week. Absolutely mind boggling stuff!  If you haven't checked them out before, please do!! You find their BLOG if you click HERE and their webshop if you click HERE



The flowers and leaves are snipped off from a bouquet of silk summer blooms that I've had for ages; buttercups and forget-me-nots - what can be more summery than that! The duckies are cut-out from October Afternoon 5&Dime and the resin frame is from my stash. Some mini Basic Grey buttons, and Maya Road trinket pins.



The dotted yellow&white pp is from K&Co Water Color Bouquet, the sky blue is from Martha Stewart Lace & Doilies, the music sheet is an old MME, the red&white dotted is Crate, the soft floral to the far left and right is and old K&Co. The cherries I cut out from the K&Co Flora & Fauna. A snippet of left over lace, the fabric brad is from Danish Tilda, the small white doily and the large yellow one at the top are bought from Leanne Pearce's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy that you will find HERE



Just had to show you a close up of the girls!



Both TCR and CCG released their new palettes this morning, CCG using the same one that they had for their DT call last week;

This week's Designer Challenge: Focus on Style - Retro, Shabby or Heritage. What is your style? Bring it on!!! Use a vintage design in your projects (layouts or cards) this week.


*DRUM ROLL* I am truly happy to see soooo many familiar names on the list of CCG's new DT members, so many awesomely talented ladies!

Continuing from our 2010 Team:

Bente Fagerberg - Sweden
Debbi Tehrani - USA
Kaori Watanabe - Japan
Kim Moreno - USA
LG Belarmino - Philippines
Maiko Kosugi - Japan
Nadia Cannizzo - Australia
Ria Mojica - Philippines
Sarah Klemish - USA
Susan Dupre - USA
Susan Stringfellow - USA
Wendy Kwok - Singapore

And Introducing….

Cynthia Lloréns - Brazil
Eva Pizarro - Chile
Fi Kenward - Australia
Helen Tilbury - South Africa
Jasmine Shea - Australia
Kaori Fujimoto - Japan
Karen Watson - Australia
Kelly Holbrook - USA
Lilith Eeckels - Belgium
Marilyn Rivera - Puerto Rico
Melinda Thompson - Australia
Milagros C. Rivera - Puerto Rico
Nancy Burke - USA
Nomura Tomomi - Japan
Tanya Tahir - Australia
Tina Walker - USA

WOOT WOOT!! CONGRATS TO ALL OF YOU!!

Well, time to push in the last few hours of work. Ta for taking the time to have a peek, you know how much I love reading your comments so thanks in advance for any you might want to leave again!

Wish you all a fantastic weekend! Weather forecast has promised rain, rain and some more rain in Stockholm.

xoxoxo Eila

Winter Sailing and Frozen Days - no challenges! just for my own pleasure

After a smorgasbord of sunshine and rain during Midsummer, the summer is officially inaugurated. Today saw almost mirages in the asphalt jungle of Stockholm, the mercury hovered at +35C (95F) at 4 p.m. when I got home - that's as hot as it gets here!

This week's palette over at TCR is absolutely lovely dovely, who doesn't adore Bright Red, Baby Blue, Lolly Pink and Buttercup Yellow?

I find it fascinating to see how different all pages look depending on what colour has been used as main. So many of the pages uploaded have used Crate Emma's Shop and Girls Paperie papers, I spent over a day pulling out papers and embellies without getting anywhere, so I just gave it a rest.

CCG are having a DT call, so no uploads in the gallery, only applications submitted. I wish all applicants really really good luck!

With a day to scrap at hand I simply dived in and played for my own pleasure. After a period of creating multi-layered romantic and shabby layouts, I really felt like doing something less elaborate but very Scandinavian. As I had the whole stack of papers from the brand new line from Swedish designer Maja almost untouched, the choice was rather easy peasy.

I used photos that were taken last winter together with the very summery maritime papers to remind me of how incredibly we long for summer when the snow piles up and lakes freeze over.

Here's the first one that I've called Winter Sailing. It's taken by my friend K and shows the marina with the jetties and red buoys that pop in the blue-white landscape.



I had some anchor and star shaped charms in my stash that I used together with the rope- like white thick silk twine.



Some pearls that I stuck in crackle paint and heated to get out the cracks, mimicing ice.



A plexi star and papers with summery motives; sailing boats and red floats so typically used for leisurely summer angling.



Here you can see the crackle paint again.

And the second page I called Frozen Days. It was the fluffy reed in the photo that made me go for the orange in the papers. Orange is by the way the colour most Swedish life wests have.

The photo is of people skiing and skating in the Stockholm archipelago. On a sunny, wind-still day it's really a wonderful experience, though I prefer to sit on shore having my coffee and sandwiches. Simply enjoying a glorious, peaceful moment in life doing absolutely nothing.



The fluffy brownish/orangeish/creamish ribbon is just so touch-me-please yummie IRL. I had to rescue the reel from the cats several times while working on the layout. They loved it too!! Thank you sweet colourful Rebekah Krueger for the gift!



Here you can see it close-up. White acrylic paint, both dry brushed and splatter à la Lindy. My DH said it looked like the stuff seagulls leave behind ... have to admit he's not entirely wrong ;)



I used a Crafter's Workshop mask and misted with TA Gold + Lemongrass + Suede for the flowers that I also cut out. Some Stickles Cinnamon, white acrylic paint, iridiscent and white embossing powder on a cut-off Prima jewel branch that I zapped with my heat gun. Hoped to get a feel of snow and ice on a dry twig but it doesn't come across that well in the photo.



Killed two seasons with one stone; winter and summer! Hope you enjoyed having a peek at what winter looks like over here. Really loved having you for a visit, thank you! Please do come again if you are in the neighbourhood.

xoxoxo Eila

OUAS 15JUN2011 "Duckie" and Swedish Midsummer

Today is the day before Midsummer's Eve, the longest day of the year and the lightest night. This is the day/night that fairies dance in misty rings leaving traces in meadows and grassy patches, pixies make mischief, it marks the start of Scandinavian summer!

Girls of any age make flower wreaths of birch twigs and decorate them with wild flowers and wear them today. Pretty summer dresses, bare legs (itch itch itch - we have moscitoes the size of B52 bombers but today nobody cares!) Never does people check the weather forecast more often than on this day as EVERYTHING is planned with a sunny, warm weather in mind!

Most places in Sweden have the same set-up for the Midsummer celebrations. My MIL lives in the first capital ever of Sweden, called Sigtuna. It was renowned viking headquarter in the 800th and 900th centuries and the nation's first mint can still be seen there. Sigtuna is located about 1 hour's drive north from Stockholm and in the summer it is invaded by tourists from all over the world. Midsummer in Sigtuna is as traditional as it can get.

People dress up in their national costumes and fiddlers lead the march from the meadow where the pole (looks like a maypole) has been dressed in birch twigs and wild flowers. Two huge wreaths crown the pole. Masses of people have been waiting in another huge open grassy area with pick-nick baskets for the pole to arrive.

Now we're getting to the exotic bit; children and adults alike gather in rings around the pole and start dancing and singing the traditional songs that make tourists think that Swedes have lost it entirely. That's because the dancers are mimicing movements in the songs and what looks like a mad waving behind people's bums, is actually them acting the movements of a frog, and jumping like one too ..

Strawberry cream cake of course. In Sweden the ultimate summer cake is based on sponge, whipped cream, crème Anglaise (cold vanilla cream) between the layers and strawberries - the more the better!

So there's to give you some Midsummer feel from last year and now to UOAS 15 June 2011 challenge that you can find HERE

Journalling Criteria: The theme 'A Moment In Time'. You can interpret this any way you like, but you must journal at least 4 sentences on why your pictures are memorable.

Go check out what the mind-blowingly talented girls from the team of sponsors at Webster's Pages and Imaginarium Designs have come up with!!! My goodness do I feel like the girl from the country farm in the hicks seeing their creations and what is uploaded in the gallery. Ahem, be gentle with me when you see what I've come up with ... me thinks I deviated a bit from the sketch too, that's not good Mrs S!



Dear hubby in the pic as you can see, it's taken on the same day that my LO for TCR 63 One Happy Dude that you can see in my previous post.



Papers are all from K&Company's old lines and bought at the fabulous Dutch online store Scrappapier that you can find HERE







On 8 May 2011 I was thrilled to bits to learn that I had won the weekly draw over at Imaginarium Designs blog, I was over the moon as I had been seeing their chippies in several gorgeous LOs and desperately coveted them. Here I have used the frame and the butterfly.

Both were first painted with TH crackle paint in White Fence, then in Rock Candy. The butterfly was then dabbed with acrylic paint in Cloudy Blue and misted with TA chalk in Cornflower that I rubbed on to the cracks with my finger. The frame I rubbed with brown acrylic paint, really like how the cracks came out, and then I used Lindy's technique for distributing paint splatter with some white acrylic dollops and finally I poured out some Shimmers Blingz in December Sky. Rather pleased with the result considering it's my first real try with chippies.




The rest is then distressing, chalking, misting the edges. Some machine stitching, MS punched border and paper strips under the pics, fussy cutting of course and red liquid pearls, torn muslin and some jewels. The flowers are a mix of Prima, John Lewis in London, and internet. The twig with leaves that peeks out from bottom cluster, I snipped off from a really old table decoration.





For those of you who have actually read the whole post and finally ended here - THANK YOU! From me to all of you - a very happy and sunny MIDSUMMER or as we say in my own lingo; Glad Midsommar!

Have a wonderful wonderful weekend all of you and thank you warmly for your visit and any love you may want to leave for me!!

xoxoxox Eila