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

TCR #73 Cover Girl and Taking a Dog Nap for Les Papiers de Pandore

Hello dear friends near and far!

I am sorry for being late uploading my page for the TCR palette #73, things sort of unexpectedly got in the way the passed weekend ... again. As you can see, there are two shades of orange in the palette - chaaallenging says Mrs Sandberg! I think the inspirational photo is kind of cool though, reminds me of the 1960's/70's and as somebody on the DT said; it looks like something Austin Powers would dig!

The lady in the photo is my ex-MIL. Boy was I happy to find the Crate Lemon Grass papers at the bottom of my stash. Groovy baby! as Austin puts it :))



I think Crate makes the most fabulous papers ever, but as they don't exactly lend themselves to my beloved fussy cutting, my page is very clean.



My ex-FIL was Marketing & Sales Director at a well-known Swedish company in the food sector and he used his wife in some of their campaigns. Don't you just love the feel to the photo!



It is also time to share a page that I made for Les Papiers de Pandore. I've called it "Taking a Dog Nap".



So here's one of my friend K's dogs, this is Doris. The other one, is called Buster. He's a terrier. My friend lives on the Swedish countryside with lots of woods and wildlife just around the corner, so she takes long walks with Doris and Buster. Anyone can get a bit tired after having been out in the fresh air and exercized a little bit too much .... ha ha that never happens to me though as I am very lazy! but poor Doris got so tired she had to take a little nap in the sofa. Doesn't she just look cool with her funny little face, resting so adorably on her blanket, which by coincidence has the colours of the new papers.



And what do you spy - fussy cutting! the blooms are cut out from the K & Co Tim Coffey Cottage Garden collection. The chippie  leaves from Imaginarium Design peeking out under the Prima leaf were chalked in Burnt Sienna + Dark Moss + Olive + Amber Clay + Berryliscious and Gold.



The alphas are from French online store Emélliscrap and are in cork, which gives a very nice and rough country feel to them IRL. They also go so well with the leather sofa in the photo. The velvet ruffled ribbon that runs across the page is from Prima, I have misted it in Tattered Angels Sand and Suede + chalked randomly in Chestnut Roan.


I also stamped with ink in yellow ochra on the centre piece of brown paper to add interest but somehow it comes across like .. well, almost white?!



Some stacked scalloped circles and a big pearl plonked down in the middle.






And there you have them both!

I am so so looking forward to this upcoming Saturday which is a milestone in my scrappy life. Ingvild Bolme is coming to Sweden for a workshop and I'm going there! After having exchanged a great many emails over the passed year, I will meet my sweet scrappy friend Bente Fagerberg IRL! I have also caught in the Swedish scrappy chat rooms that it will be a crowd of well-known Swedish names meeting up for the workshop, and I'm thrilled to bits to meet them all.

Yes, the camera has fresh batteries and a new memory chip! we sure are going to click away to commemorate this occasion!

Have a fantastic rest of the week folks! thanks for having a peek and any lovely comment you leave!

xoxoxox Eila

The sequel to TCR #72

Autumn really has made its entrance in Stockholm, when I pulled up the blinds this morning I was met with a milky white wall outside the window. Fog!! That really is too early. An old Swedish saying is when the rowan tree has an abundance of berries, the winter will be long and hard. In that case, we are in for another perma frost. Yuk!

Last Friday I promised to share the sequel to my #72 Mamma and without further do, here it is. As the page is for the book I'm making for her, the title is in Swedish; "Svunnen tid". I've used the title before, but it pretty much captures what it's all about; Bygone Days.

As you can see, the photo of my MIL was taken at the same studio shoot as the previous one.



The backing paper is from Swedish Pion Design. I've used the same TA  Glimmer Mist in Sand and Suede as on my other page to keep both backgrounds together. I've also masked/misted a big clock face in TA Patina.



The tag and the butterfly are cut out from a Pion Design paper. The tag and the strip of muslin are dyed in very strong coffee. Two strips of lace, one left natural and the other one dyed in TA Patina. The same ink in Champagne poured out in a rivulet. Here you can also see the script on the backing paper a bit closer.






The golden/teal fabric brad is from Danish Tilda. The tape measure is also cut out from a paper from Pion Design. I pulled out the centres of two gardenias and replaced the stamens with new fabric flowers centres from Australian online store Maxine's Mélange. That's the "fuzzy" brown&white.



In the same cluster is a Prima bloom and a key from my stash, cannot for the world remember which brand it is. I made the little metal embellishment by cutting out a section with the birds from a Pion Design paper and glueing it onto the trinket and adding liquid pearls around the border. Some mother of pearl buttons from Danish Tilda finishes the cluster together with a coffee-dyed tag tied with a dito strip of muslin.



I bought the zink wreath at local craft store Panduro quite a while ago. Here I have dabbed acrylic paint in Sky, Patina and Brown on it to give it an additional weathered look.



On the left a torn piece of Gessoed cardboard and another strip of coffee dyed muslin tied around the zink wreath.

And that's it! now I had really better get going with my morning preparations, time to leave for work soon! Have a great rest of the week and thanks so very very much for having a peek!

Toodeli pip! xoxoxox Eila
 

TCR #72 Mamma and two cards for Les Papiers de Pandore

Hello dear friends near and far, once again it's Friday which means release time over at TCR and CCG. The 15 August challenge was also released some days ago at UOAS, and as always the DT have created stunning pages.

Here is the palette with Deep Dusty Pink, Light Minty Teal, Pale Lilac Grey, Pastel Olive Green.

These colours were initially really challenging for me. However, Julie Wink's amazing class "Layered Layouts" at Miss Art's Papercrafting School set my mojo moving in the right direction and once I had started, the page more or less scrapped itself. I actually also made a sequel to my page while I had the steam up, I'll soon show you this second TCR page ;))

Those of you who haven't discovered Miss Art's yet, boy have you missed something! Headmistress is wonderful Alyssa McGrew and the list of teachers is like that of of Oscar nominees - truly star spangled! You will be taken directly to the school if you click  HERE

So after a rather longwinded intro, this is my take on TCR palette #72:



The lady in the photo is my MIL, it was taken in the mid 1950's.



The backing paper is by Danish Tilda. I started by washing it in a thin coat of Gesso and misting it in TA Golden Walnut and Suede. I also flicked on some drops of the same mists. Then some script stamping on the left.

The butterflies travelling over the page are cut out from a paper by Swedish Pion Design.



The chippie frame is from French online store Embélliscrap, I chalked it first in Chestnut Roan, then in Glacier Ice. Under it is a dotted paper from Tilda that I cut in the same shape as the frame.



The mauvish flowers are snipped off from a Prima carnation vine, the brown rose, lace and pearls are from my stash. IRL the lace and pearls almost hover in mid-air, took quite a bit of work with my glue gun to get the effect.



Some torn muslin tucked in under the layers and some liquid ink in champagne poured in rivulets. I think the pebbles with the bird and rose are Basic Grey Curio.



Another close up of the layers. Some more cut-outs from Pion Design and something little from the K&Co Flora & Fauna ephemera pack.

I had a couple of birthday cards up on the blog of Les Papiers de Pandore on Wednesday 17th, sorry for the delay in posting it here. Julie uses a different blog motor than Blogspot and it seems that the twine are not compatible why photos on her blog simply don't show on mine. Really annoying.

First a typcial Eila card with lace and a flower.



The white lacey layer under the flower is German scrap from Australian online store Maxine's Melange. It comes in a long strip but I cut out sections and layered them under and around the Prima silk bloom.

Have to admit I've totally forgotten if the chippie flourish is from Maxine's or Imaginarium Designs, that's really bad of me.



And the other card:



The chippie cup and pot are from KaiserCraft. I misted some muslin in TA Sunflower and tucked in under the pot. Then some torn out threads from the muslin that I misted in TA Sand and Suede and placed above the cup to mimic steam. The resin apple pin is from Leean Pearce's Chip Chop Shop.



Tack så mycket för besöket! as we say in my lingo when we thank people for their much appreciated visit. So lovely to have had you for a peek, thank you warmly and hope to see you again!

Wish you all a wonderful weekend! xoxoxo Eila

Made the Once Upon A Sketch 1 August challenge by the skin of my teeth

Have been thinking about playing at OUAS ever since they launched their challenge on 1 August. Thinking doesn't get you far though, so it took me only hours before they closed their site for me to actually get down to making a layout.

It is admittedly rather late to upload the sketch in the 50th minute of the twelfth hour, but it is only fair to give you a chance to see it and the journalling criteria.

Journalling Criteria: Finish this line "A PERFECT DAY IS....." . Your journalling has to be at least 2 lines long, and with the theme of a whatever a perfect day for you is or a perfect day that you have had already e.g. a birthday, a holiday, a childhood memory, a wedding day, graduation day etc. Your journalling can be ANY type : handwritten, typed, etc...

You MUST combine our journalling criteria with this sketch...

With barely hours to go, here is what I came up with;



I wrote the journalling as if it were my MIL who said it; "A perfect day is when my son comes to see me, his watch doesn't have any hands". Now don't we all feel guilty when we visit our old parents or relatives, and time always seems to be the crucial factor for when we have to leave. For them, the visit is always too short.

The photo was taken last summer (2010) and is of my husband and his mother now aged 86. My DH is the only child of rather elderly parents and my MIL is widowed since a few years back. Despite having friends living very close to her and a very active senior citizen life, she still misses her own husband of course and life tends to be very slow. We live quite a distance away from where she lives, which makes it difficult for us to visit her as often as we would like.



The backing paper is Fancy Pants "Lilac House". I've misted it in TA Glimmermist Suede and Walnut Gold.

Here I have also cut out and punched out strips from some Authentique papers. I am trying to diminish my stash of Prima flowers so that I can buy some more from the new line to be released any day now. The mini flourish is from French online store Embélliscrap and painted in Shimmerz Choc-o-lot brown before Stickled in Faded Jeans.



The clock is also bought from the French online store Embélliscrap and has no hands as you can see. That's to symbolize the wish my MIL has, that time would cease to be important. It is also painted in the same Shimmerz brown before chalked in Blush Rose and Glacier Ice and then brushed in Stickles Faded Jeans here and there. Liquid pearls in white around the clock face.



Here you can see the strips of paper and the green WP lace better. The script and teal roses are also Prima.

The green foam thickers are American Crafts and all the other ones are also from Authentique.

Just a quick post this Sunday afternoon. The rains have subsided in Stockholm and a pale sun can be seen between the clouds. DH has just gone out to our bakery around the block for some scrummy buttery cinnamon rolls, almost time for a coffee break!

Thanks for popping in and having a peek! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great start to the week.

xoxoxox Eila

TCR #71A Beach Hunk and #71B Little Monkey

Another week has flashed by and it's Friday again, which means release time both over at TCR and CCG.

Hottest Pink, Pale Baby Blue, Lightest Grey and Deep Baby Blue - colours that make my mouth water even if the Hottest Pink made me think more than twice! Here's the palette:

Beach hunks come in many different shapes and forms, often we think of them as really tanned and tall. Well, they say a picture says more than a thousand words ...



The papers are K&Co Around The World. I cut out the beach cabana and some other smaller details and mounted them on sticky pads for some height.

To get the clouds I just smacked out dollops of the "snow paint" I've mentioned several times before with my fingers, looks like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand. Then I misted lightly with TA Glimmer Chalk in Cornflower before dabbing some Adirondack acrylic paint in Sky Blue. The "sand" is also dabbed in acrylic paint.



The "waves" I punched out with a circle punch, dollopped on some Gesso for white froth, chalked in silver, and dabbed with SkyBlue acrylic paint before adding droplets of TA Glimmermist in Dragonfly.

I've had a pack of WP ribbon bloomers for quite some time, never knew what to do with them. Now I cut them horizontally in half and then again in smaller pieces that I layered on the waves, and on the hibiscus bloom in the top lefthand corner.



Here you have a closer view of the amazing Mediterranean!

Often when I love certain colours in a combo, I make a second page highlighting another main colour. My second page #71B Little Monkey has the paler blue as main.

It is very much inspired by the beautiful work of Trudi Harrison and the Blae & Ivy papers by Kaisercraft. Trudi has very sweetly given me her blessing to share my page with you. All credit to Trudi!



Some of you might recognize this giggly little girl, Miss M, from several of my previous layouts. She's the daughter of my DH's cousin.



The papers lend themselves to fabulous fussy cutting, here I've layered quite a bit. I made the flowers myself.



A pale grey chiffon bow peeking out above and white liquid pearls that I have placed in many places on the page.





Well, that's about it! thank you warmly for your visit and for any comment you might want to leave!

Have a fantastic weekend!

xoxoxox Eila