TCR #78 A Lifetime of Duty and GDT at Scrap-it-Lah

Crazy crazy week and another one waiting around the corner! Took a day off from work yesterday, Friday and did absolutely nothing. Sat in the sunshine at a café sipping my latte and checking out people scurrying about.

This week's conference went super well, got another one coming up on Tuesday and then bye bye, I'm off to Zürich (Switzerland) on Wed + Thur + Fri. I'm a boardmember of something called EUMA (European Management Assistants) and it's time for our AGM. Some wild 350 chicks of varying ages meeting up to discuss this and that about our profession, 'cause that's what I do for a living; I'm a PA. I have a special place in my heart for the ladies from the UK, been to their training days and have met them on several occasions in London.

Anyhow, it is the time of the week when TCR releases the new palette. This week we are in the sun room with gorgeous soft colours; Pink Putty, Candy Pink, Celery Green and Deep Cornflower Blue. Totally yummie! Here's the inspirational pic for you:

When I first saw the palette I was dead sure I would end up with a layout with pink as main but that's the beauty of the creative process, anything can happen along the road. I never have a clear picture in my head of the end result, ever so often it's nothing like what I started with and this one's exactly that.



It was the blue and green patterned paper from Anna Griffin's Francesca collection that chose me. I just love this photo of my DH's paternal grandfather, who was called Melker by the way. He looks so important and rather pompous, very proud of his position as head accountant at a rather posh Swedish estate in the 1930's and 1940's. This pic was taken in the early 1930's. The pattern of the paper reminds me of silk ties from that era, lovely lovely soft and muted colours.


The floral and paisley papers are also from the Franscesca collection. The brad with a typewriter is MME L&F 2 - my absolute fave collection at the moment! Brown alphas are Prima, the crocheted flower is from a local store. The ledger paper/bill is from Australian online store Maxine's Melange.



Don't know if you can see it but there is a chalked imprint of a doily in the bottom right-hand corner, ever so subtle. Resin frame from a local store and stamped clock face mounted in it. Keys are from Tim Holtz and symbolize the keys to the safe and grand dads drawers in his office. The white buttons of course stand for his impeccably starched white shirts.



Black old-fashioned handwriting is on an overlay from Maxine's Melange and the rub-on next to it is from BoBunny Etc. Lock and key are TH and the resin crown is from a local store. Coffee dyed scrunched up tag.



The fussy cut bloom is also from a Franscesca paper. Cannot remember where the ephemera book cover is from, perhaps K&CO Flora&Fauna?

And here's Mr Melker himself. Gosh I can see his features in my own hubby, jolly nice my own man hasn't inherited any of his grand dad's primness even though it was handed down to his own son, my DH's dad.




I am also really excited to share some news with you: I was asked to be the October GDT over at Malaysia's first non-profit challenge blog, Scrap-it-Lah, where gorgeous, kind and talented Helen Tilbury is DT. Fantastic and arty Amelia Khalik, beautiful ladies Azura Alyssa, Fon Mee, Helene Sierman, Nadia Jalil and Yatie Tajudin are the other DT members.

Have a peek HERE

The October challenge is to include old book paper, sheet music or something similar downloaded off the internet & printed out + fussy cutting + hand-stitching using embroidery floss.

Well, I often have hand stitching and definitely have fussy cutting on almost all of my pages. I used printed out sheet music from internet to make the leaves as well as for layering in the cluster under the pic.



This is my DH as a baby and his mother, the pic was taken in the autumn of 1961. The chippie flourish has only been painted in white acrylic paint and then touched up with chalk in Chestnut Roan before I added some white pearls and liquid pearls in teal.



Love that white overlay from Hambly! The yellow ochra paper that I've used for the punched and pleated border is MME L&F 2 as is the checkered paper under the photo. The brown second layer is from K&Co Flora & Fauna. The reddish-brownish flower "stamens" are Viva Decor liquid pearl in bronze and copper.



I used brown alphas from Prima on the twill ribbon, the dark teal brads are from MME L&F 2. Teal stitching with embroidery yarn around the whole page. Some TA splatter and scattered teal bling.



All the fussy cut flowers and green leaves are from K&Co Julianna. The teal roses are Prima.



Teal pearl swirl from MME L&F 2.



And here's the proud mother and her bubba boy.

Better get going with my Saturday chores. Have a lovely lovely weekend!

xoxoxox Eila

Les Papiers de Pandore - Autumn Glory

Hello week!

Hubbs and I thought we had been invited for coffee at a friend's place on Saturday afternoon and were looking forward to some rich scrummie cake. Our friends have just moved into a fabulous apartment on the 8th floor with views over Stockholm and had asked some friends to come over. As it turned out, the coffee was a bucket of Cosmopolitan and the cake had been swapped for cocktail canapées. Ooops! not exactly in the habit of knocking back cocktails at 3 o'clock but when in Rome ... Ha ha I'm sure you can guess the rest!

Last Friday didn't only see the release of new palettes over at TCR and CCG, Julie Blanc also posted one of my pages on her blog Les Papiers de Pandore. Here's a quick post to share that page with you.



The papers are of course LPdP. I cut out the leaves from one of the pps from the autumn 2010 collection and doused them heavily in TA Glimmer Glaze in Pink Tutu. It made the leaves curl up and gave them a fantastic shine, the heavy coating also pooled at the edges which gives a beautiful effect IRL.



Faux stitching to give an effect of the leaves twirling in the wind. I also double stitched the border in fuchsia and silver grey.



I printed out the photo in several copies and fussy-cut the leaves and the cress flower, which I then stacked in different layers with popdots to give a 3D effect.

The chippie window I first painted in white acrylic paint and then "dirtied" it with different shades of brown before dabbing randomly in Adirondack Snow Cap. Repeated the whole thing several times till I was happy with the result. This is something I learned in a tutorial by "Willea" over at Dusty Attic.



The bricks were made with my belowed "snowpaint" which is like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand, and a stencil.




Alphas are BG Hello Luscious, as are the fussy cut leaves in the cluster of Prima blooms. Some TA splatter in purple and lilac hues finished the page.

I have another intensively busy week at work, a big conferens is coming up and we are in the final stages of putting the details in place. Wish you all a great week! Ciao!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #77 Not A Penny Wedding

Cannot believe how quickly this week has flown by, nothing but long days at work every single day and no time for extra me-time or scrapping. Hooraah for Friday!

Autumn is definitely here to stay, most trees are blazing in wonderful colours and the mornings are getting rather nippy. Wonderful to reminisce about warmer days and happy moments, like weddings.

This week TCR is in his room and the colours are rich and muted; Rich Burgandy, Light White, English Mustard and Cool Grey.

It was the rich burgandy and cool grey that set my mojo moving this time.



Here's my friend L who lives in York (as in old York, UK) and her Scottish relative at a family wedding in Glasgow, UK last summer. I just loooove her dotted dress! and what a handsome man in his gorgeous kilt and the beautiful bag pipe!



The cream paper doesn't look much unless you see it in the right angle so that the subtle floral pattern shows. It's from Anna Griffin's Georgette collection.

The next layer is grey cardstock. Both the script and dotted papers are from MME Lost & Found 2, as is the white&grey striped punched border between the MME lace and the burgandy punched out border, which by the way is a paper from one of the spring 2011 Prima collections.

I have piped out liquid pearls on the burgandy dots.

In the cluster you will find rolled up music sheet from MME L&F 2, really old ribbon from BG courtesy of my scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, cut out rose buds from K&Co Julianna, a stamped clock face and 3 embellies from MME L&F 2.



Fussy cut blooms from K&CO Julianna. The rest of the flowers and the mustard crocheted doily are from Prima. Pearl swirl is MME L&F 2 and the black alphas are Prima. A TH book plate that I have dabbed in white acrylic paint.

A penny wedding is a wedding where the guests bring food with them. Well, this Scottish wedding was anything but a penny one!







I am so looking forward to my me-time this weekend, had a parcel from the US yesterday and cannot wait to get going on the scrumminess it contained!

To all of you out there - have a fantastic weekend and thank you so very much for your visit! Your comment makes me very very happy!

Toodeloo! cheerio! xoxoxox Eila

#76 Remember

Hello weekend!

I was away for 3 days from the office Wed-Thur-Frid together with my fellow PAs/Executive Assistants. We were on a workshop in "7 Habits of Highly Efficient People" (Stephen Covey). Just imagine 11 women in the same room discussing and role playing around really difficult situations and topics, talk about energy! so much laughter and so much shared fun! With the one rule that what is said in the room, stays in the room, there was a lot of honest sharing I can tell.

Feels really great to be home again with my darling hubby and the kitties. The list of must-do's is as long as my arm, so I'll go straight to the TCR palette #76 and my layout.

Even though the colours are yet again so very pretty, I found it very challenging to find the right shades of all colours. Here's palette #76 for you; Prettiest Pink, Raincloud Blue, Avocado Green, and Openly Orange.

And here's my page.



All papers are again from Swedish Pion Design, but from their spring collection with the exception of the brown paper that I've used instead of cardstock. That one's from their Love collection.

The gentleman in the photo is the father of my girlfriend M, and the young lady is her daughter L. The pic was taken last summer when they were together on summer hols in Cornwall, UK. Grand dad lives in Norway, so this was a real family treat to them all.



Crocheted doily (that's my only contribution to the Raincloud Blue) and Prima blooms. I made the green flower with the pearl centre myself from one of the Pion papers. The flower trail at the bottom is fussy-cut from a Prima Pixie Glen paper.



More fussy-cutting from Pixie Glen and another hand-made green flower.



We got 3 birdcages in one of the kits at the Ingvild Bolme workshop. Now I only have one left - boohoo!



The chippie lamp post is from French online store Embelliscrap. They don't come in craft as most other chippies do, but in a shabby cream with faintly "chalked" edges in brownish. I just stippled some white acrylic paint on it and left it more or less as it was.

LOVE the Prima Alphas! and have them in almost every colour available. Just the perfect size and the sheet has so many of each Alpha, both upper and lower case.



Couldn't resist cutting out the single birdie from one of the Pixie Glen papers and placing it on the gate post so that it looks as if its friends are flying in to join him. The gate is once again from Embelliscrap. I first painted it in TA Glimmer Glam in Espresso Bean, zapped it with my heat gun and then spread out Viva Decor liquid pearl in bronze and copper with my finger for some shine. Looks really nice IRL I have to say.



No stamping or misting/masking as I wanted the papers to only subtly frame the photo, which I know is very very precious to both my girlfriend and her daughter.

Et voilà, that's all!

Have a super weekend! now off to the supermarket. Cheerio!

xoxoxox Eila

UOAS 1 September challenge in combo with CCG #208

Both TCR and CCG have gorgeous colour palettes this week, TCR with lilacs as main and CCG with a soft, pretty palette of pastels and PEARLS as product prompt. Just look at the yummie inspirational photo! "Mulberry Tea, Porcelain Pearl, Sugared Lilac and Blue Fairy Dust".

The UOAS 1 September challenge closes in about 2 days. Here's Nadia's wonderful sketch:

This time the journalling criteria is "A Memorable Year". The title must be a year, and you must journal at least 2 lines on why this year is memorable for you.

Pastels, pearls and a memorable year, there can only be one specific year that covers it all: 2000. It was a year of the greatest possible sorrow, but also one that ended in great joy. My mother gave up her battle against cancer and only a few months later, I met Bengt whom I married before the year had come to its end.

It was truly a year when one door closed in my face, but another one opened and beckoned me in.

So, without further ado, here's my page:



The blue paper is K&Co Watercolor Bouquet. I've also fussy cut flowers from the K&Co papers. The alphas are Prima and the stamped sentiment is Cloud9. The resin key hole is from Melissa Frances.



The scrunched ribbon/lace is MME Lost&Found 2. The little birds are cut-out from a Prima Pixie Dust paper. The music sheet overlay is KaiserCraft. Have to admit I've forgotten where the chippie frame/flourish is from as I had removed the wrapping, but I definitely know it's from Australia!



Some more Prima, this time Romantique (circle and square pieces of paper) and the triple layered cut-out b&w frames are Prima Printery Line. Prima bling and some liquid pearls.



The lilac flower has more sugar to it than its colour, it's sprinkled in glitter too. The creamy/yellow one is KaiserCraft and what looks like fuchsia here, is actually a dark mulberry colour. The conditions were not the best for evening photographing, sorry about that.

That's it folks! Thank you ever so much for your visit and for any beautiful comment!

Have a great rest of the week! xoxoxox Eila

Celebrating 75 with the Sweet Serenity digikit and a page for Les Papiers de Pandore

Hello dear friends!

Have you seen anything as beautiful as the digi kit that Lydell Quin and Emma Stafrace have designed to celebrate the 75h palette of The Color Room?! such incredibly talented ladies and what amazing layouts the DT have come up with using the digi kit!! This is a HUGE release!

You do not have to be a digital scrapbooker to enjoy a digital kit. You can print off the elements either on paper (the white backs of paper you know you will never use are a great option to cut down and print your elements onto as it is a heavier weight than just a piece of copier paper) or on transparency and then use them in the way you would use any physical product you would buy.

So we have a special printable giveaway for Members this week, and the option to purchase this fun kit that the DT used to create their works of Art for just $6.00......Remember you don't need to use this kit digitally if you are not a digital scrapper. You can place any element on an A4 or 8.5 x 11 sheet in your editing software, and print it out and cut it out as you would an element in your printed paper. You can print on Paper or printable transparency.

Proceeds from this kit will go towards the running of the site. We ask that you donate $6.00 to TCR by using the 'DONATE' button then email me and Lydell will send you the link to download the kit...........lydell@exemail.com.au

Here are the A4 sized sheets. The first is a .jpeg file the second is .png all saved at 300dpi for optimum printing, so save both or the relevant one depending whether you want to do a digi page or traditional/hybrid one by right clicking and saving...Can't wait to see what you guys create using this little giveaway :)

And for those who like me are totally lost when it comes to digi scrapping, here's this week's palette with Lightest Lilac, Luscious Lilac, Cornflower Blue and Deepest Brown. BEAUTIFUL!!

And here's my page created with old-fashioned paper and scissors :))



This is my friend L's mother IH and her daughter K on my friend's special birthday last year. They live in York (as in "old" York), UK. Granny is a bonny Scottish lass. I called my page "Together" (.. is the best place to be). This page is now framed and hangs in granny IH's house as I sent it to her for her recent birthday.



I printed out two copies of the same photo, silhouetted one of them and mounted over the other one. It gives the photo a subtle dimension without getting chunky.



The papers are a mix of two different collections from Swedish Pion Design. Lookie lookie - fussy cutting! :))

The flowers are from Prima and Petaloo. Some TA splatter in 3 different hues of blue and lilac. Stickles Star Dust on the cut-out butterflies. I cut white mini doilies from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop in half and placed them in a fan-shape above the photo, then added a PP Artisan Element and some pearls and a mini Prima resin flower. The alphas are Prima. Liquid pearls for the centres of the violets.



My GD assignment over at Les Papiers de Pandore is nearing its end, but I've still got some more pages to share. Here's the one that was posted on Wednesday, 7 September. I've called it "Little Friends". All the papers are from the summer collection.



As I have mentioned before, dear husband and I love taking drives into the countryside and having coffee and cake somewhere in a picturesque place. In the summer one really has to guard one's cakes and cookies as little friends very quickly come to say hello, i.e. little birds.



The yellow crocheted doily is from Leeann's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy. She has doilies in all sizes and almost all the colours of the rainbow, just delicious!



To continue on the outdoor feel of the page, I've used wooden buttons and very rough twine on the page as well as hand-stitched a golden brown frame. The photo is double matted in green paper and a roughly cut piece of frayed muslin, and then I hand-stitched in zig-zag around the pic.



For the title I used alpha stickers and a label from the summer collection and mounted them on a piece of corrugated cardboard that I cut in the same shape as the label. I initially planned to crochet a border à la Stacy Cohen and therefore had already punched the holes in the cardboard when I changed my mind. What to do? I simply cut off half of the holes and got a stamp border instead!



I painted a chippie border from Imaginarium Design in white acrylic paint, thicker dollops in places to get an uneven surface. Then I cut it horizontally in half to mimic a garden balustrade.



I loved making the felt blooms and cutting out the leaves/stems from the back of one of the papers.

The weather forecast promises lovely balmy weather this weekend, the sun is already showing its pale rays from a clear blue sky. All of Stockholm seemed to be out and enjoying the unexpected warm weather on Friday evening, even I sampled a Frozen Strawberry Margharita and hubbs and I had a wonderful leisurely stroll back home from the cocktail bar.

Wishing you all a really great weekend! Thanks for popping by and leaving a hello!

Take care! xoxoxox Eila