Tone 40 years

It's been a while since I've made a yellow card... I guess the grey view from my windows made me long for a little sunshine! I kept it simple -as usual - yellow and white with elements of orange. I followed a nice sketch from the Simon Says Challenge. I've only just discovered the convenience of having a sketch to follow, but I'll definitely keep on searching for more now.

The Prisma colouring is getting easier now, and I'm pleased with the depth I got with the yellow and two orange pencils used on the dress. Flowers from stash - the middle one was white, but was showered with Glimmermist Sunflower and Tiger Lily for a shimmering colour with several shades - the picture doesn't really convey the variety of the colours. QK Eliza Mini and Phoebe SkinniMini, Swiss Dot cardstock and embossing folder, vellum paper with white swirls, brads from stash.

Baby Oskar

This is my favourite baby stamp these days, I use it on everything baby related... ;) So cute, and so easy to colour. I used an excellent sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You this time! The sketch was originally made for a rectangular card and is perhaps better suited for that than my square card...? But I think it looks ok. I'm also adding it to the celebration themed challenge on A Spoonful of Sugar this week. Both challenges have really wonderful prizes up for grabs - take a look!

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Some of the materials used: Magnolia stamp stamped with StazOn Timber Brown and coloured with my Prismas, Bazzill cardstock embossed with the Swiss Dot folder, Prima Hydrangea flowers detailed with Stickles glitter glue, Bazzill thread, assorted charms and spacers (the reverse side of the sun charm says "made with a smile"), QK Frankie SkinniMini, and a design paper from Heidi Grace (Vineyard shimmer Trim with Glitter).

And as always, I'll be sending him a pair of my baby socks! This time in the cream colour, as I'm not entirely sure what colours his mom and dad prefer...

Bente and Geirmund

My mother ordered this card - and time was short so it's built over the same recipe as something I did a while back. Amazing how long I can spend cutting and designing anyway. ;)
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The lace was a bit on the bright side, so it got a heavy shower of Glimmermist Old Lace. The Magnolia stamp was coloured with my Prismas, the gold pencil doesn't really shine in the picture... The text is QK Phoebe, and the hearts are all QK. All edges were distressed with a craft knife and inked with Fluid Chalk Creamy brown.

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Forgot to take a picture of the inside, but it follows the same colours and distressing style (sooo much distressing on this card...). Off to surf the blog wave now, haven't done any blog surfing lately so I'll probably be here until midnight. ;)

Welcome to the world, Theodor

To the lovely and cute baby Theodor, who I was lucky enough to get to admire when he was just a day old. This stamp actually fits just as well in the circle nesties as in the oval ones! I'm going to enter this card to the ABC Challenge: M is for Metallic, if Mr. Linky would just behave...

He also got a pair of my knitted baby socks in the blue/brown/cream variety. Waaay to big now, but perhaps they'll fit when autumn comes.

A little experiment

A few weeks ago I discovered how I could make time-lapse videos with my DSLR and calculator. I've been dying to try it out but never got around to it. But last night I set up my camera and calculator on my veranda and had go! Today I've played around in MonkeyJam to see if I could make it work. After a bit of trial and error I had a video that played well and was small enough to please Blogger's demands. Ta-daaa!

This video covers a time span of about an hour and a half. The photographs were taken with an interval of about 30 seconds, although I suspect that the interval became longer as the very old batteries in the calculator slowly died. The shutter and aperture were controlled manually and set to a slightly brighter exposure than needed when I started, as I knew it would soon be very dark. The wiew isn't very exciting, but I just needed something readily available. Now that I know it works, I can go hunting for more action! ;)

I wish I had discovered this technique a couple of weeks earlier - I had an idea that would have worked great in my brother's wedding. Oh well, I might have a chance do something similar in a friend's wedding this summer.

So, here's the setup: TI-83 Calculator with connection cable plugged into my Canon EOS 350D's remote shutter release socket, mounted on the wonderful GorillaPod.

Happy retirement Marion!

Bold red and crisp white, have I used that colour combo before?? Not a very new and inventive layout either, but sometimes time just doesn't allow for those all-evening-cards... This is for a collegue who is retiring.

"May you have a life that is mild and good, and find happiness in great and small." The big flower has been showered in Glimmermist Pearl (my favourite). My new nesties got their first taste of paper, and the stamp has been heat embossed in red to give it that sharp look.

Blog candy

Kortgleder har en blog candy i forbindelse med lanseringen av nye stempler fra The Greeting Farm. En heldig vinner får en overraskelsespakke med de nye stemplene! (15. mai)

Donna is celebrating 10 000 hits and her two new designer CDs with a really cute candy! Closes May 15th.

Ila has two great candies on her blog, celebrating her birthday and Mother's day. (Closed)

Maria is celebrating her first blogoversary this May and is offering a really wonderful candy. Closes May 29th.

Jaqui is having another blog candy, this time to celebrate her unbelievable 90 000 hits! Closes May 15th.

Marcea is celebrating her birthday, and I'm just in time to enter her candy! (Closed)

Iris has a whopping good candy celebrating 7500 hits, congratulations! Closes May 25th.

Dulcie is giving away all these stamps... for no apparent reason other than to be kind, as far as I can see. Got to love that! ;) Closes May 15th.

Kjell 60 years

Strong colours and a stamp that suits him, perhaps a little to well...? ;) But this guy can take it with a smile, I know. :)

Dag Tore 40 years

This is as close to flowers as I dare to go on a card for a man... ;) The retro punches are just great. He loves to fish and hunt, so this stamp fits perfectly! All the stitching was done in some Bazzill thread that I got on sale a while ago - love the colours.

Warm felted slippers

After two years or so I've finally worn a hole in my felted slippers. Fortunately, it only took me one evening and two quiet shifts at work to make a new pair! I had hoped the variegated yarn would appear more even after the felting, but they're ok. One go in the washing machine in a 60 degrees Celcius one-hour cycle was enough this time.
These are just fabulous in the wintertime, or when eating breakfast outside on crisp cold spring mornings, or on chilly rainy summer evenings, or to stretch the outside season longer into the fall... It's a wonder they've lasted this long.

For size comparison, the new unfelted slipper, and my old worn-out one.

New on my needles

I've finally started the Jeanie shawl! It's a bit scary, I have to admit... But so far it's working out ok - as far as I can tell. The really scary thing is that although I'll be dropping some stitches along the way, there are many columns of stitches that won't be dropped until the shawl has been knitted to its full length! So as I knit, I don't see what it's going to look like when finished. And even scarier, what if I make a mistake along the way and the whole thing unravels completely wrong? Or stops unravelling half-way through? Ooh... so many possibilities for disaster. It makes me even more determined. ;) I will make this work!
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You can just see the blue thread on the right side in the picture (and in between the first row of stitches) - that's the waste yarn from my provisional cast on. It will later be removed to expose the live stitches so the cabled band that runs along the side of the shawl can be continued along the edge.
The stitch markers are a great help. The blue ones mark the change between each of the three charts, the white ones various points within each chart. I just wish the recipe was more specific about the placement of the in-chart markers... By my calculations I'll need 19 markers in addition to the chart markers, not 19 in total. I wonder where my mistake is?

Blog candy

It's that time again: Here are some blog candy alerts coming your way!

Steph is celebrating 50 000 hits with this amazing candy! (Closed)


Kim is celebrating her 1st blogoversary and have passed 20 000 hits in her first year! (Closed)

Siri has a candy going on with some amazing paper and more. (Closed)

Tonya is celebrating 200 followers with this candy. (Closed)


Debbie is celebrating her first blogoversary with a candy to drool over... (Closed)

Jennie has some wonderful stamps and more up for grabs. (Closed)

Stitch markers

I've finally decided to have a go at the Jeanie shawl I've been drooling over for a while now... But first thing first, I needed to make no less than 19 stitch markers! The blue ones will mark the points between charts, and the white ones will mark various stitches within each chart.

These are some I made a couple of years ago, for much bigger needles. You'll soon see which project I used them for - I just have to finish it first...

Torgny 60 years

So... you want an explanation, you say? Well, this guy travels all over the country (can you guess which one?) on job related stuff, and the request for this card was to somehow incorporate that. Hmmm... Not an easy task, but I think this worked out ok. I have to admit it stands out a bit from the other cards I've made lately... ;)
I've sewed the lines on the map with actual needle and thread, but the rest is faux stitching.

What I found in my mail box today

As all of us card makers know well, there are some things in this world that can never be done electronically with quite the same impact as the good old way. Like recieving a big fat envelope with something exciting inside! Today, in my old fashioned green snail mail box, I found a wonderful package. It's my prize in the March challenge in Ett Trykk, where I won third prize for my butterfly set. Wohoo! It was a surprise prize, and a great one! I love these rub-ons, in fact I already have one of the sets and it's quickly being spent... Good thing I just got a refill - and more... ;)