December 1st - Advent

Welcome to the first presentation of my advent calendar! This will be a daily event, one layout revealed each day until Christmas Day. It's been a labour of love, this thing. I'm glad it's over and extatic that I actually managed to get it done, and I've been longing to show it off... ;)
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This page has time as its main subject. Today is the start of the count-down, the waiting period before the great celebration. The clock hands were coloured using a silver ink pad and PearlEx Grey Lavender, sealed with a coat of Glossy Accents. I have to say I prefer the Perfect Pearls powder...

I knew I wanted this LO to be purple, as that is the colour associated with advent in the church. Fortunately for me, I found one single winter themed pattern paper in purple colours in my stash!
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The letters looked a bit boring, so I tilted the "e". I'm pretty sure I've lifted this trick from a logo or something... Twinklin' H2O's and Perfect Pearls powder gives the large Prima Times Alphas that colour and shine.
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This is the only LO where I wanted to write something more than a title. It's a common misconception (in Norway, at least) that advent means "waiting period". In fact, "Adventus Domini" means "The Lord's Arrival". I still like the thought of advent as a waiting time and wrote a short text, using both terms in their correct meaning. Obviously, advent started last Sunday and not actually today, but this calendar has to be usable year after year... ;)

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Materials used:

Papers: The Paper Company: Snowflake Medley, unknown purple PP, Panduro embossed silver paper, Hambly Frosty Snowflakes overlay, Bazzill, unknown purlpe sparkly paper

Embellishments: Scrap FX chipboard clock hands, Prima Times Alpha chipboard letters (large)

Other: Twinklin' H2O's Mulberry and Dutch Iris, silver ink pad, Perfect Pearls Interference Violet, PearlEx Grey Lavender, Glossy Accents

Advent calendar

Some time ago I gave you a little sneak peek into a huge project I had started, not really knowing whether or not I'd be able to finish it in time for December (this year). I'm extremely pleased to say that I am, in fact, done! :D

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So this big project is... *drum roll* ...my advent calendar! I've scrapped one 12"x12" layout for each day in December up to (and including) Christmas Day and glued them into a canvas-backed book. Similar to a December Daily except I've already made everything and is just showing it off now. ;) Today I'll show you the basic structure of the calendar. Starting Tuesday (December 1st) I'll show you one layout each day until Christmas Day. Today I'm just giving you a sneak peek at all the pages as I had them spread out on my table sorted into the desired order:

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I'm fairly pleased with the overall results! But please forgive the quality of some of these layouts as they come along through December - I've never scrapped anything in my life before this, although I suppose the card making has given me some relevant experience. Some layouts turned out great, some... not so great. It takes all my strength to not go back over some of these layouts and doing them all over again. ;) So, what you'll see are my very first attempts at paper crafting in this format. They won't be shown in the order they were made, as I first made them all and then sorted them in the order I wanted them to be in the calendar.

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I've learned a few things during this: Firstly, 25 scrapbooking pages takes up a lot of space. This is the finished calendar compared to the original base without decoration. Obviously the spine had to go, and I struggled to find something to replace it with. The solution (at the moment) is to use some relatively long strands of ribbon to hold it together when stored, and adding two jump rings to compress the spine when it's displayed to make it stand upright better.

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Secondly, glitter goes everywhere. It's in my face, on my clothes, on my bathroom floor. I'm supposed to be an adult and not a messy four-year-old, but I can't help it. But glitter makes any page pop, so glitter there must be. ;)

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Thirdly, I'm bitten by the bug. I want to make more. More. More! So I suspect that a similar calendar for the rest of the year is coming. Not one layout for each day just yet though, I want to live a little as well. ;) But perhaps one per week? I've already got several photos ready for the task!

Another long term project

I've started another long term project. Really long term. If all goes well this will make a couple of gifts in February. I'm having a go at making my own vanilla extract! Exciting and something completely new for me. Occationally, I'll find a recipe asking for it but since I've never had something like that in my cupboard I've just skipped it or chosen another recipe. The vanilla essence you'll find on the super market shelves is just revolting stuff, trust me. This is the real stuff - made from lots of vanilla pods (seeds and all).
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It's looking a bit dodgy in this picture, as I had just shaken the jar and some of the seeds were still floating around in it. They sink to the bottom so the mix turns clear and clean. In two months or so I'll decant about two thirds of the extract into small bottles to give away. The last third will make the base for another batch - I'll just refill the jar with vodka and keep adding vanilla pods now and then.
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There are several recipes online, I've used this one from Craft Magazine.
Check back in a couple of months and I'll share the results. ;)

Randi 60 years

I often go for vintage style cards when making cards for this age group, but somehow it just didn't seem right for Randi! She needs to get something in bolder brighter colours, something that suits her personality better. You may recognise the BG Wisteria paper pad - again... Yes, I know, I'm addicted.
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I've coloured the stamp with Prismas as usual. The Prima chipboard numbers are painted with H2O's - they are more blue in the picture than in real life although I didn't manage to match the colours as well as I would have hoped. A bit of lace and a few paper flower buds later and the card was done.

Knut 60 years

I have to admit this is a recycled idea... But cards for men are so difficult, and he loves nature, fishing and dogs so this was just perfect for him! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. ;) The card is all about texture, with several layers of various structured paper. Wooden buttons and paper leaves is the only other decoration. It's still almost too much... Oh well. I think he'll like it. ;)

Wisteria and Miss Anya

This is the last of the cards I made at HobbyHimmelen on Saturday.
Most of the BG Wisteria paper pad has soft, pale colours. But now and then some strong bold colours show up! Like these. The richness of these colours make them a joy to work with, and I decided they were best suited for a card with clean lines. Miss Anya was coloured with Prismas as usual. Black hair is a nightmare to colour, even worse than blonde! I certainly cause trouble for myself... From now on I'll always use colours that suit brown hair. *lol*

Vintage angels

The BG Porcelain paper pad has been put to good use again! Along with a pink square from the Two Scoops pad. Brown and pink has got to be one of my favourite colour combos... Other matierials used are MS doily lace border punch, Prima Hydrangea flowers, Kort og Godt roses, misc. hardware from stash, brown Scrapper's floss, a rub-on ("love you") from Ett Trykk and Creamy Brown chalk ink.
This card was also made at HobbyHimmelen on Saturday, for a sketch challenge that day. The day was awesome! I'd certainly like to do it again.

Dream in pink!

This card was made for a sketch challenge at HobbyHimmelen on Saturday. I had already made one and was running short on time, so it was rushed a bit, I'm afraid...
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The papers are from the BG Two Scoops paper pad, ribbon from Kort og Godt, giant rub-on from K&Co, EK Success border punch. Image coloured with Prismacolor pencils - and I've realised that blonde hair is really difficult to get right! The pink flowers came in a give-away from Stephanie. Thank you so much, they're lovely!

Spots 'n stripes Wisteria

My BG Wisteria paper pad is getting thin... I just love them so much!
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Papertake Weekly asks for spots and stripes. The stripes should be fairly obvious, and the darker paper have flowers made from spots and circles. I've used half a Bazzill paper flower again and sprinkled other flowers around. The image is coloured using Prismacolor pencils and the flowers have been lightly sprayed with Glimmermist Pearl.

Vintage card

Finally, a new card! I've been so occupied with my December project that cards have been a rare commodity around here lately. But I've got five more lined up for the next few days. The reason for this is the 12,5 hours I spent scrapping and cardmaking along with several wonderful ladies at HobbyHimmelen yesterday! So much fun! Although I almost regretted it when I started choosing and packing what to bring the night before... *lol* I hope to get the chance to do it again - they just have to stop organizing these events whenever I work the weekend. *sigh* And now for the un-packing...

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The papers are from the BG Porcelain pad. I've inked the edges with Creamy Brown and also inked the entire surface of the picture (found online) to give it a sepia feel. Then layered a cut Bazzill flower with a cream flower and pale pink roses and rosebuds. I also used my Spellbinders labels four that I just couldn't resist buying yesterday...

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This card is going into the ABC Challenge (green) and the Our Creative Corner Challenge (vintage). It's been a long time since I've entered a challenge - perhaps I'll get some beginner's luck back? ;)

A retro card for Are

I'm so late with this card... But he's coming to see me today so I just had to get it done. I originally had some great BG papers planned for this card, but ended up with papers from the DCVW Retro stack instead. His name is short, so I saw my chance to use the Diesel alphabet again.

In other news, the big project I gave you a sneak peek on earlier, is coming along nicely! I'm getting confident that I'll be able to show it to you this December. In that case, December will be a very active month on this blog. ;)

Thinking about you

How do you make a card for someone who just lost a loved one? What do you say? It's a first for me, and this is how it ended up. I wanted to avoid black and dark, dreary colours, so I used white with a very pale green. K&Co paper, Penny Black brushstroke tulip in white heat embossing, flowers from stash. Having searched through all my stamps, stickers and rub-ons without finding anything useful I eventually had to write the sentiment ("We're thinking about you") in QK Phoebe letters.

(Side note: I snapped this picture in a hurry before delivering the card a couple of days ago. When uploading the picture to the computer today I realised that it's out of focus! *knocking head on keyboard* Will do better next time.)

Place card roundup

You might recognise this embossed silver cardstock from yesterday's post. Theodor's mother and I had made these place cards for his baby blessing ceremony, and I thought it would be nice to bring something of that into the card. The place cards are quite minimalistic, but the silver cardstock gives a striking impression and we decided to show it off by keeping the rest clean and simple. She came with the silver and blue cardstock, I provided stamps, spellbinders and alphabet dies (QK Frankie skinnimini), and a few ideas. Because there were so few details (and relatively few place cards to be made), we dared to start the project of writing every name in QK letters - let's just say that that took a little bit of time... *lol* We stamped a background text stamp with watermark ink on the blue cardstock before adding the baby hands or feet in silver to give some structure to the centre. They're quite big, that's the biggest nestie die!

Peninah, my mother and I made these place cards for Peninah's confirmation in May this year and I completely forgot to show them! I also made this and this card for her. The colours on these place cards were a nightmare get right, but they're supposed to be cool lilacs... With small greyish pink Prima flowers to give some dimension to the retro punch flowers. The names were simply written in silver (by me! o the horror) and popped up on 3D cushion tape.

Ok, so technically these aren't place cards, but we made the place card/menu/song booklets to match these invitations, so they're fairly similar. Can't seem to find my own place card right now, so you'll have to settle for the picture I snapped before this little pile of invitations went in the mail. They were for my brother's wedding Valentine's day this year, and the wedding had a coffe theme (duh). My sister-in-law-to-be (at the time) had most of it figured out, but turned everything upside down after seeing something in the store when we went to shop supplies... *lol* I liked the way it ended up!

For Theodor's blessing ceremony

This has got to be one of the quickest cards I've ever done... and it shows. Time just doesn't allow for anything these days, and I threw this one together moments before I went out the door. It's as simple as it looks: I picked the papers without too much fuss, the stamp was coloured with Tilda markers and it was already cut out. One ribbon, one rub-on and two flower buds later and it was all done! I'll show you why I used that particular silver cardstock tomorrow.

Low season

The fascilities by the small lakes in Baneheia are closed for the winter, bars on doors and windows. The little chalkboard sign that usually tells the pleasant water temperatures in these popular lakes says it all:

Date/time: "Over for this year"

Degrees: "Cold"