Latte confirmation card

The DCVW Latte stack in action again! It's one of my all-time favourites. The confirmand's name is so long I ended up using alphabet stickers to spell it out, and I'm not really loving the look. I'm farily pleased with the rest though, I love these colours and I'm having fun making big flower clusters these days.
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When I had attatched this sweet image to the card I suddenly thought she looked pregnant, the big skirt with the high waist line and all... Not the best role model for a 15-year-old perhaps? ;) I know, I know, it was stupid and she's obviously not pregnant, but when the thought had popped into my head it was too late and I can't really look at the stamp the same way anymore. And now I've ruined her for the rest of you. Sorry about that. ;) I only hope you can be more logical about this than me. *lol*

Ellen's birthday card

Another beta version card today - this card didn't sell so I brought it home and spruced it up a little. New flowers always improves a card! ;) The one in the bottom corner is among my latest buys and I love its bright colours. I'm not pleased with the slightly awkward placement of the name, but now it's glued and I can't remove it without tearing the design paper... Oh well. I coloured the image long before I got my Prismas, I think it was done with Tilda markers. No shading whatsoever, so I added some using metallic creamy chalks, but I much prefer my Prismas. Now that I think of it, I might add some highlights with my white Sakura pen. That might do the trick!

Endre's birthday card

I've had the first version of this card lying in a box for months now, trying to decide if I like it or not. With a few alterations, I've now decided that it is usable after all. It's a simple layout with Harley Davidson paper on black cardstock on black Bazzill Bling with some Distress Crackle Paint on the top.
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When I got these snowflake dies I thought they looked remarkably like gears, and that's what gave me the initial idea for this card. I punched them out four times from black cardstock and glued them together to give them some dimention. They were then coloured to resemble metal, using several shades of Perfect Pearls powders.
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The embosssing powder used on the round stamp is actually my own concoction! It's a mix of roughly 15 parts black embossing powder, one part Perfect Pearls Herloom Gold and two parts Perfect Pearls Pewter. The result is a silvery dark grey, almost pewter-coloured finish, that fits nicely on this card.

New on my needles - lacy scarf

So I had that one last skein of DROPS Vivaldi mohair yarn bought on sale nearly a year ago lying idle in a drawer. What to do, what to do... The night before leaving on a weekend trip I scavenged Ravelry for recipes and found this suggestion. It's called Branching Out, and there's also a recipe on Knitty for non-Ravelers. Nice looking, right? Not that I need another scarf... *lol* But there's only so much you can do with one skein and I acutely needed something to keep my hands occupied while on the train. I like it - it's a bit tricky and I don't seem to be able to memorize the short pattern, but I like the challenge. The technical stuff is on my Ravelry project page.

For Kari

Hello there, remember me? It's been a while, at least according to the date on my last post. Sure doesn't feel like it though. It's been an eventful two weeks for me, some nice events and some not so nice. But it feels good to be back, and I even have something to show you!
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Don't you just love the golden glow of the home made vanilla extract? I know I do! I could just stare at those bottles for ages. And trust me, it has taste to go with its good looks as well. ;) This bottle goes to my lovely sister in law - hope she can put it to good use.
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And as a help, I made her a little booklet containing recipes using vanilla extract. I kept it plain and simple, just kraft cardstock, white Bazzill and red baker's twine. The border punch is the MS doily lace of course! I made a slightly fancier one for my mom a while back.
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A quick look at one of the inside page spreads. The text was just printed directly on the Bazzill cardstock and cut to equal size pieces before being glued to the kraft cardstock. Unlike the Bazzill, the kraft cardstock has the advantage of looking the same on both sides and therefore makes a nice base for these kind of projects.

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Oh, and that butterscotch sauce recipe you see there deserves a whole blog post for itself! I'll get around to that some time this spring/summer - if I manage to shoot some pictures of it before it mysteriously disappears. Oh MY... I could drink it straight from the bottle!

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I'm adding this post to the Mother's Day Ideas party at Somewhat Simple, even if this particular bottle went to my sister in law. It was, after all, my vanilla loving mother who was the reason I got this thing started!

In a rush

I was so late making this one... so I just threw together something from the 29th Street Market papers that were already on my desk. To keep it a bit light, I used white details (eyelet and Scrapper's Floss) and settled for merely distressing the edges without inking them. Sorry about the rubbish photo - it was as rushed as the card was. I'm just glad I took the time to set a manual white balance or the photo would have been light bulb orange!

Vacation activities

What do you do when the weather doesn't cooperate with your vacation schedule, and you find yourself stuck in a cabin without computer, internet and your 1TB media player?

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Bring indoor activities!

Colouring stamps is something I rarely have the patience to do once I've got a card going on my desk. So why do I have a whole box of stamped images from my card making friends? Go figure. This easter's dreary weather seemed a good occation to actually colour in some of them. And now I have the challenge of finding matching papers after the colours have been laid down. You'll see I can't use any of these after all, haha!

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Misunderstand me right, though! I really enjoyed my stay at our new cabin, despite the weather setback. ;) This is the first time I've spent the night, and I had some time to myself as well as some company from my parents and my brother and his wife. My brain is still in vacation mode, and I love it... :)
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As you can see: lots of bad weather means lots of coloured images. ;)
And yes, those are christmas stamps in the top row! I figured christmas cards have fairly predictable colour schemes and it seemed an easy thing to start with. Plus, I just adore that Willow with lantern stamp. *swoon*

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-Ready - steady - scrap!

For Runa

Happy birthday Runa! This card seems to fit you just right. :) It's almost an exact mirror image of a previous card, but I liked that one so much that I couldn't resist making a similar one. The MME 29th Street Market DP has been Glimmermisted along the edges using Sunflower and Tiger Lily. Because of the placement of the focal flower on the DP is different this time, I could spread the embellishments a little more, and leave the opposite corner as it was. That's usually a hard thing for me to do - but it worked well this time! The tag was coloured with Perfect Pearls powder (Interference green and Perfect bronze) before the QK Phoebe letters were glued on. The little sentiment underneath it is by Art Warehouse - I love love love that rub-on pad!

Happy easter!

Happy easter everyone! Hopefully you're all away with your families enjoying yourselves. That's what I'm doing right now! :) At least, let's hope we're enjoying ourselves and not struggling with the effects of cabin fever. ;) This is a sceduled post, as our cabin doesn't have an internet connection (yet?) and we're relying on other ways to have fun. Personally, I think it's a good thing - I could probably use a little internet detox time... :P
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I fully intend to make a batch of these yellow crackled eggs this year too, but you'll have to settle for last year's pictures I'm afraid, as I don't have enough food colouring for an extra batch (for shooting). I'm thinking they'll look great served whole in a bowl on the easter table!

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If your're curious on how to make these eggs for yourself, the process is deceptivly simple: Hard boil your eggs, roll gently on hard surface to crack shell (do not remove shell), let sit in bowl of water with (lots of) yellow food colouring in fridge overnight, carefully peel away shell next morning to reveal beautiful surface. Or check out this tutorial, which is where I got the idea.

Cool greens

The teal/cool green Prima fabric flower was the starting point for this card. (Side note: these colours are so weird - for as long as the flower was in my drawer I was sure it looked teal, but as soon as I tried to match papers to it, it morphed into something else... In the end the papers that looked best were the Bazzill monochromes in cool greens.)
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But, back to buisness. My intention was to make a card that could be used for guys as well as girls, and I'm fairly pleased with it in that respect! Other than the Prima flower, the only embellishements are some buttons, square eyelets and some white Scrapper's Floss. The papers are MME 29th Street Market and DCWV Doodlin' around the year stack. Some Core'dinations Vintage cardstock was embossed and sanded. The finishing touches were rub-ons from Art Warehouse and Norsk Stempelblad.

Flowery sunset

I got these awesome MME 29th Street Market papers at half price - lucky me!! :) They are so gorgeous that I decided to make them the focus in this card. So the embellishments are squeezed into a cluster in the corner. The tag is raised on 3D cushion tape. Not quite happy with the upper right corner, but now it's done so I'll just have to learn to live with it. ;)
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The "sunset" was created quite accidentally when I sprayed Glimmermist Sunflower on the DP using a paper circle to cover the middle. It turned out that I was a little heavy-handed with the spraying, creating a clear line... But then I realised it wasn't necessarily a bad thing! I just softned it a little by using little bursts of Glimmermist Tiger Lily along the edges of the DP and pretended it was my intention all along. ;)

Feeling the love!

I recently gathered up some courage and added a hit counter to my blog. I must admit, I've been hesitant to do so... Quite simply, I was afraid to be disappointed, feeling that I write all this stuff just for my close friends and a few more. So, having no idea of how many people who actually comes to visit my tiny little space here on the www, I found myself astonished to see the number reach 1000 in a week! Needless to say, my jaw dropped to the floor and my heart sang a little song right there. ;) Honestly, if I had 50 hits a week I'd be pleased as punch, but one thousand?? Wow... Thank you so much, each and every one who visit!
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And so for my first award! It came to me from Sarah at the After Craft blog, where I stumbled upon some very nice kanzashi flowers by the way. Thank you Sarah!
-I have a thing about privacy, especially on the internet. Once something is out there, you can never take it back! That's the reason why I always watermark my photos and don't really share personal details or photos. So I'm skipping the parts of the award instructions about "seven secrets", and quite simply say thank you so much!

I'll be leaving for a little easter vacation soon, but I'm currently working on a couple of scheduled posts for those of you who still find yourselves in a place with an internet connection. Personally, I'll treasure the abcence of it for a few days... :)

White batwing shawl

It only took me two night shifts and one extra evening to finish this shawl, now that I've got a corrected recipe to start with! It's made from one skein of crisp white DROPS Vivaldi on an 8mm hook. It's definitely smaller than the first and second, but this one isn't made for me and this size seems better for the recipient. No fringes this time, for a cleaner look.
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More details (with free pattern) on my Ravelry project page.

Featured again!

This made my day - again! :) My fulled red(-ish) basket made the Flickr Friends Roundup over at One Pretty Thing! I've been featured once before, with my denim wrench case. Phew, that's a lot of links for just two sentences... :P

It doesn't take much to please me - it's just so much fun to see my own work pop up on a page I read every day, and to be featured among so many other amazing crafters! Thank you!

For the love of kraft

Something paper related at last! I haven't exactly posted too much of that lately... This kraft cardstock has been lying around my desk for a while and I suddenly couldn't resist it. The white cardstock is a lovely contrast against it, but those small touches of spring green made all the difference. The flower assembly has been Glimmermisted and that's one of my new MS border punches in action! Lastly, I've doodled a line with my Sakura pen and added a sentiment from the awesome Art Warehouse rub-on collection.