More layouts for 30 Days of Gratitude

Hi there!

I AM behind with making my layouts for the 30 Days prompts but I´m determined to finish them - even if it´s in my own pace.
Here are the latest layouts that I´ve finished:

Day12 - Soul

 Day 13 -  Nature

Day 14 - Art & Creativity

Day 15 -  Music or sounds

I am so loving these pages and I´m looking forward to make a photo book with all of these. They really sparked my creativity and made me play more. Now there´s only 15 to go....

Hugs, Carina

My mansion is finished!

I was so opting for keeping a more steady flow of posting to my poor blog but every time I write that I seem to jinx it so today I won´t make any such promises.

In my previous post I showed you my little house that I started on and today and I can say that I´m finished with it!

I started out with some empty pizza boxes that I die cut. After assembling all the pieces - and there were a lot of pieces - I covered it up using white gesso. I tried to color it with distress markers but they took ages to dry (I had to use the heat embossing tool). After leaving it for about two weeks, totally frustrated on how to continue, I just decided that I would finish it today. So I picked up some basic water colors and added the gloomy details to the chimneys, door and window frames. 

Now I have to tell you about the structure of those roofs. That was such a happy accident. I had dugged out my Rock Candy crackled paint for them aiming for that look but since my colors where water soluble they just mixed together. So I used a rather hard brush and stippled the surface and vóila! 

Here is a close-up of my messy painted spooky mansion:

So what did I learn? Let´s see....

• If I (ever) wanna use plain cardboard again - decorate the pieces before assembling the house. The pieces are tiny and hard to paint when they´re in place.
• So opting for colored or structured cardstock the next time I´ll do it.
• Was I frustrated? Yes!
• Will I ever do one again? OH YES! Can´t wait to make a pretty one + some extra smaller ones for Christmas.

Now it sits in our living room on the sideboard and when you don´t look too close at it it´s looking spooky enough.

Hugs, Carina

New releases and DSD

This weekend it was time for DSD - Digital Scrapbooking Day. Isn´t funny how the manage to always stretch these days over several days? The more appropriate title would be DSW - Digital Scrapbooking Weekend...Hehehe!

Aaanyway - my sweet designers had made some releases besides their awesome sales (which you still can be a part of as of today Sunday). You can find the links to the right ---------->

The Nifty Pixel released a totally awesome Halloweeny collection which I totally adore:

As always you CAN buy them separately but I really think you have to see the whole collection. I can also finally show you a layout with this that I really like myself:

If you are a fan of Penny Dreadful I think you recognize the handsome Dr Frankenstein. I´m gonna miss that show so much.

Next new release is from Juno Designs who once more has teamed up with Amanda Yi and made another Zodiac collab:

I think the color combos are gorgeous and you really don´t have to make a Virgo layout at all. Like I did - since there´s no one in the family that is born in that sign:

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I had planned to do some "stalking" in the forums of the digicommunity during DSD - but to my happy surprise my DD was home from college so I got to spend some quality time with her.  I did a little shopping and made ONE DSD challenge layout.

This is what I got from The Lily-Pad:

And since I spent $15 I got this gorgeous collab for free:

I already have Part One which I manage to download for free this past week as their pre-DSD freebie;

As my last thing today I want to show you my latest project I´m working on. I bought some new dies from Tim Holtz:

 

I decided to reuse some old boxes I had at home and this is it for now:

Or actually - that is the latest photo I have right now. I just painted it with gesso and gonna let that dry really good. THEN the fun can begin!

Catch you later!/Carina

SparaSpara

Mina favoriter som DT hos Pysseldags 2015

Nu har vi startat det nya året och då känns det bra att summera 2015. Vilka har då varit mina personliga favoriter som jag har gjort under det gångna året som DT för Pysseldags? Här kommer de:

Halloween har alltid stått mig nära och jag blir fortfarande lika glad av det här kortet!

Ytterligare ett kort - denna gång med hösttema.

Ett uppslag som jag gjort till mitt PL-album med kärlekstema. Jag älskar verkligen möjligheterna med användningen av digitala stämplar!

Det här uppslaget från en av mina art journals gjorde jag tidigt i våras. Så härligt med färg!

Jag älskar verkligen att göra layouter! Här finns massor med stämplar med resetema från Pysseldags.

Slutligen ytterligare en sida från en av mina art journals vilket också påminner mig om jag vill göra MER av detta! Klabba med färger, rita/måla och kombinera flera olika medier är ett underbart sätt att få använda sig av sin kreativitet!

Nu önskar jag verkligen er alla ett fantastiskt 2016!

Kram på er!

Starting a Junque Journal

A couple of weeks ago I decided to join Tangie Baxter´s Art Journal Emporium to improve and get more inspiration for my art journaling and I got my eyes on her course "Junque Journal" and decided to join it. I recommend you to google Junque Journal too see some inspiration!

So class just started a couple of days ago and through Tangie´s awesome video instructions I got started with mine.

It all begins with an ordinary notebook. Being in Sweden I bought one at the Swedish store Åhléns:

It´s nothing fancy about it - just ordinary lined papers inside it. But let´s start the magic! 

I began with removing the elastic band around it and tying ribbons along the spine to making it more sturdy. 

Tangie´s added tab dividers to hers and first I was gonna opt out on that but after seeing the finished result I decided to make that too. 

I needed to cut out scrapbooking papers in the same size as my journal x2 to every page with a tab on it so I really got use of all my old papers laying around here so in all I cut 58 pieces! For tabs I really thought I had some old ones that I could use but I did´t - so I decided to make them myself!

I used a punch (for little tags) and punched out a piece for every letter in the alphabet - we have 29 - from a pizza box:

I folded them in the middle and glued them together and let them dry under pressure using clips:

When they were dry I stamped letters on them using a stamp kit from Graphic 45. Then I try to spread them evenly in my journal. I forgot to take pics during this process so here´s what it looks like finished:

Each tab page is covered with scrapbooking papers on both sides and on the edge there´s some washi tape so they won´t get flaky:

I really tried to mix the papers so they did´t came in a particular order. I also put my washi tapes in a bowl and just grabbed one to not make it too matchy-matchy. I did my taping in front of the tv...

Here you can see how big and chunky it is already:

I´m so looking forward to continue working with this and getting to use it. Do you know what the best part is with all of this? I really feel I got my scrapbooking mojo back and it feels AWESOME!!!

I´ll be back posting more when I made more progress with it...

Amicus versus est vara avis

Hej hopp alla glada!
Idag visar jag ett nytt alster i min art journal:

Jag fick helt klart inspirationen till den här sidan då stämpeln "En sann vän är en sällsynt fågel" kom i mitt DT-paket från Ciza. Ju mer jag tänker på den desto fler idéer får jag så jag kan lova att det inte är sista gången som jag kommer att visa upp något där jag har använt. Du hittar den i gummi här och som digital här.

Min art journal kommer från Prima och innehåller bara kraft-papper. Jag vann den på ett scrapevent och jag bara älskar den! Jag skissade först upp motivet med blyerts och sedan färglade jag med vattenfärger och Distress Markers. De vita molnen är gjorda med arkylfärg. Jag har fyllt i alla detaljer med tunna markerpennor. Texten stämplade jag på ett gammalt bokpapper och rev ut för att få en lite fin kant.

Hoppas ni alla får en underbar dag!

Time for new digital layouts

It´s Friday today and here in Sweden we´re celebrating Midsummer´s Eve which is kind of a big deal if you live here. We eat special food- matjessill, fresh potatoes, sourcream with chives and for dessert it´s often strawberry cake. You can go dancing silly games around the Midsummer pole on different places - but it´s mostly for the kids I feel.
In our family we like to take it really slow with the celebrations since our kids are so big now. We´re so content with just the food and enjoying each other´s company.

So with that said - let´s get going with my new digital layouts. All my layouts are linked to my gallery over at Scrap Stacks for full credits:

Have a great Friday - and Midsummer´s Eve!