scrapbooking

I’ll hope you join in for this fun contest starting September 1st. Lots of fantastic prices and tons of fun to be had together with fellow zilla scrappers (just look around for some crazy avatars in the forum).

Read more about it in the forum at Polka Dot Plum . Or leave a comment here at the limeblog.

Update: more details at Polka Dot Plum blog.

I have a color challenge up at the PLUM, please please jump over and join in

This is the colors that inspired me to scrap

And this is what I made

journal:
I found my perfect place to hang out this summer.
A place to breathe, drink coffee, read a book and enjoy the sunshine.
I look forward to revisit it next summer already.
credits:
papers, alpha and elements from Audrey by Pixel Perfect Designs
papers and elements from Nolan by Sweet Tomato Designs
made for this weeks color challenge (8/18-8/24) at Polka Dot Plum.

…………………………………………
So what do you want to do with the colors? (If you don’t scrap, but take photos, you can link me up in the comments on this post with a photo that uses at least tree of the colors from the above color swatch. Fun.)

Hello – I’m good, how are you?!

This summer has flown by like a racket (or something else that flies super fast). I can’t believe July is over and that I already have been on vacation for three weeks.

I want to capture the days as they fly by; take my photos, write my words, be in the moment as well as document the most important ones later. I’m kind of behind on all the above. Or, maybe not; I’m taking a photo a day, I have a whole bunch of pages already finished for my July 2010 book (with a photo a day theme) AND I HAVE BEEN SCRAPPING. So something is still happening. And it was sooooo good to finally get those scrapping muscles flexing again (reminds me that I have some walking to do as well). Must exercise regularly.

Anyhow, just wanted to say hi – and to show of a couple of recent layouts too

Click images for credits and map.

See you around!!

I’m enjoying a day at home after a busy couple of weeks. MT finished football (soccer) school yesterday so we are both here. I look forward to NOT leave or place today and to NOT drive 40 K’s or more for work. Today I’m only here preparing a funeral tomorrow, thinking about the sermon for Sunday and getting the house ready for some company. Yay! We’re getting visitors tonight! We only see each other once a year, but they are GOOD friends and can tackle my less than clean house. But I will try to clean it up a little before they arrive. Just have to do a few other things first (like working out a few thoughts for tomorrow and Sunday).

LOL. This is a lot of rambling. Just wanted to chime in and say hello

Wishing you all a GOOD THURSDAY!

And btw Sweet Tomato Design is having a new kit in her store. A girly kit called Finley – she’s also having a huge sale.  :)

Hoping to have a page done with it by tonight…. or Saturday. Ahem.

I’ve been scrapping today.

So far 5 layouts are done and 4 of them are printed. The above layout I did for my assignment for Sweet Tomato Designs Creative Team that I’m on. She has this new kit out FOCUS (she is collaborating with two other designers on it too, the link will take you to her store and more info about it).

It feels so good to just focus on the photos, papers and elements, finding the words and titles that goes with them – and stop worrying about everything else for a few moments. It really helps me use my creativity as well as it helps me telling our story. Getting the words down. I love taking photos and I LOVE making something with them; makes them even more meaningful to me.

I only wish I could remember to write down the things MT says. Sometimes it is GOLD, other times it makes me laugh out loud. He is a funny guy, but he also is a thinker and cares about other people. And then he is a boy; loves to play with guns and swords and being a hero. I can’t remember caring that much about such things (I might have forgotten, though.) – but this is really important to him – even though he knows movies and games of that kind has to wait until he is old enough. Like 30 or something….

Anyhow, this post went in another direction than planned. Expect one of my coming scrapbook pages to be about MT Not that they aren’t already are mostly about him anyway…

Ok, getting back to what I planned to write about. My 365 – kind-off  project of the year. I’m not doing it in the same way as last year. Then I took a photo each and every day (more or less), but I never got even close to scrap the photos like I planned – and my dream of making a book with all the photos in them was something I gave up on during the summer (I still haven’t scrapped all the photos from our summer vacation, even though most of them is sorted and ready to go.. Ahem). So this year I’m still taking photos each week. I’m focusing on capturing the moments of everyday and the happenings in our life as well. Each month I take 12 photos on the 12th (got the idea from Cathy Zielske), then I try to get those photos scrapped as soon as possible. So far January and February are done, in March I forgot to take photos on the 12th – but I’m covered by another project that month so that is okay. This month I remembered to take photos (although not until noon), and off course I still have  a layout to make with them. In addition to this monthly layout I’m trying to do another thing: making a weekly double pager (or sometimes two double pages) with my favorite photos of the week.

That’s what I’ve been doing today (mostly) – and it is so much fun!! I keep it simple, write in Norwegian and they are for me and my family and friends – and not for the whole world to see – so I can use any photo I want (like MT with his friends and photos of my family too). I found some templates that are suiting my style and easily can hold a lot of photos – mine are made by Kitty Designs at O’ scraps (I’m drooling over some of her newest templates at the moment; they got curves). I let each week have one background color, this way there is a connection and it’s easy to see when the weeks shift. I love papers with structure in colors or cream and browns. Sometimes I use patterned papers as accents with the photos. I use only a few elements, maybe some stitching or some ribbons. And that is it. When finished I print it out here at home (size 8×8) and stick it into an album. And I can’t help myself from looking through the pages from time to time. I love these pages.

Please come by my house – and I’ll show them to you – but for now, here is one example:

And next time I’ll tell you all about how much I love Pioneer Woman for giving actions out for free. Actions for Photoshop Elements too! Yay. They make my editing so much speedier, not to mention better! Ok. Another post. Now it’s time for some geek fun here at my place, The Big Bang Theory is on tv tonight (the only thing I watch all week long)!

Just a little note to let you know I’m not dead. Thankfully. But the season has been good, busy and filled with joy + a little bit of sickness. So there you have it, the reason I’ve been away for a while…

As usual I’m up way past my bedtime, so I’ll make this short and sweet. I just wanted to share a few news about a designer I CT for: Sweet Tomato Designs. Cara has decided to move her designs to one store only (where that is will be told on January 1st; follow her blog for updates). Because she is leaving her current three stores she’s having a huge sale right now. Click image below to jump to her store at Pretty Scrappy. (But hurry, her store(s) closes tomorrow.)

I made this LO with her last kit I Believe (I also used a template of hers):

Click image for credits.

Hope to be back soon!! I have so many things to share and show. I see that I have to fix the heading image as well – it’s winter around here and it’s snow, snow, snow and freezing cold. Right now 18 degrees Centigrade below zero. Brrr.. I’m bringing a wool blanket to bed tonight! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

(Dec. 4th of my album, click image for credits and more info).

Since last year I’ve been following Ali’s blog and especially her project December Daily. This year I promised my self to play along and document our Advent and Christmas season, I even made an album in July (!) for it – and you know what? I’m doing it, slowly (but steadily) it is taking form. I’m printing my images at home and almost everyday has a digital element of some kind.

I started the album on the 1st Sunday of Advent and it’s going through to Jan 1st. So by the end of it it’ll contain more than a month of memories. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up during the holidays, at least to put a few words down somewhere so I have a story to go with the photos. The days are busy with work and living, so we’ll see what happens – but so far I have a few things to show from the four first days of December (click images for credits and more info):

I plan on taking photos of the actual album as well, as soon as I can get around to that I’m also getting back to that gingerbread cookie recipe in it’s own post (with translation to English as well and maybe even some US measurements if I can manage ).

A few things from TODAY:

1. got to bed to late
2. but managed to get out of bed in time
3. fought computer issues at work
4. really frustrated about that – hoping everything runs smoothly tomorrow
5. had an advent/christmas devotion at a nursing home
6. MT came by and we both went home for some dinner
7. and some muffins making
8. we’ve decided that muffins makes as good a christmas cookies as any
9. and MT loved to have a taste before we put them in the freezer
10. I loved the tasting as well…
11. we are reading Julemysteriet by Jostein Gaarder
12. finally MT is old enough to understand most of the story
13. and he loves it
14. talked to my mom
15. and made a blog post
16. hoping to get to bead early (earlier….) – already missed that one, but now this is going to publish
17. must make the card to go in the advent calendar first, though

See you around. Have a sweet Advent

A busy start to the Advent season. But a GOOD start.

I’ve been creating a few project over the last days. I’ve loved it, but my kitchen is messy and my laundry pile is high – so I guess I’d better spend the day taking care of a few things here at home (as well as preparing the many services with children and youths leading up to Christmas). My life is never boring and always filled with things to take care off. But sometimes (like now) I take time to sit down with a coffee and blog a little It’s nice to put a few words out there and it helps me documenting my days – and thoughts – as well.

A few weeks ago I saw Stacy Julian’s idea for a simple, but cute,  advent calendar (look down for the bonus project). I wanted to make my own and told my mom to bring my Grandma’s sewing machine so I could have a go on it. I decided to make a few gifts as well, so I started with those. It was so fun bringing out my Grandma’s old Singer and it’s amazing it still works like a charm. I’m not as good a sewer (by any means) as her, but this project is pretty forgiving when it comes to messing it up. It kind of adds interest. Anyhow, here is my go with the gift projects:

When I finished these I took some time to stitch together a few for my self, but I haven’t gotten around to finish more than one each day (until today, but it’s still a work in progress..). On the back I’ve made a pocket to hold a few cards with 1) the Christmas story 2) Today’s things to do. MT finds this each morning and reads what the cards say, first the story part and then the other with the things to do. So far he’s liked it a lot and he hasn’t even complained once about not getting a gift calendar like he got last year. I’m so glad about that since I felt all the gifts (even though some pretty small) took too much away from the season and the joy of the gifts on Christmas Eve itself. I plan on using this calendar each year – only changing the cards on the back – I like it and it’s also easy to bring along if we are going places in December.

I’ve also started my version of December Daily inspired by Ali Edwards. I’ve made a few new beginner mistakes (like making way to complicated pages – so next year there will be no snowflakes; even though they are seriously cute, but the decorating is a bit too…though). And since I print from home it’s a good idea to have page sizes that have easily room for a 8×8 or 11×8,5 or a 11×5 or … (you get the idea). Next year!!

I started the album on November 29th as in the first Sunday of Advent. So far I’ve finished through December 3rd and are going hybrid on this project. I’ve never been a paper scrapper, so this is a lot of new stuff for me – but I’m starting to get the hang of it. And it’s nothing like looking thought my album and feeling good about all the stuff captured from each day. Now I’ll never forget how this season felt. I’m running out of time right now, but I’ll make a post with the digital elements as soon as possible – maybe I even can get around to do a bit of photo-shot of the album as well?!

I love this season, but I wish for an extra hour now and then. And for documenting reasons here are few things from TODAY:

1. it’s snowing
2. the snow is wet
3. making the roads all slippery
4. the tractor haven’t been her shoveling the snow away yet (he came at 3 pm)
5. I almost did not come up to the house again after driving MT to school this morning
6. I need to order new winter tires soon
7. there is a man working in the cellar
8. he’s making a lot of noise
9. but it’s good he’s doing this job, makes the cellar (and the house) free of house fungus
10. I’m now going to clean out all the milk cartons on my counter before anyone comes to count them (and then figure out how long they have stood there….)
11. I haven’t been sick after taking the swine flue vaccine last Friday (neither has MT), but my arm is sore and I miss sleeping on my left side…
12. then I only have to wait for the photos to upload and then this post is published
13. sadly that took all day
14. I’m running behind on my uploading habits
15. my bed is calling, I’m trying to not listen…. as also is a habit of mine
16. I didn’t cross everything out of my list today
17. but I did a few
18. thanks for reading

See you around!

Just a little not from me tonight.

It’s been one of those really busy weeks for us. Mostly work, but also a few other things chiseled itself into the days. I’m happy to say I don’t have the flu, even thought I had to spend most of the morning on the sofa yesterday – I was running out of energy and needed some recharging….

The evenings I’ve spent being inspired by a card making wonder maker Kristin Werner – and it’s been so much fun – and about the only thing I could manage in the late evenings after some days and afternoons with work. Here is one of my favorite Christmas card videos, if it ever slow down around here I want to make something like this and send out to a few dear friends (but more realistically, I’ll be sending you my love with a letter printed out here at home with a few gorgeous photos of my kid on it – and possibly some snow trowed in for good measure….) lol. It gets me inspired non the less and one day I will make my own cards, that is a promise!!

Anyhow, I’m working on my sermon tonight – so I’d better get around writing a few words before I jump in bed in a short hour for my beauty sleep. Really need all the sleep I can get these days…. A few words from Phil. 1:6-7a to end of this blog post:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart…..

I’ve been making a few scrapbook pages lately, and wanted to share This is really my way to relax after a busy day at work and to be creative with photos and colors. I’m so glad I get to scrap with papers and elements made by talented designers in digi scrapbook land – there is a lot of creativity and talents out there – and I also love to use a template to jump start my process. I’ve found that I like the simple layouts best and anything with blocks or circles are usually a winner. I love to use more than one photo – but every once in a while I let that one really good or meaningful photo shine. Lately I’ve been doing a few 2 pagers and I love that too!

So here we go, a few recent layouts:

……………………. new room ………………………………

journal: You brought a box with cars on our first moving day. You sat down on the floor in the middle of your huge new room and started playing. I think you loved the room instantly, I’m glad you now have space for books, toys and friends. A room for happy memories!

credits:
template by Janet Phillips; papers, alpha and elements from Girls Are Yucky by designs by Lili (from the digi files for October); stitches by Syrin

……………………. a Sunday afternoon ………………….

journal:
a Sunday afternoon makes for
| a little stroll in the woods |
| following the map of a leaf |
| visiting a farm where nobody lives |
| cutting some grass |
| some jumping and standing on ones hands|
| nice conversations |

credits:
template by Yin Designs; papers and elements from Going Green by Inkin’ Creations

……………………. Halloween – to me ……………………

credits: template by me (lime); papers and elements from Spooks by Sweet Tomato designs

journal: I have never carved a pumpkin…
Growing up in Norway in the 70th (and 80th), I didn’t know much about the tradition and celebrations of Halloween. It was first in my teens that I started to learn a few things about it, mostly from watching American sit Com’s and dramas on TV. I didn’t pay much attention to it, though, the series mostly aired on the wrong time of the year anyway. So most years the fall went by without much thoughts about the season celebrated in other countries. Our stores wasn’t filled with pumpkin and scary crows to remind me about it either. Now I know more about the day and how it is celebrated, I also know a bit about the days origin. It’s still not a part of my years of celebration, but now we can find scary masks and plastic pumpkin in stores here as well.
Lately I’ve seen Halloween emerge as a celebrated day in our country as well, even small and mostly among the young school kids. I know my kid have started to pick up on it; there might be some trick or treating coming from him in a few years (and a question for some fun and scary costumes). I guess it’s manly the commercial side of it all, that is the background for the emerge of new traditions here. I’m not sure I like that very much; If you asked me I’d rather have Thanksgiving. We live in one of the worlds riches countries, we should set of one day of the year to give thanks and to acknowledge the gift of living in a safe country.
I’ve registered that there are some different opinions among the churches wheter to celebrate this day or not; knowing a bit about the history I understand why even though I haven’t given it much thought myself since this isn’t much celebrated here. That being said there isn’t just bad associated with the season; I love the colors, the candy and the overall fun and happy thing about it. And if anyone where to come visiting us on the last day of October, I surely would go in search of any kind of candy or sweets to give them

……………………. spooky ………………………………….

Credit: template by Janet Phillips (moderated); elements and papers from Spooks by Sweet Tomato designs

journal: September evenings are dark and never long enough. My dad usually works on the field till he can’t distinguish the grains from the grass – and then he have a few many things to take care off ion the farm; in the darkness. MT helped him hold the light one of these fall nights- and he had so much fun making scary faces and spooking around with the flash light. Safe in the darkness, with his Grandpa right by his side.

–> jump over to my lime scrapped blog and get the links to a blog train with freebies made with the Spooks kit from Sweet Tomato designs.

……………………. morning frost ………………………….

journal: The last day of Sept 09 gave us a chilly morning with lots of frost on the ground (for the second time this season). It was cold, but also soooo beautiful that I almost forgot the cold for a while and then the promise of some sunshine helped a lot as well.

On a side note:
The only problem I have with this (besides the cold factor) is that my car only have summer tires, I hate driving on slippery road being unsure if I’ll stay on or not!
But I don’t really want to change them myself either…..

credits:
template by Janet Phillips papers and element from Enchanted a collab from Pretty Scrappy; stitches by Syrin

……………………. poisonous ……………………………..

journal: I don’t like eating mushroom, but I absolutely love bringing my camera out into the woods to take photos of them. It’s one of my favorite photo objects in fall season. And then I don’t have to worry about if the mushroom is poisonous or not. In fact I love taking photos of the most uneatable fungus. They have the most amazing colors.

This photo was taken in the woods right above our house on one of our few walks in the fall of 2009. A busy time with packing and moving. Glad I captured some of the fall special….

credits:
template by Janet Phillips; papers and element from Enchanted a collab from Pretty Scrappy

……………………. splash …………………………………..

journal: This summer we went back to our friends in the western part of Norway. MT got to spend a few days with old friends. Here he is down by their pier jumping in the water like he’s done nothing else all his life.. With the life jacket he felt safe and secure. Good thing.

I can remember when I tired to take him into the pool at the resort down in Ethiopia. He screamed NO, no! He was too afraid of the water to even stick his toe into it. Now look at him!

credits: template by Janet Phillips; alpha by Denise Beatty Originals; all else from Calm Cool Collected by Designs by Mel

……………………. tumbling ……………………………….

journal: Sometimes MT have to tag along with me when I head out in the evening. Especially when we are going places where he can find something fun to do while I’m working. Here he is tumbling around while I joined a club night with the church youths in a room next door to the gym.

credits:
template by Janet Phillips; papers and elements from Tiny Tumblers by Design by Angel

……………………. the piano player ……………………..

Credits: papers and elements from American Symphony (September collab) by Pretty Scrappy; edge overlay by Feifei’s stuff; staples by Pailee Press; template by Janet Phillips

Journal: He used to play music everyday, more or less. He used to play guitar and piano and he did sing too. Lately he’s been so busy with life, family and work that music became a thing of the past.
Then my grandmother died – and we both remembered our promise to her: we should sing at her funeral. As sad an occasion as it was, I’m still glad it got my brother back behind the piano. And I think we both found it meaningful to honor our grandma’s wish in the way we did (and as we also did at both our grandfathers funerals as well so many years ago).
Some day in the near future I hope to sing with him on an happy occasion as well. Don’t let the music slip away little brother!

–> some of these I did a while back, but I haven’t shared them before so I will now:

……………………. 6 years old ………………………………

journal:   On his 6th birthday MT celebrated with friends, cake and lots of playing outdoors. He just loved it from start to end and he was so happy everybody could come – and didn’t mind them bringing him gifts either. LOL. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day. Our home. April 22nd 2009

credits:
papers and elements from Happy Day by GET designs; #6 from Pretty Scrappy Designers collab; template by Wendy Zein; stitches by Mira Designs; happy birthday from Catscrap celebrating freebie by Cathrine

……………………. pancakes ………………………………

journal:
Every now and then we make pancakes for dinner. Just to celebrate our everyday life with something sweet. I’ve tried to teach MT to eat them with blueberry or something like that, but it didn’t take! So now we eat our pancakes with sugar and nothing else. It’s a treat, but only a couple times a month.

credits:
template by Janet Phillips; alpha, paper and elements from Scrapping and Snapping, The Digi Files for August; paper from Sprung by Creashens; stitches from Silly by K. Studio

……………………. crazy jumping …………………………

journal:
Every now and then MT get the urge to do some indoor jumping. He goes for it with precision, speed and joy while throwing himself into the soft pillows of our sofa. IKEA promised that it would hold hard use, so he’s allowed using the sofa in whatever fashion he needs, we still have a few years left on that 10 years guarantee.

Our Living Room, late August 2009

credits:
papers from Little Boy’s pocket by designs by Mel; template by Janet Phillips; stitches and wordart by TaylorMade design

………………… the end ………………………….

The post got a bit longer than I planned, thank you so much for reading to the bitter sweet end Have a blessed week! I’ll better find my bed, it’s past midnight in my neighborhood….

Cara of Sweet Tomato Designs have given me a place on her CT team. I’m so happy and can’t wait to start creating with her designs. As a CT for Pretty Scrappy (the store) I’ve already scrapped with two her kits, the Darjeeling Kit and Autumn Bliss

I love her deep, rich colors; the yellow in both of these kits are making me feel light and warm This is what I have made before (click images for credits and journaling):

And this one I made yesterday (with an old photo I’ve been waiting to scrap forever):

I only wish I knew when this photo was captured, but the cell phone ¨photo file doesn’t tell me that. My guess is 2-3 or something years ago. I know for a fact that it’s taken when we lived in the western part of Norway, but that is all (at least for now).

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
We got our first snow of the season today. I was planning moving to our new house, but I’m not driving on snowy roads with my summer tires – so now I’m blogging instead

Better go and pack a few more boxes, this snow is bound to go away in a few hours and then we’ll see if we are in the mood for moving like planned – or if we rather stay here a little bit more (having fun surfing on our broad band, hehe). In that case we are going to the store because we are out of a few essentials…… Anyhow, see you around!!

A year and some months ago I downloaded PSE (photoshop elements) determent to find out if doing digital scrapbooking was as fun as Valerie told me it was. And, man, was it ever. I’ve been making a lot of layouts over these months and have had so much fun.

my two very first LO’s, to the left a quick page – to the right using a template. click image for credits!

Lately I’ve also started making cards and gifts as well; what most scrap bookers call hybrid scrapping. And that has been more fun and giving (and time consuming) than I ever thought possible.

click images for credits

This week I received my new 8×8 albums in the mail and I’ve started to print out some of the layouts I did last fall to put into them; one album for us, one for places and one for family & friends. I’m so happy for the memories I have preserved (some I have forgot ever making). I’m learning new stuff about PSE every month and many of the older layouts make that clear with their lack proper shadowing and other things I didn’t know how to do back then. A few of them are really not my best work (to put it mildly), but I have decided to keep them as they are (more or less – I’m adding a bit of shadow on most and removing some of the more heavy shadows on a few). The layouts themselves tell a story about my way as a scrapper and I want to keep that intact too.

I’m now, sadly, out of photo paper – but can’t wait to print out the rest of it!!

mini albums to my favorite twins

Right now I’m also working on a few gift for some very special girls (have been working on and off on this for the last month took me some time to get the rings and things for them….), I’m now ALMOST finished and I’m so happy with how they turned out. Hoping the girls will love them too!!

I’m going to bed now, only have one more mini album shot more to show you; the dangling one Loving this one! And, by the way, all photos are SOOC (straight out of camera). I usually only edit photos when I’m going to use them in a layout or print them or make gifts…… I used a hight set ISO and lots of ugly indoor lights to capture these beauties :p

Looooving the view of all the papers; some thin, some thick (the thick one have images on both sides).

Soon we are moving to a new house and in a month I will have started my new job and MT will be at his new school. It’s exciting and fun, but also scary – and I really don’t want to move from this house. Even though we had a walk through the house on our own a few weeks ago and yesterday I mad a scrap page about that, especially with my thoughts (and fears) on moving… You can find an English version of his if you go to my gallery at scrapmatters: here. And it was a thrill to join in on a speed scrap, even though those hours go faster than snap and I really feel the pressure. But I made it on time and I’m happy to see that some of my pages doesn’t take days to finish (I don’t sit all day, off course, but on and off throughout the day(s)).

Click image for credits.

I have a few other photos from that day that I’ve been thinking about scrapping. Hopefully I’ll get around to it, I dreaming of making a little book about our moving into this new home. We’ll see if I ever get finished with that, though…..

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

On another matter; I did manage to vote yesterday (I had even did it before my father called me to remind me to do it ) – AND I remembered to buy toilet paper. (So now we don’t have to use paper napkin any more; thankfully). But off course I had to forget something; we won’t have oven baked fish for dinner as planned……ahem, I completely forgot to take the fish out of the freezer last night – so it’s still frozen solid; not so good for dinner today. Mom is coming for dinner, so I had planned something special that we all like very much!

So I’m really glad I bought a pack of broccoli & cheese filled fish on a whim yesterday and now we can use that instead (it’ll be good too ).

I should really do a recap of the last months (or years?), but I’ll hold that for a day when it’s not this late…. I’ve been a really bad blogger the last years, but I can’t even imagine giving up this blog even though not many comes here to read any more. I write for me. Mostly. And then off course I really would like to share a few thoughts and photos with you too. Today I renewed my oldest domain, I don’t know what to do with it right now. Still, can’t part with it either. I plan to make a plan for it one of these days….

I’ve spent a lot of time behind the camera this year and I LOVE it. I love edit the photos and presenting them in a way that do the story behind them justice. I wish I could do a lot more with them, but I’m so glad for whatever I get around to make for a scrapbook page or for an album or something. I’ve been using PSE (photoshop elements) for a year and it makes my photos sparkle. LOL. I can’t imagine doing scrapbooks without, but for a while now I’ve been wanting to try out Lightroom as well. And tonight I downloaded it and started to mess around with it a little. I love the presets, but I also see that I need to figure out a whole lot more about how the program works before I can use it for what it’s made for I have it only as a trial for the next 30 days. I guess I won’t buy it after that, but I wanted to figure out why so many photographers use it for their photo editing. So I guess you won’t see me blogging much more in the next month… ehe.

Anyhow, we had a wonderful walk in the woods. The photo above is from today, only with an added aged effect in Lightroom. Okay. See you around!!

I had some fun yesterday evening, working some more on my advent/christmas album. I’m inspired by Ali Edwards and (more recently) by this image:

- and this post by Janet Phillips of the Daily Digi to take a change on getting this busy season documented in real time (more or less). I can’t wait to start adding photos – to the pages.

Yesterday I proceeded to work some more on the front page. I found some photos from last December and made a collage of a few of my favorites, as the thunderstorm approached I sat down and tried my best to make a front page with real glue, scissors and papers (I’m used to go all digital) – and found that I wasn’t happy with the result at all (bummer!) – but I love the collage!

This morning I’ve figured out a different approach – I think I’m starting to get it together (so far only in my imagination). The original collage for the front will now end up making the back side beautiful. And then I will use only one photo at the front, layered with different papers and whatever I can find. I have good hopes for this image, it makes me smile just looking at it:

I guess there will be more changes when December rolls around (or rather late November when Advent season is starting). This is going to be both fun and challenging, hopefully I can pull it off even thought it’s a really busy time and I’m at a new place. Make it simple is what I’m trying to live after. I wonder if I can do that

Happy Monday, people!