måndag 21 maj 2012

Feel the rain

Today has been a different day. Today has been all about reflections, and about being thankful for what you have. A prayer or two have been said today too. I'm not usually the praying kind, but if there is someone out there who listens, I hope he has heard.

I have a very appropriate layout for this day. The quote on this layout is all too true. I'm often one of those who get wet, who are too busy to slow down, but when you do stop and feel the rain, everything gets so much more fun. Just imagine if we had lived somewhere it doesn't rain, for instance. It's about seizing the day, really, because you never know when you will run out of days to seize.
This layout is made with the Fleamarket collection from Riddersholm Design.

And no, nothing bad has happened to me, my family, or someone close. It's just that things happen sometimes, and they make you think.

Have a great week, everyone! And, if it rains where you are, be sure to feel it. We have a lot of sunny days coming up, according to the weather report, so no rain here! :)

fredag 18 maj 2012

Just another crazy day.

When you have two houses... and live in one of them, but spend three out of four weekends in the other house... guess what you will be stuck doing during the fourth weekend? Yes, you are probably guessing right - cleaning the house! You know, that normal round of tidying and wiping you do on Friday after work to get the house all fresh before the weekend - IT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN! And the laundry that you normally wash, fold and put away over the weekend, it gets washed and put in the dryer in a state of half-panic on Sunday night. So, as much as I would like to get out in the sunny weather today, and go to the crop at KiAs butik tonight - well... no, there's no chance.

Anyway, sneaking onto the blog and post a layout doesn't take too long. And you need breaks, right? Here's my wonderful girlie on a layout made for Scraplagret.
So, have a nice Friday everyone. I'm grabbing the rag again. Off to dust...

onsdag 16 maj 2012

Let your imagination soar

Here's a layout for you today that I made with the Huntington Garden collection from Riddersholm Design. I just love those cute little ballons, so I cut them out and used foam adhesive to make them pop a little. Then I added some bakers twine, and that's about it.
Now, imagine that I used a proper camera to take that photo of Agnes instead of my iPhone. It would be so much better, right? All in all, I've become lazy, and most of the time I use the iPhone instead of taking out the proper camera. I have a Canon EOS 400D, that I love dearly, but I have been a bit too busy to nurture my interest in photography lately, so the Canon has more or less been sitting on a shelf only to be taken down when I need to photograph a layout or some other papercrafted item for the blogs and galleries. The iPhone is so much easier to use, since I carry it with me all the time. However, the spark i needed to rekindle my photography interest came yesterday, when I got a Canon EOS 60D in my hands, and was able to take it out for a test shoot. I loved it! The idea of upgrading to a 60D has struck me before, but I never knew that the difference between it and my dear old 400D would be that big. It can do things my 400D cannot, and I think I really, really need one. I took this photo yesterday, and this is what came out, totally unedited (I just cropped it a little)
Have a nice day, everyone! I am enjoying it a little bit extra, since I'm not going back to work again until Monday!

söndag 13 maj 2012

She believed she could...

Hi y'all!No, I didn't crawl under a rock and disappeared, but May, the month that exists only to freak me out, happened. Sure, May is a lovely month, with the grass and the trees growing greener before your very eyes, while every little corner of the world around us explodes in color, and the nightingale sings in the treetops at night. May is beautiful, but if you are a teacher, and a mother of two children who go to school, plus have had the indecency to give birth to both of those children in the month of May, then May can be a nightmare. Tests and essays to mark, activities to plan, open house night at school, parent-teacher conferences with both of the kids, school activities with the kids, football practise, fotball matches, outings with my school and the kids' scool and the badminton club, bithdayparties to arrange... you name it. I'm usually exhausted by the end of this month, and this year is no exception... only I know this won't end when May is over, since graduation day is unusually late. So, the first couple of weeks in June will be the same, with more football matches, outings, graduation parties and so on. Add to that the fact that I will be going on a trip with my class four days in June, and I think you have a pretty clear idea what my days will look like before the blessed summer holiday is upon us.

Still, I have done this for quite a few years now, and I have managed to come out on the other end of it all in one piece. I undoubtedly will this year too. Knowing that, I made this layout, for Scraplagret.
Have a fabulous week everyone!

lördag 5 maj 2012

It's starting to look like a proper home!

This will not be a scrappy post. Last weekend I finally put together the couches for the living room, and finally, it turned out just as cosy as I wanted it. So I wanted to show you a couple of pictures of it.
 Here are the sofas - two Ektorp from Ikea. The table was already in the house when we bought it. I just painted it white. The curtain rods are quite funny. They were used for drying hay back in the old days, and I have a barn full of them. So far, I've made these curtain rods, a ladder for hanging blankets and a tepee for the kids from them.
 I managed to squeeze in a little writing corner next to one of the couches, too. The window is standing there waiting for a fresh coat of paint, and then to be put back where it belongs - in the skylight in one of the rooms upstairs.

I have to show you a photo of my little girl from earlier today too. We took a walk along the Blekinge hiking trail, which passes just a few meters from our place.We went all the way to Järnavik, which is about three kilometers from here, had a picknick on the cliffs high above the sea, and then we went back home to the farm again.
Can you imagine - this little one didn't complain once during the walk. She was too busy exploring different kinds of trees, ants and butterflies. We think we saw a buzzard too, which flew up from some trees just as we passed, but we didn't see it all that clearly through all the branches, so we're not sure. It might have been a kite too, because we've been seeing a few of those around lately.

Have a nice Saturday!

fredag 4 maj 2012

TGIF!

This has been a very short week, and now it's Friday.Yay! However, it's not the happiest of Fridays so far. The weather has been absolutely fabulous for the past couple of days, but today it's pouring, and it feels kind of good to be indoors right now. Still, they say it will clear up by the evening, and the weekend will be OK. I sure hope the forecast is right this time, because Albin has an outing with the Scouts tomorrow, and it would be a bummer if it rained.

I have one little card to show you today, with supplies from Scraplagret.

Have a nice weekend!

onsdag 2 maj 2012

A bunch of cards

Isn't it kind of strange when you are sure it's Monday, but in fact it's Wednesday? That's the consequence of having too many days off from work! Normally, this time of the week, you can start looking forward to Friday, and you're already halfway there, but when it's also the first day you are working after having time off, it surely gets weird.

Today I have a bunch of cards to show you. They are all made for Scraplagret, with fabulous papers and embellishments from Prima's En Francais line.


Have a nice Wednesday, everyone!

tisdag 1 maj 2012

Homesick

We've spent the larger part of this extended weekend at the farm. We have continued exploring the grounds, assembled couches for the living room (it turned out great!) and planted flowers, among other things. The weather today was lovely, so I took an extra long walk this morning, and just enjoyed it all - the green leaves, the blue sky and the sea. Now we're back at the other house again, and frankly, when I'm here, this is how i feel. Homesick.
Luckily, there's only three days to go, and on Friday, we'll be back out there again!