Birthday weekend...

...Thursday was my older daughter's 6th birthday. She was so happy to finally have to use two hands to count how old she is LOL We had a birthday party for 15 six year old girls Thursday afternoon and then the family came over for a little "grown-up" birthday party yesterday. She is happy :)This is her on Thursday :) I used Birgit Kerr's fantastic and just released kit, December Morning, along with more of Birgit's gorgeous goodies on this layout.

I got to play with Monica Larsen's new kit, Frosty Sensation, when she did a one kit CT call the other day. This is the first layout I made with the kit...

This is my little one last weekend. We went to see the lighting of the town's Christmas tree and it was REALLY cold. Still, she was happy, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Santas coming for a quick visit with some goodies in their sack :)

Dawn Inskip has some fabulous new goodies in her store. First of all, there is a grabbag which you can still get for only $2,65 at her Pickleberry Pop store and her NDISB store. It will be opened up tomorrow (the 8th), so you might want to hurry up :) She also has some gorgeous element packs in her stores - so run on over and take a look!! Here are a few layouts I made with Dawn's new stuff...

This is my newly turned 6-year old almost exactly 4 years ago. She was waiting to go to her first Christmas concert and was quite excited. I used mainly Dawn's grab bag for this layout, but also some elements from her Passion kit.

And here she is again on Christmas Eve 2004, very much impressed by all the Christmas decorations and all the presents under the tree :) I used Dawn's grabbag - and her new Festive Trees and Tinseltown alphas, along with some more stuff...And my 6-year old sweetie again :) This time having fun in the snow in our backyard. These photos were taken in January 2005. I used Dawn's new Flakes and Personality Alpha, along with more of her wonderful designs here.

That's it for now. I have to go make dinner LOL Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Good weekend...

We just got home last night from Reykjavik. We left early Thursday morning since Lovisa Lin had an appointment at the eye doctor's. We've been taking her for the past year and a half, every 6 months and finally he said she needed glasses. So we chose a pair for her - it's pink (of course!!) and the seller said it was unbreakable! Well, we'll see about that - I'm just worried she'll forget the glasses somewhere, since she seems to be losing most everything else in school!!

It was my mom's 60 birthday on Thursday. Friday night the family went out to eat, 7 grown ups and 4 children under the age of 6. It was fun, and I'm just amazed at how good and well behaved the kids were! And yesterday, there was a little party at mom's house. It was a really good weekend - but I'm happy to be home none the less :)

Dawn Inskip just released a new kit, Passion, as well as two alpha packs, Puffed Up and Marvin...

I've done a couple of layouts with Passion already, it's really a fantastic kit...here's one of them

It's my little girl when she turned 2 this past summer. She knew her birthday was in June and during the whole month she would be singing "Happy birthday to ME" :) When it finally WAS her birthday and we sang to her, she got really shy - but oh, so cute LOL

Oh, and Dawn is having a guest CT call - it ends on the 14th, so run to it! The ad is linked to the DST thread...

Here's another layout using Shabby Miss Jenn's newest kit, Grandma's Scrapbooks...

These photos are from our trip to China in March 2004. We went to visit a Pagoda in Quingxiu Mountain in Nanning - which is the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. The photo in the book shows Lovisa Lin (pink blanket) and her cousin Sigrun. Sigrun's mom and I have the same great grandparents, but we did not know that, or of each other, until we were in an adoption travel group toghether.

Phuong Ton has some fabulous kits in her store, and I had already done a layout with her new Orchid Dreams Reawakening kit, when I found this fantastic water fountain in it - I had somehow just missed it previously! But I HAD to do a layout with it...so here it is

This is Lovisa Lin watering the flowers LOL - actually I extracted her from a bridge where she was poking a stick into the creek :) It just seemed perfect to erase the stick and put some flowers in her hand instead!

That's it for now :) Everything is linked - thank you SO much for stopping by!

DSD on Saturday!

Digital Scrapbooking Day is tomorrow (Saturday) and there is SO much going on everywhere! My luck that I'm not even going to be home tomorrow and nowhere near a computer. Just as well, at least my Paypal won't suffer LOL

This is going to be a long post, first of all, I haven't posted in a while - and second, there is just SO MUCH happening tomorrow!!!

Birgit Kerr has a new kit, Metamorphosis, and a huge deal for DSD

This is a fantastic kit, so fun to use - and here's a layout I did using it...This is my older daughter in September. She just started dance classes and enjoyed them immensely. After her first class she had a bit of a show for us on the living room floor, where she turned and swirled all over. It was so much fun! Unfortunately, most of the photos I took were really bad, so I thought I'd just blend them in to the background to show them off without showing off their badness LOL I'm actually pretty happy with this layout, and it got a mention in the GSO thread - so that made me even more happy :)

Dawn Inskip has a huge sale in her stores at NDISB and Pickleberry Pop

She's also having a big retirement sale at NDISB and Treasures To Scrap

All of Karah Fredrick's designs are 40% from Friday through Sunday - and then she is going to put random products up for more discount, even 50-60% throughout Saturday, so keep your eyes on her store!!!

Here's a layout I made using Karah's collab with Jacque Larsen. It's called No Place Like Home - and it's a FANTASTIC fall kit!!

This is my BIL's dog - he is such a fun puppy - and he was really enjoying the fall leaves!!

Phuong Ton is having a sale in her SBG Studio.She just released two fantastic new kits, Orchid Dreams The Beginning and Orchid Dreams Reawakening. This is definitely the time to check them out!

Here are a couple of layouts using those kits...

My little one enjoying a good day in the summer of 2007...

And some photos from our visit to a Buddhist Temple in Nanning, China in March 2004.

Other than that, Vera Lim still has her October grabbag for only $3...here's a layout I did with what's in the bag - it's some fantastic stuff!

These are my daughter and my husband's nephew at a lake by a cabin we went to earlier in October. The weather was so nice, a bit cold, but sunny and still. Perfect!!

...and did you see Vera's fantastic new collection, A Walk Down Memory Lane? It's to die for!!

Shabby Miss Jenn released a stunning new kit this week. It's called Grandma's Scrapbooks. There are no words to describe it - so take a look! Oh, and there is also a free addon pack and a free desktop!This layout is also showing a photo from Nanning, China. We went on a trip out in the country and it was just amazing!!

Well, I think that's it for today!! Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Slacker...

I'm seriously slacking in the blogging department - or maybe I was just a bit better at it in September and October is back to normal! Anyways, I've also been a slacker in the scrapping department this month, so maybe it's just the changes in weather and the fact that daylight is getting scarce here in Iceland :)

I've been scrapping some, though!

Karah Fredricks has a new home now! She started selling her gorgeous designs at OScraps and has some fabulous new stuff in her store!This is my little sweetie last weekend. We went for a drive around our little glacier and stopped at the beach for awhile. The ocean was pretty wild from the storm which went through the day before so it was really beautiful! I love the ocean when it's wild :)

I used Karah's Hoo Hoo Hoo mini kit and her No Place Like Home collab with Jacque Larsen. Both of them absolutely fabulous kits!!

Dawn Inskip just released a fantastic set of date stamps and calendars.

They are really fantastic and I know that I'll come back to these again and again!!I used the date stamps on this layout - along with a lot of different gorgeous creations by Dawn Inskip. This is my older daughter at 2,5 years. She has a small behind and her favorite past time was to sit in the LEGO bucket and "read" a book. At 2,5 she was still small enough to get in the bucket - just not small enough to get out of it again. So that's frustrating LOL She still gets her butt in the bucket, just old enough now to know not to get stuck :)

Cinzia Loosemore also has a new home for the month of October. She is one of the designers participating in Christina Renee's block party. For week 4 she is releasing a fantastic Halloween kit, called Tales of the Night. Now, we don't celebrate Halloween, so I'm not good with these kinds of kits. Somehow I can't show them off to their full potential - but here's my attempt...

This is my husband's nephew. He's way too cute to spook anyone - but I won't tell him that! At 8 years old, the last thing he wants to be is CUTE!!! But he is :)

Vera Lim has a weekly blog challenge. They are always fun - and this week, the challenge is to scrap something you cherish.This is my layout for the challenge. The journaling is about this moment when our daughter had been with us for 2 days. She had turned from a scared little baby into a flirty little toddler - flirting with herself, that is LOL She just loved the look of herself in the mirror and that's who she is looking at in that photo :)

I used one of Vera's gorgeous new kits, Cherish, included in her A Walk Down Memory Lane collection. It's a fabulous collection with 5 fantastic kits!!

That's it today :) Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Gorgeous new stuff...

Ok - it's been awhile LOL

Dawn Inskip has some gorgeous new stuff in her store today - so I just had to share! First of all, she has some new word art - Expressions Love - which I absolutely love!!! Dawn makes such gorgeous word art!!

She also has these awsome alphas - Tiny Tags Alpha - that are just perfect!!I had so much fun using these, and here's my layout...I also used Dawn's New Beginnings kit.

So these are my gorgeous girls enjoying a picnic by the sea in the middle on June. We stopped at an old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, sat on the old crumbling down pier and had a bit of lunch while enjoying the peace and quiet and imagining what life was like when someone lived there.

I'll blog more later, just wanted to share Dawn's gorgeous goodies!!

Have a good day - and thank you so much for stopping by :)

Only Tuesday!

The week just started, and I can't wait for the weekend! My DH left Saturday morning and isn't coming back until sometime Thursday, but for a long weekend - and I can't wait!! I'm really not cut out to be a "single mum" and those who do it alone all the time have my utmost respect! It will probably get easier the older the girls get, but right now, I can't even take a proper shower in the morning, or a) the floor gets all wet because they just have to tell me something very important and thus get the shower curtain all to one side, or b) I close the door and they hammer on it the whole time, yelling that they just have to tell me something important and it just can't wait LOL

This morning we overslept. I don't have an alarm, because my 2 year old functions really well as an alarm most of the time, demanding breakfast sometime between 4:30 and 6:30 am. This morning, she decides to sleep in LOL so at 7:55 I wake up, with the kitchen a mess, school- and swimbag unsorted, needing to clean up the kitchen and prepare mid morning coffee for the carpenters, needing to find clean clothes for the girls and myself, clean up, brush teeth etc etc. And Lovisa needs to be in school by 8:30. Well, we got there at 8:40 - so she was late, but not by much. But, I don't want to repeat this morning anytime soon LOL It should teach me to get everything cleaned and ready the night before - but it probably won't!

Anyways, on to my layouts :)I took this photo of Lovisa Lin at the beginning of September and I just loved it. She was going around and around on that swing thing and I just thought there was so much motion in the photo. Didn't really know how to scrap it, but decided to just extract it and experiment with shadows to attempt a "swing off the page" effect LOL I like it - and it did get a mention in the General Standouts Thread at DST this weekend, so I'm really happy about that!

I used Birgit Kerr and Flerg's gorgeous Autumn Glory collab - it's fabulous! If you haven't gotten it yet, consider yourself enabled :)

This one I did for my ongoing challenge of finishing up my 2007 photos!! It shows Lovisa's love of doing the dishes LOL It's just too bad that their enthusiasm for houseworks leaves them before it's any use!!
I used a lot of different things from Karah Fredricks in this layout - her store is gorgeous, you really should take a look :)

Now, isn't she cute LOL This is another one for my 2007 album - I just haven't figured out where to add the journaling, so I left it as is for the moment. This is from the end of May 2007 and Matthildur was 11 months. She had been walking for over a month already, but couldn't quite keep up with her big sister when it came to running around in the grass. It was just too uneven and soft for her balance. So she sat herself down and just watched wistfully while Lovisa ran around. I just bet she was thinking: "You just wait, I'll catch up with you eventually...!" :)
I used Peta Boardman's gorgeous Innocence. I probably said so already somewhere, but I'm guesting for Peta this month and she has some seriously awesome designs!!

Last one today, I promise :) These are Lovisa Lin (white tank top), Matthildur Inga (middle) and their friend. We were visiting North-west Iceland at the end of July and caught the best weather ever! It would even have been considered warm in other countries LOL
I used Amanda Rockwell's Cord Stack papers and her Sweet Sugar kit for this layout. Amanda's stuff is amazing! I can't believe I got on her CT!! I did this layout for a scraplift challenge over at Scrap Artist.

Alright, that's it. I better get coffee on the table for the carpenters, wake up my 2 year old and pick my 5 year old up from her piano lesson. As always, the layouts are all linked for full credit.

Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Revamp...

I decided to try and revamp my blog. I've always been too intimidated by the html code to ever try. Yesterday, however, I got Shabby Miss Jenn's Autumn Flea Market Blog pack - and it's so stinkin' cute that I just had to try :) And I managed most of it - I still have no clue as to how to replace the boring labels in the sidebar with the jpg/png images that came with the pack, but I might figure it out. Or not LOL If anyone has an idiot prove tut somewhere - please turn me in that direction!!
Here's the blog pack and the gorgeous kit it's made from, Autumn Flea Market...

And here's a layout I did with SMJ's kit.

It's totally fantastic and just amazing to work with!! Oh - and it's in the weekend standouts thread over at DST and it's also in the Standing O's over at OScraps!!

Ok - I've got a few layouts to show. First of all, Dawn Inskip just released a new template, it's called Wish You Were Here and it's perfect for travel layouts. I used it with a kit I just discovered in Dawn's store. It's called Timeless Treasures and it sure is a treasure!! I've used it twice already.

I used it as a front page for our Novembe3 2004 travel album. This was Lovisa Lin's first trip to the US and her third continent even though she was not even 2 years old yet.The photos are taken at the international airport in Keflavik and we were getting ready to board. She was excited, but also anxious, since this was her first visit to Uncle Siggi's and Aunt Jennie's. After a 10 day visit, she had Siggi and Jennie wrapped around her little finger and didn't want to leave LOL

Studio Phuong has a new paper pack in her store. It's gorgeous, and she calls the pack Fallen. The texture and warmth on those papers is amazing! I have a feeling there might be accompanying element packs in the future ;) Since it's not out yet, I used elements from Phuong's beautiful kits, Serenity and Floral Grunge...

These are my daughters last fall. We went to this cottage one weekend in October and while there, visited a site where one of Iceland's greatest 13th century authors once lived. They are standing in front of the door to his "pool house" - or the tunnel leading from the pool to the main house. The pool is circular but not big, a medium sized man can stand in the middle and easily reach both sides with his hands. But it's a natural hot water pool - and really cool :)

Ok - last one today. I did this one for the Unique Style challenge over at the Catscrap blog. They usually have the coolest challenges! I used Creashen's As I Am, mostly, for the layout, and it just shows my lovely 2 year old in July.Off to try and figure out the rest of the html stuff LOL As always, the layouts are linked for full credit - and thank you so much for stopping by :)

Shabby Girl...

...I'm a Shabby Girl!!! Shabby Miss Jenn just announced her new CT members - and I'm a full time member on her team!!! I can't really believe that I'm part of her team - this is like an all star team - and me!! I'm just smiling from ear to ear :)

In other news - the winds are howling outside and picking up speed. They are up to 80 miles per hour and getting stronger. It's supposed to be windy like that for the rest of the week. I have mixed feelings about the autumn storms, if I don't have to go anywhere, and my family is home - I love to snuggle up listening to the wind. If I need to be somewhere else, or if my DH is out on sea, like right now, I REALLY hate the sound of the wind.

Anyways, I've really gone overboard on all the fantastic fall kits out there - and some of the designers I CT for have just designed the most fabulous kits. Birgit Kerr and Flergs got together and designed an amazing fall kit called Autumn Glory. It really just has to be seen to be believed!!

Gorgeous kit - but really, would you expect something else from these two!!?? I've done one page with it. I took these photos on a walk we took in Reykjavik in the fall of 2006. We don't get too many of the beautiful colors here where I live, since it's usually too windy for the leaves to actually stay around long enough to change colors LOL - but they do in other parts of the country. Anyhow, Lovisa Lin had so much fun - and the weather was just so great...And here's one page for our China album. This is Lovisa Lin at 15 months and we had signed her adoption papers just the day before. She never cried during this whole process, but you could just tell she was grieving. Her eyes were always wet from unshed tears and she always had a solemn look. Quite a bit different from the vibrant happy 5,5 year old that she is today.

I used a combination of Cinzia Loosemore's My Journey and Live in Color. Then I found this amazing quote by Anna Aspnes. It somehow fit the layout perfectly!

This next one is for Vera Lim's blog challenge. This week the challenge is to scraplift Antje's (one of Vera's CT members) gallery. Her gallery is stunning - so if you plan on taking part in the challenge I can pretty much promise that you'll have a hard time choosing just one layout of hers to lift. Here's my layout...if you check out Vera's blog you can see which one of Antje's I chose to lift :)I used Vera's brand new Fallin' 4 Fall kit again. This kit is fabulous - and I know I'll use it a lot!!

And here's my one non-CT layout for now :) I used Milla Design's gorgeous Autumn Leaves to scrap my 2 year old on a fun, and cold, and windy, and wet walk we took on Saturday. That about sums up fall in Icelan - cold, windy and wet!! Well, she had fun - we did too, actually :) We jumped in a lot of puddles, got really wet from rain and puddles, saw sheep and beautiful waterfalls - and when we got back home and walked past the rocky shore, there were some seals enjoying the wet and windy weather too LOL I tried getting a good photo of the seals, but they were too far away and I couldn't hold my hand steady enough to get a clear shot at maximum zoom.Can you tell she had fun LOL

Layouts are linked for full credit - thank you so much for stopping by!!