Contemplation...

My younger one turned 2 on Thursday!! Big milestone! And my older one's last day of pre-school was Friday!! An even bigger milestone since she starts school in the fall and I feel like she is growing up WAY too fast.
Matthildur, my little one, is a little bundle of energy, but she can amazingly sit still for the longest time and play in the sandbox or draw pictures or read books when she feels like it. I took this photo of her a few weeks back while she was drawing. She just has this calm look and it looks so adorable on a 2 year old with a pacifier in her mouth LOL

I used Birgit Kerr's gorgeous new kit, Heaven Sent, to scrap this photo. The kit is gorgeous! Birgit never fails with her awesome stuff!Tracey Monette has a new Grab bag out! It's a collab type thing with Tracy King and Phuong Ton at Scrapbook Elements. It's only $3 and I can tell you right now that it's stuffed full and definitely worth it to get! I love Tracey's stuff - she never fails to amaze me with her talent and her kits always make me think outside the box! And they are ALWAY fun!! Here's a page I did with some of her stuff in the bag - check out the Cow-a-bunga LOL There's also a Pig-a-bunga LOL

Tracey also released a 4th of July (and Canada Day) kit today, called North Americana. It's a collab kind of thing with Tracy King...it's huge and you can buy both kits together for less than $5We don't celebrate 4th of July here, so I'm having a bit of a problem using these kinds of kits. Tracey's papers, however, are gorgeous and there are so many different and beautiful elements in there that it can easily be used for a variety of occasions. I used it for my older daughter's pre-school graduation...

Isn't she just the cutest :) I'm suffering from proud mommy syndrome here LOL

Ok - that's long enough! I'm making up for lack of posting with length when I do post ROFL. Anyways, everything is linked to shops or my gallery for credits. Thanks for looking :)

Expressions Summer

We live right by the shores of the North Atlantic, watch it out our living room window, actually, and feel the salty water everywhere when the wind blows from the south west. It's a spectacular sight, watching the ocean when it's windy - and since we are actually by the open ocean, it's almost always gorgeous. There is a big difference between the ocean in fjords and the open ocean, it's like the difference between a tame and a wild horse.

Anyways, Lovisa Lin is absolutely fascinated by the ocean. Last summer we got a few really warm days (for Iceland LOL) which we got to spend at the beach. The currents are too strong for kids to go in the ocean - and even if they could, it's always just a tad bit too cold, but Lovisa Lin loves to watch it and she always looks almost like she is defying it. "Come and get me if you dare" kind of attitude - so, when Dawn Inskip came out with this amazing set of summer word art, this photo is the first one I thought of when I saw this quote. It just seemed to match perfectly!

Dawn's pack is called Expressions Summer and it's just fabulous - if you haven't seen it already, go check it out.I have another layout to show, it's one I did a few days back - and it's not a CT layout LOL I used Ah! Designs (Amy Hutchinson's) gorgeous Melon Madness kit to scrap a photo of Matthildur eating a sandwich on a little pier we found while traveling last week. The weather was so nice and we stopped there for quite a while, taking in the gorgeous landscape of one of Iceland's remote fjords and the beautiful bird life.

Have a good day :)

Bad blogger!

I really am a very bad blogger!! Maybe I'll try to mend my ways LOL

I have two layouts to show today, both done today in between cleaning the house and walking on the beach - which left me half crippled with sore muscles!! Anyway, here they are:

This one is Lovisa Lin enjoying the sun and her ice cream the other day :) She knows how to get comfy that girl! I used mainly stuff from Birgit Kerr's June Grab bag. She has opened it and it's all available separately in her store. Birgit's stuff is always gorgeous!

Christina Renee is the featured artist at DST this month and tonight is the last night to turn in pages for the featured artist challenge. I whipped this up tonight, I'm not entirely happy with it, but it will have to do.This is an old sod house in the middle of nowhere here in Iceland :) I love those old houses, they just fascinate me and I have to stop and check them out. This one was built in 1895 for 2 families and up to 20 people lived there, in a house which is less than 30 square meters + a little sleeping loft. People lived there until 1969 - it's the year I was born and I can't imagine people still living in houses like this at that time.

Oh - and check out the ITC challenge over at Lori's Loungerette's blog. We are scraplifting Iris - and her layouts are gorgeous. Here's my layout for the challenge...
Off to bed - layouts are linked for full credits :)

Dawn's newest kit...

Life is incredibly busy and since I got on a few too many CTs during the past few months, I've been "downsizing" - I couldn't handle being on so many teams and all the pressure was just sucking all the joy out of scrapping. I hated to give each and every one of them up, but I had to. So, I'm down to 4 permanent spots and a couple of guest spots. That's just about all I can handle with real life right now LOL.

I'm guesting for Dawn Inskip this month (yeah!!) - I've loved her stuff for eternity and I really can't believe my luck! She has a gorgeous new kit out today, called Hush - and it's just fantastic!! Amazing colors, beautiful texture on the papers and, as always with Dawn's kits, GORGEOUS and unique elements!!

The colors were just perfect for my younger daughter's angelic face :D She has big blue eyes and blond curly hair. And she just looks so innocent and sweet and angelic. But she's NOT!! She is the biggest teaser and the things this almost 2 year old can come up with are just unbelievable. And she's always got a shiner, or black and blue marks all over her body, or bumps on her head, or she's bleeding from somewhere...that kid just does NOT know the meaning of fear and if she thinks of something she just puts it into practice right away without ever stopping to think LOL Maybe a typical 2 year old - but my now 5 year old was never like this, so it kind of caught me by surprise :D Anyway, here's that layout...linked for credits, of course :DHave a great day :D

Happy Mother's Day!!

To celebrate the day, Anja Jahn is having a 50% off sale at her Angel Dreams Boutique store! The prizes are unbelievable, you get full kits for less than $2! Her new kit is gorgeous - it's called My Angel...I used it to scrap my little bundle of joy :) She is ALWAYS happy - even when she is sick you can hardly wipe that smile off her face LOLI have a couple of layouts in the Gallery Standouts Thread at DST this weekend! Yeah! I'm not in there very often, so imagine my surprise when I saw my layout there in the first post of the weekend :) I also got layout of the day at Scrap Scandi Style with this layout. I used Kjersti's gorgeous Sailors Delight kit - available at SSS.

Then, my jaw dropped to the floor and remained there for quite a few seconds when I was browsing the Standouts thread again this morning and found this layout there...

M 5 year old is learning to ride a "big-girl" bike. She is very curious - actually the type who runs into street lights because she is so busy checking everyone and everything out LOL. So, when her dad took off her little helper wheels (don't know the English word for them), he started to help her, but as long as she knew he was holding the bike, she started wondering about everything - EXCEPT trying to keep her balance. So we decided to let her do this by herself. And it's working beautifully! Her concentration is completely on staying ON the bike and keeping her balance. So that's the story bethind my gorgeous girl's serious expression :)
I made the layout using mostly Birgit Kerr's new stuff. Check out her store - it's full of gorgeous goodies!!

OK - enough tooting LOL. Have a good day!

New stuff...

The weekend is almost over and with it NSD - can't wait for next year LOL, although I spent way too much money and I have hardly scrapped one little bit! I've got to start diving into my new stash, though :D
A lot of my designers had new stuff in their stores this weekend. I'll start with Sue, she did an amazing collab with SherrieJD who's the Aspiring Artist at Christina Renee's. The collab is called Summer Breezy...
Isn't it gorgeous! I did a couple of pages with it already. Here's one of my 5 year old, I love that expression on her face, she is such a worry wart and is always worrying over every little thing! Her dad says she's just like me - and I think maybe he's right :D
This kit is such an amazing joy to scrap with - but best of all, and I can't really believe it, but I HAVE A LAYOUT IN CHRISTINA RENEE'S STORE!!!!!

Anyways, this is not the only gorgeous new kit this weekend, Birgit Kerr just loaded up her store with new stuff. Her newest kit is called Sparkly Delight and it definitely is a delight! Reminds me of summer mornings...gorgeous colors! She also has some new paper border templates, a couple of brag books (they are beautiful) and a couple of alphas.
I used this kit to scrap my older one in the bath. She is 5 and she has just started to enjoy taking a bath, since she has been deathly afraid of getting water in her eyes! Now, she tells me, she is getting to be a big girl and soon she'll be able to take showers! Just as well since she is going to have to in the fall when she starts school!That sneak peak from the other day was this kit...
...a huge and gorgeous collab between Heather Manning and Dawn Inskip. It's called Evitangel - and it's just unbelievable!
I did a couple of layouts with it already, these days I love doing layouts where I extract the people and put them in a make believe world - I just hope I love them as much when I look in my scrapbooks 10-15 years from now LOL. This is Lovisa when she was almost 2. She was busy getting dressed on her own - and made sure she put on the essentials first: Her hat LOL
Anyways, here is my other layout. These are my daughters wading in the North Atlantic last summer. It's never warm, but we had an exceptionally nice summer (for us!) last year and it turned out to be bearable to wade in the ocean :D
I think I'm going to leave it that. There is more, but that has to wait until tomorrow LOL I hope someone made it this far - and if you did, I also hope that I enabled you some :D

A Sale and a New Kit...

NSB is almost here and there are sales everywhere! Anja is kicking off her NSB sale today in her stores at Angel dreams boutique and Elemental Scraps with 50% off ALL products!!
Check out her newest kit, Alec's Garden, it's so beautiful - I just love her papers!

I just finished a layout using it and it's just a delight to work with!

A lot of my designers are coming out with gorgeous new kits over the weekend - too bad I can't show them already LOL - but here's a sneak peak at a gorgeous collab between Heather Manning and Dawn Inskip. It will be released tomorrow (Friday, May 2) in Heather's stores at Digital Candy, PPF and her personal store, as well as Dawn's stores at TTS, NDISB and SSS.

I wish I could post layouts LOL

New G.R.I.N. Challenge!

Nina has been such an inspiration lately - not only with her gorgeous designs - but also with her layouts. She is an awesome scrapper and has been constantly in the DST Gallery Standouts. So, since it was time for a new challenge, we decided to lift our wonderful designer! Go check out our CT blog and our scraplift challenge - the random winner will get a $5 GC to Nina's OScraps store. And with all of Nina's gorgeous new releases, I'm sure the GC will be useful!
Here's the layout we are lifting - isn't it gorgeous!

And here's my scraplift - I used some of Nina's new stuff, her Men's World Papers, Trendy Coltabs and Bowfun Bows.

Check out the GRIN blog and play with us... :)

Lori Wiley's newsletter...

Check it out - Lori Wiley is having a 30% off sale on all her Diamante Designs products in her SBB store. And she has some AMAZING things in there!!I just did a layout with her Moonlit kit - and, I'm so addicted to Lori's layout holders that I find myself wanting to use them on every layout I do!Lori also has a new newsletter - and make sure you sign up for it because if you do, you'll get this amazing freebie!!

Nina has a sale!!

OScraps is TWO years old and there is a celebration going on! Grab the OScraps fan blinkie here on the left and sport it during the celebrations!
And, in honor of the birthday celebration, Nina is having a SALE!! Go check it out and stock up on some of her gorgeous stuff!

Oh, and while you're at it, check out the GRIN blog for our challenge. Here's the challenge recipe:

Please create a LO about your most favourite place in the world, it could be a holiday destination, a restaurant, in front of your PC, absolutely anyway you would like to interpret it.

The rules:

• You must use at least 50% of Nina's designs.
• 2 frames and only 2 frames, but only one photo!!
• Doodles, as many or as few as you like
• A ribbon or bow or both - as many as you want to use
• Bling - glitter or gems, anything that sparkles
• Some sort of plant life, like flowers or leaves.
• Once completed please leave a link to your layout in the comments by March 17th and we will annouce the winner on the blog on the 20th! We would also love to showcase some of your layouts on the blog March 20th so please let us know if you are okay with us showing your layout as well. Thank you!

Here's my layout - of course, I didn't read the instructions through LOL, so to fix it, it shows my interpretation of my daughter's favorite place to be right now. Which is in her brand new, bright red BRATZ boots :D
Come and join us in the fun - it's so worth it, and the random winner gets a GC to Nina's OScraps store!

Lori's new collab...

Lori Wiley and Lauraskathi have joined together in an amazing collab kit called Colors of Spring. It's huge - and that's an understatement! Beautiful spring colors and elements - and papers like only these two amazing designers can make them! I'm completely blown away by it.Isn't it amazing!! I just finished this layout with it - and there are definitely more to come!
You can get the kit at Scrapbook Bytes and it's only $5,99

Heather's CT...

There is a new challenge up at Heather Manning's CT's blog. This time we are scraplifting a gorgeous layout from our own designer Heather! Come check us out - it's a really fun challenge!
I'm not much of a doodler when it comes to scrapping so here's my feeble attempt at lifting Heather's layout...Come and join in the fun - the prize is a $5 GC to Heather's store, if your layout is picked!

G.R.I.N. Challenge!

There is a new challenge up on the GRIN blog. It's a numbers challenge, Linda challenged us to use 1 alpha, 2 papers, 3 photos and 4 elements - all in honor of her daughter's 4th birthday today! Go check it out. It's fun - and a random winner will be chosen to receive a $5 GC to our wonderful Nina's OScraps store.
This is my take on the challenge.

The kit I used is Nina's Say It With Flowers and then I used the alpha and the wrap from her Madeleine kit. The photos are of my older daughter and were taken last summer when she was enjoying the warm weather and watering the flowers in the garden of our friends' house.

Sunflowers' Sale!

Sunflowers has a sale!! And not a small one either - you get 50% off all her stuff at her Hot-Spot-Scraps store!!I love her stuff - and it's not just because I'm on her CT, she just makes the most gorgeous papers and elements. I just scrapped a couple of pages using her Belle Affair kit

Here are my layouts with it...

The layouts are linked to my DST gallery for credits. Other links are to Sunflowers' store - go check out her sale, it's well worth it!

Just You...

Birgit Kerr released a new kit last week - and I have to say, it's absolutely gorgeous! The colors and texture and elements - just beautiful! Take a look - and the images are linked, just in case you get tempted to visit her store and purchase these amazing things. And you can get the complete kit - or buy the papers and elements separately. You could just check out her store too - her designs are always beautiful!

This is what I did with her kit :D

And Birgit has an offer for you. If you go and visit her blog, sign up for her mailing list and you will get a $1,99 coupon to Birgit's store! By signing up, you will also get updated on latest releases, news from Birgit's store and, as an added bonus, you will also get a special coupon for $ off new releases. This coupon will only be available to subscribers - so jump on over, sign up and get the best deals on Birgit's gorgeous goodies!!