New Stuff

Fall is officially here now that my DH has gone back to sea. His boat is out 3 days out of every 4 so 75% of the time I'm a single mum LOL

I love fall - but this is the one thing I dread about the season. Especially since it's usually VERY windy around Iceland this time of year. Fall brings huge south westerly storms, which makes life out on sea not so comfy, and my life really anxious. I watch the open ocean out our living room window and when it blows from the south west, the spray from the waves bathes our windows in salt water. I just made a layout showing the difference between summer and fall when it comes to our ocean - granted, the windy photo was taken when the wind had gone down enough to venture outside, but the ocean was still really wild!I used Karah Fredricks gorgeous new fall kit, called Love Is {Jen} and Karah's Stamped Alphas for this layout.

And, have you seen Dawn Inskip's gorgeous new kit yet? It's huge! And unbelievably beautiful...

The kit is called Express Yourself and is available in all of Dawn's stores, TTS, SSS and NDISB.
Here's one of my layouts with it - it's my 5,5 year old enjoying an evening walk at the beginning of August. Usually we don't go out much after dinner, but that night the weather was so gorgeous, we just had to go for a walk to the beach. And she enjoyed it immensely!

One of the things Lovisa Lin enjoys the most is when we stay at a hotel. When we go to Reykjavik and can't stay at my mom's we try to get a good deal on a big hotel room. Last February we lucked out and got a huge room with an enormous bathroom and jacuzzi for the price of a regular room. The bed was the size of 2,5 king size beds and the girls were in heaven! They fell asleep at different ends of the beds, but during the night they somehow rolled together and more or less ended up in each others' arms. It was so adorable - and of course, the trusty camera was close by LOLI used Birgit Kerr's gorgeous In Dreams for this layout plus a few more of Birgit's awesome designs. I also used a new font FO-Doodle Dance Studio Fontologie. I love it!! So beautiful, but also very usable and readable - perfect for journaling and titles. And, it's got almost all of the European characters - including my special Icelandic ones, which makes it even more wondeful!! It will be available in Steph's studio tomorrow!!

My baby is calling - she is trying to get her rainclothes on, and they are not doing what she wants them to do, so she gets really angry LOL She's got some temper!! So, it's only fitting that the last layout I have to show is of her angelic face :)She's got her pacifier permanently stuck to her face - we are trying to get her to use it less and are trying for her only to use it during the night and never when she leaves the house. It's not going too well, but we'll see. I'm pretty sure she will at some point decide herself that it's not too cool to go out in public with a pacifier in her mouth LOL

I used Amanda Rockwell's gorgeous Sweet Sugar kit for this layout. I love it - perfectly sweet but also totally funky!

As always the layouts are linked for full credit.
Thanks for stopping by :)

September already?

How did that happen? I thought summer just started - and now it's practically Christmas LOL

I'm desperately trying to finish up my photos from 2007. In a moment of madness I made a 2006 album of the girls for each grandmother and in another even worse moment (I really don't know what I was thinking!!) I promised the grands an album for every year. So now, 2008 is drawing to an end - and I haven't finished 2007 yet!! I keep getting reminded of that promise, so I really have to keep it.

Anyways, here's a layout with my little one at 6,5 months. These photos are from January 2007 when she was starting to pull herself up to a sitting position - and a whole new world opened up to her. She could see things she could not while on the floor, and better yet, she could reach for them and draw them towards her!! These were fun times for her - anxious for me - and her big sister started to see her as more than just an immovable object that took mom away from her LOLI used Peta Boardman's gorgeous Sweet Delight kit for this layout. I'm a guest on her CT this month and I just adore her designs!!

My second layout is of my daughters playing a new game. Lovisa Lin, the older one, runs away then turns around, opens her arms and Matthildur Inga comes flying into them. And then they hug like there's no tomorrow :) This is so adorable - and such a change from before, when Lovisa really didn't like to touch Matthildur at all. She was afraid she would slobber all over her - and apparently her drool and snot was deadly poisonous LOL

This is made with Vera Lim's newest kit, Your True Colors, it's gorgeous! Everything Vera makes is stunning - and I can't really believe it, but I'm a guest on her CT this month! I've been Vera's No1 fan for as long as I can remember and this is really a dream come true :)
Anyways, the layout is done for the current challenge on Vera's blog, focusing on siblings. I also used one of her new word arts - she just released 4 new sets of Quote It Family word arts.

But aren't my girls just the cutest??? :D

Layouts are linked for full credits - thanks for stopping by :)

This and that...

I'm just going to make an attempt at my second post this month! I've been seriously un-motivated to blog lately - well really all the time, but worse now than usual LOL

This is my layout for today - I did it this morning before 8am since my lovely daughters decided to wake up at 5:25, asking for Lucky Charms, which was their promised breakfast this weekend! They enjoyed it, I didn't - I really hate getting up early, almost as much as I dispise overly sweet breakfast cereal LOL, but I did get some scrapping done!I did this for the scraplift challenge over at the Digi Chick and I used Karah Fredricks' stuff for it. Basically, I just love this photo and wanted to scrap it so that it was prominent on the layout. They were just so peaceful and gorgeous :)

I took the photo at the end of July when we were on our way home from a 12 day camping trip. My girls were really tired and fell asleep in the car. Lovisa's comforter was packed between the two car seats and her head and upper body fell on it when she fell asleep. She slept really well (weird considering she was bent at the waist at an awkward angle!) so now she asks that her comforter be packed right in the middle whenever we take a longer car trip :)

Apart from scrapping we have also been pretty productive this weekend, we finally bought lights to replace our last "Russian" bulbs (I'm almost ashamed to say that we've been living here for 3 years and still had a couple of rooms with bare bulbs!), also sorted through Lovisa's old clothes and washed the ones that now fit Matthildur. And, we are almost halfway through declusterizing our storage room.

And I scrapped a page yesterday, too :) This time using Cinzia Loosemore's gorgeous new Essential Papers and her My Journey kit...

This is Lovisa at 20 months in August 2004. We went for a walk and at one point she decided to put on her hat, which was about a size too small. So, she proceded to have a huge fight with the hat, and being the stubborn little thing she is, she didn't give up until she got it on right. And she was mightily proud of herself for succeeding :)

And I'm pretty proud of the layout too - I just found out it was chosen layout of the day at the Digi Chick :D - and it's also layout of the week at the Digi Chick blog!!

Missing layouts...???

I don't know what happened, but I can't seem to get my layouts to show in my blog posts! Kind of frustrating since they are the main reason for my blog LOL

I'll try again - but since I haven't posted in a while, I'll just load up my layouts in a row. They are all linked for full credit :D

Diamante Designs by Lori Wiley - Dream Escape:
Lydia Kurniawati/silversword71 - It's Time To Learn:
Karah Fredericks' Grab bag at The Digi ChickCinzia Loosemore's Dare2beU...It made the Standouts thread over at DST :)
Jule Design's Grab bag at The Digi Chick (I'm her guest in August and she makes gorgeous stuff!!)
My AAM page for Dawn Inskip's CT - I hate AAM pages, but I kind of like this one LOLKarah Fredericks again - she is guest designer at The Lily Pad this month and this layout is made from the BYOC for August - mostly Karah's stuff.Birgit Kerr's gorgeous new releases at Scrapbook Graphics...
Diamante Designs by Lori Wiley - she makes gorgeous papers, this one is from her Someday paper pack...

That's it for now - I still have loads to show since I've been REALLY scrap productive for the first half of August LOL This is only from the first 5 days :)
See you tomorrow with the next 5 days worth of layouts!!

Back from camping!

We got back from camping late Monday night - a bit earlier than we planned, but it was a fun camping trip none the less. We had exceptional weather the whole time - except for this one night where it was so windy that I thought our camper would blow over LOL We got the remains of Tropical storm Berta that night, and even though it was far from hurricane winds, it was still very windy. The bonus of the storm was VERY hot weather!! We are still having far above average temperatures and sunny days! The temps are in the upper 70s to lower 80s Fahrenheit, which translates to upper 20s Celsius. In a country where the average temperature for July is a little over 10°C (in the 50s Fahrenheit) - this is VERY hot, and we are enjoying it immensely!

I haven't scrapped very much for the past 2 weeks - even though the laptop got to go with, it was mainly there so I could empty the memory card of my camera once in a while LOL

I managed one layout in the week before we left - and that's all that week! I usually do at least a page a day so this is VERY little LOL. This layout took me a while, though. This is my little one on the beach at the end of June...

Most everything here is from Cinzia Loosemore.

I did manage one layout during our trip, I had just bought Kasia's Blowing Dandelions kit and when I got this photo of my older one blowing dandelions, I just had to scrap it right away LOLThis last one is also from our camping trip. My little one had such a blast being outside all the time, running and jumping and exploring. And she got exhausted, which is the main reason why we got back early. But while her energy lasted (a good 10 days) she was the happiest of kids :)

This is again with Cinzia Loosemore's designs. She came out with a new and gorgeous kit while we were camping, it's called Dare2bU - and like all her designs, it's absolutely fabulous!! Check out the Dare2bU bundle, it's 43% off at Digital Freebies right now!! Cinzia has a new store at Sunshine Studio Scraps too and the kit is there as well and also at a special prize!!
This layout was in the Standouts at DST yesterday (yeah!!) and it's also mentioned at a blog called Best of Digital Scrapbooking!! How great is that!! Although, I really cannot take the credit since it's a quickpage created by Cinzia and comes with the kit. I only added the photo and a couple of elements from the kit.

Anyways - on my way out to enjoy our tropical heat wave LOL
Have a good day!!

Loooong post!!

This is going to be a long post - so bear with me LOL I have 5 layouts to show and there is a story behing each one of them :) But first of all...we are going camping!! Yeah, I can't wait!! We are leaving tomorrow afternoon after work and not returning until August 1. I just hope we'll have good weather!!

Anyways...the first layout of the day is of my daughters. We went on a walk into the lava field the other day, there is a path through it that goes in a circle which makes a good walk. The weather was relatively nice and it's always warmer in the lava than anywhere else, plus the rocks shield you from the wind if there is any. They had so much fun! Lovisa was on her bike and Matthildur on foot. At one stop I wanted to take their picture and they sat still for all of 10 seconds, during which I managed to snap 3 photos - one of which was usable LOL

I used Diamante Designs' new Kraft Basics paper pack, among other things. This is kraft paper Lori style - and it's gorgeous!!

When we went to visit my sister's family around the middle of June we went to the beach and my daughter and my nephew (the older one) built what they liked to call a space shuttle :) They somehow managed to gather together all the debris on the beach, there were some large pieces of wood, some big rocks and the base of it all was an iron door of a ship that had reached land long time ago. They had so much fun, and the younger ones, my two year old and my one year old nephew watched and tried to help :) When the space ship was almost done, my little nephew decided he wanted to get on top of it. So he started to climb and it took a lot of concentration and stubbornness, but up he went! He was so proud of himself. I loved the look on his face during each and every step on the way up - but most of all the joy when he was on top!

I used Karah Fredericks' gorgeous kit, A Thing Called Spring...

In June 2005 we went to England and Lovisa got this beautiful pink Disney princess umbrella. She loved it and used it quite a bit while we were there. Here in Iceland, however, rain is usually horizontal which makes umbrellas absolutely useless. Once in a while we get rain without wind, and when opportunity knocks, the pink princess umbrella gets to go out and play. Even if the rain consists of just 2 raindrops every five minutes. This is one of those times - we hardly noticed it was raining, but she had noticed a couple of raindrops on her hand, so out came the umbrella LOLI used Tracey Monette's quirky stuff. I love her quirky stuff - it's so much fun!!

June 17 is our Independence Day. We spent it with my sister's family in the northwest part of Iceland. They just moved there last December and this was our first visit. In the morning we took a drive to this remote fjord where we spent a few hours on the beach, then the plan was to drive back to town and watch the festivities. Well, the kids were all beat from playing on the beach and when we finally got to town, all of them were asleep. We decided to skip the celebration and instead drive to the next town, maybe 30-40 minutes away and let them sleep. But when we passed the town square the festivities were starting and I got this photo out the car window LOL It's horrible quality. I had to use maximum zoom and then I had to enlarge it a little for the layout and clean it up a bit because the car windows were far from clean! However, I think the layout turned out ok :)I used Dawn Inskip's Celebration kit and her brand new Blossoms element pack. I always have problems with the 4th of July kits, but this time I didn't. The colors do match our flag and isn't this background paper not the most gorgeous??

And here's my last layout from last week :) There is no story behind this one, I just thought that Matthildur looked cute in her raincoat, trying to keep warm in the cold rain last weekend!

This is exclusively Birgit Kerr's stuff.

Better get back to packing for our camping trip. I never know how much clothes and stuff to take for a trip like this. I don't want to take too much and I definitely do NOT want to get stuck with everything dirty and the girls running around in their undies in the rain because there is just nothing else to wear LOL

And on a final note - they are in bed right now, supposed to be falling asleep, but Lovisa is in the top bunk singing Christmas Carols and Matthildur is in the bottom bunk, her behind up in the air while she sings Happy Birthday to Daddy, whose birthday is not until October LOL
Never a dull moment :)

New layouts

Just putting up some layouts tonight - it's been a difficult day so I'm just going to list them and go to bed LOLThese are the toes of my little one. The photo is from a year ago when she got beach sand between her toes - and just about everywhere else - for the first time. It was so much fun! I got to play with Lemonaid Lucy's gorgeous new kit, Summer Escapades - and I love it! Really gorgeous and fun to use!

Here's another layout from Matthildur's birthday in June. In April she learned to say that her birthday was in June - so as soon as June came around, she declared each day that today was her birthday. Since we always kept telling her NO, when it was finally her actual birthday at the end of the month and we agreed with her, she was really surprised and happy LOL

This is again done with Cinzia Loosemore's gorgeous Celebrate kit. It's an amazing and huge kit and I'm sure I'll come back to it again and again!!

Have you checked out Dawn Inskip's gorgeous Balance Is Beautiful, yet? I made another page with it. This is Lovisa in the spring of 2007. We were on a trip and while on a walk we came across an exercise field for scouts. There were all kinds of strength and balance equipment there, all made from things in nature. Of course, she had to try out everything, and here she's on the balance beam :)My last page for tonight is my gorgeous Lovisa. I took this photo a couple of days ago and I just loved it! I used Lydia Kurniawati's (silversword71) beautiful Happy To Be ME kit - available in her Shabby Pickle store. Well, that's it for tonight - I'm off to bed. All layouts are linked for full credits :)

NEW from Dawn!

Dawn Inskip has a new kit out. It's called Balance Is Beautiful - it's huge and it's gorgeous!!!! Dawn is the featured designer on Gabs' blog this week and you can only get the kit at Treasures To Scrap.Here's my first page with it - I have another one in the works LOL It really is a very versatile kit and perfect for any photos - even the problematic photos where there is lots of color and you have nothing to scrap them with. Well, this is definitely IT for those photos!!

I scrapped my gorgeous 5 year old with it. And I had to try something - because there is this gorgeous woven white paper in the kit and I thought it would be just perfect for blending. So I tried it out and I really like how it turned out.

I made another page with the Let's Connect collab. It's so big - and bright! It's a bit out of my comfort zone since I'm more of a subtle and dark color scrapper - but I always enjoy the occasional "think outside the box" scrap LOL The designers call this kit a celebration of friendship and technology - and the designers are amazing: Amy Sumrall, Ellie Lash, Flergs, Franziska Altmann, Heather Manning, Kim B's Designs, Krystal Hartley, Lost Gurlz Venture Designs, mgl Scraps, Miss Crow, Moon Scraps, Polka Dot Plum, Sugarplum Paperie, Tracey Monette, Web Designz by Kristi and Wenchd Grafix

It's available at a lot of places; Gotta Pixel, Faith Sisters, Sugarplum Paperie, Sunshine Studio Scraps and Designs in Digital.

Since I'm afraid of bright colors (LOL), I decided to choose the brightest of them all, this gorgeous sunburst paper, to scrap my little star :) I love her to pieces!Did I tell you that Karah Fredericks is having her 2 year digi-designing anniversary celebration this week and next?Not only does she have a 40% off sale, there are RAKs being given out all over the place and there are challenges over at the Blue Flombingo blog for 2 weeks straight - with a chance to win wonderful prizes! The first challenge is to lift one of Karah's layouts - and this is my attempt...using mostly Karah's Momma Mia kit.

These are my lovely Lovisa's many faces when she was 2 years and 3 months old (I guess that makes 27 months LOL).
My last layout for the night is done with a lot of different things from my growing collection of Birgit Kerr goodies...

Isn't she cute? This is Matthildur in June of last year. She was a little over 11 months, walking and kicking a soccer ball all over the place. She loves her balls!!

Thanks for looking - everything is linked to stores or galleries for full credits :)

Summer...

...finally we have some indication that summer is here. Granted, we usually don't get too many warm summer days here, but last year, for instance, we had 4 days where we could go to the beach in swim suits before June 26. Now we haven't gotten even 1!! Yesterday was nice, though, and the forecast is for more of the same. Here's hoping for a nice and warm July!!

Meanwhile, I've been scrapping LOL

We always go camping every year, usually for at least 2 weeks straight and then for some shorter trips. In 2004 we took our older daughter for a camping trip around Iceland. She was 18 months and we took it really easy. Little driving, lots of outdoors play and lots of walks. This one place, we went hiking up a little mountain between two glaciers. She got a ride on her daddy's back on the way up and fell asleep in the backpack - when we were up, she woke and we had a little snack and then she decided she wanted to walk herself. She loved it - stopped a lot to enjoy what she saw - and it was great to watch :) This is her while exploring a piece of wood on one of the paths...I used Lydia Kurniawati's (silversword71) gorgeous Happy to be ME kit, available at Shabby Pickles...And, my little one turned 2 on June 26 (probably mentioned that before LOL). I can't believe how time flies!! Since her birthday was on a Thursday and a lot of family lives quite a distance away, we decided to have her birthday party on the following Saturday. This photo is her, in her birthday dress and fairy tiara, busy helping decorate her cake :)

I used Cinzia Loosemore's gorgeous new Celebrate kit. The actual kit is part of the Digital Freebies kit club for the month of July, but Cinzia has a huge and gorgeous add-on to the kit that you can buy separately. I just love this kit, it's perfect for each and every celebratory occasion!

Lastly, I did another layout with Lori Wiley's gorgeous new Hidden Secrets kit. It's just too wonderful for only 1 layout :)
We went on a walk yesterday since the weather was nice. My little one wanted to sit in her stroller while my older one wanted to go on her bike. When we had walked about 500 meters Matthildur announced that she wanted to walk - and walk she did. Or actually she ran - full speed - for the remaining 3,5 kilometers of the walk. In between running, she sat down on lava rocks and waited for mom, who tended to lag behind, too busy with the camera to bother with keeping up LOL. Anyways, this is Matthildur on one of her "waits" :)

And here's Lori's gorgeous kit...I hope you are having a great weekend!!

Lots of new stuff...

Ok - I have tons of layouts to post, so here goes...LOL

First off, the new Diamante kit! Have you seen Lori's new kit it's soooo gorgeous? It's called Hidden Secrets and it's 20% off this week...take a look, it's absolutely worth every cent!!
Here's my page with it - showing my little one with her little pout. It's just the cutest thing LOL

I did this page also for the newest ITC challenge over at Lori's Loungerette's blog. It's fun, we are scraplifting Teresa's gallery and she has some MAJOR gorgeous layouts to lift!!

Next up is Dawn Inskip with the coolest set of alphas I've seen for a LONG time!! It's called Say It With Flowers...And my page with it...I also used Dawn's Pets kit, don't you just love that background paper??!! Oh, and this is my 4 year old nephew and his dog. She is just a puppy but so big already! He is a bundle of energy and this photo is taken about 3 weeks ago at a beach in a secluded valley. We went there when visiting my sister's family and had a blast - we were almost alone in the world while in this valley, just us, the birds and some sheep!

Next up is Karah Fredericks 4th of July kit. It's gorgeous - and called Starry-eyed Wonder. I used my 5 year old girl's pre-school graduation for this layout too. The 4th of July kits seem to work well with the celebratory feel :) BTW, Karah is celebrating her 2 year digiversary this week and the next with a 40% off sale at both her shops, The Digi Chick and Blue Flombingo. There are also challenges every day at the Blue Flombingo blog and giveaways throughout the digi world!

Two more - and then I'm done for the night :)

This one I did with a collab called Let's Connect, and is the collaboration of Amy Sumrall, Ellie Lash, Flergs, Franziska Altmann, Heather Manning, Kim B's Designs, Krystal Hartley, Lost Gurlz Venture Designs, mgl Scraps, Miss Crow, Moon Scraps, Polka Dot Plum, Sugarplum Paperie, Tracey Monette, Web Designz by Kristi and Wenchd Grafix. It's a celebration of friendship and technology! Great tribute to the online friends we make in the digiscrapping world! It can be bought at Gotta Pixel, Faith Sisters, Sugarplum Paperie, Sunshine Studio Scraps and Designs in Digital.

The last one is the last layout I did while I was a guest CT member for Kim De Smet in June. Kim is a wonderful designer and I love her designs!Everything on the layout, except for the frame/overlay, is from the new July Collaboration Kit by Edeline, Nikki Beaudreau, Amy Hutchinson, Janosch Designs, Summer Simmons, Kim de Smet, Vicki Stegall & Sunflowers available at OScraps and SugarGiggles

Thanks for reading/looking - you've got quite the stamina if you made it this far :)