Day 6 - isn't it?

Today is the last day of Christmas for us. We went to a bonfire with fireworks along with some trolls and elves and other supernatural beings that are connected to Christmas and New Year here in Iceland. So I was absolutely positive I was going to have a fabulous photo for today. It was a bit windy, really cold and rainy, and although I took tons of photos - it was only because my "trigger" finger was frozen stiff to the camera and I did not get even ONE SINGLE decent one!!! In the garbage they all went! When I tried to take photos inside afterwards, since we had a celebratory dinner at my in-laws', I found that now my camera was frozen stiff and there were no photos to be taken - good or bad!! Except for this one - which was essentially bad, but slightly salvagable LOLThe photo mask is by Anna Aspnes, Xmas FotoBlendz No1 (love her masks!!) and I just realized that I forgot to credit the frames for my Day 4 and 5 photos. They are Mailing Label Frames by Bren Boone.

I have a couple of layouts today too :)

My little sweetie trying to look at the photos, still in the camera, which I had just taken of her. She had been posing with her best smile and this was the only remotely natural looking photo I got of her - and then it was only 3/4 of her face LOL
I used JanaM's newest kit, Something New, to scrap this photo. The kit is available in Jana's ZigZagScraps shop...

And I just finished this layout. It's my first as a CT member for Jen Ulasiewicz, and I kind of like it :) And I love Jen's designs!!

I used a mish mash of everything for this layout - it's linked for proper credit :) This is my 6 year old little beauty on the morning of Christmas Eve Day. She was super hyper and excited but was trying her hardest to not be impatient LOL And now Christmas is over and tomorrow, all the Christmas decorations will come down. I should have started this evening, but it was a long day - and it will keep :)

That's it for tonight - I'm off to bed! Thank you so much for stopping by!

Day 5 - and new stuff

The holidays were too long - so long, in fact, that I got used to sleeping in, and so did the girls. This morning, therefore, was NOT easy LOL. I had to wake both of them, and my younger one, who has most mornings of her short life woken up before 6 am, turned on her other side and said - "No, I'm on Christmas vacation" when I tried to wake her up at 7:30. We did get up, finally, and she was off to Kindergarten and I off to work, while my 6 year old got to stay home for one more day.

So today was a challenge for everyone, everyone had to get up early, everyone was tired and miserable and when I got home from work, the house was a mess and the girls fighting. And my little one had a little fight with one of the boys at Kindergarten and has this to show for it...

This photo pretty much sums up the day - thus my photo for day 5 :) - a tired, cranky little baby - with a bloody scratch!

On to the new stuff...
Dawn Inskip has a gorgeous new kit out today. It's called Truly Scrumptious - and it truly is!!My 6 year old went slightly nuts when she saw all the pink and the fairies and asked me to scrap her birthday photos with it. Which I of course did LOL She turned 6 on December 4 and I still haven't scrapped the photos from her day...but here is one layout, using Dawn's - delicious new kit...Isn't she just the cutest ;)

Vera Lim also has new stuff out today. She has a pack of overlays called Overlays Worded...

I love Vera's overlays - and here's a layout I made using it

One of the good things about this 365 photos thing, is that I already have TONS of photos to scrap from 2009 LOL This photo was taken yesterday on our rainy walk. No matter how much I dislike the rain, my daughters LOVE talking these walks, getting wet and jumping in puddles. You don't really need much when you're 2 and 6 :)

I have another Vera layout today, since it's the first day of Vera's blog challenge. The challenge is all about change - and going outside your comfort zone when you scrap. There is a freebie template by MiYon (Scarletheels Designs)...

The challenge for me was to use a template to begin with - I hardly ever use templates and have a very hard time doing so. They either end up looking nothing at all like the template, or they are exactly like it, and therefore very boring LOL
These are my girls, by the way, on Boxing Day. We went to a Christening in Reykjavik and I got a few good photos of them outside the church afterwards...

That's it for today - thank you so much for stopping by :) And of course everything is linked - just in case I enabled anyone LOL

Day 4

I took tons of photos today - I have to recharge my camera battery every day these days LOL I take the camera everywhere and my little one is now getting into the habit of sticking her face in the camera and saying "Take my photo, mom" - and then she puts on her best smile. Her best smile, in her opinion, is when she shuts her eyes really hard, wrinkles her nose and opens her lips really wide but with teeth closed :) She is the cutest thing - but I prefer her with her big baby blues open and a genuine smile!

This is my photo(s) for day 4We went for a walk in the rain today - and the girls got to take their dolls with. I tried out the sepia function on my camera, and I think it turned out pretty good. Basically, the photos I took today were, mostly bad, some were ok and a couple were really good. In my humble opinion of course LOL These actually fall in the ok category - but when I was looking through them, I liked how they looked side by side, even though one is looking north and the other is looking south :)

No layouts today - I'm in a serious slump! Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Day 2 - and 3

I'm a bit late with Day 2 so I'll combine it with Day 3 :)

Yesterday was a quiet day for us. Mostly because the girls were still tired from staying up until midnight on New Years Eve, but also because last night, my husband went back to work and we just wanted a nice family oriented day. He'll be away until Tuesday. We just read books, played games and then the girls took a bath - which was almost the highlight of the day LOL I have to admit, though, that the photo is posed - I bribed them with chocolate to get the cuddle :) You can tell, too, because neither of them has that tender look that comes from an impulse cuddle between the two of them LOLI used a frame by Christina Renee.

Today has been another quiet day. I think because December was so busy that everyone welcomes some quieter days. At least I do, and then the girls have to LOL
The girls have been almost on their best behaviour today, although, I had to take them with to a little meeting I had this afternoon and they showed all their worst sides! To top it, Matthildur, who is in potty training, peed in her pants (tights, pants, snowsuit), so I had to leave the meeting and take them home early. It was my own fault since I forgot to put a diaper on before we left. Oh well, LOL

Anyways, todays photo shows the girls playing Twister. Lovisa got this for Christmas and it's a never-ending source of fun for them.And it's the same frame by Christina Renee.

I've been in a scrapping rut, but managed a layout yesterday. I did it for the New Year resolution challenge over at Pickleberry Pop. Dawn Inskip is sponsoring it with a fab mini kit...which I used on this layout.

I don't really make resolutions, and this year is no different, but I am determined to teach my little, badly brought up, spitfire some manners this year. Her big sister has very good manners, and always has - but this one has no manners whatsoever!! I do realize it's our fault for not teaching it to her properly, so that will be the task this year LOL

That's it for today - thank you so much for looking :)

Happy New Year!!

I can't really believe it's 2009 already - it seems as if 2008 just begun! I am going to try and follow the 365 project this year and take a photo a day to try and preserve our memories a bit better :) Maybe it will be an incentive to blog more often LOL - at least more than one post per month!!

This is the photo for the first day of the year...we went for a walk yesterday since the weather was extremely nice. We went to the beach, which is just a couple of minutes walk away from our house. I actually took a whole lot of photos yesterday, both of the fireworks after midnight, quite a few on our walk and then my sister and her family came for a visit - so there were many to choose from. The challenge starts to day, I think LOLI'm going to try and compile all the photos into weekly layouts with journaling about the week :)

Anyways, here is my last layout of 2008This is my older daughter out in the snow on December 20. We went to Reykjavik to do some Christmas shopping and had to make the trip a little fun for the girls. So we went to the Domestic Animal Park - and it was snowy and cold, but a lot of fun.

I used stuff by Cinzia Loosemore on this layout, her Color Theory White kit as well as her Brush Strokes for the photo and her newest pack of Quote UnQuote wordarts.

And here is my first layout of 2009Here she is at a quarter to midnight on New Years Eve. She was inspecting the fireworks which her dad and uncle had bought. She had been so excited to see all the fireworks on New Years Eve and had been waiting very impatiently all day. When it came down to it, though, she was a bit scared of all the noise it made, but soon she got over it and stood on the balcony saying WOW and cheering her dad on LOL
I used a combination of Birgit Kerr's newest kits, December Morning and Christmas Morning, along with a couple of other things :)

That's it for today :) I'm going to try and keep the posts shorter and more frequent from now on LOL
Thank you so much for stopping by - and I hope you'll have a wonderful day!

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 :)