HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I just want to wish all my readers and followers a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope 2010 will be a good one for all of you!

Here is Susie and Maja Siobhan just before we went out singing for the neighbours yesterday... (aren't they the cutest....??)
I also wanted to share a couple of pictures of what my world looks like on the last day of this year - a sunny and crisp day (about minus 14 degrees Celsius outside):

I love the snow- isn't it just beautiful?!

Some new and some old knitting....

I've been knitting... I always have some knitting lying around for times when I need an excuse to sit down and do very little, but still look like I'm doing something, if you know what I mean. I'm not very good at blogging my knitting though. I tend to start using my knitted stuff as soon as it's finished.... like the beret on this photo.... I knitted it over a year ago, and I've used it loads... I didn't even have a picture of it... sheesh... I used a free pattern from Garnstudio for the beret, you can find it HERE.

I thought it was a good opportunity to blog my beret now with my NEW fingerless gloves. I used the same yarn on them as I used for the beret, so now I have a set.... The yarn is from my stash. It's really oooooold... it was something I got after my late grandmother, and I 've had it for years and years (gran died in 1995, so I guess I've had it since then.... and I'm sure she had it in her stash a while before that...) Lol...

The free pattern for these nice gloves is made by Ruth/Ullhedina. The gloves are a perfect fit. They're knitted on two needles back and forth, so they're really easy to knit up. I'm already planning on making some more of these. Ohhh... and look what hubby brought home.... a Nespresso machine! Wow... I'm luuuurving it! It was supposed to be a shared Christmas present from him to me and from me to him, but we couldn't wait until Christmas to start using it.... lol...
Well.... off to make myself a coffee....

What a cute mouse!

I went to a friend of mine on Tuesday to make some cards together. It's been ages since I saw her even though she lives just a ten minutes walk away.... Anyway.... It was so nice seeing her again and we were chatting away so much that I only managed to get one card finished.... not that I ever manage to make more than one card in one day. It takes me forever...
I borrowed the stamp from my friend, and forgot to find out who it's by... silly me... The mouse is coloured with watercolour pencils.

Create4Fun Challenge week 47

This Christmas card is for the Create4fun Challenge week 47. It's the second week in a row that I use their sketch for my card...
The santa and presents are coloured with watercolour pencils and the trimmings on santa's clothes is painted with shimmering watercolour paints. One of the presents is mounted on pop dots for some dimension. Stamps from Anitas and sentiment is Hero Arts.

Today was Susie's first day in nursery. Hubby and I were both with her the whole time (two hours) and she seemed to settle in fine. She'll go back tomorrow for another short day to get used to being there, and I think we'll have to leave her alone there for a wee while.... wonder how she'll take that.... ach... I'm sure she'll be fine (it's probably worse for me...lol...).

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Maja has got the cold.... pretty badly... she stayed home from school yesterday, but she seems better now. I think the worst thing about being home sick was that she couldn't go to her riding lesson in the afternoon either.... At least we got her to go to school today, but we picked her up early to go and get the swine flu shot... all four of us... so hopefully we won't get the flu now...

Charisma Cardz challenge #46

I've had this Christmas tree coloured in for weeks now, but not gotten around to using it... so when I saw this weeks sketch at the Charisma Cardz blog, I thought it would be perfect for my tree...
I have coloured the tree with watercolour pencils and then used some of my sparkly watercolour paint on the stars, hearts and the blue background. The stamp is a freebie that came with a magazine I bought.... last year, two years ago?? Can't really remember. I guess I could go through all my magazines and find out, but I can't really be bothered...

We went to the opening of the new nursery, where Susie will go, yesterday. The mayor was there for the opening, and we were able to walk around and have a look inside. It wasn't quite finished yet, but I don't think there were too much left to do. I certainly hope not since the children will start on Thursday.... Ohhh, I'm so excited... and a bit anxious... my baby is starting nursery.... how will I cope without her with me all day every day... Well, looking at the bright side, it might give me time to do some Christmas shopping.... lol...

Create4Fun Challenge week 46

Yay! 'nother Christmas card done! I used the sketch from this weeks challenge at the Create4fun challenge blog.
The two backing papers are free downloads from a scrapbook site, but I can't remember which one... guess I should start writing the url on the back of the papers so I can find back if I want more of them.... The stamped image is from Panduro, and I've painted the snowflakes with my shimmering watercolours. Glittery heart from Nille.

Maja had her 3rd riding lesson yesterday. I think she is having so much fun (I'm actually a bit jealous on her.... I want to ride horses too....). I'm really impressed on how relaxed she is around the horses and how well she is riding already.... Poor wee Susie isn't feeling well today... guess I better go downstairs and pamper her a bit...

One card - three challenges...

Wooohoooo.... finally a Christmas card! I guess I better get properly started on my festive cards soon...

For this card I used the sketch from the Friday Sketchers challenge #78. And after I started making it, I found out that this card would fit into this weeks challenge at Charismacardz too... #45- Merry and Bright.
Oh... and I used some sparkly watercolour paint on the angel, some pearlescent paper and a glittery star so this card fits challenge #86- Glitter me Silly at Cute card thursday as well.... You can see the glitter/shimmer a bit better on this picture (Sorry about the dark pic, but you couldn't see the shimmer when I lightended it... click pictures to see them bigger).

The angel image is from and old set of Christmas stamps I've had for ages by Anitas and the sentiment is Hero Arts. The red paper is some yummy Tilda paper I just bought and the turquoise paper I printed off some scrapbook page (can't remember wich one though).... The star is from Nille and ribbon from stash. Image is coloured with watercolour pencils and then painted over with some sparkly watercolour paint.

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Here we have already had some snow.... it didn't last long though... It's been raining all day today.

Mojo monday challenge no 111 and some exciting news...

Boy, do I have some exciting news today.... I've got myself a JOB!! Woohooo!! Nothing's on paper yet, but the headmaster at Maja's school promised me a job, starting January. I'll contact him a bit closer to Christmas and work out all the details, but he has promised me work 3 days a week. I'm sooo excited! On the other hand, that means I can no longer spend my whole days with Susie... I can't remember if I already mentioned that she has got a place in a new built nursery (it's not quite finished yet...), anyway... she is starting nursery at the end of this month (if the nursery is finished by then...lol...) or beginning of December. So this is going to be a big change for both her and me... and for the rest of the family too, of course, not having me at home all the time....

Well, over to my card. This card was made using sketch 111 from the Mojo Monday sketch blog. You're probably bored by the stamp I've used by now.... I know... It just happens to be my favourite at the moment...Image is coloured with water colour pencils, and I've matted the image on some soft pink pearlescent paper... the off white strip to the right is also same type of paper. I think you can see the shimmer in those pearlescent papers a bit better on this pic...

It's really hard to photograph my cards at this time of year... not much daylight, and lamp light gives the photos the wrong colours... ach well, you get the idea....

Halloween witches and some cute cards (not mine)

Just thought I'd start with sharing a picture of my ehm... scary.... witches. They were going to a halloween party for the first time, and had a great time. And I don't think we'll have to buy them sweeties for a while.... lol... they were both over the moon with all the sweets people were giving them... they got so much they couldn't eat it all.
Maja was so thrilled when I told her that I'd found a card challenge for children. The greeting farm blog had no less than three challenges for those under the age of 13 last week. Maja entered the Colour challenge with this wedding card.

She chose to use the couple from the caketopper set for this card, but she really wanted to use Alice from the Wonderland set too, so she entered the Bling challenge with a card with Alice on.

She did almost everything herself... the stamping, colouring, choosing the papers and layout. The only thing I helped her with was cutting the papers to the right size and punching the leaf border on the Alice card.

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Susie didn't want to miss out.... so I helped her stamp some images that she could colour in and gave her some pieces of paper. She did all the colouring and gluing by herself... she even punched the hearts out herself. She needed a bit help with getting the excess glitter off the card though... I think it turned out quite good for her very first card. She entered this in the Bling challenge.

Well, have to keep this short... I've left Susie downstairs watching a film... don't think it will be long until she notices I'm gone....

My first Halloween card -ever!

Ooohhh... I'm on a roll... two cards and two posts in two days... Yay!

I made this card for two challenges. I used sketch #16 from the Tuesday Morning Sketches challenge blog. And over at Stamping for the weekend this weeks challenge #21 is "A Haunting Good Time"... so I thought I'd combine these two and use this cute halloween image that I got in that goody bag from Ida.
I used water colour pencils to colour in the image, and here you can have a peek inside the card where I stamped a couple of pumpkins.

The skull charm is actually something I cut off of my summer shoes when I had to throw them away due to wear and tear. Sometimes it comes in handy to collect everything and never throw away anything that might come in useful some day....

The "ribbon" is a bit of purple/blue tulle that I've had for years and years stashed away from a previous sewing project (I never throw anything away...lol). I sewed a couple of lines of orange shiny yarn on to keep it folded and for the added effect of the orange lines, of course.

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Thanks for looking, and I really appreciate the nice comments you leave.

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EDIT; When I was submitting my card to the Tuesday morninng sketch challenge I found out that I could enter it in a challenge at the TSG blog too.... they have the same sketch... Brilliant!!

Truly scrumptious - Challenge 18

The children are in bed sound asleep.... finally some time for blogging. I think they both were pretty tired after last night... Maja had a friend staying over, and they were giggling away till waaay past their normal bedtime. Poor Susie woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep because of all the monsters in her room.... in the end, I had to let her sleep between me and hubby... and even then it took her ages to fall back asleep... she was too busy telling us all about the scary monkeys (was it monkeys, not monsters?) in her room and the cows in our ceiling....???. Lol... the joys...

I decided to join a challenge to see if that would help me find my card making mojo again. I found a great sketch over at the Truly Scrumptious challenge blog. This weeks challenge was a sketch AND a theme. The theme was Autumn, and here's my card.
The main image was in that goodybag I got from Ida a few weeks back, so I don't know who it's by... anyone? The pumpkins and the corner stamp I won in Maria Therese's candy a while back. I think they're WOJ, but am not entirely sure. Images are coloured, as always, with water colour pencils....

Here you can see a bit of the inside. I stamped the pumpkins inside with VersaMark ink (and the text on the front too)....

Oh... almost forgot to say that the main image and pumpkins are mounted on pop dots (never a card without pop dots...lol...)

A wedding card

I don't seem to get into blogging again after the summer hols.... a week or two between posts.... not good, not good at all! And everything I post about is stuff that I made a week or two before I got it posted... hrmph... I'm gonna try to improve....

Anyway, here's a card I made weeks ago... not for anyone in particular, just wanted to try out a new technique. I masked a heart shape on the card and rubbed ink directly onto the cardstock and stamped some swirls on top... so no fancy papers here....
I used the wedding couple from the Caketopper set by The Greeting Farm, the sentiment is from Kort og Godt and the swirls and butterflies from.... hmmm... can't remember what company right now and can't be bothered to go downstairs to check it out....

The couple is coloured with water colour pencils and mounted on pop dots for dimension and the butterflies are only glued down in the middle so that the wings stands up a bit....

Thanks for looking and a big thank you to those of you that still checks in and leave nice comments even though there is so little news in here...

Generous people!

Sorry for not posting more often... but I've been so busy lately... well, not really busy, but not able to use the computer much or do any crafty stuff. The girls and I spent the entire autumn holiday week at my parents house, apart from the last weekend when we went to my parents cabin at Bortelid. When we got home from our autumn break, I had to prepare Maja's 7th birthday party.... We had 14 noisy girls around... and we had good fun. Then I had to organize a friends group evening for some of Maja's school friends.... and this weekend my parents came to see us... and hubby is off work this week, so he's keeping me company in the evenings... so not much computer time....

Since I haven't crafted much lately I thought I'd show some of the lovely things I've won! Some people are just soooo generous... I love entering blog candys but don't really expect to win... but then a couple of weeks ago I won this fab journaling stamp set from Monica/Lottens lille scrappeverden :
And this very generous surprise from Ida/Littles stash & dash was waiting for me when I came home from my autumn break...

And some people's generousity really surprises me... I've been following Sipusa's blog for a long time and a while back she'd knittet a really cool pink skirt that I commented on. I said something like that I liked the skirt and wouldn't mind having one like that myself.... and guess what.... I got an e-mail back from Sipusa where she said I could just HAVE the skirt if I wanted it!!! I mean, she'd knitted it for herself, it wasn't a blog candy or anything, and then she just gives it away to a person she's never even met... What do you think? Isn't it just the coolest?

A bit THANK YOU to Monica, Ida and Sipusa. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so lucky to have such good blog friends.

Butterfly card

Just a quick note today as I'm away on autumn holiday at the moment. I took the girls with me to see my parents in Kristiansand for the week. Hubby had to stay at home and go to work unfortunately...

Just before I left home, I had the foresight to upload this card to my blog, just in case I had a spare moment to sneak off to the computer...
This card was commisioned by my aunt a month or so ago. She needed a card for a 50th birthday she was going to.

A peek of the inside and details of the card.

My mind has gone totally blank as to what companies the different things in this card are from. If anyone really wants to know, I can find out as soon as I'm back home again. I also used a sketch from a challenge blog, but can I remember from which one...?? ehhh... no.... I think this autumn holiday and no crafting for a whole week is making my head go numb... lol...