ARTastic’s July Challenge

This is what I look like right know! This picture is taken last week – partly because I needed a picture for ARTastic’s July challenge and partly because I’ve been thinking about changing my signature picture to one where I’m not looking so “working-serious”. So my husband was commanded into the garden to take a picture of me. In the meantime our daughter climbed on my legs and demanded to come up in my arms. The result was quite acceptable given that my husband isn’t used to photograph, I don’t like to be photographed, and the quite chaotic situation…

ARTastic’s challenge is to be inspired by the painting “Octoroon Girl” by Archibald Motley. According to the challenge you shall use red and maroon colors (monochromatic), a picture of yourself, and include a hat or gloves.

I used maroon mist and dark brown ink to create the background. The amazing crochet flower is made by Maggie and was part of June’s Guest Designer RAK Prize at ARTastic that I was fortunate to win! The center of the other flower was also part of the prize! Just the right colors for the challenge - did Maggie know about the upcoming challenge? ;) The rest of the flower as well as the doilies are cut with a die.

“My hat” is on this posing lady. I also added some trim, filmstrip and bling.

These marvelous butterflies that changes colors from orange to maroon depending on the light are from K & Company.

Thank you SO much for looking! 

Finally!

Until now our daughter didn’t want to go near the water when we’ve been on the beach. She’s been complaining when we’ve wanted to go there and hasn’t even accepted to put her toes in the water… When she finally did she just LOVED it! She kept on jumping into the water and bathing until she was shivering and shaking teeth. ;) (And we are happy parents as we now can go to the beach whenever we want to!

I decorated the background with turquoise, blue and beige mist. I also stamped some “grass” and sea shells in green, copper and gold. The rest of the embellishments are punched in my die-cut machine (some “grass” and a doily) and cut out of patterned papers from The Pink Gelato Collection from Kaisercraft.

Thanks for looking! I hope you enjoyed it!

I’m holding daddy so that he won’t fall

There’s a fun story behind this layout. When I came out of our home one day I found my loved ones up on a ladder. I thought it looked dangerous and were just about to say to our daughter that she should beware so that she would not fall. But before I had a chance to say something she said: “I’m holding daddy so that he won’t fall”. ;)

This is a “Basic Grey layout”. I loved the color combination in the Hello Luscious collection so much that I wanted to scrap it just the way it is. I have used patterned papers, die-cuts and rub-ons from the collection. I also used dies and an edge punch to create my own embellishments and letters. I chose not to have a photo mat as I thought that would be “too much” when using so much embellishments.

The background is colored with lime green mist and stamped with Tim Holtz ‘shabby shutters’. I placed the journaling along the left side of the paper.

Thanks for looking!!!

Summer girl

This is my DT layout at The Lollipop Ladies challenge #25. The challenge is to get inspired by a picture of a princess cake and to add pearls. The cake is presented as Swedish. I’m from Sweden and I am of course very familiar with it – but I didn’t know that it had its origin from Sweden! So, if you haven’t tasted it I can assure you that it’s yummy!

I think this picture is a bit romantic in its style so I wanted to create a layout with a romantic feeling. I wanted to use all the different colors on the picture and did that both when choosing papers and embellishments and when decorating the background with mist and acrylic paint. My idea with the pearls is that it should look like those lamps beside the mirrors that you find in boxes (at least on film…). I also used some pearls in the middle of the punched flowers.

Thanks for looking!!!

Do what you do

Have you seen July’s challenge at Scrap The Girls? The challenge is to scrap a layout using an album cover by Pink as inspiration. You should also use any song title or lyrics by Pink somewhere on your layout.

I think this is such a fun challenge!!! I love this picture of our daughter and wanted to scrap it ever since I saw it the first time. I didn’t know what to do with it though as she don’t have that kind of attitude that she shows on the picture..! But it is perfect together with this marvelous lyric by Pink! So thanks Scrap The Girls for this inspiration!

The background is decorated with dark grey mist. I also stamped stars and dots using three different shades of grey. Some of the stars are embossed. Finally I painted with pink Ink. I chose to use both the song title and part of the lyrics on the layout. What I wanted was to put forward the message in this lyric as a wish for our daughter’s feature.

Thank you so much for looking!

Midsummer girl

This picture is taken at the special occasion called midsummer that we celebrate in Sweden at the end of June. Unfortunately our daughter had fever and that’s why the poor girl looks so tired.

This layout is dominated by my favorite die-cuts from K & Company. As flowers are important at this occasion (for example the flowers in her hair) I choose to use a lot of flowers (and insects). I sprayed the background with different shades of pink glimmer mists and I also splashed with two different shades of green.

Thanks for looking!

We love our wild mysterious garden

This LO is made for the July challenge at Kraft it up. This month they have an inspiration challenge based on a picture of light turquoise cupcakes. I took inspiration in the colors as I thought they were so beautiful to combine with kraft.

I took the opportunity to use some papers and embellishments from Bo Bunny’s Gabrielle as they have just the right colors. I love to use butterflies on my layouts and I love the color combination on these papers. Usually, I try to mix so that one collection won’t be too dominant. But in this case I wanted to highlight Bo Bunny’s color combination. I did, however, add some light purple and some lime green. I also added some butterflies from Pink Paislee to obtain a more mixed feeling.

I used white ink on a mask to decorate the background. This mask from Prima was perfect to reproduce the rather overgrown feeling we have in our garden. I also splashed on some acrylic paint in lilac and lime green. The beautiful frond is a die-cut from K & Company.

Thanks for looking!!!

The world's most wonderful companion

Our daughter always wants to accompany me wherever I go and whatever I do. She’s such a charming person and actually, now when she’s a bit older, she’s the most wonderful companion.  Even the most boring things are fun in her company!

This picture was taken when we went to the nursery garden to by flowers. The ongoing challenge at The Lollipop Ladies is to be inspired by a picture of cotton candy / fairy floss and it made me think about purchasing. That’s why I choose this picture. Of course I wanted my layout to be pink, but I also wanted a little black, white and silver metal as there are in the picture.

According to the challenge, you should also add some fibres and inspired by the hanging flower baskets in the picture I decided to use twine to create hanging flower garlands. I also used twine in the center of two of the flowers. Behind the picture I fastened some “Flocked Trans” from Fancy Pants and let pink Glimmer Mist show through. I also “framed” the layout with pink Distress Stain.

I let the “title” be part of the journaling…

… and made a small cluster of embellishments in the lower right corner.

Most of the material comes from October Afternoon ‘5 & Dime’, Sassafras Lass ‘Sunshine Broadcast’, Fancy Pants ‘It’s the little things’ and Crate ‘Emma’s Shoppe’.

I hope this makes you feel like eating cotton candy – or at least that you want to join in at The Lollipop Ladies! Thanks for looking!!!