No inspiration...

I am having another one of those - where is my inspiration - kind of weeks.  I have been sitting at my scrap table several times this week and nothing seems to happen. Today I even cleaned my scrap area and prepped a few white cardstock with clear gesso. I even have a lovely Citrus Twist Kit waiting for me... I even got new Ecolines this week....

This is my desk right now wanting to be filled with paper.

Two peas closing

Sharing my FB post..

Inspired by others to make a screen shot of my Twopeas account while it's still there. I can't say that I was very active in the forum, it says 16 posts and almost 200 public projects, but the gallery was a great inspiration for me - especially the first years as a scrapper before I dared to go to crops and join forums and step out of anonymity. Pre-Pinterest i downloaded hundreds of layouts to my computer hoping I some day would be able to make anything as good.
I was also lucky enough to have a few projects picked out as a featured project -last one was just 1 month ago...

Påskesol - tutorial May Issue Inzpira magazine

 This layout was made for the May Issue of Inzpira magazine and included a step by step instruction on how to make it. 

Start by covering parts of the white cardstock with clear gesso and let it dry 

Use a water brush to spread water over the gesso

Drop mist over the cardstock and use the water brush to spread it out, wipe away parts of it – and then drop more mist. Let it dry and drop more. It’s important to let it dry if you want tiny drops on top, otherwise the mist will spread out.

When the mist has dried use distress ink together with stencils.

Stamp in black and grey to get different shades of colour

Pick out some coordinating leftover papers and papers from 6x6 paper pads.

Staple the pieces to the cardstock and place out the embellishments.

And a few closeups

Material & Tools 
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics – white
Patterned papers American Crafts – Amy Tangerine Plus One 6x6 paper pad; Papirdesign – Data, Glitz Design – Diamond; Finnley – 6x6 Paper Pad; Teresa Collins – Everyday Moment 6x6 Paper Pad
Stamps: Kaisercraft; Wycinanka; Glitz Design; You Do
Paints, inks & effects: Homemade blue mists, Studio Calico Mr Huey – Warm Calico, Peerless Watercolors – Japonica Scarlet
Embellishments: You Do – Metal star; Studio Calio – wood veneer, flag clips; Panda Eight Design – flair; October Afternoon – buttoms; Create Paper – washitape, vellum star; Heidi Swapp – letters, journaling, doily
Tools: Waterbrush, Kelley Purkey stencil – Chevron; Hero Arts stencil – Tweed; Crafters Workshop stencil – Stacked Triangles

Me @ One - for Shimelle.com

Today I am sharing a layout I have made for the Shimelle.com blog.

My kids loves to look through the layouts that I have scrapped with them. I actually emphasize WITH and not FOR, because I don’t scrap to just capture every memory or just document their lives, I scrap to enjoy myself with papers. Back to the point… When they look through all the albums (well most of the layouts are still piled up in boxes..) they often wonder how I looked when I was little. They ask – did I look like you when you were small, mom ?? So I decided to make a layout of myself from when I was little.

When I started scrapbooking some 11 years ago – my plan was actually to scrap my own baby pictures – I didn't want to take my parents albums with me – I thought they belonged there – so I scanned my old pictures in order to scrap them. I even bought lots of cute babystuff to use on double layouts. I never got to it, and somewhere deep under stuff are those old papers and decorations – never used. They look cute – but they are not me – now – when I scrap.

I love to use mist when I scrap, but you will hardly ever find a page where I actually use it to spray. The first way I use it is almost as I would use watercolors. I start with adding a layer of clear gesso. The clear gesso give a very different texture than white gesso and it doesn't give the white cardstock a yellow ting. While mist almost runs off white gesso – the clear gesso sucks the color right in. I used a water brush to add water and spread out the drops of mists. When it all dried I added drops of mist. If you add drops of mist before it has dried – you will get an ice crystal effect – the color will spread out like an ice crystal. Then my tons of layers were added, in the same colors as the mist. I actually picked out a lot of the papers and embellishments AFTER I picked out the Mister Huey mists. My biggest secret when it comes to scrapping is to staple the layers. That is what gives me the freedom to add small pieces in between here and there.

Here is the link to the post in the Shimelle blog.

Tegner en prinsesse - Inzpira magazine

This layout was made for the May issue of Inzpira magazine using mostly the Plus One collection from Amy Tangerine American Crafts.

New Inzpira Magazine issue - June issue

I am so proud to be part of the Inzpira Magazine team and can present a new issue - the June Issue. I have three projects in it - you can see sneaks from my projects further down.

Fabulous

During Easter we went for small hikes near the water and these photos are taken at Jerdalstranda.   Amazingly he didn't get all wet this time - unlike his baby sister who we discovered had holes in her wellies....    He enjoyed throwing sticks in the water for Gaiza to pick them up, balancing in the water, jumping between rocks, jumping from higher places and just being a boy allowed to run around.

På stranda - May Issue Inzpira Magazine

Vi har med Tøffen til Villa Malla.  Layout laget til Inzpira Magazine - May Issue.
Noen ganger bare glemmer man tittel- det kom jeg må når jeg så det på Ipaden.....  Papir er fra Pion Design. (sponset)

Video - making one of my layout backgrounds

Finally I have a video showing how I make my backgrounds. I used my big camera to shoot it - I have a thing that holds my camera on a shelf, but I have only had a poor standard lens. I have a scraproom in the basement and no natural lighting and I only had one of my studio lamps on. Next time I will use both....

The speed is set at 4x the normal speed. So this process still takes less than 30 minutes to complete. Usually I let the clear gesso dry without the fan, the same goes for the misting process to I usually do multiple backgrounds at the same time.  Gesso on 3-4 cardstocks - then the mist and water on several.

Hope you will enjoy it.

Today

Working again with some of my favorite colors. The papers are all from AC Amy Tan Plus one, 12x12 papers, 6x6 papers and the PL Mini kit.  The title is Heidi Swapp, and where it says Day Trip I have put a Plus One stickers on top of an older Pink Paislee item.   The yellow arrows are Freckled Fawn. 

Stamps are from Wycinanka and Kaiser Craft

Not all....

A while back we went for a walk along a beach - or creek. Beaches in this area are not long and wide and full of sand, we have small sandy beaches here and there, and they are not supercrowded every summer. The thing my son is sitting on is something that floats that you jump from into the water. (forgot the name of it) 

I have used Fancy Pants Design on it - just some small other things here and there - a little frame by Basic Grey, some sequins, cork  wood veneer from Studio Calico, stamps from Kaiser Craft, Glitz Design and Wycinanka, paper clip from Prima, doily from Maya Road. 

Exciting news !!

My worries are over so I decided to send in an application and I am so proud to be presented as one of the new Citrus Twist Kits DTs for 2014-2015. I can't wait to start to scrap with the July kit.  I have missed getting a kit the last few months so this is going to be fun.



Here is the new line-up

Scrapbooking Team
Sandy Ang
Lucia Barabas
Jennifer Chapin
Ashley Fowler
Christin Grønnslett (ME)
Angie Gutshall
Nathalie Leonelli
Eve Limacher
Amelie Mordret
Kasia Tomaszewska
Michelle Wedertz
Evelyn Prawati Yusuf
Trina Craig

Pocket Life Team
Jen Boumis
Olya Schmidt
WaiSam Ho
April Joy Hill
Pamela Ho

Anea - For Kreativ Scrapping

For en tid siden ble jeg spurt om å lage en layout til Kreativ Scrapping. Det skulle være med blomster. Her er beskrivelsen min av layout. 

Jeg er en typisk hvit cardstock scrapper og det er fordi jeg liker kontraster og fordi jeg synes at bildene mine kommer best fram med en hvit bakgrunn. Men med bare scrappark og bilder synes jeg det blir litt kjedelig, så jeg leker meg litt med farger. Jeg pleier å si at jeg driver med mixed media light, med vekt på light fordi mitt hovedfokus er ikke mixed media. Jeg driver ikke med det for teknikkens skyld som mange, jeg synes bare ulike teknikkprodukter kan fremheve de andre materialene jeg har valgt å bruke.




På denne layouten har jeg brukt en slags vannfargeteknikk for å lage bakgrunnen. Ofte bruker jeg cleargesso+vannpensel+mist for å lage bakgrunner, men denne gangen har jeg brukt gelatos men med samme teknikk. Jeg begynte med clear gesso – du vil kanskje spørre deg hvorfor jeg ikke har brukt vanlig hvit gesso og dette er grunnen. Det er nemlig ganske stor forskjell mellom den klare og den hvite gessoen. Mens den hvite gessoen blir ganske glatt på hvit cardstock og også blir ganske gul på vanlig hvit cardstock og i tillegg så glir på en måte farger med vann av gessoen så har cleargesso motsatt effekt. Clear gesso blir ganske ru på den hvite cardstocken og fargen blander seg bra med cleargessoen,men uten å fest seg på cardstocken. Fargen fester seg altså bra, men tape og noen limprodukter fester seg IKKE bra oppå.



Tilbake til teknikken. Jeg tegnet litt med gelatospennen på et 10x15 stort område og sprayet vann og brukte vannpensel for å spre fargen utover. Tørket av vannet med litt papir for å fjerne overflødig vann. Når alt hadde tørket fant jeg frem flere ulike stensiler og brukte rosa og svart distress ink sammen med stensilene. Jeg velger ofte å bruke distress ink eller andre stempeldyner sammen med stensiler for å få bedre kontroll med fargebruken og for å få et litt mer dempet intrykk enn med spray av mist eller akrylmaling. Deretter tryppet jeg med ulike farger av mist her og der.

Neste stadium er lag på lag. Jeg har brukt ark fra en 6x6 paper pad og to ark fra et Amy Tangerine Plus one Projekt Life Minikit. Jeg bruker i stor grad nesten bare 6x6 paper pad når jeg scrapper da jeg sjelden trenger å fylle ut et hele arket og fordi jeg synes mønstrene oftere er finere når de er små enn når de er store som på et 12x12 ark. Jeg klippet ut arkene i litt ulike størrelser og stiftet de til bakgrunnen. Har man mange lag så spiller det ganske liten rolle hvordan man klipper det ut, men en god ide er å ikke ha alt for mange supersterke farger rett bak bildet – slik at det ikke forsvinner. For det er jo bildet du vil vise frem ikke nødvendigvis hvor kule ting du har kjøpt. Det er derfor jeg ofte har lyse ark eller doily rett under bildene mine for å dempe litt før jeg har sterkere farger på papiret. Til slutt avsluttet jeg med litt litt nye og gamle Primablomster i de fargene jeg har valgt på papirene. Jeg liker også å ha litt enamel dots, små trechipboard som disse fra Wycinanka og litt andre smådetaljer.

Materialer:
Papir: American Crafts - Amy Tangerine plus one 6x6 paper pad; Plus One mini kit.
Pynt: Glitz - stickers, Prima - blomster, Wycinanka - stjernechipboard, washitape, Crate Paper - chipboardramme, American Crafts - stickers, Studio Calico - Enamel dots og Wood veneer.
Utstyr: Tim Holtz - Stars stensil, Measured stensil, Honeycomb, Studio Calico - Mr Huey Mist, Distress ink - Pink Raspberry, Black soot.

Love you

I sat up pretty late last night, after making a video of how I make my backgrounds (coming in the blog next week, but if you manage to find my Youtube Channel, the video is up already..) making this layout. I made the background a week ago (as usual forgot to photograph it before working on it...)

I have used a mix of American Crafts Dear Lizzy Daydreamer and different Crate Paper collections, I never remember what comes from Styleboard or Oh Darling, I have mixed the decorations from both collections together, keeping them in the pack they came in is impossible, so I have them in old Maya Road metal boxes. Also threw in some Elle's Studio text wood veneer and heart tab, a Pink Paislee golden star and white ribbon and Sodaliscous chevrons.

Even though I don't like my handwriting that much, I am willing to write on my pages, and this layout is about this photo where my little 4,5 is soo proud - she has cut her own hair........ Luckily no disaster with cutting the hair short in the front. This is also after I made a little damage control by cutting a little more and evening it out a little..

Creative process

I have noticed an increased interest in one of my tutorials on how I make many of my backgrounds and today I decided to share more with you of my creative process and tell you why I scrap the way I scrap.

I am a messy scrapper, but not really when it comes to HOW I use technique products, it's more that my desk is soooo full of stuff that I never take the time to sort away after I use it.  Here is what it looks like right now - I haven't touched anything before taking the picture

You see the wooden boxes, there is where I keep my mists, they shouldn't be in front of the box, but since I also work on multiple projects at once I also need places to store the projects while drying or working on them.  I want them close by.   So what I found out years ago was that I was to messy to spray with my mists - then all my papers, decos and stuff I had lying around would also be covered in mist, so I had to come up with another solution.  I started doing this kind of scrapbooking.  (blogged at Shimelle) where my focus where distress inks together with stencils and stamping and just drops of mist.  Then a while back the watercolor trend started and I really wanted to try it, but all I had were mists to work with, after a while I also added watercolor, wateracrylic and  peerless watercolor sheets always using a waterbrush on the paper prepped with clear gesso.  You can read more here in another article I have written about different background styles.    All this makes me play with lots of colors with very little mess, since just drop the mist on the cardstock and brush it out. Of course accidents happen and I drop half a bottle of mist over a page, but I have lots of babywipes and papers available to wipe the brushes and the cardstock of excessive color.  Because its not all about adding color, it's also about removing color to get the right blend.

Here are some recent backgrounds I shared on Instagram and Facebook.

I have only published one of these as finished layouts - top to the right.

Over to what I want with my layouts. I am no traditional scrapper, but I actually started up as one... Looong before PL I started scrapbooking doing colorblocking and I had these templates to cut after. Here are one of my rare old projects - 10 years old....



I am scrapbooking just for me, if the kids doesn't want my pages later - so fine, this is me having a hobby and enjoying some alone time being a little creative.  I haven't even put half my layouts in album. The kids love to look  through the albums, but I know that so much will not fit there later. I might rephotograph lots of layouts and make a book with the layouts instead - someday.  I also have plans to make digital books with the vacation photos which I have no intention on scrapping in my style. Even PL takes too long.

I started scrapbooking in 2002 because I wanted another way to put all my traveling photos in albums.  We lived in Livermore, California for 6 months back in the fall of 2001 and we went on small trips here and there. I found lots of inspiration online, 2peas and other galleries and downloaded tons of inspiration, but I enjoyed shopping and looking at what others did more than doing myself, so most of what I made these years where presents.  I just wasn't really enjoying it before I started going to crops and seeing live what others where doing and learning a little more. In 2008/2009 I started buying mists and as mentioned - I soon realized that I couldn't spray at home...(too messy) But I really wanted to use the mists and after a while figuring out my style I felt that I finally found a style that I felt was ME and that I could master.

I decided to go kind of clean and simple, layers with just touches of color.  This layout I made winter 2012.

I was happy for a while, but then I felt that I was doing like everyone else who did the white cardstock style and I wanted to be at least a little different. So I started working with stencils and distress ink. I also started to crop my pictures in 16x9 ratio a lot.

This was a layout that I made for a tutorial at Shimelle (layout higher up)   The layering hasn't changed - just the background work. And then  I started doing watercolor style - not really watercolors all the time - mostly mists and water. From the summer of 2013.

And this is the last one that I have published with the style - a year later.

So back to my thoughts on the style. What do I WANT with it.

1) I LOVE working with colors, but still don't want to go messy - hence hardly any paint or spraying.

2) I need white space (You guessed right if you thought all my walls at home are white) so I feel that my photo can stand out and not get mixed in with all decorations.

3) I prefer "clean" colors. I prefer to use fresh and clean colors on my projects. However I don't go TOO bright - for example I don't use manfacturers like Bella Blvd.  I more go for a little subtle but clean colors.  You might not say that Crate Paper (one of my favorite) are that clean, but that is where my use for background colors make up for it.

4) Contrast and the use of black. I almost always use black/dark grey in my projects. I want to create contrasts and black ink in any form is great for that.  If you are more interested in how to go even darker - go see Georgia Heald - she is the master of that.

5) The main scrap style in the Nordic countries is the distressed style - hence the manufacturers Pion Design, Maia Design, Inkido, Papirdesign. I can go there occasionally, but not in the long run. I don't have a single shabby chic item in my house - the same desire to have clean colors goes there. I go more modern white - more glossy than shabby.

6) My use of pictures. I want to capture my kids expressions, emotions and faces as they grow up. hence my one-page, one-photo layouts, but I do also make series - like the layout above.  I really wish I was a better photographer and that my kids were more interested in being photographed, they often run away when they see me with the camera...  I hate scrapbooking bad photos and I sometimes find it sad that other scrapbookers who make amazing pages- lots of decorations and lovely use of everything  and then the photo is really bad- usually poorly cropped and underexposed/overexposed.   I use a mix of Photoshop and Photoscape to edit my photos. I edit them, I crop them and I very often tilt the photos, I don't want a straight shot and I put the person a little to one side.    Here is an example of photos I like to scrapbook.

7) I work in different steps. I mostly love to make backgrounds and I can make several of them at the same time - and I often don't know what to do with them afterwards- I have no specific plan, but I usually find one later - sometimes months later.    After I make the background I do the layering and I staple the layers either together or straight on the background.  I work from the middle when I do my backgrounds, but I don't care that I might cover most of the background with papers - it happens.  I work from the inside because I want white space,  I don't HAVE to use patterned paper when I add the photo - I just prefer, but had I made a "hole" for where the photo would be - I would have to add more papers.

8) I don't measure ANYTHING. In 90% of the cases i ONLY use my scissors when cutting out the patterned paper or photo.  My whole idea is that papercrafting is not about perfection, is about having fun and enjoying the process.  Now you might have guessed that I am no control freak. I am really really very far from it...

9) I don't like to spend too much time on a page, so my pages are still kind of simple, if you don't count the drying time, my layering and adding decorations could take 30 minutes. (but usually longer as I surf, watch a video, chat with someone at the same time) What takes longer is finding out what products to use, but that I do BEFORE starting a project. If you noticed on the first picture on the top I have three projects in different stages. I often make kits after I made a background. I also very often like to use just one collection/Manufacturer on my project. That's  because I don't want to spend hours going through my messy endless supply of things. And it's because I have some hope of being picked up by a manufacturer again. ( So if you are a nice manufacturer reading this and have seen that I like your products, please email me ;) ;).  It's nice to be able to get everything from a collection. Here in Norway I can only get some of the papers from a collection I want - the rest I have to order from the US and with the shipping costs and the fact that all imported goods over 200 kr is subject to toll and tax forces me to order less than what I really want.

10) I want new things often - I get bored of what I have, still I have a few favorite things that I keep using for many years though.

11) Because of the need to order from abroad and the costs of it I am not as "trendy" as I would have wanted. I don't follow or try out so many trends, I do some, but I feel that I have to do my thing instead of hopping on an expensive trend. Hence no letterpress, gelliprint, cameo etc  (although I got a Silhouette in 2008- but it's not playing nicely with me)

12) I often start with the background with no idea which pictures to use. The choice of pictures often also come AFTER I have picked the collections I want to work with...  I rarely do the opposite.

13) My style is something that I do on all things. It's not just a layout thing. I do the same on cards and mini albums too. Kind of the reason why I haven't done much PL yet (have my first spread in the upcoming Inzpira magazine - The Second-Sixth I made a GD for Project Life i Norge August 2014) There I defined why I do PL the way I do it.  This is bookcover that I did last summer

Here is a card (the mist might not be showing so well)

Where to I find inspiration. I use Feedly and look at a lot of blogs and I use Pinterest. I am mostly inspired by other European scrappers for the backgrounds, but I have to look to the US to get the color palette in papers and scrapstyle that I want, so I am pretty mixed. 

This article didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, the purpose was trying to show more of my creative process, but I guess I have to just clean my space and make a creative process movie (you will not hear my voice... I might not require perfection in my scrap pages, but I hate my accent when I speak English, it's too Norwegian...) 

So stay tuned for a creative video during the summer.

Updated June 13th - here you can see my first video