When I left for work this morning it was hardly daylight and almost at freezing point. By the time dinner was done with the sun was almost gone. It has been a great summer. Stacy Julian got me going all summer long with her Have more FUN class. It was challenging for a few days there…seeing the FUN in all this. Still working on that one, but I did enjoy the whole thing. July was great with the four very talented girls challenging our creativity. I loved Stacy’s photo album scrapbooking in August. I will be making a lot of those. And I never thought I would finish my 30 days Hath September album…but, I did.

Welcome October...

Most of all I enjoyed Tena’s 52 card pick up class. I had never learned anything about techniques before, so to be given 52 lessons in a row by this talented girl was fantastic. It was so fun to make these 5×7 cards and the deck look so great hanging right there by my desk. I will do this all over the next time Tena teaches this class.

The last card to the deck...

I also had the pleasure of joining Ashley Wren’s class at Scrap in style TV. That was fun. She is the most amazing girl. If I ever need ideas for scrapbooking I just go to the files of her class. She gives you a prompt….followed with 20 ideas of how to approach this…which gives me 20 new ideas…

Obsessed. Inspired by Ashley Wren.

Between all this “paperwork” we had a wedding in the family, the most important event this summer. Jan and Linda was the most beautiful couple and we had some really good days with family and friends. And I am so happy about the “honeymoon” baby arriving in May. Three babies in six years ….that make us feel blessed.

And the kissing just would not stop....

And finally at the end of the summer comes our two weeks at Viva Bahia, just totally relaxing and gathering strength for a long winter to come. I have to admit that I did spend some time on the computer looking up what was going on in my Have more FUN class, and I was seeing Stacy’s FUN colours all over the place.

Have more FUN at Mallorca...

It is 12 weeks before Christmas, and we just finished our class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I had to celebrate that making a layout about this summer. Since I seem to be obsessed with Squares these days it turned out like this;

Intentional Play......Productivity.....Present-moment awerness....

At the end of this summer I have some thoughts about what I want to do with my time in the months to come. But right now it is all about Cathy’s Design Your Life, starting tomorrow. I do have a few other projects coming up also…..

I just want to say thank you all for a great summer.

…I spent the whole day at work. I needed this time to get ready to go back. Three weeks is a long time for me to be off work. I have never had five weeks of vacation in one year before, but it will not be the last time. I have enjoyed my time off.

And I have been productiv. At least I finished my deck of cards. I am proud of this. 52 cards with tecniques I never done before. That is something….and I finished….at least I am if I can find the last three cards I made before going on vacation. They are here somewhere.

My deck of cards…, originally uploaded by elinjanne.

I have made several albums using Stacy Julian’s method of Photo Album Scarapbooking. That has been so fun. I might not do ordinary scrapbooking ever again.  Still have some work to do on the last album – the vacation album.

I  do the 30 days Hath September project with the same album and I having fun doing my daily pages. It is so much easier without worrying where to put everything. I will show some example later.

The Brady bunch goes camping....

I have no idea why anyone would put up a tent in September, but the kids had fun.

I have to admit that I wasn`t so sure about this doll when we found her sitting on a shelf. Oh please…I loved the doll…..but she was so big…

She really wanted to go with us to Norway....

I was sure that she was too big for Elin.  In the end we did buy her, and I was so wrong about her being too big. If I had known that Kristian also loved the doll we would have gotten him the dolls brother…..
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A happy mother and a worried daddy.., originally uploaded by elinjanne.

I have almost completed all my cards for my class; 52 card pick up. Just two cards and tomorrows card left and we are done. I am almost sorry for this class to end. I will definitely join Tena if she does this again next year, and it seems like she will. I did not put so much effort in this last 12 cards, because it was more important to me to finish with my class. I am not good at doing things “later”.  If I had to pick one thing to do next year, I would pick this class.

The first week is behind us, and we have started the count down for everything coming to an end. The first week is always long and the second one just seems to disaper. I really tried to spend the whole day at the beach yesterday, but I had to give up after lunch.  Today seems to be another day with blue sky and no clouds…and it seems to be a very warm day…That is good, I like it hot…

I have been using a few minutes looking into the net shops, because I have some shopping to do when I come home. I have to admit that it was strange to see that the Christmas designs were in…already. That is early…we are still in August….and I never buy Christmas paper.

I have not decided how to spend the day yet. I don’t plan to spend the whole day at the beach. Maybe walking along the beach will be less boring. I still have one book left to read. I did plan to read Stieg Larssons third book, but I don’t think Kjellaug will finish it before going home. It does not matter, I also brought Jo Nesboe’s:The Snowman.

teknikk 33, originally uploaded by elinjanne.

Here we cut things out of magazines, newspapers and what ever. I like doing this and I have been using this when making art journals.

That’s what happens when you go to bed way to early Saturday evening…you wake up with the birds. It is 7.30 am and I am willing to bet that I am the only one awake . Not even the birds are singing. It is me…and the guy in the reception. That is okay…he is cute…

I did count the raindrops yesterday – and I came to the number: 100. No exiting thunder or lightning. Quite boring. I love it when the thunder rolls over the icland. But we did have a rather grey day, mostly spent with the camera. The weather was perfect for taking photos.

This Sunday seems to be perfect. The sky is blue and it is no clouds to be seen. A whole day at the beach…. I am really sorry I could not spend time at The Big Wig Crop at Big Picture Scrapbooking this weekend. I have been sneaking around a little but have not been able to download anything. I am crossing my fingers that this stuff is still up when I come home.

Now…it’s finally breakfast time. I love the breakfast buffet on this hotel. I can spend a long time in there. And my cloths are getting tighter and tighter. The hotel staff has worked hard in the kitchen since our last visit, the buffet is better than ever… a lot better.

teknikk 32, originally uploaded by elinjanne.

This card was made with different layers of acrylic paint.

We have been told by the weather service that today will be a cloudy and rainy day, so we are prepared for just that. We have the book to read and a plan for shopping chocolate cakes. I love the rainy days here at the hotel in Majorca. It brings a lot of thunder and lightning and the rain can be pouring down. We got the camera ready so we can try to catch the lightning.

Yesterday I was walking through all the hotels on the strip looking for cool water fontains to photograph. When you are looking for them they are not so easy to find.  But, I did find them, and the pools with fish and waterlillies. I like those.

On todays card I used a sharp objeckt to write on wet acrylic paint. Easy and fun.

teknikk 31, originally uploaded by elinjanne.

For me to finish in time with the rest of my class: I have to make 15 of this cards in one day when I come home from my holiday. If I don’t finish in time I don’t think I ever will so I have every intention to catch up in one day.

….with no clouds in sight.

…and it looks like I cleaned out every trace of inspiration. The only thing that got me moving today was making Tena`s card.

Dryembossing was not fun, but I did it anyway...

It seems like the summer is turning into fall, and that is okay. I feel mentally prepared for a long nice fall season. That is the best time of the year.

…

I have spent the last hour listening to Stacy Julian’s presentation for the august part of the”have more fun” class. I never took time to go through it all earlier. She says to let go of the expectations, and to stop and ask your self if you really want to scrapbook all this photos. Honestly, I never thought I could. It was a good idea when baby Elin was born, because there weren’t that many photos. And I never “scrapbooked” the photos, I just put them in albums and did some journaling. I made the whole album with 50 pages in an evening. I can not believe that there a people out there who thinks that it is possible to scrapbook the thousands of photos that goes in to the computer during a short period of time.

The big question is; what to do with the big chunks of photos. Stacy showed some cools things to do. I have been looking around for these albums with no luck. It seems to me that to scrapbook ordinary one page album is not a big thing in Norway. Unfortunately we don’t have Target, Wall marts or whatever….

So…this fact means that this part of the class is not so exiting for me. I would love to follow Stacy’s directions, but I just have to tag along and work with what I have at hand. That is okay. The idea works fine with whatever album I am using.

Tonight I have been playing with my paint. I put all this work into something that just did not turn out that great. It might just go into the paper bin. That is okay, it happen sometime. At least I made my card. And here comes one more honest moment. Tena`s technique class is a lot more fun. I you feel like learning something new you should take her 52 card pick up – class. You really get a lot more than you are paying for.

Writing with glaze pen directly on the photo.

…and I can start counting down for my vacation. I have decided that I am going to issue a statement to the young ones in the family; No babies or weddings in 2009. Why bother…they never listen anyway…and the babies are always welcome. This Saturday I am working the late shift – the first one in a long time. That again means that I have been spending time scrapbooking until now.

I did join Ashley Wren`s design school. She is giving me so many ideas for scrapbooking themes, that I had to get a notebook for my own ideas. I have to get them down on paper before I forget. I am getting older and forgets the most important things. We are not allowed to show our work in public before the class is over, so for now I will just show you my notebook.

My notebook for Ashley Wren`s design school.

I also have a new card to show.

Card nr. 24- using paint and trancparency.

The card was fun to make. This weekend I have some more card to make, if I can get my self to focus on something else then Ashley`s prompts. Ok, I better get ready for work.