Tuesday 24 September 2013

September's Members' Blog Hop

Welcome to the start of September's Members' Blog Hop from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.  The main challenge this month was to dust off a U.F.O. (Un-Finished Object) and get creative with it.

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers Cover

Each year I go away with UKS friends for a weekend of scrapping.  It's a no frills budget retreat with lots of scrapping room, great company and a few classes and challenges provided by some creative souls.  Last year my friend Claire showed us how to make a mini-book based on two tri-fold cards and I got as far as preparing the cardstock base.  In less than three weeks I'll be joining my friends again and I thought I had better complete my mini-book before this year's challenges are revealed!

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers just opened

The photos are from a lovely day out at Conkers in the National Forest ... from 2007 (when No.2 Son had longer hair and shorter legs than I did).

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers fully opened

By pure fluke, the bright cheery colours in my September Counterfeit kit were a perfect match for the bright green cardstock that I'd folded and scored to make the mini-book pages last October.

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers opened and upright

There were far too many photos for just one side of the mini-book though ... so I flipped it and covered most of the reverse as well.

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers rear view

The front flap closes with a mini magnet, rather than the ribbon Claire used in her instructions.  Unfortunately she doesn't have a blog, so I cannot credit her properly, but there are plenty of tutorials out there for tri-fold cards - just join two together and get folding!  Here is a link with a template for the tri-fold card if you fancy a go.

Jimjams - tri-fold mini-book - Conkers fully opened and upright

The next stop on the forgery trail is Lesley, but if you get lost along the way, the full blog hop order is published on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog today.  Have fun!

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Holiday Scavenging - The Swedish Grand Finale

As promised, part two of my attempt to complete Rinda's Summer 2013 Scavenger Hunt whilst on holiday in Scandinavia.  This summer I was attending a reunion with friends and colleagues from my first job abroad in Västerås, Sweden.  To make it more interesting for Hubby we combined it with a road trip from Copenhagen (see my earlier post) to Stockholm for our first holiday without children for many a year.  We travelled from Denmark to Sweden across the Øresund Bridge by bus (only 50SEK each) and grabbed an Earthcache before collecting our hire car in Malmö and driving northwest across Sweden.  Along the way we spotted a traditional windmill ... and a modern one:

Jimjams - Scavenger Hunt 2013 #16 - Windmill
#16 - A Windmill
We stopped overnight in Jönköping.  Why there?  Because I remembered it from geography lessons when I was about 13/14: we learnt that this was the centre of the matchstick universe!  The matchstick museum there was absolutely brilliant - with a lovely mosaic pattern outside and fascinating machines, artefacts and art pieces inside:

#14 - A Mosaic
On the way there we spotted some doubtful advertising :-)

#7 - A Funny Sign
All too soon it was time to drive on towards my old stomping ground.  I took Hubby to Anundshög, an ancient site just outside Västerås where we admired some ancient stone ships and spotted a seahorse:

#12 - A Cloud In The Shape Of ...
Västerås hadn't altered too much in the last thirty years: yes, there were new office blocks, larger suburbs and the names on some of the shops had changed, but much of the centre was just the same, including the Town Hall:

#2 - Västerås Town Hall
I have no recollection of the theatre standing opposite, but then I was rather more interested in films than plays in my twenties.

#2 - A Theatre
The next day saw a visit to the local Open Air Museum at Välby (completely FREE!) to give Hubby a taste of Swedish historical buildings.  They had plenty of fences:

#13 - A Fence... and another one
After a very enjoyable morning, admiring the gardens, buildings, furniture and tools along with interesting explanations from the costumed guides, we set of for the reunion itself.  Our accommodation could easily have been on display at Välby - we stayed in loft bedrooms above a museum room and the communal kitchen was an old soldier's house - with little benches by the front door:
#10 - An Outside Bench
The reunion took place at Sandvik Music Festival, right on Lockvattnet lake where we saw some glorious sunsets and an amazing thunderstorm:

#5 - A Sunset
The festival bar was very relaxed:

#18 - Our "Local" Bar
And we didn't feel too old and out of place amongst the younger music lovers:


Though some of us couldn't take the late nights and early alcohol:

#6 - A Napper
After a happy weekend in good company we headed off for a couple of days in Stockholm to round off the trip.  Skansen scored us loads of animals (and more historical architecture) but the highlight amongst elks, reindeer, and brown bears were the baby lynxes (lynx?) playing on the rocks of their enclosure:

#11 - An Animal In A Zoo
Sergel's Torget was inaccesible due to roadworks and renovations (a shame as this iconic attraction is beautifully illuminated at night) but a nearby statue was well protected :-)

Jimjams - #8 Tower
#8 - A Tower#9 - Something Out Of Place
The Stockholm metro yielded more mosaics and other decorations:

#14 - Another Mosaic
Despite travelling through two capital ports, across a sea bridge and past dozens of lakes, the ONE item I had yet to find was a fisherman.  Then I spotted this and just about gave up:

NOT A Fisherman In Sight :-(
So it was back to the airport to spot a final plane:

#4 - An Aeroplane
Killing time in the airport shops, I was overjoyed to complete my hunt with an appropriate:

#19 - A FLY Fisherman
Many thanks to Rinda for adding some extra fun to our Scandinavian adventures with the Summer 2013 Scavenger Hunt.  Now to complete my English hunt before September 21st!

Sunday 1 September 2013

Twist and Shake

Jimjams - Kit detail - journalling cards, tickets and sequins
Hello and welcome to another month of kit counterfeiting with the Counterfeit kit Challenge Blog.  This month we are saying "Bienvenue!" to Isbaha as our guest designer.
The kit(s)-to-copy are Citrus Twist's July kit(s) and if you hopped here via Dawn you will already have seen some great counterfeiting.  I'm still trying to keep my kits very small so I just chose one: the "Adventure" Pocket Life Kit, not that I do "Project Life" but I do like pages made with smaller scraps and journalling cards.  So I'll pull full sheets of cardstock for my page bases and shake some sequins about to give you my twist on the original:

Citrus Twist - Adventure - July 2013 Pocket Life Kit

... which looks like this:

Jimjams - Counterfeit Kit - September 2013

Supplies:
Sei Black Orchid Puff Element Stickers
MME Lime Twist Fly A Kite 6x6 Pad
Square sequins in warm and cool shades
Small paper doilies to colour as required
Polka dot washi in green & white and black & white
Lime & Orange tickets
Sei Black Orchid Puff Aplhabet Stickers (though I'm not sure how many words I can make from the letters that are left!)
Patterned scraps cut into rectangles with rounded corners
Tags & journalling spots from my stash, including Studio Calico Documentary Collection and K&Co Smash
Not shown: Sizzix Tab Die, MM black rub-ons to supplement the Sei alphas

Well, that's your lot from me today, so please hop over to Julene to see what she's shaken out of her supplies to put a twist on the kits to copy!