I love to read, always have. I find it amazing that you can open a book and find our self in another country, in another time or in another world. The magic of books.

I think reading, is very personal and also what your read. For my it sometimes is a struggle and I have to make myself pick up the book to read, if only a page. Sometime, like today, I have to make myself put it away so I can get stuff done. The book in of itself also plays a big part, is it interesting, well written/ translated and does it capture you. 

I have read many books and keep finding more to add to my reading list. Now it's the annual book sale in Sweden and I just can't control myself! 

I have a few favorit topics that I love to read, like history, both fact and books taking place in another time. I also like to read novells. like Preservation and Pride & Prejudice.  I like to read in both Swedish and English and I think it's about 50/50.

 I've hade the idea of this page for a long time and the other day, when I was playing, it just started to appear on the page. I painted the color blocks on the bottom and then started to stamp and write. The "books" has titles, authors and just subjects that I like to read right now. As you can see I really like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Kerry Greenwood's Miss Fisher

 I wanted to keep the page fairly simple, just embellish around the photo. Letting the photo "explode", trying to visually show how it feels when getting into a book.

 Fun colors, gold and glitter. My beloved books are now documented in my album.

Love Julia

What gets you inspired when designing you pages? Is it products, techniques, colors, photos or is it different things at different times? For me, I get inspired by everything and anything.  

For this layout I wanted to use this photo, that isn´t that great, for two reasons: 1 It´s an everyday type of thing that I just think would be fun to look back on. 2, the soft blue/purple-ish color. 

I had picked papers in that color family and wanted them on the right side, leaving allot of white space in the left, to emphasis the light in the photo. 

 Like so many things that ends up on my layout, this flower was found on my desk in this frame... I loved how it looked and now it´s an embellishment for this page. 

I really like gold on pages like this, when the color I have is rather cold and with strong black contrast, the gold gives it that warmth to the page.

 The photo has good contrast, the really bright light, the dark shadow and the collar. This is what I wanted to bring out to the page and still have that soft color.

 There are so many ways to make a design for you photo and story but this is one I use often. To really look at the photo and try to pull the feeling out to the page. And what I really like about it is that that photo will now be remembered, even though it´s not striking or amazing. 

 When in doubt, add black. This really adds contrast and makes the light lighter and colors will pop.

Now I challenge you to take a photo, look at it and try to make a layou where it feels like the photo comes out to the page!

Love Julia

Do you read allot of scrapbook blogs? I don´t, I have a few favorites (and lots of you-tube ones) this I check a few times a week and always feel inspired! On of those blogs are Maggie Holmes blog and the other day Kim posted this layout:

I love this page, the design, the colors and the "messy-ness" of it. I just had to scrapbook after seeing this one and jumped in to my scrap-tin.

I picked my scraps and placed them in some sort of color order, cold to warm but without thinking to much of it. Blue to yellow to pink, but I wanted to yellow to be a bit more. The title and flowers are Maggie Holmes "Open Book" and work so well whit the other yellows on the page.

But my favorite part of this is the stitching, I love the subtle effect it gives and the it sort of pushes all of the patterns a step back. It took time, I won´t lie, but it was so worth it! 

After I had stopped filming I felt that the background needed something more. (this is the danger whit leaving your layouts on your desk, they will never be "just right") Anyway, I decided to add some watercolor-look by the "packaging-technique" and distress ink in "pumic stone" and some teal spray. 

In the end I love how it turned out and will definitely to this technique again so thank you Kim!!

Love Julia

I´m loving pillaging my stash, not constantly thinking I wanting to save this or that. Paper pad-cover, sticker bakers and scraps are flying n to my trashcan! As am uploading this video I´m putting together a kit of B&W and mint!! So fun! But that is not done so let´s check out this B&W layout whit blues...

Here I stated whit a collage I made here of our dogs that goes running like crazy... I made it B&W and wanted most of the papers to be that to and then add a another color in the embellishments.

 The color I picked was a blue and then in different shades. (and gold) (because I can´t control myself) As you might see allot of the die-cuts (all) are from Maggie Holmes "Open Book" . Two of the papers are from that same collection, the bold strip and the glasses. The chalkboard and polka-dot are from Dear Lizzy "Polka dot party"

 The tile was my big thing here. I changed it and then again. This puffy stickers are from Heidi Swapp in navy and I think they have a very fun color but it just didn´t work. So at first I darkened them whit a grey ink pad but didn´t like it. At last I just took white acrylic ink and painted the top of them. The title is not as bold as I would have wanted it but I love the blue sides.

Can we just take a moment to check out how funny Wiola is looking! She is coming here on the left side and I have never seen here look so... unattractive...

Love Julia

Hello!

Don´t you just hate when you have done a really fun layout and messing up with the late thing; the damned Ink drops!

It´s been a bit of a drought here when it comes to creative work so yesterday I really wanted to just do a fun layout! Yellow paint and PL cards from the Open Book core kit (I think by now everyone knows just how much I love that collection!) Everything went great and I love how fun it was and working with so bright yellow! Then came that point where I needed that extra black to bump up the contrast, and what do I do? messing it up!! Trying to blow on it, making it worse...

But in the world of scrapbooking the mess has to be really bad for you not being able to save the layout... So I knew I wanted something to cover it up, whiteout looking heavy and had to be black. 

So I tried again with the treacherous ink, making flowers and leafs. If you look close you can still see the ink drops, by not covering it all up I didn´t loose that lightness but it looks more like I knew what I was doing... sort of. No, I really like how it ended and now I don´t just love it for the fact that I made an awesome layout with yellow, but I saved it! 

Now go and save some layouts!

Love Julia

Hello!
I have started a new project, an album about my pretty pony. He was an amazing pony and we where together for half of my life! So now I feel that I want to have an album just for him, about him. He is a big part of my previously albums but in this one I don´t want to focus on when or where. I want the story not how many procent we got on a competition. My plan is to take photo and use them as promts for telling our story.

The first layout I made is titled: Missing you

The story here is that after all of this years I still dream about him, and I wanted a page about that. That I´m still missing him. So I really wanted a dream like layout with soft colors and a hint of magic. Looking at it now; I´m so happy.

 The elements I used I picked for there color and feel to go with my dreamy thought. The thickers from Dear Lizzy are just perfect with that sugared finish and the soft colors of the Kiss Kiss chipboard works a charm.

 I added my journaling to a tag from the same paper-line though I wanted to keep the focus on that middle part and the kraft didn´t wokr as a background for the journaling.

 The last thing I added was this tiny words from Tim Holtz. "you are home" This means that the kraft gets picked up, it creates an interest and not to mention very meaningful to me. 

Love Julia

Hello!

I have been complaining allot on my camera not behaving so today I was surprised the he acted well, on the other hand my printer did not...

For this week I wanted the page protector I used last week, but sens I used it last week I didn´t have it. So I took another from Simple Stories that had 3 4*6 and 1 6*12. I just saw, not that straight with my machine. 

 Best title card ever! If I may say so. I did some water colors earlier and loved this card. This has been me the week and I even draw in my new flower lights the 4*6 is also a watercolor card from today. To finish it I added some gold thickers and a date stamp.

 Here I took anther watercolor card, taped it to a 4*6 and then printed this small collage from the Project Life App. I really like doing my journaling in the app and on this I used a card from the Midnight kit.

 In the 2*12 pocket I put a paper from the Open Book (!) and then 4 2*2 photos with tiny word stickers from Tim Holtz. If you didn´t want that 2*12 pocket it´s super easy to just cut it of.

 Here you can really see the bad mood my printer was in and I just gave up. I´ll try to print again later but now I´m just o sick of it, it´s just supposes to work!

Hello!

I hope you all have had a great weekend, I sure did so now I need some bed rest ;) So while I rest (and planing my project life) you can see the process for this layout; Document.

Yes it´s the open book stuff! The more I use it the more I love it, and the less I have... So for this layout I only used 1 full 12*12 sheet and the rest is scraps. 

 The only real embellishments on this page are the flowers, made from scraps. Want to know how? Here are the blog post

 A tried and true technique for me is stenciling and then water color over. I use the cheapest color i can find for two reasons, 1 its cheap. 2 the pigments are different so you get that chalk texture. 

Love Julia

Hello! It´s week 14 and I had a bit of a crazy moment... I filmed it and called it Project Life Week 14. Why is that crazy? Well I just had to use the open Book and went a bit over board!

 I did my journaling in the PL app and I really like it, especially sens I had quit a lot for this week.

 Making the pockets work for you can be hard, here I had a 4*6 and just be cutting it in half I cold use it in the design I. I now get to keep the photo, more space around it (good when I have such a active page) and more space for journaling.

Well lucky it´s Easter so if there ever was a time to go all out with color I suppose it now.

Love Julia

Hello! Toady the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I´ve just got in from a walk with miss Wiola and thought it would be suitable to share this layout with you all!

The photo is from a few weeks ago before we left for our skiing trip and left the dogs with my sister. She looks so sad in this photo, like she knows we are about to leave her, so I wanted to do a layout about that and that I will never be able to say goodbye to her.

I really like the colors of the papers to the black & white photo and the watercolors in the background.

 All of the papers where stitched in to place with my sewing-machine and I just went around this flag  for extra detail.

 Just a single flower to tie in the colors and patterns in the layout and 2 gold-glitter hearts to finish it off. I wanted to use a chipboard frame but non seamed to fit so i took a smaller on and put it of the photo to frame the journaling in stead. I think we forget to see frames as embellishments, they can be used in so many different ways. 

Love Julia

Hello!

Here is a layout with my favorite collection, Open Book, of my favorite cat, Svea.

Lets jump right to it. This layout is made with the Crate Paper Maggie Holmes -Open Book and if you have seen some of my videos or read some  of my posts you might have noticed that I have a thing for this collection. And I on this page wanted to go with do a panel of different paper in light color.

 The photo is dark, well Svea is black so, and I have it in a frame from that same collection. Around the frame I used similar flowers to create this free feeling

 Sens the photo is so dark and the paper so light I wanted to some more black to bring up the contrast. So I took a no-perfect brush and made journaling spots.

 The patterned paper is put down with my sewing-machine, I love that tiny added texture and then just distressed the edges.

 Flower from the Open Book and the fabric is from Prima as are the bling. And I have to say I love how this cluster turned out with the colors and textures. 

Love Julia

Hello!

I love living in the depth of the Swedish forst don´t get me wrong but living here is so not good for my YouTube channel! But after 3 days the week 11 is up!

Design G is my favorite and this is my last one, and my usual store are out of stock! Well well, here it is :)

Love Julia