The story of choosing to focus on happy things

This autumn has been a bit tough for me. There has been things that hasn't been working out as planned and I've been sad about it. Still I find myself to be a positive person and maybe because of that I wanted to make a list of the things I'm really happy about right now.

I'm happy about

• that Gilmore Girls are on Netflix. I just love that show and I can watch it over and over again.
• my job. I love the new challenges my new job has brought me.
• that my mom liked the mixed media canvas I gave her for birthday present.
• friends and family. I have a great bunch of lovely people near me that I can count on happy and tough times.
• that my husband is a great cook and he makes me yummy food every day.
• all the new friends that I have made through this hobby. 
• that I can start planning Christmas stuff. I love to give presents and I hope I can find the perfect gifts this year for everyone. Gladly I have already some great ideas!
• the happy mail I got some time ago. I can't wait to share it with you!
• that I can start to think what I could wish for Christmas. I can say that I have a lot of scrapbooking stuff that I would like to have as I haven't really bought anything since last May!

Attitude counts. You can choose how you want to feel. I choose happy.

Materials: Gossamer Blue's October main kit

The story of the week of celebration

My husband took this photo of my cousin on her confirmation day. She looked so pretty!

That day actually started a week of celebration: a confirmation day, a funeral and a wedding all in the same week (but clearly the key person wasn't the same!). That was a lot of celebrations between Sunday and Friday. I actually joked that it was too much as I was admitted to hospital right after that week for gallbladder surgery (not related of course, but I find it funny) :)

I decided to play along with Scrap365 sketch challenge. Here's the sketch that I used.

Materials: Gossamer Blue's October main kit

The story of road trip in Mexico

I'm not happy with how this layout turned out, but it still tells a story that I want to tell you.

Last spring me and my husband were on vacation in Mexico. Mainly it was a beach holiday but of course we wanted to see some sights too. We decided to go and see the Chichen Itza archaeological site. We always want to do things by ourselves so we rented a car. Based on the stories we read from the interner we knew that driving in Mexico might not be so easy and we must be careful. We read that the local police is very eager to give tickets to tourist so it was very important not to speed at all.

Easier said than done. Of course the locals didn't care about the speed limits. We cared, but it was so hard to really know what the speed limit was as it seemed to change after every mile (at least it felt like that). It was the most stresfull drive of our lives, but we managed and the drive back felt a lot easier.

This layout was created for this week's CSI challenge.

Evidence: stripes, polka dots, pockets
Testimony: Put your journaling in a pocket.

Materials: American crafts, Studio Calico, Pink Paislee, Crate Paper, We R Memorykeepers, Sakura

The story of minibook tips and tricks

I think I haven't shared minibooks here on my blog before. I think this is the fourth minibook that I have ever made. This minibook was supposed to be published in the Paperilla magazine. This is a graduation minibook. My cousin graduated from high school last spring and me and my husband took these graduation photos of her. I wanted to gather the best photos into a minibook.

This minibook was so easy to make! The pages are paint sample cards that I just sewed together.  While making this minibook I tried to think of my best tips and tricks to a person who is making one's first minibook. 

I think a minibook is a combination of repetition and variety. For example, in this minibook all the photos are placed similarly and are of same size. This makes the minibook look cohesive. Another repetitive element here is the word sticker on every page. On the other hand, you want to change some elements on the pages so that they don't all look the same. That's why I have changed the placement of the word stickers and other embellishments from page to page. 

Materials: Crate Paper, American Crafts, My Mind's Eye, Tikkurila

The story of scrapping with friends

About a month ago, me and few scrappy friends (Riikka, Taru and Terhi) spent a day together scrapping. I can't even say how much I enjoyed it! Spending time with friends that share the same passion was so special.  I'm glad that we will meet again tomorrow!

Before that day, I was thinking that I probably can't finish a single layout as I have always scrapped alone and I thought I would just spend the day watching what the others are doing. Well, it didn't turn out that way. I made six layouts! This might be silly, but this layouts tells about how I made six layouts in a day. So scrapbooking layout about scrapbooking layouts. But the memory was captured!

This layout was created for this week's CSI challenge.

Evidence: polka dots, stripes, tickets, phrase stickers
Testimony: Journal something about your creativity

Materials: American Crafts, Pink Paislee, Heidi Swapp, Sakura

The story of the cool dude

I love to watch my and my husbands childhood pictures. For our wedding we made a little video of them. This is one of my favorite pictures of my husband as a child. Doesn't he look cool with those sunglasses?

This layout was published in Paperilla Magazine in May. Sadly that was the last number of that magazine, but you can still see amazing projects on Paperilla's blog every week. This layout shows how you can use pattern papers in a creative way.

Materials: American Crafts

The story of dreaming + video

Okey, I have already told you that I love New York. But can I tell it once again? The picture on the layout is from Central Park.

Everytime we have been in New York it has been the first destination of our journey. Since our honeymoon, we have sort of gone overboard with our trips. It has to be multiple destination vacation and two weeks is absolutely the minimum travel time.

Right now I'm dreaming about travelling. Normally we always have a plan where and when to go next. No there's nothing. I have a new job and I'm not sure how the yearly routines go so I don't know what would be a good time to go (and as I would like to go away for a month, it's even trickier). I'm just waiting and hoping that we can travel soon!

And I'm dreaming of going to New York again. Maybe we could start our next trip from there once again.

This layout was done for Paperilla Magazine's blog. I created a moodboard first and then did this layout. Check the moodboard from here!

http://youtu.be/N9eDMDPvDKE

Materials: Heidi Swapp, American Crafts

The story of Ilmami

It's so funny when small kids are starting to learn how to speak and they are talking all the time. We have an almost two years old godson who is so chatty! He is so sweet.

I love how our godson says my husband's name. My husband's name is Viljami (the Finnish version of the name William) and that has been clearly a difficult name to say for a two-year-old. But he has found his own way to say it: Ilmami. Everytime we see him, he is so happy to see my husband and he is always announcing: "Ilmami came!". So sweet!

This layout was created for this week's CSI challenge. The design is inspired by the challenge sketch by Em Starface.

Evidence: stripes, frame, circles
Testimony: Handwrite your journaling directly on your layout

Materials: American Crafts, Pink Paislee, My Mind's Eye, Epiphany Crafts, Sakura, Ikea, Sodalicious

The story of picking berries

One of my favorite things in summer is to eat berries straight from the bush. I love strawberries, redcurrants and wild strawberries.

The problem is that with wheelchair, it's kind of hard picking the berries. So I'm always trying to convince my husband to do it for me. And he hates picking berries. But once in a while he does it and I can enjoy fresh berries <3

Materials: Gossamer Blue's September kit

The story of the strawberry birthday cake

Oh happy day! This CSI challenge (together with Scrap365) was perfect opportunity to document a dear childhood tradition. Every year, on my birthday my grandmother baked me a cake that was filled and topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. My birthday is in late June and it's the time of the year when we get the first local strawberries.

That picture was taken when I was two. After my grandmother passed away my mom has taken over the tradition and she still makes the cake for me every year.

Evidence: dots, flowers, layer elements, misting
Testimony: document a childhood memory

Materials: American Crafts, Chickaniddy Crafts, My Mind's Eye, We R Memorykeepers, Doodlebug, Sakura, Heidi Swapp

The story of middle school sweethearts

I hope this story isn't too cheesy for you. Me and my husband have been together since we were 15 years old. We aren't high school sweethearts, we are middle school sweethearts. It all started while we were on the same class. We were inseparable since day one. We were (and are) a perfect team. Twelve happy years, three of them married. He really is my best friend. He is the sweetest.

This layout was created for this week's CSI challenge.

Evidence: Plain white background, hearts, enamel dots
Testimony: inspiration word "team"

Materials: Pink Paislee, American Crafts, Glitz Design

The story of the perfect picture from New York

I love New York City. Period. We have been there three times and I can't wait to visit there again. There's something magical about that city.

Last May we were there for couple of days. I loved the spring there. Contrast between the big city and the nature was so cool. My husband took that photo when we were walking around the city. I think it captures perfectly the mood: a tree full of flowers in the middle of skyscrapers.

As the subway there isn't the most accessible (there's only some stations with elevators), we have walked so much there. But that's the perfect way to see the different sides of that city. On that day when that photo was taken, we walked along the shore line of Manhattan for almost 15 kilometres. It was such a beautiful day.

Materials: Gossamer Blue's September kit