The last light of the year, and a wish for the year to come

I haven't blogged much this year, but of cause I have to return with the traditional new year's eve post. I'll be the sixth year now that I do this photo post, the posts from the previous years can be found here.

Unfortunately, unlike during the first years of this tradition, the weather hasn't been on our side. We got frost on boxing day and then some light snow after that, but then it started thawing again and today it's just been grey, wet and foggy. Hopefully the pics won't be too dark and dull. Was aiming for for the serene and melancholic, though you might have to be a fellow november child to really enjoy these silent, fog veiled winter landscapes. (Even I prefer the fog and rain to end with november, though, so the winter months can be white. Frost white or snow white, either is fine, it just has to be white. You need something that lights up the short, dark days.)

One a positive note, though, the warm winter means you can get som fairytale/troll forest pics even after autumn. And it makes those pretty little snowberries more visible.

Last year, I ended the new year's post with a long wish, coloured by what happened in my life. Though aiming for a positive wish, in a way the darkness in the heart that wished it shone through. It reflected perhaps more the lack of direction in my life and the negativity in my mind than anything else. It was a wish for others in my situation and not perhaps for everyone. This year, I'll just cut out the most positive bit for you, in a slightly new version:

So my new year's wish for you is thus: May 2015 be a year filled with dreams that come true, happiness, adventures, courage and many new opportunities. May you wander along your path in life, your north star to follow, be it one you're already on or a new one that is just found. May you create and thrive and grow. 

Happy New Year!

Valentine card

 
Well, I'm still editing my photos, but in the meantime I wanted to take the opportunity to show the valentine's card I got for Michelle Mach's Valentine Challenge.

The challenge was to alter a plain embossed card any way we wanted. Like several of the participants I had no real experience in paper crafts, lacking both the skills and the materials and tool to make any kind of more professional looking card, but it was a challenge and I sometimes find it hard to say no to a challenge. Even if it is in a medium I'm no more than a newbie in.

This is what the card Michelle sent me looked like before I altered it. At first I just thought of it as being in landscape format and this is how I kept looking at it when planning and playing with different ideas. Then one day I turned it 90 degrees and realised it looked better in portrait format.

And this is what the card ended up looking like. I began by colouring the leaf pattern with watercolour pencils in spring green and light brown -- two colours I felt worked well with the cream white paper. I then wanted to add a quote and not having the time or resources to make a fancy stamping or image transfer I had to write it my hand. Lettering isn't my strong side, but what can you do?

The text means "Love [in order] to live. Live [in order] to love." I wanted something love related that was more philosophical than something addressed to a lover. More about love than about valentine.

As the card felt pretty bare, I thought of what material I had that could add to the design without overpowering the simplicity that I liked. My eyes fell on some pink tissue paper that I cut into flowers. Using the dull point of a brush shaft I pushed the flowers into a pin cushion to cup them. The remaing five flowers were shaped the same way, but using a pencil point so they became more ruffled, perfect for the centres.

So all in all not one of my best creations, but there are details I like (such as the flowers) and I probably shouldn't be too hard on myself considering that I'm a newbie in the art of card making after all.

If you want to see what the other participants made with their cards, please check out Michelle's valentine challenge blog post.

My entries for this year's Malaco sweets contest

Malaco just presented this year's Din Påse contest where those of us with a sweet tooth can compose our own mixed bags of sweets. If you live in Scandinavia at least. This year the finalists are chosen by a jury, but everyone can still have their say about which bags they like, just click the 'gilla' button under each entry. (Gilla = like.)

Malaco always have some exotic and unusual flavour to choose from in their Din Påse contests and this year was no different. I was excited to find such flavours as jasmine along with "superfruits" as goji, cupuacu and acai. For my first entry -- I love making these things so I always compose several -- I got inspiration from the jasmine and I began thinking of the Middle East, mint tea, sweet peaches and jasmine incense. To that I added another more "everday tea flavour", liquorice. Instead of plain liquorice I like to choose from their mixed flavours, in this case liquorice- blood orange and liquorice-cupuacu. I want to taste cupuacu, that's why I went for that one eventhough it's a bit off theme.

The name is a merge of the words exotic and tea, the "theme" of my composition. The yellow colour I choose, well mostly because I wanted a warm colour and yellow looks bright next to red. It was so difficult to choose, but I keep going for green and purple so this time I wanted something different. To see -- and "like" -- this entry, click this link.


Then, of cause I had to make more... Next up was Solkatter. A play on words that doesn't work in English. Sol means sun and katt means cat, put together it means a reflection of light. Perhaps it got its name from the fact that cats enjoy playing with these reflections on floors and walls? Anyway, all yellow cat-shaped bits with the flavours cupuacu, mint, watermelon and pineapple-lemon. Plus black cats -- all light cast a shadow, right? -- in liquorice-pomegranate. This bag can be found here.

Ah, and then I had to make a third one... Of cause. Not very creative, but with autumn more or less already here (early autumn this year, I feel) I had to make a cozy autumnal mix too. Couldn't come up with a good name so it became Höstglädje, Autumn joy (oh, dear). But I've used Höstdrömmar and Höstlängtan one time too often... Anyway, for this one I was inspired by the sights and tastes of autumn with apple, pear, rosehip, blackberry and chestnut. Have never tasted chestnut, but can't imagine autumn without seeing our big horse chestnut trees with their giant leaves and spikey cupules hiding shiny brown nuts. This third, and probably last, entry of mine can be found here.

If you're Swedish and like sweets, you really must give this a chance -- it's pretty fun making these bags. And you can win not just sweets (2 kg for all weekly finalists), but a tour of the Malaco factory in Denmark with three friends.


(EDITED TO ADD: I've made yet another bag, min-min, featuring jasmine and mint with touches of capuacu, blood orange-liquorice and pomegranate-liquorice. The name comes from the two first ingredients, but min also means my or mine in Swedish.)