Secrets...

I have begun making this year's christmas cards that I'm going to send out. I'm making 30 cards in the same style and colour theme... So you shall hear no more from me until they are finished. I'm not gonna show you any of the cards until I've sent them...

24 December

I've made two similar cards for my mom and my granny to sell. I managed to stamp the textstamp upside down on one of the cards, and a bit crooked, but nobody could tell now, since I made the whole card "upside down" and covered most of the text with flowers. I think they look pretty nice. I've used paper from Maja Design and stamps from ROXStamps and inkido.

Welcome to the world!

This Friday morning at 6 am, my friend Carro and her husband Magnus got their second child, an adorable baby boy. I don't know his name yet, but I made a card for him anyway. Lovely stamp from Bildmålarna.

New stamps and a for sale sign...

These are my latest stamps! Popcorn the Bear from Crafters Confessions, a Swedish hymn from inkido, a 24th of December stamp (since we celebrate Christmas one day before everyone else here in Sweden) from ROXStamps and a bear with Poinsetta from Milton & Co. I love them all! I also bought four stamps from Bildmålarna plus their November Sheet with lots of stamps that I spent hours with mounting to foam this Friday. :)

I've written a sign to the sell next week. It says "Homemade cards by Malin Ek. Make a friend happy this Christmas by sending them a personal and unique Christmas card!"

So much to do, so little time...

More and more and more... These are also for sale... :)

I did three cards in the same style. Paper from Papermania and Creative Club. Just love that filt snow flakes I got in the latest package! Adorable!
Tried to make a blue card but it looks kind of tacky... Santa stamp from Paper Craft magazine.
Lovely lovely lovely paper from Maja Designs - Scrapbooking på svenska. Typically me to overdo it... I want one coloured paper in the same shade as the patterned ones...

Season Greetings

More cards for sale...

"God Jul" means Merry Christmas and the stamp is from Panduro.
Paper from Papermania - Joyeux Noël, which I totally loved when I bought it but now I don't really know what to do with the papers... Colours doesn't really match and there are too few of the "good ones"...
I borrowed white embossing powder from my friend Jennie and I fell inlove. Strangely enough I haven't been able to find any white embossing powder to buy, only a white antique...
Miss Mimosa with candle from Bildmålarna. A big favourite. She is adorable!
My friend Tessi loves red and purple combined. But I will sell it because she has already seen it... I want the Christmas cards to be a surprise! ;)
Got inspired from a photo of a card the Jennie brought to our latest Crafting Saturday.

Rudolph and Mini Cards

Five more cards from the bunch I'm about to sell...

This is a reindeer stamp from Vilda. Isn't it the cutest?
A mini card with a Snow Man stamp from Anita's.
Snow Man stamp from Vilda Stamps.
I went crazy with green glitter. Saw a similar Christmas tree on another blog, that time in white glitter on white paper. That was nice too but I wanted to make it green. I think it looks really cute.
My favourite Rudolph again. This time with a red shiny nose. ;)

Golden times...

More of the cards that are for sale in Dalarna in a few weeks time.

This is a card all in gold and white. I went lunatic on the envelope and I wouldn't have done that knowing the result... But never mind. I kept it that way:
I just love this stamp that says Merry Christmas from Anita's. It's lovely! I wish I could write like that! The ribbon is from Panduro, the paper is from Creative Club and the edge punch is Hearts Border Punch from XCut:
Another golden card. The stamps are from Anita's and embossed with gold.
My favourite snowman is back! ;)
Got inspired from Kristina Werner again. :) She made a card with a Christmas bulb and that was just so cool I had to copy it:

Mimosa and Snow Man

I've made lots of Christmas Cards for my mom and granny to sell on a Christmas market in Dalarna i two weeks time. Here are five of them:
Butterfly made with Martha Stewarts' Monarch Butterfly punch and stamp is from Bildmålarna - Mimosa plays Violin:

My new logo on the back side that I worked with on the Calligraphy class that I attended a few weeks ago. It will improve in time, but this is the best I can do so far:Inside of the Snow Man card:
The Snow Man card:

The same stamp from Vilda Stamps and paper from Creative Club. The ribbon is from Panduro:

Summer sale in Dalarna

This summer I tried to sell a whole bunch of cards in Dalarna. The clientele was not really interested in cards but I managed to sell a few. My aunt ordered two cards and that was fun. I sat by a table and made cards for three days and lots of people stopped by and watched me work.

Here are two photos from that sale:

Blog Candy

This must be the coolest Blog Candy ever...

I've put up a link to the Blog Candy to my sidebar. Go check it out! The candy contains Magnolia stamp - Tilda With Birdcage
Magnolia stamp - Dangling Tilda
Magnolia stamp - Wedding Singer Tilda
Inky Impression stamp - Cowgirl Lili
Sweet Pea stamp - 1 stamp unmounted from Plate 21
Sugar Nellie stamp - Blossom
Bildmalarna stamp - Wedding couple
Paper Makeup stamp - Swirlie tree
K&Co Mat pad - Berry Sweet
K&Co cupcake embellishments
Cookie cutter button embellishments
Various colored stick on gems

Magnolia AND Bildmålarna stamps in the same candy! I'm superexcited!

And while you're at it. Check out this project! Wish I could do something like that! What a joy to get a present like that... Doesn't matter what's inside when the outside looks like that!

Still haven't bought a cable for my camera, but I have made over 20 Christmas cards now that is going off to be sold in one week. :)

Problems...

Hi all!

My SD-card reader gave up a month ago and I cannot find the cable for moving pics from my camera to my computer. But I have not stopped making cards!

I've, of course, begun making christmas cards. My mom will be here in two weeks to collect them for selling. Then I need to make around 20 cards to send to my friends and relatives. :)

I also made a very special card for a collegue. Her husband is very sick with cancer and she asked all her friends on facebook to sen her a card so that she could hang them above his bed. This is what I made for her: (taken with my iPhone camera...)







I dare to say that this is my best card ever. The most important at least... :)

Purple circle card

I spent my last week in Malung, Dalarna, on holiday. I brought some paper and cardmaking stuff and amazingly I managed to make about 10 cards. That proves that I really don't need all those things that I have at home to make cards. I managed to solve lots of problems with just things I could find at my mom's house. (And she is not a paper crafter! She's more into knitting and such...)

Today I made a circular card for a challenge on the Sketch and Stash Challenge Blog. That was my first circle card. Quite fun. :) My camera was not my best friend tonight, so the colours are a bit off, even if I tried to make it better in my photo editing software.

A Swedish card

Stamp Something has a challenge this week where you are supposed to use the colours from your country's flag. I'm from Sweden so my card is therefore yellow and blue.

A Royal Wedding

The Swedish crown princess weds her dear Daniel tomorrow and I'm gonna be a part of the procession after the ceremony in the church. We are about 500 scouts that are going to stand along the road where Victoria and Daniel will pass in a carriage (dragged by horses with horse shoes made of aluminum that is supposed to look as silver) and salute them in the way scouts do best - by doing the scout salute!
I got inspired and made a wedding card with lots of flowers.


Also joining the blog hop and entering my card for the s2g Paper Crafting Contest. The twist was to use something old. I've used green string that is really old. I originally bought it in 1999 when I made a stole with embroideries for my father (he's a priest).

Inspire!

Ah, what a total satisfaction to make cards again. This one was made in half an hour and I thank Jennie for the inspiration!
Stamps are from Inkadinkado's Butterflies and Birds.

Busy Crafting Sunday with Jennie & Sara

Hello! I'm back!
Since I'm a teacher these last few weeks have been really really busy. And I haven't been busy with making cards. :( Today I finally finished work early - and you all know what that means! Important quality time where I finally had the energy to finish the cards that had been pushed aside and take some photographs of my finished work.
No, it is not entirely true that it's been weeks without crafting... I've honestly made a bunch of cards.
A couple of weeks ago I came up with a really neat design with butterflies. Modified from an idea from Paper Craft Inspirations.This last Sunday I visited my friend Jennie and her friend Sara was there too. We were busy crafting the whole day and it was so much fun! Jennie made beautiful cards and I got really inspired. Sara made necklaces and bracelets that were really pretty. Jennie had also made a very "yummie" chicken salad. I made more butterfly cards and three cards with a giraffe. Really cool. They both helped me a lot. Here we have the butterfly cards:

Stamped with the Dot Flourishes stamp from Inkadinkado. The butterfly is punched with a Wedo puncher. The paper is from BellaBella from My Minds Eye.

Paper from DCWV Citrus Mat Stack.

Paper from DCWV Linen Closet. Borrowed a "Tack!"-stamp from Jennie. Means "Thanks!" The ink is Pearlblue Shimmering Ink, also borrowed from Jennie. :)

Borrowed a distress ink from Jennie. Looks really nice. The paper is from Linen Closet. Discover-stamp from Butterflies and Birds from Inkadinkado.

Linen Closet paper. Inspire-stamp from that same Inkadinkado set.

Linen closet paper. :) The dark blue ink fits perfectly! Thank you Jennie!

A lonely giraffe on the savanna. Jennie helped me with the inspiration and the two fold card. Notice that little mane that the giraffe has! How cute! Paper from DCWV Animal Crackers Stack.

Now I still have some time to make another card! Yeah! Getting to it straight away!!

Safari

I made the trip of my life when I was 21. I went to Tanzania and lived there for 5 weeks, teaching English to the students living in Marangu. That was really an adventure. So this is a card inspired from Africa. And the main motive, the elephant, is my all time favourite animal!

The elephant stamp is from Magnolia, the African paper is from DCWV Safari Stack and the DCWV Animal Cracker Stack. I've embossed the background with Espresso and added Dimensional Pears to the frame and border - Mushroom around the elephant and Espresso on the border.

I'm joining this card for this weeks Crafty Creations Challenges where the theme this week is Around the World.

So Lucky to Have You

I was about to do a Around the World card for the Crafty Creations Challenge this week. I wanted it to be Swedish with an image of Pippi Longstocking, but when I started to make the card it got way to messy. So I resigned and made this card with a Lucky Clover instead. The paper is just from a cheap scrapbooking package and the letters are from the latest Creative Club package.
I think I'll make a Swedish card with Pippi and an Around the World card with some African inspiration instead.