One day last week was spent with a friend in town. We had lunch, exchanged gifts, talked and laughed - and then went out and looked at pretty spring things that are in the stores now. I had my camera up all the time and snapped a lot of pictures.

A self portrait in every mirror, I guess it’s my way of checking to see if I’m aging… I am.

I was inspired by all the pretty rose fabrics, spring colours, embroidered details and general shabby chickness. Lastly we went to the book store too, my favorite shop of course. They have yummy pens, journals and a huge shelf with paper back books. I got a very beautiful Frida Kahlo journal from my mom, but I’ll show that one another day. This post is already jam packed with photos, don’t you think?

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This summer my friend Nina and I had this great spraydate together outside her house. It was so much fun that that we stayed for hours and only finished when the sun set and we couldn’t see our papers to spray any more. All the spray paint cans are Nina’s. She has a stash to admire, don’t you agree?! I felt very lucky to be invited to play.

Nina also had a whole beautiful pile of fun stencils to play with. She cuts her own, but one of my favorites where these simple dots. These dots are a recycled game board put to good use! Spraying dots over patterned papers makes it personal and so much more fun to use later in my work!

Here Nina is spraying dimonde shapes on a piece of wallpaper she got from me! This is another favorite big pattern! Look how pretty it turned out combined with the leaf print;

Yummy!

My altered book was covered in spray paint and I love love love it!

Nina in spray painting like a real professional!

Nina brought her ongoing Moleskine sketchbook to the table and gave it a little revamp with some blue acrylic paint & a spray of yellow through a flowery stencil of hers. The colors reminds me of the Swedish flag actually. It turned out awesome, don’t you agree?

Inside my altered book! I’m so glad I had brought my Art Journal out and with me so I could do a few spreads with the great stencils already cut! Some of the spray paint smells like bubbly chewing gum and every time I open the book I remember this day. This was not the last time I did this. Next summer I will buy a few colors of my own, and start spraying! The more I think about spray paint the more possibilities I see. I especially like spraying patterns on printed scrapbook papers, messing them up (or as I prefer to call it “personalizing them”…).

Spray painting is not as easy as one would think… The cans drip, clog and behave in unappropriated ways when you just want to keep painting! And when you least expect it you make a mess. Lucky for me I don’t mind a bit of mess on my papers, they are not fine art - just experiments. And when you think about it you know most creations is about experimenting. Does take the pressure of when painting, doesn’t it? :-)

Oh by the way, Nina has a great blog at ninajohansson.se - visit it now, because drawing is good for ya! Don’t forget to take a look at her gallery with filled and yummy Sketchbooks there. Nina does beautiful and inspiring drawings!

My littlest cousin came for a visit. I thought we’d have a play date at the kitchen table. Sure, small hands can use a glue stick!

I gave her a magazine and scissors. She was very handy with the scissors, but not as interested in cutting paper as in using the glue stick - on everything…

Trying to cover the table but kind of getting glue everywhere. Gluing is such fun! She put glue on the paper, then on top of her images and then around the borders and… oh my!

I cut out a few images myself. Me and my cousin Jennifer working side by side, being creative together.

I found lots of cute images that I handed over for her to consider using in her collage. She cut into some of them on her own, using others as they were.

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This is a vent. Be warned.

Do you tell new people that you meet that you have a blog? Do you give out your blog address first thing? I don’t. Some people I’ve spent a lot of time with do not know that I keep a blog and was never really told. I have been accused of not taking pride in my blog because of it, but that is not why I sometimes keep quite when blogging comes up. I am proud, I’m very proud of what I create. It’s just a bit complicated to explain, even to my self…

My present diary, the quote Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero is by the poet Horatius and it means Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.

Because even though I don’t write an everyday diary online (I keep those personal thoughts in my personal diary notebook), I feel that the more I post the more personal it is to share it with “new people”. Do you understand what I mean? My art is personal to me even if I want to share it online. I take pride in my writing, because I love to write. It makes me truly happy when I’m told that my posts inspire you to create something.

Sometimes though it feels like I let those new acquaintances peak into my head when I don’t get access to their brain. It makes the relationship uneven and a bit scary to me. And sometimes I tell where it is but never get a comment back I worry. What did they think about it? Feeling a bit sad, thinking they didn’t bother visiting at all? Or didn’t get it? I know I pre-judge people sometimes, not thinking that they could “understand me” or all this.
- Have a little trust, will you Hanna?! I’m told. I guess it also have to do with me being an introvert, being territorial and protecting my blog until it feels safe to share…

It’s kind of like when a child shows her newly created painting to her busy parents who doesn’t notice it’s importance. Or what a gift the sharing really is… Sometimes that just hurts.

Ultimately I think that my visitors find their way here by interest (searching for words or phrases I’ve mentioned here) and staying because they like what they find. Right? That’s why you did stay here and/or came back? You are the visitors I want here, not curious co-workers or people not interested in mixed media craziness…

My magenta colored diary Carpe Diem. Love this cover and the quote!

Most of my visitors are close friends (who doesn’t comment very often) and other bloggers that write on similar subjects. At least those are the people I know off, because you comment so kindly! Thank you! There are lots of visitors who never make themselves known to me of course. But in real life I still find it difficult to explain who I am when it comes to art. There are so many concepts that are unknown to most people in my surroundings, and I am so many of those things - at least in my mind. For example, what the hell is mixed media, art journals, collage, online classes, art exchanges, mail swaps, flickr, wordpress, bloglines, vlogging, twitter, ravelry, self-publishing, etc, etc.

How about you? What’s your thoughts on this subject? Do you tell everyone? Do you brag enough? And what to do with those people that will never understand what you do? Keep trying or give up on explaining why you’ve got glue on your fingers and acrylic paint between your toes?

Life is finite, we are transient beings. Don’t be afraid to engage your world or your surroundings. If you don’t try and get the most out of this experience, it’s a big mistake, a real waste. You’re squandering an incredible opportunity.
/Steve McCurry

The server where I keep my blog has been down for a while and when I couldn’t blog I missed it/you all.

I’ve been filling my Art Journal instead. I’m filling it with leftover Christmas wrapping papers, gift tags and paint. Right now I’m sitting by the computer listening to gangster music, going through the past year. I’m looking at what I did wrong and what I did right (a few things) and composing a post about how you should do this too. It’s coming soon. I just thought I’d pop in here with lots of thanks to everyone I know and a few of my favorite photos from the 24th of December.

I’m grateful for…

Pretty wrapped gifts with pretty insides. People who know me well and care for me.

Those little things that surround me; like lit candles, handmade candy, a cup of coffee, time to spend as I wish and gifts I’m granted.

and then a photo when I wasn’t holding the camera:

Photo by my brother Micke. Love this one!

I’m also grateful for;

Fun moments that makes me laugh out loud! Moments where I feel comfortable being silly me. Moments of calmness. Moments of just being. Moments of planning ahead. Moments of stillness and softness. Moments of me. Moments of you.

Time to post something I’ve made, right? I’ve sewn a sweater for me!

I have sewn with tricot before and made a long sleeved sweater and then a turquoise dress with the same fabric. The trick when sewing in tricot is not to pull the fabric, instead gently guide it through the sewing machine. Plus change needle in your sewing machine before you start. You should use the double needle and then practice on scraps before sewing the project together!

I’ve been on the lookout for a nice pattern, but finally I gave up and made my own pattern pieces by copying another sweater! It is difficult to get the pieces even but on the other hand you get a sweater that is comfortably fitting and in a style you already enjoy.

I got the cotton tricot (bomullstrikå) online from a Swedish company called E-slöjd, back in March 2007. It has been bugging me ever since in a pile of reproaches! The fabric is lovely; high quality and a bit thicker than the turquoise fabric. Perfect for a long sleeve sweater like this. I have got several colors of this tricot, so I do have more work to do before the reproach pile is gone, but with a new brown sweater to wear I’m a content for now.

With another homemade sweater on top of this and I am ready to go! Stripes stripes stripes, I know!

And how fitting that I was wearing my very wide and extremely red corduroys when we took these photos. The pants are designed by Gudrun Sjödén, a Swedish cloth and fabric designer that I heart, thanks to my friend Ellinor of course. I’m also wearing a pair of socks from Gudrun Sjödén, thick orange socks that makes me feet happy and warm.

I love Gudrun’s muted colors and the layer on top of layer style. Every season I enjoy the new designs and wish I could afford a pair of her pink or red shoes. In the catalog that comes out I savor looking at the pretty models, the environments and the clothes in the well shot photographs! Great for collage images too.

This frame is my inspiration board where I hang everything that is pretty and inspiring and happy. Can you spot what inspired my sweater design?

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On children and their gift of creativity:
And they [the grownups] think that what they are talking about is our gift of a mudpie. But it is more than this. It is ourselves – the place in us that wants to just give, out of love. So when they scold or ignore or dispose of our treasure, we think they are criticizing or ignoring or disposing of us. And as we grow older, we may not remember the mudpie incident, but we do internalize what happened when we tried to give the gift of our best selves.
/Naomi Rose

I’m still considering the quote above… But I think it must say that all our creative efforts are gifts of love!? Isn’t that so true! Gifts, not only to parents and people, but to the universe from our hearts. I ♥ that thought!
I know Photoshop a bit as it used to be my main working tool when I was a webdesigner. But I rarely take the time to play with it. It’s a program that alowes you to do almost anything to your digital photos.

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Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
/Democritus

When there is love, there is hope:
I’ve written about how I helped make the wedding cake with white sugarpaste and set the black and white table with all that DIY-wedding stuff. Now the time has finally come to post some photos from the actual wedding day! I took many of guests and stuff, but I’m only going to post these that I took at our Big Photo Shoot before church (and some later). Gray sky but thankfully no rain.

I was very honored to be the Official Photographer (second time in my life!) and not as nervous as I was at the first wedding. Though the groom was stiff and very difficult to get a smile from (he does not feel comfortable in front of a camera) I managed to get some shots that I think are really wonderful!

Taken during the ceremony and just afterwards:

Kneeling in front of God.

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My wee cousin Charlotta always say that she is not creative at all, but I know that isn’t true. Not for her and not for most people who claim this. It is just a matter of thinking. She might not knit as I do, but she does a lot of things I don’t that are also highly creative. She cooks, bakes and is great at interior design for example. And she is so much fun to be around!

Right now she is on her first year on the road to becoming a garden designer and will have the cool title Landscape Architect when she is finished.
Landscape architects make outdoor places more beautiful and useful. They decide where to put flowers, trees, walkways, and other landscape details. They keep sports fields from getting soggy, finds the best place to put roads and buildings and work with environmental scientists to find the best way to conserve or restore natural resources. A diverse and fun job I would guess?

And while in school she is drawing, sketching and walking around in parks identifying plants and flowers. I think it sounds like a fun place to be and I’m jealous of everyone who gets any kind of art education. I wasn’t as arty-crafty when I choose schools so I never went down that road. That’s why I’m experimenting so much on my own.

Anyway, I wanted to show you her cool lamp, or at least some blurry photos of this sculptural tree looking lamp my cousin made in school! It looks organic but is made out of paper fixed with hairspray and arms weaved with wire.

I just swoon over it!

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